Joy Richards is a therapist trying to find a way to keep the spark with her husband, Alan, after a cycling accident causes her to reassess their relationship. As family, friends, neighbours and clients live their lives, stories of love, lust and forbidden desire emerge.
Latest episode: S1 E6 Episode 6 (Oct 9, 2018)
Joy Richards is a therapist trying to find a way to keep the spark with her husband, Alan, after a cycling accident causes her to reassess their relationship. As family, friends, neighbours and clients live their lives, stories of love, lust and forbidden desire emerge.
I’ll admit it: I went into Wanderlust expecting a cheeky British romp about middle-aged lust, something like Fleabag with fewer fourth-wall breaks and more herbal tea. What I got instead was a series that treats marriage not as a punchline but as a slow-motion car crash—one you can’t look away from, even when the airbags deploy in your face. The show’s premise is simple: Joy Richards (Toni Collette), a therapist, and her husband Alan (Steven Mackintosh) decide to open their marriage after a cycling accident leaves Joy questioning everything.
What follows isn’t just about sex, though there’s plenty of that. It’s about the quiet, creeping terror of realizing the person you’ve built a life with might not be the person you want to keep building it with.
The first episode drops you into the deep end. Joy and Alan’s attempt at a threesome is so awkward it’s almost painful to watch—like a nature documentary about humans trying to mate in captivity. The camera lingers on their faces: Joy’s forced enthusiasm, Alan’s deer-in-headlights stare.
It’s not titillating; it’s real. And that’s the show’s superpower. Wanderlust doesn’t glamorize polyamory or demonize it. It treats sex as something messy, funny, and occasionally humiliating, the way most of us experience it.
The series’ frankness about desire—especially female desire in middle age—feels radical in a way that’s less about shock value and more about honesty. Joy isn’t a cougar or a desperate housewife; she’s a woman who’s spent decades putting other people’s emotional needs first and is suddenly wondering what hers might be.
Collette, of course, is the reason this works. She’s always been an actor who can convey a universe of thought with a single eyebrow twitch, but here she’s operating at a different level. Watch the way she handles Joy’s therapy sessions.
"A bold and thought-provoking exploration of modern relationships, elevated by Toni Collette’s standout performance but occasionally uneven in tone."
Viewers appreciate the series for its honest and often raw portrayal of marriage, sexuality, and personal growth, with Toni Collette’s performance frequently highlighted as a major strength. However, some find the pacing inconsistent and the tone fluctuating between drama and comedy, which can feel jarring at times. latestnetflix.com's take is that the show’s willingness to tackle taboo subjects is praised, though not all storylines resonate equally.
The 2018 BBC/Netflix drama Wanderlust didn’t just push boundaries—it bulldozed them. Starring Toni Collette as Joy Richards, a therapist navigating a radical approach to monogamy after a near-fatal bike accident, the series became a lightning rod for debate. Viewers either praised its bold exploration of modern relationships or slammed it as unrealistic, pretentious, or even cringe-worthy. latestnetflix.com's view is that but behind the controversy, Collette’s commitment to the role—and the show’s unflinching take on sex—kept the conversation burning.
Collette didn’t just play Joy; she related to her. In interviews, the actress admitted she shared her character’s skepticism about traditional monogamy, though she stopped short of endorsing Joy’s methods. “I think Joy’s journey is about questioning the status quo,” Collette said in an extended chat on Lorraine, framing the show as a conversation starter rather than a manifesto . She also revealed that Joy’s struggles mirrored her own curiosity about relationships, though she kept her personal life private .
The role was a departure from Collette’s usual fare—no horror (Hereditary), no quirky dramedy (Little Miss Sunshine). Instead, she dove headfirst into a character whose emotional and sexual honesty was as raw as it was polarizing. And she wasn’t alone in the deep end: co-star Steven Mackintosh (playing Joy’s husband, Alan) matched her intensity, creating a dynamic that felt uncomfortably real.
Wanderlust didn’t just talk about sex—it showed it, in all its messy, awkward, sometimes hilarious glory. From Joy’s post-accident rediscovery of desire to Alan’s fumbling attempts to reconnect, the series refused to sanitize intimacy. Collette later called the approach “liberating,” arguing that the show’s frankness was long overdue .
But not everyone was on board. Some viewers accused the series of being gratuitous, while others found its portrayal of open relationships naive or even tone-deaf. A Boys On Film review called it “a noble experiment, but one that often feels more like a lecture than a story” . Meanwhile, a Digital Spy spoiler breakdown highlighted how the BBC drama’s boldness backfired for some, with fans arguing that Joy’s choices lacked consequences .
Originally a BBC One production, Wanderlust found a second life on Netflix, where its provocative premise attracted a global audience. The streaming giant leaned into the controversy, marketing the show as “the series everyone’s talking about” . Trailers emphasized the shock value—quick cuts of Collette’s Joy mid-conversation about threesomes, Alan’s stunned reactions, and the couple’s increasingly fraught dynamic .
Yet for all the hype, the show’s reception was decidedly mixed. A no-spoiler review of the first season praised its ambition but noted that the writing sometimes struggled to balance drama and didacticism . Whether Wanderlust was a groundbreaking exploration of modern love or a misfire likely depends on who you ask—but it’s hard to deny it left a mark.
Collette hoped so. In her Lorraine interview, she framed the show as a way to “remove the taboo” around discussing sex and relationships openly . Whether it succeeded is debatable. While Wanderlust didn’t spark a wave of copycat series, it did prove that audiences were hungry for stories that treated intimacy as more than just a plot device.
For better or worse, the show forced viewers to confront their own biases—about monogamy, desire, and what “happily ever after” really looks like. And with Collette at the helm, it did so with a fearlessness that’s still rare on screen.
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