The Glory is the latest Netflix K-drama and one of the few since Squid Game that might be said to have captured the same kind of fervent mainstream interest. While it might not be as eminently meme-able, the revenge drama has been a gargantuan hit for the streaming platform, both in December 2022 when it debuted Part 1, and in March 2023 when it debuted Part 2.
The plot concerns a woman named Dong-eun who, almost twenty years after leaving school, begins to take revenge on the bullies who made her life hell. Her plans are complex and target everyone from the ringleader, a now-famous weather forecaster with a rich husband, to her acolytes and the educators who failed to intervene. But she’s also avenging on behalf of someone else, and begins to recruit allies who have their own reasons to help her.
From our review of Part 1:
The other difficulty in a story like this is making sure we understand the victim’s point of view, even years later. Dong-eun doesn’t pursue her old bullies through chance; she has dedicated her entire life to the cause, obsessively following their lives and planning how to ruin them. She openly contemplates killing. Forgiveness is never considered. So that we buy it, the brutality of her torment during her school years is displayed in great detail and at great length, making long stretches of The Glory an unpleasant watch.
And from our review of Part 2:
Part 2 finds Dong-eun in a much more advantageous position. With the help of amateur P.I. Hyun-nam (Yeon Hye-ran) and her love interest Yeo-jeong (Lee Do-hyun), she’s holding onto some pretty substantial kompromat, so the stakes are immediately higher as we rocket into the back half of the season. The dynamic has changed considerably, too, with the cocksure bullies on the ropes, turning on one another out of desperation, and trying to think of outside-the-box solutions to prevent Dong-eun from delivering whatever killing blow she has in mind.
Both parts were a major hit for Netflix, leading fans to speculate whether The Glory K-drama will be canceled, especially given the streaming giant’s fondness for axing even its popular shows. Here’s everything we know.
Will there be a Part 3 of The Glory on Netflix?
The first season of The Glory was divided into two eight-episode parts. Some outlets have erroneously called Part 2 “The Glory Season 2″, but this isn’t the case. Part 1 and Part 2 comprise a single season of sixteen episodes and a single continuous story.
But will there be a Part 3? Let’s just say it’s unlikely. The Glory K-drama finished on a relatively strong and conclusive note, with an extra-long finale that tied up virtually all of the loose ends left dangling by the previous 15 hours. Thematically, the show is very much about lost people managing to find themselves or at least invent new versions of themselves, and most have done that by the end.
However, there is plenty of potential for The Glory Season 2, since the Part 2 ending actually sets up a dynamic between the lead characters that would allow them to take on more revenge missions in subsequent stories. This, though, would be somewhat against the first season’s thematic core, and it’s hard to imagine there’d be a conscious effort to continue the show with less personal stakes. Instead, one imagines this was just a fun and slightly ambiguous way to leave the door open for viewers to speculate about the future of these characters.
Of course, as ever, we’ll let you know if we hear anything more, but our official prediction is that there will not be a Part 3 of The Glory on Netflix.
