Wayward, and the problem with labelling.

In terms of aspirational autumnal shows, Wayward starts off strong. Like Mae Martin’s Alex, we’re lured in by vistas of a lovely mountain town, replete with bountiful farmers’ markets, weather-ready chunky knits, and enough hand-fired pots to sate even the most fervent ceramicist’s appetites. Unfortunately, things soon nose-dive, with the accidental killing of a fugitive teen extinguishing Alex’s cottagecore dream pretty swiftly. Turns out, Tall Pines is much more ‘blood sacrifice’ than pumpkin spice.

Although the series takes the plot to extreme lengths, its premise traces back to a simple but dangerous question: can we ‘fix’ people? Enter the enigmatic Evelyn Wade, whose pitch to the show’s credulous parents is, A) yes, your child does need ‘fixing’; and B) yes, I can do that for you. As the story continues, we learn that Evelyn’s appetite for fixing doesn’t end with the kids entrusted to her care – she plans 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 highlights a central theme in Wayward: the labelling of people and things as ‘good’ or ‘bad’. The kids who end up at Tall Pines have been labelled ‘bad’. Their lives before Tall Pines were ‘bad’, and their futures would be so too, if it weren’t for Evelyn’s pivotal input. While Leila’s mum is specifically shown to be a ‘bad’ parent (neglectful, cold, distant), it is also implied that the other parents are ‘bad’, for having shipped their kids off to the hellscape of hot seats and animal monikers in which they now found themselves. Interestingly, Evelyn’s doctrine takes this ‘parental badness’ label even further: in her eyes, all parents are ‘bad’, because it’s impossible to parent without causing some pain. Accordingly, she outlaws biological parenting in Tall Pines. There’s a lot of quite intense labelling going on here, isn’t there?

So, if these things are all ‘bad’, what’s Evelyn’s idea of ‘good’? It seems to be someone entirely severed from all past hurt, and from any attachment to the sources of that hurt - including parents, friends, and even music they used to love. Some of the characters buy into this vision: in Leila’s story, we see how impacted she is by pain, and therefore how tempted to have it all taken away. The ensemble of the town’s hipster population frequently describe feeling much lighter after being ‘relieved’ of their past via Evelyn’s home-brew chemical lobotomy. Is Evelyn right, in wanting to eradicate all these ‘bad’ memories, experiences and relationships? Is it actually better to be a town full of cookie-cutter, mild-mannered, 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’ - and their past isn’t all bad, either. Their lives before Tall Pines were hard, but they also contained 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 no longer feel their hurt, but they also don’t feel much of anything else either. 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 our past that shape us – all of our history contributes to our future.

While we may not have personal experience of surviving Tall Pines, we can still relate to aspects of its inhabitants’ experiences. Like the parents banishing the kids who threaten their idealised family image, we too can be tempted to try to hide or erase parts of us we worry are unacceptable. But these parts are just as nuanced as the teenagers: they might scare us, infuriate us, or be deeply challenging to live with, but that doesn’t make them ‘bad’. It’s not easy to allow ourselves to be nuanced, but nuance comes with the territory of being human – 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?