Wayward Ending Explained: Leila and Abbie Escape Tall Pines as Finale Leaves Questions

Netflix’s Wayward closes its first season with a dramatic turn as Leila and Abbie slip away from Tall Pines Academy, while the fate of other key figures—Lau ra, Alex, and Evelyn—hangs in the balance. The finale, set against the backdrop of a community that has long kept to its own rules, leaves a number of crucial questions unanswered and signals the possibility that the story could continue beyond Season 1.

In Episode 8, titled Leap, Laura has welcomed several of her fellow Tall Pines alumni into their home as she and Alex await the arrival of their baby. Elsewhere, Alex has been tased and kidnapped by Dwayne Andrews while Evelyn, who drops in uninvited, intends to enact a brutal ritual in the basement of Tall Pines that she calls leaping—severing human emotion through a hallucinogenic, mind-altering process. Leila, Abbie, and Rory escape the academy, ironically using Mule as transportation. In town, the trio breaks into a house for food and supplies, and Leila decides she wants to stay behind, insisting that Tall Pines is the only place she has ever felt safe and wanted. Abbie reminds her that staying means facing the leap; Leila says she understands and doesn’t care. The pair part ways as Abbie promises to return for her.

In the basement, Alex is in the middle of the Leap when Rabbit turns the hallucinogenic syringe around, giving him a chance to escape. He almost makes it, but Evelyn reveals that she wasn’t the one who killed Laura’s parents; Laura was. After a brutal confrontation, Alex kills Dwayne by smashing his head with a rock—the same method Evelyn had described as Laura’s method of murder. Alex’s escape is short-lived, however, as Evelyn injects him with additional doses of the hallucinogen, causing his mind to reel. He ends up subduing Evelyn, but the drug overdose accelerates her own fall into the Leap, and Rabbit’s care in the basement leads to Evelyn’s death in a twist that appears to place her in a green door, a symbolic gateway to an eternal limbo as she is urged to step through by Rabbit.

Image: Wayward ending explained image

Meanwhile, Rory and Abbie, pursued by danger, manage a break for it and hide in a barn. As they attempt to regroup, a kiss seals a brief, human moment between them before Rory offers himself as a distraction to keep Abbie safe so she can reach a car Alex had stashed in the woods. The moment is emblematic of the season’s double-edged nature: tenderness amid danger, escape amid coercive control.

Back at the home base, Laura’s labor accelerates, and the city’s former Tall Pines alumni gather for the birth of the first child the place has seen in decades. After a tense moment, Laura delivers the baby and briefly cradles him as the other residents participate in a skin-to-skin moment that unsettles Alex, who admits that the scene feels almost ceremonial. Laura tells him, it’s everyone’s, and suggests that the moment is also a means to break the pattern that has haunted them. Evelyn’s earlier insinuations about Laura’s psychosis and leadership ring true in some respects, as viewers watch Laura gradually assume a leadership role among the group that is still more cultish than communal.

The finale makes clear that Abbie has escaped Tall Pines and is headed west toward Vancouver, with the family dog Toast in the car as her companion. A brief misdirection suggests Alex might grab the baby and flee, but the camera pulls back to reveal that it was a vision of what could happen rather than what did. The series ends with Alex shutting the farmhouse door as Laura looks on and Abbie drives beyond the Tall Pines city limits, leaving the door open on whether the pair will ever be free of the school’s influence.

The closing moments leave several questions unresolved. Will Alex ever escape Tall Pines, now bound to a new, unintended family structure? Could Laura’s leadership morph into a fully realized cult, or will outside intervention change the trajectory of the community? Will Abbie return to rescue Laura and Rory, or will she forge a new life far from the school’s reach? The show has left room for a potential Season 2, but as of now, Netflix has not confirmed the renewal.

Wayward’s Season 1 finale leans into the show’s core tensions: the lure of belonging and safety that Tall Pines promises, the manipulations of a fearsome leader, and the fragile hope of escape. The ending’s ambiguity aligns with the series’ broader themes about manipulation, trauma, and the fragility of trust. Viewers are left to parse who truly controls Tall Pines—whether it is the old guard, the newcomers with their own agendas, or the unresolved loyalties of those still inside.

As Wayward concludes its first arc, the production notes and interviews suggest that the show is comfortable with lingering questions rather than providing clean resolutions. The narrative choice mirrors the experience of real-world settings that resemble the academy: communities that present themselves as protective but sometimes enforce strict, even coercive, control. Whether that control ultimately dissolves or evolves remains to be seen, contingent on future episodes and the creators’ plans for the characters’ fates.

For now, Wayward remains available for streaming on Netflix, with audiences digesting the twists, the moral ambiguities, and the uneasy sense that the story is far from finished. The finale’s combination of intimate character moments and high-stakes suspense encapsulates the show’s distinctive mood: unsettling, intimate, and ripe for continued exploration in a potential second season.