“Where Childhood Goes to Die”: Wayward Episode 1 Spoiler Review and Recap
Written by Daphne Bryant
Image courtesy of Netflix
I thought it was only a matter of time before someone made an edgy YA thriller series about the troubled teen industry (TTI) and all of the weird, dangerous culty shit that happens at its schools. I never thought that person would be one of my favorite queers, Mae Martin.
Martin created, wrote, and produced Wayward for Netflix, a mystery set in the fictional town of Tall Pines, Vermont. It follows a pair of teenagers and a local police officer uncovering the town’s dark secrets. The show was released last month, and after weeks of searching for media that gave me the same addictive feeling as The Hunting Wives, I found a miracle.
There are three stories at present in Episode 1: Tall Pines. The first is that of Alex and Laura, a couple who have just moved into a strange house in Tall Pines. Alex is a trans man, played by Martin, and a police officer (quite the dichotomy, if I do say so myself. The juxtaposition is likely purposeful). Meanwhile, Laura is very pregnant and refers to Tall Pines almost as if it’s a hometown. Then there’s Abbie and Leila, best friends who get into a normal amount of teenage trouble but are misunderstood by their parents and their high school administration, respectively. Finally, and most interestingly, there’s Riley, a boy who has escaped Stranger Things style from Tall Pines Academy, a suspicious institution for troubled teens.
I’m familiar with the TTI already, but only because I watched The Program: Cons, Cults and Kidnapping, a documentary narrated by a woman still haunted by years of corruption and abuse at a disciplinary school called Ivy Ridge. The doc is really dark, and you have to be in a certain mood to watch it (though I would 100% recommend watching for context). Wayward is a fictionalized version that’s a little easier to swallow, though still disturbing and chilling in all of the ways that makes good entertainment well…good. From the jump I had a feeling I was going to like the show, and I 100% do.
Nancy Drew was my shit growing up, and so small town mysteries have always intrigued me. The East Coast backdrop of Wayward makes everything a little more eerie, and having a queer lead for a tale of this nature is very exciting. Evelyn Wade, the head teacher at Tall Pines Academy, is the perfect villain, played by highly decorated Australian Toni Colette. This show has the tools necessary to make it a cult classic (no pun intended): some humor, some horror, and a lot of heart.
There’s one scene that really stuck with me, in which Abbie returns home late from a night of drugs and laughter with Leila. When she gets back Abbie’s sister Claire is waiting up for her, and she has this terrified look on her face, like she knows something bad is about to go down. Claire, who has up until this point been a dismissive and somewhat rude older sister, gives Abbie a huge hug. Anyone watching could feel it coming; Abbie was about to be taken to Tall Pines Academy.
As I suspected, she was woken up in the middle of the night, blindfolded, zip tied and kidnapped out of her home while her parents watched. It’s the same awful formula that almost all of these TTI schools use. What drives a parent to the level of desperation that they’d do this to their kid? The thing about Tall Pines Academy and other academies like it is that the blame is partially on the parents for not doing the proper research and neglecting their kids to this point.
The same night that Abbie’s taken, there’s a town-wide search for Riley who went missing (again, serious Stranger Things vibes). Alex actually met Riley his first day on the job; he was in clear disarray and begging for help, but freaked when he realized he was the police and ran off.This is Alex’s first sign that something’s amiss, but the only person who actually seems interested in investigating what’s going on is Alex.
Alex is a perceptive character, one who remembers something Evelyn said in the police station, that Riley likes enclosed spaces. He leaves something for Riley, food, and it proves to be an extensive olive branch. At the end of the episode someone breaks into Alex and Laura’s home, and it’s none other than Riley, the missing student himself. Riley’s dirty, bloody and reiterating to Alex his fear and the notion that Tall Pines Academy is not a school, not what“ they” say it is.
This is in every way true; TTI schools are really more like prisons, and the corrective techniques used are so antithetical it’s painful, even as a mere observer of situations like these. When Laura comes downstairs to figure out what’s going on, Riley goes into panic mode. He claims that she’s mumbling and repeatedly tells her to“ stop it” before retrieving a knife from the kitchen and getting into a tumble with Alex.
“ She’s one of them.” That’s one of the last words Riley says, before he sticks a knife in his own chest and dies on the spot.It’s writer gold.
I have a feeling this show is going to get really fucking weird and Twilight Zone-y. What I mean is, it’ll probably dive a bit into the supernatural (just like Yellowjackets and Riverdale), but is already doing a great job of depicting the real-life accuracy of these kids’ lives and what it’s like in the moments leading up to their kidnapping, as well all of the trauma and aftermath they experience once they finally get out. I’m definitely hooked, and so excited to watch more.
