Sweet Home Season 2 Episode 1 feels like it pulled the rug right from underneath us. Because in season 1 it was made clear that the evil in this world were the monsters. There was that gigantic hulking beast, the monster with half a head, the one that was just a big old eye, and the one with a really long tongue that liked to suck the life out of you. Those were the things that we were meant to fear. And in season 1 we saw Hyun-Su have to deal with finding a balance within himself when it came to his trauma and the desires that were transforming him into something else. Season 2 was basically like, “Fuck that. We gave you a taste of humans clearly being the monsters at the end of season 1 and now we’re going to serve you a full meal!!!”
Personally, I was really surprised that season 2 started off with Ui-Myeong inside of Sang-Wook. I thought it was an elaborate way to get Hyun-Su into a position that would show him the pain that Ui-Myeong went through to get him to a point where he has developed a God complex and thinks he’s better than every single human out there. But Ui-Myeong wants to bring Hyun-Su into the fold in a gentler way. It’s unexpected but works to flesh out this character in conjunction with Hyun-Su. Because both have seen the horrors of this world and ended up at two vastly different places. And it’s really interesting how Sweet Home explores pain and how it defines us based on an infinite number of factors that make it clear that there is no recipe for who is evil or not.
Keeping that in mind, 2×01 really made it clear that humans are the real trash bags of this world in a way that felt more realistic than the monsters in season 1. Humans are a familiar monster who destroy, conquer, burn, and kill for reasons. You could see that clearly in this episode in the way that the soldiers let the power get to them to the point where they beat a man to death for worrying and looking for answers after someone was just killed. I understand that it could have been a power display. But there was something monstrous there that went too far. And you saw that in the way that the soldiers were just shooting indiscriminately and didn’t recognize that this monster wasn’t even trying to kill them. This monster was something new. But because humans are so sure that they know what a monster looks like, they ignored all the evidence in front of them and a lot of people ended up dead.
By the end of the first episode of season 2 you end up having sympathy for the monsters. That monster was just looking out for their baby. Yes, it’s terrifying to think that the monsters are procreating and creating a new form of life on Earth. But there was intelligence and empathy in that creature. And humans, who have a really hard time understanding anything besides their own grandiose nature as if they were the best thing since sliced bread, they refused to recognize it. In fact, they killed it and set it on fire. And the last thing that little monster baby saw was its mother or father being destroyed and them feeling a piece of rebar shoved through their chest. That’s trauma right there. And if we go back to the season 2 trailer for Sweet Home, more of those creatures appear and attack the soldiers. So that little baby is going to get back to the others and express what happened. And I’m not even going to feel bad for those humans. Sorry, not sorry.
Admittedly, I will feel bad if anything happens to the rest of the survivors. A bunch of them are grouped together and on their way to God only knows where thanks to Eun-Yu Just being done with everyone’s bullshit. Which, continues on her character’s blatant disregard for social conventions as she forges her own path. Diva and queen. Go off. Then there’s Yi-Kyung. She knows the chances of her husband being alive and well are slim to none. And she uncovers another part of what we discovered all throughout this episode aka about the humans being the monsters. Those that are in power are using their power to test what is going on with the monsters and how to end them. But they’re doing so in a way that clearly makes them even bigger monsters than the monsters themselves.
That’s why I think that I’m going to have to redefine how I talk about Sweet Home as a whole because of this first episode. It really says a lot about a show’s writing when a reviewer has to sit down and think about what kind of words to use and the language that feels acceptable in comparison to the actions seen on screen. From here on out, monsters who display intelligence of any kind will be known as creatures. Because this world has all of them and if we’re going to call out cruelty, we’re going to make sure that we’re accurate. That means that humans will definitely be called monsters and all of the reviews that I do from here on out. Considering that this show has completely shifted my perspective on this world in one episode, By the end of season 2 I’m pretty sure I’m going to be frothing at the mouth and hoping that all the humans (except the select few of course) end up dying.
Maybe that mad scientist will be proven right. Maybe humans are the virus. And Mother Earth is finally done with our bullshit.
Sweet Home season 2 is now available on Netflix.
