The Society: Netflix: Season 1: Ending Explained Spoiler Talk Breakdown

The Society has just dropped on Netflix and the ten hour season has a lot to unpack from it. Throughout this, I’ll be breaking down everything that you need to know about the show as well as what I took from it.

This is full spoilers ahead so if you haven’t seen the show yet and don’t want to know what happens then I highly suggest that you turn off now.

With that out the way, I just wanna thank you for clicking the video, now sit back, relax and lets get into my break down of The Society.

The Society Season 1 Recap

The Society is a Lord of the flies-esque teenage drama that follows a group of young students who during a field trip find themselves in a replica of their home town with one big caveat: all of the adults in the area are gone.

The area has had a mysterious odor around it for the past couple of days and this seems to be linked to the disappearance of the majority of the city’s citizens.

There is apparently no way out or in of the town or evidence of anything beyond it.

West Ham and The Society becomes just that, a group of people struggling to create their own community without imploding on one another.

Non-Stop Party

Initially, this seems like a paradise where young people are no longer judged by their parent’s prejudices and this allows them to live a life of partying where the fun never seems to end. Like all good things though it must.

Cassandra, played by Rachel Keller, appoints herself as the leader but unfortunately, she isn’t strong enough to stop the ensuing chaos that inevitably will spring forth from a group of High Schoolers being told that they are now the rulers of the town.

Naturally cliques form and this causes conflicts and as people become more and more territorial we slowly realise that society as a whole, when reduced to something without rules, can lead to dire consequences.

The Fall Of Society

The groups try to form their own order but in doing so they quickly fall into the cliches that they originally hated and were trying to escape from.

This is a true debate before our very eyes on the positives and negatives of socialism, democracy, communism and capitalism that is far more mature than the characters that it portrays in the show.

What I love about The Society is that the characters are forced to confront and accept that they took everything for granted. Their privilege has been something that they never really considered and when they are put in a position without it they struggle to get by.

Cassandra has to deal with the fact that there are many people who resent her new position of power and influence and ultimately she becomes the focus rather than the danger of the paranormal happening that caused most of the population to disappear. Shes berated as no longer being the class president and the show does an outstanding job of showcasing just how little elected positions of power actually are once the rules are stripped away.

Eventually, she succumbs to this and is put in the firing line due to people’s hate of her.

Let A Leader Lead

This doesn’t make things easier for those put in power either which the majority of the newly appointed leaders in the season being unable to handle the pressure. Allie struggles to deal with this throughout and it becomes clear that in making one decision, whilst some will be happy, many will not.

The show cements the two sides of society with law, duty, reason and protection of the weak having to go head to head with ruling through fear, mob mentalities and tyranny. The subtext here is outstanding and it’s a very well developed show in terms of metaphors and meaning.

There are trials, elections, executions and even a mayoral campaign that see the society slowly turn into a real one. The show in the end actually respects its characters and does show that teenagers, if put in the right position can make correct decisions and grow. The show has a 6 month time jump that allows to show how the actions of the group have repercussions and it allows the characters to play their part in this huge coming of age story.

The Society: Ending Explained

The Season 1 finale ends with Allie and Will removed from their leadership positions after a coup is staged by Campbell and Lexie. This sends the election that the show has been building up to off the rails but not everything is as simple as it seems.

Lexie talks like she’s deadset on removing Allie however she knows deep down that she can’t really handle the pressure herself. The ending is a focus on how its easy to judge those making the difficult choices, however, when those choices are given to you, that doesn’t mean that you have the strength to make the tough decisions, no matter how good of a critic you are.

Though the society has shown that they are very judgemental to people like Dewey, that doesn’t mean that Will and Allie will fall victims to this. Allie has so much experience that it would be stupid for Lexie to kill her as she’s the only one who truly knows what it’s like to lead.

There’s also the fact that there can’t really be any major changes once the two are ousted. Everything has a balance currently and the new leaders will likely not want to destabilise this which comments on how our civilization is built on certain expectations and that politicians can do very little when it comes to changing the big issues.

The fact is, people have to do things they don’t want to from time to time, there must be rules put in place and jobs in order to everyone to get stability in their lives.

The True Meaning

In order to ‘run this town how it should be run’ there isn’t much that the new leaders can be done and they will no doubt realise in the second season how difficult her shoes are to fill. Sure Allie made some missteps in finding her feet but she was never qualified for the position anyway.

Going forward I can see Lexie relying on Allie for her advice and thus the townsfolk will realise that nothing has really changed with her still making the tough decisions. This will cause even more rioting with the town overturning the new leaders in order to reappoint her.

As Allie said, Lexie making people hate her is easy but once that goes away there’s nothing else she can use and I think Season 2 will be a big focus on this.

What Caused The Parents To Disappear?

The next big thing Season 2 should tackle but probably won’t is why the adults all disappeared. I’ve seen many theories with the majority of people believing that this is all part of either an alien or government experiment but I actually think this is to do with the multiverse.

It’s paid lip service in the finale and seems like it makes the most sense.

The School buses clearly dropped them off in a replica city, rather than their home which is why things like the graffiti were missing. There’s very clear allusions to the pied piper, with the mysterious bus driver seeming to have lead the children away after the townsfolk refused to pay him for clearing the smell.

I believe that he has escorted them away and is doing this to punish the parents for their greed.

In the end, we see that the parents are still alive and are clearly morning the ones who have disappeared and they still live in the same town and are thriving once more. However, these children may too be put in danger by the return of the force that took them and I can see this becoming a force when it returns.

All in all, I hope it’s something to do with Thanos but I guess we will find out in Season 2.