If you’re a major sci-fi fan, you may have already seen the hit British series The Lazarus Project, which premiered back in August 2022. The show, which ran for two jaw-dropping seasons, managed to make major waves across pop culture and inspire a staggering 100 percent fresh critic score on the review aggregate site Rotten Tomatoes. Though it may have been cancelled before its time, The Lazarus Project has continued to draw in new fans each year, and has recently re-entered the Netflix top 10.

Since the series ended with a number of questions still hanging in the air, you’d be forgiven for needing a hand to parse through all the fine details. Luckily we’ve got you covered, with a comprehensive look into the plot, characters and conclusion of the series. Be sure to read ahead as we outline some of the lingering plot threads and speculate on the future of the franchise.

Is ‘The Lazarus Project’ a true story?

Since The Lazarus Project shares a title with a 2008 novel, many fans have wondered if the story is based on true events. While the novel, as written by Bosnian journalist Aleksander Hemon, does follow the true story of a 1908 murder, the television series is entirely unrelated. In fact, the narrative of the TV show depicts such highly fictionalized elements as time travel and mutants, so it would certainly be a hard sell for those seeking a fact-for-fact reconstruction of real life.

Instead, 2022’s The Lazarus Project follows a man named George, who begins experiencing temporal anomalies which transport him back in time, forcing him to relive the same six month period over and over again. With time, he begins to investigate this bizarre situation, leading him to the discovery of other super-powered individuals with the ability to manipulate time and space.

In the first season of the show, George joins up with a secret government team of mutants who work to prevent an apocalyptic threat to the planet. While working alongside these super-powered individuals, he learns that his girlfriend Sarah is doomed to suffer a fatal truck accident over and over again as the clock resets. In an emotional rage, George leverages his newfound authority to try to alter the timeline, resulting in a litany of unintended consequences, including a nuclear war that will kill millions.

As George’s peers work tirelessly to undo his selfish actions against the timeline, they learn that the Chinese government has assembled its own legion of timekeepers and has created an apocalyptic threat of its own. The first season of The Lazarus Project concludes on a cliffhanger, as multiple black holes threaten to tear apart the fabric of the known universe.

What is the singularity?

The singularity refers to the moment in time where the timeline resets. At the start of The Lazarus Project that moment was the morning of July 1, 2022. As the series progresses, this moment changes and shifts, altering George and his peers’ ability to control the situations they’re creating. In season two, George gives Sarah a memory serum, allowing her to retain her memories throughout the timeline shifts, and understand what’s happening when resets occur.

Doing so prevents her from dying in the aforementioned truck accident, but creates waves among the rest of the Lazarus team. After some arguing and infighting, the team leader, Elisabeth ‘Wes’ Wesley, agrees to bring Sarah into the Lazarus Project, and even mentors her on the fine details of time travel and the apocalypse.

With the Chinese team building a new machine to manipulate time, the six-month window has shrunk to only three weeks, leaving the Lazarus crew with very little time to fight off the impact of the black holes. To circumvent this, the Lazarus crew attempts to send themselves back in time to 2012, before the Chinese machine had been completed. Some of the crew intend to help the Chinese team fine-tune their machine to avoid an apocalypse, while others venture to shut the project down entirely, retaining power for themselves in the long run.

Unfortunately, there’s a SNAFU with the time travel process, leaving several of the Lazarus crew stranded in 2018. This means that they’re too late to have any meaningful impact on the Chinese machine, and too early to bring anything valuable back to 2022.

Why did George shoot Shiv?

As the narrative of The Lazarus Project carries on, things become even more convoluted and confusing. Wes is revealed to be working against the rest of her team, with a few trusted advisors, including Shiv. Shiv was a minor character in the first season, whom George framed after accidentally sparking a nuclear war. Once the timeline was due to reset, Shiv confronted George at his home with a note explaining key information about the time-looping process.

Unfortunately for Shiv, George panics and shoots him moments before the clock strikes midnight, meaning the bullet is hanging in the air as the timeline resets. This causes George to shoot Shiv over and over again with each timeline reset, and humorously leads to a back-and-forth in which Shiv reveals extremely small amounts of information at the start of each loop, before the bullet wounds can claim his life.

Shiv disappears for much of season two, as the timelines become even more difficult to manage. Even still, his presence is significant, as he appears in the past to silence any of Wes’ obstacles. In the final episode of the series, even Sarah turns against George and company, and chooses to kill the scientists involved with the project to prevent the world-ending tech from ever being created. George, Dane and two time-displaced versions of Becky find themselves circling aboard an aircraft that doubles as a time machine, desperately hoping to restore the proper timeline and return to their future unscathed.

How does ‘The Lazarus Project’ season two end?

In 2012, Wes blows up the lab which she previously used to kickstart the Lazarus project. From there, she recruits Sarah, Shiv and some others to help her hunt down the scientists, engineers and 2012 versions of her team members that haven’t discovered their time displacement powers yet. Before Wes can lay waste to the lab, however, Shiv turns on her, deciding that all the death and destruction has officially gone too far.

Sarah tries to bomb the time machine and manages to do some serious damage before George and his crew can get the aircraft into the air. Luckily, the machine is still functional, and George finds his way back to 2024, breaking the three-week time loop. In the past, Shiv dispatches Wes, the Becky’s exit to their respective timelines and Sarah becomes stranded with no allies and no tech.

The final moments of The Lazarus Project see George returning to Lazarus headquarters in 2024 to see what’s become of his old stomping grounds. There, he finds Sarah, who never managed to time travel home. Instead, she is 12 years older than she should be, indicating that she waited out the entire duration of her time displacement naturally.

The series closes with a number of questions about Sarah, and no clear answers as to how she’s spent the last 12 years as the Lazarus project has disbanded. It seems clear that this dynamic would have been explored in a third season of the show if one had been greenlit, but now it remains an eternal mystery.

Frequently Asked Questions

Will The Lazarus Project return for season three?

Though The Lazarus Project was very popular with critics and audiences alike, it was cancelled after season two. For now, there are no active plans to revive the series, though it has continued to pick up steam on streaming over the years. While all hope is not entirely lost for a follow-up, nothing is in active production as of the time of this writing.

Why is it called The Lazarus Project?

Many fans have inquired as to why the series is titled The Lazarus Project. While the show does share a name with the 2008 novel, it seems clear that this is little more than a coincidence. In fact, it seems likely that both pieces of media have borrowed this title from the story of Lazarus, who was said to have been saved by Jesus Christ in the Bible. For the series, this makes perfect sense, as Lazarus is said to have been revived four days after his death. This mirrors how the time-looping effect resurrects those who have died, and puts them on a new path.

Does Sarah come back in The Lazarus Project?

As stated, Sarah does make it all the way to the end of the show, and even becomes a primary antagonist in season two’s final moments. This offers a stark contrast to the early episodes, where Sarah is an innocent bystander wholly unaffected by the effects of the time loops. Perhaps Georges’ repeated intervention in the conventions of space and time caused her to follow this dark path, ironically forcing George to fight against her in the end. The way that The Lazarus Project concludes, it seems clear that Sarah would continue to be a major force in season three and beyond, if the show had continued without cancellation.

The Lazarus project

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