Do I look like I care?

Continuing my trip down The Guardian's Top 50 TV Shows of 2021.  

#42 : 지옥 (Hellbound)

Destined to be overshadowed by its fellow South Korean export Squid Game, Hellbound was far greater than the sum of its parts. A drama about demons who come to Earth and drag people to the underworld, Hellbound was much brainier – and more satirical – than you would imagine. And dark. So dark.

So, in a somewhat unfortunate turn of events, people are being visited by something which tells them exactly when they're going to die and, oh by the way, you're going to go to Hell.  And then, at the allotted time, demons appear, throw them about a bit and then burn them alive (and very cool demons they are too).

And somewhere tied up in all this is a cult, The New Truth, which believes a new world is coming.  And there's a bizarre "influencer" The Arrowhead and his followers who - well, it's not all that clear how they're involved really.  And the police also get in on the action because people being burned alive is generally frowned upon and the cause is not initially understood - but it's safe to say they don't achieve an awful lot.

It asks some interesting questions - what would you do if you got such a message?  And how would society react?  It also does a very good line in social media pile-ons - they're really far too believable.  It builds tension effectively and has some cracking cliff-hangers, which it most definitely delivers on - there's nothing worse than a cliff-hanger that's backed away from!

It also takes some pretty wild plot swerves across the episodes - episode 3 in particular really doesn't go where you're expecting it to and then episode 4 goes somewhere completely different.  And when I say somewhere completely different, I mean four or five years later, with a focus on an entirely new cast of characters (except for a couple of characters that you really don't expect to show up at all after what happened in episode 3).  

I initially struggled with the split between episodes 1-3 and 4-6, but then came to view them as different seasons (see also, recently, The Sandman) and then I was fine with it all.  Having said that, I'm not entirely sure I'd have made that design choice - it felt to me that each mini-season could easily have been expanded.  I'd certainly say that ideas is not something the people behind this are lacking.

The second mini-season takes the concept of the "demonstrations" (people getting burned alive) which are now widely known, if not understood, and considers how various nefarious people might use such a thing for their own aims.  And how, if inconvenient facts come to light, they might be suppressed.  And, obviously, they also introduce another shadowy organisation into the mix to confuse matters further.  It does go a bit mad at the end, but satisfyingly so and it ties up the story nicely whilst leaving the premise intact and RIGHT at the end, expanding it (and yes, there's going to be another season).  

It's generally well shot with some nice (and unusual) locations and pretty well acted to boot.  I'm going to call out Yoo Ah-in as Jung Jin-soo, the leader of the cult who is enjoyably creepy - he plays it very calm (to start with at least) and it's very effective in making him a charismatic yet inscrutable figurehead.  Won Jin-Ah and Shin-Rok Kim also both deserve credit for their roles as women faced with, shall we say, "challenging" situations.  I'd also like to apologise to any of these actors if I got their names wrong - it's safe to say the internet is somewhat inconsistent in terms of both spelling and ordering.

Yes, its country of origin is going to invite comparisons with The Squid Game but I don't really feel the need to make any.  It is surprisingly cerebral - and surprisingly shocking at times, but also very touching at others.  I think I'd argue with The Guardian's description of "satirical" - a lot of it seemed far too believable to me.  It's also very, well, odd in that South Korean way that we've already come to know and love - why is that teenager wearing one hair-curler in the middle of her forehead?

And what's my big take away from it all?  Yes, I'm left wondering how on earth do Korean keyboards work?  Despite this, I enjoyed Hellbound a lot and will be back for the second season.

#41 - Perfectly fine
#43 - Don't judge it 'til you've seen it