4 out 5

Created by: Mae Martin

An appropriately titled series, given its winding storytelling style that never leaves you quite certain on what the show’s focus actually is, Wayward also serves as an example of how that can be deliberately – and positively – applied: undoubtedly nodding to small-town weirdness shows like Twin Peaks, Wayward creator, co-writer and co-showrunner Mae Martin pulls from that classic’s “central mystery that’s not the point” structure, though abstracts it even further by giving us several mysteries all at once, threading several strong, equally intriguing characters arcs across and throughout the series’ eight episodes. Furthermore, by committing to a limited structure, Martin (and their fellow writers) can avoid the will they / won’t they cliffhanger nature of Twin Peaks: Wayward is very complete, maybe to a point of unsettling its perfection, as the last episode has to do a bit of running about to decide what to resolve and what to leave grey to stay thematically consistent, and though I think the creative team ultimately landed the plane for a very smooth flight, there’s – maybe inevitably, with something with so many moving pieces – the sense that there could’ve been some optimizations.

Wayward can be said to focus on two main relationships: police officer Alex (Martin) and his wife, Laura (Sarah Gadon), who have just moved back to Laura’s hometown of Tall Pines – the T.P. abbreviation can’t be a coincidence – to raise their forthcoming child; and the Toronto-based Abbie (Sydney Topliffe) and Leila (Alyvia Alyn Lind), best friends who find themselves at the correctional Academy in Tall Pines when Abbie’s parents deem Leila a corruptive influence and send their daughter off for guidance, her best friend in pursuit after in a scheme to break her out of the school. Alex and Laura have some communication issues to work through, with some unspoken violence in Alex’s past giving them another reason to start fresh in Tall Pines, and Laura’s past a general mystery between the two; Abbie and Laura have some unrequited power dynamics to work through, perhaps starting with / stemming from a recent tragedy in Leila’s past; all of this will be shaped – whether asked for or not – by the oversight of Tall Pines’ academy marm, Evelyn Wade (Toni Collette), an apparent power broker for all of Tall Pines, and given free reign to run her school as a little society with its own rules.

The music (Marie-Hélène L. Delorme) and denizens of Tall Pines (including some always-appreciated additions like Brandon Jay McLaren, Tricia Black, and Carolyn Taylor) follow the folksy, oddball charm of Twin Peaks, setting us up for comedic leanings. And the show is funny, with Alex the straight man throughout the whole thing, the only non-local adult who is continually puzzled by the I-guess-this-is-how-small-towns-are? actions of everyone, up until the off-kilter design of the title card hits each episode, and the music distorts a bit, and, as things go along, we start to get more of an understanding of the Whys of these behaviors, removing perceived innocence.

Over in the Academy, things take a similar track: a fight-the-power / be-yourself narrative dives much, much deeper as Evelyn’s “teaching” methods become this delightfully grey morass of manipulation and potentially powerful therapy.

This is where Wayward ultimately thrives over similarly vibed shows: that grey morass is its sweet spot, and the show revels in showing the effects of the past upon the present, but in a somewhat even-handed manner: do these actions make sense? Can we understand them? Do we support them? And while we are leaned in a direction of viewing some folks as more good or more evil, the writers (and assorted directors) keep pushing back and forth, and our relative Goods making decisions that are… not so good; our relative Evils are shown to maybe just be part of the same system they’re perpetuating.

As mentioned, the show does resolve its most major points in a way that sticks with these exploratory themes; there is some fallout though that we don’t necessarily get the time to deal with – in a way where, if going back with an editor’s pen in retrospect, one might actually exclude those subplots – and I don’t know if the show had a clear enough vision of how we’re supposed to interpret some of the background of the town and the Academy. In a way, it’s ultimately not as important as the theme of how behaviors get handed down generationally, purposefully or not; but it’s the only part of the show that feels a little uneven as to whether it’s intended as a big reveal or just another plotpoint. Ultimately, though, in such a complex puzzle of a series, I’d rather the show make me think and feel something instead of favoring resolving every little bit with precision, and Wayward – throughout, and up through its final shots – absolutely did that.

Lastly, though not leastly, some words on Mae Martin: Mae is non-binary. They play a transgender man in Wayward. This is a plot point (that they are trans) but it is not the point of the show, and so they dealt with it in my favorite way: acknowledge it, set the standards / tone for how you want us to acknowledge it, then sally forth. I’d say that there is potentially something to pull apart in terms of how Alex tends to resort to violence, but moreso to the show’s overall themes than as some point on gender identity. Similarly, characters occasionally have something offhand to say about Alex, but it’s to serve the tone-setting, and maybe some sidelong winks at what it’s like as a transgender or non-binary person, dealing with “allies” or means-well types (I’m not trans or non-binary, so just supposition on my part). Anyhow: with this part of the setup established, from thereon out, Alex is just… Alex. There’s of course nothing wrong with discussing such issues in more depth, but it also doesn’t always have to be if it’s not part of the story, and it just so happens that your lead actor is non-binary and gets cast as a trans man.

Collette is amazing, Martin’s befuddled reactions – mixed with underplayed cop savvy – are a joy to watch, and Lind is a nonstop bundle of energy.