When Someone You Like Makes Something You Really Don't

I am a big fan of Mae Martin, their stand-up comedy, their brilliant stint on Taskmaster, and even their relationship with Parvati Shallow of Survivor fame. They are funny, frank, and stole every scene in The Flight Attendant.

All of which left me predisposed to like Netflix’s new series Wayward, which not only stars Mae Martin but was also created and written by them. Unfortunately, it’s not good. I can’t even soft-pedal it: Wayward is bad. And the dagger here is that it’s because of Mae Martin, whose writing and mediocre acting sink the show despite Toni Collette’s best efforts to save it.

Wayward concerns a school for troubled teens in the small town of Tall Pines, Vermont. Mae Martin plays Alex Dempsey, a trans police officer who moves there with his wife, Laura (Sarah Gadon), after being fired from his previous job. Tall Pines is a mysterious little town founded by hippies in the ’60s and ’70s, where no one actually has kids because the community has long been dedicated to supporting the school’s troubled teens. Laura, who is pregnant, will be the first resident to have a child.

It turns out, however, that Laura was once a student at the school and has a mentor in Evelyn Wade (Toni Collette), the guru/cult leader who runs it. When Alex arrives, a student named Riley disappears after attempting to run away, and two best friends, Leila (Alyvia Alyn Lind) and Abbie (Sydney Topliffe), are admitted. Abbie’s overly strict parents enrolled her, and Leila followed in an attempt to break her out, but ultimately ended up being trapped there, as well.

It’s clear from the outset that something is very wrong at the school, never mind that 18 kids have gone missing (and are likely dead) since its founding. Treatment under Evelyn Wade involves abusive therapy and radical programming designed to sever children’s ties with their parents. The big mystery in Wayward is what this programming entails, exactly, which Alex investigates while several students — led by Leila and Abbie — plot their escape.

That’s the premise, and I wish I could say there was more to it. But that’s about it. The plot mostly drags out revelations about the school at the slowest pace imaginable. It’s a slog, amounting to little more than waiting around for Wayward to dispense information while resisting the urge to skip to the finale just to get it over with.

And really, the only reason not to skip ahead is Toni Collette, who — as always — is remarkably good, bringing life to an otherwise badly written, stock cult-leader role. What becomes clear is that the students either leave deeply traumatized or remain devoted to Evelyn forever, which is probably Mae Martin’s attempt at drawing real-world parallels to political figures like our President, who can amass a loyal following using tactics that leave others scarred. It’s well-intentioned, but poorly executed. Flat, uninteresting, and dragging at every turn, the series relies too heavily on Mae Martin’s goodwill to carry it, only to fizzle out before it really even gets started.