Diksha Sundriyal
In Netflix’s ‘Zero Day,’ chaos reigns over America after a cyberattack that shuts down all systems for exactly one minute. While one minute might not seem like a big thing, it is enough to cause irreparable damage while also resulting in the deaths of millions of people. Amidst all this, former President George Mullen is put in charge to solve the crisis and bring the culprits to justice. The investigation leads him to some very scary and some very dangerous prospects, one of which is the role that billionaires like Monica Kidder and Robert Lyndon play in all of it. With the realism with which the show tackles the story, questions about the inspirations behind Kidder and Lyndon are raised. SPOILERS AHEAD.
Monica Kidder and Robert Lyndon Represent the Capitalist Greed
A truly despicable character once said that chaos is a ladder, and characters like Monica Kidder (Gaby Hoffmann) and Robert Lyndon (Clark Gregg) know how to climb that ladder pretty well. As detestable as the characters are, they remain entirely fictional, much like every other character and plot point of the story. Kidder hails from Silicon Valley, and she has made her fortune through ventures that include but are not limited to a popular social media website, and all of them fall under the aegis of her main company, Panoply. She is also under investigation for issues about the nature of the technology used by her. Meanwhile, Lyndon is a shrewd businessman who knows just when to take advantage of an opportunity. He is more involved with politics and tries to use his well-placed connections to manipulate things such that they always end up that suit him the best.
One could see similarities between them and certain well-known real-life billionaires, especially those in possession of popular social media websites. Said billionaires are also known to have turned their attention towards politics and established themselves in a position that gives them great power. However, all such comparisons would be purely speculative. The creators of the show, Eric Newman, Noah Oppenheim, and Michael Schmidt, have not drawn any comparisons between the fictional characters and any real-life billionaires.
The trio explained the idea behind the series as the exploration of the deceptive nature of truth and facts in today’s world, where reality can be easily manipulated and is different for different people. In writing a story that taps into this disturbing truth, they created a fictional bunch of characters, focusing on all the possibilities that could fall within that umbrella. They made extra efforts to keep things as realistic as possible, especially in terms of the involvement of external forces in government issues and organizations. However, nowhere in that process did they base the characters of billionaires Monica Kidder and Robert Lyndon on any specific person.
Read More: Zero Day: Is Valerie Whitesell Based on a Real Chief of Staff?
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