Imagine if there was a test that you can take to match you up with your bona fide soulmate? Sounds good, right? Now, add that you’re already married to someone for a long time. Have kids, a house, good jobs, and your slice of heaven. Would you take that test to chase potential bliss and leave a union that you’ve been building for years? Is there even a right answer to this? Soulmates, a six-episode anthology series on AMC Networks asks this question.
“Watershed,” our first entry flips happily ever after on its head. We live in a world of digital apps like Tinder and Bumble. Thousands upon thousands of profiles at our fingertips – but nothing is for sure. For all we know, that person on the other end could be a figment of their imaginations – dressing for a role. Taking the uncertainty factor out of it, if your forever person was one profile away, would it change the concept of experiencing companionship for you?
The show is set in 2023, where a company called Soul Connex has found the ‘soul particle’ in humans. Nikki (Sarah Snook) and Franklin (Kingsley Ben-Adir) are married high school sweethearts with two children. They are in the throes of a typical day of a long-married couple when Nikki’s friend Jennifer stops by. She tells her of her decision to take the test and discard her 18-year marriage behind for the potential of something greater.
From there, the seed of doubt grows within Nikki. As ‘Watershed’ rolls on,’ Nikki becomes bombarded by these images of relationship bliss. It almost feels infomercial-esque. Everything is neat and people are explicitly happy. It’s to where Nikki and Franklin seem like the oddballs for falling in love naturally. They attend many weddings where the courtship duration is three weeks on average. People are so sure about the science of the test that they will throw all conventional wisdom to the fire.
Nikki’s brother Peter (Darren Boyd) is a product of this. There’s a conversation that Nikki has with him speaking about a fight that he and his new wife had about sexual partners. Later, the fight is dismissed (or any upcoming fight) because he’s so sure that they are perfect for each other. The tragedy in “Watershed” is that these outside forces seem to clip at the fibers of Nikki and Franklin’s marriage. It’s safe to say that if the test didn’t exist, perhaps the urge to test potential greener pastures wouldn’t be there. Even that poses questions that are hard to answer – how much of a relationship is just tolerating things to keep things together or are things fixable if you put the work in?
Nikki and Franklin try everything to inject some energy into their union, but you see signs that are pushing them away from each other. It feels like the world around them is working against their relationship, no matter how many valiant tries to save it.
The episode also briefly explores the forgotten – those on the receiving end of the decision. If someone chooses their happiness, there is always going to be someone else who is going to have their hearts broken. There’s this gray area that makes you feel bad for all parties. Through all these sudden weddings and declarations of love, there is going to be a trail of hurt people. What do they do? If everybody takes this test, then what happens to natural affection and getting to know somebody?
‘Watershed’ will have you questioning technology’s role as a decider of companionship. It may also have you rethink our standards of how love appears and what that means. In a world where digitization quantifies our likes and dislikes into an algorithm, is the old-fashioned way sustainable and worth fighting for? The beginning of Soulmates has a Black Mirror, sci-fi type feel where everything seems a little too perfect. However, there’s a human element that takes the prominent role and will stay with you until after the episode is over.
