In November 2021, Netflix was fresh off the success of Squid Game, when a new supernatural horror series from Train to Busan director Yeon Sang-ho hit the streamer. Hellbound, or 지옥, tells the story of what happens to the Korean social order when hell comes calling. In the series’ first episode, the world’s population begins to get visits from otherworldly specters accurately forecasting the exact times of their deaths, and declaring the “decreed” will be going to hell. At the prescribed time of death of three, Hulk-like creatures known as “executors” appear to beat the decreed into submission and burn them to death in “demonstration.”
Hellbound shot to the top of Netflix’s Global Top 10, further driving excitement that Hallyu, or the Korean wave, had entered a new phase. Three long years later, Hellbound is back for a second season, hoping to recapture the level of global attention that made its initial run a hit.
Hellbound season 2 picks up four years after the finale of season 1, and eight years after the start of the story in the series1. The world, or at least South Korea, has fallen into further societal chaos, with multiple groups locked in a power struggle: The New Truth Society, the religious organization founded by charismatic cult leader Jung Jin-su (Yoo Ah-in in Season 1, and Kim Sung-cheol in Season 2), is grasping at the public’s waning interest. Without Chairman Jung, who endured his own demonstration in Season 1, they have had to rely on the hollow charms of Kim Jeong-chil (Lee Dong-hee). Meanwhile, extremist cult the Arrowhead have only gained more fanatical power. Led by livestreamer Pinwheel (Cho Dong-in), the violent Arrowhead mobs seek their own redemption by ridding this world of “sinners.”
Elsewhere, we have Sodo, the decentralized organization started by lawyer-turned-badass Min Hye-jin (Kim Hyun-joo) to protect those who have been decreed. They have grown in power and leadership since the events of Season 1, and have begun to stray from their initial, principled purpose in favor of gaining power. This is perhaps best exemplified by their treatment of young Jae-hyeon, who is known as the only person to have ever survived a demonstration. When Season 2 starts, four-year-old Jae-hyeon is being kept “safe” in one of Sodo’s remote facilities. Locked in a room for observation, she is given material comforts, but not the love of a family.
The Return of the Decreed
In the final scene of Season 1, Park Jung-ja (Kim Shin-rock) was brought back to life four years after her demonstration. When Season 2 starts, Korean society still does not know about it; they are kept in the dark about the miraculous event by The New Truth Society, which is still trying to figure out how best to use a mostly unresponsive Jung-ja. When Senior Secretary Lee (Moon So-ri), a cheerfully calculating government figure, approaches Chairman Kim about using Jung-ja to deliver a new doctrine meant to sway society back to the New Truth Society, the desperate leader agrees.
Senior Secretary Lee is a new character in Season 2, and she proves herself vital to the events of the series. With the government’s authority and resources, she is the puppeteer behind the scenes, trying to stabilize society under her control. “A story with such a strong character doesn’t fall apart easily,” she tells former colleague and current Sodo leader Kim Sung-jip (Hong Eui-joon), outlining her plan to create a country in which two opposing forces—in this case, the New Truth Society and Sodo—are locked in an endless power struggle. “Even if the world turns into a fucking hell, we need a system to sustain it,” she tells Sung-jip, summarily convincing him to work with her.
The Resurrection of Jung Jin-su
Park Jung-ja’s re-corporealization may have been Hellbound’s Season 1-ending cliffhanger, but Jung Jin-su’s mid-Season 2 resurrection is arguably a bigger catalyst for the series’ chaotic climax. In the season’s opening sequence, we learn that Jin-su did, in fact, go to some kind of hell. While there, he was forced to live some of the worst moments of his life, but from the perspective of others: He is his father, beating his mother, and abandoning a young Jin-su at the carnival. He is the murderer Jin-su and Hee-sung burned alive in a crematorium in Season 1. He is pulled from nightmare to nightmare by the same beasts who pulled him to hell.
When Jin-su returns to the land of the living, he is haunted by hell. He becomes obsessed with finding and talking to Park Jung-ja, the only other person who has been confirmed as resurrected. When he eventually manipulates hordes of loyal Arrowhead followers and Senior Secretary Lee into bringing Jung-ja to him, she disappoints him. “Perhaps your hell and mine were different,” Jung-ja tells him, as she tries to escape. “When I look in the mirror, I don’t see anything behind me. And those executors are not behind you. They’re inside of you.”
The Price of a Second Chance
The executors are inside of Jin-su, and he is out of chances. In Jin-su’s Season 2 conversations with Cheon Se-hyeong (Im Sung-jae), the widower of one of Jin-su’s acolytes who joins Sodo in the hopes that he can help right the world, the theme of last chances often comes up. While Jin-su taunts Se-hyeong for wasting his last chance by trusting Jin-su, it is ultimately proven to be Jin-su who wastes his resurrection. He spends his second chance the same way he did most of his first life: selfishly, seeking a salve for his emotional pain without care for the pain he knowingly inflicts on others.
Jung-ja’s declaration is its own kind of decree, as Jin-su realizes they are not the same. He begins to be overtaken by the executors living inside of him. Jin-su begs Hye-jin for help, and she tries. Unlike most of the power players in Season 2, she doesn’t see people as pawns. Even when Jin-su is being swallowed from the inside out by hell, she sees his humanity and thinks it is worth fighting for. However, her efforts are for naught. Jin-su becomes an executor-like creature and is pulled into hell once again. It is all live-streamed by the Arrowhead, painting self-acclaimed savior Jin-su in a much darker light.
The Power of a Good Story
With the New Truth Society and the Arrowhead distracted by Jin-su’s second death, Hye-jin and Sung-jip manage to get Jung-ja out of Seoul. However, Hye-jin and Jung-ja are soon double-crossed by Sung-jip. He plans to kill Jung-ja so that no one else can steal her from and use her against Sodo, and he plans to kill Hye-jin because he knows she will try to stop him. “The world needs a good lie right now,” Sung-jip rants at Hye-jin after shooting her in the shoulder, echoing the messaging Secretary Lee used on him. “Everyone is exhausted from the unrelenting chaos. We don’t need a truth that may not even exist. A good lie is the foundation we need for a stable world.”
After a brutal fight, Hye-jin bests Sung-jip, handcuffing him to a piece of machinery in an abandoned junkyard. “This is our last chance. Our last chance to save this world,” a desperate Sung-jip tells Hye-jin. She doesn’t take the bait, telling him: “You’ll have to save yourself before you can save the world.” Hye-jin, who got pulled into this business by becoming Jung-ja’s lawyer in Season 1, is able to reunite Jung-ja with her son, who is now an adult. They drive off into the countryside to reunite with Jung-ja’s daughter.
Before Jung-ja leaves Hye-jin, she breaks some bad news: “Soon, the world will come to an end. So you should do what you want to do while you can.” Jung-ja has successfully predicted multiple characters’ deaths over the course of the season. She came back from hell with the ability to see images associated with people’s last moments. When Director Kim is beaten to death 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 may seem inescapable, Hye-jin’s survival in the Season 2 finale proves that her visions can be changed. Hye-jin is able to evade Sung-jip’s initial killshot because she sees the signs Jung-ja associated with her death. Perhaps the end of the world may not be as certain as Jung-ja thinks.
The Accelerating Decrees
Meanwhile, the world is experiencing an acceleration in decrees. Following Jin-su’s second death, tens of thousands of “angels” start appearing in the sky above Seoul, predicting the coming deaths of a major chunk of the population (including Secretary Lee) and their subsequent descents into hell. A new reality is settling in.
The final scene of Hellbound Season 2 recontextualizes one of the final scenes of Season 1. In Season 1, we saw baby Jae-hyeon seemingly protected from death-by-demonstration by her parents, saved from hell by their sacrifice. It is the event that simultaneously triggered the erosion of the New Truth Society’s power and the escalation of the Arrowhead’s fanatical following. Now, we know that story was a lie. Jae-hyeon was not spared from death. As we see in the final scene of Season 2, she died in the demonstration and was almost immediately resurrected. She was the first to be resurrected.
What does this all mean? First, that it may be impossible to escape a decree; no one is spared from demonstration, though some may be spared from hell. Second, that Jae-hyeon may have a latent power, just as Jung-ja does. Third, that what we do in this life—and how we care for each other—does matter. Even when Jin-su came back from hell, he feared he might still be in it. Hellbound Season 2 posits that we create our own hell, individually and collectively, and even when there is a supernatural power also getting in on the game. “I get it now. I finally know what God’s will is,” Se-hyeong tells Jin-su. “He wants to give meaning to something meaningless and fill the world with people who kill each other. Do you know what that is? It’s Hell. God is trying to turn this world into Hell.”
It’s a similar sentiment to the one expressed by the random, good-natured taxi driver who picks Hye-jin and baby Jae-hyeon up as they are trying to escape Seoul in the Season 1 finale. “I don’t know much about God, and I don’t even care,” he tells Hye-jin. “But there’s one thing I do know: and that is that this world belongs to humans. And we should settle our matters ourselves.” Hye-jin is whisking Jae-hyeon away at the end of Season 2, as well. “Jae-hyeon, I want to tell you a story about your parents now,” she tells Jae-hyeong, who is seeing the world outside her room for the first time. “[A story] about how much your mom and dad loved you. And when I’m done, I want to be your mom. What do you think?” Jae-hyeon agrees, happily, and they drive over a bridge and into a warm light.
As we are told over and over again in Season 2, stories have power, and Hye-jin is giving Jae-hyeon a good and true one. It is the kind of story that Jin-su was never told when he was little and alone. The kind of story Secretary Lee, the New Truth Society, or the Arrowhead would never bother telling because it doesn’t feed the kind of fast, uncaring power they are looking to grow. The kind of story Detective Jin Kyung-hun (Yang Ik-june) tells his daughter, Hee-jung (Lee Re), as she dies from cancer in his arms. Hee-jung lived most of her life under the thrall of Jung Jin-su and his empty promises, but it’s a family picture, a story of love, that gives her comfort in her final moments.
The Power of Choice
The Season 2 finale of Hellbound is full of uncertainty. The future of the world is uncertain, and the fate of all its inhabitants is equally uncertain. The ending of the season suggests that there may be a way out of hell, but it is not clear what that way is. We are left with more questions than answers. Will the world be saved? Is there a way to escape a decree? What is the true nature of the supernatural powers at play? Only time will tell, but one thing is certain: the story of Hellbound is far from over. We must create our own meaning in a world that seems increasingly meaningless, and we must never forget the importance of human connection and love, even in the face of overwhelming darkness.
