Happily Ever After – As the pilot episode of Wilderness begins, Liv Taylor (Jenna Coleman) believes people would’ve hated them if they saw them that day because they were the perfect couple. Everyone was filling their roles like she had been doing since she was a girl. A flashback shows Liv’s parents fighting. She kept quiet and did what she was told. A young Liv also caught her dad having an affair. Liv was always who everyone needed her to be until she met Will (Oliver Jackson-Cohen) who saw through it. She could finally be herself, but she thinks that was a mistake.

Nine months earlier, Liv admits to Will that she is having a hard time believing this is real. They go out to an event where Sol (Everick Golding) is. After getting a drink, Will tells Liv about Elliot Sizemore (Steve Bacic) who created most of the sculptures they saw the other day at the Whitney. Bonnie (Talia Balsam) completes the power couple. Once they’re introduced, Liv tells them that the company has rented them an insane apartment. Bonnie urges Will to speak to the potential patrons in the room. Cara (Ashley Benson) is around if he needs backup. After Will leaves, Liv tells Bonnie that she was a journalist back home.

Bonnie isn’t sure she’d choose her husband if she had to choose between him and her job. Liv is glad she’ll have time to do stuff he had been putting off. Bonnie tells her not to chain herself to the stove while Will strays. Liv doesn’t seem too worried about that since Will is a terrible flirt. Will and Liv catch up with Sol and Marissa (Natalie Sharp). Marissa tells them that Bonnie is throwing a fit because two of the cars have been canceled. Will and Liv leave moments later. Back at home, Olivia tries working on her novel. One day, she tries cooking for Will before he gets home. She receives a call from her mother, Caryl (Claire Rushbrook).

Liv explains she is cooking because she wanted their first Christmas in New York to be nice. She hopes Caryl isn’t spending Christmas alone, but Caryl says it is just a day like any other. Liv offers to fly her over next year. Caryl mentions Liv’s father sunning in Australia with his new woman and putting pictures on Facebook. Liv recommends she stop looking. Will finally makes it hope and questions whether Liv missed him. She denies it, but Will admits he missed her. He steps away to clean up just before Liv gets a message from Sol. She hopes they don’t want him to work tonight. When she checks the message, it says, “I can’t stop thinking about you inside me.”

Once Will gets out of the shower, Liv confronts him about the message. Will claims there is a woman at the conference who liked to flirt to get a rise but nothing happened. He asks when she became the type of person to go through his phone. Will says they can reset the evening so he starts by deleting the message. After he says the woman’s name is Emily, Liv questions why she was named Sol in his phone. She doesn’t know if it is worse that he is sleeping with another one or that she’ll believe his stupid explanation. Liv reminds Will that he promised he wouldn’t be like her father. He admits it was one idiotic night that he wishes had never happened. Liv thanks him for being honest before yelling for him to get out.

The following day, Liv speaks to Ash (Morgana Van Peebles) about Will’s cheating. Ash says she fears that she’ll fall into the places she crawled out of. Liv worries she’ll turn into her mom. She’d rather be dead than watch another woman live the life she had. Ash says those are her mom’s decisions. Since she is so scared of it, Ash believes she is halfway to avoiding it. Ash doesn’t want her to have a pity party. Once Liv is alone, she watches the video of her wedding night. Caryl doesn’t seem to like Will who is busy giving his speech. Liv gets upset and wrecks the apartment. Eventually, Will returns and tries to come back inside.

He pushes paper under the door. Liv notices it says, “The Ultimate American Road Trip” on the front. It looks like tickets inside. Liv opens the door and questions whether it is a bribe. Will says it is the trip she always wanted. It should’ve been their honeymoon, but he was too fixated on work. Liv eventually agrees to come with him. They stop at a restaurant next to the road and snap a selfie together. Once they sit down, Liv doesn’t tell Will where they’re going. He is fine as long as it doesn’t involve heights. They discuss using a map and Liv’s mother. Will says he loves her although she is so hard. Three weeks earlier, Liv tries to pick out destinations and attractions. She chooses a rafting tour that requires a lifesaver certification.

Liv manages to guess the password to Will’s computer so she can use his certificate. Then, she looks at the emails from Cara Parker to Will. She soon finds out that they have been having an affair. Liv watches a video of them together. Later, Will comes home with gifts including an infinity necklace. Liv admits that the whole forgiveness schtick stuck in the craw. There was a clean way that would free her from a life of having to watch him move on without her. As Liv stands on a cliff’s edge, Will reminds her he doesn’t like heights. Nevertheless, he musters up the courage to join her. Liv stands behind him and seems to be contemplating pushing him over.

Before she can, a woman nearby yells for help. Liv says it was the perfect place for an accident. She discusses other ways she could kill Will. It would need to be something mundane that would be nothing in real life. They get ready for the rafting trip. Liv has a pocket knife that she uses to cut the straps inside the raft. Will slides his shoe into the straps moments later. They set off. At one point, Will goes over. Liv helps him back into the raft only to fall out herself. He tries to help her. Later, they share a toast to surviving. Liv says it is nice and normal. Will reveals he kept a dead sparrow in his freezer when he was eleven and had dreams of stuffing it.

He got shipped off to boarding school before he had a chance. One day, he received a package that was Henry and it was thawing out. It includes a psalm his father had found telling him not to mess around with a creature’s burial. They end up trying to have sex. Liv explains that her story doesn’t make sense because love is the one thing that doesn’t. She says a happily ever after goes to show that forgiveness is possible. Will receives a call. He claims it is work so he tells Liv to give him five minutes. Liv eavesdrops on him as he tells Cara that he misses her and hasn’t been ignoring her. When he comes back, he tells Liv it was Bonnie getting into a state over nothing.

They return to where they were. Liv tells the audience they’re too easy. They really want the blood and dead girls on slabs and a look inside the mind of the person who did. In this case, Liv is that person.

 

Wilderness Review

The opening episode of Wilderness did an okay job of setting up the story while introducing the two main characters, Liv and Will Taylor. The camerawork is consistent while the scenery in the series is great. At the very least, many scenes are fun to look at, but the inside scenes tend to be a bit too dark.

Jenna Coleman is good as usual and Oliver Jackson-Cohen seems to be an adequate partner. I can’t say how closely this follows the book since I haven’t read it. At this point, Liv and Will get married and move to New York before Liv finds out that Will is having an affair with Cara. Will tries to make it up to her by taking her on a road trip across the country.

Liv plots to kill Will who continues his affair. On the surface, the story has the potential to get very interesting although it is far from original and even slightly unrealistic. It feels like it is running in circles when Will could’ve been killed twenty minutes ago if that is the eventual conclusion. The story can’t possibly be stretched into six episodes without getting very tedious in the middle and towards the end. Even this episode felt a little slow at times considering most of this could’ve been covered in ten minutes.

The series is oozing with agendas that aren’t going to sit well with some viewers. As the story progresses and the plot thickens, the intensity level may increase significantly. Otherwise, this is just another opportunity to see the impeccable Jenna Coleman in a less-than-stellar series. The opening episode scores a 6 out of 10. Recaps of Wilderness can be found on Reel Mockery here.

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