A warm welcome. The Wilds executive producers Sarah Streicher and Amy B. Harris left the audience with plenty of questions at the end of season 1 — including whether some fan favorite characters were dead or alive — and they exclusively told Us Weekly what to expect when the hit series returns.
The Prime Video series introduced a group of teenage girls who end up stranded on a deserted island after a plane crash. The survivors think it is an accident, while viewers are quickly clued into the social experiment at large.
The Wilds season 1 switched timelines, showing viewers the high school students surviving the island and later being interviewed about their experience by the people responsible — without the girls knowing. Leah (Sarah Pidgeon) briefly escapes in the finale which is when she discovers that another island exists with a group of boys trying to survive.
Streicher and Harris explained their vision for the show amid a resurgence in survival dramas.
“Not everyone ends up in a certain type of job or college, but everyone comes of age in high school. So it’s the most relatable experience for everyone,” Harris exclusively told Us ahead of the second season premiere, noting that her own experiences shaped the writing differently than Streicher’s did. “Everything’s very different yet we all can really relate to that. The most painful but true thing about coming of age is it does feel life or death.”
Streicher, for her part, pointed out how the girls offer a realistic look at life for many people. “We suffer from a bit of a tradition of selling young women short. These survival dramas make it a bold face point that they’re very strong — beyond their wildest imagination,” she added at the time. “It’s part of this movement to really hit that home among people.”
Ahead of season 2, Troy Winbush and David Sullivan hinted at the way The Wilds changed with a new set of cast members.
“[It was] challenging to say the least because season 1 was all about the girls,” Winbush, who played Dean Young, told Us. “Now we’re bringing in new characters with different attitudes, perspectives and way of approaching things. It was challenging from an actor’s point of view but it was brilliant because we get a chance to work off these different personalities and now you’re bringing in a whole new set of situations.”
Sullivan also opened up about exploring a character who doesn’t give his true intentions away onscreen. “That’s what is great about their dynamic,” the actor, who plays Daniel Faber, teased. “You think that they know each other really, really well. That partly has to do with just our chemistry and who we are as actors. But at the end of the day, we may be there for two totally different reasons. You don’t necessarily know what those reasons are and how aligned they are.”
He added: “During the first season, you saw us both on the same team. Then I think as it goes on, as [season 2] progresses, you start to learn that there’s different tactics at play here.”
The Wilds returns to Prime Video on Friday, May 6.
Scroll down for everything to remember where all the characters left off before season 2 is released: