Breaking In
Episode 6 of Happiness begins with Tae-Seok experiencing this viral outbreak first-hand. When the Prime Minister ends up infected after taking Next, he locks eyes with him. The thing is, he’s also infected Tae-Seok’s wife too, leaving Tae-Seok with plenty of reasons why this infection is personal to him. Inside the Apartment Complex, Sae-Bom and Yi-Hyun contemplate whether anyone could break into the complex. They head up to the roof and find Andrew there, keeping watch. While Yi-Hyun and Sae-Bom share a romantic moment, Ms Oh decides to use this moment of crisis as the perfect cornerstone to make her case as the Apartment Represented. She’s losing her hair from the stress and heads down to see Sae-Yoon. There, she leans more about the whirlwind “romance” between Sae-Bom and Yi-Hyun. I say that with speech marks because obviously this wasn’t a marriage born of love. However, there’s still time for them to grow affectionate with one another! Joo-Hyeong, crazed and scared after his encounter with Yi-Hyun last episode, heads down to the gym. He realizes that this seems to have originated there and questions Seung-Beom, wo’s still being held captive. When Yi-Hyun shows up, he notices that Seung-Beom is crazed and trying his hardest to snatch at Joo-Hyeong. He’s definitely infected but is Joo-Hyeong too? Whether he is or not, he does tell Joo-Hyeong about the Next pills in his car, which Joo-Hyeong grabs later in the episode. Down in the basement, Hae-Sung is lured over to the door by one of the infected, posing as a man in need of legal help. Just before he opens the door though, Sae-Bom rushes down and manages to shut the door, keeping the infected out. In the gym, Seung-Beom is kept under surveillance and eventually turns back to his normal state. At least temporarily. He definitely took Next but it seems like he only took it twice, making this situation that much more tragic. The residents though are due to vote on whether to kick him out the complex in the morning but for now, things are left quiet and in the eye of the storm. With four days left of their mandatory lockdown, the group all gather to discuss kicking Seung-Beom out. Sae-Bom makes an impassioned plea against doing this, bringing up COVID and how the infected can’t be held responsible; it’s not their fault they’re infected. The residents are tied to a 9-9 draw… until Se-Hun shows and votes to keep him inside. With the matter settled, the gang agree to keep an eye on him in shifts. Meanwhile, Dong-Hyun learns that he dropped his phone outside in the courtyard. The poor worker from the mart agrees to pick it up for him but in doing so, finds herself cornered by that same infected resident again. She backs up, but he walks forward. The unthinkable happens; the infected get in. The security guard and the infected resident get inside the complex, making short work of Soo-Min who is bitten and infected, while Hyun-Kyung scrambles inside the gym. Yi-Hyun however, goes on the hunt for Sae-Bom, who could well be in big trouble.
The Episode Review
And so it begins. Thee infected have managed to break inside the apartment complex and that’s big trouble for all of our characters. There’s a really nice moment in this chapter that exemplifies the best parts of Happiness. The vote to throw out Seum-Beom is such a nice way to show the divide between those who show compassion toward the infected and those who don’t. It’s pretty accurate to be honest and as a Brit, I’m constantly shocked at the number of people who cough without covering their mouth, leave the toilets without washing their hands and just generally disregard social distancing and mask-wearing when it was mandatory to do so. Happiness manages to instill that same level of disdain for selfish individuals too, with Dong-Hyun way too worried about his subscriber count and phone than the livelihood of those around him. Unfortunately, that ends up as their undoing as the infected break inside. However, even if they all do survive it still may not be enough given the infection is spreading outside these four tall walls, with Tae-Seok standing at the heart of all this. Happiness has been a really solid watch so far and the preview for next week looks like we’re gearing up for quite the dramatic episode indeed.
