The Final Scene At The End Of The Society, (Somewhat) Explained

Just when you think you’re finally about to learn the mysteries of West Ham, season 1 of Netflix’s The Society ends. The show, which follows a group of teenagers who suddenly find themselves completely alone in the world, asks a lot of Big Picture questions about life and civilization, but it, unfortunately, doesn’t answer many of the big questions the season has posed — namely like, uh, what the heck is going on and where is The Society's New Ham really?

As we learn throughout the season, after a bus ride goes horribly wrong, a few dozen kids are dropped off but their parents aren't around to collect them. Their parents aren’t home, and they’re nowhere in the town. Aside from the group of them, no one else is actually in the town. Fearing the worst — and there are varying degrees of “the worst” for everyone — they form their own society with rules and laws until that is turned completely on its head, which becomes Lord of the Flies meets Riverdale. And just when things really start picking up, we’re pulled out of New Ham. So what’s going on in New Ham, where are the kids, are their parents still alive, and is The Society happening in another dimension? Those are just a few of the things that need a deeper explanation.

The woman is the mother of Allie and Cassandra (Rachel Kelly and Kathryn Newton). It’s okay if you don’t remember her since we haven’t seen her since the very first episode of the season, and that point, we were focused more on a smell than someone's mom.

Clearly, this border collie has some sort of importance, but that’s unfortunately not clear right now. This is the same dog that Cassandra came across moments before she was murdered. Elle also adopted this dog for a while and named it Charlie, but it’s implied that Campbell killed the dog. Aside from the kids, this is the only other living thing — that we know of — that now exists in both universes.

Wearing ribbons to support a cause is no new thing, as countless celebrities have hit red carpets over the years sporting ribbons of different colors to support this and that. The yellow ribbon is clearly meant out of support for the missing kids, and a yellow ribbon actually has a history with troops coming home during wartime. There’s also the song “Tie A Yellow Ribbon 'Round The Ole Oak Tree” about prisoners coming home and seeing a yellow ribbon outside their house, signifying that they would be welcomed back inside.

Allie’s mom is reading Peter Pan, specifically from Chapter 16, “The Return Home.” The passage is towards the end of the chapter after Peter has realized that Mrs. Darling is still incredibly upset that her children are missing (you know, because they’ve gone off to Neverland). Peter brings them back but the kids aren’t sure how to announce that they’re home. They decide to just climb into their beds as if they’ve never been gone — "Let us all slip into our beds, and be there when she comes in, just as if we had never been away" — but even after their mother comes in to look at the room before going to bed herself, she doesn’t believe it’s really them in their beds.

This might hit the head on the nail a little too much, but it’s still an interesting passage to include, if only because it signifies that these kids might one day just “slip into their beds” as if they’ve never been gone.

Feel free to disagree with me, but I don’t believe the kids are dead. Think of it instead like Lost, where all those people were trapped on the island together and it certainly felt like purgatory until they learned to live and work together. The plaque on the wall behind Allie’s mom reads “WE REMEMBER THEM” which certainly seems to suggest that all these kids are dead, at least in the reality of Original Ham.

The series does something impressive with the kids when they try to figure out their location: It has them look to the stars. This isn’t completely unheard of, and it’s what old settlers and explorers used to do before there was Wi-Fi. The fact that the kids have figured out that they are in another place, solely based on the stars, is damn impressive. While their exact location is not entirely clear, they are able to figure out that the star charts don’t line up with the Northern Hemisphere they’re used to. So, they are 100% ~somewhere else~.

Season 1 ends with a few major cliffhangers: Lexie and Harry (Grace Victoria Fox and Alex Fitzalan) are now running the show, with Campbell (Toby Wallace) now pulling the strings; Allie and Will are in custody; elsewhere Grizz (Jack Mulhern) and his group have found new land to farm on; and, somewhere, everyone else is still alive and living on Earth. Season 2 could go in a thousand different directions right now, and I'd offer to speculate, but honestly, it’s impossible to tell.