‘Wilderness’ Recap: ‘Home Sweet Home’

Written by John Edward Betancourt

Jenna Coleman as Liv Taylor in Episode 104 of ‘Wilderness’ – ‘Home Sweet Home’. (Photo Courtesy of Kailey Schwerman/Prime Video.)

Caution: This article contains spoilers for Episode Four of ‘Wilderness’. To revisit the previous episode, click here.
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If there is one fundamental question that the Prime Video series, Wilderness, is eager to explore, it would be… whether or not an everyday person can live with committing the ultimate of sins. Because we know that a dark and twisted person can handle that, since they’ve no regard for human life. And to a certain extent, some people can cope with it, when they’ve been trained to do so. Such as soldiers or law enforcement. But the everyday folks of the world, who do not have machinations for mayhem and were never asked to defend their country with a rifle… there’s a real challenge there. For we have downtime, and our thoughts and a sense of right and wrong and yet as it turns out… it would be quite possible for us to live with such an act, as evidenced by the next episode in this fascinating saga.

For ‘Home Sweet Home’ picked up shortly after Liv and Will left the whole mess at the lodge behind and made their way to Vegas for the next leg of their trip. Wherein Liv tried to reconcile Will and Cara’s affair… and the fact that she sent Cara tumbling to her eventual death. Which sent her into a dark place in Sin City, the kind that prompted her to drown her sorrows in booze because for a time there… she could not live with it. For she had taken a life, in a moment of anger no less and it seemed that what we were about to witness, was Liv’s downward spiral and eventual accountability. But on this night of stress and sorrow… Liv used every coping mechanism in her mind to ponder upon the possibility that this was nothing more than accident and if she told herself that enough, she would believe it, and go on.  

Which gave her peace and motivated her to find leverage over Will by setting the standard that he had to behave as a husband and obey, or he’d go to jail. All of which made it clear that with enough self-deception and outright bargaining and deal-making in life, we can find a way to cope with what we’ve done. For the human psyche is flexible and when in trouble, adaptable and eager to embrace survival mode. And while not everyone will go the Liv route, and will collapse and be open about their sin, or avoid the act period, all it takes for those dedicated, is that desire to survive to fix that. Giving rise to some fine commentary on the grey area that exists in the world, and how people are able to sleep at night after committing terrible acts. Simply because they figured out how to cope with such an act, and that made for a dark story for certain, one that did offer some catharsis for the audience… regarding how awful it feels to know people can do this. But more on that in a moment. 

Because we need to discuss the fact that this story went to even bleaker places, thanks to what came next. Because despite the fact that everyone was moving on from Cara, the police sure weren’t. For now, there was concern she was murdered, and that meant the police were once again getting involved and that pushed Liv to her breaking point. In part because she once again had to face the reality that she did something awful and took a life, but also because… it forced her to take part in darker acts. Such as searching Cara’s personal effects, even at her home. Because good ol’ Will gave into her every whim and even gave her a key to the house, and they had to scrub any ties to Cara to keep the police from sniffing around, and it worked, since Garth was eventually arrested.  

All of which made for a bleak episode, one that disgusted the audience and made us wonder if by chance… there can ever be some kind of sense of justice for people like Liv, for those folks who live in the grey, and there is. Simply because, we were privy to the fact that people in her shoes… have to reconcile every single day what they’ve done. Because it doesn’t go away, and it doesn’t become second nature like breathing. It hangs there, it aches, and it does create a void in their souls and hearts. The kind that prompted Liv to push her bestie away at a time when she could have saved Liv. All because of the cognizance that Liv carried and well, now that it seems that life will soon be back to normal-ish for Liv, despite the arrival of her mother… it will be interesting to see what the long-term impact of living with such an act looks like as this fascinating season comes to a close. Until next time. 

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