The right to truth is universal, and people go to unbelievable lengths to exercise it. At the same time, it should be remembered that the cost of truth is hefty, and more often than not, the world is just not prepared to pay the price. But does that mean people should remain content with lies if that ensures longstanding peace, or is the price of truth worth it at the end of the day? Netflix’s latest political thriller starring Robert De Niro, Zero Day, moves through the labyrinth of red tape conspiracies and corporate power grabs and familial disputes to sum up its final argument, addressing such questions, which feel more relevant than ever in the globalized yet bottled-up environment we are living in. Even though the narrative itself at times feels derivative, especially as the truth of the crisis unravels and given how the final resolution shapes up over the course of six episodes, the strong performances, well-crafted intrigue, and tension make Zero Day a solid watch through and through.
Spoilers Ahead
Why Was George Mullen Assigned to Lead the Zero Day Commission?
Living alone in his stately countryside house, former President George Mullen is in the middle of his daily routine when he is approached by Anna Sindler. Anna has been sent by the publisher of George’s memoir to remind him that they are already behind schedule and haven’t received the first draft still. George has lived an eventful life—a Vietnam War vet who studied law and made a career as a prosecutor after his dear friend/war buddy became a victim of institutionalized racism, and also had a successful tenure as head of the state who managed to rally bipartisan support; his list of wins is rather long. But at the same time, there is no shortage of woes either, as George lost his son Nick, who he was convinced had overdosed but in reality might have taken his own life; his daughter Alex, an aspiring Congresswoman, shares an estranged relationship with him, and his marriage fell off after he had an affair with, Valerie, who used to work as his Chief of Staff. So it can be understood why, despite being one of the most notable figures in modern presidential history, George is finding it difficult to pen down a memoir.
As Anna makes her way back, a nationwide cyberattack targeting zero-day vulnerabilities in operating software across telecommunications, surveillance, and the overall digital grid is launched, which results in disastrous consequences. Within one minute of the digital blackout, over three thousand people, including Anna, lose their lives in horrific accidents caused by the unknown assailant, who leaves a message in the digital devices conveying another attack such as this one will be repeated in the future. Named after the exploited security flaw, the act of terrorism is remembered as the Zero Day event.
Roger Carlson, intelligence agent/George’s former secretary, approaches him on behalf of current POTUS, Evelyn Mitchell, with a request to address the people in a dire situation like this, and George’s public appearance provides certain reassurance to the masses. However, after no clue regarding the source of the attack, motive, or modus operandi of the attackers is found, Congress creates a special investigative commission with powers that allow its members unrestrained surveillance, search and seizure, and denial of habeas corpus. In simple terms, powers to totally deny one’s right to freedom in order to enforce extreme measures to get to the truth behind the attack. President Mitchell wants George to lead the commission, and there are several reasons behind that. Firstly, she herself doesn’t want to be the one pulling the trigger, because given the nature of the powers granted to the commission, any blowback might jeopardize her political career. Especially when she wants to win the upcoming presidential election as well. Secondly, George is well liked by the masses and has the resources, integrity, and to wield such a power. Also, as is revealed much later in the series, CIA Director Jeremy Lasch and President Mitchell had suspected the incident to be an inside job and wanted to bring in an outsider like George, who can operate beyond the limitations imposed by White House red tape. Initially, George is unwilling to shoulder such a responsibility, but his ex-wife, Sheila, who is going to become a federal judge, advises him to take up the position so that it doesn’t fall in the wrong. hands—which convinces him to take President Mitchell’s offer.
However, Alex tries to discourage her father from taking up the position, and following him spearheading the commission, Speaker of the House of Representatives, Richard Dreyer, creates an oversight committee to scrutinize the activities of the commission, and assigns Alex as a key member of it. From the very beginning, Dreyer continues to oppose the commission and continues to request President Mitchell to hand over its responsibilities to him, deeming George to be unfit to take up the role.
Series of Misdirections: What Was Proteus?
George starts to question the nature of reality itself after he experiences a neurological attack at his house while retrieving his journal—the song “Who Killed Bambi?” continuously torments him by playing on a loop in his head. George apparently completely forgets that his house staff was changed, and Sheila becomes concerned about his mental health. He also sends Roger to literally chase ghosts after seeing a vision of Anna Sindler during a public address. Initially, he considers this a sign of the deterioration of his psychological condition and brushes it off for the time being. Upon consulting with FBI operatives and cyber forensics, George learns that the malware which attacked the digital grid can be activated at any given time by the perpetrators, and they have a very limited time frame to apprehend them before that happens. In the meantime, Sheila approaches someone from her circle of trust to take care of her husband. She assigns Valerie, George’s former chief of staff, to accompany him, despite knowing the duo had an affair.
The Russians are considered to be the guilty party by the Pentagon, and the suspicion increases after a Russian intelligence agency GRU operative, Alexi Lebedev, is found to be connected with Felix, chief of a hacking collective in the Bronx, which suspiciously disbanded following the cyberattack. Previously, George had learned from Natan, one of his contacts who is connected with Mossad, that Felix’s group was being funded by GRU. The narrative about Russia orchestrating a cyberattack of such scale fits all too well, and President Mitchell nearly decides to announce a counterattack in retaliation.
However, the night George first experiences the neurological breakdown, Natan informs him about the Reapers, but he loses track of the intel after the attack. After a suspected member of the hacker collective gets tracked and captured, a GRU head honcho ends up killing Alexi—who had started covering his tracks by killing the rest of the members of the collective. This unnamed GRU hotshot meets Roger at his apartment to provide evidence that conveys the Russians were not responsible for the attack; instead, a homegrown, lesser-known far-left hacktivist/cyber terror community, known as the Reapers, was responsible for the entire mess. The malware, which was developed by the NSA in the first place, was stolen and modified by the members of the Reapers and was given the name of Proteus. However, in reality, as Jeremy Lasch shares with President Mitchell, Proteus is the name of a neurological weapon that was secretly developed by the US government, which was being used on George through a device stashed in the bird feeder near his house. The song, “Who Killed Bambi?” was a cue for George’s repressed memory of coming across the dead body of his late son, Nick. Valerie gets a whiff of trouble after learning about George’s recent bout of neurological issues and tracks down McKenna, the only living scientist who worked on the project to create Proteus. Later, she informs George about the situation and implores him not to return to his house.
Why Was Roger Carlson Murdered?
The commission begins a crackdown on known Reapers members, which prompts Speaker Dreyer to implore Alex to bring in her father for questioning. However, George refuses, and pressure keeps mounting, as it is revealed through Evan Green, a conspiracy theorist’s podcast, that a minor has been wrongfully detained by the commission. From the get-go, Evan was vehemently opposed to George Mullen’s return to the bureaucracy, and the longer the investigation goes on, the longer he continues to malign George’s reputation—using his estrangement from his daughter, even serving a low blow by calling George out for leaving the White House after his presidential tenure to cope with the grief of his son’s demise.
George begins interrogating Erik Hayes, a vet with a connection to one of the Reaper members known as Leon, who is suspected to have received the malware from him and modified it to initiate the attack in the first place. Green comes under suspicion after Roger brings intel about his longstanding connection with Erik Hayes—and George gradually lets his moral compass wander by exercising the commission’s power to detain and torture Green to pry out information. In the meantime, a separate cyberattack on Homestead Bank prompted the intelligence agencies to put a complete halt on monetary transfers—which highlighted the ineffectiveness and ignited further public uproar.
In reality, Roger had gotten himself into shady business with a lot of problematic individuals after his bureaucratic career hit rock bottom following George’s retirement. Roger became acquainted with a hedge fund guy, Robert Lyndon, who was one of the co-conspirators behind the terror attack and had sold his stocks right before the share market crash caused by the attack. Now Lyndon wanted Roger’s help in veering the commission’s investigation towards the Russians, but after he failed to do so, Lyndon started to threaten to expose him. Roger was romantically involved with George’s daughter, Congresswoman Alex, and after their breakup, he proved himself to be petty enough to hack Alex and her then-partner’s phone in an effort to patch things up with her. Lyndon knew this, along with other shoddy details of Roger’s connections with crooks of various kinds, which he could use as leverage. Additionally, Lyndon was under the radar of Green’s attacks, which is why he needed Roger to frame Green to take him off of his back for good. But after the commission found nothing on Green, the podcaster was released, bringing more criticism towards George and the commission, and Lyndon started pressuring Roger about taking George off the case.
Roger was aware of George’s recent neurological issues and had a chance to publicly discredit him by questioning his mental faculties, which could have saved him from Lyndon. However, Roger decided to finally maintain his moral stance and proved his loyalty to George by refusing to obey Lyndon’s orders any longer. This was a fatal mistake on his part that resulted in Lyndon’s hitmen killing him in his apartment, staging the scene in a way that makes it seem like Nick, too, had overdosed.
Who Was the Mastermind Behind the Cyberattack?
Before his death, Roger had come clean about his past actions to Alex, and he had also managed to discover Lyndon’s communication channel with his co-conspirator—the so-called Leon aka Blake Felton. George was at his lowest point, given his effectiveness, moral integrity, and mental constitution were being questioned by the entire nation, and he was on the verge of stepping down from his position as commission chief when he discovered the intel about the communication channel addressed to him by Roger.
By posing as Lyndon, who had gone into hiding following Roger’s death, George was able to trap Leon, and through him, the mastermind of the cyberattack was revealed to be Monica Kidder—the techie CEO of the social media platform whose app was used to infiltrate the digital grid from within and orchestrate an attack of such a scale. Lyndon, Kidder, Leon, and everyone directly associated with the attack used analog long-range radio as a means of communication. Like any billionaire techie types in the real world, Kidder wanted her company to be more involved with the commission to abuse its powers, but George time and again denied her attempts. Secretly, with the attack, Kidder wanted to prove the corporate effectiveness in handling security and surveillance in the face of the government’s failure; however, Roger’s intel exposed the truth at last. Kidder wanted to gain immunity by threatening George about exposing the truth that he is the father of Valerie’s daughter, Lily – something the former President had no idea about. However, this didn’t work as FBI operatives and Kidder’s security engaged in a gunfight, which led to Kidder’s arrest. Later on, Kidder was revealed to have been murdered inside the prison as part of a cleanup by the orchestrators, who gave people like Kidder and Lyndon free reign in the first place.
However, the real culprit was House Speaker Richard Dreyer, and surprisingly enough, George’s daughter, the bleeding heart Congresswoman Alex. Dreyer had convinced Alex that, in the age of information, where public trust in government has hit rock bottom, the only way to heal the flailing structures of power was to deliver a system shock. By exposing the existing vulnerability of the system through the cyberattack, the creation of the Zero Day Commission was made possible—essentially allowing Dreyer to live his power fantasy while masking his true intentions. Not only Dreyer and Alex, but also several hotshots from the Senate are revealed to be involved in this as well, as political parties both in power and in opposition colluded together. However, George’s presence continued to prove to be a nuisance, and after the hit on Kidder, Alex became convinced that sooner or later her father would get to the bottom of this. However, after Alex’s faith in Dreyer started wavering, he planned to get rid of the loose ends by orchestrating another large-scale shutdown—but thanks to the commission having employed proper countermeasures, this attack didn’t leave a similar impact as the first one.
Following Green’s scathing attacks on George, a sycophantic mob had begun protesting outside George’s house, and during this second shutdown, when security tried to extract George and Sheila from their residence to safety, the mob began a violent attack. Due to CIA Director Jeremy’s timely appearance with his unit, the duo was saved. George learned about Dreyer’s involvement, the plan hatched by Jeremy and President Mitchell, and also about his daughter’s involvement in the act of terrorism. Jeremy ensures Dreyer and the rest of the world consider George to have passed away in the mob attack.
Why Did George Expose The Culprits?
George confronted Alex, who, hilariously enough, mentioned she had no idea that a digital grid shutdown would result in the death of thousands. Anyway, the father-daughter duo reconciles, while Dreyer addresses the public by expressing his fake sentiments about George’s death. George confronts Dreyer in private and prepares to detain him for high treason, but Dreyer manages to convince him to reconsider his decision by mentioning the truth is too heavy a burden for the nation to bear. The cruel truth that the ones entrusted with power by the masses had committed genocide against their own will obliterate whatever little faith people still have in the government. He also threatens George that if he indeed exposes him, his daughter Alex, being a part of the conspiring lot, will have to bear the repercussions as well. After learning everything, Sheila requests George to not put their daughter’s fate in jeopardy by revealing the truth, and President Mitchell, who has her own political ambitions to worry about, requests George to uphold public faith by simply going with the existing narrative—that a fugitive Lyndon and deceased Kidder are to be blamed for the terror attack. However, despite having decided to hide the truth, George faces a dilemma while addressing the Senate and Congress in the Capitol regarding the final verdict of the New Day Commission. It is strongly suggested that he is still under the neurological afflictions caused by Proteus, but alternatively, it can be chalked up as his guilty conscience acting up—which implores him to reveal the truth to the world.
Did Sheila Leave George?
Alex has already surrendered herself to the authorities, and George acknowledges his daughter’s role in the conspiracy as well—by exposing Dreyer and members of the Senate and Congress who conspired with them. The truth indeed exacted a heavy toll from George’s life; his family was lost forever as Sheila left him, Alex is in custody, and he returned to his house with only his canine companion, Del, by his side. But upholding the right to truth, George at least set an example in front of his countrymen, an act that will continue to instill hope and faith among the people regarding their government.
