Soulmates

Charlie Heaton and Malin Akerman

Soulmates

In The Future, You Can Meet Your Perfect Match. (Results May Vary.)

By Ryan A. Berenz

f a simple, scientifi cally proven test could defi nitively determine your soulmate — that one person you’re cosmically connected to — would you take it? And if you took the test, how would the result change your life? Those questions are at the core of AMC’s six-part speculative sci-fi drama Soulmates, which tells stories of characters who’ve been profoundly a ected by the breakthrough discovery of the human “soul particle” in 2023.

Fifteen years in the future, the Soul Connex company o ers customers the chance to fi nd their soulmate. (Think of it as an internet dating service that is irrefutably accurate.) The science is perfect, but its real-world application isn’t. There’s no guarantee that their soulmate has also taken the test. There’s no guarantee that their soulmate is the person to whom they’re already married. There’s no guarantee they’ll like their soulmate’s family or friends. There’s no guarantee that their

soulmate is even still alive.

“I always saw it as a world — if you were looking in the big, big, big picture — it’s the equivalent of destiny versus free will,” explains cocreator and executive producer Brett Goldstein. “If soulmates exist, then it’s this person you’re destined for. But if you’re destined, then you have no choice. But we live in a world where theoretically we have free will, so that’s the real question: If everything’s laid out for you, then what’s the point of your basic life?”

In the premiere episode, Nikki (Succession’s Sarah Snook) is a mother of two who’s happy in her life with husband Franklin (Kingsley Ben-Adir). But she’s constantly wondering: Could she be even happier?

David Costabile (Billions) plays a college professor who has his personal and professional life thrown into chaos when a woman (Sonya Cassidy, Lodge 49) hacks into his Soul Connex

account in “The Lovers” episode.

In “Break on Through,” Malin Akerman (Billions) and Charlie Heaton (Stranger Things) play two people who embark on a disturbing odyssey in search of meaning in their lives after their soulmates have died.

“Sitting in a group somewhat like AA for people who’ve lost their soulmates that they’ve never met, it’s just really a strange beginning to this really cool episode,” Akerman says. “I just loved it. I thought it was just such a creative episode, and really kind of disturbing, all in one.”

In the case of Akerman’s character, the soulmate test gave her tunnel vision, and she became unable to see the forest for the trees.

“Instead of using our own gut feeling and our own brains and developing our own opinions, we’re going against our own grain,” Akerman says. “That is so frustrating to watch, but so much fun to play in a role like this. You get to play the duality of it, the contradicting feelings within oneself.”

In the vein of Netfl ix’s Black Mirror, Soulmates is thought-provoking, imaginative and enthralling sci fi that digs deep into the human condition. And the future holds more: AMC has already ordered a second season. Premieres on AMC Monday, Oct. 5 Would You Take The Test? Some Soulmates cast members answer the big question:

Sarah Snook: Yes

“Approaching the project, I was pretty confi rmed that, yeah, of course, I’d take the test, and pretty amazed that people would think twice about taking it. ... I was single at the time I was doing it, so that’s maybe why I was much more gung-ho about the idea.”

Kingsley Ben-Adir: No

“I don’t think I would take it. I think if anything the show has made me feel like I don’t believe that there is, like, someone who’s out there to be perfect.”

Sonya Cassidy: No

“I would like to know that someone has chosen to cherish me, rather than them being like, ‘Oh, you know, you’re the one, so let’s get on with it.’”

Malin Akerman: No

“My sort of approach to life is to try to roll with the punches and fi nd the silver linings in situations. ... I don’t want to go to psychics or read too much into horoscopes, because I do think it just plants a little seed in your brain that maybe doesn’t necessarily need to be there.”

Betsy Brandt: No

“I think if I didn’t take it — which I probably wouldn’t — I would think about it all the time. ... That would mess you up, the fact that it’s out there. That it exists is, you know, that’s already a conundrum, before you even decide to take it or not.”