Letter #148: Happiness

Good morning, Erin.

First things first: yes, I absolutely did wake up super-early to watch the Single’s Inferno 4 debut—and I have proof!

As you can see, I got a little way into the episode before I thought to take this picture (which, when I texted it to my friend, I referred to as a “proof-of-no-life” photo), but…there it is. 

Priorities.

But, much as I would love to chat with you about this new season of “the hottest inferno in the world” after having forsaken sleep for the better part of 36 hours, we are here to, instead, talk about happiness.

Wait—that can’t be right…

[checks notes]

Ah! I mean Happiness, the 2021 zombie outbreak series. That…that makes way more sense than me talking about being happy. That would be laughable. 

But, yes, we’ve got a show that came out of nowhere and had me tossing aside everything else I was watching so I could get through all 12 of its episodes as quickly as possible. Why? I dunno! But I remember that I spontaneously decided to watch All of Us are Dead in January of 2022, so maybe this was a similar impulse. Maybe something about the cold makes me think, “Yeah…zombies.” 

…or maybe it’s none of those things, Daryl, and you just really need to sleep OKAY LET’S TALK ABOUT HAPPINESS!!!

1. I’d describe this show as meh but watchable. It’s kind of clever, at least insofar as it is quite an interesting premise, but it’s also a mess: oddly paced, tonally inconsistent, thematically unsure of itself, and full of character decisions that make sense only as ways to narratively contrive plot beats later in the story. But…I still pretty much binged the whole thing in a weekend. Flawed as it was, it never put me off so much that I wanted to jump ship or rant at the TV. So, as I said, it’s watchable. Just not particularly, y’know, good. 

2. “But Daryl, you typically well-reasoned armchair critic, what premise do you mean? I thought you said this was a zombie outbreak series—is that not fairly well-worn, as a concept? What would make a zombie outbreak a premise worth noting?” Well, my dear seonbae, you are absolutely correct: a zombie outbreak is certainly well-trod storytelling ground, and there isn’t anything particularly more (or less) interesting about it from one iteration to the next. But, of course, as I’m sure you have already concluded, it isn’t the zombie outbreak that’s the premise—it’s the context for it that makes this go-round interesting. Essentially, it’s the “a zombie outbreak, but…” formula: Kingdom is a zombie outbreak, but in ye olden times; All of Us are Dead is a zombie outbreak, but at a school; Train to Busan is a zombie outbreak, but on a train. In this case, we get the fascinating “a zombie outbreak, but post-COVID.”

2A. Yes, that’s right: we’re doing a COVID allegory.

2B. Well, sort of. By which I mean sometimes. Like, the zombie outbreak sort of alternated between being a stand-in for COVID and an outbreak that has very specifically (for narrative purposes) cropped up after all things COVID-related. That is, we’ve got two hypotheticals running at the same time—but, importantly, not simultaneously: “What if COVID had been a zombie outbreak?” and “What if there was a zombie outbreak not long after everyone came out of lockdown?” And those are both fascinating questions. 

2C. …just maybe not if they’re asked at the same time. Because they don’t really have the same purpose in mind (...at least, they don’t in this case), with one considering the consequences of the pandemic response and the other looking at the response itself. Which means the story wants to deal with a situation in which the characters have both lived through the COVID era and also not had to live through the COVID era—a decision that offers too much potential for contradictions that affect everything from messaging to theme to character behavior to overall storytelling quality. 

2D. It’s muddled, is what I’m saying. Which is a shame. Because, again, both ideas would be fascinating to explore. But, in seemingly trying to do both, we don’t really get either. That something is being said seems obvious—but exactly what that may be is a bit harder to pin down. (Though, for the record, there is a beat where a woman in the grips of turning into a zombie scrubs herself vigorously with hand sanitizer, which I thought was brilliant.) 

3. Much like with the TV version of The Walking Dead, zombies don’t appear to be a pop culture thing in the universe of this show. I mean, it’s possible that they do and just literally every person in South Korea is unaware of them, but I’m going to grant the benefit of the doubt and say that they aren’t already a thing. Otherwise…people make some really, really questionable choices. 

4. One thing I’m definitely clear on, though, is that I knew a bunch of the people in this!

• the male lead from Doctor Slump as Yi-hyun, our police officer male lead

• one of the awesome mountain monks from Alienoid (1 and 2) as Col. Glasses Man

• Ms. Choi from Hotel Del Luna as the snooty HOA lady

• the magistrate from 100-Days My Prince as Yi-hyun’s partner

• the nun from Goodbye Earth as Lt. Sidekick

• Eun-tak’s mom from Goblin as the web novelist

• the Jerkface Lawyer from Extraordinary Attorney Woo as the personal trainer

• Mun’s grandmother from The Uncanny Counter as the old church-going lady 

• the thug-turned-travel-agent from Vincenzo as a cleaner

• the main guy’s agent in Dream as the sleazy lawyer

• the crazy girl from B**** x Rich as the cute cashier girl

• the mean aunt from Doctor Slump as the apartment complex cleaning lady

• the rich cult leader’s wife from Goodbye Earth as the psychopathic doctor’s wife

• the hot prosecutor from Miss Night and Day as the mistress

• the shrink from Doctor Slump as a general

• the director of the law firm from Love to Hate You as the sleazy reporter

4A. So, we’ve got Yi-hyun, the cleaning lady, and the general having a mini-reunion for Doctor Slump; Lt. Sidekick, the cleaner, and the psychopathic doctor’s wife having a mini-reunion for Goodbye Earth; and then the trainer and the psychopathic doctor’s wife having a mini-reunion for Frankly Speaking. 

4B. Now, technically, I have seen the woman playing Sae-bom (our SWAT team female lead) before, but I didn’t recognize her, so I didn’t list her above. HOWEVER…the interesting thing is that her character in this so strongly reminded me a fully-adult version of Kim Yoo-jung’s Saet-byul from Backstreet Rookie—and the thing I technically saw the actress in was the movie 20th Century Girl, where she plays the grown-up version of Kim Yoo-jung’s character at the end of the film. That gave me a chuckle. (Looks-wise, though, I’d say she’s not so much Kim Yoo-jung but almost 100% the hot shaman girl from Possessed Love. Like, even down to how her eyes move.)

4C. Also: I laughed every time they called the main guy by his name (Yi-hyun) because the only Yi-hyun I’ve heard of prior to this show is the girl who got kicked off of Transit Love 2. 

5. The tone of the series is all over the place, alternately deadly serious and goofy slapstick, and it is especially inconsistent in the first couple of episodes. BUT…that’s also when our protagonists engage in the fake relationship trope that will underpin the entire series, so I have no real complaints. 

6. The little girl who lives next door and ends up spending all her time with Sae-bom and Yi-hyun is absolutely just there to be the cute thing meant to emotionally manipulate the audience whenever danger may be around the corner. And it totally f***ing works, because she is adorable—and her being mother-daughter/sisters/besties with Sae-bom is mega-adorable. 

7. For some reason, every car that drives through the parking garage at the apartment complex is given a screeching tires sound effect, as though each one of them is tearing through the place at 80 mph. Or needs its belt replaced.

8. The psychopathic doctor who tried to murder his wife (and, as the show goes on, many other people) gets the weirdest treatment over the course of the show. I don’t know if he’s supposed to be perceived as a villain or as comic relief. He’s a bad guy, no doubt about that. But even the protagonists don’t seem to take him seriously as a threat, even when they absolutely do treat him as a threat. Or, really, the show keeps needing to contrive ways not to have him removed from the story for any length of time, so our protagonists, after nearly being killed by this greasy lunatic, consistently give him a whack on the behind to show he did a bad thing, then reluctantly just him to his apartment so he can try again a few hours later. He’s probably the silliest character in the whole thing, sort of portrayed as a sociopathic Wile E. Coyote, and I could never figure out why. 

8A. “Well, as long as we’re stuck in lockdown, we can’t really arrest him.” B****, it is the zombie apocalypse—you toss his murderin’ a** out the window and call it a day! 

9. Speaking of the lockdown order: when the government tells the residents of the apartment complex that they’re officially in lockdown and that the lockdown will only last for a week, everyone believes them. Now, I would like you to tell me if these folks did or did not live through COVID. 

10. The end song, “Realise,” by Joe Layne is a goodun. I recommend it. 

11. For the record, however messy the script might be, the actors generally all do a good job, with the standouts being…probably Col. Glasses Man, Sae-bom, and the psychopathic doctor (who is always on point for whatever nonsense scene the script has him play out). And honorary mention to the guy playing Yi-hyun, because, though he was mostly bland as hell, at least he wasn’t overplaying every moment like a total goofball like he did in Doctor Slump. 

12. Relatedly: total badass tomboy hottie Sae-bom is 100% #bestgirl…but the sleazy lawyer’s wife looks like a 40-year-old So-e from Single’s Inferno 2, so I’m morally obligated to vote for her. 

12A. …the heart wants what the heart wants, Erin. 

13. In a fun nod to the whole COVID aspect of it all, most of the characters in lockdown are always wearing sweatpants. 

14. Around Episode 6, Lt. Sidekick changed her hair cut and colored, and the show acts like this never happened. 

15. There is a scene where a brother and sister are arguing, and the brother brings up that the sister gave him hepatitis. And…I have questions. 

16. I think everyone looks pretty good running. Well, some of them look like out-of-shape people running, but no one looks silly doing it. 

17. Yi-hyun and Sae-bom do an awful lot of moral high-horsing in this series, despite the impunity with which they kick in people’s doors and “correct” their behavior. Are their “corrections” objectively right? For the most part…probably. But they also cross the line more than a couple of times just to get things to go their way…and then berate people who do the same thing in pursuit of objective good they don’t like. And, sadly, this is usually done to expedite the plot, not put our heroes in a situation where they’ll face the consequences of their actions. 

17A. …and yet they DON’T JUST THROW THE PSYCHOPATHIC DOCTOR OUT THE WINDOW. Which would be a win for literally everyone. 

18. There are a couple of scenes that require a golf club, and it’s clear that the prop department only had the one and was hoping that no one in the audience turns out to be the world’s greatest detective. 

19. In Episode 6 or 7, Yi-hyun jams the front door to the apartment building closed with his baseball bat, which he’d been using as a weapon since the start of the zombie outbreak. A little while later, the bat is back in his hand, leaving us to assume he went back to rebar the front door with other items…or that the show forgot that this is what happened to the bat and wanted him to have it, again. Because, surely the world’s greatest detective would not be in the audience. 

20. When Sae-bom comes across one of the first appearances of a zombie, she shoots him a couple of times. Clearly, they did multiple takes of this scene without giving her a fresh magazine full of blanks to fire, because we wind up seeing the slide lock back after her second shot—which would mean she’s out of rounds, despite the scene needing her to only have just started firing her gun. In the very next frame, now that the camera angle has changed, the slide is not open, and she has all her bullets back. Which you might think is me pointing out a continuity error, but no—because obviously badass tomboy hottie Sae-bom is just that efficient at reloading her firearm. 

21. That said, immediately following this moment, the zombie is down and two of Sae-bom’s SWAT team pals come to grab him…by casually walking up to him and not restraining him at all. As though he had not, just moments ago, nearly ripped his way through Sae-bom and, subsequently, a metal door. So, clearly not as efficient with ANYTHING as badass tomboy hottie Sae-bom. 

22. One of my favorite parts of the season was in Episode 9 when the snooty HOA lady (Ms. Choi from Hotel Del Luna) just starts swearing in English for a bit—and all the swears are bleeped out. Made me laugh. 

23. There are more than a few last-minute introductions of information to make plot beats happen, but none seems more egregious to me than the one near the end where someone casually mentions that the thing that’s long been pinpointed as the cause of the zombie outbreak only turns people into zombies sometimes lol sorry bro guess you can’t make us zombies. 

23A. I mean, there’s also the thing where we’re supposed to believe that the paranoid germaphobe on the 15th floor who we’ve only ever seen in full hazmat gear is so platonically beguiled by Sae-bom that he’s fine with not only inviting her into his apartment but also with her being in his apartment maskless—but also he’s not in any protective gear of any kind. Which we absolutely do, because Sae-bom is too much of a badass tomboy hottie for germs to stick to her, so it’s totally fine. 

23B. Science. 

And we’ll leave it there. Not just because those are all the notes I have on Happiness but also because I need to get to sleep, if I’m going to wake up in the middle of the night to watch the new episodes of Single’s Inferno 4 before work, again. Which I am. Because I have an illness.

And I think we know where this one came from. Don’t we. Erin.

…but also we may change that at the last moment for plot reasons. 

Hope you’re having a lovely day. And waking up in the middle of the night to watch the new episodes of Single’s Inferno 4. Or…I dunno, whatever normal people do to have a lovely day. 

More soon.

—Daryl