Netflix’s Wayward, from creator Mae Martin, can serve as a metaphor, a miniseries juggling several characters. Martin plays Alex Dempsey, a Detroit cop moving to his wife Laura Redman’s (Sarah Gadon) hometown. That town in Tall Pines, hosting a camp where Laura’s parents sent her when she was younger. The we have Abbie and Leila. Sydney Toliffe and Alyvia Alyn Lind play the Toronto based teens. They’re half a generation younger than Alex and Laura, and who are now in that camp. After dealing with a runaway case, Alex runs into Abbie and Leila in the camp, making her suspicious of the wellbeing of these teens. The facility makes Leila relive her trauma, with Evelyn (Toni Collette) brainwashing these teens. Evelyn sees the rebel as a leader, and getting to Leila becomes easier every day in Tall Pines.

Most supernatural texts show that living within a crazy supernatural world is harder than watching it unfold through any screen. The miniseries captures a lot of moments where Alex, with his investigative work, grapples with what’s really happening in Tall Pines. The same goes for Abbie and Leila, who are describing what happens to their fellow ‘patients’ who graduate into ‘ascended’. Ascending, by the way, is Evelyn’s way of brainwashing these teens, which looks like hypnosis but a little bit freakier. Wayward, though, grounds itself in realism with the way it writes this specific group of teens as relatably bratty. The more Evelyn and her minions try to control them, the more they push back, their liberation something viewers root for.

Wayward roots for its young characters through its storytelling methods, through their new predicaments and through episodes dedicated to flashbacks. A miniseries with three protagonists, the middle episodes choose Leila’s arc as its focal points, and flashbacks help here. It depicts the moment that breaks her soul and turns her into a titular wayward teen – the accidental death of her sister. And it shows different versions of it – the one that she remembers, the version Evelyn wants her to remember, and the truth. The miniseries chooses this psychological way for Evelyn and Leila’s conflict to play out, which is pretty interesting. Either Evelyn wins by letting Leila and the teens think that everything’s their fault or stand their ground and resist.

And by focusing on Leila, Wayward shows Martin’s interests – they like looking back at adolescence, a time we’ve all forgotten. On the base level, it’s a nostalgia trip, not hiding its Canadian roots even with the choices of needle drops. It also reminds viewers of the eternal conflict between generations – a big theme in movies and shows in recent memory. It feels like older people want to mold younger people. Especially those who hold opposite values because that feels more like a challenge for them. Older people build communities but they can’t make those communities sustainable so they’ll try supernatural methods, exaggerating real life methods. Martin’s point may be that it’s sad that some people despise others but desperately need them at the same time.

Stream Wayward on Netflix.