Streaming Spotlight by Cindy Summers
The Wilds: Seasons 2 – Amazon Originals
Breeze rating from 1 to 4 palm trees, 4 being best.
Season 2 of The Wilds opens with what Leah learned at the end of Season 1 where there was a second group stranded and trying to survive on another island just as they were, except it was a group of boys. Season 1 revealed the key individuals behind the experiment, as well as that it was a staged plane crash and that none of their parents were aware and thinking they had all gone off to some high end resort for spa days and paddleboard adventures.
Season 2 focuses on the boys’ experiences while also taking viewers into deeper stories of the girls and how they were ultimately rescued. The dynamics as far as the characters in the groups were very similar and at the opening of Season 2, both groups had been rescued and were in a facility where they were being intereviewed about the situations that happened during their island survival experiement and told their parents would be arriving to get them.
The idea was that no one was to learn it was an intentional experient and that each group had two covert insiders to somewhat guide the groups and report information back to the research headquarters when necessary. The islands were rigged with hidden cameras and mics everywhere, known only to the insiders, who always seemed to have helpful ideas or find random stuff to aid in their survival. Leah was the only one who suspected Nora of being involved in something ultimately controlling their situation. The problem there was that every time Leah found some proof, it disappeared before she could share it with anyone else, which made her appear to others and herself to be becoming unhinged.
On the boys’ island, they also lost one member right from the start as well as having to defend themselves against a dangerous predator that the research team actually had no idea was on the island. The boys teamed up in a coordinated attack and were able to catch and kill the predator. Though seeming to be carrying on well, an incident unknown to the group once revealed altered their dynamics permanently, thus causing them to fail the experiement.
A brush with death rattled all the girls as each of them engaged in their individual struggles to find peace and the truth. Martha had a psychotic break and stop moving or eating for over a week, even causing bed sores on her legs. Rachel stuggled with losing her hand and her sister Nora in a shark attack, while Fatin made a unsettling discovery in Nora’s journal pointing to the fact that Leah may have been right all along and in the truth all alone.
The researchers brought both teams back to the facility at the same time. The girls surviving 50 days was considered a success, while the boys only lasting 34 days was considered a failure, and research coverts who presented themselves as law enforcement there on their behalf interviewed them one at a time to try and discover what happened to them all out there in the wild. Unfortunately and unknown to any of them, none of them would be seeing their parents anytime soon.
Seasons 2: 8 episodes – 60 min
