Wayward, and the problem with labelling.

In terms of aspirational autumnal shows, Wayward starts off strong. Just like Mae Martin’s Alex, we were lured in by vistas of a lovely mountain town, complete with farmers’ markets, impeccably fresh produce and independent shops stacked with hand-glazed pots and chunky knits. Unfortunately, things then take a rapid turn for the worse, with the accidental killing of a fugitive teen extinguishing Alex’s cottagecore dream pretty swiftly. Turns out, Tall Pines would be much more ‘blood sacrifice’ than pumpkin spice.

Although the series took the plot and ran to quite extreme lengths with it, perhaps we can trace the premise back to a simple but dangerous question: can we ‘fix’ people? Enter the enigmatic Evelyn Wade, whose pitch to the credulous parents featured in the series rested on the idea that, A) yes, your child does need ‘fixing’; and B) yes, I can do that for you. As the story went on, we realized that Evelyn’s appetite for fixing didn’t stop at the kids entrusted to her care – she planned on ‘fixing’ the entire town of Twin Peaks Tall Pines, creating a utopia of child-free hipsters sharing vegetables together, free from any individualism or dissent (but still with space for the occasional quiet murder, of course).

Evelyn’s mission of ‘fixing’ people fitted within an underlying narrative of Wayward: the idea that we can label people and things as ‘good’ or ‘bad’. The kids who had found themselves at Tall Pines had been labelled ‘bad’. Their life before Tall Pines was ‘bad’, and their future would be so too, if it weren’t for Evelyn’s pivotal input. While Leila’s mum was specifically shown to be a ‘bad’ parent (neglectful, cold, distant), it was also implied that the other parents were ‘bad’, for having shipped their kids off to the hellscape of hot seats and animal monikers in which they now found themselves – especially as it seemed that the parents had then washed their hands of their children, not keeping in contact and checking in with them. Interestingly, Evelyn’s doctrine went even further than this – in her eyes, all parents were ‘bad’: because they would all cause their children some pain, she ruled against anyone in the town having kids at all. There’s a lot of hard-and-fast labelling going on here, isn’t there?

So, once Evelyn has labelled someone as ‘bad’, what is the ideal vision of a ‘fixed’, ‘good’ person that she is intent on transforming them into? It seems to be someone who has been entirely severed from their past, from the experiences that have shaped them, from all previous relationships, and from all desire to forge their own path. All of these things have also been labelled as ‘bad’, and therefore better to chop away. In some ways, other characters agree with Evelyn on this: we saw Leila’s upsetting story up close, and could see both the impact of the pain she was carrying from her past, and how she was tempted by the prospect of it being taken from her. The ensemble of the town’s hipster population frequently describe feeling much lighter after they were ‘relieved’ of their past via Evelyn’s home-brew chemical lobotomy. Can we conclude that Evelyn is right, in wanting to eradicate these ‘bad’ things? Is it better to be a town full of cookie-cutter, mild-mannered, pain-free post-cult acolytes?

As Martin goes onto show us, the one problem with labelling is that it doesn’t work. We’d love to be able to simplify things, and to cleanly divide them into their respective boxes, but a big old intruder spoils this pigeonholing party: nuance. As Abbie fights to hold onto, the truth is that the kids at the facility aren’t just ‘bad’. Their lives before Tall Pines brought them pain, but also a lot of joy (as seen when they get their hands on the boxes containing their old possessions). Cutting away the ‘bad’ parts of them via a drug-induced trip further and further down their mother’s throat means they don’t feel the pain anymore, but they also don’t feel much of anything else. Here, Martin reminds us that we can’t take away some feelings and leave the others: it’s a package deal. It’s also not only the happy parts of us past that shape us – all of our history contributes to our future.

Wayward is compelling because we can relate to this experience of labelling and being labelled, and we know the impact it can have. If we are labelled ‘bad’, it can exacerbate our challenges, because it’s easy to tumble further down the rabbit-hole if it feels like you’re doomed by something innately wrong with you. We also know what it’s like to label parts of ourselves as bad, whether it’s aspects of our personality, our history, or even our emotions. If we feel part of us is unacceptable, it’s tempting to try to hide it, so others can’t see it and then reject us (a bit like the Wayward parents, banishing the teens who threaten their idealized family image). But these parts of us are just as nuanced as the teenagers of Tall Pines: they might scare us, infuriate us, or be deeply challenging to sit with, but that doesn’t make them ‘bad’, because ‘bad’ implies there’s something wrong with them, instead of constituting a normal part of being human. It’s not easy to allow ourselves to be nuanced, but nuance comes with the territory – we all have ‘shadow selves’ inside, wayward teens of our own.

Evelyn Wade is definitely very keen on trying to create a world with no bad in it (even though this ‘no bad’ world would heavily feature kidnapped, drugged children, and a hefty body-count of murdered naysayers). However, the nuance that she’s missing is that it’s OK for bad to be in the picture. A painful past doesn’t mean you’re now ruined. Not fitting in with your family’s aspirations doesn’t mean you’re doing something wrong. And just because it’s impossible to parent without screwing something up doesn’t mean it’s not possible to be a good parent. Our relationships with others – and with ourselves – can accommodate both light and shadow, if we allow them to do so. Alex can still be a good guy, even if he’s killed quite a few people now – right?