Summary
The penultimate episode of All of Us Are Dead exposes many problems that do serious harm to the show’s storytelling.
This recap of All of Us Are Dead season 1, episode 11 contains spoilers.
I forgot to mention this in my recap of the previous episode, but at one point Gwi-nam jumped out of a window. Honestly, his penchant for dropping from high places is getting truly hilarious at this point. I can’t believe we’re still supposed to be taking him seriously as a villain. He turns up at the start of this penultimate episode looking for information on where the kids and Cheong-san specifically went, and it’s just impossible to care.
All of Us Are Dead season 1, episode 11 recap
So-ju is with the kids now, using flares to distract the zombies so they can escape. Once they get through the gate, he really needlessly sacrifices himself, and I can’t help but be annoyed about it given how long he has spent getting to this point. Virtually any minor character could have gotten them through that gate — there was really no need to waste So-ju’s death on it. The ex-Special Forces-turned-firefighter father-figure threw two flares and got eaten immediately? Ridiculous.
Some dialogue after this incident only annoyed me more — the kids discussing how they’ll never forget So-ju’s sacrifice in an attempt to justify it is borderline pathetic, and using this as an excuse to really cement the relationship between Cheong-san and On-jo feels cheap too. And doesn’t this feel like exactly the wrong time for these kids to just be sitting around yet again?
At least things are heating up elsewhere. The Commander gets Hyosan’s destruction plan laid out to him — four targets, with the infected lured to each location using drones to emit sounds at specific frequencies. It’ll result in 60,000 casualties, an estimated 50,000 of which would be infected. Acceptable casualties? He thinks so, but he’s clearly uncomfortable with it, hence why he orders the evacuation warning to be played constantly until the bombing, to make sure as many people as possible are able to get out.
Nam-ra hears this from a distance (she’s also struggling with her hunger, and takes a bite out of her own arm rather than Su-hyeok’s face), which makes the kids realize that they need to hurry, but of course, that’s the exact moment that Gwi-nam catches up with them. There are, admittedly, some impressive visuals as the drones begin to lure all the infected to the four locations. But the Gwi-nam confrontation is absolutely ridiculous once again. He manages to get a hold of Cheong-san and bite his arm — while all the other students watch! — but just as he’s about to go for his neck, the drones render him paralyzed for a moment and Cheong-san pushes him off the scaffolding. How many times is this guy going to fall off something? I cannot believe this hasn’t been intentional.
Since Cheong-san is infected now, can you guess what he does? Well, let me tell you. He heroically lures the zombies away at great risk to himself to buy the others time to escape, which is basically what everyone who has been infected in this show has done. The problem with All of Us Are Dead being twelve long episodes is that these beats are really beginning to repeat themselves. What this is all building to is Cheong-san’s big confrontation with Gwi-nam. Cheong-san once again repeats the sentiments about Gwi-nam being a coward and a gopher, and Gwi-nam once again tries to gouge out his eye — and this time he succeeds, to be fair. Meanwhile, the bombs are successfully launched, and the four target zones, which contain many familiar faces, are destroyed.
The kids in the woods feel the after-effects of the blasts, but Cheong-san and Gwi-nam are caught right in the midst, so the former grabs the latter and dives off a nearby ledge with him. Honestly, this cannot be an accident! There is no surface this man can’t plummet from.
Following the bombing, the Commander takes the rest of the night off. He briefly visits Assemblywoman Park to inform her of the bombings and tell her to pass on a message that he’s truly sorry. Then he returns to his office, dons his full dress uniform, and turns on a video camera. He recalls watching Mr. Lee’s final video, in which he tried and failed to incinerate his wife and child. The Commander takes full responsibility for the bombing of Hyosan, calls his wife to tell her he misses and loves her, then kills himself.
The final shot of the episode is of On-jo’s name tag, clutched by remains of Cheong-san, now nothing but ash.
You can stream All of Us Are Dead season 1, episode 11 exclusively on Netflix.
