Worth: $13.00
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Shannon Berry, Erana James, Sarah Pidgeon, Rachel Griffiths, Zack Calderon, Charles Alexander, Nicholas Coombe, Miles Gutierrez-Riley, Ben Folds,
Intro:
… thrilling, tense, and vulnerable …
After ending on a cliffhanger in December 2020 and leaving a slew of unanswered questions, The Wilds fans will finally have the answers they’ve been craving in this long-awaited second instalment of the series.
Season One left us with the revelation that our core group of girls weren’t the only survivors who’d gone through hell for the “Dawn of Eve” experiment — somewhere out there was a control group made up entirely of boys.
Having invested the entire first season in getting to know and love Toni, Shelby, Fatin, Dot, and the girls, the introduction of a second group taking up precious screentime is a risky venture for the showrunners. Doubling the character count seems like a clever way to avoid having to divulge too many secrets at once, instead splitting the story between uncovering the mysteries the girls have stumbled upon while also starting from scratch and introducing each of the boys using the same flashback/flashforward scenarios we saw in Season One.
Ultimately, this new expanding world just creates an unwieldy dynamic, which when paired with the shorter run time of the season leaves us desperate for resolution, with even more questions in the end than answers.
Thanks to solid performances from the cast, we do manage to connect with the newcomers. The chemistry between the girls and guys varies drastically, creating a captivating clash between watching the growing bond between the family of girls as relationships develop and friendships are tested, while the boys are still trying to figure out how to fit together in this strange new world they’ve been thrown into.
In turns thrilling, tense, and vulnerable, the show isn’t afraid to tackle darker themes, dealing with race, homophobia, sexual assault, and abuse alongside lighter, more uplifting moments of friendship, faith and found family.
It’s a rapid-paced race for answers, in many ways still as gripping and emotionally fraught as its predecessor, but hopefully a third season will find more even ground, learning to share the narrative between established characters and the newcomers without feeling like the girls had move aside in order to make room for the boys.
