In Mae Martin’s 2003-set thriller Wayward, a charming Evelyn Wade has cast her spell over an idyllic small town in Vermont, where she runs a teen reform center. And who better to play a hypnotic character like that than Hereditary star Toni Collette? The actor’s presence demands attention when Evelyn struts about with her saccharine voice and a long, flowy mane. Underneath all that lies a tyrannical attitude that Collette conveys often just through her eyes and expressions. It’s a glorious and eerie performance. But Evelyn’s longstanding authority comes to a halt when a cop from Detroit arrives with his pregnant wife for a fresh start—only to stumble into a mystery about several kids who have vanished from Evelyn’s dubious boarding school and the secretive residents who form Tall Pines’ ecosystem.
Wayward fares better as an in-depth character study of Evelyn and those devoted to her (or not) than it does as a thriller that often feels lifted from a Stephen King novel like The Institute, which was adapted into an MGM+ series earlier this year. The narrative resemblance between the two is hard to ignore, even if Martin said their show is loosely based on a friend’s experience. Both series portray disquieting activities in facilities for children, with the ones in this new project taking place at Evelyn’s for-profit academy under the guise of helping teens who seemingly need to be fixed. And in each show, a sincere cop—Ben Barnes’ Tim Jamieson in The Instituteand Martin’s Alex Dempsey in Wayward—strides into town, learns of the corrupt facility, and decides to rescue the kids at a personal cost. The themes that imbued Martin’s previous Netflix series, Feel Good, are framed more darkly here. It’s not an entirely successful attempt, but Wayward has enough gas in the tank to sustain eight hourlong installments.Â
In the semi-autobiographical Feel Good, Martin played a recovering addict trying to maintain their relationship with a closeted woman. Similarly weighty issues like obsessive love, PTSD, loss, and grief anchor Wayward‘s labyrinthine story. Tormented by an incident in his past, Alex wishes for a peaceful existence with Laura (Sarah Gadon) in their scenic community. That hope gets cut short when he bumps into an injured runaway from the school and begins untangling a web of lies spun by everybody around him, including his own spouse. Laura, a graduate under Evelyn’s tutelage, remains burdened by her upbringing and indebted to her former mentor/surrogate parent. The complex interactions between all three of them as they try to keep the truth from each other are quite absorbing, with each actor elevating the predictable material. Gadon’s wide-eyed yet restrained performance turns more and more unhinged as Laura reckons with her Evelyn-related trauma and how she wants to deal with it as motherhood awaits. Meanwhile, Martin presents a calm contrast to both Gadon and Collette, who portray their characters as if they’re pressure cookers about to burst at any minute. Â
Another pivotal chunk of this storystems from Abbie (Sydney Topliffe) and Leila (Alyvia Alyn Lind), two best friends from Canada who find themselves abandoned by their parents and thrown directly into Evelyn’s line of fire. The girls becomes the lens through which Wayward explores the therapeutic techniques deployed to reform adolescents, using their arc to comment on the horrifying and very real troubled-teen industry. Inthe case of this show, students are monitored like prisoners who can’t so much as share a comforting hug without paying a price. The punishments for breaking rules range from food deprivation and flat-out bullying to indoctrination. It’s no surprise when the BFFs get isolated. (Watch out for scene-stealer Isolde Ardies, who plays another student impacted by the brutality, except she doesn’t see it as a problem, allowing Wayward to further dig into how easy it is to be manipulated.) Thankfully, Abbie and Alex’s paths collide soon enough.Â
But as answers start rolling in about Evelyn’s motives, why the Tall Pines community reveres her, and what they want to achieve, the cracks in the case begin to appear. A lot of convoluted beats are tacked on, with imagery like doors and frogs popping up frequently. Despite the show’s stylishly eerie look, Martin’s vision feels more confident in poignant character moments than suspenseful ones. Wayward‘s takeaways lie in the tough conversations between Alex and Laura or Abbie and Leila about what they want to leave behind and carry forward. The found-family aspect becomes thew show’sbeating heart. So even though it doesn’t put a fresh spin on the thriller,Martin’s series packs an emotional punch that’s hard to shake off.Â
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