6 The Wilds Season 3 Theories

Each Season of The Wilds has ended with revealing a new phase in Gretchen Klein’s experiment. After Season 1 spent the entire time focused on the “Dawn of Eve” girls, the show’s final moments showed Phase 2, the “Twilight of Adam” boys. Season 2 followed a similar structure with both groups staying separate, until the final moments brought them all together for Phase 3. These The Wilds Season 3 theories about Phase 3 could indicate where the show goes from here.

Warning: Spoilers for The Wilds Seasons 1 and 2 follow. Season 1’s focus on the girls wasn’t just limited to their time on the island. The show jumped back and forth through time. Fans got to know the girls’ lives before the plane crash that stranded them and flash-forwards showing what looked like post-rescue interviews. Those interviews, it turned out, were part of a larger conspiracy. The girls’ plane hadn’t crashed; this was a social experiment to put eight girls together on an island and see how well they could build a society without men, and the interviews were still part of the experiment.

Season 2 revealed the experiment’s other half: eight boys who also believed themselves stranded on a deserted island via plane crash. Gretchen’s theory was that the boys would not be able to come together and work as a unit or build a working society as quickly or successfully as the girls. For the first week, it seemed as if she was wrong; the boys raced through the benchmarks far quicker than their female counterparts. But then an incident in which Gretchen’s poorly chosen mole, Seth, assaulted one of the other “survivors,” Josh, and tried to cover it up. This majorly divided the group, stalling out their progress.

By the end of Season 2, The Wilds had caught up to all its flash-forward scenes, with both the girls’ and boys’ groups quarantined at the operations’ headquarters. Gretchen and her crew escaped after Leah managed to contact the outside world, but the kids are still stranded on an island, with little to work with beyond their survival skills.

The Wilds Season 3 has yet to be renewed, But if it is, here’s what fans think could happen next.

1. Phase 3 Involves The Guys & Girls Working Together

As Gretchen and her team took off at the end of Season 2, admitting they were on the lam from a coming FBI investigation, she announced nothing had changed. They would be moving to a new, safer location, away from where the FBI might look for them, but their cameras were still in place. They’d monitor “Phase 3” of the experiment remotely.

Although it’s not confirmed, Phase 3 looks to be the next logical step. Gretchen is putting the two groups together to see how the boys and girls work together to build a society after going it alone.

2. Toni & Shelby Will Inspire One Of The Guys To Come Out

One of the noticeable differences between the guys’ and girls’ the groups is that Toni’s out-and-proud LGBTQ+ status helped Shelby to come out, and the two fell in love. In the group of boys, Ivan is also proud of his LGBTQ+ status, but his presence does not inspire anyone to come out (at least, not yet). But with more LGBTQ+ members in the group. and Toni and Shelby’s now on-and-off relationship in front of them, it seems likely someone in the boys’ group could confront their feelings and come out.

Another factor? The heterosexual coupling that’s bound to happen among the teens. Though it's unclear who will hook up with who, teenage hormones, zero adults, and stress bonding will cause at least one hookup, if not multiple.

3. The Girls Will Hold The Real Power

From the beginning, Gretchen believed her experiment would prove girls are better suited to building a society than boys. Her belief was so sure that it seemed like early on, she was working to make the boys’ experience more complicated. Moreover, when Seth assaulted Josh, she moved the goalposts instead of admitting her test group was flawed and her experiment compromised. Seth’s assault derailing the Twilight of Adam group’s progress was proof that the boys couldn’t hack it because of their toxic masculinity.

Though fans don’t know yet what she expects by mixing the groups, it seems likely she will once again slant the results to follow her pre-conceived notions. She will praise any acts by the girls to be alpha leaders, but if the girls start letting the boys take the lead — as society has programmed them to do — she will show that these are signs of how clever the girls are to hold soft power, manipulating the men into doing the hard work.

4. Shelby & Josh Are The New Moles

Speaking of the moles, Gretchen admitted she wouldn’t leave the kids there without a plan to watch over them, and she wouldn’t leave them without eyes on the ground to communicate with her. That means she still has people in the group who are her operatives.

Gretchen’s four original operatives are no longer part of the group. Jeanette passed away, DJ was removed within the first few hours, Nora disappeared after rescuing her sister, and Seth is compromised. Although Seth is still running the show on the island, it appears at least one, if not two, new operatives may have been selected as moles.

The most obvious is Shelby, whose time on the island has changed her life. Her buzzcut and attitude (and her fear of returning to reality) make her a prime target for Gretchen to pick.

As for who among the boys is the most obvious candidate, Josh, who retreated into toxic masculine behavior following Seth’s attack, seems the most obvious for Gretchen to choose. Like Shelby, he’s not going to want to return to his old life — especially if he learns his parents were the only ones who paid for him to participate in this hellish experiment.

5. Gretchen Left Seth Behind To Take The Fall

Speaking of the compromised Seth, one of the oddest moments at the very end of Season 2 was a shot of Seth in a DJ booth blasting Depeche Mode over the island’s loudspeaker system to torture the survivors. The show has already unmasked him as a monster, and he does not appear to be part of the Phase 3 group. So why didn’t he leave with Gretchen and company?

The theory? Gretchen knows the FBI is coming, and she wants to give them someone to stall them from following her crew to their undisclosed location. The easiest way to do this is to provide them with an already guilty patsy who thinks he knows what’s happening but is a clueless red herring: Seth. The only question is how many episodes will Seth get to openly torture the survivors before the FBI removes him and if, when they show up, the FBI will rescue the teens too.

6. Nora Will Return & Save People

Nora and Seth are opposites. As a mole, Nora worked hard to try and keep her group on track, hit their benchmarks, and work as a team. When Leah began to find her out, she attempted to have Leah removed safely, rather than harm her. (Not that Leah knew that.) She was selfless, until Gretchen removed her from the group after Leah’s discovery. Her final act was to save Rachel from a shark attack.

If Seth is being set up to torture the group and then take the fall for Gretchen, then Nora will most likely be the one to lead the rescue team to bring everyone home. Whether she arrives with the FBI or after they fail to rescue the kids remains to be seen. But Nora returning as a hero seems a likely outcome for her return.

The Wilds Seasons 1 and 2 are streaming on Amazon Prime Video. Season 3 has not yet been greenlit, but fans are hopeful.