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.

Based on the novel by Kotaro Isaka, GOODBYE EARTH, a South Korean dystopian TV series (Netflix), is a real trip. Audiences seemed to hate it based on Rotten Tomatoes ratings, but I found a lot to like, and while the plot meandered, I fell for the charming characters.

In this series, an asteroid is heading toward Earth in 200 days, and Woongcheon, a city in South Korea, is reeling from the turmoil that followed its discovery and failure to destroy it in space. Making matters worse, South Korea is predicted to be ground zero for the asteroid impact, guaranteeing no one will survive. The government and the elites bailed, resulting in an attempted coup and horrific loss of life. Convicts also escaped the jails and went on a rampage, killing and kidnapping children.

In the aftermath of this, the people left behind in Woongcheon struggle with shortages, unavailability of transport out of the country, scams, criminals operating openly, and corruption. The story has an ensemble cast but primarily follows Jin Se-kyeong, a former teacher haunted by the loss of many of her students; her fiance Dr. Ha Yung-sang, a scientist who was stuck in the US during the disruption and who is considered valuable by the elites for rebuilding civilization after the impact; Captain Kang In-a, an army officer leading a defanged support unit trying to maintain order; and Father Woo Sung-jae, a priest forced to take over his parish and hold it together after the main priest vanishes. Their relationships in the community lead us into the lives of many other characters who try to find meaning, joy, and sometimes escape, knowing their days are numbered.

This is one weird show. I was struck by the obvious inspiration it took from HBO’s THE LEFTOVERS, about the people left behind when 2% of Earth’s population suddenly disappear. Struggling to find meaning in such an inexplicable event filled with loss and grief, humanity loses its mind, resorting to cults, oddball religions, and violence. Similarly, the people of Woongcheon experience a lot of the same wild reactions to the looming apocalypse, and ask a lot of the same questions about whether life has any meaning if it ends.

As for the plot, it is all over the place. Storylines come and go. The ending is fairly ambiguous. It’s a frequently titillating and beautiful-looking but ultimately hot mess of a story. I fell for the characters, however, including the many secondary characters, and I enjoyed the frequent interruptions of the disjointed plot where we see them simply living their lives and sharing loving, comedic, or odd moments with each other. This is where the show really shined for me, in the simple humanity and its inherent bravery when juxtaposed with impending doom.

Overall, I like GOODBYE EARTH. Would I recommend it? Cautiously, I guess. There’s a lot to like, but those looking for conventional plotting and a brisk pace may be frustrated.