Wayward TV show: Toni Collette is a chillingly effective villain in Canadian Netflix mystery

Just the words “Toni Collette as a terrifying cult leader” would be enough to pique your interest.

But there’s so much more to Wayward than Collette’s super effective performance as Evelyn Wade, a woman who’s all smiles and soft voice, but with a steely glint in her eyes that means business. You don’t want to cross Evelyn.

Still, the rest of the characters in Wayward must, or they’ll be forever trapped in the seemingly benign world she’s built in a small town called Tall Pines, in the American state of Vermont, right over the border from Canada.

The series hails from the US’s great neighbour to the north, created by, co-written by and starring comedian Mae Martin, who uses they/them pronouns.

Set in the early 2000s, Martin plays a transgender cop named Alex, who moves with his pregnant wife Laura (Sarah Gadon from Alias Grace) to Tall Pines, the town she grew up in after she was abandoned by her parents as a teenager.

Laura is a graduate of Tall Pines Academy, a reform school for troubled teens around which the town seems to have been built. The graduates are unfailingly loyal to the school in helping them become better people, leaving behind wayward behaviours such as drugs, alcohol or just goofing around. They’re even more loyal to Evelyn.

That something is sniffy about the place is made clear early when Alex comes across runaway student Riley, who in his feverish state, makes huge claims about mistreatment at Tall Pines.

The second set of lead characters are Abbie (Sydney Topliffe) and Leile (Alyvia Lyn Lind), two Canadian best friends who both wind up at Tall Pines.

Abbie’s straight-laced parents ship her off because of her unruly behaviour such as talking back or trying to assert her independence, shocking isn’t it, while Leile ends up in the school’s blue jumpsuit uniform after a failed attempt at breaking Abbie out.

Not everyone graduates from Tall Pines, and the school has a history of runaways who are never heard from again. Those still held within its walls are subject to emotional abuse, stringent rules and hierarchy, unusual punishments and brown food.

It’s all very suspicious, and Alex’s spider senses are more than tingling, they’re screaming. But with Laura potentially under Evelyn’s thrall and something off about the rest of the town, Alex is on a one-man mission to uncover the truth.

Martin has crafted an intriguing series with a compelling hook – because who doesn’t love the mystery of unravelling what is sure to be a cult. There are odd rituals, selective amnesia, a nasty-looking toad that plagues the town and even a strange door in Alex and Laura’s basement.

That’s all very well and good from the plot side, but Wayward works because its characters are ones you want to follow. You want Alex, effectively the audience stand-in, to discover all of Tall Pines’ secrets, even though there are suggestions of his chequered past, and you want to know to what extent Laura can be freed from Tall Pines’ continued influence.

You want those wayward teens to break out of their prison, and to find some peace in reckoning with the sh-tty parents who sent them there, or find a place in life that isn’t the uber-structure of this essentially prison.

Most of all, you want to watch Collette revel in the role of Evelyn. The thing with villains, especially cult leaders, is that you have to like them as well as be repelled by them, otherwise you’ll never buy into why they have power over others.

Collette has always been such a magnetic performer across every genre, but she’s always at her best when a role calls on her to be a little bit spiky and arch. It’s a mix of impeccable timing, instincts and oodles of charisma.

Evelyn is a little bit ridiculous and somewhat transparent, but she’s also genuinely scary. What does she get out of all this? That’s one of the hooks.

With Martin’s background in comedy, the show knows how to inject some levity and quirk into what could’ve been an exercise in grimness.

Wayward is definitely one of Netflix’s better series this year, and that’s not just goodwill towards Canadians, although we do love the Canucks.

Wayward is streaming on Netflix