“I had no idea that playing this character would open up so many doors for people to have open conversations about their queer experience. For Mia Healey and Erana James, the actors who portray Shelby and Toni (respectively), playing these characters whose love story has resonated so deeply with fans is something they take to heart.
But season 2 begins with Toni and Shelby fully entrenched in their romance even as their group of young women hunts and scavenges for food and shelter to survive. Much of the Amazon Prime series’ first season about a homosocial experiment that involves a staged plane crash and loads of teen drama, saw the two young women at odds. In The Wilds, far from the strictures of society as they knew it, a love story between once-closeted beauty queen Shelby and proudly out Toni blossoms while they are stranded on a deserted island.
