Why Wayne Fans Think Reggie Is The Best Villain
The YouTube Premium teen action dramedy "Wayne" lasted just one season and 10 episodes despite a perfect 100% score from critics and a 98% rating from audiences at Rotten Tomatoes. Mark McKenna and Ciara Bravo starred as Wayne McCullough, Jr. and Del Luccetti, a pair of teens from Brockton, Massachusetts, who head to Florida on Wayne's dirt bike after his father dies. Their mission is to retrieve Wayne Sr.'s late '70s gold Pontiac Firebird Trans Am, which sits in the garage of his mother Maureen McNulty (Michaela Watkins) and her boyfriend Calvin Clay (Kirk Ward).
Del's father Bobby (Dean Winters) and hilariously cartoonish meathead twin brothers Carl and Teddy (Jon and Jamie Champagne) are convinced that Wayne has kidnapped Del (he is 16, she is 15) and at the conclusion of the series' lone season, they leave Wayne beaten and bleeding in the street and drag Del home with them. It's just one of many beatings Wayne suffers, and his ability to handle pain and his tendency to seek it out — in one scene, he puts a butcher knife through his own hand — gets him both into and out of trouble.
Wayne's funniest conflict undoubtedly is that with his stepbrother Reggie (Francesco Antonio), who, unbeknownst to Wayne, was gifted the precious Trans Am while he was at home 1,300 miles away. The tough-talking Reggie is profane and violent with everyone but his stepmother, with whom he is sweeter than pumpkin pie. Some fans on Reddit, in fact, were delighted with the character.
Reggie delighted viewers as well as the actor who played him
In a post to the r/Wayne subreddit, u/KevinKelbie wrote, "Reggie has to be one of my favorite villains in recent memory, some of the [stuff] he said was hilarious and he was a pretty good opposite of Wayne from the moment they encountered to their last interaction, both were equally as violent too." Several users echoed the original poster's praise for Reggie. "His derp voice when he pulled out the full auto guns had me laughing my a** off, had to pause the video," wrote u/musiciant. In a separate thread, another Redditor, u/I_Like_Hammers2, compared Reggie to Florida Man, the memetic representation of strange men from the Sunshine State who often commit unusual crimes.
Wayne's battles with his stepbrother — who sports a set of gold teeth with black gothic letters spelling out "killer" — are largely psychological until the two face off in a vacated police station in the series finale. The actor behind that magnificent grill, Francesco Antonio, told Ulkar Alakbarova of Movie Moves Me, "Reggie is like the ultimate antagonist. He is not a nice guy, gold teeth, tattoos, and the thing about Wayne is this kid is almost indestructible, but Reggie ends up being his match." Antonio added that Reggie is among the most interesting characters he's played so far, also noting that he believes he could have brought more to the role if "Wayne" didn't get canceled.
The last episode of "Wayne" aired more than three years ago and ended on a cliffhanger with our hero locked in jail with a broken arm and his precious Trans Am wrecked. Fans were left clamoring for more of Wayne, Del, and Reggie, but just might be left wanting.