Fountains of Wayne
YouTube’s Original Series Wayne and the making of an Anti-Hero
Cast
Series cast summary:
James Earl … Officer Jay
Stephen Kearin … Sergeant Stephen Geller
Dean Winters … Daddy
Joshua J. Williams … Orlando
This is not your father’s Wayne’s World. In fact, it’s a whole new level on this particular Wayne. YouTube has boldly ventured into the arena of offering original content to its platform. I’ve watched two of their original series, Impulse, and Origins, and I thoroughly enjoyed Impulse while Origins started to lose me at the end mainly because of the Tom Felton character. This time, however, Wayne gave these eyes a chance to explore the foundation of a new character that’s brutal, in the literal sense, in its storytelling.
Mark McKenna, whom you may have seen in the 2016 film, Sing Street, plays the titular character Wayne, a teenager who is living by the margins of life. In the very first scene, you are not sure what is going on as you watch Wayne toss a rock through a window to a business. There are three guys standing outside the business when he does this. The owner comes out and Wayne promptly gets his ass kicked. Now you would think that this would be enough for anyone but for Wayne, he doubles down and picks up another rock and breaks another window. And so it begins and you take the bait.
You immediately start to like this kid without knowing a thing about him. Wayne, for the most part, is a quintessential loner and it seems like he wants it this way. He does have a friend but he appears to keep in close friendships a block away from him. He’s this new anti-hero. He fights the good fight for those who can’t. He takes on the bullies at his school like Clint Eastwood’s A Fist Full of Dollars. School is not his safe haven. He’s always at odds with the school principal, Mr. Cole, played very effective by Mike O’Malley from The Good Place and My Name is Earl fame. Principal Cole is a put upon soul trying to manage a school of students who just want to get through the day under the radar without being seen. Wayne represents that thorn in his big toe. He knows Wayne is not a bad kid but the trouble is like a magnet drawn to Wayne.
Enter Del, played with some gnashing teeth by Clare Bravo. You may have remembered her from the film Red Band Society with Octavia Spencer. Del has two older brothers who are dumb as cotton. The father, Daddy, is played by veteran actor, Dean Winter. He is quite good as the overbearing protective father that will go to any means necessary to keep his daughter out of the hands of Wayne. Wayne and Del’s coupling comes about in an unusual way and we learn much later in this ten-part series the motivation for Wayne to become involved with her.
Wayne lives with his father, a single dad. Dad, played by Ray McKinnon, is dying from cancer. Wayne is struggling with himself as he watches his father endure the pain from cancer because it is an expensive disease and there are pressures coming all around Wayne like a landlord wanting overdue rent monies. Dad has been living with cancer for a long time. He tries to extol some parting words to Wayne as he tells Wayne that he had this cherry vintage Pontiac Firebird Trans Am that he had restored and was to be pass on to Wayne but his wife, Wayne’s mother, took it when she left him for another man. This means nothing to Wayne as he’s concerned about his father. His father succumbs to the cancer battle and in a bizarre twist, Wayne set’s fire to the house with his father still inside.
In a series of twist, Del has joined Wayne on his motorcycle as he heads to Florida to claim the Trans Am. Let the road trip begin. Prior to leaving, Wayne gets into a fight with Del’s Daddy and her two older brothers. These fights aren’t pleasant and more street brawling. They are not, on the surface, choreographed ballet moves. Wayne bites off the nose of Daddy. Once Del leaves with Wayne, Daddy and the boys are in hot pursuit.
Daddy has also contacted the local law enforcement and asserted that Del was kidnapped by Wayne. Law enforcement is played by Stephen Kearin as Sergeant Geller and Officer Jay played by James Earl. These aren’t your typical cookie cutter cutout cops. Like Del’s Daddy, Sgt. Geller and Officer Jay decides to go after Wayne for allegedly kidnapping Del. Watching these two interacts with each other reminds you of a seasoned comedy duo with Sgt. Geller as the straight man and Officer Jay as the comic foil. This will not be your Hope and Crosby road show. Included in this road trip is Principal Cole and Orlando, Wayne’s only friend, played by Joshua J. Williams.
As the series unfolds, we get a backstory on Del’s mother. She is played surprisingly by Timeless’ Abigail Spencer. Del’s mom is a con artist and also might be a drug user. Her story is not really explored on the user side but more on the conning side. It’s not fully going into detail the mother’s cause of death only that she became ill and she wasn’t there anymore. If you are invested in this series, you would want to know what actually happens to her this late into the chapters. And too, you also had to wonder about if this backstory interrupts the pacing of the show like Stranger Things did with the backstory on the solo outing of Eleven?
As Wayne and Del get closer to Florida, they have their fair share to troubles and travails from having all of Del’s money stolen to trying to stay ahead of the law as their photos are displayed on the TV. They eventually make it to Florida and we finally get to witness Wayne’s not to motherly mother, Maureen, played by Micheala Watkins. Maureen is no June Cleaver by any stretch of credibility. She has long since abandon Wayne to his father and has never looked back. When she asks about Wayne’s father and he tells her that he’s dead, she doesn’t bother into wanting the details. And yet Wayne is trying to seek some sort of connection with his surviving parent. Del sees this and has total contempt for his mother as she tries to get Wayne to see that she isn’t the ideal mother or even to a lesser degree of a mother for him. Wayne is blinded by the euphoria of being around his mother and has ignored her flaws. He’s even lost interest in the very thing that’s brought him there, the Pontiac Trans Am, that’s being driven by his stepbrother.
Sgt. Geller and Officer Jay make it to Florida and there is a confrontation with the stepfather and Sgt. Geller. The stepfather wants to kick Sgt. Geller ass after Geller finds Wayne hanging in a garage and beaten up by the stepfather. We find that Geller has been arrested in a foreign land for several years and he’s sporting plenty of tattoos from his incarceration. While the stepfather may be known for being a street brawler, Geller’s ability to defend himself was a surprise reveal. Principal Cole and Orlando journey come with some revelations as well. This may have been a journey to retrieve Wayne but it becomes more of Principal Cole’s personal discovery about himself.
Wayne and Del have gotten a hold of the Trans Am. Del is driving while Wayne is unconscious. Out of nowhere, the car is T-boned and who should get out of the vehicle, Daddy and the boys. Del is knocked out and they carry her back to their truck. Wayne is left in the middle of the country road. What will happen next? Can we wait for Season 2?
No comments:
Post a Comment