Amazon's The Wilds took viewers on a wild ride that is partly a female interpretation of Lord of the Flies and modern-day coming-of-age drama. Following the horrific (and planned) plane crash and the girls' attempts at getting along and surviving on a deserted island, plenty of drama ensues.
Every episode revealed new details about the backstories of the main characters, but they also delivered some shocking twists. Many of the major twists came right at the end, including the cliff-hanger ending that left viewers anticipating the upcoming second season. Others opened up new plotlines for where character arcs can go. But looking back on the 10-episode first season, there were some twists, in particular, that really stood out and shocked those who watched.
10 Toni And Shelby Hooking Up
While Shelby had been preaching the word of the Lord the entire time, bringing her sunny personality and religious views to the group, it turns out she was hiding some pretty dark secrets. Not only from the girls but also from her family, friends, and herself.
After voicing her disagreement with Toni's "way of life" as a lesbian woman, it's revealed that Shelby was actually gay or bisexual herself. When she grabbed Toni and kissed her, it was a pivotal, and shocking, moment of self-discovery and self-acceptance.
9 Gretchen Actually Does Have A Son
Gretchen made it seem all along like she referred to her young subjects as her children, and perhaps even her two adorable pups. But it never seemed plausible that she had actual children. So, when it was revealed that she indeed had a son, it shocked viewers.
Not only that, but despite her deep feminist beliefs and admitted attempts to raise her son to act outside of the typical male bravado box, he grew up to personify it, resulting in the death of a young man during a college hazing incident.
8 Dot Was In On The Plan
Dot's involvement with the Dawn of Eve project remains unknown, but it was eventually revealed that she knows something. Right before her father shockingly asked Dot to administer the lethal injection that would end his suffering, he told her he found a plan to ensure she was cared for and safe until she turned 18 to avoid the foster care system.
That plan was Gretchen, and while she offered Dot this safety, what viewers still don't know is what she wanted from Dot in return. What is the length of Dot's knowledge about what was going on?
7 Gretchen Checked Into The Mental Hospital To Poach Daniel
Everything about Gretchen was a big question mark, from the fact that she was an academic who was let go for an unknown reason to her secretive and controversial project and what she planned to prove with it. But when she willingly checked herself into a mental hospital, viewers began wondering whether she might really belong there.
It turns out it was all a ploy to get face-to-face with a talented trauma psychologist that Gretchen felt was wasting his talent – he could do better work with her, in his eyes.
6 Shelby's Father Runs Conversion Therapy
Part of why Shelby put on such an act was that her deeply religious pastor father ran conversion therapy for youths, holding deep beliefs against homosexuality and bisexuality. It was clear he suspected his daughter of being gay but did what he could to try and convince her, passive-aggressively, to be someone she wasn’t.
This led to Shelby lying about and to her best friend Becca, who she had begun to have romantic feelings for. The girl sadly took her own life shortly after that, and it clearly had a huge impact on Shelby.
5 Dot Euthanized Her Father
As noted, it was clear at some point that Dot's father had passed away since the events that viewers got to see in flashbacks. It was always assumed that he finally succumbed to his illness. But the shocking twist came when it was revealed that it didn't happen naturally.
After making plans to ensure that Dot would be cared for and in good hands, he asked her to administer a lethal dose of medicine to finally end his suffering and free her from the pressures of having to care for him.
4 Jeanette Was A College-Aged Plant
Not only was Jeanette putting on a ruse with her entire backstory and bubbly personality, but she also wasn't even a high school student. She was a smart, feminist college student who just happened to look a lot younger than she was.
Hailing from Australia and beautifully hiding her accent on the plane, she teamed up with Gretchen to be part of the Dawn of Eve plan to prove that women could survive and thrive on their own.
3 Martha Was Repressing Childhood Sexual Abuse
The biggest surprise about Martha was that her personal home life wasn't all sunshine and roses. While she had a loving and supportive family, she went through trauma that she refused to admit to anyone, including herself.
When other kids revealed that they were abused by a physical therapist, Martha's mom suspected her daughter was a victim, too. But Martha refused to speak out against him. Instead, she went about life acting as though everything was fine.
2 Nora Was Working With Gretchen
Fans found out at the end that Nora was the other plant on the island, not Dot. The seemingly quiet girl who was supposedly just on the retreat to accompany her high-strung twin sister actually knew what was going on.
She somehow convinced her parents about the retreat after meeting Gretchen because she believed in the Dawn of Eve project and Gretchen's goals, partly because of having just suffered the trauma of losing her ex to a terribly hazing accident. She was secretly feeding information to Gretchen and the team through carefully planted cameras in trees and messages in her journal.
1 The Experiments Were Also Taking Place With Boys
The biggest twist came in the final moments of the first season when Leah managed to escape from her room. While she didn't make it out of the building, she did find a control room showing seemingly live footage from a variety of cameras on a series of monitors.
The footage was of a group of young men stranded on a desert island, much like she and the other young women were. It was at that point that Leah not only knew that her suspicions were correct but that there was something even bigger going on.
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January 12, 2021 at 04:30AM
