Rather than the improvement we had hoped for, season 3 marks the nadir of a series that has experienced a clear downward trajectory. Simply put, it may be the worst Korean drama we have seen in 2024.
As with season two, the main problems with this new batch of episodes have been how unwieldy the story has become, the disappointing digital creature design, and the befuddling world-building and mythology.
Sweet Home season 2 followed the survivors of that first batch of episodes as they spilled out into the wide world and broke off into various factions. The cast ballooned when they were joined by a dizzying array of soldiers, civilians, mad scientists and new monsters.
This more-is-less approach extended to the creature designs as well. Many of the earlier monsters we loved were created through tactile and memorable practical effects. Seasons 2 and 3 abandoned these designs in pursuit of adding more monsters than ever before, all of them digitally created, none of them memorable.
The second season also struggled in the way that it built out its mythology.
Sweet Home’s core concept may be fantastical, but it is based on a few simple ideas, such as having people turn into unique monsters that show their fears or desires, which viewers can understand, and to some degree, relate to. There were a few inconsistencies, but the thematic and narrative clarity of the concept made for easy viewing.
In season 2, the mythology spewed out all over the place, resembling the unruly weeds sprouting in all the cracks and crevices of Sweet Home’s dreary urban dystopia.
Rather than seeking to address them, the new season embraces the problems created by season 2. This is not all that surprising, since seasons 2 and 3 were shot concurrently; it would have been difficult for the creators to incorporate any viewer feedback from the second season.
Yet despite going all in on the dubious elements introduced in season 2, season 3 strangely lacks conviction. It is as though the creators knew there was a problem but just ploughed through until the end anyway.
Take, for example, all those extra characters carried over from the second season, many of them members of the stadium survivors camp. For the most part, these were not great characters, but they had more to do in season 2.
This time they are still around, with the show routinely catching up with them, but it’s not clear what, if anything, they are supposed to be adding to the narrative.
Sadly, even the core characters from season 1 had become so twisted that they were simply unrecognisable from the protagonists that drew us to Sweet Home in the first place.
There was Lee Jin-wook’s Pyeon Sang-wook, a hero who transformed into a villain in season 2 and closes out the series as a convoluted antagonist, and Lee Do-hyun, who returns this season as a “neohuman”, the final stage of monsterisation which turns humans into immortal but utterly vacuous beings who shuffle around listlessly like lobotomised zombies.
By the time Sweet Home season 3 winds to a merciful close – let’s hope there is no season 4 – you may find yourself feeling like one of those neohumans, drained of emotion and wandering aimlessly.
Sweet Home season 3 is streaming on Netflix.