In Jack Thorne‘s unsparing and often harrowing adaptation of William Golding’s classic novel Lord of the Flies, honoring the source material ruled the day: “Our biggest aim in the entire telling of this show was to be incredibly faithful to what Golding had done,” says the Emmy-winning writer for Adolescence. That did not always mean strict scene-by-scene repetition, however — far from it. Each of the Netflix hit’s four episodes was told through the lens of one of the main boys stranded on an uninhabited island, making dangerous choices to govern themselves and survive. In this excerpt from the third installment, we see a pivotal interaction between the cocky Jack (Lox Pratt) and the relatively subdued Simon (Ike Talbut) that enhances the themes of the original novel. “I tried to lean in to complicating the story rather than simplifying the story,” Thorne says. “And Jack and Simon’s relationships with their fathers have a lot of similarities to them.”
Courtesy of Netflix
Jack has just relayed to Simon a story his father often tells him about a 10-day hike from his youth that made him the man he is today, to signal that this, too, could be an experience of proving one’s mettle. It’s insight we get into the character because he’s speaking to Simon, specifically. “This is the first proper time we’ve seen Jack and Simon alone,” Thorne says. “And we see that when they’re alone, they talk in a different way than when they’re around people — and that’s accepted by both of them.”
