Jason Patric stars in "Wayward Pines"

If "Game of Thrones" can go recklessly off-book, so can "Wayward Pines." After the positive reception of the psychological thriller's freshman season, the series, based on the novel trilogy by Blake Crouch, is back again as a mid-season replacement.

Originally intended as a one-off miniseries, "Wayward Pines" ended its 10-episode first season with a finale that effectively wrapped up the story, but that doesn't mean there's not a lot more in store for the residents of the eerie little town this time around. Season 2 of "Wayward Pines" premieres Wednesday, May 25, on Fox.

As readers of Crouch's novels will know, the series has veered off from the books' content. It goes without saying that this is invariably the case when a written work is adapted for the screen, and the fact that the trilogy wasn't yet complete when the show was in development means that a certain amount of disparity between the two was a given.

Not to mention the entire trilogy was crammed into 10 episodes with a distinct beginning, middle and end to the story, so the show couldn't exactly cover every detail. The chaotic season finale, despite being written as a clear-cut end to the story, did manage to usher in some notable changes for season 2, including the cast.

The most obvious of these is the main protagonist. Matt Dillon's ("Bad Country," 2014) character, Ethan Burke, dies a hero's death in the last episode. Jason Patric ("My Sister's Keeper," 2009) fills the void as season 2's central character, Dr. Theo Yedlin, who awakens from suspended animation to find himself in the middle of a rebellion roughly three years after the events of the season 1 finale. The residents are battling the iron-fisted rule of the First Generation: a group of kids and teenagers who learned the truth about the town before any of the adults did and which is controlled by the ruthless young Jason Higgins (Tom Stevens ["Cedar Cove"], who was bumped up to the main cast this season).

To get you up to speed, the central mind-bender from the first season is that the eponymous Wayward Pines is much more than a poky little town. We learn midway through season 1 that, unbeknownst to the town's residents, the year is 4028 and the majority of humanity has mutated into vicious, carnivorous creatures known as "Abbies" (aberrations). The Earth is a wasteland, and the Abbies dominate it.

David Pilcher (Toby Jones, "The Hunger Games," 2012) founded Wayward Pines to exist as an ark to preserve the species, placing a number of humans in hibernation chambers for 2,000 years. The series opens with the awakening of Burke, and it's obvious from the get-go that the town isn't exactly normal. For starters, nobody can leave and nobody can ask questions -- if they do, they're killed. Not normal.

Melissa Leo as seen in "Wayward Pines"

With the way season 1 ended, audiences might wonder how a second season could come to pass. To begin with, the two major players are killed: Burke sacrifices himself to save the remaining residents from the Abbies that have breached the perimeter of the town, and Pilcher is killed by his sister, Pam (Melissa Leo, "The Fighter," 2010), who recognizes that her brother has gotten dangerously out of hand.

Fear not, however. Besides the addition of a new lead -- and a new antagonist in Pilcher's acolyte, Higgins -- acclaimed director M. Night Shyamalan has things well in hand for season 2's plot, which no longer has the novels to draw from. Additionally, Crouch is a consulting producer for the show, so there's no concern that it won't retain is Pinesy feel.

"We are outside the fence a little bit," said Shyamalan of the focus of the upcoming season at a Wondercon roundtable. "I think we could say the second season is about the Abbies. It seems at the end of the first season, you have a kind of primitive understanding of what that is, what an Abby is, but that's actually not what an Abby is."

"One of the hard realizations that the residents of Wayward Pines are going to have to come to terms with is that they're living in the Abbies' world," added Crouch in a season 2 promo. "Is humanity meant to continue on indefinitely?"

This is the chaotic world into which Yedlin awakens, and his is one of several new faces you'll see this season. Djimon Hounsou ("Blood Diamond," 2006) joins the cast as CJ Mitchum, a historian and original resident of Wayward Pines with a vital understanding of its origins and the world as it used to be.

Needless to say, "Wayward Pines" requires a lot of unraveling. Showrunners have taken the series into bold new territory, leaving the source material behind, and there's no shortage of possibilities for where the series can go now. Don't miss the season 2 premiere of "Wayward Pines," airing Wednesday, May 25, on Fox.