Wayward on Netflix: Mae Martin-Driven thriller pulls back curtain on reform-school culture

Netflix's Wayward, a thriller created and written by Mae Martin, centers on Tall Pines Academy, a reform school whose founder exerts a magnetic pull over students and staff. The series follows two teenage friends, Leila and Abbie, who begin to suspect the school's glossy exterior hides something far darker. A former Detroit police officer, Alex Dempsey (played by Martin), and his partner Laura navigate a Toronto-area landscape and a Tall Pines-linked case as they try to untangle the truth behind Evelyn Wade's warm, persuasive leadership.

Set partly in rural Vermont and anchored by Evelyn Wade (Toni Collette), Tall Pines is depicted as both a refuge and a trap. Guidance counselor Wyatt Turner (Patrick J. Adams) pushes Leila toward Tall Pines as a therapeutic option, while Abbie's family grows anxious about Leila's influence and Abbie's rebellion leads her to join Leila at Tall Pines to retrieve a final exam — a moment that foreshadows how far the school will go to keep its doors closed.

In Detroit, Alex Dempsey’s exit from the city’s police department has left him with a complicated mix of professional purpose and personal baggage. He and Laura move into a house tied to Tall Pines, and Alex takes a job with the Tall Pines Police Department that gives him access to information and a front-row seat to the school’s inner workings. Laura, pregnant and wary but loyal, becomes a counterweight to Evelyn’s charm as the two start to see how Evelyn’s kindness can mask coercion. When a teen named Riley, who escaped Tall Pines, surfaces in the woods and later reappears at Alex and Laura’s doorstep, the investigation intensifies and the lines between ally and suspect blur.

The cast weaves together two generations of performance. Toni Collette embodies Evelyn Wade with a warmth that invites trust even as a sharper edge hints at something darker behind the smiles. Mae Martin — who created and writes Wayward — also stars as Alex Dempsey, a trans man who channels humor and pragmatism to navigate a complicated moral landscape. Laura is played by Sarah Gadon, while Alyvia Alyn Lind and Sydney Topliffe portray Leila and Abbie, the teenage leads whose bond is tested as the school’s secrets threaten to come to light. Patrick J. Adams’s Wyatt Turner remains a crucial figure, the public-facing voice of Tall Pines who may be less certain of the school’s benevolence than he appears.

The show lands in a space critics have described as a cross between Yellowjackets and the documentary-driven scrutiny found in The Program: Cons, Cults, and Kidnapping. It uses humor as a counterbalance to the gravity of its premise, a tonal choice that helps prevent the drama from tipping into despair too quickly. In its first episode, Wayward establishes a tempo that invites both suspense and sarcasm, signaling that the series intends to mix tension with social critique of the troubled-teens industry.

But the core pull remains the performances and the slow, careful reveal of Tall Pines’ realities. Evelyn’s persuasive power is never fully discredited in the early going, which sets up a central question: will Leila and Abbie be heard as they attempt to expose the alleged abuse and control at the school, or will Evelyn’s charisma keep them silenced? The pilot’s balance between light, character-driven humor and looming menace promises a multi-episode arc in which two desperate teens recruit help and a wary investigator questions what he is willing to see in order to do the right thing.

Wayward streams on Netflix with a sturdy blend of suspense, character work, and the gradual unfolding of a larger, troubling mystery. Its emphasis on character dynamics and the moral ambiguities of reform-school culture makes it a timely entry in Culture & Entertainment, inviting viewers to weigh the line between care and coercion in institutions meant to reform or rehabilitate young people.