I'll try to summarize the large differences and maybe not give away whole spoilers, but that's probably hard to do.
- Pilcher is an ever larger egomaniac who literally believes himself to be God for saving the human race. The entire purpose of him doing it was to play house and recreate a civilization where he is worshiped. He has direct conversations with Ethan about him being God and Ethan being Lucifer and being cast out of Heaven, among other quotes and allusions. Pilcher had a wife and daughter (Alyssa) that were supposed to come on the time journey with everyone else, but his wife backed out. So Pilcher had Pope kill her and basically abducted his daughter.
- Pam was a complete sociopath. Pilcher finds her a homeless 13 or so year old girl one night after giving a lecture at a University. Brings her in and raises her. She spends the whole book fantasizing about killing Ethan's family in front of Ethan, terrorizing the town, and just generally being a crazy bitch. Sort of like her character started off in the TV show until they changed her to this whiny sympathetic to the cause emo.
- There was never any rebellion. No bombs. No explosions. Etc... There was an underground group that met together to actually relax, discuss their past lives, offer support to one another in the midst of all the confusion, and partake in a few vices like singing, dancing, drinking and things they couldn't do while under constant surveillance in Pines. That was it and it was all they really wanted.
- Pilcher was extremely paranoid about this group and them defying him, so he sent his daughter Alyssa in to spy on them. Well, then he got super paranoid about his daughter turning against him, so he and Pam murdered her. Like, tied her down to a table in the mortuary and ritually stabbed her repeatedly to death. This surveillance video is eventually recovered by the surveillance tech and Ethan and what he uses to more or less convince the town that Pilcher is an evil SOB. That and along with bringing and Abby in to town square during the fake 'f?te' as they are referred to in the books, not 'reckonings.' And they're like mardi gras with pitchforks and butcher knives. Not the same way they're portrayed in the show.
- Adam Hassler is alive for the whole series. His whole plan was to be frozen with Theresa so he could wake up in the future and be with her. He didn't believe Ethan deserved her and part of the deal he made with Pilcher to keep the Secret Service off their back was that Ethan goes away, he and Theresa get to live happily ever after. Hassler has been out ranging for the last 3 years in the book. Up to Seattle, down to San Fran, all around trying to search for signs of any civilization or anything to help humanity. Book 3 has quite a few of his POVs and he eventually gets back to Pines when all the shit is going down.
- Eventually they overthrow Pilcher, but not until after like 50% of the town or some shit were killed by Abbies and Pilcher's temper tantrum. The 'bigger' secret then comes out that Wayward Pines was never sustainable, or at least that it would no longer be sustainable. They lost all their livestock in the attack, their stores of supplies is running low, and the harsh winters don't allow for reliable farming. Even with the reduced population they only have a few more years. So Ethan and them have to come together and figure out their best way to survive...
Super secret book ending spoiler
so they all climb back in their tanks and go to cryosleep. The last chapter is something like, "Ethan Burke opened his eyes. Wayward Pines 70,000 years later!" So to be honest, the book ending was almost as retarded as the tv show.
Oh, and there really is no kid shit in the book. Like Ben has maybe 5 lines across all three of them. Don't think you ever see anything that actually occurs in the schools, or with crazy teacher lady, or 1st generation cult. You know the kids are being taught the truth and that they're taught David Pilcher is God and Savior, and that is about it.
That's about it without getting in to extreme minutiae and details. Probably forgetting some important distinction at this point.
Yea my wife read the books and she was surprised the show spend so much time on the kid since he's a non-character in the books. It didn't sound like you could do the books properly only contained in 10 episodes.
Fuck that was one dark, Hitler Youth fucking ending. I hope they don't do a second season as they will just fuck it up completely, leave it at the fucked up dystopian future full of brainwashed kids that it is now.
I enjoyed the show, but I could have swore they billed it as a mini-series and there was no chance of future seasons. I'm really surprised, cause they didn't really leave themselves in a good spot for an ongoing show.
I swear a couple months ago I read that this wasn't getting a 2nd season. Anyway, I really enjoyed the first one and I'll give the second season a shot. I'm not sure how it can be nearly as good, since it won't have all the mystery that the first season did as we slowly learned what the hell was going on in Wayward Pines.
One of the best shows of the year is a pretty bold statement - we've had some fantastic television this year.
If you're gonna tell me it's up in a category with bloodlines, fargo, mr robot, better call saul, game of thrones, the american's, halt and catch fire, the leftovers, ect, then we are on pretty different television quality wavelengths.
Looks like this show's coming back 5/25. Thought the first season was fantastic despite h M Night's shitty twist ending. I'm guessing they went that route so there'd be somewhere to go with a season 2.
This season's about a new person in the town who has no idea what's going on. Not sure how they can make this compelling since the audience already knows what Wayward Pines is and what's going on.
Just finished up the first season. I expected it to play kinda like Twin Peaks, and he practically spends the whole first season just finding out the place is actually "different". Obviously it moved much faster than I anticipated, and had more of a Lost vibe. I enjoyed it, but I am kinda curious how this season will go now that you know how the town works. According to Fox it takes place after the events of season 1 during a rebellion. No Matt Dillon in season 2, which sucks. Dude is such a straight forward actor, but I've always liked him.
I think there was only one major plot line they didn't explore on season 1 from the books. If they incorporate that it could have some interesting bits.
Season one wasn't well made. It had bad acting, a lot of things that just didn't make sense, and other things left unexplained. However, it was really compelling, it had a nice mystery and loads of interesting questions.
Season 2 only has the shit, the bad acting and shit writing. There is no mystery. No twist. None of the redeeming qualities of the first season, only the shit. They're even reusing the Ethan Burke "man arrives to WP with no idea what's going on and goes all rebel" story line.
After two episodes I couldn't bring myself to watch anymore. Trash. Pure trash.
