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Warning: This article incorporates spoilers for the complete second season of Hellbound.
In November 2021, Netflix was contemporary off the success of Squid Game, when a brand new supernatural horror sequence from Train to Busan director Yeon Sang-ho hit the streamer. Hellbound, or 지옥, tells the story of what occurs to the Korean social order when hell comes calling. In the sequence’ first episode, the world’s inhabitants begins to get visits from otherworldly specters precisely forecasting the precise occasions of their deaths, and declaring the “decreed” might be going to hell. At the prescribed time of dying of three, Hulk-like creatures generally known as “executors” seem to beat the decreed into submission and burn them to dying in “demonstration.”
Hellbound shot to the highest of Netflix’s Global Top 10, additional driving pleasure that Hallyu, or the Korean wave, had entered a brand new section. Three lengthy years later, Hellbound is again for a second season, hoping to recapture the extent of worldwide consideration that made its preliminary run a success.
Season 2’s energy wrestle: The New Truth, The Arrowhead, and Sodo
Hellbound season 2 picks up 4 years after the finale of season 1, and eight years after the beginning of the story within the series1. The world, or at the very least South Korea, has fallen into additional societal chaos, with a number of teams locked in an influence wrestle: The New Truth Society, the spiritual group based by charismatic cult chief Jung Jin-su (Yoo Ah-in in Season 1, and Kim Sung-cheol in Season 2), is greedy on the public’s waning curiosity. Without Chairman Jung, who endured his personal demonstration in Season 1, they’ve needed to depend on the hole charms of Kim Jeong-chil (Lee Dong-hee). Meanwhile, extremist cult the Arrowhead have solely gained extra fanatical energy. Led by livestreamer Pinwheel (Cho Dong-in), the violent Arrowhead mobs search their very own redemption by ridding this world of “sinners.”
Elsewhere, now we have Sodo, the decentralized group began by lawyer-turned-badass Min Hye-jin (Kim Hyun-joo) to guard those that have been decreed. They have grown in energy and management for the reason that occasions of Season 1, and have begun to stray from their preliminary, principled function in favor of gaining energy. This is probably finest exemplified by their therapy of younger Jae-hyeon, who is named the one individual to have ever survived an illustration. When Season 2 begins, four-year-old Jae-hyeon is being stored “secure” in one among Sodo’s distant services. Locked in a room for remark, she is given materials comforts, however not the love of a household.
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The resurrection of Park Jung-Ja and Senior Secretary Lee’s plan
In the ultimate scene of Season 1, Park Jung-ja (Kim Shin-rock) was introduced again to life 4 years after her demonstration. When Season 2 begins, Korean society nonetheless doesn’t find out about it; they’re stored at nighttime concerning the miraculous occasion by The New Truth Society, which remains to be making an attempt to determine how finest to make use of a largely unresponsive Jung-ja. When Senior Secretary Lee (Moon So-ri), a cheerfully calculating authorities determine, approaches Chairman Kim about utilizing Jung-ja to ship a brand new doctrine meant to sway society again to the New Truth Society, the determined chief agrees.
Senior Secretary Lee is a brand new character in Season 2, and she or he proves herself important to the occasions of the sequence. With the federal government’s authority and assets, she is the puppeteer behind the scenes, making an attempt to stabilize society underneath her management. “A narrative with such a robust character doesn’t collapse simply,” she tells former colleague and present Sodo chief Kim Sung-jip (Hong Eui-joon), outlining her plan to create a rustic during which two opposing forces—on this case, the New Truth Society and Sodo—are locked in an limitless energy wrestle. “Even if the world turns right into a fucking hell, we’d like a system to maintain it,” she tells Sung-jip, summarily convincing him to work together with her.
Heading into the ultimate episode, Lee has the whole lot in place for a climactic showdown on the presentation of the New Truth Society’s up to date doctrine, to be delivered by traumatized figurehead Jung-ja. In a boardroom excessive above the streets of town, Lee units her plan in movement. Sodo’s Hye-jin and Sung-jip have arrived on the scene to rescue Jung-ja from the New Truth Society. While Hye-jin does this with the objective of reuniting Jung-ja together with her two kids, Sung-jip has labored out a scheme with Lee to seize Jung-jae for Sodo. If all goes in response to plan, the New Truth Society may have the facility of Jung-ja’s new doctrine, Sodo may have the facility of Jung-ja herself, and Lee may have management over each side. But what Secretary Lee doesn’t account for is the arrival of Jung Jin-su.
The resurrection of Jung Jin-Su
Park Jung-ja’s re-corporealization could have been Hellbound’s Season 1-ending cliffhanger, however Jung Jin-su’s mid-Season 2 resurrection is arguably a much bigger catalyst for the sequence’ chaotic climax. In the season’s opening sequence, we be taught that Jin-su did, in reality, go to some sort of hell. While there, he was compelled to stay a number of the worst moments of his life, however from the attitude of others: He is his father, beating his mom, and abandoning a younger Jin-su on the carnival. He is the assassin Jin-su and Hee-sung burned alive in a crematorium in Season 1. He is pulled from nightmare to nightmare by the identical beasts who pulled him to hell.
When Jin-su returns to the land of the dwelling, he’s haunted by hell. He turns into obsessive about discovering and speaking to Park Jung-ja, the one different one that has been confirmed as resurrected. When he ultimately manipulates hordes of loyal Arrowhead followers and Senior Secretary Lee into bringing Jung-ja to him, she disappoints him. “Perhaps your hell and mine had been totally different,” Jung-ja tells him, as she tries to flee. “When I look within the mirror, I don’t see something behind me. And these executors should not behind you. They’re inside you.”
The executors are inside Jin-su, and he’s out of possibilities. In Jin-su’s Season 2 conversations with Cheon Se-hyeong (Im Sung-jae), the widower of one among Jin-su’s acolytes who joins Sodo within the hopes that he may also help proper the world, the theme of final possibilities usually comes up. While Jin-su taunts Se-hyeong for losing his final probability by trusting Jin-su, it’s finally confirmed to be Jin-su who wastes his resurrection. He spends his second probability the identical approach he did most of his first life: selfishly, looking for a salve for his emotional ache with out take care of the ache he knowingly inflicts on others.
Jung-ja’s declaration is its personal sort of decree, as Jin-su realizes they don’t seem to be the identical. He begins to be overtaken by the executors dwelling inside him. Jin-su begs Hye-jin for assist, and she or he tries. Unlike a lot of the energy gamers in Season 2, she doesn’t see individuals as pawns. Even when Jin-su is being swallowed from the within out by hell, she sees his humanity and thinks it’s value combating for. However, her efforts are for naught. Jin-su turns into an executor-like creature and is pulled into hell as soon as once more. It is all live-streamed by the Arrowhead, portray self-acclaimed savior Jin-su in a a lot darker mild.
Park Jung-Ja is reunited together with her kids
With the New Truth Society and the Arrowhead distracted by Jin-su’s second dying, Hye-jin and Sung-jip handle to get Jung-ja out of Seoul. However, Hye-jin and Jung-ja are quickly double-crossed by Sung-jip. He plans to kill Jung-ja in order that nobody else can steal her from and use her towards Sodo, and he plans to kill Hye-jin as a result of he is aware of she’s going to attempt to cease him. “The world wants a great lie proper now,” Sung-jip rants at Hye-jin after taking pictures her within the shoulder, echoing the messaging Secretary Lee used on him. “Everyone is exhausted from the unrelenting chaos. We don’t want a fact that won’t even exist. A great lie is the inspiration we’d like for a secure world.”
After a brutal struggle, Hye-jin bests Sung-jip, handcuffing him to a bit of equipment in an deserted junkyard. “This is our final probability. Our final probability to save lots of this world,” a determined Sung-jip tells Hye-jin. She doesn’t take the bait, telling him: “You’ll have to save lots of your self earlier than it can save you the world.” Hye-jin, who acquired pulled into this enterprise by turning into Jung-ja’s lawyer in Season 1, is ready to reunite Jung-ja together with her son, who’s now an grownup. They drive off into the countryside to reunite with Jung-ja’s daughter.
Park Jung-ja’s world-ending prophecy and the wave of decrees
Before Jung-ja leaves Hye-jin, she breaks some dangerous information: “Soon, the world will come to an finish. So you need to do what you wish to do when you can.” Jung-ja has efficiently predicted a number of characters’ deaths over the course of the season. She got here again from hell with the flexibility to see pictures related to individuals’s final moments. When Director Kim is crushed to dying by the Arrowhead as Jin-su’s uncaring command, he sees two birds painted on the ceiling above him, and laughs as he realizes Jung-ja predicted it.
While Jung-ja’s prophecy could seem inescapable, Hye-jin’s survival within the Season 2 finale proves that her visions may be modified. Hye-jin is ready to evade Sung-jip’s preliminary killshot as a result of she sees the indicators Jung-ja related together with her dying. Perhaps the tip of the world will not be as sure as Jung-ja thinks.
Meanwhile, the world is experiencing an acceleration in decrees. Following Jin-su’s second dying, tens of 1000’s of “angels” begin showing within the sky above Seoul, predicting the approaching deaths of a serious chunk of the inhabitants (together with Secretary Lee) and their subsequent descents into hell. A brand new actuality is settling in.
How does Hellbound Season 2 finish?
The closing scene of Hellbound Season 2 recontextualizes one of many closing scenes of Season 1. In Season 1, we noticed child Jae-hyeon seemingly protected against death-by-demonstration by her dad and mom, saved from hell by their sacrifice. It is the occasion that concurrently triggered the erosion of the New Truth Society’s energy and the escalation of the Arrowhead’s fanatical following. Now, we all know that story was a lie. Jae-hyeon was not spared from dying. As we see within the closing scene of Season 2, she died within the demonstration and was nearly instantly resurrected. She was the primary to be resurrected.
What does this all imply? First, that it could be unimaginable to flee a decree; nobody is spared from demonstration, although some could also be spared from hell. Second, that Jae-hyeon could have a latent energy, simply as Jung-ja does. Third, that what we do on this life—and the way we take care of one another—does matter. Even when Jin-su got here again from hell, he feared he would possibly nonetheless be in it. Hellbound Season 2 posits that we create our personal hell, individually and collectively, and even when there’s a supernatural energy additionally getting in on the sport. “I get it now. I lastly know what God’s will is,” Se-hyeong tells Jin-su. “He desires to offer which means to one thing meaningless and fill the world with individuals who kill one another. Do what that’s? It’s Hell. God is making an attempt to show this world into Hell.”
It’s an analogous sentiment to the one expressed by the random, good-natured taxi driver who picks Hye-jin and child Jae-hyeon up as they’re making an attempt to flee Seoul within the Season 1 finale. “I don’t know a lot about God, and I don’t even care,” he tells Hye-jin. “But there’s one factor I do know: and that’s that this world belongs to people. And we must always settle our issues ourselves.” Hye-jin is whisking Jae-hyeon away on the finish of Season 2, as nicely. “Jae-hyeon, I wish to let you know a narrative about your dad and mom now,” she tells Jae-hyeong, who’s seeing the world exterior her room for the primary time. “[A story] about how a lot your mother and pop cherished you. And once I’m completed, I wish to be your mother. What do you suppose?” Jae-hyeon agrees, fortunately, and so they drive over a bridge and right into a heat mild.
As we’re instructed over and over in Season 2, tales have energy, and Hye-jin is giving Jae-hyeon a great and true one. It is the sort of story that Jin-su was by no means instructed when he was little and alone. The sort of story Secretary Lee, the New Truth Society, or the Arrowhead would by no means trouble telling as a result of it doesn’t feed the sort of quick, uncaring energy they wish to develop. The sort of story Detective Jin Kyung-hun (Yang Ik-june) tells his daughter, Hee-jung (Lee Re), as she dies from most cancers in his arms. Hee-jung lived most of her life underneath the thrall of Jung Jin-su and his empty guarantees, but it surely’s a household image, a narrative of affection, that provides her consolation in her closing moments.
