Zero Day Season 1 features some shocking twists and turns throughout its paranoid-laced plot.
The new Netflix thriller from Narcos creator Eric Newman stars Robert De Niro and Angela Bassett in an eerily prescient feeling game of political to and fro in the wake of a devastating cyber attack that has left the American people questioning the governing bodies that protect them.
Following in the footsteps of other hit political dramas on the platform like The Diplomat (which just ended its second season) and House of Cards, Zero Day is a pulse-pounding effort that will leave audiences reeling by the time its finale is through.
Every Major Plot Point From Zero Day Season 1
Fans have been gobbling up Netflix's Zero Day, embracing its various Season 1 twists and spoiler-filled details.
The series stars Robert De Niro as Former U.S. President George Mullen, who is brought in by the current administration (led by Angela Bassett's President Evelyn Mitchell) to oversee the investigation of a terrifying cyberattack on the American people.
Mullen Joins the Commission After Zero Day
While the cyberattack as Zero Day's core is technically the inciting incident of the series, things do not kick off until Robert De Niro's George Mullen is brought in by the U.S. government to join the Zero Day Commission.
The new government task force was established after a brief, but widespread cyberattack on the American people that shut off all electronics for one minute, leading to devastating consequences.
De Niro's former president is initially contacted by the current administration to quell the worries of the American people, as he is a friendly face the voting public still trusts from his time in office.
However, his role in the government's reaction to the attack is quickly expanded. Angela Bassett's President Evelyn Mitchell asks Mullen to head up the Zero Day Commission, despite having been out of the political eye for decades at that point.
He is reluctant at first, scared of the sweeping powers Congress has afforded this new government investigatory organization (including the shocking suspension of Habeas Corpus).
Mulled does eventually accept the post, following a mind-changing (but never directly shown on-camera) between him and a former CIA contact from his days in the white house.
Mullen Tells the World About Proteus
After the shocking events of Episode 1, the investigation into Zero Day's central cyberattack begins to come into play in Episode 2 with the introduction of Proteus.
Early in the Zero Day Commission's investigation, several theories come and go, the biggest being that the attack was instigated by a Russian agent working on behalf of the Russian government to disrupt the U.S. bodies of power.
This particular hunch is quickly debunked as Mullen is visited by the man who ran over the Russian contact they were looking into earlier in Episode 2. He tells the former president that Russia was not involved and another party had hired the hackers who committed the attack.
This quickly takes a turn as the Commission discovers this was an act of domestic terrorism and not something done by one of America's enemies abroad. And that is where Proteus comes in.
Mullen (who has started to show signs of a deteriorating mental state), uncovers information about something known as Proteus, an NSA-developed chemical weapon that has seemingly been let out upon the world in the wake of the cyber attack, being deployed by a radical left-wing terrorist group, The Reapers.
Despite being told not to, Mullen unveils this information to the American public, going wide with what he knows about Proteus (even though what he knows may not be entirely the truth).
Episode 2 ends following his announcement of Proteus to the public with the program's government file being handed to De Niro's head of the Zero Day Commissions, seemingly hinting that the authentic truth about the venture is about to come to light.
The Truth About Proteus Gets Unveiled
In truth, Proteus is not simply a side effect released by the Reapers during the Zero Day attack but is a dangerous chemical agent with the power to produce brain injuries in people from afar.
This information is revealed to the audience in Episode 4 of the hit series as Connie Britton's Zero Day Commission Head of Staff Valerie is visited by a mysterious man known as Dave McKenna.
McKenna is one of the remaining living members of the original Proteus project team, brandishing a conspiracy that there is a reason the rest of his colleagues on the project have tragically died to this point.
He believes the government is attempting to cover up the true effects of Proteus, telling Valerie, that it is in fact a chemical agent that can "inflict a traumatic brain injury from a distance with surgical precision," without any way of being able to trace it.
This new information, paired with Mullen's declining mental state, leaves audiences with the feeling that he may have been victim to a Proteus attack and his brain is slowly unraveling itself from within.
Valerie discloses this information to Mullen, and (while reluctant at first) comes to accept that his declining mental capacity may not be from aging like some had thought, but rather the results of a targeted chemical attack upon him.
Roger and Monica Are Killed Off
Two major deaths occur about midway through Zero Day, with Gaby Hoffmann's Monica and Jesse Plemons' Roger both meeting their untimely demise.
Roger is seen in the series up to his death as Mullen's right-hand man. Wherever De Niro's former president goes, Roger follows as something of a bodyguard.
However, his allegiance is quickly questioned, as he is seen tracing radio calls and partaking in generally shady behavior that could lead one to think he may have helped in Mullen's Proteus dosing.
After Mullen's realization that he may have been attacked with the dangerous chemical agent, Roger is one of the people who is kicked from his circle as a result. Plemon's government agent's intentions are never quite fully explored as it seems that he holds some guilt for allegedly turning on the former president.
This sees the character eventually meeting his end, as he finally decides he wants to come clean about his misgivings and hopefully help in bringing the Zero Day attackers to justice.
That valiant shift does not last long though as he is quickly taken out by the powers that be, getting a lethal injection to the neck during an in-bar confession to Mullen's daughter Alex (played by Lizzy Caplan) that he did not want to turn on Mullen.
As for Monica, her death comes a little later. Monica is depicted as a ruthless tech billionaire CEO working closely with the U.S. government who seemingly had some sort of part in the Zero Day attack.
While she is first introduced as someone Mullen is advised to ally with in his investigation of the attack, she quickly becomes an antagonistic force for the former president. Episode 6 sees her blackmailing Mullen with information that he may be hiding a secret daughter, Valerie's child Lily (Charlotte Ewing).
In a meeting with Mullen, she uses this information as leverage to hopefully avoid jail time for her alleged role in the attack. This, however, does not work, as during that meeting the Commission's agents bust into her apartment and put her under arrest.
It turns out that the Commission discovered signature code from Monica's company in tracing the cyber attack, and it was her technological infrastructure that allowed the malware to spread as quickly and widely as it did.
With Monica in custody, it feels like the Commission has done it. They finally have the golden goose that will allow them to uncover the truth. That does not come to pass though. Monica is revealed to have hung herself in her jail cell shortly after being arrested and her guilt made public.
Mullen’s Daughter Took Part in the Cyberattack
With Monica and Roger dead, and the Commission scrambling for answers about what exactly happened during the Zero Day attack, a shocking revelation comes to light.
Mullen's daughter Alexandra took part in the attack itself, even if it had consequences she could not have foreseen.
During the show's epic finale, Mullen begins to suspect the call for the attack may have come from within the White House, and was perhaps coordinated by Congress itself.
That is when it is revealed that Alex (a congresswoman herself), helped to coordinate the attack along with her billionaire husband Robert Lyndon (played by Clark Gregg) and the now-dead Monica.
It turns out that Alex had been talked into the attack as an effort to put the public's faith back in government, unifying a divided America with a common enemy (the perpetrator of this attack.
This realization leaves De Niro's Mullen with quite the conundrum, do what is right and turn in his daughter to authorities; or, he could go with what the current administration wants in getting this out of the way, pinning the crime on someone else and sweeping their involvement under the rug.
This mental back-and-forth for Mullen continues right up until the end of the series when he is meant to make a speech announcing the investigation is done and downplaying any government involvement in the attack.
As he stands there on stage, he turns a cold shoulder to the teleprompter, reading Alex's admission of guilt, damning her and her co-conspirators to jail time while airing out the U.S. government's dirty laundry in the process.
This essentially leaves De Niro's character political career in tatters. He did the right thing but essentially lost everything in the process.
Zero Day is streaming on Netflix.
