For a second there, it looked like Liv would get away with attempted murder and hang onto her philandering husband. And she was going to be perfectly OKAY with that.
Liv’s emotions change like the wind, and we got a front-row seat to those conflicting feelings during Wilderness Season 1 Episode 3.
It’s easy to see things getting more complicated for her from here on out, not easier. Death often brings out many secrets people wish could be buried, too.
Cara being the one who took the plunge wasn’t surprising, but what was surprising was the fact that she lived at first.
That kind of fall and the amount of time she was out there alone seemed like a death sentence, but she somehow made it, and to even be talking a few hours later was shocking. Once they decided to have her live, they should have just followed through.
It would have been an interesting little cat-and-mouse game to see how Liv and Will dealt with that situation.
But alas, once Cara succumbed to her injuries, it became pretty clear where things were going. And while nothing had been pinned on Will yet, he saw the writing on the wall.
Seeing Will at the door shocked Liv but not the audience. If you don’t see someone’s face before the “die,” prepare for the old switcheroo.
I’m not sure whether it was meant to be funny, but Liv immediately shutting the door in his face was funny, if only because she did it out of sheer panic.
Will was none the wiser, thinking she was still upset from the night before and his staying out all night, but it was actually because she thought she was seeing someone come back from the dead.
I still maintain that in her heart of hearts, Liv isn’t a killer, but she sure did flip that switch from fear and maybe even remorse to covering her tracks in an instant. I’ll eat my words if it turns out she’s a seasoned killer going back to her youth when she killed one of her father’s mistresses or something.
But that doesn’t seem like what’s happening here. This feels like a case where a woman has reached her boiling point. Her fury consuming her in a way that has manifested itself into a physical rage.
Liv: That’s not who I am. Will: A person can only be pushed so far.
Look what you made me do, right?
Will’s arrival came with a litany of apologies yet again, and Liv just…accepted them honestly. And I guess to her, she figured what happened, happened. She pushed someone to their presumable death, but it wasn’t Will, and they could move on with their trip.
It was weird to see her and them revert so quickly back to Will-and-Liv after all the hurtful things that were said and her attempt to kill him. But it was certainly short-lived when they found Garth losing his mind.
Liv morphed into caregiving mode, and the calm with which she approached the whole day was downright scary at times. She was stoic and composed during a situation where most people would crumble.
Can you imagine if Will was in her predicament? He would have given himself away the minute someone looked at him the wrong way.
Liv thinking she was in the clear was wishful thinking because once Cara died, she started to feel like the walls were closing in. And while she’d kept Caryl at arm’s length throughout her whole ordeal with Will, she only wanted to talk to her mother when she finally broke down.
I can’t get a grip on Caryl because she’s presented as a self-absorbed and inconsiderate parent, much more concerned with herself than her daughter’s happiness. However, she showed tremendous self-awareness in her advice to Liv.
Of course, she had no idea what Liv was going through, but she at least cautioned her to confront her issues instead of letting them fester to the point they became her whole identity. It’s the first time since we met Caryl that she gave a shred of decent advice, aside from telling her to leave Will.
But even that seemed to come from more of a self-interested place than concern for Liv because she doesn’t seem to listen to Liv much.
She has been right about Will, so on the one hand, you can’t fault her. But she’s also incapable of allowing her daughter to feel heard.
What was in that letter Liv left for Will? If she confessed her sins, I hope she ran back up to the room after talking to the cops and got to it before Will if she wanted to save herself.
If she was set to confess, it didn’t take much to sway her away from that. It’s fascinating that she was already testing her acting skills in the mirror when she thought she’d killed Will. But with Cara, the other woman, she felt something much more akin to shame.
So often, the other person gets the brunt of the anger, not the one meant to love and protect.
She’d understood and sympathized with Cara far more than she probably ever thought she could. She may have felt genuine remorse for her actions, but once Will started begging, her anger returned.
Will, Will, Will.
I’m convinced he would have never told Liv the truth and would have stuck to his one-night story even if Liv threw all the evidence she found back in his face.
He only told Liv the truth (which is relative because if we didn’t see it, we shouldn’t trust it), and he only did it to protect himself.
He’s not an idiot. It won’t take the authorities long to figure out that Will and Cara were more than co-workers. Plus, his raincoat was bound to be near the scene.
There will be a lot of questions once certain truths are revealed, but the biggest one of all will be figuring out where Will was when Liv pushed Cara.
Liv was in all her sociopathic glory when she let Will do everything but get down on his knees and kiss her feet. She was reveling in finally getting Will to do something other than lie because she knew he was freaking out and covering his tracks for nothing.
So, now that she’s given him an alibi, what does Liv do next? When things hit the fan, and they will, does Liv continue trying to protect herself and her husband?
I could see a scenario where she tries to pin the crime on someone else, and wouldn’t Will be the easiest suspect?
She may have wanted him dead, but seeing him pay the price in a whole different way may be the sweeter revenger in the end.
Odds and Ends
If there is anyone in this world to feel sorry for, it’s Garth. He loved Cara and seemingly had no idea she was ready to leave him in the middle of the night if she could.
How long can the cops realistically make someone stay at that hotel while investigating?
You could see in the flashback of Will’s proposal how in love with him Liv was. He made them feel like they were partners, and she latched onto that fully and believed it to be true.
I’m shocked that in the year 2023, there seemingly weren’t cameras all over that hotel. Because if there were, it would be pretty damn easy to see the comings and goings of Cara, Will, and Liv that evening.
This was a slow hour, with the big reveal about who was pushed over the cliff being the only intriguing thing.
But Liv has officially entered her villain era, and the final few hours should be an exciting exploration into her psyche.
As always, hit the comments with your thoughts, fanatics!
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Whitney Evans is a staff writer for TV Fanatic. Follow her on Twitter.
