Welcome to Tall Pines. Netflix’s new limited series, Wayward, has dropped right in time for spooky season, and it’s an old-fashioned thriller in the vein of classics like Twin Peaks and the first season of Riverdale — a “small town with a secret” story, if you will.
Wayward was created by comedian, actor, and screenwriter Mae Martin, who also stars in the show as Officer Alex Dempsey. Martin was inspired by “troubled teen” schools, and spun one of their friend’s experiences at one such institute into Wayward.
Courtesy of Netflix
“I often talk around adolescence, or I write characters who are processing their teens. It was such an intense time for me, and is for everyone, but I’ve always known I wanted to more directly dive into that time and all the visceral feelings of adolescence,” Martin told Netflix’s Tudum. “I was a wayward teen in the early 2000s, and my best friend was sent to one of these troubled teen institutes when she was 16. She came back and had just the craziest stories about it.”
