Wayne is an action comedy created by Shawn Simmons that premiered on YouTube Premium on January 16, 2019, ran ten episodes, and was cancelled that August. It moved to Amazon Prime Video in November 2020. It is a gritty, sometimes bloody tale about a sixteen-year-old who sets out on a dirt bike with the girl he has a crush on to take back the 1978 Pontiac Trans Am that was stolen from his father before he died. It is this paper’s highest-scored series, and the score is ours, not a consensus.
Trailer, via Wayne.
Wayne
Mark McKenna plays Wayne, described by the show’s own makers as a sixteen-year-old Dirty Harry with a heart of gold. He is a kid who answers every injustice with his fists, and the series is about whether that instinct is a virtue or a wound. McKenna plays him almost silent, and the silence carries an enormous amount. Wayne does not explain himself. He acts, and the show lets you decide what to make of it.
Del
Ciara Bravo plays Del, the girl who climbs on the back of the bike, and she is the show’s other engine. Del is funny, furious and running from a family that would drag her back, and Bravo gives her a wit that Wayne lacks and needs. Wayne and Del against the world is the show’s pitch, and the two actors make it true.
The Road
The series is a road trip from Massachusetts to Florida, and along the way it builds a supporting cast that could carry shows of its own. Joshua J. Williams plays Orlando, Wayne’s best friend, whose loyalty is the show’s warmest thread. Dean Winters plays Bobby, Del’s father, a villain with more feeling than he lets on. Mike O’Malley plays Principal Cole, and Stephen Kearin and James Earl play the police who follow the trail of broken noses south.
Why It Earns the Score
Because it is honest about violence and tender about people, and almost nothing on television manages both. Wayne’s fights are ugly and have consequences, and the show never pretends otherwise. But the series is finally about a boy and a girl who have been failed by every adult they know and decide to be decent to each other anyway. It is funny in the way real people are funny, and it is sad in the way real lives are sad, and it does both without a laugh track or a speech.
The Cancellation
Ten episodes and gone. The show was made for a platform that stopped making shows, and it never found the audience it deserved until it moved. It ends on an open note that a second season would have answered. That season does not exist, and the ending works anyway.
What Others Might Hold Against It
It is violent, and some viewers will find the blood at odds with the sweetness. The road-trip structure is episodic. And the show’s affection for its own toughness occasionally tips into swagger.
The Verdict
We do not hold any of it against Wayne. It is a small, fierce, beautifully acted series about two kids on a bike, and it is as close to perfect as ten episodes of television get.
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