Wayward Pines "Our Town, Our Law" Review: But I Did Not Shoot the Deputy

Wayward Pines S01E03: "Our Town, Our Law"

Wayward Pines is somehow getting EVEN CRAZIER, guys, and I love it. "Our Town, Our Law" was the episode where Pines really took the gloves off and what had been a simmering menace became open hostility, especially between Ethan Burke and Sheriff Pope.

As you probably already know from Empire, Terrence Howard is a national treasure and Sheriff Pope is a role he seemed to truly relish. His shouted speech in front of Juliette Lewis' body was giving me chills.

After Burke saw the town lift its mask and reveal its nightmarish nature/ritualistically murder his one buddy in town, he decided to check in on Kate again. She said she and her hubs had not turned Juliette Lewis in, but told him it was time for him to keep his head down and stop making waves because there was no way out of this horror show. She also returned his tracking chip to him. Because lovers can just tell when their lovers have dug a tracking chip out of their body and hidden it somewhere inside their house. Lovers just know.

Juliette Lewis' body was the new resident of the dead house. Now I've seen some commenters coyly suggest (possibly via book spoilers) that Juliette Lewis might not be as dead as she seemed, but if she faked it, she's doing a damn thorough job.

Burke then swung by her old house, and found it emptied out save for a cleaning crew that was getting it ready for the next family. Then he spied an international goods truck from Wyoming, and his "World Market" senses tingled: True international specialties, cheeses, and olives do not distribute from Wyoming! He'd found another lead: follow that truck!

Meanwhile Theresa Burke and Ben Burke were continuing their Hunt For Dad across Idaho, and Ben was getting a little sassy about it.

Theresa surprised all of us by proving she'd absorbed a few secret-agent tricks herself: she went to the nearest agency headquarters, wrapped a secretary around her little finger, got the secretary away from her desk, and logged in on an agency computer under Ethan's profile. From there she was able to track his most recent purchases on his Secret Agent Company Card.

But because we live in the NSA-style world we do, this immediately alerted the higher-ups that she was on her way to Wayward Pines and Sheriff Pope pulled out his bottle of engine oil and staged a nefarious little prank.

Maybe it's because of the 30-foot electrified fence, but it seemed a general rule that the only way into Wayward Pines was a catastrophic car crash, so that's sort of terrifying.

Meanwhile, Burke's plan to sneak onto the Wyoming International Foods truck paid off in spades: he snuck into some sort of giant cement storage/warehouse facility with "WAYWARD PINES" sprayed all over everything in the Star Tours font. Whatever sinister forces were simulating traffic in and out of town and controlling this grim warehouse, they were certainly dedicated to clearly labeling things:

Yes, Burke had found his very own family car, the same vehicle Theresa had been driving in the previous scene, and it had a shit ton of dust on it, folks. Time had left a mark on that car. And then suddenly Sheriff Pope popped up out of nowhere, ready to make his mark on Burke with his fists. These two men openly slugged it out, with Sheriff Pope dropping tantalizing clues with every punch like: "I don't know what they see in you," and, "Where you going? There's nowhere to go."

Burke woke up in the hospital, had another openly hostile exchange with the nurse and Sheriff Pope, and then raced off to find his family installed in Juliette Lewis' old house. They were wearing the same clothes they'd been wearing in their independent timeline, and certainly acted as though no time had elapsed for them despite their dirty, musty, dusted-ass car. Also the house was now theirs? Score.

Next: There's no place like someone else's home

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What really works about Wayward Pines (and most cozy mysteries, come to think of it) is that it has a sinister threat in a beautiful place that you wouldn't otherwise want to leave. I mean, none of us want to get slaughtered for talking about the past or keep a landline in our house like it's 1999, but otherwise being gifted a giant vacation rental house in a picturesque mountain town? Not exactly a raw deal. Essentially, they're in the most luxurious prison on Earth.

However, within what seemed like moments of finally being reunited with his family, Ethan was racing out to the woods with Kate to get the down low on Wayward and its ways. And frankly she didn't have much to tell him.

Meanwhile, Theresa was getting a taste of just how menacingly Sheriff Pope could eat ice cream. If we thought he'd injected menace into the consumption of this frozen confection before, we were about to experience a whole other level of sinister sweet satisfaction. Coyly saying it wasn't every day they got a new flavor in town, Sheriff Pope offered to make Ben a bowl and asked where Ethan was. Theresa instinctually covered for him, then insisted Sheriff Pope get the hell out of her house. While Ethan was praising Kate for being fearless, Mrs. Burke was showing just how feisty she could get defending her family.

Then Ben came in and told her Dad's mistress lives in this town and he was off on a hike with her, and Theresa did what any red-blooded American woman would do: ditch that piece of trash in this dump.

I really loved that Theresa didn't wait around for explanations or a taxi cab . She just packed up their little wheeled carrying cases, grabbed her boy and hit the street as night fell, ready to walk to the next town. That's moxie! She was sadly headed in a long, slow, cold circle, but before she got too far Sheriff Pope was back on the trail!

This scene in which Sheriff Pope pursued Theresa and Ben in a car and then hunted them down in the woods was incredibly chilling. For one thing, their immediate reaction to drop their bags and run for cover when a car came toward them said it all. And frankly, we don't see a lot of grown men punching children on TV, so when Sheriff Pope landed Ben one in the gut, I was actually shocked.

Luckily, by then Ethan had gotten the bright idea of checking on on his family and came running for a woodland battle royale between him and Sheriff Pope, and just when it was looking like Ethan would be bested and probably killed via Crazy Law, Ben DROVE OVER TERRENCE HOWARD.

Like, damn, Ben. And then Ethan SHOT POPE IN THE HEAD for good measure.

I have to say I am really rooting for Terrence Howard to somehow reappear unscathed next episode, not unlike the Terminator. He was my favorite character and I don't want him gone yet. Although it also did occur to me that perhaps by killing Sheriff Pope you automatically have to become the new Sheriff, not unlike The Santa Clause.

Before we could even fully process that our big bad had been killed and the Burke family had his keys, they were able to find a "garage door open" button on his fob for the giant electrified fence. Also a monster may have appeared and dragged the Sheriff away !??

Regardless, the Burkes APPEAR to have left Wayward Pines. I suspect they are headed straight back for the hospital very soon, but what a way to end the episode. I know a couple critics were calling Wayward Pines pilot out for being slow burn, but this episode should definitely silence the naysayers better than Sheriff Pope clutching a calla lily.

CLUE CORNER, MY PINEYS!:

– Because of the amount of dust on the Burke's car, we know Theresa and Ben arrived in Wayward Pines a while ago. (As I've been saying all along, their timeline has been a flashback, not a parallel.) Yet they certainly don't seem to register time lost. We know they went into the hospital the day before.

– Kate said, "Five weeks... for you," when Burke contradicted her story about having been in Wayward Pines for 12 years. So can we speculate that Wayward Pines sort of keeps people in a holding state until they need them? Like perhaps the whole Burke family had been in some sort of suspended animation for the last six months? They woke Burke up, and he immediately went nuts, so they woke up Theresa and Ben to have leverage on Burke. Suspended animation would also explain why Juliette Lewis was from the '90s but had only been in town a year.

– There's a giant facility from which all goods come into town in vehicles with Wyoming plates, yet there's no flight patterns overhead. If Wayward Pines is in the contiguous United States as the license plates suggest, then it possibly has a fake sky a la Truman Show?

QUESTIONS:

... How long does it take for that much dust to settle on a family-sized sedan?

... Where will the Burkes end up when they drive through the gate and how do you think they will end up back in Wayward Pines? (Wake up in a hospital? Make a giant loop through the woods right back to the same entrance in fence? Or will something in the woods scare them back to the relative safety of WP?)

... Juliette Lewis: playing possum?

... Ethan's higher ups are clearly involved with Wayward Pines in some fashion. But what does the government stand to gain from a perfectly cute, isolated little town in the middle of nowhere where everyone is commanded to live in the present at all times?