Season one of Amazon Prime’sThe Wildswas an immediate success back in 2020. Created by Sarah Streicher, the series sees a group of teenage girls become castaways when the plane that’s supposed to take them to a Hawaiin retreat crashes on a remote island. As the girls adjust to their surroundings and each other, the viewers learn that (spoiler alert) they didn’t end up there by accident. Instead, this was the elaborate scheme of faux-feminist Gretchen Klein (played by the brilliant Rachel Griffiths), a psychologist intent on proving the benefits of a matriarchal society.
Highly original and with outstanding performances from the relatively-unknown actresses, season one ofThe Wildsattracted a lot of buzz; and following its cliffhanger — the discovery of a separate group of male castaways — fans couldn’t wait for season two. Unfortunately, after two years of waiting, this season turned out to be lessLord of the Fliesand more Unwelcome Surprise.The Wildsseason two dragged, and here’s why.
RELATED:Meet The Boy Survivors In The Wilds Season 2
The Boys
The biggest drawback of season two is the boys. Withtwice as many charactersas season one and two fewer episodes, the boys took attention away from the beloved girls and made each episode feel crammed. The show spread itself thin introducing eight new characters, and clearly had its favorites. Whilst in season one, each of the girls got their own backstory episode, in this season, only a few boys got theirs, and even these were rushed.
Viewers know hardly anything about Josh (Nicholas Coombe) and Henry (Aidan Laprete), which makes it hard to root for them, and the characters they do know about aren’t as likable as the girls. Of course, some characters — Seth (Alex Fitzalan) — aren’t supposed to be likable, and not every character has to be “good” to be good, but the boys aren’t reallyanything. At best, they are average, and at worst, they are dull stereotypes. Henry and Ivan (Miles Gutierrez-Riley) are particularly hollow characters: Henry is an obnoxious doom and gloom emo who, during interrogation, breaks out into singing My Chemical Romance, and Ivan is a Gen Z caricature with his exaggerated #woke activism that is shown to do more harm than good.
Season one ofThe Wildsexcelled atchallenging stereotypes, and although an effort was made this season with Kirin (Charles Alexander) and Seth — the hyper-masculine Jock with a moral compass and the nice guy with dark intentions — with most of the boys, what you see is what you get. This is likely due to their limited screentime, which might change come season three.
The Girls
Viewers obviously missed the girls, but the scenes they got with them were somewhat uneventful. On their island, Leah (Sarah Pidgeon) and eventually Fatin (Sophia Ali) are on to Gretchen, Shelby and Toni (Mia Healey, Erana James) are stronger than ever, Rachel (Reign Edwards) finds God, Martha (Jenna Clause) falls into a trance, and Dot (Shannon Berry) is… well, there. Because of the lack of action on their island, it seems as though the show included them out of obligation. They knew how muchviewers loved themin season one, and they didn’t want to risk it all with the boys. By including both groups, they wanted to have the best of both worlds, but the episodes were messy because of it.
As with the boys, there are clear favorites with the girls in this season, too. Leah gets a considerable amount of screentime, Shoni (Shelby and Toni), Fatin, and Martha get a fair bit, Rachel gets a little, and Dot receives hardly any. Perhaps, again, because of their limited screentime, the girls don’t have much character development this season either. Shoni reached peak character development in season one, Martha is catatonic for half of season two, Dot is hardly there, Leah is as crazy as ever, and Fatin is Fatin. Only Rachel appears to have changed, finding solace in religion. That being said, the actresses made the best of what they were given, and the girls' presence was an antidote to the boys.
The Writing
Season two’s script was a lot cornier than season one. Though season one had its moments — most from Leah, who was in her"villain era"post-rescue — season two amped up the cringe to a whole new level. From the girls (badly) singing “Home” around the campfire to Rachel serenading a comatose Martha with the Notorious B.I.G rap “Juicy,” there were many moments this season that should’ve been sweet but were instead painful to watch.
And as for the boys, Josh and Ivan provided plenty of face-palm moments; Josh from his pitiful, misguided wokeness — which, in the show’s defense, is supposed to be funny — and Ivan from his sincere but overbearing wokeness. Gretchen Klein also had her fair share of corny one-liners, as season two saw her go from an unethical psychologist to a full-fledged evil mastermind who would put her own son in danger to achieve her ends.
The (Many, Many) Montages
Season two ofThe Wildsproved you could have too much of a good thing with its many, many montages. Montages are useful forcondensing a larger storyto show the passing of time and were used this way effectively in season one. They were a vital part of the girls' episodes and helped audiences get to know them in a short amount of time. Season two used montages in a similar way, for example, in Seth’s backstory, where viewers get a look into his relationship with Julia (Asher Yasbincek).
At other times, however, these montages were used frivolously, seemingly just to pass the time. It seems odd that the show would concern itself with such scenes — of the groups doing nothing of importance — when the major problems of season two are too many characters and not enough time. One of the best things about season one was Shoni and watching these two polar opposites, Shelby and Toni, fall in love. Season two capitalizes on fans' love for the couple by shoving montages of them in viewers' faces. These montages, which were once cute, suddenly become very repetitive and boring, which, incidentally, is how many felt about season two as a whole. Ending on a fantastic cliffhanger, though, there is hope that season three will save the series from being a total plane crash.
