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The 2025 tv series Wayward (one of those annoying Netflix one-word titles) is set at a school for troubled youth, so there's bound to be a lot of 30-year old fitness models playing juvenile delinquents, working out in the gym, lying shirtless in their bunks, and forming gay-subtext buddy-bonds. I'm in.
Scene 1: A teenage boy (John Daniel), with a bloody shirt, breaks through a window and runs away from the Tall Pines Academy, while spotlights, dogs, and armed guards chase him, and a brainwashing chant plays "You're on your back, crying for your mother. Your mother's face is a door..."
Running Boy is trapped by a lake. He tries to hide under the water, but the brainwashing chant is too much. He sees a door and screams.
Scene 2: Toronto, 2003. A lesbian couple, free-spirit Leila and her responsible Girlfriend, are sitting on the roof of their school, smoking and discussing their futures after they break free. They pledge allegiance to the Beatles, escape from the roof, and are called into the headmaster's office (Patrick J. Adams, left). He tells Leila that she is failing her classes due to her traumatic past, and dragging the Girlfriend down with her, so she is going to be sent to Tall Pines Academy in the U.S.
Patrick's d*ck after the break
Scene 3: Tall Pines, Vermont, now. A butch/femme lesbian couple, the femme extremely pregnant, head through town. Butch Alex complains about how old-fashioned and dinky it is, and when they get to the house, complains about its retro 1950s look. But they have no choice: Detroit turned out to be a shithole, and the Wife grew up here, so they can get a house easily. Alex decides that she can endure it, and they start making out.
Two lesbian couples? Nice representation, but how about some gay men? John Daniel is quite femme in real life. If Riley isn't dead, maybe he'll be gay.
Toronto, 2003: Leila and her girlfriend are raiding the refrigerator and discussing shrooms. Girlfriend doesn't like Kyle (Donald Maclean, Jr): he never hangs out, and he's way old, like 26. In other news, Eli is totally horny for Girlfriend. Wait -- these girls are straight? But they're hanging all over each other and discussing their future together. Sounds like queerbaiting.
Suddenly Girlfriend's Dad Brian (not listed in the IMDB) and the rest of the family appear, all irate. After kicking Leila out, Dad complains that Girlfriend is going to fail all her classes this year to hang out with a criminal. Back story: Everyone thinks that Leila murdered her sister.
Leila goes home to a horrible house in Toronto's ghetto, where her mom is watching a tv show about out-of-control kids that terrorize their parents. Up to her room to get high and burn the Tall Pines Academy brochure.
The next day, the history class is watching The Thomas Crowne Affair with Pierce Brosnan? The teacher is starting to cry; two hetero students are making out right at their desk. Girlfriend wants to know what this has to do with Canadian history -- it's not even set in Canada. Uh-oh, Eli (not listed in the IMDB), starts flirting and proffering pills. He saw the exams in the staff room, so Leila and Girlfriend are going to break into the school so they can steal the answers.
When Girlfriend gets home from school, she finds Dad entertaining Bill from Work and his wife, who criticize her outfit and interest in social justice. The parents order her to go upstairs, change clothes, and help with the entertaining, "and pretend to be our daughter." This causes her to blow up. Dad grounds her, but she escapes and runs away.
Left: random guy with no connection to the show. This review was getting a little beefcake-light.
The girls and Eli sneak into the school, take some shrooms, and frolick before stealing the test questions that will allow them to pass. Then Leila dumps the Girlfriend to hang out with her boyfriend Kyle. At least she left Eli for you to do stuff with.
Later, Girlfriend tries to sneak back into the house, but the whole family is still up. Her sister hugs her. Who died?
She goes to bed, but is awakened by men with flashlights, who tie her up, put a bag on her head -- with the parents' permission -- and drag her to a sinister white van. That's hardly a legitimate way to enroll a teen in a troubled youth academy.
The sun is just coming up when they arrive, and are welcomed by headmaster Leanne. Wait -- how did they get through American customs with a screaming, tied up girl?
2025 Vermont after the break. Caution: Explicit.
