The Wilds Season 2 Casts the Boys

Just days after The Wilds Season 1 debuted on Amazon Prime last winter, the freshman YA drama was picked up for a second season. With the massive cliffhanger the season ended on, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the cast was going to grow once production began on The Wilds Season 2.

The Wilds Season 1 ended with a major plot twist, and I mean the kind of twist that throws the series into a tailspin and completely changes the way the series progresses moving forward.

Leah, having just escaped her “FBI” holding cell, happened upon an abandoned room with computer screens rolling footage of a deserted island, not unlike the one she and the rest of the girls of the Unsinkable Eight were rescued from. The difference? This island was inhabited by a group of boys.

Word broke this week about who those boys are, including the actors tapped to portray the roles, and a tiny description of each of the characters. Now, remember — the deserted island is a cover-up for a horribly unethical science experiment, so for the results to be comparable, the boys’ personalities should roughly match up with those of the girls.

The first new character joining the lineup is Rafael Garcia, played by Zack Calderon. The Wilds Season 2 character description calls Rafael a “quiet, sensitive teenager who lives in Tijuana but attends high school in San Diego” and that he “gravitates toward people with stronger, more charismatic personalities than his own.” This is Calderon’s first major role.

I’m getting some Leah and Martha vibes based on that last descriptor. Out of the eight female characters we are already familiar with, Martha seems to be the most sensitive and Leah seems to be the most easily swayed by strong personalities (her relationship with Jeff comes to mind).

Next for the boys is Henry Tanaka, played by Aidan Laprete. Henry is an “emo reclusive type” and the opposite of his stepbrother, who is also on the island. So Rachel/Nora vibes for sure. Henry also likes the “safety of his noise-canceling headphones.” Henry seems like the “Nora” in this situation, so does that mean he’s in on the whole experiment?

In real life, Laprete is a singer-songwriter and music producer, having opened for artists like Jack Johnson and Michael Bolton, and having toured with the legendary rock band, Train. His acting credits include Freeform’s Everything’s Gonna Be Okay, and the new TBS comedy, Chad.

Henry’s aforementioned stepbrother is Seth, who is “naturally funny, Ivy-League smart, and full of charisma.” Seth is portrayed by Alex Fitzalan, likely the most recognizable of the new cast members. Fitzalan was recently seen on Netflix’s The Society another YA-leaning drama that was sadly renewed and then abruptly canceled due to COVID-related conflicts.

Seth is also described as not aspiring to a leadership role amongst his island, but his “steadiness and sense of humor win him the respect and loyalty of the others.” So like Fatin, right?

It’s interesting how Fitzalan, the most recognizable of the male cast members, seems to play a similar character to Sophia Ali, who was arguably the most recognizable female cast member in The Wilds Season 1.

Next up is Josh Herbert, played by Nicholas Coombe. Josh is said to be a “hypochondriacal teenager from a wealthy family in San Diego,” who is “unlike the rest of his athletic, tennis-playing family.” Coombe starred in the Dora and the Lost City of Gold film, and also appeared on SYFY’s The Magicians.

The girls came to the island in pairs, either intentionally or loosely connected, so I wonder if Coombe’s Josh and Calderon’s Rafael know each other, both hailing from San Diego. This character seems a little harder to match, but I can see Josh being a sort of mix of Shelby and Nora.

Like Toni and Rachel before him, another student-athlete makes it to the island in Kirin, a “short-tempered lacrosse player who doesn’t have much patience for weakness.” Charles Alexander will play the character, who is also said to “take the lead first, though his hot-headed approach might not appeal to everyone.” So there’s a little bit of Dot in there as well.

Obviously, one of the main themes of The Wilds is the differences between men and women in power, so it will be interesting to see how initiative is taken on the boys’ island compared to how Dot became the de-facto leader on the girls’ island without much conflict at all.

Miles Gutierrez-Riley will star as Ivan Taylor, an “activist and aspiring playwright with an impeccable fashion sense and a razor-sharp wit.” If I had to guess off of that alone, Ivan would be a mix of Shelby and Fatin. However, Ivan’s wit is said to have “cost him friends along the way,” so this loner status also likens him to Dot.

The Wilds Season 2 will mark both Alexander’s and Guitierrez-Riley’s first major starring roles.

Rounding out the Unsinkable Eight’s male counterparts are Scotty Sims and Bo Leonard, a pair of best friends from the Florida panhandle. Like Toni and Martha, the two have complementary but different personalities. Scotty will be played by Reed Shannon, while Tanner Ray Rook will take on Bo.

Scotty is described as “short in stature but big in personality” with “dreams of making the Forbes 400 list one day.” Bo, on the other hand, is “a soft-spoken, contemplative teenager” whose “loyalty knows almost no bounds.” Is that a secret foreshadowing to something?

Shannon’s acting credits so far include Station 19, School of Rock, and Blaze and the Monster Machines, while this will also be Rook’s first major role.

Astute fans will notice that only eight male cast members were announced as newcomers for The Wilds Season 2. And though we followed the Unsinkable Eight in The Wilds Season 1, there were actually originally nine young women on the plane. RIP Janette. 

This begs the question — who is the ninth guy? Like in the girls’ experiment, morally-ambiguous-science-mastermind Gretchen would have planted her own “adult” confederate in the group of boys. Did we meet him already in The Wilds Season 1? I’ve said it before, but my money is on Alex, who has a suspicious scar on his face.

The creators of The Wilds have already eased fans’ worries that the female-focused storylines will not take a step back now that boys are in the mix. It’s unlikely that the girls and boys will even cross paths unless somehow all of them are still in the bunker together post-island rescue.

Most theories place the boys’ island timeline ahead of the girls’, even though The Wilds Season 1 finale made it seem like Leah was discovering live footage. Will we get a little more insight into what the heck Gretchen is thinking? Will she discover if young women make better decisions than young men, once all societal pressures are stripped away? 

I can’t wait to see what questions are addressed in The Wilds Season 2, because boy do I still have a bunch. I’m also excited to explore some more new characters.

It will be interesting to see what parallels can be drawn between the girls and the guys, especially since, for research purposes, the two groups should be as similar as possible.

The Wilds Season 1 served as a springboard for the careers of many of the young actresses involved, and I hope it does the same for the new additions to the cast. The Wilds Season 2 is currently in production.

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Can’t wait for The Wilds Season 2 to drop on Amazon Prime? Which of the new characters are you most excited to see learn about?

The Wilds Season 1 is now streaming on Amazon Prime Video.

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Where Will ‘The Wilds’ Go in Season 2?