Sundance's 'The Pact' Explores Female Solidarity Gone Wrong

The Pact is a six-part thriller making its debut on Sundance Now and AMC+ this week, with new episodes arriving weekly until the finale premieres on Thursday, January 6, 2022. Written and created by Pete McTighe (A Discovery of Witches) and directed by Eric Styles (Hidden) and Rebecca Johnson (Call the Midwife) it has a strong cast and uses some interesting locations in Wales, including the stunning Cefn Viaduct near Merthyr Tydfil and a real-life brewery. The series has some surprisingly powerful moments thanks to its strong cast and intense pacing. Women, including women of color, play dominant roles.

In The Pact, a small Welsh town’s brewery is run by the very unpleasant Jack (Aneurin Bernard), a scion of the town’s industrial aristocracy. He’s a sexual harasser with a drug problem and is currently having an affair with an employee, who, we learn, is getting the promotion that Anna (Laura Fraser) expected. Anna’s friends Nancy (Julie Hesmondhalgh), Louie (Eiry Thomas), and Cat (Heledd Gwynn) commiserate with her but things come to a head on the night of the brewery’s 100th-anniversary party. It’s then the four women lure Jack into the boot of a car, and drive him off to the woods. After taking a few photos, they drive home.

What were they thinking? They’re all drunk, except for Nancy, the designated driver. It’s cold and raining but they have no plans to go back and free him, only vague ideas about posting the photographs on Facebook. At the very least they’ll lose their jobs, and Jack would almost certainly take revenge. Would it mean the end of the brewery and is it the only industry in town, presumably after the coal mines were closed? (And wouldn’t it have been easier to go to HR?)