Mae Martin‘s new Netflix series Wayward is a twisty psychological thriller about an academy for “troubled teens,” run by Evelyn Wade (Toni Collette), and the surrounding town that holds a whole lot of secrets.
Evelyn uses questionable methods to get the students to remember traumatic events from their past to prepare them for a ritual called “the Leap,” but the process is eventually turned on her in the end when Alex (Martin) injects her with a too-large portion of the drugs used, resulting in a haunting scene that shows Evelyn reacting to the psychedelic overload.
But did the injection actually kill her? “We actually did a lot of takes which were far more intense and it felt like Evelyn was gone forever,” Collette tells TV Insider. “But it’s kind of left a little open-ended.”
Martin, who created the show, confirms, “I think [Evelyn’s] still in there.”
Alex is a cop who’s new to the town of Tall Pines. He moved there with his pregnant wife, Laura (Sarah Gadon), who used to be a student at Tall Pines Academy and has a troubled history with Evelyn, memories of which she unlocks throughout the series. It doesn’t take long for Alex to notice that things are a little off at the Academy and within the town in general (for example, Tall Pines has no children.)
As he investigates, with help from two of the school’s teens, Abbie (Sydney Topliffe) and Leila (Alyvia Alyn Lind), he makes an enemy out of Evelyn, who wants to “Leap” him before he can find out the full truth of what she’s up to. When Alex escapes, he’s shocked to find that Laura has given birth to their child and is essentially sharing the baby with the rest of the people in the town. “It’s everyone’s. It’s the only way to break the pattern,” Laura insists.
While Alex seems horrified to see that his wife is essentially taking on Evelyn’s leadership role in a new form, he ultimately makes the decision to stay with her and their baby in Tall Pines. He helps Abbie escape by leaving her his car so she can leave town, but he doesn’t join her for the getaway.
“I knew that I wanted the show to escalate to something pretty surreal and almost sort of a parabole by the end, or a weird myth,” Martin explains. “Alex is a deeply flawed character who desperately wants acceptance, and I really understand his choice, in a way. He compromises a lot of his integrity and his morals, but he ultimately wants to stay with his wife and baby. I’m curious for what would happen for them in the future. I think their kid is going to be pretty messed up.”
As for whether or not we’ll get to explore the family’s future in another season of Wayward, that’s still up in the air. “I was told it was a miniseries, but there’s definitely more story to tell, I think,” Martin admits. “We left all those characters in crisis, basically.”
Collette adds that the cast “talks about” returning for a Season 2. “It’s endlessly intriguing,” she says. “Endlessly. So many places it could go, for sure.” As Gadon also points out, “Nothing’s tied up in a neat little bow.”
Wayward, All Episodes, Streaming now, Netflix