Bummer News, People: ‘The Society’ Has Officially Been Canceled
[Warning: spoilers ahead for Netflix’s The Society season 1.]
If you’re like me, you binged the entirety of Netflix’s new teen dystopian drama The Society in one sitting. Harry (Alex Fitzalan) is your problematic fave, Grizz (Jack Mulhern) is your fave fave, you hate Campbell (Toby Wallace) with the burning passion of a thousand suns, and you’re wondering how the hell the kids of New Ham are going to get TF back home. Seriously, what the actual hell would you do in this situation?
It was stressful enough when Allie (Kathryn Newton) was in charge of all the lost teenagers stuck in the weird parallel universe of rich-people Connecticut. But now that an actual sociopath organized a coup d’état behind the guise of Lexie (Grace Victoria Cox) and Harry, everything seems fucked. It’s hard to imagine the teens surviving a northeast winter, even with Grizz’s miracle farm.
Unfortunately, there’s some bummer news about the show.
Welp, the bad news first:
After initially renewing the series for a second season, Netflix announced last Friday that it was canceling The Society. Basically, it’s because of coronavirus-related production issues. The show was supposed to start filming a second season soon, but with the added expense of all the new safety protocols and getting everyone in that cast to be available at the same time, there were tons of logistical issues. It’s a huge bummer.
Did season 2 get the green light?
YES! That’s the infuriating thing. Netflix announced on July 9, 2019, that season 2 of The Society was supposed to be a go.
But now it’s not happening.
If you wanna read on for what could have been…here’s what was in store for season 2 before the show got the axe.
Season 2 will focus on the terrible trio.
Right now, Campbell, Lexie, and Harry are in charge…but far from on the same page. That will be dangerous. “I think there’s an interesting—and pretty timely—question about what happens if you give people who are entirely unfit for office the chance to run and they make it,” Keyser says. “So we have a good sense of what the arc of season 2 will be.”
Campbell won’t be winning for long…according to the actor who plays Campbell.
Cosmo talked to Toby Wallace, who plays the psychopath, about season 2, and let’s just say that he doesn’t think Campbell is going to be in power for long.
“The way things end in the show, there’s quite a lot of potential for the shift in power and a shift in kind of alliances between characters, including the relationship between me and Elle, and various other characters,” Toby says. “I think Campbell’s mission to get power, as successful as he seems to be, will probably fall at some point.”
So Campbell might not be in power for long? “I’ll be surprised if he’s completely successful.”
Things are looking good for Sam and Grizz.
Ah, time for my favorite ship in The Society. Grizz and Sam (Sean Berdy) were starting something sweet, until Sam tells the sensitive jock about his plans to help Becca (Gideon Adlon) raise “their” baby. Grizz doesn’t want to be Sam’s secret and breaks things off. But now that he’s back from his expedition—with food and some sort of plan to survive—will he and Sam get to work this thing out?!
Newly crowned internet boyfriend Jack Mulhern (who plays Grizz) sure thinks so. “I think the fans are clamoring for it, so I think there will be reconciliation, I’m sure,” he says in an interview with The Metro. “I would be interested to see the dynamic with the kid,” he continues. “That’s going to be potential for humor, potential for drama. I think that the kid thrown into the situation is probably at the center of the world from my perspective going forward.”
Kelly may be her own soul mate in season 2.
Cosmo spoke to Kristine Forseth on the set of her new Hulu series Looking for Alaska, and we couldn’t help but ask about The Society...and Kelly’s love triangle.
“I’d like to see her spend some time by herself,” she says. “Before it all happened, she was just caught up in her superficial worlds. I’d like to see what she’s like by herself.”
So, no reconciliation with Harry anytime soon.
Allie has something up her sleeve….
Kathryn Newton spoke to Cosmo as well and assured us that Allie is not a goner. That smile she shot Lexie before being shoved into the van definitely means something.
“Oh, you could see it on her face that she’s looking at Lexi like, girl, you have no idea what you just did. Chaos is going to happen,” Kathryn says. She won’t say what Allie has planned, but she does think Harry might play a part in her escape.
“I do think Campbell’s behind all of it, and Lexi thinks that she’s in charge but it is really Campbell,” she says. “And I wonder...Harry really likes Ally, he might help her out and come back around. He looked pretty sad when she was taken away.”
We may see more of the West Ham parents in season 2.
“Yes, I think we have the flexibility to go back and see [more of the parents], but I still think you wouldn’t end up feeling any kind of parity between the two sides of the show,” showrunner Chris Keyser told the Hollywood Reporter. Apparently, when Keyser first drafted The Society, it was meant to split evenly between West Ham and New Ham, but they ultimately decided to stay focused on the kids. Hard agree.
Race and social class will come into play more and more.
“This season deals a lot with men versus women, and it deals only briefly with race, but I think you can expect that conversation about class and race to keep coming up,” Keyser says in the same interview. “All these things need to be relitigated in a world in which there are no givens. We hope, over time, and if we’re lucky enough to get a season 2, to explore all the social contract questions that we take for granted.”
Even the creators don’t know all the details about the “parallel world.”
“I don’t think we know all the details, because we like playing around with it, but we have a pretty good idea of what happened,” Keyser says. “Should we be lucky enough to have subsequent seasons, that mystery is going to deepen.”
But here are some questions we still have about season 2:
What is The Guard going to do with Allie and Will?
Now that Campbell and the scary football players have seized power, what are they going to do with their competition? They may have framed Allie and Will (Jacques Colimon) for attempting to steal the election, but when whatever strategy the new regime puts in place undoubtedly fails, the horde of terrified teens might want its OG leaders back. In this messed-up society, the move seems to call for the death of any and all political opponents. But let me tell you, if they touch a hair on Allie’s head, I will have serious words for Netflix.
Will someone save Elle…or will she save herself?
My thoughts on Elle (Olivia DeJonge) throughout the entire season can basically be summarized in this GIF:
Last, we really saw Elle. She spat in Allie’s face when Campbell “rescued” her from house arrest, but we all know she just wants to escape her abusive, crazy boyfriend. To be honest, she doesn’t have a lot of options. With literally nowhere to run, what was she supposed to do when he banged down her door?
My hope for season 2 is that she’s able to get out of his clutches in a way that gives her back her autonomy. The poisoned-pie plan was pretty clever (until it wasn’t), so I don’t doubt she could come up with another scheme for survival.
And she told Allie she would get what’s coming to her, which seemed more like promise of protection than a threat. Allie needs you to get it together, girl!
A post shared by The Society (@thesociety) on May 7, 2019 at 2:07pm PDT
Will Helena find out the truth about Luke?
Luke (Alex MacNicoll) was an integral part of Campbell’s takeover. The only member of The Guard that the New Ham teens would possibly trust, he lied to everyone about Allie’s so-called plans to rig the election. At first, his new wife, Helena, didn’t believe it, but in the end, she chooses to side with her husband. Will she learn what really happened? If so, what is she going to do about it? We know she knows her way around a weapon.
Don’t know how Helena keeps her faith in these circumstances
A post shared by The Society (@thesociety) on Apr 13, 2019 at 11:41am PDT
Who is Pfeiffer the bus driver?
It seems the man who drove the New Ham teens to their alternate dimension is the same man who fought with Harry’s mom and Sam’s dad at the start of the series. Apparently, he was contracted to get rid of the town’s mysterious smell for $1.5 million. When the powers that be refused to pay, he brought the smell back and wrote on the high school’s walls, “You’ve been weighed in the balance and found wanting.”
But...what does he want from the kids? How did he make this universe happen and how do they find him?
Why are the parents so chill?
In the last few moments of the series, we catch a glimpse of Allie’s mom reading Peter Pan to the little children of West Ham. On the wall is a memorial to their missing teens, and everyone is wearing little yellow ribbons in their honor. I don’t have much to say about this, but they just seem so...fine with this whole thing? Maybe...look for your kids.
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