Wayward Pines - 'Our Town, Our Law'

"I'm a reasonable man, although I will confess a bit rapey."

Now that Ethan has twice made a direct escape attempt from Wayward Pines and actually stabbed a guy rather than just being accused of a murder he (probably) didn't commit, and has witnessed the Sheriff execute his friend Beverly, he is naturally still given the complete run of the place. (In fairness, this continuing liberty clearly pisses off Sheriff Arnold 'This is my town' Pope to no end. Ethan is slowly realising that there is more going on here than a local sheriff on a power trip; there is someone else pulling the strings.

He makes another escape attempt, stowing away on a curiously general purpose delivery truck which takes him to an underground garage full of abandoned cars, where he is once more knocked out by Pope and dragged back topside. To his astonishment, he finds that he now has a house in Wayward Pines - Beverly's old house - and that Theresa and Ben apparently live there with him. All three of the Burkes are pretty weirded out, especially when Pope comes around being all creepy at Theresa (his alpha male attitude taking on uncomfortably rapey overtones with Theresa.)

Ethan makes one more run at getting information from Kate, learning that she really has been there twelve years and that Bill Evans only showed up for the last two of those, apparently unaged as Ethan was. She also advises him to tell Theresa she is there before gossip does, but Ben has already tailed his dad and so Ben and Theresa head off on foot, only to be chased down by Sheriff Pope. When he threatens the family, Ethan attacks him, Ben runs him down in his own car and Ethan shoots him with his own gun (another reviewer points out the irony that his own symbols and tools of mastery are turned on Pope.)

The Burke's attempt to escape by using Pope's key fob to open a door in the Jurassic Park fence, but something comes through and snatches Pope's body, and they quickly slam the door on an eerie, inhuman howling.

The changes from the book continue to confuse me, as they pretty universally serve to make the forces controlling the town seem much, much stupider, its equilibrium far more unstable. Moreover, while it is important for recognition, making Ben an angry teenager before coming to Pines makes the appearance of the Burkes in the town much less unsettling, and is just one of the things that makes the whole setup less frightening. Despite Pope's speeches about everyone in town maintaining the order of things, it really is down to fear of a man with a gun at the moment.

Still, here there be monsters it seems, and that's got to shake things up a little, right?