Shades of Grey
The tension in the apartment complex begins to rise when Sae-Bom starts to glare at Jung-Kook. Jung-Kook feels like he’s being targeted and doesn’t know how to deal with it.
Joo-Hyeong meanwhile, starts to look for the Madness drug, believing Yi-Hyun is hiding it inside their flat. Despite not finding anything, Sae-Bom and Yi-Hyun are forced to stay inside on house arrest – at least for a few days. ..
The meeting in the Building Rep’s room doesn’t go well because Sae-Bom is holding a knife and Andrew tells them. Sae-Bom is livid and hurries up to confront them. Unfortunately, because she’s holding a knife, it just causes everything to escalate.
Jung-Kook pulls out his gun and Sae-Bom grabs it. They both pull the triggers, but the chamber is empty. Yi-Hyun shows up and immediately cuts his hand, intending to see if anyone else is infected. ..
Cashier Lee Bo-Ram began snarling and clearly showed that she was infected. Thankfully Yi-Hyun and Sae-Bom acted quickly, locking her up in the gym downstairs. It turned out she got infected back at the supermarket, having clearly been scratched and cut. Sae-Bom also learned though that the bloodied towels didn’t belong to her. ..
The residents of the building gather together in the gym each morning to discuss food inequality.
The President is dead and a funeral has already been held. In reality, he’s strapped to a chair with a mouth guard in. Tae-Seok though is taking charge of this operation and there’s no stopping him. He mentions Seyang Forest, and the number of infected gathered there, before going on to discuss the apartment complex. It turns out the lockdown was all a big experiment to see how the virus mutates in a natural setting That’s why none of them have been allowed to leave.
Despite both Soo-Min and Bo-Ram being infected, they have shown great selflessness by refusing to drink water. Unfortunately, Sun Woo-Chang is not as selfless and is instead very religious, which is causing tension between him and the others. ..
He appears to be infected, especially when Yeon-Ok returns, discussing the building rep gig, and placing the cup of blood on the table. It doesn’t take long before he drinks it. Seung-Beom actually gave him the drug in the past, and he even tried drinking his own blood but to no avail. And of course, the absolute irony of this woman being so adamant on separating the infected decides Woo-Chang should just hold tight and isolate himself away from the others in their apartment. However, when she opens the door he’s gone.
When Yi-Hyun and Sae-Bom learn what’s happened, they quickly tie up the infected Woo-Chang and keep him on the floor of the apartment. At least to begin with. When Joo-Hyeong heads in to see him, the man leaps to his doom, landing in a heap of his own blood on the floor. Yeon-Ok is beside herself with grief, blaming Yi-Hyun and Sae-Bom for his death.
Residents of the building are desperate for Kim Se-Hun to share food and water with them. He agrees to think about it until the morning. ..
Meanwhile, outside the building Sae-Bom’s blood report comes back. It turns out she actually does hold antibodies that could fight this infection. That’s good news to Tae-Seok, as he’s faced with the impossible choice of saving his wife or their unborn child. Unfortunately all of this is going to come at a cost.
As we cut back to the complex, it turns out that Yi-Hyun is actually infected, having been bitten during an earlier skirmish with the infected. ..
The Episode Review
The drama is well-crafted and the characters are very well-drawn. The hypocrisy of the people in this situation is really impressive.
In real life, these types of stories are not just limited to the Korean community. They happen to people from all walks of life and backgrounds. This helps to give the characters more depth and make them more relatable. Sure, you still get the typical archetypes, but they are mixed in with a whole bag of different personalities. ..
When Yeon-Ok and her friends are infected, they are just as determined to fight off the infection as anyone else. However, when it’s one of their own, they become guilty of hiding it and refusing to drink. This makes the decision to have both Bo-Ram and Soo-Min selflessly isolate from the others and refusing to drink that much harder - even the infected aren’t inherently bad or good.
Happiness is a fascinating drama that is slow at times but it’s actually one of the better shows this year. The post-covid show tackling the virus in a tasteful way without crowbarring in political messages is also one of the better shows this year.
