What happens when you drop a group of boys on a deserted island and leave them to survive on their own? This is the question at the heart of William Golding's 1960 classic Lord of the Flies – and it's no wonder writer Jack Thorne found himself compelled to pen an adaptation. The writer behind last year's game changing Adolescence, Thorne has developed a fascination with exploring boyhood and the origins of toxic masculinity in his work. And although Lord of the Flies may be a period piece set in the ‘50s, there’s nothing dated or old-fashioned about its themes. Boys, after all, will be boys.
The four-part series landed on BBC yesterday – and if, like us, you've already gobbled up all four parts, chances are, that ending left you with a lot to think about. After all, after four episodes of increasingly sinister, chaotic energy of that island, it all comes to a rather abrupt ending, doesn't it?
Here's our take on what it all means.
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Thorne's adaptation closely follows the original Golding novel. Essentially, a group of 1950s British school boys wind up stranded alone on a deserted tropical island and things swiftly go awry. Although they begin by trying to establish their own government and order, the boys eventually split into two warring factions – things get tribalist, violent and pretty scary.
Ralph is our main protagonist and the original leader on the island. Meanwhile, Jack is chosen to be the island's lead hunter – he eventually leads a wild pack of boys in a human hunt. Yes, I told you – things get weird!
By the end of the series, Jack and Ralph are bitter rivals. By this point, Simon, one of Ralph's friends and the voice of goodness on the island, has died. Jack and his group raid Ralph's camp, stealing Piggy's glasses leaving him defenceless.
Ralph and Piggy set out to retrieve them, but at Jack's camp, things descend into chaos as Jack and Ralph fight. Roger ends up throwing a rock at Piggy, twins Sam and Eric are captured tied up while Ralph and Piggy flee. While hiding from Jack and the others in the woods, Ralph begins bleeding and vomiting. He eventually dies from the wound.
After burying Piggy, Ralph returns to find Sam and Eric, but Jack and his group begin to hunt him. They set the woods on fire in an attempt to smoke him out.
And so, Ralph emerges from the woods dazed, injured and bloody. He is shocked to find a boat on shore along with two naval officers – it turns out, they saw the smoke from the fire.
At first, the lead naval officer doesn't fully understand what he's looking at and writes it off as boys' “fun and games.”
“What have you boys been doing?” the officer asks Ralph with a smile. “Having a war or something?”
However, when Ralph tells him two people died – and “probably more,” the officer begins to realise just how serious the situation really is.
The officer says he'll take them off the island then asks Ralph how many boys are on the island.
Ralph replies that he doesn't know.
“Who's boss here?” the officer asks Ralph. After looking back at Jack, he takes responsibility.
“I am,” Ralph says.
“And you don't know how many of you there are? Poor show,” he says. “I should have thought a pack of British boys could put on a better show than that.”
“It was like that at first, before things…” Ralph replies welling up. “We were together then.”
The officer looks at Ralph for a moment before saying, “Let's get you boys out to the boat. Find you some clothes.” And with that, the boys all drop their weapons, leave the island and return to civilisation. Jack lingers behind and is the last to go. The show ends with the shot of a bird swooping through the air over the island.
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And so, just like that, the boys are found and their violent, animalistic war is cut short. Will the boys ever confess to what they did? How will they readjust to society? We have questions! But perhaps the lack of discussion about it all is kind of the point.
After all, how often are boys' violent, tribalistic tendencies written off as “fun and games”? And how often are they never really spoken about again by the adults in their lives?
As Thorne explained to the BBC, he hopes his adaptation forces all of us to think a little more deeply about boyhood and masculinity in our world today.
As he put it, “The world's still full of those confused little boys creating chaos in the world in the guise of men and hopefully this is a little microcosm of that which helps us understand that.”
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