The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
‘The Society’: When teens take over
Ever wonder what would happen if all the adults up and disappeared? Have you ever wondered what would happen if you left your teenager (who hasn’t quite mastered using the washing machine) to start up a new civilization? Based on my latest binge, it’s not too different from how adults would handle it.
“The Society” follows a group of highschoolers who can’t find their families after returning home from a field trip to the mountains.
At first, the teens think the rest of the town was evacuated due to a noxious smell that had taken over their town. Thinking that they have a night of freedom while they wait for their parents to call them back, the kids throw a rowdy party in the town’s church.
The next morning, after discovering the internet no longer works and that their roads lead to literally nowhere, the teens find themselves stuck.
Without adults, the teens are left to figure out how to run the town and try to figure out how to get back to their families. They create their own job routines and structure the new world they live in, while trying to figure out how to get home.
Which begs the question of where are the teenagers? What happened to their families? And most importantly, are these teenagers (who of course found guns) going to be able to survive each other?
However, just because “The Society” is a teen drama doesn’t mean the series revolves around petty issues. Kathryn Newton (“Big Little Lies”) plays Allie, the imperfect younger sister always caught in perfect Cassandra’s shadow, with fire and grit. In this new world the teens reign over, Allie learns more about who she is without her sister to stand behind. Sean Berdy (“Switched at Birth”) plays Sam, who is both deaf and gay and finds himself unable to rely on his older brother in this new world.
“The Society” has one season available on Netflix.
Audiences might also enjoy “Dark,” a scifi that takes place in Germany and begins with a missing child and that hurls the characters down the rabbit hole as the sins of multiple generations come back to haunt them. “Dark” has two seasons available on Netflix.