A look back at the major events from seasons 1 and 2

One of Netflix’s most popular K-dramas, Sweet Home is returning with its highly anticipated season 3. With fans ready to experience the final showdown between monsters and humans in the apocalyptic horror series, here’s a recap of all the important events from seasons 1 and 2 of Sweet Home.

A Lee Eung-Bok directorial, Sweet Home is a Korean drama adaptation of the webtoon of the same name, written by Kim Carnby and illustrated by Hwang Young-chan. While season 1 of the show was viewed by over 22 million Netflix subscribers worldwide in the first four weeks of its release, season 2 expanded its success with better performances and massive plot twists.

According to Netflix, season 3 of the K-drama serves as the grand finale. Talking about the upcoming instalment in a press conference (via TheKoreaTimes), actor Lee Jin-uk, who plays Pyeon Sang-wook in the series, said, “The third season brings together all the events that have unfolded and reaches a conclusion. The differentiation is that the characters who have gone through various experiences in the first and second seasons undergo changes in their abilities and produce results.” Sweet Home 3 is all set to premiere on Netflix on 19 July 2024.

Spoilers ahead!

Sweet Home recap: A look at the major conflicts between monsters and humans in seasons 1 and 2

First, meet the residents of Green Home

• Song Kang as Cha Hyun-su — an introverted Green Home resident who later becomes a monster-human and gains special regenerative abilities
• Lee Do-hyun as Lee Eun-hyuk — a former medical student who becomes the leader of the residents
• Go Min-si as Lee Eun-yu — Eun-hyuk’s adopted younger sister
• Lee Jin-wook as Pyeon Sang-wook — a mysterious contract killer who later becomes a trusted ally to the Green Home residents
• Lee Si-young as Seo Yi-kyung — a former firefighter and skilled martial artist who is in search of her fiancé
• Lee Sin-seong as Nam Sang-Won — Seo Yi-kyung’s fiancé who mysteriously disappeared two days before their wedding
• Kim Sung-cheol as Jung Ui-myeong — a scientist and the slime monster’s first human guise.

Sweet Home recap: What happens in season 1?

Who is Cha Hyun-su?

Season 1 begins in September 2020. Armed soldiers descend on a snow-covered, wrecked apartment as monstrous creatures crawl and snarl at the sky. This is when viewers first meet protagonist Cha Hyun-su, blood-stained and staggering through the snow. Soon, a helicopter overhead tracks his moves and soldiers, unsure if he is a human or a monster, start firing. Despite numerous bullet shots to his chest, Hyun-su continues walking, as the voice-over says, “This is a story about us, the ones trying to find a reason to live in a world where this is even more difficult than surviving.”

Following this, a time jump takes viewers a month back. Hyun-su, a clinically depressed high school dropout moves into the Green Home apartment after his family is killed in a car crash. The first episode makes it clear that Hyun-su has no will to live and is planning his suicide. However, the young boy is left in shock when a day later, he witnesses his Green Home neighbours turn into blood-thirsty monsters.

What led to the monstrosity?

Over the course of ten episodes, Hyun-su meets a group of survivors led by medical trainee Lee Eun-hyuk and decides to help them fight their way to safety. As the dystopian evolution of Seoul goes on, it is revealed that the monster outbreak is caused by a curse, not a virus or a chemical mishap. People turning into monsters have given into their desires and have had their inner greed take over their bodies. The first symptoms of the monsterisation process are nose bleeding and unconsciousness.

As the story moves forward, Hyun-su, too, gets infected by the curse. However, it is revealed that he is a ‘special infectee’ — a human infected with the monster curse that can contain it. As a monster-human, Hyun-su gains regenerative abilities, but instead of giving into the desires of the monster inside him, he uses his powers to help the survivors of Green Home.

Elsewhere, Shin Jung-seop, the leader of a gang of prison escapees, enters Green Home alongside Jung Ui-myeong and a few others, hunting down a runaway gang member. Ui-myeong tries to manipulate Hyun-su against the Green Home residents and informs him that in the end, they will hand over the duo to the military. Hyun-su refuses to believe him.

Who is Ui-myeong?

In the flashback, viewers see that Ui-myeong is actually a researcher, and the person talking to Hyun-Su is not the real Ui-myeong but a slime monster. After killing the researchers, it escaped from the facility using Ui-myeong’s body as his new host.

In the present, the slime monster turns hostile and Hyun-su ends up killing Ui-myeong and dissolves his body with his power. Without a host to control, the monster sneaks outside in his true form and takes control of Sang-wook’s (a Green Home resident) corpse.

However, Ui-myeong reveals about the military’s ulterior motives before Hyun-su kills him. He says that the military has been conducting human experiments on ‘special infectees’ in order to find ways to extract the curse from the human body. Besides prodding and torturing innocent people in the garb of an experiment, the military has also been working on a secret plan called Operation Golden Hour, in which they plan to execute almost all the citizens of South Korea.

Elsewhere, Yi-kyung starts working with the military secretly in hopes of finding the whereabouts of her estranged fiancé.

Is Eun-hyuk still alive?

Towards the end of the show, while the survivors of Green Home are making their way to military custody, Eun-hyuk elects to stay behind because he doubts that he might have been infected. In one of the most heartbreaking scenes of Sweet Home season 1, Eun-hyuk, not wanting to jeopardise the safety of his friends, quarantines himself in Green Home and decides to die alone. However, Eun-hyuk’s last moments show him exhibiting early symptoms of the monster curse, thereby putting a question mark on his death.

Season 1 finale

The military arrives at Green Home, ready to gun down the place. Hyun-su decides to help his human friends reach safety by arriving in front of the military and distracting them. As the force starts shooting Hyun-Su, the slime monster, now in Sang-wook’s body, rescues him.

In the final scene, as the survivors of Green Home get ready to leave with the military, Yi-Kyung appears before them in full military uniform, officially indicating that she has now crossed over to the military side.

Sweet Home season 1 finale also confirms that not all the monsters have malicious intent. Even in their mutated and most hideous forms, some are just scared and struggling to survive, just like the humans.

Sweet Home season 2 recap: Meet the new characters

• Yu Oh-seong as Master Sergeant Tak In-hwan — leader of the Special Forces of the Guard Corps, aka, the Crow Platoon
• Oh Jung-se as Dr Lim — a researcher of vaccines
• Kim Mu-yeol as Sergeant First Class Kim Young-hoo — the second-in-command of the Guard Corps
• Jung Jin-young as Park Chan-young — a soldier in the Guard Corps
• Kim Shin-rok as Chief Ji — the general manager of facility management
• Kim Si-a — Seo Yi-kyung’s mutant child
• Ki So-yu — the young version of Seo Yi-kyung’s mutant child
• Jung Suk-won as Sergeant Min Seo-jin — a Marine Recon in the Guard Corps

Sweet Home recap: What happens in season 2?

Conflict between humans and monsters continue

Season 2 begins with an increasing conflict between humans and monsters. While humans believe that all monsters are an abomination and should be exterminated, monsters are of the opinion that they make for a superior race. According to them, it’s humans who are the real problem.

Amid all the chaos, Hyun-su too struggles to choose between the two sides. Meanwhile, Green Home residents find a new shelter, a stadium. The place is guarded by the government’s Crow Platoon which maintains strict rules for its residents. The stadium has also restricted entry to the outside world.

Secrets within Crow Platoon

However, things take a drastic turn when the Crow Platoon’s leader, Tak In-hwan, begins to show symptoms of monsterisation. He keeps it a secret and instead announces that the Crow Platoon would execute anyone if they find them symptomatic. On the other hand, Chief Ji keeps her son, who is now a monster-human, in the stadium and feeds him one human a day.

Seo Yi-kyung’s fate

Elsewhere, Dr. Lim, who believes humans are the curse and monsters the cure, is in awe of the entire monsterisation process. Throughout the season, viewers see him engage in several experiments, which eventually lead him to perform his experiments on Hyun-su. However, the latter escapes and finds Seo Yi-kyung, who is on the verge of killing her newborn baby.

For context, Yi-kyung was pregnant in season 1. In season 2, she gives birth to a girl, whose growth is rapidly accelerated due to the baby’s father, Sang-won, being a monster-human hybrid. As a result, the child grows up differently and makes for one of the most powerful monster-humans of the season.

Yi-kyung, however, is guilt-ridden and chooses to leave her daughter under the care of Hyun-su. Towards the end of the series, she reappears and decides to raise her daughter but ends up mistreating her. One day, consumed by regret, Yi-kyung decides to end her life by setting her boat on fire. Hyun-su saves her and takes her to Eun-yu and Chan-young. The trio try to treat her wounds, but due to insufficient oxygen, Yi-kyung’s condition deteriorates. Hyun-su hurries and brings her daughter to her to help her say goodbye one last time. Yi-kyung’s daughter asks a heartbroken Hyun-su if he wants her mother to be alive and he says yes. Consequently, she turns her mother into a monster and saves her. This devastates Hyun-su as Yi-kyung would have never wanted that.

Season 2 finale

In the last episode of the apocalyptic horror K-drama, Hyun-su decides to kill Yi-kyung and end her suffering by throwing her into a pit.

Additionally, another important event that makes it to our Sweet Home recap is Eun-hyuk being alive in season 2. In the final moments of season 2, Eun-hyuk is shown emerging naked from a cocoon, hinting at the fact that he has now entered his neo-human stage — the last phase of monsterisation.

What to expect from season 3?

According to Netflix, season 3 will blur the line between monsters and humans, as “humanity grapples with the emergency of neo-humans in a world on the brink of annihilation, marking the climax of the monsterisation saga.”

Fans can likely expect Yi-kyung to return to Sweet Home season 3 and join hands with her monster-human fiancé, Sang-won. However, the most interesting aspect of the third instalment will likely be the final showdown between Hyun-su and Eun-hyuk, a glimpse of which is also included in the official trailer.

Watch seasons 1 and 2 of Sweet Home on Netflix here.

(Hero and Featured image: Courtesy Netflix)