You can’t leave Wayward Pines. That’s a good thing in the case of today’s return-casting news: the brilliant Melissa Leo and brooding Charlie Tahan are both returning to the creepy hamlet of FOX’s Wayward Pines in the show’s second season. Tahan played Ben, the son of Ethan Burke (Matt Dillon) in the first season.
The news comes from TVLine, who recently learned that Tahan is set to reprise his role as one of the sole main characters left standing after the events of last year’s bonkers finale, where he woke up from a bump on the head to discover a somehow-even-weirder town surrounding him. No specific connection has been given to Tahan’s character Ben and the new star of Wayward Pines, Jason Patric‘s surgeon Dr. Theo Yedlin, but hopefully we’ll learn more soon.
Most excitingly, Melissa Leo is also set to reprise her role as the creepy-but-cool Nurse Pam on the show, who made her small role on the mystery series indelibly memorable. Recent news confirmed that the two will also be joined by Carla Gugino’s Secret Service Agent Kate Hewson, but it’s still not clear how much the adults will be featured on the series, given their frozen fates last year.
The rumors seem to hint that all of season one’s returning members will be featured “in a limited capacity,” making room for new stars like Patric and Djimon Hounsou. Hopefully not too limited, because the idea of Ben facing the town alone — and with a creepy group of First Generation peers watching his every movement — sounds too good to pass up.
Like season one, the second season of Wayward Pines will be a summer series and premiere sometime in mid-2016, but no specific date has yet been designated. We’ll be sure to keep you updated when that happens, so stay tuned.
