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The Society is one of this year's most addictive TV shows and chances are you missed it.

 

 

When The Society burst onto our screens in May it was masquerading as the love child of Pretty Little Liars and Gossip Girl, but the reality of the series turned out to be so much darker than that.

At first, it looked to be a bit of a sexy ‘teens gone wild’ kind of series with a group of high school seniors who were all mysteriously trapped in an identical version of their idyllic New Hampshire town without any other human beings in sight.

Take a look at the trailer for The Society on Netflix below. Post continues after video.

While there were touches of romance and a good dose of teen angst, the show also involved quite a bit of murder, sexual assault, stalking and some good old fashioned violence that made the series much more Lord of the Flies than first anticipated. Especially when taking into account that The Society was created by the same man who brought us the earnest 90’s drama Party of Five, Christopher Keyser.

With the news that Netflix has commissioned the juicy and slightly disturbing teen drama for a second season, an announcement that elicited a sigh of relief from fans as season one ended on a major cliffhanger, it’s now time for anyone who missed The Society boat to get on board.

The strongest hook for this Netflix ten-part series was the fact that the mystery of how the teens came to be trapped in this eerie replica of their hometown is genuinely an intriguing one, with a few different clues as to how they came to be there sprinkled throughout each episode.

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The other interesting thing about the series is that the majority of the characters, while not exactly likable, are also compelling to watch on screen as this series of warring high school cliques attempt to build their own version of a new society in order to try and stay alive.

What starts out as a no rules, free for all way of life for the parent-less students quickly morphs into “if you don’t work, you don’t eat.”

Image: Netflix.
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There's the high achieving Cassandra (Rachel Keller) who sees her role as Student Body President as meaning that she is in charge of this new world, angering many of her fellow students by sending search parties to scour the border for clues and for ordering all the remaining food to be locked up and rationed out.

There's also her younger sister Allie (Kathryn Newton from Big Little Lies) who lives in the shadow of her brilliant older sister until the situation they are stuck in sees her become a very different person.

From the truly chilling and psychotic Campbell (Toby Wallace) and the tortured object of his desire Elle (Olivia DeJonge) to the sweet and loyal Sam (Sean Berdy) and Harry (Alex Fitzalan) the brutish and wealthy son of the Town Mayor, The Society is a melting pot of intriguing characters.

Just don't get too attached to them all, not everyone makes it through the first season alive.

The Society is one part dystopian fantasy, one part political drama and one (very large) part angst-ridden teen storytelling, which makes it one of the most bingeable TV shows so far in 2019.

If you're yet to cast your eyes over it, set aside a day to devour The Society. 

Season one of The Society is available to watch now on Netflix. It is rated MA15+. 

For more stories like this, you can follow Mamamia Entertainment Editor Laura Brodnik on Facebook.  You can also visit our newsletter page and sign up to “TV and Movies”  for a backstage pass to the best movies, TV shows and celebrity interviews (see one of her newsletters here).