‘Wilderness’ Recap: ‘Happily Ever After’

9/20/2023

Written by John Edward Betancourt

Oliver Jackson-Cohen and Jenna Coleman as Will Taylor and Liv Taylor in Episode 101 of ‘Wilderness’ – ‘Happily Ever After’. (Photo Courtesy of Kailey Schwerman/Prime Video.)

Caution: This article contains spoilers for the Series Premiere of ‘Wilderness’. Also, this piece was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, the series being covered here wouldn’t exist.

When we set out into the world, fully prepared to seize the day and seize our future… we firmly believe that we won’t be able to do so… without true love on our side. For we know deep down, that having a true partner by our side, one that loves us unconditionally and is willing to make sacrifices if needed for our love, will help us rise to the top. For that is what love is supposed to be, unwavering, and powerful, and of course… unbreakable. And meeting someone that we click with will build that foundation and help that worldview of love come to life. But alas… it doesn’t take long for us to learn… that those wildly fluffy concepts… are nothing but a pipe dream and utterly unattainable. Not because love is a joke but because… that’s just not how love works.

For it requires work, real work, and one has to grow with their partner and nurture and love them through the good and the bad, and that’s the real sacrifice that comes into play, and in reality… we cannot expect them to make us whole, we need to understand that love is a partnership, one where a couple complement one another, and where self-work has to come into play for us to find the real peace we seek. Which is a truth that we learn… through complete and utter heartbreak. By thinking that we have that dream in hand, only to learn that the person we thought was going to be our life partner, was nothing less than trash. Who believed that the dream and the fluffy aspects of love could change them or fix them and well… what’s equally as fascinating about this moment, is how long it takes for that truth to genuinely settle into our brain.

Because… there’s a lot of hurt that comes into play when the truth about love is sent our way. The kind that leaves us despondent and broken for a long time, and it is during this time… that we are forced to choose some interesting paths from a healing perspective. Wherein we can truly let this fester and grow and do something foolish and regretful, which in turn brings forth more lessons. Or we can really dive into the truth and discover what we really need out of a partner and love. And there is… a third option, one that few take part in because it is quite awful in nature. Wherein, we can let the pain overtake us before we offer up nuclear revenge to ‘heal’ and well… what that looks like and what drives a person to that is central to the core of the new Prime Video series, Wilderness. A feat that the series premiere, ‘Happily Ever After’ accomplishes in the simplest of manner, by introducing us to a woman named Liz, that thinks she has found the perfect relationship with her new husband, Will.

For they appear to be the perfect couple and truly seem to be in love with one another to the point where they can achieve anything through their love. But it doesn’t take long for Liv to learn, Will is a man child, who believes that infidelity and chasing other women will make him whole, and despite Liv’s best attempts to see this as a temporary flaw, it becomes clear… that’s not the case. This is Will in the raw, and well… the rest of this episode informs us that the pain of such a reality, and the isolation that Liv faces in this story, by giving up her former life to be at his side in the United States… puts her down a dark and dreary path. One where the pain consumes her and she begins to believe that love is nothing more than a giant joke, one that will never be for her and that perhaps her best course of action… is make Will pay the ultimate price for breaking her heart.

Which gives rise to a fine origin story of how heartbreak can turn a person into someone with dark tendencies if they have no support network or hope for a better tomorrow, and well that sets the stage for a grandiose internal conflict for Liv. One where we aren’t quite sure if Liv will commit to the plan to murder her husband to feel whole again. Which means… this is a story that is going to explore the pain that we carry from that first shattered love in great detail, and how powerful that trauma can be through her conflict. All of which makes for an incredible series premiere. One that truly offers up a delightful spin on the jilted lover concept and promises to be quite the impressive ride in the days to come. The kind filled with anger and frustration, and echoes for the audience of that all-important time in our lives when we learn that fairy tale love is a lie, and it will be interesting to see what lessons and temptations and struggles, lie ahead for Liv and her troubled soul… as her rotten road trip with her husband, continues along. Until next time.

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