Note: The following story contains spoilers from “Wayward” Episode 8.
After a season full of plotting their escape, the “Wayward” finale finally sees Leila (Alyvia Alyn Lind) and Abbie (Sydney Topliffe) successfully make it out of Tall Pines Academy, but one of the best friends has a last-minute change of heart that prompts them to stay.
In the finale, Leila, Abbie and Rory (John Daniel) make it to an unoccupied house where they re-group and plan the next steps of their escape to Vancouver, but ultimately, much to Abbie’s chagrin, Leila decides she would rather stay and ride out the consequences at Tall Pines Academy. While disappointing to Abbie — as well as viewers — it’s a choice that creator Mae Martin, who has revealed their identity with the character of Leila, ponders they might’ve made, had they had the choice.
“The interesting thing about cults or cult-like institutions is that they always offer something really useful, and they always often are promising or providing a solution to a very real wounded in people,” Martin told TheWrap. “In imagining how I would have responded to that situation, I thought, ‘Well, yeah, maybe I would have wanted to stay’ … I think Leila’s really looking for community and family and some of what Evelyn is offering is really seductive.”
The same sentiment is shared by Martin for their character Alex Dempsey, who, despite having a dreamy escape with Abbie, the baby and the dog, ultimately decides to stay with his wife, Laura (Sarah Gadon) and baby, who seems to be being raised by the collective Tall Pines community.
“I know that they aren’t the choices that you might want them to make, but I don’t know, for me, they seem like the most authentic choices,” Martin said, adding that the sequence of his escape with Abbie hopefully gave audiences satisfaction despite the rug subsequently getting pulled out from viewers when they realize it wasn’t real. “At least you get to see it,” Martin said.
Still, Martin called Alex’s decision to stay a “moral failure” that, in the same as Leila, was appealing due to the community and familial component so much so that it overrode the proven dangers of Tall Pines, with Martin noting, “he should’ve taken the kid.”
“He’s so driven by love and also so desperately wants that to be accepted and to be part of something,” Martin said. “He’s so wrapped up in that heteronormative idea of what a father [and] protector is … it’s very convenient excuse for him to enact violence.”
Sarah Gadon as Laura Redman and Mae Martin as Alex Dempsey in “Wayward” (Netflix)
Due to this darkness, however, Martin sees Alex as the perfect match for Laura, who despite having pure intentions is now replicating the same cycles as Toni Collette’s Evelyn, likening Alex and Laura to Sid and Nancy.
“They’re both murderers … They both have a real darkness inside them, and they’re kind of playing house — when you meet them at the beginning, they’re kind of cosplaying being adult, and really, they’re just children,” Martin said. “I’m rooting for them. I would have been sad to see Alex leave, even though he’s trapped in hell.”
As for whether Martin thinks Laura will escalate to Evelyn’s level, they said, “power corrupts.”
Oh and how Martin wrote up that haunting Leap ceremony? The creator said the imagery of the doors inside the mouth came from a dream they had as a teen, and they paired it with Eastern spirituality rhetoric that was misinterpreted by hippie culture. “It”s around attachment being the root of suffering and so that’s sort of what the Leap is about — severing that attachment — but of course, we’re getting it wrong because you can’t avoid love and attachment,” Martin said.
Like the Leap ceremony, Martin hopes “Wayward” can speak to the temptation to “bury our heads in the sand” and “numb ourselves” following an overload of bad news, but how doing that also “shuts down your capacity for joy and love and and freedom.”
“I hope, watching it, people remember how intensely you feel things as a teenager, and that’s a superpower, because it’s your guiding compass — that empathy and that sense of injustice,” Martin said. “The more we can tap into that, the better. Even though it hurts to feel things, the alternative is just too bleak.”
While Martin said they’re curious about what happens to all the characters, they confirmed “Wayward” is “definitely a limited series” as they work on a new project with “Feel Good” co-creator Joe Hampson, as well as their music and a new standup hour. “If anyone wants to cast me in something, that’ll be nice,” Martin said.
“Wayward” is now streaming on Netflix.
