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We’re Here to Answer All Your Burning Questions About Netflix’s 'The Society' (Including Whether There's a Season 2)

By Kate Hudson | TV | May 25, 2019 |

By Kate Hudson | TV | May 25, 2019 |


The_Society.png

Are you watching The Society on Netflix? It’s like Lord of the Flies meets The X-Files meets Riverdale, and if that alone hasn’t sold you on the premise, I don’t know what will.

The series premiered on Netflix May 10th, and with the long holiday weekend upon us, you probably have enough time to binge the entire 10-episode run, unless you have a BBQ or a party to go to, but honestly, a day spent watching TV indoors is a good day indeed.

Anyway, if you haven’t watched The Society yet, fair warning, there are spoilers below. We’re going to tackle all of the burning questions you may have over the first season of the show, including whether there will be a second season.

via GIPHY

What does “Mene mene tekel upharsin” mean?

If you recall, in episode one, Grizz (the jock who is hooking up with Sam. Sam is the red-haired guy, and brother to Campbell, who is the a*shole) sees the phrase written on the side of the church, right before he joins the other teens to leave town to escape the smell that pervades West Ham. So what does it mean?

Well, it’s from the book of Daniel in the Old Testament, and roughly translated, means:

God had weighed Belshazzar and his kingdom, had found them wanting, and would destroy them

(insert Scooby Doo gulp, here. Zoinks!)

So, Pfeiffer clearly took it upon himself to kidnap these teens into an alternate dimension, right?

By all appearances, yes. To refresh your memory, Pfeiffer is the guy seen arguing with the parents in episode one, where he was holding the town hostage over the horrible smell. Basically, he was demanding 1.5 million dollars to remove it, or else. He was also the bus driver who took the teens out of West Ham and dropped them off in New Ham.

There are a lot of theories floating around on who Pfeiffer is, and his connection to the kids of New Ham, that essentially he’s the pied piper who lured the teens away from their reality. (Pfeiffer means “piper” in German) because the adults of the town wouldn’t pay up. You can read more about that theory over at Seventeen.

The only concrete thing I can say about Pfeiffer, for certain, is that he’s kind of a d*ck. People have died in New Ham, man!

Who is Becca’s baby daddy?

Well, she and Sam agreed to tell everyone that he was the father (clearly a lie) but as for who the real father is? Your guess is as good as mine, but please, oh please, do not let it be Campbell, New Ham’s resident jagweed.

…it totally could be Campbell, though. Remember how Kelly told Sam that the baby (Eden) has his eyes, after she was born? Yeah, we know Sam’s not the father (he only has eyes for Grizz) but Campbell is his brother, presumably, they have similar features, so…?

What’s with the dog?

Oh, you mean the dog that appears in both New Ham, and in the “real” world/West Ham? The one that was heavily implied to have been killed by Campbell (seriously, he’s the worst) and then just pops up out of nowhere, with Allie and Cassandra’s mom, at the very end of the season?

Beats me.

It’s a Border Collie, and according to the American Kennel Club, it’s a herding dog. Which means he was bred to show up and push the flock in the direction it needs to go. Something to keep in mind, because undoubtedly this isn’t the last we’ve seen of this very, very, good boy.

Are they sure they didn’t travel forward in time?

Well, the citizens of New Ham certainly seem dead-set on this alternate reality scenario.

They kiboshed the idea of traveling forward in time due to the misalignment of some of the stars in the night sky.

So while it doesn’t seem likely they traveled in time, who knows what the stars look like two thousand years in the future, and whether we’re looking at a Wayward Pines type of situation.

Does Pedialyte cure anti-freeze poisoning?

If you recall, Kelly treated all the pumpkin pie-poisoned people with Pedialyte, so obviously the question is raised if this works in the real world. The answer is no. I googled it. The most I could come up with is that you can give it to your dog or cat if you suspect them of being poisoned by anti-freeze, and the time to treat it has already passed.

Can you seriously snap a life-less newborn to life by hanging it upside-down and flicking its feet?

Here’s another one of Kelly’s medical tricks, and guess what? This one is on the level.

Uh, file that away for future possible use if you ever find yourself in a hospital, without medical professionals around, and it’s on you to deliver a baby.

So, everyone else in West Ham is living their lives, without our plucky cast of teens?

Yup, seems like it, at least the last scene of the season implies it. That woman reading Peter Pan to those children? That’s Allie and Cassandra’s mom (we saw her in the first episode.) If you noticed behind her, there was a plaque that said “We Remember Them” with the names of all the teens on the bus trip, plus everyone is wearing yellow ribbons. Which means the teens, to everyone else, are probably known as missing and not dead.

Wait, why do you think they’re missing and not dead?

Typically you wear a black ribbon for someone who passed. Everyone in West Ham is wearing yellow ribbons. Yellow ribbons are usually tied to missing someone, which is why yellow ribbons are commonly associated with “bring our troops home.”

That or everyone in West Ham is just really, really into Tony Orlando and Dawn.

We’ll know if that’s the case if anyone says “knock three times on the ceiling if you want me, twice on the pipe means the answer is no” on the show at a future juncture.

What about this theory floating around that if you die in New Ham, you go back to West Ham?

Look, I understand that one because Campbell was shown to have probably killed the dog, and then it magically appeared at the end of the season in West Ham.

…but poor Cassandra, who was murdered, was listed on the plaque alongside everyone else in the last scene. Surely if she were alive in West Ham, her name would not be on that, right? I mean, she died pretty early on into everyone’s time at New Ham. Plaques like that aren’t made overnight. So, if she magically popped up in West Ham, her name would presumably not be on that plaque.

OK, so, like, are the teens dead and this is some kind of purgatory?

I hope not. I don’t think the last ep of the series is going to be held in a Unitarian church, but who knows? I mean, whatever the answer turns out to be, I doubt it will be as dumb as the Game of Thrones finale, so we have that to look forward to.

Will there be a second season of The Society?

No official announcement, yet, but it’s almost as certain as Campbell continuing to be a little sadistic pr*ck, so, ya know, it’s a safe bet to make.

OK, seriously, how do you tell the cast apart?!

Friend, it’s hard. As a woman in her 30s, the only cast members I recognized were Allie and Becca, who were both in Blockers last year (which is an excellent move, by the by.) It took me about four episodes to be able to tell the primarily white cast apart from one another, and another 2 episodes to learn the core cast’s character names. It’s a journey, to say the least.

My best advice is to watch this show with a younger person, who is undoubtedly more familiar with the actors than you or I am.

…Any idea what the smell was, or what it means?

No clue. But he who smelt it, dealt it, which I really hope becomes a plotline for season 2.

Well, there is it. Do you have any theories about The Society?



Header Image Source: Netflix/YouTube