‘Wayward Pines’ Review: This is No Paradise

‘Wayward Pines’ has an erie first episode, leaving you with a lot of questions.

Matt Dillon plays Ethan Burke, a Secret Service agent in search for missing agents. The opening scene shows him waking up in the middle of nowhere with cuts all over his body. He stumbles into town only to collapse in a cafe. The next thing he knows is that he’s in the hospital. He doesn’t have his wallet or phone. He wants to call his wife, but he’s told his emergency contacts were already contacted by the police and the police have his belongings.

He then leaves the hospital, against the nurse’s orders, and heads to the Sheriff’s department, which is closed. He walks into a bar to find Beverly, played by Juliette Lewis. Juliette is certainly getting around. She just starred in ‘Secret and Lies’ on ABC. She plays a particular interesting character on ‘Wayward Pines’. At first glance she seems like just another nice civilian, but she’s so much more. Beverly lets Ethan eat for free, since he doesn’t have his wallet. She also gives him an address to look her up with, if he needs anything. The back of the receipt with the address has a very strange message: “There are no crickets in Wayward Pines.” But apparently there are sound boxes that give off cricket noises. Beverly is the only nice person Ethan will meet. The clerk at the hotel is not so understanding. He forces Ethan to vacate the room, since he can’t pay and it’s past check-out time.

This leads him to go to the address Beverly gave him. He doesn’t find Beverly, but he does find one of the agents he’s looking for, Agent Evens. But Evens is dead. The house is also falling apart from what looks to be because of a fire. Beverly clearly doesn’t live there.

Ethan finally makes it to the Sheriff’s office when they are open, but they don’t have Ethan’s things. He once again calls his wife, but his wife isn’t getting any of his messages. He sends the Sheriff to see the body as well.

He tries calling the Secret Service office, but the new woman is not very helpful.

Things just continue to get stranger and stranger. He tries to find Beverly, but the guy in the bar claims she doesn’t work there and knocks him out. He says on the walkie that number 101628 isn’t doing well. He then wakes up back in the hospital and they claim he has a brain bleed and he’s hallucinating. The nurse gives him a sedative to calm him down. Just as he’s going to go into surgery, Beverly shows up again to get him out of the hospital.

Here’s where things get really confusing. Beverly thinks the year is 2010 and she’s been in Wayward Pines a year. Ethan also runs into another agent he’s looking for, Kate, who he also had an affair with. She claims she’s been there for 12 years and she’s aged. Ethan saw her just five weeks ago. How can two people in the same city, have two different senses of time?

He has experienced hallucinations in the past and he even asks Kate if he’s having a relapse, she shakes her head.

Ethan desperately tries to leave, but ends up driving in a circle. Then he tries to walk out through the woods and finds he’s barricaded in.

What’s even stranger is his boss appears to have put him there and removed all evidence of him being in the car crash that put him there. Why? What kind of experiment is this? Are we in some sort of twilight zone? If time moved the same way, I would just assume it was some kind of social experiment, but it’s clearly more than that.

Can Ethan find a way out of Wayward Pines? We’ll have to watch to find out:

The ‘Secrets and Lies’ Keep Coming, What is the Truth?

The investigation continues to find out who killed Tom and Detective Cornell is still convinced that Ben is the murderer.

As the investigation goes on, so does life. The Crawfords have to continue on with their lives. Christy still has to work and so does Ben. Plus Christmas is coming up and their youngest, Abby, still wants to do everything they normally do.

Part of carrying on with life meant going to the fair. While everyone looked at Ben suspiciously and whispered, Christy says they won’t hide.

I still don’t know if Ben killed his own son, but what I do know is how stupid he’s been. If we were supposed to get to know Ben better this week, I have to say he’s pretty dumb. It’s hard to know what you would do if you were the center of a murder investigation though. A lot of what Ben does in this episode, most people would probably do too.

A lot of what Ben did this week had nothing to do with the case and all about him being a father and human.

He found out some shocking news about his daughter and acted like probably any other father would, it’s just bad that he’s the center of a media frenzy. The last secret to be revealed this week may or not be true, but he also acted very much like any other father.

It’s sad that your parental instincts can be taken the wrong way in a tricky situation.

The show is definitely aptly named. There are lot of secrets that keep being revealed and the lies keep piling up too.

I didn’t come to any conclusion on whether Ben is guilty or not. He’s certainly not looking very good at the moment though.

I really like how Ryan Phillippe is tackling this role. He’s keeping us in suspense on whether or not his character is guilty or innocent. He’s also a good father too. He cares about his daughters deeply and tries his best to protect them. The way he is with his daughters, makes me really hope he’s innocent, but he’s looking more and more guilty. At least from the outside.

KaDee Strickland is also doing a good job. She’s standing strong against the whispers and she’s standing by her man. She’s not standing by Ben in a weak way. She hasn’t forgiven him, but she’s standing tough for her girls. It’s not easy having the media watching you constantly, but she’s doing it very gracefully.

You should watch this show because the Crawfords are being tested and you get to see how each of them deal with the pressure. There’s a lot of great character development potential. I don’t know if Ben is innocent or guilty. The writers are keeping the audience in suspense for now.

If you haven’t tuned into this new miniseries, now is time to catch up. Then you can decide if you think Ben is guilty or innocent.

Ryan Phillippe’s New Drama is a Web of ‘Secrets and Lies’

I’ve been a fan of Ryan Phillippe since ‘I Know What You Did Last Summer’ and ‘Cruel Intentions’, and I was very excited to see his latest project. The preview for ‘Secrets and Lies’ intrigued me, but the first two episodes really drew me in.

It took me about half of the first episode to adjust to Ryan having a 17-year-old daughter. When did Ryan get old enough play a dad to a 17-year-old? I forgot that it was 16 years ago that he played a high school student in ‘Cruel Intentions’. He has yet to get too many great roles like Sebastian Valmont, but his new role as Ben Crawford, appears to have a lot of potential.

‘Secrets and Lies’ opens up with Ben running really fast through the woods and back to his house. It turns out he found Tom Murphy dead in the woods. Detective Andrea Cornell (Juliette Lewis) hones in on Ben right away. She’s convinced that Ben is the murderer.

Ben is firm that he didn’t kill Tom, but Detective Cornell continues to investigate him.

Things look pretty suspicious for Ben and it doesn’t help that he has a hazy memory of the night before. Him and his wife, Christy (KaDee Strickland), had a big fight. The cause of the fight isn’t revealed until later. Ben goes out drinking with his childhood friend, Dave Lindsey (Dan Fogler). Dave is staying in they guest house and they ended up having one too many drinks. It’s hard for Ben to answer questions about the night before, when he doesn’t even know the answers.

The title ‘Secrets and Lies’ is the perfect name for this ten episode mini-series. From the start there’s secrets and you don’t know what the lies are or what are truths are. There’s a a couple of secrets that get revealed in the first two episodes, but it’s unclear how they will affect the case.

I went back and fourth on whether I think Ben murdered Tom. I’ve landed at I don’t know. I will continue to watch and see how the evidence unfolds.

I like that Detective Cornell has fixated on Ben, even though another possible suspected is hinted at. Either Cornell is very good at her job or she believes Ben is a good person to pin the murder on.

For all Ben’s flaws, I still want him to be innocent. Or maybe that’s my teenage self wanting Ryan to be innocent.

Not only did Ryan excite me about this show, KaDee also peaked my interest. I loved her in ‘Private Practice’. I really like how the character of Christy is shaping up so far. She’s the breadwinner of the family. The mother of two girls is having to maneuver around a very complicated situation. Her husband and her just had a possible marriage ending fight and he is suspected for murder. It will be interesting to see how she handles the investigation and the outcome.

There are a few times Christy looks at Ben like she thinks he’s guilty, but there’s a lot going on in this marriage. I’m not sure what the looks mean, but she’s really uneasy around him at times. The reasons for that could be explained by what caused the fight, which you will learn.

According to USA Today, ABC’s ‘Secrets and Lies’ is based on the Australian show of the same name. NBC also made a remake of an Australian show, ‘The Slap’.

In the fall Fox aired the series, Gracepoint, which was based on the British show ‘Broadchurch’. Remakes of foreign films and show are very popular, but not always successful.

I’ve never seen the Australian ‘Secrets and Lies’, so I can’t compare the American version. All I know is I’m intrigued and will be tuning in next week.

If you missed Sunday night’s premiere you can check out the show on ABC‘s website or Hulu.

‘Secrets and Lies’ airs on Sundays at 9/8c on ABC.

Take a look at the promo: