This article contains spoilers for Class of ‘07.
For those who hated high school, Class of ‘07 will be the scariest show you’ll see all year.
If you’ve never considered which of your former classmates you would want to spend eternity with during a global apocalypse, Class of ‘07 will force you to with its unique blend of comedy and drama and deep explorations of female relationships. Set at an expensive all-girl’s boarding school in Australia, the new Amazon Prime show takes place during a 10 year high school reunion. After dramatic weather conditions hit, all attendees are stranded on an island miles out to sea—no cell service, no food, just memories of resentment and ruined friendships.
It’s a staple of the apocalypse genre that the characters must rebuild their society from the ground up, but Class of ‘07 chooses a group that is uniquely ill-suited for the task. There’s Zoe, a disgraced reality TV contestant who, while initially the laughing stock of the reunion, pulls the group together. There’s Amelia, who mysteriously left school after a family emergency and isn’t quite ready to fix her relationship with her old best friend Zoe. There’s Saskia, a former mean girl whose tough exterior hides the pain she endured during high school, where she was groomed by a beloved teacher, and who steps up to be the leader the group needs. There’s Genevieve, the goody two-shoes who was bullied by Saskia and uses their apocalyptic situation to get revenge. There’s Renee, who lies about being a doctor to impress people at the reunion only to find her “skills” necessary for survival on the island. There’s Sandy, the spoiled American exchange student whose presence confuses the group and eventually creates a hilarious murder mystery storyline. There’s the stoners Teagan and Megan, who wander aimlessly through the story but towards the end reveal the deep and enduring nature of female friendships. And then there’s the one nicknamed Forgettable Laura, whose one-liners steal the show.
Lord of the Flies retellings centered around men often show their societies falling apart as they devolve into violence. Here, in a show with an entirely woman-led cast, they pull themselves together and have a functioning society running within the month. They use bike riding to generate energy, hooking up batteries to stationary bikes and charging them in order to barter power for goods like medication. They do this while dressed in athleisure and participating in mock-SoulCycle classes, which eventually leads to a fight about living up to societal expectations of feminine beauty while in an apocalyptic situation.
If Class of ‘07 sounds, well, unhinged, that’s because it is. When they hosted a tribal council to decide which group member should be sacrificed for food, making jokes all the while, I wondered what I was getting myself into. But it’s a show that will win you over immediately with its characters and commentary.
Though their society is functioning and liveable, it isn’t a utopia. The women have 10 years of built up resentment residing on that island alongside them, and they don’t always handle it well. Genevieve has not recovered from high school bullying and attempts to convict Saskia of murder as a result. (I promise it makes sense in context.) Amelia struggles with depression, and as supplies dwindle and her meds run out, she begins to return to dark places. Renee’s lie about being a doctor catches up to her, forcing her to question the person she always dreamed she’d be in high school. A staple of the developing feminist survival show is the way that, despite the rugged environment, being free of normal life allows the women to heal outside of the oppressive, patriarchal environment that has created their problems. Visual humor, dark one-liners, and crazy storylines soon reveal that the show’s true bite comes from its feminist commentary.
For the women of Class of ‘07, it takes a traumatic apocalyptic event to allow them to confront the pain they’ve suffered in girlhood, rooted in the patriarchal institutions that divide them. One of the most emotional scenes in the show comes when Saskia finally breaks down and admits how alone she felt when she was being groomed and how angry she still is at the institutions that protected her abuser. Once freed of the norms they left behind, they are finally able to heal. Amelia and Zoe repair their relationship, and when an opportunity arises for the women to leave the island and look for fellow survivors, they do so side by side. Renee realizes that all her life she has been made to feel ashamed of the life she currently leads, and while she arrives at the reunion wishing she was a successful doctor, she leaves finally content with herself. Saskia and Genevieve move past high school grudges, with Genevieve realizing it wasn’t always as easy for Saskia as she’d thought. Without false divisions and social hierarchies, the women come together to bond and heal. Their emotional survival is just as important as their physical survival.
Class of ‘07 joins a recent string of feminist survival shows. The Wilds, another Amazon Prime show, focuses on a group of teen girls who become stranded on an island after a plane crash…or what seems like a plane crash. The point of the show was to reflect the ways in which being a teenage girl is just like trying to survive in the wilderness, and is sometimes even worse. Yellowjackets, a Showtime series, is a more violent version of the same premise, showing the brutality of teenage girlhood. Class of ‘07 is the first in the genre to focus almost completely on adults and to approach the apocalypse through comedy. The three will undoubtedly become the pillars of the genre, which builds on more traditional entries to the survival show canon, such as Lost. The three shows are notable for their female-led casts and skill at depicting the beauty and horror of being a woman under the patriarchy. Class of ‘07 won me over because it articulates the nuances of being a woman with both comedy and heart, ultimately suggesting that the best defiance of the patriarchy is to let yourself heal from past traumas, value your own identity, and love other people fiercely.
If you would like to write for Her Campus Mount Holyoke, or if you have any questions or comments for us, please email hc.mtholyoke@hercampus.com.