‘Wilderness’ Season 1 On Prime Video, Where A Woman Tries To Kill Her Cheating Husband On A Cross-Country Trip

Review :

They say and have claimed for a very long time that “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.” This is just partially true. Generally speaking, nothing makes hell rage like a guy who is prevented, even in the slightest way, from reaching any aim. I acknowledge that this doesn’t have the same ring to it and won’t accomplish anything to strengthen the patriarchy, so I won’t push for its acceptance in the name of pure truth. But! It does turn a tale about righteous female wrath into something that is delightfully joyful rather than sadly realistic.

So let’s talk about Wilderness, a six-episode adaptation of BE Jones’ thriller of the same name by Marnie Dickens, starring Jenna Coleman and Oliver Jackson-Cohen as newlyweds Liv and Will Taylor who do not get to enjoy their union for very long. This is because Liv learns that Will has been routinely cheating on a woman named Cara (Ashley Benson) shortly after leaving her job, friends, and family to move to New York for his work.

Liv decides to shove Will off the edge of the Grand Canyon after the initial shock wears off and Will plans an amazing tour across the US national parks that she has always wanted to take. In order to allay any concerns the spectator may have about whether the final twist would be that Liv was paranoid all along and would has been splattered for no justifiable reason, video evidence of the sexual knowledge shared by Will and Cara is revealed in advance.

Subtlety is not important in the wild. It is about catharsis and retribution, the oldest forms of entertainment. Of course, the former needs to be stopped first, and Liv is no different. Another traveler interrupts her at the Grand Canyon, she can’t stomp his head in with a block on a hike because to the evidence-gathering spatter, and when they go white-water rafting, a plan to destroy his equipment backfires and he ends up saving her from the depths. At this point, Liv makes the decision to try marriage again. The best retaliation might be to live well. Then, after hearing him speak to Cara on the phone once again, she comes to the conclusion that the first murder that was designed to appear accidental is the one to beat.

Many on-message signals regarding female oppression and how girls and women are socially conditioned to act as though everything is OK no matter how awful things get are juggled around beneath the action. Liv’s early years were spent grinning despite her parents’ unstable marriage and the suffering her father’s extramarital affairs caused. Liv is resolved not to go down the same road as her mother Caryl (Claire Rushbrook), who hasn’t moved on and is still busy following her now-ex-husband and his new girlfriend online (“wearing a two-piece! After all those kids!”). However, that would be a completely different program, and many people would turn to therapy.

No, for Liv, it’s murder or nothing. She must overcome all the challenges that fate throws her way, including, in episode two, a purportedly accidental encounter with Cara and her future boyfriend Garth (Eric Balfour) in the woods and the two women’s developing friendship. Cara has completely accepted the limitations and conventions of womanhood, which causes Liv to feel unfavorably sympathetic and for a brief moment make it seem as though the show would morph into a combined buddy-revenge movie. By the end of the two episodes that were available for review, this is beginning to seem even less plausible, but I’ll hold out hope that by the finale, those ladies will have freed themselves of their female bonds and be riding out into the sunset in casual shoes.

Everything is reliable, gratifying, and glisteningly attractive. It knows what it’s doing, and the script is much better than just adequate. Dickens excels at depicting scathing exchanges between rivals, and Liv, of course, is not the target of Caryl’s superb passive-aggression towards her daughter. I hope Coleman a long and prosperous career along the lines of Suranne Jones since she is fantastic as always. Jackson-Cohen is excellent as well, with Dickens taking care to avoid making Will such a blatant bad guy that we stop supporting them when they get a second opportunity. However, he shouldn’t be such a non-rotter that we won’t look forward to his demise when he betrays Liv and I once more.

Wilderness is enjoyable. The world won’t be changed by it. That’s fine too. Play is okay. It’s uncommon to have fun. Fun is more than sufficient.

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