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Speaking of reckonings, I’ve been watching Wayward Pines (it is currently free with ads on Amazon as well as available via DVD).

The show came to my attention after I finished reading Dark Matter and began looking into details on the author. I realized that a major reason Dark Matter got the attention it did was because of Blake Crouch’s previous success via Wayward Pines; both the book and the TV series. I figured I had probably watch or read or both the different versions of this series.

When I went to put it into my watching queue, I occurred to me that it was already there. Likely, I came across a positive review of the show a while back – perhaps even when the TV-series was newly-released – and figured it worth watching. In the time since, I had completely forgotten about it. Reminded, I got right into it and I’ve now completed the first season of the show.

It kind of fell apart at the end.

That said, it doesn’t do to dwell on the ending. So much of the show is the revelation of information and truth as the characters realize that, not only is everything not what it seems, it is truly beyond belief.

I watched the series with someone who grew up under the iron heel of the Soviet Empire. From the beginning, the show left her feeling very uneasy. The experience of living under the watchful eye of a totalitarian state was just a little too realistic. Clearly, we were watching something allegorical. Or were we?

Viewed today, Wayward Pines would seem to have something important to say about the ‘rona and our governments’ response to it. The problem with this interpretation is that the first of the source novels, called simply Pines (and, apparently, frightfully* out of print), was published in 2012 with the first episode of the TV series finishing its run already in the summer of 2015.

Yet somehow Wayward Pines seems pitch-perfect for today’s world. When is the iron fist of a totalitarian government OK? Is it when they are oppressing the masses for the greater good? Or is that the excuse that every dictator has ever invoked? What if they are objectively contributing to the greater good? Does that make it OK? Furthermore, who can be objective about this sort of thing?

As I said, though, it falls apart at the end.

First of all, the ambiguity of that question is wiped away. We can see who is good, who is evil, and who might have been swept along by the evil because they believed that they were aligned with the good. Would that life could resolve itself so clearly?

Secondly, the final episode ends in lots of running and gunning and Hollywood, as ever, fails to rise to the task. We see a main character dump thousands of rounds from a single submachine gun magazine, only to be stymied when the gun “jams.” (Oops – gun jammed – better toss it and buy a new one!) Later, each burst of unaimed fire takes down an enemy in full, SWAT-style body armor. Maybe this shouldn’t be a complete surprise if we consider the Star Wars Stormtrooper explanation. We were, earlier in the show, presented with a challenge that (so we were told) is too much even for a team of these well-armed paramilitary units. In that final episode, that same challenge can be handily dispatched with a good wack from a piece of pipe. Maybe it’s no wonder that a couple of 9mm pistol rounds rip through that body armor like so much butter. The Stormtroopers are both easy to kill and entirely incapable of killing others.

Anyhow… the ending soured, a bit, what was otherwise a very impressive series. Impressive on its own, perhaps. Impressive for the provocation regarding where we are headed in today’s work – most definitely.

Photo by Sean M. on Pexels.com

*The Amazon link, and I won’t do them the honor of including it, has the paperback at $80 and the hardcover at $91. This is absurd for a 10-year-old book that is (surely) still popular given its success as a TV series.