First Impression: Happiness (2021)

It’s been a while since I’ve done a first impressions post on an airing drama, so why not write one on a drama that I’m currently hooked on. Happiness premiered this past Saturday on tvN, and after a bit of delay on subs, Viki finally had both of the episodes up to watch. One of my many (many) dramas premiering this month, Happiness was one of that I was most intrigued by. I purposely didn’t read or watch much in the way of teasers, but I knew that it had a good chance of being a solid drama with the team behind Watcher, director Ahn Gil Ho and writer Han Sang Woon. I will admit that doing a first impression on this drama after only the first two episodes is not necessarily wise. While we get a lot in the first two episodes, the drama only has started its journey into the meat of the story by the end of the second episode, but I was so into the first two episodes that I couldn’t not say anything about it.

That being said, I think the drama has done a really great job in setting up what is about to unfold even when we obviously haven’t gotten there, its eventual main focus on the apartment building and its tenants after the outbreak of an unknown disease. While the drama hasn’t gotten to that point yet, only briefly setting the dynamic between the people of the apartment, we still do see a good bit of the foreshadowing within the building. Sae Bom (Han Hyo Joo) is presented with a lot of separation right after moving in and meeting her new neighbors. The higher floors (which house the bought properties) are blocked and restricted from access from the lower rentals. Amenities in the building were bought by those same rich owners, and thus being barred from the renters. While we don’t know how the building is going to play out for the rest of the series (and it does - it is the main part of the synopsis), I liked that we didn’t see that much of it for the first week of the drama. It gave that plot point a lot more mystery and allowed the setup of not only it but the zombie outbreak time to unfold. The drama is only going to be a 12 episode one, and I thought that it would try to rush to get everything in the get-go, so it was interesting to see how they were allowing it to take its time.

The way that the story has already started to set up the disease is also probably one of my favorite aspects of the show. The disease presents itself zombie-like, the drama referring to its rabies-like spread. While zombies are a pretty overused trope, the drama integrates an added layer to the world landscape as it is set in a world where infectious diseases are already running rampant. The people in the world are at this point used to being quarantined or wearing masks, and I think it’s going to present a more interesting turn when this new disease has been spread, especially from what we see at the end of episode two. I think the military/police involvement and the potential of other outside entities who may or may not have been the cause of the virus spreading are an interesting plot and I’m excited to see how the drama takes it. The drama has also taken an interesting turn in while it does have innate horror because of the zombies, they aren’t overused or used only to produce horror. A lot of the horror you see lies in the way that the virus is affecting the victim, and the steps taken to control the person. I think any drama that is set during this time and deals with a disease is going to evoke a different response than it would have if it had been made a couple of years ago, but I felt that the drama grounded itself in the realism of everything and didn’t try to focus a lot of the actions as over the top. Maybe that was in response to how we know things are now that we’ve lived through this, but I thought that the way they handled the virus - especially so far - was integrated well and not being abused in response to our own current emotions about disease.

There’s a scene in the first episode when Sae Bam has been taken to quarantine after being bit by someone feared to be infected. At this point in the story, other viruses are already a lived experience, and her response is that of the infections she already knows. She is a bit hostile and thinks that the military is going a bit too far in keeping her in. It is then she sees her…commander (colleague?) who had also gotten attacked while detaining the same person. He is locked in a room with a mask on. Her not understanding the new infection, she breaks in. The way that the scene unfolds is a great example of how they’ve integrated the horror, and also shows how dangerous the infection is, especially within a world where the populous has already started to check out on the lived experience of viruses being present. The way he snaps and the means they have to detain him not only work in the horror but also share a lot - that it’s something that has been going on long enough for them to have measures to control the person, and that the actions are not what have been present in the normal viruses of this world. On the flip side, the tenants of the building have a mysterious pull. They are oddly controlling and secretive, and we see very little in who they are. They are mysterious and eerie, and I feel that the drama might surprise us on where the horror actually lives. I’m really interested to see how the power struggle is going to evolve in the drama between the tenants and the governing offices.

I’ve never watched anything that Hyo Joo has been in (that I can recall) and I’m already liking the way she is setting up her character. She is young and ambitious, and while she has done the typical thing that you find in most crime/thrillers where she goes above and beyond to find out things, I think the way that she has been handled has allowed for her character not to be over the top. A lot of the time these characters go well over the line and a lot of writers overuse it to add action or to move the plot along when they couldn’t figure out how, and the character becomes damaged in the process and you have little care if they hurt or not, because they have repeatedly put themselves and other in harms way selfishly. I'm also interested to see how Park Hyung Sik does in his role. I’ve not watched him in a lot, but he has been in mostly comedic or lighter roles, and this is very much not that type of role. The first two episodes focus more on Sae Bom than his character so we have more time to get to know how his evolves and his role in everything, specifically his role and relations with Jo Woo Jin's role as Han Tae Seok.

If the drama is at all handled as well as Watcher was with a good mix of intrigue and action, and the way that Han Sang Woon was able to accurately write morally grey characters and toe the line with who was good and who was bad to keep the mystery alive, I think this is going to be end up being a pretty awesome drama. Maybe one of my favorites of the year.

Happiness is airing on Fridays and Saturdays and being subbed over on Viki.

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