What Prime Series ‘Wilderness’ Gets Right About Narcissistic Gaslighters
This article contains some spoilers.
The thrilling Amazon prime mini-series Wilderness takes us into deep, uncharted territory with its protagonist, Olivia Taylor (played by Jenna Coleman) who becomes increasingly unraveled, arguably unhinged, as she discovers a twisted affair between her husband and his work colleague (played by Ashley Benson) as well as a series of other indiscretions she slowly uncovers. Olivia begins fantasizing about revenge as she and her husband go on a trip through the “wilderness,” visiting famous national parks. Yet her pursuit of revenge (spoiler ahead) ends up accidentally targeting her husband’s mistress Cara rather her husband. This leads us down a dark and disturbing rabbithole as Olivia doubles down on her seeming devotion to maintain her marriage because she has now lost far too much already to give up now. Here is where Wilderness hits the nail on the head when it comes to depicting narcissistic gaslighters such as Olivia’s husband:
They can be pathological liars. They weaponize pity ploys and false promises that they will “change” to keep you ensnared in the relationship.
Olivia’s husband, Will, has a natural gift for storytelling, what she calls “selling” and his lies are what keeps the relationship from falling apart. What was once “just” a one-night stand with “Emily” who turns out to be his coworker Cara is actually a long-time affair. He keeps his affair partner under the name “Sol” on his phone, proclaiming the raunchy text messages he received were “nothing,” and only confesses the truth when Olivia confronts him and says it’s insulting he would think she would believe his explanation. He only made this “mistake” of sexual indiscretion once, he claims, until we find out differently. Throughout the show, he promises to work harder, to go to counseling if needed, and become the husband Olivia deserves, even though each time we find out he is violating her boundaries further behind her back every time he makes these false promises. During one audacious moment, he even speaks to his mistress on the phone and reassures her while his wife is right in the next room. Despite all his words, his actions are deceptive and callous, and it’s clear that generally, he is unable to think of anyone else’s needs except his own (although he does appear to exhibit genuine shame at times and does defend Olivia from an attacker). Narcissistic traits can make infidelity and chronic deception more likely according to research: many survivors discover their narcissistic partners were living double lives during the relationship. Despite her husband’s pleas that he will become a changed man, we find out that his words are empty and hollow. This is the fate of any survivor who has ever believed in a narcissistic gaslighter and has ever given them a second chance. For Olivia, unfortunately, she continues to give him numerous chances, partly because of his ability to lie and because of the increasingly alarming circumstances that bond them both together. As soon as his mistress, Cara, joins them on the trip with her boyfriend Garth, he continues pursuing Cara discreetly and making her promises to leave his wife that he can’t keep.
The trauma bonding and sunk cost fallacy in a relationship with a narcissistic gaslighter can be extreme.
Spoiler alert: After Olivia “accidentally” harms the mistress rather than her husband in a fit of rage, she becomes persuaded by her husband to still try and make the marriage work. Almost each and every time, she complies because now there is too much to lose and far too much at stake to run away now. Her commitment to her husband is now all she has and she’s not about to give it up after everything she’s done to keep the relationship and betray her own values. This is the “sunk cost fallacy” at work in toxic relationships: you stay because you’ve invested too much time and effort to go. You’re dysfunctionally attached or trauma bonded because the narcissistic partner has created an intense bond with you filled with betrayal, and it leaves you scrambling for survival – to hold onto the relationship and to hold on to yourself. Not only has she invested everything into her marriage, moving to an entirely different country and leaving her job to support her husband, Liv now risks going to prison for murder if she doesn’t also help him with his own alibi on the night of the murder. Covering his tracks will cover her own – or so she thinks (until she’s threatened by him in ways that make it clear he’s used coercive control to ensure she stays in the relationship).
Narcissistic people don’t care about you, they care about what you do for them and their image.
The character of Olivia is a complex one. She is initially portrayed as a codependent person who gave up her career as a journalist, moving for her husband and having “only him” as her sole source of support. In fact, we see her husband’s accusations that she is fragile and makes him her whole world, which he uses to gaslight her into believing that she’s at fault for his infidelity. Yet as we find out later, the situation may have been more coercive and her husband may have potentially isolated her on purpose to have more control over her, as evidenced by his threats against her when she tries to divorce him. It’s clear his behavior has little to do with her and everything to do with deep-seated issues and a core lack of empathy he’s always had. Olivia is depicted as crazy by her husband when she tries to stand up for herself or even accused of violating his privacy when she first finds out what he’s been doing, in classic gaslighting fashion. You might wonder why her husband is so desperate not to let her go. Why would such a playboy who deliberately goes out of his way to have these affairs need to hold on to a marriage at all? For her narcissistic husband, having a wife by his side is the ultimate “trophy” and he’s not willing to lose her because it affects his reputation. Rather than sharing that he loves her each time he is asked why he continues to fight for the marriage, he tells her that, “Because you’re my wife,” and that he can’t “fail” in front of his friends and family members. For a narcissist, image is everything. It’s not about authentic connection but how you look to society. If a narcissistic person is investing in you, they have a darker and deeper agenda than “love.”
A relationship with a narcissist requires vast amounts of sacrifice, most of which you can’t take back.
In Wilderness, the costs of staying with a narcissistic partner are extreme because the storyline is extreme. Yet even in “regular” scenarios such as marriage and childrearing without all the murder, we know that people sacrifice numerous years, even decades into partners who betray them, violate them continuously, and raise children with people who lead double lives. The sacrifices when it comes to being with a gaslighting narcissistic partner are immense: they take a toll on your mental health, finances, and can change the entire path of your life-course trajectory. We see Olivia go from trance-like states of numbness and seeming calm to absolute despair throughout the series, exhibiting different types of complex trauma reactions. Yet her reactions to chronic manipulation and the emotional whiplash she experiences throughout the show – of seeing horrifying sexual videos of her husband and his mistress – to the guilt she experiences for what she did to Cara – makes sense given the context. As she tells her husband, “You know, there’s a funny side to this somewhere. Me, stuck inside these four walls. Unable to work. Keeping house like some relic of the 50s.” While he’s prowling around, she’s kept compliant and dormant. One might argue that she had every ability to leave the relationship, but it is far harder than it seems when a narcissistic manipulator is involved, as we see when her husband tries to blackmail her into staying.
You won’t be yourself by the end of a relationship with a narcissist.
Olivia is a morally complicated character who vacillates between being a sympathetic victim and a cold-hearted predator herself. Viewers are forced to ask which part of her personality is innate and what was manufactured by the actions of her husband. You see this illustrated beautifully in the scene where she charges like a wolf at the mistress in the red raincoat (at the time believing it to be her husband), a la Little Red Riding Hood. Her initial empathy for Cara is juxtaposed by her callous willingness to throw innocent Garth under the bus for the murder – she does it without blinking, because now it’s all about survival. In the wilderness, it’s all about predator and prey, and sometimes the prey has to morph into the predator if they want to survive. She declares, “I am who you made me,” in response to her husband asking who she really is at the end of the series. She delivers a fascinating speech to a hiker when she returns to the scene of the crime, declaring that we become the wolves we needed to protect ourselves from the predators among us. Her descent into seeming madness is mixed with a more jaded, calculating demeanor at the end of the series. Spoiler alert: she is able to skillfully put her husband away for a crime he did not commit – yet some viewers may view this as poetic justice as it holds him accountable for the numerous crimes he did commit in their marriage and the way he has felt entitled to violate others, believing the “world and everyone in it” is available for the taking.
Wilderness is easy to binge and hard to forget. It’s challenging to place any character into a “box,” but it is a satisfying and validating watch that captures gaslighting on many different levels. At the end, the main character “gaslights the gaslighter” and is seemingly able to leave with her freedom intact. But she has to sacrifice almost everything to get there.