‘Wildflowers’ Is A Twin-Peaks Esque Small Town Murder Mystery Set In High School

On October 6, noted audio drama creator Terry Miles of the Public Radio Alliance (Tanis, The Black Tapes, Rabbits, etc.) debuted all ten episodes of his latest mini-series Wildflowers about the mysterious death of a high school influencer. Unlike many of his previous works, this one does not involve itself in any way with the supernatural, nor does it pretend to be a real documentary as the actors involved are listed in the credits. Instead, Miles applies his formidable storytelling skill to small-town crime drama while still utilizing many of the tricks he’s known for, such as a spiraling story involving dozens of moving parts and mysterious messages on the internet.

It is set in the Pacific Northwest though in Wildflowers, Washington, which is a small hint that it may be connected to the other Miles-led series, which it follows stylistically beat for beat and is still as effective as ever. If you’ve never heard his shows before, I’d describe it as walls of sound distortion overdubbed with key audio clips from various moments in the series that serves to both put you in a certain listening mindset and remind you what the series is all about, all served up with tight, persistent music with steady beats.

Wildflowers is an Audible Original and with the presumably increased budget comes a tighter focus on what grief and trauma can do to a small town as well as a greater use of thematic music to create a mood.

“The last year of school is weird,” high school student Sloane Shepherd (actor) says in the trailer, “It’s even weirder if one of your friends is murdered and her body unceremoniously dumped underneath a bridge in the pouring rain.” She narrates the series with an extremely disaffected tone while making sharp pronouncements like “let’s face it, teenage girls, we’re fucking devastating.” Her exacting observations put her in the realm of Enid from Ghost World, who believes she stands outside of all the cliques of high school but an Enid who has the detective prowess of a Sherlock Holmes and a curious mind that won’t quit. But as she describes herself, her friends, and the parents of the town who are also trying to solve the murder of local Instagram star Callie Davies, can we really trust her? She seems to know everything about the local goings-on, as well as being able to find friends to help her get on the dark web. Can she solve the mystery before her parents and the cops do? Will she get herself into even deeper trouble and reveal the dark underbelly of her small town ala Twin Peaks?

While the bulk of the audio is from Sloane, there is quite a bit of Callie Davies in uncovered audio and video clips as the murdered star leads us around on a wild goose chase of a mystery which admittedly would require quite a lot of foresight, but as a listener I was hooked and didn’t question it too much.

Episodes 1-9 are rock solid mysterious entertainment that builds and builds to a devastating climax. However, the number of twists and turns in the series prevented a neat and tidy ending and led to a tenth-episode epilogue which in my mind defused the built up tension a bit and ultimately prevented it from being the A+ series it could be. I guess it’ll have to live with an “A” or a 9/10 rating.

Wildflowers is an Audible Original that requires an Audible Premium Plus membership to listen to and is yet another stunning win for Terry Miles and the Public Radio Alliance.