Warning: Spoiler Alert
Whether M. Night Shyamalan, convinces the FOX Network to fulfill his vision and bring back “Wayward Pines,” for a third and final season, or this episode concluded the series, we departed the year 4032, with far more hope than we felt at season one’s conclusion. Unfortunately, not every resident received their happy ending, we ended season two believing that people finally learned how to break the unending circle of man’s inhumanity to man. That perhaps after yet another fresh start, humanity can take the proper path and help our species to truly evolve.
The finale opens minutes after the previous episode, as Jason Higgins’ gets rushed into surgery on a gurney accompanied by Theo Yedlin and his senior medical student Oscar. The student stresses they need to save Jason’s life, but Theo says that the leader’s just another patient. Oscar still calls for back-up nurses in the operating room screaming that Jason’s critically wounded. We see Kerry standing in the hospital hallway, covered in blood and in a state of shock.
Outside the electric fence, Margaret stands upon a cliff and looks out into a sea of Abbies. She screams and we watch several of the Abbies start to scatter. She keeps screaming and with every screech more and more start running. We then see a lone male perhaps from another tribe, exploring and then he sees the thousands gathered around the mountain. He yells to them and waves a tree branch and then heads down into the valley to join them.
In the operating room, Theo’s removing the bullet when Jason goes into cardiac arrest and they’re without the drugs needed to restart his heart. After trying to revive Higgins with the paddles Yedlin calls the time of death at 7:30 am. Theo then addresses the residents gathered outside the hospital and announces that Jason’s dead, he says that Higgins’ ran the town the best he knew how.
He then tells them all that the way to honor Jason’s by completing his last wish, that they survive. He says he realizes most of them didn’t choose to be there, but they’re all that remains of humanity. That when they’re revived they’ll find a better way and then tells them all to head to their homes and prepare for the evacuation.
Theo walks back inside the hospital and Oscar calls Yedlin out on whether he tried to save Higgins, saying that Theo failed to perform a procedure properly and then stating that Yedlin never makes mistakes. Both know he’s busted but Theo says he did everything reasonable to save the patient. He then tells Oscar he’s going to become a fine doctor. Oscar then mentions that Jason had a very rare blood type that only four other people in town shared. Three of the folks belong to the same family, but he found it strange that the other person’s Kerry Campbell.
CJ Mitchum and Theo have a meeting in Yedlin’s office. Mitchum hands two binders to the surgeon and informs him each binder contains the lists that Higgins put together, one containing the names of those Jason deemed worthy of survival. The other one contains the people who didn’t make the cut. Mitchum tells Theo that there are still 300 people in pods who’ve yet to get revived and Yedlin can choose to use their pods to save those awake. However he stresses that every change Theo makes to the list, Yedlin’s choosing to pardon somebody by condemning another.
We get a glimpse of the radar screen tracking the Abbies and the crowd outside the fence continues to grow at an alarming rate. Kerry walks into Theo’s office and asks if Jason suffered and he asks her if she wanted him to? She says she doesn’t know and Yedlin responds that she’s now got a pod.
She’s repulsed by Theo’s apparent callousness and asks if he thinks it’s all just a joke? He says that she was always the brains behind the tyrant and she cries out Jason wasn’t a tyrant. Theo then asks he if she’s aware that Pilcher changed her records and she responds that she’s aware. He then says that Jason was put into cryogenic hibernation days after he was born and she went into hibernation shortly after giving birth and they shared a very rare blood type and leaves the room. She comprehends what he said seconds after he exits and proceeds to wretch into a wastebasket.
We check back with Margaret and we see that the Abbies have likely grown ten-fold since the last time we saw them. Margaret’s going to finally get the vengeance she’s wanted since Pilcher wiped out most of her tribe with an automatic weapon mounted on a helicopter in 4014.
There’s an announcement over the loud-speaker system in the town, saying that extraction teams are gathering the first group to take them back to the mountain. The announcer states that if you’re not picked up in the first wave to calmly wait at their homes until the shuttles return. However we soon see the ugly reality of families getting split up and folks left behind. Our first glimpse comes when a father’s told to wait behind as his wife and two children get shuttled to the mountain.
At Wayward Pines Academy, we witness a situation involving residents we know, as Lucy’s loaded into a school bus while Frank’s told to wait inside the dormitory. Lucy sees her older brother in the window of the dorm and starts calling for him. Frank hears her cries and tries to leave the building but he’s bludgeoned by a guard and passes out. The bus pulls away as Lucy cries that she doesn’t want to leave her brother.
The extraction team come for Rebecca but tell Xander that he’ll be picked up in the second wave of shuttles. Rebecca starts to protest, but Xander asks the soldier if they could have some private time. She tells Beck she’s not going to leave him, but Xander tells her she must and that he’ll always be with her and their baby no matter where they are or he’s at. There’s a tearful kiss goodbye and then the jeep pulls off.
Yedlin and Mitchum are taken along with Mario and Kerry to the mountain facility and then CJ and Theo sit down and talk about the future. CJ tells the doctor that each death means the end of a universe, while each life saved continues another universe. Theo recalls his conversation with Sheriff Pope in Hawaii, when Pope asked Yedlin if he could save a hundred people would he do it. He then says the decision’s easy to make in theory, but far tougher in reality. Mitchum starts to realize that perhaps Theo’s not planning on going back into hibernation.
Reality starts to set in for those left behind, as we hear Johnny Cash singing the old Tom Petty hit “Won’t Back Down.” Arlene’s sitting in front of the hospital with tears streaming down her face. Xander’s walking through the town square with a rifle on his shoulder as others take out their frustration in destruction. Breaking store-front windows and knocking over statues.
Theo’s alone in the lab and he grabs an audio recorder and leaves a message for the survivors. He informs the listener that David Pilcher was wrong and his vision was twisted. He built a town to save humanity but ruled in an inhumane fashion. Yedlin states there’s no such thing as the “Greater Good,” there’s just good, no matter how small the action.
He then explains that Pilcher brought along strains of the deadliest diseases known to man, theorizing the scientist planned experiments with germ warfare. He says that he’s going to inject himself with the three deadliest strains; the bubonic plague, typhus and the Marburg virus. He then tells the listener that after the 13-hour incubation period, he’ll step outside the gate and get consumed. He says the theorizes that the bubonic plague should kill about half to two-thirds of the Abbies and that Typhoid fever and the Marburg virus travel through communal water and should wipe out the rest of them by the time the humans get revived.
Mario informs Yedlin that Rebecca just reached the facility but there’s a disturbance at the gate. We see the crowd stranded on the outside of the fence try to prevent Rebecca and the guard from getting through the gate. Rebecca makes it inside, but the guards stabbed and dies outside the fence around the mountain facility. The crowd starts screaming and surging towards the fence when Mitchum arrives with his automatic weapon and scares the crowd off with a burst of fire into the air. He screams at them to go home.
As the rioting continues in the town square, Xander’s sitting in the remains of a building chugging on a bottle of whiskey, when Frank shows up and asks for a hit off the bottle. Beck says Frank’s too young, but he probably realizes how ridiculous the statement was as he soon hands the bottle over to the teen. Just after Frank takes a swig a jeep barrels into town and stops directly in front of them. Theo opens the door and tells the pair to jump in.
The trio’s about to head to the facility when two guys stand in the middle of the road, one holding a Molotov Cocktail. Xander tells Theo that he’s got this and steps out of the passenger door of the vehicle, the dude yells to Beck that he needs that Jeep and Xander best not do anything stupid. Beck aims at the bottle which explodes in the guy’s hand and he’s consumed by the flame. The trio head to the mountain.
When they pull up to the gates of the facility, Frank and Xander run inside to look for their loved ones, but Yedlin’s stopped by a familiar face. Arlene’s standing there and says to Theo that he should have told them and he agrees with her. She says good luck in the future and starts to walk away when Yedlin tells her she’s getting the pod of the guard whose corpse lies outside the fence. She thanks Yedlin with a passionate kiss.
Kerry’s standing in the area for processing already wearing her hibernation uniform on, when she almost jumps out of her skin when she feels a hand on her shoulder. It’s CJ, attempting to comfort her and she looks at him and says you don’t even know what’s going on. He smiles and says of course he does, David and Jason are gone. He then says that he’s going to need her when they’re revived and he says she certainly deserves a fresh start. Perhaps hearing the same words Pilcher said to her, provoked her response as she replied no thanks that she already had one and then leaves the room.
Xander and Frank find Rebecca and Lucy, while Lucy’s overjoyed Rebecca’s confused as to how her husband reached her. Beck nods towards Theo and the former husband and wife make eye contact. Later, Rebecca comes to thank her former husband for saving Xander with a hug. She tells Theo they couldn’t save their marriage, but he’s the only one who can save the town.
With everything in order Yedlin heads back to the lab to start the process that will sacrifice his life to hopefully save those who are in hibernation. Suddenly Theo hears his own voice talking about injecting himself with the three diseases. Kerry’s in the lab holding the recorder and says that she’s decided the best way to fulfill her purpose, is to sacrifice herself. Theo begs please don’t do this, but she drops the vials on the floor and announces she’s already done it.
Yedlin gives her a bottle and a syringe and tells her it’s morphine and for her to inject it into a vein two minutes before she goes outside the electric fence. She says that the world needs Theo and men like Theo to protect against men like her son. She then smiles sadly and says she’s just a girl from Idaho and then bids him farewell.
The hibernation process finalized, Christopher James Mitchum contemplates whether he wants to once again go back to sleep. He suddenly sees his wife’s vision standing in front of him and she tells him he looks tired. She then tells him that he can create any world he wants and Mitchum decides to enter his pod and join the rest of the survivors.
After Mitchum’s back in hibernation, Wayward Pines powers down and we see all the lights in the facility and then the town go off. We also get one final glimpse inside the greenhouse and we see that a plant’s sprung to life, meaning the soil’s no longer toxic. We watch a rather hazy version of Kerry opening the gate that protects the town and we hear the alarms sound as she shuts it closed behind her. Seconds later we hear the sounds of what sounds like the Abbies making a meal out of Campbell.
There’s one final scene, we’re not given a date however we see that the forest now seems to be populated by just a few Abbies and we hear a baby cry. Our last shot shows us an Abbie mother with what looks very much like any new-born infant. Did the viruses leave the surviving Abbies back on the path to humanity?
