The Wilds: The Wilds (Season 1 - All Episodes)
December 27, 2020 7:24 PM - Season 1 (Full Season) - Subscribe

 
I am recommending this to everyone.
posted by Mogur at 11:59 PM on December 27, 2020 [4 favorites]


Blown away by the visuals, the talent, and the story beats they chose to focus on - loved it.

[From Indiewire's spoiler-free review]
With a first-day binge release, the temptation for many will be to plow through all 10 episodes in order to untangle the mystery behind the island. Don’t do this. Really, don’t.

The backstories of the young women on the island are meditations on the impact of short- and long-term trauma on mental and physical health, and there isn’t a false note — ever — hit by any of the actors. Not to cross-pollinate two very different shows about troubled teens, but there is a scene on the intensity level of Zendaya’s Emmy-winning “Open the door!” monologue from “Euphoria” in pretty much every episode.

...

In addition, the marketing and trailers so far have been something of an intentional misdirect to preserve the central mystery of the show; that’s fine, but it’s also a tricky line to walk between withholding key plot points and hiding what the show is actually about. (To put it in non-spoiler network terms, the trailer makes it look like a CW show, when actually its linear home would be on FX.)
posted by popsciolist at 7:06 AM on December 28, 2020


When I first saw ads for The Wilds I thought it was a Survivor-ish reality show, but after reading more, it seemed like it’ll be a combination of Lost, Alone, Lord of the Flies, and one of the “The Real Housewives of…” shows.

“Being a teenage girl in normal ass America? That was the real living hell.” I love the set-up, of how living as a teen girl is pretty traumatic in itself. I’m hoping they connect the dots and/or build up relationships between the characters fast enough for me to care about the overall plot, but right now each one of the characters has elements I can relate to. Very glad to see an actual diverse cast.

It was so obvious I assume it's intentional, but there’s nothing like two dudes on another side of a table in a concrete room to make a teen girl feel safe, lol. So off the bat, I’m suspicious and wary of what I don’t know I don’t know as the viewer. That last scene activated all those Lost feelings of “Wait...what?!” but I really hope we don’t get “Lost-ed” by this series.
posted by cocoagirl at 8:38 AM on December 28, 2020


i binged it. while entertaining and more deep than most tv fare, i was pretty disappointed. the psychologies, relationships, motivations, and everyday existence of the survivors could have been plenty. i just can't see any real value in the "experiment" aspect. the research lead is a psycopath? IRBs don't exist in the near future? women's dynamics aren't interesting without some contrived oppressor? anyway... I'll still watch season 2. but in a lot of ways, a lost opportunity.
posted by j_curiouser at 11:48 AM on December 28, 2020 [1 favorite]


I enjoyed it until it was clear it would absolutely answer zero questions and hope that a (now announced?) season 2 might.
posted by jeather at 3:58 PM on December 28, 2020


We watched this whole thing, and I couldn't make up my mind as to whether it was good or not. Then I realized that whether it was good and whether I liked it can be two different things. I forget that a lot.

The actresses were astounding, and I loved the Native American representation. And yet: who would do this? Who would consider this a valid experiment, even if there were no IRBs? Even a '70s feminist would say this was a little weird, and that's about as far back as you'd have to reach to imagine a woman might want to do this.

(Also, I could not believe what Leah did at the end of her episode, either. I have been a suicidally heartbroken teen and even I would not have done that.)
posted by Countess Elena at 3:18 PM on December 29, 2020 [1 favorite]


I thought Rachel Griffiths did a great job of holding together a completely bonkers plot with her understated performance played straight. The temptation to make that character a swivel-eyed scenery-chewer must have been very strong.
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 5:15 PM on December 29, 2020 [2 favorites]


I have so many thoughts about this, but mostly I really enjoyed it.

Question number one is: do they really think they will be able to let these girls go back to their families and not have them tell what really happened? Or that their families all suck so much they don't care? Over on reddit they were speculating that they'd kill them off with a fake plane crash on the way back (once they extracted enough data) but that has its own risks.

It seems unlikely that Shelby's dad would send her on a feminist retreat, so did he think she was going to a conversion camp?

Are we really doing a The Power type thing where the lesson is "a matriarchy would be just as bad as a patriarchy," with a cackling mad scientist feminist?

Is the Dr. really the mom of one of the frat boy killers or was that ruse also?
posted by emjaybee at 12:20 PM on January 2, 2021 [1 favorite]


Are we really doing a The Power type thing where the lesson is "a matriarchy would be just as bad as a patriarchy," with a cackling mad scientist feminist? That one I can answer. This particular mad scientist is a fever dream caricature, the worst stereotype of a 'feminist', lifted directly from Phyllis Schlafly fanfic. In fact, she's intensely patriarchal, dedicated to total control of her underlings and equally dedicated to taking away the choices of her 'subjects'.

She's about as feminist as Mike Pence.
posted by Mogur at 2:45 PM on January 2, 2021 [2 favorites]


I really enjoyed this watch, especially for the acting and the depiction of queer characters, but as others have pointed out, it doesn't stand up to much scrutiny. It's reeeeeeeaaaaaaal hard to to see what Gretchen's endgame is - so she finishes this "experiment," releases the results that show women are better at collaborative leadership. What does she think that would actually change? I think this is a pretty well-known article of faith about gender already?

That said:

Who would consider this a valid experiment, even if there were no IRBs?

I think the idea is that she's doing this outside of a university setting (she was fired), with private rich-people money, so IRBs don't matter. And just two weeks ago, You're Wrong About did an episode about the Stanford Prison Experiment, which made a HUGE impact on our culture despite being widely considered by experts to be unethical and poorly-run. So I think it's possible such an outlandish experiment could get a lot of attention. I just don't think it would change anything.
posted by lunasol at 11:11 AM on January 4, 2021


It's reeeeeeeaaaaaaal hard to to see what Gretchen's endgame is - so she finishes this "experiment," releases the results that show women are better at collaborative leadership. What does she think that would actually change?

Is it possible that she herself believes this, but is basically just a cult leader who's talked a dozen people or so into also believing it? I would say that she's going to get a rude awakening, but cult leaders famously do not wake up - they double down.
posted by Mogur at 12:22 PM on January 4, 2021 [1 favorite]


I just watched this and enjoyed it on many levels, whilst also being highly cynical about the ethics, etc. The acting is brilliant and it feels like something written by people immersed in youth culture, not just aping it, so that's nice. Pog not rip (cringe boy reading in the future. I really hope we get a second season. Also, seeing Rachel Griffiths and a cello made me think of 'Hillary and Jackie', a really bloody excellent film.
posted by h00py at 3:29 AM on February 19, 2021


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