Finished it. Overall sense: pretty unpleasant. An apocalyptic world without redemption or forgiveness. Why are we exploring this sort of thing? What about our lives makes something like this a necessary story? Still wondering.

@jorobertson I don't think I'm particularly pessimistic, but just a cursory glance at the news tells me that there's loads of stuff in our lives, past, present and definitely future, that makes Hellbound incredibly relevant. The way our search for meaning and happiness has gone seriously awry, leading to deep and often violent conflict, and even worse to the exploitation of whatever and whomever the ruthless can lay their hands on. The widening gap between the haves and the have-nots, largely due to the abuse of money, religion, technology, ideology, etc. I thought New Truth was particularly well observed, with its well-meaning but seriously twisted founder not only inflicting his dangerous ideas on the populace but handing the reins to a despotic idiot.

I do agree that a lot of the show is pretty unpleasant, but I'm surprised that you think it is devoid of redemption and forgiveness. Those are qualities that the Sodo group has devoted itself to bringing back, and the end of the show seems to be hinting that they might succeed beyond their wildest dreams

@jorobertson I was just reading about a guy who has been sentenced to death for trying to smuggle about one and a half ounces of heroin into Singapore. A lot of people there seem to believe that the death penalty is needed to scare people into NOT smuggling drugs into the country. Shades of Chairman Jung, I think, and by all appearances equally ineffectual, cos the death penalty certainly didn't deter that smuggler or the people who put him up to it.

Have you read Harry Potter or watched any of the movies? I feel it was inspired by it. Infact, even the epilogue looked inspiration from Mummy movies.

Tbh when the guy reached for the rubber hose I thought for a moment he was going to counter hellfire with a spurt of tap water. Seriously, though, I don't think the finale was fit for ending the story cos that "demonstration" deviated from the others in too many unexplained ways.

Yes that ending was awesome!! I just did'nt expect it. And as @emsel has said reminded me of harry potter. I was so hesistant to watch this series and it was indeed a difficult watch but I'm glad I did it. Just an insight into the human psyche.

I thought the entire cast was fantastic. I can see why Yeon Sang-ho wanted Yoo Ah-in to play Jung Jin-soo so badly. It's a performance that bears re-watching, especially in view of what we find out about him in ep3. Yang Ik-joon and Park Jung-min are thoroughly convincing and sympathetic as decent men who do their best in a terrible situation. Kim Hyun-joo - what can I say, that woman is on a roll, with Watcher, Undercover and now this. But for me the standout was Kim Shin-rok, who played Park Jung-ah. Only a small role, but it was all there: the fear, the shame, the habitual deference to her supposed social betters, the way she kept shrinking into herself and smiling shakily, like she thought she was too insignificant for anyone to care about. And everything done sotto voce. I thought she was great as the detective in Beyond Evil, but she is even better here.

I’ve been reflecting on this drama since finishing it on Sunday. A lot of criticism was about the second half not as good as the first which I disagree. It looks to me a deliberate creative direction to do a time skip within the 6-ep confine. They’ve implied in ep 4 as to how the earlier development has changed the world with the growth of New Truth and a conventional storytelling to include how KHJ set up the SoDo Group is not adding much to the story.

Ep 4-6 is simply to zero in how ordinary folks are affected from PJM’s colleague to his own family. The baby’s prophecy is an answer to YAI’s prophecy in that ‘that God” does not discriminate, hence breaking the facade of New Truth. Given the popularity of cults in Korea, the materials presented in this story, I hope, will have a wake up call effect. Every time when the New Truth Elders discussed their strategies, it is so farcical and the “original sin” is certainly a new height.

I really like the ending (save the last 10 second on KSR’s rebirth) - it’s a perfect ending giving us hope out of that huge sacrifice and injecting optimism in the road ahead as the camera panning out to the long road that car drives onto. Rather than its being a Potter-squeeze ending, I’d say it’s in the same vein as the good old “The Terminator”.

Fully agreed with everyone here there’s no weak link as far as acting is concerned. Kim Shin Rok rocks her character as observed by @knewbie and I’m equally impressed by Yang Ik Joon, another non-mainstream actor.

Lastly and seriously, I hate that last clip on the ‘re-birth’ as it breaks the positivity and optimism from the previous sequence. This is certainly a lead to S2 and they’d better be about the monsters’ backstory. (I’m totally fine to delineate the monsters from the main story in watching this season.)

@jorobertson @epyc2010 I feel a bit guilty about discussing the show here. The eps1-3 recaps are labelled "series review" - if that means that eps4-6 will also be recapped, then we'd better move our discussion there! In the meantime, I just wanna say that I think the epilogue, though sinister, actually had me punching the air in glee. For me, it felt like the tide was truly turning. But of course I could be DEAD wrong...