On this chapter of The Queerest Things I Watched Last Week… Happy holidays, everyone! My favorite present this year was The Wilds on Amazon. I was hooked after one episode and loved the queer characters.
- The Wilds – Season 1 [Binge-Watch]
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I didn’t know much about this Amazon Prime original series, but as the excited binge-watching spread throughout the LWTV Slack community, I decided to give it a try.
In episode one a group of 9 teenage girls are riding a fancy plane to an “empowerment retreat” in Hawaii. After having watched every NXIVM documentary in existence my wife was like, “It’s DOS Jr.” Soon the plane takes a nosedive and the girls wind up stranded on a deserted island.
At this point, I thought I had the show figured out. It was Lord of the Flies but with a diverse group of girls including an obviously gay one named Toni. The acting and dialogue was very basic teen drama, but entertaining so I figured I’d keep going. By the end of the episode, Rachel Griffiths informed me everything I thought I knew about the show was wrong and I was hooked. I binged the rest anxiously waiting to see every layer as it was revealed.
The show is addictive and really well done. Characters you think are mediocre are that way on purpose and you see why later. I’m not giving anything away, because every reveal so satisfying, but I’ll talk about the gay part a little bit.
Toni is the out lesbian on the island and although she has some anger management issues, she’s a great character. All of the girls have at least one episode dedicated to their backstory and episode four is Toni’s turn. In her flashbacks, we learn about her relationship with her girlfriend Regan.
The relationship didn’t last (see anger management issues above), but it was nice to have a cute teen queer couple without a coming out story attached to it.
Not to say there are no coming out stories in this show.
I’ll leave things there.
I highly encourage y’all to watch it AND it will have a season two.
This week: My plans for the New Year’s long weekend is to watch the 6th and final season of RED. I’m sad it’ll be over but excited to see what happens with Mel and Liz. Fingers crossed we get to add the show to our Love List.
