The obvious question to ask about the ending of a series like The 8 Show, which is based around a bizarre reality TV competition that by Episode 8 has spiraled into a horrible bloodbath, is who won. The answer is (almost) everyone, but really nobody at all, least of all the audience.
But this isn’t the right question. The 8 Show is so thematically empty and confused that there isn’t really a “right” question to ask at all. Things happen between the contestants, but none of them are compelling enough for you to care. And the show ends with them parting ways not having learned any meaningful information about each other.
Nonetheless, I’m here to break down the events of the final episode for your reading (dis)pleasure, so let’s just get on with it.
What happens to 1F?
The finale finds 1F, 2F, 3F, 4F, 5F, and 7F banding together to take over the eighth floor by financial means. For the cool price of one billion won, the entire floor and its ill-gotten gains can be theirs.
Only this isn’t the case. After smacking 8F upside the head with a golf club, and ending her ongoing torture, the purchase scheme seems like a bright idea. But it’s a ruse. After 1F fronts the bill, he discovers that the only thing he has purchased is the price list for the rest of the floors. The actual values are astronomical, and nobody can afford them.
This development sends 1F mad. In an effort to keep the game going and increase the prize pot, he holds the other floors at gunpoint, has them bind each other, and then performs for them, echoing his work as a circus clown.
While jumping on a tightrope, 1F brings down an overhead projector, which crashes into the empty pool below and bursts into flames. 1F comes crashing down shortly after it, getting terribly burned in the process.
How does the game end?
With all this high drama, it doesn’t seem like the game will be ending any time soon. The timer is up to 1440 hours. An outside-the-box solution is required.
This comes from 3F, who leads the others in destroying all the cameras. If there is nothing for the audience to see, how can there be a game? It’s a smart idea, and cutting off all the footage has the desired effect. The timer reduces to zero, the doors open, and the contestants are free.
Not 1F, though. He’s too far gone and can’t be saved. However, he dies after the completion of the game, meaning that all of the other contestants are technically “winners”.
Yay?
The Contestants Part Ways
Traumatized from his experiences and barely believing they were real, 3F stares at his prize money but can’t bring himself to enjoy it or move on. He was fined half of his cash for destroying the cameras, but he’s still very well off – financially, anyway. He lost two and a half months of his life to mental and physical torture, and since the show was never broadcast to a public audience, was there any point to it?
3F holds a funeral for 1F, and 6F, 7F, and 8F are absent. When 3F looks up 1F’s wife, he learns that 7F gave her enough money to sort her out for life and claimed 1F was working abroad. 6F sends a wreath.
8F gets her comeuppance, at least. For destroying the gallery she had to spend all her prize money on damages, and now she’s in prison. Every cloud has a silver lining after all.
The lower floors all part ways at the end of The 8 Show, knowing almost nothing of substance about one another. I know how they feel.
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