Teenage Robin Hood and the Perfect Bloody Romance

Please note trigger and content warnings: heavy gore, violence, drug abuse, domestic violence, and profanity.

If you’re in search of a quick, ten-episode TV show tailored perfectly for the teenage experience, search no further. You name it, Wayne’s got it. A crazy, spur-of-the-moment road trip across state lines? Of course. An exploration of the complicated relationship between parents and their kids? You betcha. How to navigate grief and reconcile past relationships gone south? Check. And, of course, the nuanced experience of high school dating—with a twist. No stone is left unturned; the show covers social-political issues all across the board, like the exploitation of immigrant workers, drug abuse, the struggles that follow childhood trauma, and more. 

At its core, Wayne is a soft and sweet romance—or rather, you can find the romance between bloody fight scenes and in the thick of comical Boston accents. But still a romance, nonetheless. Fight scenes punctuated by hard rock music, you’ll know exactly when main character Wayne is about to make it go down. Hard. It’s a show oozing with antithesis and conflicting ideas; Wayne will have you doing it all—laughing, crying, and watching with a jealous glare at the sweet romance between Wayne and Del. A story seemingly about two kids who come together to steal a car—one of them who lacks the ability to think his actions through and has a penchant for serving his own version of justice, and another who can’t seem to let anyone get close to her—slowly and deliciously turns into a sweet story about loving whomever you choose to love and trusting them deeply.

Del Luccetti, played by Ciara Bravo, is the daughter of a dishonest alcoholic dad and a mom who is hinted to use drugs and has an inconsistent mental health record, as well as older twin brothers with “half a brain between ‘em,” according to Del. To viewers’ surprise, they still seem to have a strong familial bond. In this way, Wayne offers a healthy commentary on how “broken” families actually work—how it’s so difficult to fully hate the family who hurts you because there’s still so much good nestled in the bad. 

Though the show starts with a larger focus on Wayne’s character, the second half of the show dives much deeper into Del’s background. Watchers will find out how she has big dreams of becoming something better than her parents, and how she has a hard time trusting people as an effect of her mother’s inconsistency throughout Del’s childhood. 

And of course, the big guy the show was named after: Wayne McCullough, played by Mark McKenna. McKenna’s performance perfectly conveys his character’s hard exterior and, more importantly, his vulnerabilities. Wayne hasn’t had it easy by any means; it is revealed in the first episode that his father dies from cancer he developed while exposed to harsh chemicals working at a blue-collar factory job, and his mother ran off with another man when Wayne was just a little kid. In the motel episode, Wayne also reveals that his brother used to regularly beat him so violently that Wayne nearly died. Similar to Del, Wayne has a difficult time trusting people because of the inconsistency of his childhood.

These two dynamic characters set off on a road trip from Boston, Mass. to Ocala, Florida, to take back Wayne Sr.’s 70’s Trans Am, which had been stolen nearly a decade earlier by Wayne’s mom and her new boyfriend. Those who tune in to watch Wayne will watch his and Del’s bloody romance blossom, Del come to terms with her and her father’s complicated relationship and learn to properly grieve her mother’s death, and most importantly: two lost kids who learn to love and trust each other.

Graphic caption: “I remember just when [Wayne] came out, and I watched the first episode because it’s free, and I was like, ‘Man, I’m gonna get a free trial just to watch the rest of it,’” Mia Harter, 10 describes.

Wayne is available to anyone who has a subscription to Amazon Prime Video or YouTube TV. A free trial is also available on either of those streaming services.