All of Us Are Dead S1E4
This episode was not, in fact, a mindfuck. It looks like we're putting all the really weird stuff on hold until episode 5 or after. A little disappointing, ngl, but what can you do.
On the bright side, it delivers one of the most memetastic sequences in the history of visual horror media. When asked by the police detective what could have possibly made him think creating a zombie virus would be a good idea, Byeong-chan pauses for a long, thoughtful moment before saying this:
Perfection. The only thing that could have made it better is if the detective had given him a fatalistic affirmative head nod and said "Legit."
Byeong-chan in custody is just an isolated scene within the episode, so I thought I'd put it in the intro before getting into the actual plot threads that this one features.
Helicopters have been shining their searchlights over the school and city for some time now, but there still don't seem to be any rescue attempts taking place. To be fair, the groups of survivors we're following don't have access to working phones or computers (the one working computer that the main bunch had got destroyed in one of the zombie fights), and with them all being hunkered down indoors it would be hard for the chopper crews to see where they are.
...
That's an interesting factor to consider with a zombie scenario, actually. For most disaster evacuations, you can expect people to get up onto the roofs or out onto streets. You can watch for the movement of trapped-indoors people through the windows etc. Zombies both restrict the survivors' movements, and create false positives for the rescuers, with any mistake by the latter possibly meaning their own death or infection. Calling out to the helicopters, meanwhile, will also attract more zombies toward your hiding place. The fact that this show features fast zombies rather than the slow, shuffling variety makes it trickier.
...you know, I think the best strategy for survivors who lack phones would be to turn the lights on and off at five second intervals. Especially if it's at night, when the light should be pretty visible from above. Slow enough to make it obviously deliberate, rather than the flicker of a dying bulb or the like. I guess that also might attract more zeds to your location, but probably not as much as noise would.
It did take me a little while to think of this approach, so I'm hardly going to judge the kids for not doing so immediately when the chopper passed overhead. More of a "maybe they'll have thought to try this by next time" sort of musing.
...
Anyway, rescue isn't forthcoming at least for our POV characters. And, as evening becomes night and night becomes morning, the logistics of survival become increasingly pressing. A big chunk of the episode is spent on how the main two groups of survivors - the kids in the classroom, and the firefighters and politicians in the city hall office - need to improvise toilets for themselves.
Scrounging up absorbent materials, trays, and anything that can be used as toilet paper. Managing air flow to avoid the smells and sanitation risks. Managing the squeamishness of each group's more blue-blooded members. Etc.
For the kid group, at least, this activity also acts as something of a stress relief. Just having something useful to do in a situation where they feel powerless really galvanizes them, and they end up going the extra mile to do stuff like taping up colored paper over the sideroom's window to give their improvised bathroom some privacy.
It's cute, and a little bit silly, but it serves as a reminder of just how desperate the students are to feel like they're doing something, anything, to help themselves.
Another problem is water. Humans can survive for a surprisingly long time without food, but by dawn they're all starting to feel early stage dehydration symptoms. That's a much harder problem to solve.
...
It's no coincidence that we barely see anything of the archery team members and handful of others cloistered in a school bathroom this episode, heh. They really got the best possible location to hunker down in, out of the local options.
...
Apart from the boringly practical side of zombie survival, this episode also dips heavily into the absurd side of information-age disaster response. There's a new subplot about this dorky livestreamer who goes INTO the afflicted city while everyone else is trying to escape it, in order to verify the rumors about this plague actually being a zombie plague for his viewers.
There's a really unique mixture of genuine pity and cackling schadenfreude when you watch this hapless moron get himself in deeper and deeper while only very slowly realizing that maybe he ought to be trying to get out. It helps that throughout his scenes, from evening through the night and into the following dawn, his chatters never stop arguing over whether or not this is real or if he's using a green screen or something.
Not gonna lie, while watching this guy flee through the undead-infested nighttime city part of me really wanted to see a crossover where he happens to cross paths with another type of streamer who came much more prepared for the situation.
Unfortunately, the only person we really do see him cross paths with is Cheong-san's mother, right before the latter is caught and bitten after trying to approach the infected Gyung-su outside the school grounds.
I guess it's up to the viewer to decide whether or not Nyan murdered her by proxy. On one hand, she wouldn't have approached that zombie if she hadn't recognized it's former self as a friend of her son's. On the other, I don't think she would have lasted more than a few extra minutes either way as she continued pushing into ground zero with an injured leg.
Of course, the show has to throw in this extra bit of cruel irony by having Cheong-san himself - at the exact same moment - be darkly wondering if she cares more about his life being at stake right now than she does about that stupid restaurant she's so obsessed with.
Since the pilot, he's been making clear how embarrassed he is of her having re-named the restaurant after him. That's a bit understandable on his part. What's less understandable is him interpreting this as her treating the restaurant as her real "baby" in his place, which...well, I guess with Korean work culture being what it is and restaurant-ownership in general selecting for the most workahaulic people in existence, that is a mistake he could make. However, it's been very clear to the audience all along that this was her way of trying to show her love for him despite her limited time. And now, of course, she dies while abandoning her restaurant and trying to get to her son, and he'll probably never know it. It's mirrored by some brief looks at On-jo's firefighter dad at City Hall, likewise struggling to get a chance to go try and rescue his daughter but prevented by his duty to the survivors he's already babysitting. Politicians might not be more important than anyone else, but even in his own code of ethics he can't risk the survival of this group of civilians just for a longshot hope at rescuing a relative of his across the city.
Similarly dark (though less emotionally poignant) irony comes in the form of everyone in the school still being desperate for an internet connection, when the school has historically been so frustrated in its attempts to keep them offline. It's only now, when being able to get in touch with the authorities and inform them of a survivor group's location is actually vital, that the school's measures actually work. It plays into the theme of the zombies as a totem of modern humanity beaten down, restricted, and locked up until there's no "humanity" left in it at all, even if it's also very understandable that the school would want the students to stay off their damned phones while class is in session.
The back half of the episode gets back to the rooftop pair who we didn't see much of last time. The suicidal sexual assault victim and the boy who I now realize is her boyfriend, not just a friend.
The full story here is that these two were either witnesses to the chronic bullying of Byeong-chan's late son, or fellow victims. Probably both. When Byeong-chan tried to mobilize the school authorities against the delinquents these two were called in as witnesses, but the delinquents (and the powerful adult family members of their leader) managed to intimidate them into downplaying the extent of it and minimizing the resulting punishments. Thus, the delinquents both got off with a relative slap on the wrist, and also had a renewed grudge against these two for even trying to act to get them in trouble. They started extorting money. And, when they couldn't or wouldn't pay, escalated to sexual blackmail, sexually assaulting the girl and forcing her boyfriend to film it for them so that they could then set the video to go online unless they get the money soon.
As the pair stand on the rooftop talking over their predicament and whether or not the rest of the world deserves what's happening to it right now, boyfriend accidentally lets slip something he'd been keeping from her. Namely, that the video hasn't gone up yet, but is set to do so at 9 AM this dawning morning. Boyfriend had just managed to scrounge up the money to pay them off, but was prevented from doing so yesterday during lunch by, well, you know. He didn't tell her about it until now because he didn't want to stress the already-suicidal girl out even more.
Well, now that she knows, she decides she's going to do something. Namely, brave the zombie-infested hallways and try to make it down to the teachers' lounge where the students' cell phones are kept for the day, where she can hopefully find the lead delinquent's phone and destroy it before 9 AM. When boyfriend tries to stop her, telling her that this isn't worth dying over, she eviscerates him with the words "You're a coward. You're too scared to live OR to die." Which, well...on one hand, he's right about her life being worth more than revenge porn. But, on the other hand, she's right that he's historically been too cowardly to either fight (even letting himself be cowed into holding the phone to film the video for them) or to face death (she's the one who ran to the rooftop, not him).
Granted, she let herself be cowed into relative silence during the hearing just like he did, so it's not like she's exceptionally brave herself. But still. He IS the one whose proposed solution to every problem has been "sit back and meekly hope it gets better."
Plot threads finally converge as, while girlfriend descends toward the teachers' lounge, Cheong-san and Su-hyeuk start wall-climbing in the same direction to access the same supply of smartphones. While the love triangle subplot is starting to become a bit more relevant, I still don't think the characters should be talking so much about it in these circumstances, and I was amused by this scene in which Su-hyeuk appears to agree with me.
Heh, you tell him Su-hyeuk.
Well, anyway, they reach the teachers' lounge just as Girlfriend is smashing up the phones. Seeing them try to save some of those phones, she flips out and tries to stab them.
It...doesn't seem like she's just freaking out at them for trying to take some of the phones, interestingly. There seems to be a moment in particular, when she and Su-hyeuk first see each other, that it seems like there's a moment of horrified recognition. Mutual horrified recognition. Maybe I'm misreading this, but it looks like there's history here that's severely exacerbating the problem.
So, there's a struggle, which makes noise, which brings more zombies down on their location. The boys end up separated, and cut off from returning the way they came.
...
Also, there seems to be something really weird going on with the zombie behavior, at least concerning certain individuals. When Girlfriend is making her way downstairs to the teachers' lounge, she gets caught and mobbed pretty quickly.
It looks like they're biting her, but based on her expressions and articulation they must not be doing so very hard. And then, abruptly, they all - as one - get off of her, stand up, and start totally ignoring her. A few of them look her way and growl in a sort of "that famous shot from Alien 3" way, but only incidentally, and it never goes further than growling. She goes unmolested the rest of the way to the lounge after this.
I'd assume that the zombies can sense that she's infected now, and stopped attacking her for the same reason they don't attack each other...but that's not how they've behaved throughout the show until now. In all previous instances, they've kept attacking until the person either totally stopped moving, or turned. This is something different.
I feel like we might be going in an "I Am Legend" (book, not movie) direction with this? Maybe? I'm not sure, but it kinda feels that way.
Also, it could be that infection with the virus was a contributing factor to Girlfriend attacking Su-hyeuk as violently as she did a few minutes later. But even if it was, it clearly wasn't effecting her the same way it does most people. She wasn't losing functionality the way other enraged people have done while turning.
...
As they flee in their different directions, Cheong-san ends up stumbling into the principle's office, where he interrupts another bizarre, violent interaction. Useless lunatic principle managed to survive until now by hiding quietly in his office, until the delinquent from the cafeteria happened over to him. Principle made the mistake of trying to order the kid to help him escape. The boy doesn't like his attitude, and stabs him for his car keys.
I made a mistake before, by the way. This kid wasn't the nepobaby leader of the delinquent group. He was the brute of the gang, the guy who did the punching and threatening for his less physically imposing buddies. I'm not sure if we saw what happened to the other delinquents, but whether they've been zombified or not they don't seem to be relevant to the plot at this point. It's the brawn, rather than privileged/brains, of the gang who's a real problem now that society can't reach them.
Cheong-san walks in on the struggle, and makes the mistake of trying to threaten the bully into standing down by filming him with one of the phones he got away from the teacher's lounge with. Bad idea. A minute later, Principle Lunatic is dead and Cheong-san is now being pursued by the knife-wielding maniac.
It's interesting, hearing the delinquent dude's little speech to the principle before killing him. "I run this school now." By virtue of being physically strong, having a weapon, and being very willing to use it, he is now the individual with the most power around.
The funny thing is that his speech wouldn't be true if they were just two floors up in the building. The large group of survivors hiding in the science classroom have mostly rallied behind class president Nam-ra, and working together, using improvised weapons, they could overpower the knife-wielding thug with only minimal risk. She's the most powerful person up there. But her domain ends at the walls of that classroom.
If the zombies really are evolving in some way, then I'd be very curious to see how they eventually interact with this living human kid who thinks he's the king of their jungle. Hmm.
...
I also appreciate that this kid is basically a takedown of the tiresome 2000's-era strongman survivalist fantasy that used to come with zombie media. The fall of society is bringing about a masculine liberation, but only for the kind of men who made society so oppressive in the first place.
There's no freedom being brought about by the crushing. Just even more crushing.
...
No sign of the new mother this episode. I have a feeling that her subplot is going to be what gets into the "I Am Legend"-ish twist that I'm anticipating. I really am curious about what the fuck was even going on with all that.
I feel like I'd have more to say in conclusion about this show if I saw more of it. These four episodes leave too many cliffhangers, too many open-ended arcs, for me to do so. I'd really like to see more though. It's got its problems, and there's a decent chance it will ultimately disappoint me somehow, but so far, on balance, this show is pretty dang good.
