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Creator/writer/star Mae Martin’s Wayward is Netflix’s biggest show right now. It’s a sly mystery involving cult behavior and cycles of trauma at a school for troubled teens, given added relevance by its proximity to real-life stories of abuses at similar facilities.
Wayward does a few different things well: It’s a mystery box show, first of all—meaning that we’re presented with not just one but several intriguing puzzles right off the bat, with resolutions handed out frugally. It’s also a great example of the “small towns are weird” subgenre, one that likes to remind us that there are strange and ominous doings in even the quietest communities. The show shines a dramatic light on the troubled-teen industry, here represented by the Tall Pines Academy, run by Toni Collette’s smirking, sinister head teacher. Last, but hardly least, Netflix‘s biggest, buzziest show tells a story with a trans character at its center, created by and starring non-binary comedian Mae Martin. In 2025, that ain’t nothing. All that’s to say that there are a few different roads to go down it we’re looking for a show to watch next.
Wayward Pines (2015 – 2016)
These shows have a bit more in common than just their similar titles. Based on a trilogy of Blake Crouch novels, this one stars, initially, Matt Dillon as a Secret Service agent investigating the disappearances of two fellow agents in the Idaho town of Wayward Pines (not to be confused with the Tall Pines of Wayward). Things go awry pretty much immediately, and he wakes up from a car accident to find one of the agents (Carla Gugino), who’s also his ex, having settled down in the seemingly idyllic community—and she’s 12 years older than when he last saw her a few weeks ago. Even more dramatically, the local sheriff (Terrence Howard) enforces a strict “no one ever leaves” policy, on pain of having one’s neck slit. The mysteries pile up from there. Stream Wayward Pines on Hulu.
Hemlock Grove (2013 – 2015)
One of the first of Netflix’s original series, this supernatural thriller takes us to the title Pennsylvania town, where economic realities have shut down the town’s steel mill and left residents with few options other than the two remaining employers are the Godfrey Institute for Biomedical Technologies and the Hemlock Acres Hospital. Take your pick, but do so knowing that Olivia Godfrey (Famke Janssen), head of the Godfrey Institute, is rumored to be conducting all sorts of weird experiments. When two teenage girls are murdered, a 17-year-old Romani kid, rumored to be a werewolf, is the prime suspect. The fact is, he is a werewolf, but that doesn’t make him a murderer. Stream Hemlock Grove on Shudder and AMC+.
Twin Peaks (1990 – 1991, 2017)
With all due respect to Wayward, I’m not sure there’s ever been a better, more iconic series about a freak small town full of dark secrets. In the initial run of Twin Peaks, teens and adults faced human tragedy accompanied by supernatural threats from outside of normal space and time. Kyle MacLachlan plays FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper, who arrives in the title town to investigate the murder of teenager homecoming queen Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee). His arrival in town precipitates a (very) long night of the soul as Cooper uncovers secrets and mysteries among the town’s delightfully, and often disturbingly, weird residents. Stream Twin Peaks on Mubi and Paramount+.
Yellowjackets (2021 – )
Purely in terms of plot, I’m not sure that Yellowjackets and Wayward have much in common. Tonally, though, they’re a good match, with secrets and mysteries abounding among characters with complicated pasts (the shows both also include some significant queer rep). This time-jumping survival drama is about a group of teenage girls becoming stranded in the wilderness in 1996 and doing terrible things to survive—the extent of which we only learn about via flashbacks from the present, where the events of those 19 months continue to have an impact. There are teases of the supernatural here, much of it ambiguous, but there’s plenty of horror in a past that we’re still seeing fleshed out. Yellowjackets rather cynically posits that there’s a huge difference between the version of the past we talk about and the one that really happened. Stream Yellowjackets on Paramount+; Netflix currently has the first two seasons.
The Wilds (2020 – 2022)
Situated between flashbacks and flash-forwards, mystery/thriller The Wilds sees an airplane full of teenage girls crash on the way to an empowerment program in Hawaii. It quickly becomes clear that the accident was engineered, and that the whole thing is some sort of social experiment, forcing the survivors to compete against each other for survival. The show understands the ways in which young women in the real world are exploited and expected to compete against each other, which grounds the elaborate plot twists. Like Wayward, the show turns on the power of manipulative authority figures to manipulate young women. Stream The Wilds on Prime Video.
The Institute (2025 – )
This Stephen King adaptation takes us to a rather different school for wayward children, as the titular institute is a place for locking away and manipulating teens with unique abilities; the indifferent staff put the kids through grueling, torturous experiments on the daily. Meanwhile, former cop Tim Jamieson (Ben Barnes) is hoping to put his dodgy past behind him in favor of the quiet life in a nearby town—until, of course, he finds himself drawn into the mystery of the sinister school in the next town over. The show’s been renewed for a second season. Stream The Institute on MGM+.
The Frog (2024)
There’s no sinister school here, but it’s otherwise a decent match if the tone you’re looking for is “sinister, twisty mystery in a seemingly quiet town.” Following his wife’s death, Yeong-ha (Kim Yoon-seok) just wants a quiet life in the secluded town where he lives, renting out the house next door as a vacation rental—though he’s not even all that enthusiastic about that. It’s all going fine until a young woman shows up with her son, the same woman abruptly leaving behind blood stains and, even more disturbingly, the kid. Stream The Frog.
Pieces of Her (2022)
Though the mystery/thriller vibes are on point here, we’re mostly here for the Toni Collette of it all, at least in terms of its relationship to Wayward. Bella Heathcote plays Andy Oliver, a young woman who’s moved back to her hometown to take care of her mom, Laura (Collette). Within the first 20 minutes of the show, a shooter attacks the diner where they’re both eating. When the man targets Andy, her mom dispatches the killer with relative ease—which, in Andy’s mind, raises some questions about mom’s backstory. The twisty series takes us around the bend a few times as to whether Collette’s character is a hero or a villain, but she’s clearly someone you don’t want to get on the wrong side of. Stream Pieces of Her on Netflix.
From (2022 – )
A bit more on the nose, perhaps, than Wayward, here we travel to The Town (we never get a name), from which no one can ever leave. The residents and visitors aren’t metaphorically trapped, but literally so, and are beset by creatures come from the woods and kill anyone found outside after dark. The Matthews family learn all about this firsthand when they roll into town in their RV and find themselves trapped alongside the local sheriff (Harold Perrineau)—just as it’s getting dark. The show’s monsters aren’t just mindlessly hungry, they’re cunning and sadistic, and more than capable of killing residents in impressively gory ways. It’s very much a supernatural spin on the “small towns ain’t what they seem” vibe. Stream From on MGM+.
The Program: Cons, Cults, and Kidnapping (2024)
A true crime docuseries that dives into one of the primary thematic drives of Wayward: what’s often referred to as the “troubled teen industry,” representing a broad array of residential centers for struggling teenagers. Though scandal and documented abuses abound, it’s nevertheless a multi-billion-dollar industry in the United States, offering behavioral correction and rehabilitation to parents and caregivers who feel that their kids have become problems. This series focuses on the rather horrific experiences of the “students” (inmates, more precisely) at the former Academy at Ivy Ridge in upstate New York. That facility has shut down, but others much like it carry on and, with the return of conversion therapy as a legal option, it’s the industry is likely to enter a new boom. Stream The Program: Cons, Cults, and Kidnapping on Netflix.
