Aahana Swrup
In Mae Martin’s ‘Wayward,’ no one is safe from the cultish clutches of the small town of Tall Pines. The Netflix series, set in 2003, centers around two Canadian teenagers, Abbie and Leila, who have a penchant for seeking out trouble. Naturally, they remain top candidates for the youth program at Tall Pines Academy, facilitated by Evelyn Wade. On the other hand, Alex Dempsey is a law enforcement officer who finds himself moving to his wife, Laura’s, hometown. The couple, expecting the birth of their child, is looking for a new beginning in the close-knit community. However, with the move, the ghosts of Laura’s past inevitably loom over the family’s future. Soon enough, Alex begins to see the town for all its unseen eccentricities. Thus, the deeper he digs into Evelyn and her Academy, eventually crossing paths with Abbie and Leila, the closer he gets to unraveling the town’s best-kept secrets. Nevertheless, by the time truth comes out in the open, escape becomes a near-impossible endeavor. SPOILERS AHEAD!
Wayward Recap
Toronto-based teenagers Abbie and Leila are best friends who prefer smoking pot at rooftops to attending classes. As a result, they remain firmly planted in the category of “troubled teens” for every adult in their lives. One of their teachers, Mr. Turner, devises a possible solution to whip the duo into shape. He wants to ship Leila off to an American youth program in Vermont, believing the distance would do the friends some good. Initially, the student’s response to the idea is to pitch one of her own, which involves breaking into the school at night to steal the answer sheet for an upcoming exam. Abbie remains on board with the plan and brazenly sneaks out of the house when her parents try to ground her. The break-in remains a shrooms-laced fun but futile attempt. Furthermore, Abbie’s earlier stunt finally catches up to her that night when a pair of masked men kidnap her from her home while her parents silently watch from the sidelines.
When Leila learns about the turn of events the next day, she’s understandably distressed. Worse yet, Turner informs her that since her mother can’t currently afford the Academy’s tuition, there’s no way for her to end up next to her best friend. Still, the teenager refuses to give up. As a result, she calls up her much older boyfriend/weed supplier, Kyle, and makes a plan to cross the border and rescue Abbie. Unsurprisingly, the older man dumps the teenager at the first sight of trouble, compelling her to hitchhike on her own. Meanwhile, new residents arrive in the town of Tall Pines. Alex and Laura are expecting parents, who can use the open-minded community that the latter’s hometown provides. Additionally, her relationship with Evelyn, born from her own time at the Academy, further helps the duo find a new beginning in the town.
However, it doesn’t take long for Alex to begin noticing the town’s glaring peculiarity. On his first day at the job as a cop, he runs into Riley Warrens, a haggard-looking teenager who claims to be running from the Academy. Later, when the same kid shows up at the cop’s house, looking for help, the situation turns dire when his presence poses a threat to Laura. As a result, her husband ends up accidentally killing the kid in self-defence. Nonetheless, the town allows the incident to resolve itself without any direct consequences for Alex. Furthermore, some surface-level snooping reveals the town’s apparent history with missing teenagers, who were never found. While this unravels in the town, Leila manages to break into the Academy, reuniting with Abbie. However, all this does is ensure that now both the teenagers are stuck in Evelyn’s creation.
The Academy is a place of nightmares where teenagers are treated like criminals, forced to adhere to handbooks, and put in different developmental categories. Additionally, Evelyn guides the students through a game called Hot Seat, a vicious practice of confronting one’s trauma and mistakes through “radical honesty.” Eventually, Alex’s curiosity brings him to the Academy under the guise of picking up Riley’s belongings. Abbie and Leila attempt an escape plan on the same day. Although the duo’s plan fails, they manage to run into the cop, who realizes they seem just as terrified as Riley. Therefore, he slips Abbie a walkie-talkie so that she can contact him even after he leaves the premises. Over the next few weeks, Abbie learns more about the morbid practices at Evelyn’s Academy while Alex begins to understand the town’s eerie reality. Eventually, a visit to the father of a missing student, the uncovering of a teenager’s dead body, and findings about psychological abuse reveal the bigger picture to the cop. Nonetheless, his wife’s tragic past entanglements with the Evelyn, as well as the consequences of his own actions, prevent him from truly escaping the town’s grasp.
Wayward Ending: Does Evelyn Die?
Initially, Evelyn remains an uncanny but fairly distant part of Alex and Laura’s life. She gives them the house that the couple turns into their new home and welcomes them into the community. However, except for a few impromptu dinners and tense conversations, she doesn’t directly impact their lives. Or, at least, that’s what it seems like. The more that the cop looks into the town’s inexplicable past, the more he begins to realize that Evelyn is intricately entangled with its genesis. Once Laura manages to see through the haze of her past and puts up some boundaries between her and her former caretaker, the latter turns around and bugs the entire place. Furthermore, she puts in several contingency plans to coerce Alex into compliance. Eventually, once Laura grows bolder in her attempts to loosen Evelyn’s hold on the town, the latter also grows more desperate for control.
This compels her to kidnap Alex and bring him down to the Academy’s ritualistic basement, where she guides young students through “The Leap.” It’s a manipulative practice wherein the woman uses hypnosis and psychedelic drugs to sever the subject’s ties to an integral part of themselves. Influenced by her own interpersonal relationships, Evelyn believes that the relationship between a parent and a child is usually an abusive one. Since birth is an unconsensual process and paves the way for complicated dynamics between the parent and the child, she believes it leaves a darkness inside almost every individual. Therefore, she argues that the only way to save a child and help them transition into adulthood is by severing this connection. According to her, it’s only by erasing all empathetic and compassionate feelings between a kid and their parents that the former may be saved. The Leap signifies the process of achieving the same.
After kidnapping Alex, Evelyn brings him out to perform the same experiment on him. Naturally, its invasive nature and the fact that it could possibly ruin his ability to have a relationship with his kid convince the cop against submitting to it. Surprisingly enough, help comes from an unexpected place when Rabbit, Evelyn’s second-in-command, turns on her and administers the drug to her, allowing the to-be father an opportunity to bolt. Rabbit has her own reasons behind her betrayal, mostly involving a conversation she had with Laura earlier and her own contempt toward Evelyn for robbing her of a family. Although the older woman could have survived the drug’s administration, Alex ruins any chances of survival by stabbing her with even more psychedelic juice. In the end, while Evelyn goes on a trip, with Rabbit repeating the hypnotic mantra over her, the woman remains surrounded by the same metaphorical doors that governed her ideology. Nonetheless, escape remains an impossible feat. In the end, Evelyn dies as a victim of her own creation.
Does Alex Leave Laura? Why Does He Decide to Stay?
Alex has felt the unsettling nature of Tall Pines pretty much since his first day in town. A complication at his old job is the only reason he and Laura decide to move to the latter’s hometown, since they need stability for their baby’s future. Yet, once the cop actually begins to experience the reality of the Tall Pines community, he realizes something is gravely wrong with the place. Initially, his interactions with the distressed Academy kids clearly point toward something uncanny unfolding inside Evelyn’s institutions. However, soon enough, Alex also realizes that the town is morbidly void of any kids. The place has a substantial population, especially for a small-town community. Yet, none of the residents seems to have any kids. Instead, the closest parent-kid relationship that remains in Tall Pines is that of Academy graduates, aka, young adults who have been stationed with a family once they aged out of the youth program system.
Initially, Alex assumes this revelation would be as disconcerting to his wife as it is for him. Nonetheless, what he learns from Laura remains infinitely more disturbing. As it turns out, Laura knows all about the town’s weird “no kids” situation. In fact, she tells Alex that it is a policy built into the town’s ethos and championed by Evelyn. She believes that it is the town’s responsibility to help other kids and save them before they can think about starting their own biological families. None of the residents is allowed to have any kids. Instead, the community is more focused on “helping” the Academy kids and integrating them into their own society. Naturally, Alex is terrified of this revelation and what it could mean for their kid. Even though Laura assures him that Evelyn is open to changing things, starting with their baby, the father remains worried about his family’s future.
Initially, Laura promises her husband that they will leave before the baby arrives. Nonetheless, Alex realizes his wife has no intentions of following through with the promise once he overhears her secret meeting with some of the other town members. This becomes even more evident in the aftermath of their kid’s birth. Once Alex flees from Evelyn’s clutches, he manages to return to his wife in the nick of time and stay by her side as she gives birth. Yet, immediately afterward, the baby is taken from his arms so that the rest of the townspeople can share their own skin-to-skin contact with the child to form their own bonds. Thus, Alex realizes that Laura’s idea of saving the town from Evelyn’s influence is to corral them under someone else’s control: her own. The father has no idea what this could mean for his kid. Still, he knows the unpredictability of the situation cannot mean a good thing.
For the same reason, on the same night, Alex considers the very real possibility of bolting away with his and Laura’s child. If he gets as far away from the place, refusing to play into their game, he can ensure that his kid has a normal and healthy childhood. Nonetheless, some simple facts remain. Alex is a transgender man whose marriage to Laura is more of a show than anything concretely legal. Moreover, since arriving in town, he has killed at least two people and can be implicated in the deaths of two others. As such, there’s nothing stopping Laura and the rest of the town from coming after him and ensuring that he will never see his child ever again. Then there’s the fact that Tall Pines can actually fulfill his lifelong dream of having a nuclear, heteronormative family, while also providing him the protection and acceptance that he needs simply as a product of his social identity. Thus, when it comes down to it, Alex shuts the door in the face of his escape and chooses to stay behind in the town.
Does Abbie Escape From Tall Pines?
Although Alex sabotages his own ability to leave Tall Pines, he manages to equip someone else with the tools needed for an escape. Ever since his impromptu visit to the Academy, he has managed to get in touch with Abbie through the walkie-talkie. Initially, the duo attempts to use this opportunity to share information to build a case against Evelyn. Nonetheless, in the weeks after the kids’ unsuccessful uprising attempt, it becomes evident that another course of action is required. Instead of a systemic uprooting of the Academy, personal escape is the only way Abbie and Leila can save their own skins. Thus, as soon as the duo manages to get their hands on new batteries for the walkie-talkie, a new plan begins to take hold. With Alex’s help, Abbie gets her hands on some stamps, which are integral to her, Leila, and Rory’s escape.
Simultaneously, the cop informs the kid that he has left his car and some cash a little way outside of the woods. From there, the kids implement their own plan. First, they forge a letter addressed to one of the guards, Mule. Pretending to be their France-based boyfriend, they plan a meetup with the guard outside of the establishment’s premises. Afterward, they create a diversion that allows them to break through the fence and sneak inside Mule’s truck. As a result, the kids manage to make it to the central town. While the adults begin searching for them, they hide out in a house, collecting supplies. Unfortunately, in a turn of events, Abbie ends up being the only one who is able to make it out of town. Afterward, the teenager finds Alex’s car, alongside his dog, Toast. In the end, no one else comes to accompany Abbie as she drives away to her freedom.
What Happens to Rory and Leila? Why Does Leila Choose to Stay Behind?
Even though Rory and Leila remain by Abbie’s side during her escape attempt, they never actually manage to get out of the town. While supply-scouting inside a resident’s house, Leila comes to a jarring conclusion. Unlike her friend, the teenager has a much more challenging time ahead of her. Abbie’s issues stem from her parents’ impossibly high standards for her, her dyslexia, and her penchant for trouble. Comparatively, Leila’s complications don’t simply end with a rebellious streak. The death of her sister, Jess, has had a massively negative impact on her. On the night of her death, the young teenager was right beside her sister and even witnessed her death, albeit through a drug-laced haze.
Therefore, on some level, Leila and everyone else in her life blame her for Jess’ death. As such, she has her own development issues, including an ill-advised love life and a cocaine problem. For the same reason, her mother is unaffected, in all aspects except financial, when her daughter is enrolled at Tall Pines. In turn, in the latter few weeks at the Academy, Evelyn has managed to provide her with a more supportive system. Even though her intentions are obviously manipulative and meant to stoke her own agenda, it still remains incredibly special for the young girl. Simply put, much like Alex doesn’t have the courage to face a different world outside of the town’s safety, Leila also feels like she has a better shot at survival in Tall Pines. For the same reason, she ends up staying behind. The case with Rory remains a bit different, since he sacrifices himself in order to give Abbie a fighting chance at an escape. Yet, ultimately, they will both face an uncertain future now that Evelyn has died, leaving the Academy without any substantial leader.
What Happened to Laura’s Parents? Who Really Killed Them?
One of the primary mysteries in Alex and Laura’s life remains the death of the latter’s parents. She came under the care of the Tall Pines Academy in her teenage years. Therefore, she has always held a lot of resentment toward her parents for their abandonment. However, after Alex visits Maurice, he realizes that his wife may not have the entire picture. As it turns out, shortly after Laura’s enrollment in the establishment, her parents began to regret their decisions and tried to come after her. Nonetheless, they inevitably ended up disappearing. Alex assumes that Evelyn has something to do with the parents’ evident deaths. Nonetheless, in her dying moments, the woman reveals a different truth.
It was actually Laura who killed her own parents. By the time they returned for their daughter, she had already undergone “The Leaping” process. Therefore, her connection with her family was already severed, leaving her with no real love for them. Thus, when they tried to take her away from the Academy, the teenager ended up killing them, bashing her own father’s head in with a rock. In the aftermath, Evelyn covered up the murder for her and helped her bury the memory in her subconscious. Upon her return to Tall Pines, this time as a wife and an expecting mother, Laura begins to unearth the same memory. Thus, her feelings of vengeance against Laura grow tenfold, compelling her to form the beginnings of her own cult. Although Alex is disturbed by the revelation, he ultimately realizes that it does nothing to dampen his love for his wife. The cop has many skeletons in his own closet and blood on his own hands. Therefore, he decides to accept Laura for her past rather than turn away from her because of it.
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