I took journalism and creative writing in high school, so I was spared most of novels generally assigned in English class. But the journalism teacher assigned Lord of the Flies (1954). I don't know why; it's not about journalists, it's about the viciousness of the human animal. During the War, a planeful of British middle-school boys crashes on a desert island. They quickly devolve into savagery, worship a pig's head ("The Lord of the Flies"), and divide into warring tribes led by "let's try to remain calm" Ralph and "kill them all!" Jack.
I found a gay subtext in the soft, femme Jack's interest in Ralph (before they split into good/evil camps), so I'm interested in whether it continues in the 2026 tv miniseries (streaming on Netflix in the U.S.)
Scene 1: Piggy (David McKenna) awakens in the jungle in a scene reminiscent of Jack in Lost. He wanders around, picks some mangos, and finally, sees another boy, who mysteriously doesn't want to talk. So he's a ghost?
But Piggy insists. He's Ralph (Winston Sawyers), who doesn't remember how they got there, and hasn't seen any houses or people.
They find a stream, so they can drink. Ralph has a swim, but Piggy doesn't want to.
Scene 2: At the beach, they find a conch shell, and blow it to summon any others. A third boy approaches, with pigment around his eye, either a bruise or a visual difference. And another and another, until 30 boys have arrived. We get face shots of most of them. How does a plane crash deposit the survivors in widely different locations, alive?
Suddenly we hear ethereal music, the screen is bathed in sunlight, and we get a vision of kids wearing strange hats and long black robes. They look like they're from Hogwarts. So there's already a society of wizards on the island? I don't recall that from the book.
More face shots. Turns out that they are a choir, dressed in the uniforms of Bishop Wordsworth's School in Salisbury. Somehow they managed to be ejected from the plane with no scrapes or bruises, and all together. I'm disappointed. How is this scene not an intentional misdirection?
Suddenly choirboy Simon (Ike Talbut) faints. Leader Jack (Lox Pratt) orders the others to "let him be. Simon's always throwing a faint."
Piggy suggests that the next course of action should be to find out where they are, and what happened to the grownups. Ralph overrules him: the first thing to do is elect a chief. Head Choirboy Jack wants the job.
All of the choirboys vote for him, after he glares menacingly, but the other boys all vote for Ralph, who wins. Jack glares menacingly again, and suggests that he should be the leader of the hunting team. Lox Pratt is gazing menacingly in almost all of his Instagram photos. He's also playing Draco in the new "Harry Potter" series.
Scene 3: A team consisting of Jack, Piggy, Fainting Simon, and Chief Ralph hike out to see where they are (they have no reason to believe that it's a desert island; there could be a native village just down the beach).
They find the body of the pilot, already covered with flies, and conclude that all of the grownups on the plane are dead, as they weren't in "the passenger tube" (the fuselage).
Should they bury him? No, Jack says: he made a mistake, and stranded all of us here. He should pay for his crime. So they push him into the ocean instead.
Scene 4: Shots of the boys investigating local bugs and amphibians. A close-up face shot of a boy watching them. Maybe Roger (Thomas Connor)? It lasts for an uncomfortably long time. What is the point of this? Is he an outsider, someone who was already on the island? A malevolent force?
Chief Ralph and his team return to tell everyone the bad news: they're on an island with no human habitation, and the grownups are all dead, so they're on their own.
"Ok, we'll go off and hunt some wild boars for dinner." Jack tries to lead his hunters away, but Chief Ralph says "Please don't go until we have a plan."
"I like it when you say 'please.'" Dude wants to be in charge of Ralph. That's a queer code.
Piggy suggests that they need three things: a signal fire, shelter, and a latrine, in three different locations. One of the little ones interrupts to say that they also need to take care of the Beast that's been hovering about.
Long, slow shots of plants, animals, and rocks that look like beasts.
The boy continues to stare for an endless facial shot. I'm fast-forwarding.
More after the break. Caution: Explicit.
