Wayward – Series Review | Netflix

WAYWARD on Netflix is a new mystery thriller series with 8 episodes. It stars creator Mae Martin, Sarah Gadon, and Toni Collette, along with a wonderful supporting cast. It’s about the troubled teens industry using cult-like methods. Read our full Wayward series review here!

WAYWARD is a new Netflix series with a plot that revolves around a school for “troubled teens”. If you’ve heard the horror stories that Paris Hilton has fought to expose, or watched some of the true crime documentaries, you’ll recognize this setting.

For this thriller mystery series, there’s the added element of it being run by a cult leader type (played by the glorious Toni Collette). Methods that come across like a brainwashing and hypnosis hybrid are used. Oh yes, it is damn scary!

We watched all eight episodes of this limited series for our review.

Continue reading our Wayward series review below. Find it on Netflix from September 25, 2025.

Welcome to Tall Pines

Wayward plays out in the small and simply picture-perfect town of Tall Pines. Here, there is room for everyone to exist and have value. Also, everyone believes in the important work done at the Tall Pine Academy – a place for troubled teens.

Police officer Alex Dempsey (Mae Martin) and his pregnant wife, Laura (Sarah Gadon), are getting ready to start their family. As Laura is very pregnant when they move into their new home.

On Alex’s very first day on the job, a teen boy runs out in front of their car. He has escaped a place and begs for help, but runs off before Alex can do much to help.

The place this young man has escaped turns out to be Tall Pines Academy, and Alex will soon connect with two students, Abbie (Sydney Topliffe) and Leila (Alyvia Alyn Lind). These two also want to escape and beg Alex for help.

While trying to figure out the role of this school and how everyone in town is somehow connected to the place, Alex comes across many strange coincidences. At the center of everything is Evelyn (Toni Collette), the school’s mysterious leader.

Who stars in Wayward?

An absolutely amazing cast, that’s who! Seriously, everyone who stars in Wayward on Netflix delivers wonderful performances. The teens are exactly as lovable and annoying as they should be, while the adults are also very diverse.

Some adults believe in tough love, but most are definitely of the opinion that these teens need help. They want to help them be the best versions of themselves. How they go about that, however, is (often) problematic.

With Toni Collette as the strangely enigmatic leader of the Tall Pines Academy, we’re in very good hands. In Wayward, we see the love and understanding, as well as the angry and almost vengeful sides of this brilliant actor.

Think Toni Collette showing everything you’ve seen her deliver from The Sixth Sense to Hereditary. The former is heartbreaking, while the latter is downright scary. And both are about a parental figure hurting for their child!

Mae Martin is intriguing and nuanced as the caring police officer, Alex, while Sarah Gadon (The 9th Life of Louis Drax, True Detective season 3) delivers a portrayal of Laura that evolves throughout the series.

Alex and Laura very clearly love each other and are focusing on their family, while also being forced to deal with the past. How they each deal with challenges both sets them apart and keeps them together as a team.

Watch the Wayward series on Netflix

Mae Martin (Feel Good) both stars in and created the limited Netflix series Wayward. As a co-showrunner on the show, alongside one of the co-writers, Ryan Scott, this is very much Mae Martin’s show.

And it also comes across as very personal in many ways. I love how the plot focuses on the troubled teen industry in several ways. From the point of view of adults wanting to help, kids living it, and adults who survived the experience.

This leaves enough nuance to indicate that teens can be helped (and need help) while also highlighting that many “troubled teens” are just very normal teens. No more troubled than the adults parenting them.

Also, there’s a focus on friendship, love, and loyalty. Both the power of these relationships and the possible dangers, when they lead you astray.

Mae Martin has created a genre-bending series that can be watched as a straight-up (pun intended, as this is deliciously not) horror series, a sci-fi thriller mystery, or even a take on true crime.

Again, if you’ve watched some of the documentaries about the horrors of the so-called “troubled teen industry”, nothing you see in Wayward will seem exaggerated.

Wayward is available on Netflix, with all 8 episodes, starting from September 25, 2025.

Details

Creator: Mae Martin
Directors: Euros Lyn (101, 102, 107, 108), Renuka Jeyapalan (103, 104), John Fawcett (105, 106)
Cast: Mae Martin, Sarah Gadon, Sydney Topliffe, Alyvia Alyn Lind, Brandon Jay McLaren, Toni Collette, Tattiawna Jones, Isolde Ardies, Joshua Close, Patrick J. Adams, Patrick Gallagher, Gage Munroe, Byron Mann, Mark McKinney