Olivia Welch plays Heather in “Panic”. – Amazon Prime Video
Dangerous mode games Hunger Games ! Created, written and produced by Lauren Oliver, author of the eponymous bestseller, Panic, a series whose first season has been available on Amazon Prime Video since Friday, takes place in the small town of Carp, Texas, where each summer, senior students compete in illegal games dubbed “Panic”, with the key, a large sum of money and the prospect of extricating oneself from this lost corner. This competition, made up of challenges each more dangerous than the next, is in the sights of the local police. Assessment of the previous edition: two deaths. Among the 47 candidates in the running, only one will emerge victorious. How far will these young people be ready to go?
Crossing a highway blindfolded, being buried alive in a coffin, jumping off a cliff or spending the night in a haunted house … While many young people are ready to brave all dangers to be able to win the $ 50,000 reward, the studious and responsible Heather (Olivia Welch, spotted in unbelievable and Modern Family) does not care. She scrupulously set aside every dollar she earned from her odd jobs to study accounting at Longhorn State.
“Games are a metaphor for our dark side”
The young woman however sees herself in the obligation to participate when she discovers that her mother, toximane, has stolen all her savings, and all hope of achieving her meager dream (she actually wants to become a writer). “In the beginning, the game is a metaphor and an allegory for events in my life”, confides to 20 minutes Lauren Oliver.
The competition against fearful Heather is fierce, starting with her best friend, Natalie (Jessica Sula, seen in Skins) who aspires to a Hollywood career, Dodge (played by one of the rising stars of Broadway, Mike Faist), the newcomer thirsty for revenge or Ray (Ray Nicholson, the son of Jack), the bad boy of the village, who wants to prove that he is nothing more than what we think of him.
Panic builds his story by staging one event per episode. A formidably effective process to keep the viewer in suspense in the manner of reality TV shows of the type Koh Lanta or The Island. Over the course of the episodes, these young adults reveal their fears (claustrophobia, vertigo, etc.) and at the same time their stories, their dreams, their doubts and their existential anxieties. “We reduce our fear to something concrete in order to avoid addressing what we are really afraid of, which really terrifies us. To a certain extent, games are a metaphor for our dark side, the tactics we use to avoid our real fears, ”comments Lauren Oliver.
The portrait of a disenchanted Generation Z
Through the games Panic, Lauren Oliver also delivers “a commentary on social class and power”. While the psychological distress and the economic precariousness of the students were at the heart of the debates during the Covid crisis, Panic can also be read as the portrait of a disenchanted generation. ” Panic resonates with the Covid crisis, but not only! This new generation, born around September 11 in America, grew up during the 2008 crisis, and is coming of age, ”explains Lauren Oliver. For the author, they “receive from adults a world that they consider poorly managed, and we can understand them”.
And to analyze: “For me, Panic is not a story of fear in the end, it is a story of faith. You have the choice to realize the value of your own life beyond something that can be bet on. “If season 2 is not yet topical, Lauren Oliver” hates speculating too early “, but claims to have already” a lot of ideas “. His wish ? “I hope that the series will find an echo, just like its final message, which is not fear but hope! “