{"id":46350,"date":"2025-09-30T06:33:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-30T06:33:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/46350\/"},"modified":"2025-09-30T06:33:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-30T06:33:09","slug":"mae-martin-breaks-down-leilas-decision-and-alexs-failure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/46350\/","title":{"rendered":"Mae Martin Breaks Down Leila’s Decision and Alex’s ‘Failure’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Note: The following story contains spoilers from \u201cWayward\u201d Episode 8.<\/p>\n

After a season full of plotting their escape, the \u201cWayward\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s chagrin, Leila decides she would rather stay and ride out the consequences at Tall Pines Academy. While disappointing to Abbie \u2014 as well as viewers \u2014 it\u2019s a choice that creator Mae Martin, who has revealed<\/a> their identity with the character of Leila, ponders they might\u2019ve made, had they had the choice.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe 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,\u201d Martin told TheWrap. \u201cIn imagining how I would have responded to that situation, I thought, \u2018Well, yeah, maybe I would have wanted to stay\u2019 \u2026 I think Leila\u2019s really looking for community and family and some of what Evelyn is offering is really seductive.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know that they aren\u2019t the choices that you might want them to make, but I don\u2019t know, for me, they seem like the most authentic choices,\u201d 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\u2019t real. \u201cAt least you get to see it,\u201d Martin said.<\/p>\n

Still, Martin called Alex\u2019s decision to stay a \u201cmoral failure\u201d 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, \u201che should\u2019ve taken the kid.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s so driven by love and also so desperately wants that to be accepted and to be part of something,\u201d Martin said. \u201cHe\u2019s so wrapped up in that heteronormative idea of what a father [and] protector is \u2026 it\u2019s very convenient excuse for him to enact violence.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Wayward\"Sarah Gadon as Laura Redman and Mae Martin as Alex Dempsey in \u201cWayward\u201d (Netflix)<\/p>\n

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\u2019s Evelyn, likening Alex and Laura to Sid and Nancy.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re both murderers \u2026 They both have a real darkness inside them, and they\u2019re kind of playing house \u2014 when you meet them at the beginning, they\u2019re kind of cosplaying being adult, and really, they\u2019re just children,\u201d Martin said. \u201cI\u2019m rooting for them. I would have been sad to see Alex leave, even though he\u2019s trapped in hell.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for whether Martin thinks Laura will escalate to Evelyn\u2019s level, they said, \u201cpower corrupts.\u201d<\/p>\n

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. \u201cIt\u201ds around attachment being the root of suffering and so that\u2019s sort of what the Leap is about \u2014 severing that attachment \u2014 but of course, we\u2019re getting it wrong because you can\u2019t avoid love and attachment,\u201d Martin said.<\/p>\n

\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Wayward\"\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n

Like the Leap ceremony, Martin hopes \u201cWayward\u201d can speak to the temptation to \u201cbury our heads in the sand\u201d and \u201cnumb ourselves\u201d following an overload of bad news, but how doing that also \u201cshuts down your capacity for joy and love and and freedom.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope, watching it, people remember how intensely you feel things as a teenager, and that\u2019s a superpower, because it\u2019s your guiding compass \u2014 that empathy and that sense of injustice,\u201d Martin said. \u201cThe more we can tap into that, the better. Even though it hurts to feel things, the alternative is just too bleak.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Martin said they\u2019re curious about what happens to all the characters, they confirmed \u201cWayward\u201d is \u201cdefinitely a limited series\u201d as they work on a new project with \u201cFeel Good\u201d co-creator Joe Hampson, as well as their music and a new standup hour. \u201cIf anyone wants to cast me in something, that\u2019ll be nice,\u201d Martin said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWayward\u201d is now streaming on Netflix.<\/p>\n

\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Mae\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Note: The following story contains spoilers from \u201cWayward\u201d Episode 8. After a season full of plotting their escape,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":46351,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[146,85,46,36485,400,411,36486],"class_list":{"0":"post-46350","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-il","10":"tag-israel","11":"tag-mae-martin","12":"tag-netflix","13":"tag-tv","14":"tag-wayward"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46350","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46350"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46350\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46351"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}