I just finished the first ep and wow! I'm going to try not leave 34398439 comments for every single ep but I had a lot of thoughts buzzing after just ep one so felt like I had to comment before continuing the show!

- I feel a lot like Yi-kyung when she was coming out of the bunker at the and blinking hard to adjust to all the sudden light. After spending so long in a confined dark, dimly lit space, it feels very 🤯 trying to get used to the new setting. I guess in that sense, this seems to be very much following the usual arc for dystopian trilogies where the second step is to move from the little box to the bigger box and have the protagonists have their values/beliefs put to the test whilst clashing with some kind of government authority. So although I'm very much already missing the green apartment complex (and its flawed makeshift family unit), this does feel like the next logical narrative step and I'm prepared for the likely onslaught of political/ideological fighting/set up for final fight that's going to happen now because it's not as simple as human v monster anymore.

- I appreciate the layers being set up already to potentially deep dive into the question of what it means to be a human and the distinction between human/monster. Yay for the military having a bit more complexity and ambiguity now that they're part of the narrative, because it's no fun if it they're just a monolith 'bad guy' (that nuance on the human side of things was one of the best bits about season one, so I'm glad we're expanding that to include a whole bunch of different players in this game too now).

- I had so many questions about the ending of season one, but literally felt like an idiot for not realising as quick as Hyun-su did because DUH who else could it have been! I hate Ui-myeong but he makes half a valid point here and there and more importantly it means we can still technically 'see' Sang-wook. I much prefer this version of him however who's stuck and also hasn't maybe gotten rid of the host entirely (I really hope Sang-wook is alive fr in there and will emerge the dominant 'soul' or whatever soon).

- Speaking of Hyun-su - wow he's grown. Like he talks full sentences now and isn't the shy timid boy anymore?? He was always on that character journey but I guess I just realised it now since he's actually talking. Also like this dude has gone through so much already in the first ep, my body literally starts aching in sympathy watching because he's just literally not been able to catch a break at all. Like yes he regenerates but it must hurt like absolute death each time right?

- Was interested to see where they'd pick up from, and I'm glad they did just pick up from where they left last season because else it might've felt disjointed but I'm also very surprised at how it flows pretty seamlessly despite the gap in production? I think they finished filming season one in early 2020 and then started filming...

So, in my typical greedy fashion, I powered through all of season 2. I am not going to talk about the storyline except to say that it is easy to miss things and sometimes things aren't apparent. I found it to be a pretty darned satisfying watch, but now the looong wait for season 3.

GUYZ did anyone see what happened to Pom the Dog? LOL He ran off in the tunnel when the "mom" monster showed up and I'm agonizing about leaving him behind! at the 22:00 mark.

Finished S2 last night. DANG! That last minute!!! GAHAAHAH
So many naked butts! LOL And dang, the boys have really bulked up! They weren't that muscular in S1.
Sad that most of S1 chars are gone (including the ajumma with the dog Pom, who got lost, booo).
Not liking the new monsters AT ALL! They almost seem like Transformers or mech but human? Nope, don't like. The ones running after the soldiers all looked like robotic dogs! WTF
The sacs/giant eggs is very reminiscent of *Alien*. I'm curious but at the sme time IDK if I like it.
Anyways, how long till S3 drops? LOL

Disclaimer: this is coming from the girl who LOVED (like capital, bolded, font size 100 ‘L’) the Star Wars prequels because of the focus on politics, debate/discussion/‘talking’, and the setting up of metaphorical chess pieces - which happened to be also some of the biggest criticisms that series got from people. So in a similar vein, whilst I do understand those that aren’t enamoured with this season, this isn’t me trying to invalidate those opinions, but just so happens that a lot of the issues people did point out ended up being the very reason I liked it so much - and this is just a ramble on that!

I also did watch this right on the back of finishing a season 1 rewatch, so I do wonder if my opinions would’ve changed in any way had I maintained the significant gap between S1 and S2.

World Building & Characters

So straight off the bat, I liked that we had a whole new and expanded world to navigate. The top has been blown off the ‘home’ - both in the metaphorical and literal sense - and both characters and viewers are thrust into a whole new world, with a whole host of new players. It put a fresh and interesting spin on things, which in retrospect also keeps season 1 feeling unique and fresh. We technically had two ‘worlds’ thanks to the time skip - it felt like just as we were trying to adjust our eyes to seeing what had been going on/what is going on outside of the villa the entire time, we then jumped to almost a year ahead to a world rebuilding itself not just from the monsterisation outbreak but also the complete collapse of a ‘central authoritative body’ that also tried to blow everyone up. Bit of a best of both world situation in my eyes, because I was initially expecting for us to spend the entire season with the military/government/research facility projected as the ‘bad guy’ monolith and the ‘good guy’s being the small rebel group forming but was pleasantly surprised when we had all of that blown up - quite literally - to make way for a narrative that was much more complex than good vs evil.

New expanded territory comes with new people, and it takes time to not only introduce these new characters but build audience investment in them. So whilst there was a lot of ‘slow’ moments, and plot time was split between several groups of people, I appreciated this because by the end I had considerable investment - both negative and positive - in almost all of the new characters shown. Yes it was sad that many of the OG group were killed off, but imo the story wouldn’t hit the same if ALL the people we knew kept surviving against all odds - after all, much of the first season had characters built up for the audience to become deeply invested in only for them to be brutally killed off, sometimes in the most avoidable ways that made you go ‘they survived ALL of that only to die like this?!!?’ but that’s the nature of this world and story and it’s been consistent through this season. With the gang that is left though,...