Wayward Pines Recap: Everything We Thought We Knew Just Changed

Wayward Pines' "Sound the Alarm" introduced us to our first-ever lady abbie, revealed a secret marriage between two main characters, and put the town's underage sex initiative on-screen right in front of our disbelieving eyes. While every plot twist packed into this episode raised about a thousand questions, one thing was made absolutely clear: Wayward Pines' writing staff wants to declare hypnotherapy a fraud and a pseudoscience and they don't care how many viewers it costs them.

We opened on a flashback to the Yedlins' life from before Wayward Pines, just a lazy morning of waking up and not having sex and not being impressed by the skyscrapers right outside their window.

Rebecca found Dr. Pilcher (Toby Jones) waiting in her office with a proposal: a business dinner full of confusing wine analogies! And at that business dinner, he had a proposition: he would pay her anything she wanted if she would design an ideal residential community for him! Basically the dream project of every architect, ever.

Unfortunately, Theo was immediately throwing haterade on her new project when she proudly told him about it at home later: who was this mysterious man with a check book in one hand and Rebecca's Harvard thesis in the other? Didn't it seem just a little too good to be true? Also Utopias don't exist so why even try. Good job talking yourself out of some sweet celebratory sex, Theo!

Returning summer shows: Where we left off

Meanwhile, remember that abbie on the carousel from last week's cliffhanger? By the end of the episode they still hadn't figured out how she got in, but it turns out it the lone invader (who was quickly tranq'd and hauled back to Megan's Abbie Labbie) wasn't just any old abomination, she was the first-ever female abbie they'd encountered.

Intriguingly, she had a swirl branded into her palm, and her presence seemed to calm the male abbies. "Margaret" (Rochelle Okoye), as she was dubbed by one of the lab techs, exuded a silent power (aka, was framed VERY MEANINGFULLY) suggesting there's a pretty important reason we haven't seen female abbies in the series before. Besides saving post production the trouble of going back over abbie attack scenes to pixelate all the naked boobs flying all akimbo.

Meanwhile, out in the wilderness, a Theresa had decided to stay beyond the wall and die while staring at Ben's grave or something.

Just as she was deepest in her grief, Ole Beardy revealed that he had purposefully gotten Ethan Burke kidnapped and frozen so he could put the moves on Theresa once she was single, never dreaming she would follow Ethan to Wayward Pines. And then when he realized she was frozen too, he had to follow her. How evil and yet also sort of romantic? Is it weird if I think it's sort of romantic? All's fair in love and war, even secretly freezing your romantic rival for millennia.

In more flashback scenes, we learned Rebecca had flown out to see the Wayward Pines site and meet Pilcher's team. A much chiller Megan gave her "kudos" for her town design, which, I have to say, considering Wayward Pines had the talents of a genius architect, unlimited financial resources, and the single goal of making people happy, it's pretty hilarious it came out looking like a drab main street in a struggling factory town where all the factories closed down and the football team got crushed by a fluke shower of asteroids. Like, Wayward Pines is deeply drab! You'd think Rebecca might have added some Disney or Thomas Kinkade type cozy flourishes or at least some flower boxes, but I guess not.

Back at Wayward Pines Academy, young Frank was reporting for sex duty at a Procreation room. Hilariously, the powers that be at Wayward Pines think the best way to get teens to procreate is to treat sex like the PSATs, with a tight schedule, special room assignments, and helpful diagrams. As if from time immemorial the tried and true method for getting teens pregnant hasn't been a keg and a barn! Oh man, this was so SQUIRMY! I was squirming so hard this whole scene, when the poor little pre-teens came out in their bathrobes and got into that big weird bed together, just silently whispering "Noooo no no no no" under my breath.

Fortunately for everyone involved especially us as viewers, Frank could not go through with the enforced mating and of course blamed it on the girl. No, he wasn't just being a jerk. Frank, it turns out, is gay, and that teed us up for one of the darkest reveals yet: if the children of Wayward Pines can't reproduce, they're killed. Just when you thought you couldn't get darker than state-sanctioned child pregnancy were on to state-sanctioned child murder. Which like, what?! Reproduction is but one side of the many-faceted diamond of human survival dudes, and as long as they still have a few turkey basters around town, artificial insemination is always an option for those who can reproduce but aren't in the mood. Megan Fisher might not be great at running things, it's official.

No wonder Kerry begged Yedlin to come oversee Megan's Abbie Labbie since he has like, medical degrees and so forth and all Megan has is the Acupuncture Certificate she used to hang up at her hypnotherapy kiosk at the mall. It was very gratifying to see Theo close down Megan's little torture chamber and tell her off big time.

Megan's dubious claims to scientific protocol are one of my favorite things about this entire series. The idea humanity's last chance is in the hands of a person who maybe did a six week course on Past Life Regressions is kind of hilarious, as is the shade everyone keeps giving her about it.

In our Rebecca-origin-story-flashback, Pilcher was treating Rebecca to dinner and yet another tediously complicated metaphor about wine. He had also decided the time was right to drop the ole t-bomb on her (TRUTH): his entire team planned to "slingshot" themselves through the next 2,000 years via cryogenics, then wake up and then build the Utopia she'd just designed.

Summer TV: Must-see new shows

If I am ever in a dinner party situation where everyone around me suddenly reveals they are part of an extremely shady Armageddon Cult, I hope I handle myself with half the grace and tact Rebecca had in this moment.

But once she got home and unloaded on Theo, we got a sense of how she really felt.

This would have been a great time for Theo to listen deeply and thoughtfully then steer the night straight for some sympathy sex, but instead he was like "bummer" and rushed back to the hospital. And now here he is, two thousand years in the future with his wife, and looks like he missed his chance because now she has a another husband and he's got way more chemistry with her.

This was a jaw-dropper! Rebecca and Xander were "matched" as husband and wife (did they get a procreation room too?) for a year. Yow yow yow! Not only is Rebecca one of the founding forces of the town, which she's actively hidden from Theo, she'd also been lying about being a lady-bigamist! Theo responded by taking off his wedding ring and punching Xander straight in the face then huffing his way out of the house, although I really don't know where he thinks he's going. All roads literally lead to Wayward Pines in this bubble, buddy.

We saw a small piece of Xander and Rebecca's love story, and I am dying for more. Rebecca woke up in Wayward Pines and Xander was there to drive her around the Utopia she designed and I need to see more of this flashback. They fell in love, right? Could they not have a baby and were therefore forcefully un-paired? Give me more, screen.

In the grand tradition of Season 2, we of course ended the episode with an out-of-left-field cliff-hanger: an army of angry abbies swarming through the harvest fields, torches in hand! Had they run off somewhere and invented fire after being inspired by the flame throwers? Or were they being SUMMONED by Margaret's ominous staring?

Guys, I think the abbies might be a matriarchy run by female telepaths. I am all in!

QUESTIONS...

...what is Margaret's deal guys? How soon until she rips off Megan's face and what about that swirl on her hand?

...was Rebecca wrong to not tell Theo everything at once? In her shoes, what would you have done? Rip the band-aid off or slowly reveal to your partner you woke up first and had a marriage while they were still frozen?

...what is going on with these abbies in general? Telepathic matriarchy or...?