I was blown away by HELLBOUND (Netflix), a Korean series about a strange new phenomenon occurring in which angels appear to people to tell them the hour of their death and that they have been sentenced to suffer in Hell. Season 2 blew me away even more.
The first season reveals the phenomenon and what it means to society. People are of course terrified, wondering what God wants and how to avoid suffering a similar fate as those very publicly beaten by demons before being incinerated and taken to Hell. To prevent societal collapse, a young man named Jung Jin Su–prophesied himself 20 years earlier to go to Hell–understands the only way to save humanity is to create a religion in which people taken to Hell clearly deserve it, leaving you safe as long as you follow his religion’s rules. When he pays to live-broadcast a woman named Park Jung Ja being taken by the demons, everyone believes it’s true–and they all flock to Jung Jin Su’s New Truth Society. Later in the season, after Jung Jin Su is taken to Hell, a charlatan takes over the New Truth and sets out to suppress information that a baby has been sentenced to Hell–directly contradicting the church’s teachings.
In the second season, the New Truth battles with Arrowhead, a mass movement of evangelical fanatics bent on destroying society and handing the ruins to God, and also Sodo, a group formed by a former lawyer dedicated to finding and exposing the truth about the demons. As the Arrowhead continue to gain in popularity and society starts to crumble, the government attempts to make a deal with the New Truth, its agent saying, We know Park Jong Ja has been resurrected, we know you have her, and we want to use her to create a new doctrine and destroy Arrowhead.
What they don’t know is that Jung Jin Su has also resurrected, and his experience in Hell has changed him.
The result is pure cosmic horror. I’ve always found conventional religion to be as scary as Lovecraft. I mean, there’s this Supreme Being, and he loves you, but if you don’t follow the rules and love him back you will suffer for eternity. Now imagine angels appear around the world and tell seemingly random people they are going to Hell, and then demons come at the prophesied time and shred them before burning them to ash. The show explores how humanity might react to such a thing, and how you’d end up with competing religions offering salvation, and then you’d end up with opportunistic people taking over these organizations and using them to gain and hold power and privilege. While the first season was about the battle to either give humanity the truth about its lot or offer it comfort in a new religion, a battle over meaning and interpretation, the second season is about the battle to control the narrative as a means to hold power.
I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s amazing TV in the vein of THE LEFTOVERS, though even more thought-provoking and powerful. Highly recommended.
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