Lord of the Flies episode 4 is one of the most brutal, upsetting hours of BBC TV ever aired
Did Lord of the Flies take one death too far?
Lord of the Flies episode 4 ends the BBC’s adaptation on a sobering note. It’s an overwhelming hour of television; merciless and violent, with one child’s “drawn out” death was almost too much.
That’s not to say anyone should have been expecting smiles and rainbows on the island.
Since the boys crash-landed, there’s been nothing but trouble, whether it’s a wildfire raging through its woods, the gruesome slaughter of a pig, or a boy being stabbed to death and wailing on the beach.
However, the ending of Lord of the Flies “torturously” expands on one of the story’s most shocking deaths, and nobody was prepared for how horrible it’d be.
***Warning: spoilers for Lord of the Flies ahead***
Lord of the Flies changes Piggy’s death from the book and it’s horrific
Piggy dies at the end of Lord of the Flies. You probably already knew this, but in the show, he isn’t afforded the mercy of a quick death.
In episode 4, Piggy and Ralph walk over to Jack’s camp and ask for Piggy’s glasses back. In short, it doesn’t go well, and as Piggy grabs the conch to plead everyone to calm down, Jack orders Roger to shut him up.
So, Roger throws a boulder onto Piggy’s head, and he falls to the ground. Ralph helps him up, and they flee into the forest. However, Piggy is in a bad way. His hand twitches, he vomits, and he struggles to stay upright as he continues to bleed out.
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It’s a long, extended sequence, with Ralph eventually forced to drag Piggy (who complains about feeling cold) under shelter. Ralph lies with him and tries to keep him warm, and Piggy apologises. Ralph also says sorry for telling everyone about his nickname.
“It’s alright, you weren’t to know… that you’d like me so much,” Piggy says. He dies in the night, and we see Ralph burying him the next day.
How does Piggy die in the book?
In the book, Roger drops a “great rock” onto Piggy. “Saying nothing, with no time for even a grunt, [he] travelled through the air sideways from the rock, turning over as he went,” the book reads.
“Piggy fell forty feet and landed on his back across the square red rock in the sea. His head opened and stuff came out and turned red. Piggy’s arms and legs twitched a bit, like a pig’s after it has been killed.
“Then the sea breathed again in a long, slow sigh, the water boiled white and pink over the rock; and when it went, sucking back again, the body of Piggy was gone.”
Lord of the Flies viewers react to Piggy’s death: ‘I was not prepared’
There’s been a unanimous response to Piggy’s death: viewers have said it’s “heartbreaking” and difficult to watch.
“Piggy’s death was something I was not prepared for. The immediate shock was one thing, the incredibly drawn out death was literally heartbreaking,” one user wrote.
“I don’t think I’ve witnessed the portrayal of a child slowly die from an incredibly violent injury. His throwing up, feeling cold and asking to be held. The final words between him and Ralph. At no point was it trying to seem above itself, and just felt so real as how children might have acted.”
They also asked a question that’s been echoed by others: does it go too far?
“I do wonder if the writers strayed too much from the source material for the sake of writing something unnecessarily horrible,” they wrote.
Other viewers “turned away from the screen” because of how upsetting and graphic it is. One said it was “torturously drawn out”.
“I feel like the ending for Piggy was unnecessarily horrible,” another commented.”
Episode 4 is not for the faint of heart
There is a reason Lord of the Flies has found a way to traumatise every generation since the novel was published in the 1950s.
It is one of the most universally affecting stories put to paper – and, thanks to the BBC and Jack Thorne, it has a definitively brilliant and harrowing adaptation.
Piggy’s death may be the emotional low-point of the finale, but the misery doesn’t stop there. Jack and Roger launch a woods-wide manhunt for Ralph, smoking him out as they would a wild animal.
In his fear and panic, he stumbles out onto the beach, where he finds a naval officer from a nearby warship. Ultimately, they get rescued – but there’s something disquieting about the way all the boys seemingly return to their childlike, hush-hush selves.
Put it this way: there won’t be a smile on your face when the credits roll, even though the horrors are over.
