LOS ANGELES, Oct. 5 (UPI) — Many people believe that every person has a soul mate. In real life, it’s up to individuals to find them themselves, but in AMC’s new drama “Soulmates,” a test can identify your soul mate for you.
“Soulmates” shows the myriad reasons why knowing who your soul mate is can backfire. Cast members Sarah Snook, Malin Akerman and Betsy Brandt all disagreed about whether they should hypothetically find out who their soul mate is. Only Snook thought she should.
“I was single at the time I was doing [the show],” Snook said on a recent Television Critics Association panel. “So that’s maybe why I was much more gung-ho about the idea that I would take the test if I had it available.”
The “Soulmates” test is a machine that shines a light into your eye and matches you with your soul mate. Each episode of “Soulmates” tells a different story about the dangers of such a test.
Snook plays Nikki, a woman who was married before the test became available. She and her husband struggle with whether to take the test, lest they find out they are not each other’s soul mates.
“At some point in your life, you get to a point like ‘I’d like to know now,'” Snook said. “Maybe the test is an easy way out if you’re single, but much more complicated if you’re already in a relationship.”
Akerman plays Martha, a woman who joins a cult for people who find out their soul mates already died before they met. The cult proposes suicide, so that people can meet their soul mates in the afterlife.
Even if the circumstances were not as extreme as they are in Ackerman’s episode, she said she would oppose taking the soul mate test.
“I like to just leave it a little bit more to chance,” Ackerman said. “I definitely think finding out who your soul mate is would change your relationship if you believe in one single soul mate, which I don’t.”
Brandt plays Caitlin, a woman who takes the test and meets her soul mate. When her soul mate reveals deadly secrets, he actually puts Caitlin in danger.
For Brandt, it was easier to decide she would not take the test as long as it was fictional. Brandt worried the curiosity would be overwhelming even if she refused to take it.
“If I didn’t take it, which I probably wouldn’t, I would think about it all the time,” Brandt said. “That would mess you up — the fact that it’s out there. That it exists is already a conundrum, before you even decide to take it or not.”
Snook said conversations on the set of her episode provoked divisive arguments, too.
“For me approaching the project, I was pretty confirmed that, yeah, of course, I’d take the test,” Snook said. “[I was] pretty amazed that people would think twice about taking it.”
Brandt saw the show as a cautionary tale about technology.
“Information is power, but there’s some things I think we’re better off not knowing,” Brandt said. “My character thinks that finding her soul mate is going to be the answer to all of her problems. Maybe she would have been better off not meeting him.”
The world of “Soulmates” presumes the test is scientifically accurate. Snook found it interesting that even scientific certainty did not make it any easier to choose whether to take the test.
“You could sit on the fence for a while even though it has been definitively, scientifically proven that soul mates exist,” Snook said. “There would still be doubters.”
Akerman said every episode deals with regret. Ackerman believed those who take the test regret knowing, and those who do not take it regret missing out. That, she said, is true to life where regrets are inevitable.
“I think there’s a few regrets along the way in our lives no matter what,” Akerman said.
AMC has already renewed the show for a second season. “Soulmates” premieres Monday at 10 p.m. EDT.
