‘Wayward’ Review: Toni Collette's Chilling Performance Can't Save Netflix’s Dark Mystery Thriller From Straying Off the Path

For all its fascination over the last six decades, the troubled teen industry is not without its fair share of controversy. Thriving in the shadows of American life, the multibillion-dollar network of residential programs, therapeutic boarding schools, wilderness camps, and so-called “reform academies” operates with minimal regulation and allegations that are a horror in and of themselves. It’s that very world of mystery that Netflix’s newest thriller, Wayward, tries to tap into. Created by Mae Martin, the series is set around a reform school in an eerily quiet Vermont countryside called Tall Pines Academy. But things are not what they seem.