Everything You Need to Know About 'The Wilds', Amazon Prime's Latest Survivalist Drama

It happens at least twice a month: You binge an entire television series, and you need something to replace it. You flip around for an hour, trying to decide what's next on the docket. When I was in this predicament last week, I tried The Wilds—Amazon Prime's newest drama series—and I loved it.

The premise seems stock at first glance because we've seen it many times before: nine teenage girls crash land on a Pacific island and struggle to survive. William Golding's 1954 novel Lord of the Flies is the obvious inspiration for the series, but the show also owes a debt to the 2004 television drama Lost. There's more than simple survival at play; there's a rising suspicion among the girls that the island and its circumstances are not as they seem.

The entire show is told in flashback. We first meet the girls after they've presumably been rescued from the island. They're being kept in a secure research facility, and two men are interviewing them, one-by-one, about the circumstances of the plane crash and their subsequent experiences on the island. They all look damaged and traumatized.

Before it crashed, the plane was headed to Hawaii, where the girls were supposed to take part in a therapeutic all-girls retreat. Each of the girls has a specific trauma or issue that she's currently dealing with, which spurred her parents or loved ones to intervene and organize this trip in the first place.

There are ten episodes in Season 1 of The Wilds, and each of them is structured around one girl and her respective backstory. There are nine girls; they each get a single featured episode (except for one girl, who gets two). Leah, for example, is the featured girl in the show's pilot. We see three different time periods:

The show flips back and forth between these time periods as a way of making thematic connections between them. It also conceals the full picture of what happened; the dialogue strongly hints that one or more of the girls is currently dead.

By the end of the pilot, we learn that the entire scenario has been scripted and staged by a research group, which is quietly observing the events on the island and intervening as needed. The premise of this sociological experiment is to prove that these girls, apart from male influence and toxicity, can create their own support system and self-governance. "Unethical" doesn't quite capture how non-scientific this endeavor is.

Needless to say, the experiment doesn't go as planned. Very quickly, the safety parameters and failsafes the company implemented to keep the girls "safe" fall away. What we're left with is an actual survival nightmare. The scientists, led by the hypocritical Gretchen Klein, are too egotistical and self-involved to pull the plug.

The sci-fi is a secondary attraction on The Wilds. The show's real draw is the chemistry between its girls—these well-detailed, fully realized characters that exist at opposites to each other. The sparks between them are what make the series work.

The tensions build through a slow, mounting series of microaggressions and underhanded remarks until they boil over into a physical fight, a viciously mean insult, or in one particular instance, a kiss. The girls fight and hurt each other over things both important (like when a character loses life-saving medicine) and trivial (like who gets to eat the last bag of Takis).

The latter instance is a parallel to prison culture, where limited resources become prized commodities. To paraphrase Wallace Sayre: The feuds are so bitter because the stakes are so low.

The most intriguing plot point is that two of the girls are moles, deliberately embedded into the team by the research company as a way of maintaining order, creating obfuscation, and keeping the other girls safe. This leads to one of the best twists of the series. Be sure you pay attention to who's doing what during the crisis moments.

The nine actresses who play the nine girls are largely unknown to the general public; several have won awards and nominations for prior performances, but none of them have reached mainstream visibility. With any luck, The Wilds will change that. Here are the main characters, in alphabetical order. I've described what they're like when we first meet them, but all of them gain layers and complexity as the season progresses.

A Native American girl with an impractically optimistic attitude, Martha is painfully shy. She needs a lot of physical and emotional support from the other girls, especially at the beginning of the series. She is played by Jenna Clause.

A tough, blunt girl with a direct attitude and a sarcastic sense of humor, Dot emerges early as the group's de facto leader. She is the only girl with practical medical experience. She is played by Shannon Berry.

Jeanette is a girl who defines herself by trends and her social media presence. She has a tendency to overcompensate and come on strong, and she wants to be liked by everyone. She is played by Chi Nguyen.

A teenage beauty queen with strong Christian values, Shelby is friendly and helpful to everyone, but in a way that feels rehearsed and condescending. She is extremely image-conscious. She is played by Mia Healey.

A cello prodigy and party girl, Fatin dislikes work. Her wealthy background and princess attitude grates on everyone's nerves. She goes to high school with Leah. She is played by Sophia Ali.

Leah is a brooding creative type, who loves to read and tries to act older than she really is. She's deeply paranoid and distrusting of others, which leads to some explosive conflicts. She is played by Sarah Pidgeon.

Nora is an artistic "savant," who marches to her own beat and spends most of her time writing and sketching in her notebook. She fights bitterly with her twin sister Rachel, whom she is protective of. She is played by Helena Howard.

An aspiring Olympic diver, Rachel is the most athletic girl of the group. She is single-minded, driven, and direct, which puts her at odds with her twin sister Nora. She is played by Reign Edwards.

Toni is a girl who's had a hard life and no family support. She's best friends with Martha, but unlike her friend, Toni is reactionary and largely expresses herself through anger. She is openly gay. Toni is played by Erana James.

The Wilds is the brainchild of Sarah Streicher. Streicher previously worked as a writer for the Netflix/Marvel streaming series Daredevil. The Wilds is her biggest project to date.

On December 19, Amazon announced that The Wilds was renewed for a second season. Until then, you can stream all 10 episodes of The Wilds exclusively on Amazon Prime.