The Society- An Unbiased Review
SPOILERS!!
5/10 stars
Before getting into all the bad things that trickle within this series, I want to focus on what was done well, and there was truly a lot that was executed well.
1. I enjoyed the character arc of Campbell, (Toby Wallace) throughout the season. I thought his reveal of nature was interesting, as well as his relationship with Elle, (Olivia DeJonge). I believe the writers really had a strong connection with this characters portion of writing, putting a lot of focus on Campbells scenes and dialogue. It read well for me, except for at the end of the season which I will discuss later.
2. The sound editing is spot on! The song choices were superb and never missed a beat. They were suspenseful when needed, and slower in other portions. This is a strong sound engineer!
3. I really liked the set up! I think I found myself very interested and intrigued about the whole situation the kids were in, even though it's been done before in countless other adaptations, i.e. Lord of the Flies, the Gone book series, etc. I loved how throughout the show, they really highlighted government as an important aspect of society, and these portions of the season were done extremely well!
4. I loved Griz, (Jack Mulhern)! This was probably the most impressive performance for me. He never missed a beat in his performance and he felt genuine. I never questioned whether or not his character would do the things he was doing in the show, and that is very impressive considering the script he was given. There is a scene in the last episode where he is reading a book that Sam, (Sean Berdy) gave him, and he reads a few portions out of it. This moment was so powerful. He has such expressive eyes. I can't wait to see more from this young, almost unheard of actor.
5. The mystery was well paced. I feel like this was the main fighting factor of what made me keep watching, and it was slowly talked about more and more as the episodes went on. This was a smart decision. The writers did a good job of holding suspense just enough to where it still kept me interested to watch.
6. It has everything a teen drama needs. I wasn't expecting a "Lost" type quality series here, and it didn't live up to those expectations... and that's okay. This show hits exactly where it intended to hit. It keeps the viewer interested and does a good job relating to their YA audience.
Now onto the things that I felt were bad. Although this is how I felt about the series, it is not in any means an attack on the show. In my own opinion, these are the areas that were not executed well.
1. Writing. It most instances, not all, the writing feels soulless. What I mean by this is that it has no actual direction. It doesn't have a soul. If you look at a show like "the Handmaids Tale" or "This is Us" I see a clear, defiant writing style that serves and acts as an art style within the series itself. It speaks its own message. It allows me to se multiple sides of situations and plot elements in the show without losing important plot aspects. "The Society" doesn't give me that. It doesn't have a message underneath for me. It doesn't have plot devices that can make me feel multiple ways about a situation. Instead of figuring out my own form of thinking in the show, I'm told what to think. This was sad for me to see in such an interesting world with mind boggling characters that the writers have imagined.
2. Helena, (Natasha Bordizzo). Oh Helena... I swear she has some ulterior or underlying motive. I don't believe this character for a second. She feels completely unreal with no dimension. What is her drive? From the beginning, she has set herself up as a wonderful Christian, god fearing women, and then she chooses moments in the story that do not reflect her chosen character traits at all. Although it is a writers choice to make a statement about religion or status, it truly works against the writers in the long run. Helena felt fake to me, and when the writers established this for me in the early episodes, it was very hard to watch her for the rest of the series, which she actually played a significant role in.
3. Smart, yet stupid characters. Once again, I feel as if this issue could have been solved in writing, but I will talk about it separately. From the beginning of the show, we see characters such as Harry, Helena, Cassandra, Sam, etc. that are set up as top students. There were even lines in the first or second episodes that I remembered specifically stated that Helena was to attend Stanford or Harvard when she got out of high school, and that Cassandra was to attend Yale. Huh. These smart people must be very dumb. There is one scene when all the students are in the cafeteria after Cassandra gets killed, and these two kids pull out their guns and threaten to shoot. This entire situation is just dumb. It was this and countless other choices and mistakes that just really aggravated me. It made me feel disconnected to the characters. I was told and lead to believe that these people are smart, top level thinking people. When it turned out that they weren't, it disconnected me from the series.
4. My last point has to do with motivation. This is what killed me the most. In the last two episodes, I had no inclination of why anyone was doing what they were doing other than Allie, (Kathryn Newton), and Will, (Jacques Colimon), and that's only because the writers forced me to know what their motivations were. Characters like Harry, (Alex Fitzalan), and Luke, (Alex MacNicoll) I had to no clue what we're thinking about in the final episodes. I get that Harry was being blackmailed by Campbell for drugs, but did that really give him enough motivation to start a revolution? To threaten two innocent people's lives? Even if drugs is enough of a reason for motivation for this character the writers should have known better to create other sides to his motivation. There were so many options they could have pursued in Harry's overall motivation and I feel like they settled with one that was just "good enough". With Luke's character on the other hand, there is no excuse. I have absolutely no idea why he is standing up for Harry and Campbell at the end. Why is he doing this? I know he's no just scared of the guard because the writers showed me for 9 episodes before episode 10 that Luke was almost fearless. What is his motivation here? Why is he betraying his friends? It just does not work for me at all, and this really put a damper of an ending on the show for me. It was hard to be connected with theses character the whole season, and then finally see them make choices that just felt untrue to them and untrue to the audience. I felt leaving disconnected to almost everyone on screen.
Overall, the Society is a good teen drama show that has everything you want in a good drama. It has some good acting and really good sound and editing choices. What it lacks for me is good writing, and solid character arcs for every character all the way through. I wish I could know who every character was in this show, but I truly don't. And this is because of writing that gives characters zero motivation for most things that occur in the plot. For these reasons, I am giving the Society a 5/10. Thank you for reading this review!
SPOILERS!!
5/10 stars
Before getting into all the bad things that trickle within this series, I want to focus on what was done well, and there was truly a lot that was executed well.
1. I enjoyed the character arc of Campbell, (Toby Wallace) throughout the season. I thought his reveal of nature was interesting, as well as his relationship with Elle, (Olivia DeJonge). I believe the writers really had a strong connection with this characters portion of writing, putting a lot of focus on Campbells scenes and dialogue. It read well for me, except for at the end of the season which I will discuss later.
2. The sound editing is spot on! The song choices were superb and never missed a beat. They were suspenseful when needed, and slower in other portions. This is a strong sound engineer!
3. I really liked the set up! I think I found myself very interested and intrigued about the whole situation the kids were in, even though it's been done before in countless other adaptations, i.e. Lord of the Flies, the Gone book series, etc. I loved how throughout the show, they really highlighted government as an important aspect of society, and these portions of the season were done extremely well!
4. I loved Griz, (Jack Mulhern)! This was probably the most impressive performance for me. He never missed a beat in his performance and he felt genuine. I never questioned whether or not his character would do the things he was doing in the show, and that is very impressive considering the script he was given. There is a scene in the last episode where he is reading a book that Sam, (Sean Berdy) gave him, and he reads a few portions out of it. This moment was so powerful. He has such expressive eyes. I can't wait to see more from this young, almost unheard of actor.
5. The mystery was well paced. I feel like this was the main fighting factor of what made me keep watching, and it was slowly talked about more and more as the episodes went on. This was a smart decision. The writers did a good job of holding suspense just enough to where it still kept me interested to watch.
6. It has everything a teen drama needs. I wasn't expecting a "Lost" type quality series here, and it didn't live up to those expectations... and that's okay. This show hits exactly where it intended to hit. It keeps the viewer interested and does a good job relating to their YA audience.
Now onto the things that I felt were bad. Although this is how I felt about the series, it is not in any means an attack on the show. In my own opinion, these are the areas that were not executed well.
1. Writing. It most instances, not all, the writing feels soulless. What I mean by this is that it has no actual direction. It doesn't have a soul. If you look at a show like "the Handmaids Tale" or "This is Us" I see a clear, defiant writing style that serves and acts as an art style within the series itself. It speaks its own message. It allows me to se multiple sides of situations and plot elements in the show without losing important plot aspects. "The Society" doesn't give me that. It doesn't have a message underneath for me. It doesn't have plot devices that can make me feel multiple ways about a situation. Instead of figuring out my own form of thinking in the show, I'm told what to think. This was sad for me to see in such an interesting world with mind boggling characters that the writers have imagined.
2. Helena, (Natasha Bordizzo). Oh Helena... I swear she has some ulterior or underlying motive. I don't believe this character for a second. She feels completely unreal with no dimension. What is her drive? From the beginning, she has set herself up as a wonderful Christian, god fearing women, and then she chooses moments in the story that do not reflect her chosen character traits at all. Although it is a writers choice to make a statement about religion or status, it truly works against the writers in the long run. Helena felt fake to me, and when the writers established this for me in the early episodes, it was very hard to watch her for the rest of the series, which she actually played a significant role in.
3. Smart, yet stupid characters. Once again, I feel as if this issue could have been solved in writing, but I will talk about it separately. From the beginning of the show, we see characters such as Harry, Helena, Cassandra, Sam, etc. that are set up as top students. There were even lines in the first or second episodes that I remembered specifically stated that Helena was to attend Stanford or Harvard when she got out of high school, and that Cassandra was to attend Yale. Huh. These smart people must be very dumb. There is one scene when all the students are in the cafeteria after Cassandra gets killed, and these two kids pull out their guns and threaten to shoot. This entire situation is just dumb. It was this and countless other choices and mistakes that just really aggravated me. It made me feel disconnected to the characters. I was told and lead to believe that these people are smart, top level thinking people. When it turned out that they weren't, it disconnected me from the series.
4. My last point has to do with motivation. This is what killed me the most. In the last two episodes, I had no inclination of why anyone was doing what they were doing other than Allie, (Kathryn Newton), and Will, (Jacques Colimon), and that's only because the writers forced me to know what their motivations were. Characters like Harry, (Alex Fitzalan), and Luke, (Alex MacNicoll) I had to no clue what we're thinking about in the final episodes. I get that Harry was being blackmailed by Campbell for drugs, but did that really give him enough motivation to start a revolution? To threaten two innocent people's lives? Even if drugs is enough of a reason for motivation for this character the writers should have known better to create other sides to his motivation. There were so many options they could have pursued in Harry's overall motivation and I feel like they settled with one that was just "good enough". With Luke's character on the other hand, there is no excuse. I have absolutely no idea why he is standing up for Harry and Campbell at the end. Why is he doing this? I know he's no just scared of the guard because the writers showed me for 9 episodes before episode 10 that Luke was almost fearless. What is his motivation here? Why is he betraying his friends? It just does not work for me at all, and this really put a damper of an ending on the show for me. It was hard to be connected with theses character the whole season, and then finally see them make choices that just felt untrue to them and untrue to the audience. I felt leaving disconnected to almost everyone on screen.
Overall, the Society is a good teen drama show that has everything you want in a good drama. It has some good acting and really good sound and editing choices. What it lacks for me is good writing, and solid character arcs for every character all the way through. I wish I could know who every character was in this show, but I truly don't. And this is because of writing that gives characters zero motivation for most things that occur in the plot. For these reasons, I am giving the Society a 5/10. Thank you for reading this review!