The Society Review: Netflix's New Show Is a Creepier Version of Gossip Girl
Gossip Girl left a hole in my heart when it went off the air seven years ago. The popular CW series epitomized one of my favorite sub-genres in entertainment: hot people running around with zero consequences. There hasn’t been a show to come around since then that’s hit quite the same spot for me…until now. On Friday, May 10, Netflix‘s latest drama The Society comes out, and Gossip Girl fans need—I repeat, need—to tune in.
The show is essentially a more bonkers version of GG with a little bit of Riverdale and Lord of the Flies thrown in. It centers on a group of high school seniors from a wealthy suburb who are bused away for the weekend to the mountains. What soon follows, though, is terrifying: In lieu of a luxe hiking resort, the kids are dropped off in an exact replica of their town. Everything is the same (the buildings, the streets, the restaurants) with one big exception: No one else is there. Their parents, siblings, and other friends have all disappeared. There’s no cell phone reception, no Wi-Fi. They don’t even have cable. Freaky, right?
Well, these kids don’t think so at first. Instead, they revel in the lack of parental supervision, much like the Gossip Girl characters did for years. They throw a party at the town’s church, which turns into quite the scene: a fantasia of underage debauchery and Natty Light. But the hangovers come quick, and so does the revelation that all is not well. What starts out as sheer ecstasy soon becomes a nightmare, and the descent into chaos begins.
To be clear, there’s nothing relatable about The Society. I didn’t identify with any of the characters (all hot, all troubled—Blair Waldorf is shaking in her Louboutins). I didn’t feel particularly moved by any of the narratives. What I did experience after the first episode, though, was a rush of dopamine: the type of high only a show like Gossip Girl—with its froth and illogical stakes and chiseled jawlines—can deliver. Pop-culture these days is filled with relatable programming: movies and TV shows designed to make us feel seen and less alone. Don’t get me wrong, we still need that content desperately, but sometimes it’s nice to escape into a world so steamy and far-fetched, you forget about your problems. That’s what Gossip Girl was for me in 2007. And that’s what The Society is for me now.
Riverdale is perhaps the only show currently on that matches The Society’s level of camp and ridiculousness (I mean that in the most complimentary way, obviously). When I tune into Archie and the gang’s shenanigans every week, I’m looking to dissociate a little bit—transport to a world where everyone’s ripped and 17-year-olds own and operate speakeasies. The eye-rolls and jaw-drops are part of what makes Riverdale so addictive and fun. The Society follows this exact formula to gangbusters results.
For one, the characters are just as delicious. There’s Campbell (Toby Wallace), an antagonistic oaf who makes Chuck Bass look like a saint; Allie (Kathryn Newton), who matches Jenny Humphrey’s blond, brooding aesthetic minus the eyeliner; and Will (Jacques Colimon), the Dan Humphrey of this universe, though I’m pretty sure he’s not running an anonymous blog.
I am, however, confident that someone (or something) is watching over these kids. That’s really why The Society gives me such distinct Gossip Girl vibes. Of course, the all-seeing eye on GG turned out to be Dan, and his reasoning for essentially stalking his friends was quite shallow: He simply wanted to see what life was like on the Upper East Side. The only price his peers paid, really, was having their adolescent secrets revealed, which was devastating in the moment but negligible in the great scheme of things.