.jpeg)
Link to the n*de dudes
The 2025 tv series Wayward (one of those annoying Netflix one-word titles) is set at a school for troubled youth, so there's bound to be a lot of 30-year old fitness models playing juvenile delinquents, working out in the gym, lying shirtless in their bunks, and forming gay-subtext buddy-bonds. I'm in.
Scene 1: A teenage boy (John Daniel), with a bloody shirt, breaks through a window and runs away from the Tall Pines Academy, while spotlights, dogs, and armed guards chase him, and a brainwashing chant plays "You're on your back, crying for your mother. Your mother's face is a door..."
Running Boy is trapped by a lake. He tries to hide under the water, but the brainwashing chant is too much. He sees a door and screams.
Scene 2: Toronto, 2003. A lesbian couple, free-spirit Leila and her responsible Girlfriend, are sitting on the roof of their school, smoking and discussing their futures after they break free. They pledge allegiance to the Beatles, escape from the roof, and are called into the headmaster's office (Patrick J. Adams, left). He tells Leila that she is failing her classes due to her traumatic past, and dragging the Girlfriend down with her, so she is going to be sent to Tall Pines Academy in the U.S.
Patrick's d*ck is on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends
Scene 3: Tall Pines, Vermont, now. A butch/femme lesbian couple, the femme extremely pregnant, head through town. Butch Alex complains about how old-fashioned and dinky it is, and when they get to the house, complains about its retro 1950s look. But they have no choice: Detroit turned out to be a shithole, and the Wife grew up here, so they can get a house easily. Alex decides that she can endure it, and they start making out.
Two lesbian couples? Nice representation, but how about some gay men? John Daniel is quite femme in real life. If Riley isn't dead, maybe he'll be gay.
Toronto, 2003: Leila and her girlfriend are raiding the refrigerator and discussing shrooms. Girlfriend doesn't like Kyle (Donald Maclean, Jr): he never hangs out, and he's way old, like 26. In other news, Eli is totally into for Girlfriend. Wait -- these girls are straight? But they're hanging all over each other and discussing their future together. Sounds like queerbaiting.
Suddenly Girlfriend's Dad Brian (not listed in the IMDB) and the rest of the family appear, all irate. After kicking Leila out, Dad complains that Girlfriend is going to fail all her classes this year to hang out with a criminal. Back story: Everyone thinks that Leila murdered her sister.
Leila goes home to a horrible house in Toronto's ghetto, where her mom is watching a tv show about out-of-control kids that terrorize their parents. Up to her room to get high and burn the Tall Pines Academy brochure.
The next day, the history class is watching The Thomas Crowne Affair with Pierce Brosnan? The teacher is starting to cry; two hetero students are making out right at their desk. Girlfriend wants to know what this has to do with Canadian history -- it's not even set in Canada. Uh-oh, Eli (not listed in the IMDB), starts flirting and proffering pills. He saw the exams in the staff room, so Leila and Girlfriend are going to break into the school so they can steal the answers. When Girlfriend gets home from school, she finds Dad entertaining Bill from Work and his wife, who criticize her outfit and interest in social justice. The parents order her to go upstairs, change clothes, and help with the entertaining, "and pretend to be our daughter." This causes her to blow up. Dad grounds her, but she escapes and runs away.
The girls and Eli sneak into the school, take some shrooms, and frolick before stealing the test questions that will allow them to pass. Then Leila dumps the Girlfriend to hang out with her boyfriend Kyle. At least she left Eli for you to do stuff with.
Later, Girlfriend tries to sneak back into the house, but the whole family is still up. Her sister hugs her. Who died?
She goes to bed, but is awakened by men with flashlights, who tie her up, put a bag on her head -- with the parents' permission -- and drag her to a sinister white van. That's hardly a legitimate way to enroll a teen in a troubled youth academy.
The sun is just coming up when they arrive, and are welcomed by headmaster Leanne. Wait -- how did they get through American customs with a screaming, tied up girl?
2025 Vermont after the break.
Tall Pines, now. Breakfast. Butch Alex is a cop! She is suspicious because someone left a Welcome Basket, but the Wife tells her that people in small towns are often nice with no ulterior motive. She begs Alex to stay home from work; she is terrified of being alone. Sounds like she's got issues.
Butch Alex's partner Dwayne Andrews (Brandon James McLaren) appears at the front door; she is jealous to discover that he and the Wife have a history (so Wife is bisexual?)
On the way to work, we discovere that Butch Alex did something awful on a police call in Detroit -- which led to her being fired -- and was hoping that no one would know about it here. Nope, everybody knows. It's traumatic past all the way down with these people.
"This is a small town," Partner continues, "Nothing ever happens around here." At that moment, the Running Boy from Scene 1, the one who escaped from Tall Pines Academy, runs in front of their car, screaming "Help me!" They try to get him to calm down and explain, but when he sees that they're from the town of Tall Pines, he runs off into the woods The cops give chase, but he escapes.
At the station, the Police Chief promises that he doesn't care about What Happened in Detroit. He introduces Butch Alex around; she is suspicious because everyone is being nice.
That night, Butch Alex is complaining to the Wife about how terrified Running Boy looked, when their dog starts whimpering outside. They investigate, and find a stairway leading to a huge basement. No lights. At the far end, someone has painted a realistic-looking green door with the motto "Ponder." Like the one the Running Boy saw in the lake. Wife finds this so upsetting that she rushes up the stairs. So she has a history at Tall Pines. I'll bet she's the grown-up version of Leila from Toronto.
In the morning, the Wicked Witch of the West -- I mean Leanne, the head of Tall Pines Academy, though she's introduced riding a bicycle like Margaret Hamilton in The Wizard of Oz -- drops by the station to give them some details about the missing boy. He was extremely violent -- his foster parents were afraid of him -- but seemed to be responding to therapy, until an incident Wednesday night. He beat up another boy. They locked him up, but when they came to retrieve him, he was gone.
Why is everyone referring to Butch Alex as a "dude," and "he"? Do they think she's a man just because she's butch? Surely her info gives a gender somewhere.
Cut to the dark woods, where people with flashlights are calling for the Running Boy. Butch Alex is surprised that so many people showed up to look for a boy they don't even know. "It's a small town. We help each other." Why did they wait until nightfall? And he's not lost, he ran away -- he could be halfway across the country by now.
Alex finds Running Boy's hiding place, but he won't come out, so she leaves him some food.
She goes home and gets ready for bed -- um, we get a bare chest shot. This is a guy.
Wife complains that his face has no stubble yet. "Yeah, I know. Maybe I should up my dose." Ok, a transman. Still a heterosexual couple.
They are awakened at 4:00 am by clattering downstairs and the dog whining. Someone is in the house! Butch Alex -- I mean Alex the Husband -- grabs his gun and says "Stay here." Lady is terrified of everything. You think she's going to go bounding down the stairs?
It's Running Boy -- of course. "They're not what they say they are," he explains. Otherwise be lousy story.
Uh-oh, he thought they were alone. He sees the Wife, freaks out, and grabs a knife, and lunges. Don't leave knives lying out on the counter top, idjits. Alex tries to disarm him, and ends up stabbing him.
"Your wife is one of them," he murmurs as he is dying. I knew it!
The end.
Beefcake: None. Hardly any men.
Photos of n*de guys in the shower, and Patrick's d*ck, on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends.
Gay Teases: Leila and her Girlfriend turn out to be straight. The lesbian couple turn out to be a heterosexual couple, but with a transman, that still counts as LGBTQ representation.
Paranormal: Hopefully. Headmaster Leanne looks the same in 2003 and 2025, so she doesn't age. Running Boy Riley appears in every episode, so either there are a lot of flashbacks or he is resurrected.
The Two Timelines: We don't see how they are connected, but Alex's wife Laura sounds like Leila. And there's a boy named Rory at Tallpines in 2003 -- nearly identical names must signify something.
My Grade: Too confusing, too many gay teases, and most of the characters are not listed on the IMDB. I'm still looking for Eli. But at least there's some representation, and maybe the hunks arrive later. B.
Update: It took a lot of research, but finally I discovered that there aren't two timelines: both stories take place in 2003! But when we switch from Toronto to Vermont, and Alex complains about how old-fashioned everything is, that's a very clear, obvious indication that we've moved into the present. Why jerk around the viewers like that? And if they're all in the same timeline, why the nearly identical names?
Eight Halifax hunks, bulging Bluenoses, and n*de New Brunswickers
No comments:
Post a Comment
No offensive, insulting, racist, or homophobic comments are permitted.
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.