Wilderness (2023) is a thriller series about a British couple who go on a cross-country road trip to fix their crumbling marriage but things don’t go according to plan. The series is streaming on Prime Video.
Warning: This article contains heavy spoilers
Plot summary:
Liv and Will Taylor are recently married and moved to New York for Will’s job. They are madly in love with each other and Liv upended her entire life for him.
However, things aren’t so rosy a little down the line as Liv finds out that Will is cheating on her one Christmas. He returns the next day and apologizes, insisting that it is a one-time thing.
To cushion the blow, he shows her tickets for a cross-country trip across the US that he set up because it has always been a dream of hers. She accepts the apology and assumes that things are back to normal, even though her assumption is wrong.
A few weeks before the trip, Liv finds evidence of Will’s continued affair with Cara, a colleague of his. Cara wants Will to leave his wife so that they can start a new life together.
Liv keeps quiet about this and instead makes a plan to kill Will during the trip and make it look like an accident. She loosens the fastening for his foot while they go river rafting, but when Will falls over she has a change of heart and saves him.
She once again thinks that this is a sign that their relationship can withstand what they have been through but Will takes a call from Cara at the hotel, and Liv overhears him.
Their next stop is hiking in the woods and Will gets the shock of his life when Cara shows up there with her boyfriend, Garth. Cara spends her time with Will, leaving Liv to talk to Garth about their respective relationships.
They all end up staying in the same hotel but Liv is distant with Will ever since Cara showed up and this angers him. He spends his time drinking away his sorrows, while Cara has an honest conversation with Liv where they acknowledge the truth.
Liv goes back to her room but when Will is headed back, he runs into a very distressed-looking Cara. Liv wakes up in the middle of the night and finds a message from Cara on Will’s phone asking them to meet near the waterfall.
Liv is enraged and rushes to the meeting point where she catches a glimpse of Will in his red windbreaker and pushes him off the edge. The next morning, Will shows up at her doorstep and Liv is horrified with what she has done.
She eventually learns that Cara was the one she pushed over, but Will is more worried because of his history with her and asks Liv to be his alibi. They bypass the initial investigation and head back home but Liv has no interest in continuing a relationship with Will.
When the detectives in New York follow up on the assumption that Cara was pushed, Liv and Will get to work wiping all of their links to Cara. Meanwhile, Garth ends up being the unfortunate soul who is blamed for Cara’s death because he proposed to her and she said no.
Liv’s mother shows up to help her during this tough time even though they don’t have the best of relationships. She figures out about the affair and that one of them was involved in Cara’s death but keeps quiet once Liv admits it was her.
Garth is released by the police due to lack of evidence and he visits Liv and Will while drunk to threaten them. He believes there is something suspicious about them and wants to know what it is.
Will admits to the affair and Garth knocks him out before trying to kill Liv. She gets her hands on a rock that had fallen nearby and bludgeons Garth’s head with it killing him.
Wilderness (2023) ending explained in detail:
What happens after Garth’s death?
Liv and Will head into the police station for questioning and Liv successfully convinces them that she hit him in self-defense, even though that wasn’t entirely the case.
Will sticks around and is still hopeful of rekindling their relationship but Liv isn’t interested in doing that at all. This frustrates Will as she has fun and even sleeps with her neighbor Ash to make a point.
She tells Will that she wants a divorce but Will says that he will tell the police she killed Garth intentionally and that it wasn’t self-defense like she claimed.
What does Will decide?
Will puts in for a transfer at work so that they can move back home and he tells Liv that they can get away and start again. Another idea of his is to start a family which might take their mind off everything else.
Will’s colleague Marrissa sets up a surprise going away party for Will and invites Liv to it, much to Will’s annoyance. Marrissa had an affair with Will before Cara and Liv found out thanks to her mother.
She has a similar conversation with Marrissa as they both blame Will and acknowledge each other. Will gets angry with Liv for acting out and tries to assert himself over her.
What does Liv do?
Liv decides to take matters into her own hands and plays along with Will’s plan. She packs up everything and they head to the airport for their flight to London. They are stopped by the detectives who say that they received an incriminating video.
It is of Cara and Will together, making Will the primary suspect in her murder. Liv feigns shock at this revelation and the detectives assume that she was a victim of a controlling partner which is why she lied to him.
Will is sent to jail and Liv has the luxury of living her life peacefully. She meets Will in prison months later and he says that he figured out that she killed Cara.
He asks her to wait for him and still believes that they can be together but Liv has no interest and admits that she killed Cara thinking it was him.
Also Read: Wilderness (2023) review: Enticing thriller always keeps things ticking