How The Wilds Season 2 Sets Up Two Different Operatives

Editor’s note: The below article contains spoilers for Season 2 of The Wilds.

During the first season of The Wilds, we learned that Nora (Helena Howard) had secretly been working on the ground as an operative for Gretchen (Rachel McGriffiths) to give detailed reports about how things with the other girls were going and ensure her experiment ended with success. Of course, this is after the death of Jeanette a.k.a. Lynn (Chi Nguyen) on the first day, the adult that was supposed to be keeping an eye on things. So, upon the introduction of the boys on their own island on The Wilds Season 2, we knew to look out for the same. The boy to “die” on the first day for the boys happens to be Gretchen’s son, Devon, and the other operative is hiding in plain sight… or is he? It’s almost too obvious that Seth (Alex Fitzalan) is the operative — the boys’ equivalent of Nora — from the beginning of the season. And, given Seth’s actions on the island, it drastically taints the data that Gretchen obtains for her experiment (whether she wants to believe it or not).

During Nora’s time on the island, before Gretchen and the others faked her death when the shark took a bite of Rachel (Reign Edwards), she consistently stayed in the background. She agreed to help Gretchen with the experiment to help her sister, so while she followed through on her duties as the operative, Nora’s primary focus fell to Rachel and trying to help her recover. Nothing Nora does on the island, to our knowledge, helps the girls survive — aside from strategically placing the bag of medicines and first aid supplies from Gretchen. Dot (Shannon Berry) steps up as the leader of the group given her vast knowledge of survival television shows. The girls all work together — admittedly with major disagreements and setbacks — to survive, offering their skills to better the group and life on the island. Nora plays her part well as a cog in the machine. Nora’s downfall as an operative had little to do with her, but rather the unexpected death of Jeanette that led Leah (Sarah Pidgeon) to find Jeanette’s satellite phone and gave her suspicions to begin a mission to find out what was really going on with their plane crash and the island. This made Leah pay more attention to the others as she couldn’t fully trust them, leading to Nora being found out.

Whereas Nora took a backseat on the island and allowed the other girls to come together and face their immediate issues during the first season, Seth did the opposite in the second season. He’s desperate for others to like him, so he steps up as the hopeful leader from the very start and tries to be everyone’s friend. It’s quite a different approach than Nora’s, and not in a good way, especially not when it comes to Gretchen’s experiment. Seth’s time on the island is fraught with game-changing errors of his own creation. The most notable is his heinous and utterly despicable sexual assault of Josh (Nicholas Coombe). As is discussed throughout the season, this is the act that tore the boys apart — or, rather, began to separate the other seven boys from Seth.

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The entire reason the boys don’t last as long as the girls is Seth. He single-handedly ruins the experiment and taints all data that Gretchen could collect from the boys’ time on the island. Not that Gretchen is willing to admit that, of course. By day 34, the boys are still doing fine on the island. They’ve exiled Seth once again, and everyone has seen him for who he truly is. The only person still hung up on the person they believed Seth to be is Raf (Zack Calderon), but he’s not willing to risk everything to be nice to Seth again. Seth, having been on the island for about 10 days longer than Nora was, reaches out to Alex (Jarred Blakiston) at headquarters for extraction, only to punch Alex in the face and steal his boat. So, in an effort to get off of the island, Seth convinces two of the other boys — Raf and Kirin (Charles Alexander) — to leave on the boat with him to find civilization and get help. Considering Seth knows this is an experiment, he knows Gretchen will have to pull everyone off of the island. So, despite the other seven boys getting along and surviving just fine without Seth around causing chaos and strife, like the girls did without Nora, Seth ensures the experiment cannot continue. Though unconfirmed, it seems like another attempt by Seth to make the others like him, so they could praise him for getting them off of the island.

The differences between Seth and Nora vastly impacted the experiment on their respective islands. Nora kept quiet, stayed in the background, and let the experiment go on, even when the girls were short on food and water. This allowed the girls to be balanced and depend on each other. Seth, however, did everything he could without outright telling the others he’s working with their captors to make sure the boys would succeed. He wants to be the leader, which he is for a while before Kirin takes over, and Seth helps to give the boys a head start over the girls. If Seth had been removed from the island by Alex, it’s quite likely that the boys would have continued on, just fine, until day 50.

Nora helped Gretchen’s experiment move forward, while Seth caused a major setback. It’s stunning how blind Gretchen is to her tainted data because it matches her bias against the boys and her desperation to win. Gretchen set the boys up for failure by bringing Seth along (not to mention making him her operative) and not properly researching his background. Seth’s rage issues and “nice guy” behavior started long before the island, as we see in his flashbacks, which Gretchen could have figured out. She has read all the girls so well, and seemingly knows everything about them. At this point, it seems likely that Gretchen put little effort into the boys’ experiment because she didn’t want them to succeed.

Seasons 1 and 2 The Wilds are now streaming on Prime Video.

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