Episode 3 shifts its focus to Simon, tracing his perspective as he navigates the island. The episode begins with Simon asleep among the other boys, restless as he tosses and turns. A flashback follows, showing Simon and the choir boys dressed in their uniforms inside a church. A priest leads them down the aisle before signaling for them to start singing. Feeling nervous, Simon glances toward Jack, who is standing at the end of the line. Jack meets his gaze.
The scene then shifts to daytime, where Simon drifts peacefully in a creek. A narration, presumably from one of his diary entries, reveals that he and Jack were often the two boys whose parents left them behind during the Christmas holidays. Moments later, Ralph dives into the water and joins Simon, and the two playfully splash around. Nearby, Piggy watches begrudgingly, warning them that he thinks a storm may be approaching.
Later that night, Simon and Ralph sit by the ocean and talk. Ralph reassures Simon that they do not need to stress themselves out over maintaining the fire or building shelters, pointing out that Jack’s group is not consistently doing those things either. Simon disagrees and shares a story from his childhood. He recalls a time when his abusive father asked him which parent he loved more. Although Simon knew he loved his mother and resented his father, he told his father that he could not choose. Looking back, Simon calls himself a coward for lacking the courage to speak the truth. He says he knows Jack is a coward in the same way. Their conversation is suddenly cut short when two boys come running toward them in a panic, claiming they have seen the beast.
The next morning, Ralph’s group arrives at Jack’s camp to report the beast sighting. Ralph ultimately suggests that all of the bigguns travel together to the tail end of the island—the only area they have not yet explored—to search for and kill the beast. The boys eventually reach the tail end of the island, where they discover a narrow rocky bridge that must be crossed to reach the other side. As chief, Ralph takes it upon himself to go first, instructing the others to stay back and remain hidden. The boys watch anxiously as he carefully makes his way across. Jack then decides to follow, insisting that as head hunter, he cannot let Ralph face the danger alone. They both manage to reach the other side safely. Together, Ralph and Jack explore the far end of the island but find no sign of the beast. Concluding that the area is clear, they decide their next step should be to investigate the mountain near the signal fire, where the two boys claimed to have originally seen the beast. Ralph and Jack then begin trading insults, each accusing the other of not being as brave as he pretends to be.
After the boys reunite, they stop to rest in the forest. As they settle down, Jack sits across from Simon, staring him down intensely. Deliberately, he pulls out Simon’s diary and begins reading from it. Simon is stunned by this. He rises, but after a moment hesitates and sits back down, accepting defeat.
The boys continue their trek toward the mountain, with Jack taking the lead. As daylight begins to fade, Piggy complains that it is getting too dark and argues that they should wait until morning to continue. Ralph ultimately decides that only a small group should continue with the investigation while the rest return to camp. When Jack asks for volunteers, Simon steps forward, much to Jack’s annoyance. As the group of five continue walking, Simon stays close behind him, demanding that he return the diary. They eventually reach the top of the mountain and crouch low to the ground, cautiously peering ahead. Without warning, a creature emerges from the darkness. Terrified, the boys immediately turn and sprint down the mountain in a panic.
The boys rush back to camp, where Jack quickly informs the others about what they saw on the mountain. He insists that, as hunters, they must strike back and hunt the beast themselves. Ralph dismisses the idea, pointing out that Jack was the quickest one to flee when the creature appeared. The disagreement quickly escalates into a heated argument, which soon turns physical. Ralph and Jack grapple with each other in the ocean, struggling as the other boys look on. The fight comes to an abrupt end when Jack swings the conch shell and strikes Ralph in the head, knocking him unconscious. Simon watches the scene in horror. Seizing the moment, Jack addresses the group, declaring that Ralph is not the one who will save them from the beast—he is. One by one, most of the boys choose to follow Jack back to his camp.
Unable to sleep that night, Simon sneaks off to Jack’s camp to retrieve his diary. To avoid being noticed, he covers his body in mud and crawls on all fours through the darkness, careful not to wake anyone. He succeeds, and he manages to recover the diary from Jack’s bag. Later that day, Simon sits by the fire with Piggy and Ralph. He tosses the diary into the flames and watches as it burns. Suddenly, their conversation is interrupted as Jack emerges, announcing that they have successfully killed a pig. He then invites Ralph, Piggy, and Simon to join them for the feast.
That night, Ralph, Piggy, and Simon visit Jack’s camp for the feast and discover that it has transformed into something far more tribal. The boys scream, dance, and wrestle with one another around the fire. Suspended above the flames is the carcass of a pig. Jack carves into it and offers the first piece to Ralph. The sight unsettles Simon. Overcome with panic, he slips away from the camp and retreats up the mountain, where he comes across a pig’s head mounted on a stick. As he stares at it, he hears a voice claiming to be the beast. The voice mocks him, calling him weak and insisting that all of them are fools for believing they can kill the beast. Terrified, Simon flees through the tall grass. Back at camp, the boys continue their celebration, twisting and contorting their bodies in a ritualistic dance. Ralph and Piggy watch in horror as the atmosphere grows increasingly chaotic. Jack declares that they are no longer afraid of the beast and that, if it appears, they will kill it. Caught up in the group’s collective frenzy, one of the boys suddenly notices movement in the nearby grass. Convinced that the beast is lurking there, he alerts the others. Jack and the boys immediately charge toward the rustling figure, thrusting their spears into it again and again.
The episode concludes back at Ralph’s camp. Ralph sits alone, visibly shaken and lost in thought, while Piggy gently guides the littluns into the shelter. Along the shoreline, Simon’s lifeless body rests in the sand, his abdomen marked by numerous stab wounds. The tide gradually draws him into the ocean, and the waves carry him away into the darkness.
Episode 3 of BBC’s Lord of the Flies offers important insight into Simon’s character, portraying his gentleness as an effective foil to Jack’s escalating cruelty, despite the similarities in their backgrounds. Meanwhile, conditions on the island continue to worsen. It is particularly fitting that the boys’ discovery of a seemingly real beast coincides with the emergence of a different kind of collective beast within Jack’s camp. Consumed by tribalism, the boys descend into violence, ultimately leading to Simon’s death. As Jack’s influence continues to grow on the island, the episode leaves audiences eager to see what awaits Ralph and Piggy in the series’ final chapter.
Rating: 9/10