The Wilds Season 2 Review: A Watered-Down Version of Season 1

Warning: This review contains spoilers for the entirety of The Wilds Season 2.

It’s been a while since I’ve felt so incredibly let down by a TV show, and I’d forgotten how completely devastating it is.

I had high hopes for The Wilds Season 2. There were so many questions I wanted to be answered, and I was hoping that this season would be a deeper dive into the inner workings of the experiment, as well as more of the girls in the present day.

Instead, what we get is The Wilds Season 1 take two.

Seriously, we just relive Season 1 but with the guys, complete with flashbacks to their life before the island. It is essentially the exact same format as Season 1, but with slightly less time spent on the boys because the show also has to make room for all the scenes with the girls on the island.

There’s very little time spent post “rescue,” at least with the girls. We get Leah running around a bit, but it’s not enough. The most we spend with her is when she’s with Raf, and that’s a mechanism to allow us to see what happened on the island that the boys won’t talk about.

The focus isn’t on Leah scheming to free everyone and learn what exactly is going on. Yes, she is still doing that, but the most we see is after the fact, during that montage on The Wilds Season 2 Episode 8, “Exodus.” 

It is satisfying to watch her pull one over on Gretchen, but it would’ve been nice to see more of her working towards accomplishing that or learning how/why Dan started helping Leah.

Also, I wanted so much more of the girls in the present day, outside of when they are in interrogation (and we don’t even see that).

I wanted to see maybe Fatin and Shelby trying to figure things out, especially with the reveal that they discovered Leah wasn’t totally insane with their theories. You know all of them were not just sitting peacefully in their rooms, behaving, waiting for their next interview.

All of this is not to say that there’s no point to the introduction of the boys. Every experiment needs a control group. The introduction just could’ve been done better.

It would’ve helped immensely if something new about the experiment came out of the time with the boys. Something that would’ve made all this time spent on them a bit more worthwhile, and then we might’ve cared about them some.

Because it is impossible to really care about their struggles when you’re sitting there wishing the show was focusing on the girls more.

But, we don’t get anything close to new from the experiment. There are short, basically pointless scenes of Gretchen’s team reacting to things on the island, but nothing of note comes from those glimpses.

Other than that, we see exactly the same things with the boys as we did with the girls on Season 1. There’s nothing new.

All the boys really do is draw attention from the girls, who we are already invested in, and delay us getting the answers to questions we’ve had since Season 1. There’s nothing beneficial that comes from their inclusion this season.

The only, small thing that we get from spending time with the boys, is that we know them now, so we are curious to see how they will interact with the girls in the yet-to-be-confirmed Season 3. That’s it. That’s the only plus to them, and it doesn’t even happen during this season.

We will go into Season 3 knowing who the girls should work with, who they should avoid, and then we’ll get to watch to see if they make the right choices or not.

Overall, The Wilds is a letdown. There are some wonderful moments featuring the girls throughout the 8 episodes, but mainly you mainly just find yourself wishing the whole thing was done differently.

I enjoyed seeing how the girls spent that final stretch of time on the island, watching them fracture into the versions of them we first met during their interviews on Season 1.

It is a relief that we are finally done with the island. The focus is now on this new phase of the experiment, which yes involves another island, but it will be different enough from the first time around… hopefully.

Despite how badly Season 2 disappointed me, I still want a third season. Mainly so the inclusion of the boys will be worth something, and to allow The Wilds to redeem itself.

Stray Thoughts

• The use of Taylor Swift’s Epiphany is bone-chillingly perfect and an amazing season opener.
• Gretchen manages to pick the WORST guy to be her operative; it’s impressive how awful her selection is.
• Shelby and Fatin cracking the code of Nora’s journal is one of my favorite moments. They are a fun pairing.
• I cannot express enough how I did not need to see all the violence that happened.
• The dream Shelby has of future Shoni is a bit strange; are we supposed to take that as a hint/proof that Shelby is one of Gretchen’s operatives now?
• I love Leah being able to identify Kirin and Henry, and their confusion by it.
• Nora being alive is a great twist. I wonder if she will appear next season somehow.
• I don’t know if I would easily forgive Nora if I was Rachel. Rachel went through so much trauma because of her.
• I’m going to need Shelby and Toni to get back together ASAP.
• Leah playing the lovesick girl card to fool everyone is applause-worthy.
• Henry with The Black Parade lyrics is the best interview room moment.
• Kirin’s lipsync video is delightful.

What did you think of The Wilds Season 2? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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The Wilds Season 2 is now streaming on Prime Video.

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