The Society

https://bit.ly/2ZiAlpc

I never read "Lord of the Flies."

That's high school, you try not to read what you ultimately wish you had. All those books they make movies on, by Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte, you wanted to avoid those in high school, actually, at my high school you didn't even have to read them. But we did read "Moby Dick," although our teacher did let us skip chapters, before he was accused of assault and sexual harassment, which I never would have predicted, you never know what goes on inside people, but that's what keeps life interesting, it's what's below the surface that intrigues you, the struggle is to pierce the veil. And, just so you know, there's a quid pro quo, if you don't share, other people won't either. It's a mutual thing. Then again, there are oversharers, why do you think it's my job to hear the minutiae of your life? I want a report, not a brain dump of all your anxieties.

"The Society" is based on "Lord of the Flies." And at this point, even I know what "Lord of the Flies" is about, even though, like I stated above, I never read it.

We were watching "Patriot," on Amazon. Although it was difficult, because we constantly ended up getting the chasing its tail circle. I've come to believe this is Amazon's fault, not my ISP's, because it doesn't happen as much on Netflix.

Now "Patriot" is one of those rare series where the second season is better than the first. The whole series is whacked. It's just the first season is slow. But you're invested. And there are some famous actors, and I love the fat Luxembourg detective who looks like Hercule Poirot, but the truth is you don't have to watch "Patriot," hell, at this point it looks like there may not even be a third season.

So we needed a new series. To binge.

That's the only way I will watch, and I will keep saying it until HBO and Showtime and the rest of the cable outlets get the message. I can't wait a week for an episode, to the point where I have a hard time remembering what happened the week before! And you fall behind and give up. You're just not part of the zeitgeist.

But when you can binge...

Dedicated fans finish new seasons in a day or two, they're just that eager.

Casual fans could take a year. These series are time bombs, just waiting to be detonated, and when you see a good one, you tell everybody you know about it. It's yours, for a while anyway, unlike with HBO, sure, you'll have water cooler moments, but you won't own it.

And no one is talking about HBO shows off season.

But Netflix series?

But the media industrial complex doesn't like it this way. The media industrial complex wants all the hype and then the potential boom to happen in a matter of days. Why not spread the publicity out over time?

But these are the same idiots who take full page ads, billboards even, to hype shows for Emmys. This is kind of like states fighting for filming, offering different financial packages. Why are you giving the papers and magazines all this money? It could be better spent.

So we needed a new series to watch.

I don't invest my time unless something is recommended by a blue chip source, or the internet tells me it's great.

But there are very few great series out there.

But you have a yearning to binge.

And I don't want to watch that which I'm familiar with. I lived through the Central Park 5 story, I don't have to watch a miniseries about it. Same deal with Chernobyl. Which they changed anyway. And people believe the falsehoods. It's not only the press that gets things wrong.

So I'm researching and I find this series "The Society" on Netflix. It's got 82 on the Tomatometer. I live by the Tomatometer. The film industry hates it, it wants us to be rubes, investing our time and money in bad products.

But 82 is usually not enough.

But I couldn't find anything higher than that that I wanted to watch.

Anyway, everybody but the parents die, and the kids are left alone, how will it turn out?

And the first thing I noticed is none of the cast members were familiar. Like "90210" back in the day. Yup, on that show they got all the faces the Big Three networks rejected. But now that there's so much production, almost everybody is new, it's kinda strange, we're used to looking for familiarity, to prove that it's just a television show.

And this is definitely a television show, if it were on network I almost definitely wouldn't watch it.

But nobody else is watching it, I didn't see any hype in the media, so I could go where no one else risked going, I could own the experience.

Then again, it's summer, and this is when these unheralded Netflix projects percolate and become monstrous, because kids are home. So maybe "The Society" will ultimately triumph.

Now Cassandra, the #1 girl, who is going to Yale in the fall, theoretically anyway, bugs everybody else, she takes charge, she's a know-it-all. And she bugs me too! And the question arises, how should you behave in a group? I'm not good at staying silent.

But Cassandra's little sister rang true from the first note, she stood out. Then I read in "Vanity Fair" that she's the new It Girl, or at least hot actress, she's in this, "Big Little Lies" and "Pokemon Detective Pikachu." I can see why, she's got it.

Now Allie chafes at being the little sister, and takes risks her sibling will not. Sound familiar?

And boys will be boys. I'm not one of those boys, but some are, Felice asked why boys act this way. I think it's herd mentality, they want to be accepted, they don't realize they're jerks.

And the relationships!

You know that's a main element in teen projects... Who is gonna stay with who? Actually, one of the best moments is when Allie professes her love for Will and...

You always wonder whether to tell someone how you feel about them. If they don't reciprocate, it changes the relationship forever, not in a good way.

But why I'm writing this, the question I want to ask, is are you a hoarder or a sharer? Are you gonna grab on to everything that's not nailed down in order to survive, or are you going to share with your brethren and ultimately find out there's not enough. Although many times, a solution arises before your hoard dissipates. Like after the earthquake (and in my world there's only one, back in '94, I still haven't recovered from it), when my local market was closed and I stocked up with peanut butter and jelly at the minimart, just in case... But the power came back, the stores reopened before I'd depleted most of my stash.

Better safe than sorry?

But if it's not only you?

We're not deep in the series. And this is one I'm not really recommending either, but somehow it's hooked me, I'm invested, I want to see how it all plays out.

That's the power of story.

That's the power of Netflix.

This is the modern world.


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