The Tainted Tissue
In the third episode of All of Us Are Dead, Byeong-Chan admits to starting the viral outbreak at the police station. Jae-Ik is able to help Hee-Su, who was pregnant and had to leave school with a watery stomach. We see her last episode with water dribbling down her legs. It turns out she was actually pregnant and gave birth in a public bathroom on her own.
Cheong-San clings onto the hosepipe for dear life, but one of the infected grabs his leg. Su-Hyeok manages to come over and help though, acrobatically diving and managing to grab the hose. It’s miraculous that this thing hasn’t broken and it’s a pretty ludicrous moment in truth.
The infection quickly spreads throughout town, with Hee-Su forced to evade the zombies while holding onto her babe. She also narrowly misses being hit by a police car too, which is filmed by bystanders. The same bystanders who upload it onto FaceBook and allow our kids in the broadcasting room to see take place. It’s a neat way of moving the action back to the broadcasting room.
Eventually, all of the kids gather back together. This leads to tension between Na-Yeon and Gyeong-Su. After thwarting an infected, Su-Hyeok accidentally knocks Gyeong-Su in the nose. The thing is, this causes the others to believe he’s infected. Na-Yeon is the ringleader in this, but she refuses to apologize when it turns out he’s okay. ..
Na-Yeon presses on, believing the scratch on his hand was from the infected. In order to get to the bottom of this, Sun-Hwa makes a big decision and decides he should stay in the recording room. At least for 30 minutes anyway to see if anything changes. ..
Hyosan, a student at Cheong-San High School, is one of the few people who knows how to stop the virus. She is also one of the few people who has contracted the virus. Hyosan’s mother, seeing her daughter in danger, races to school to find her. Meanwhile, On-Jo’s father is called to work at an office building where an infected person is being held hostage. He arrives just in time to see the infected person start to die. ..
As the infection spreads, the police are called in to try and quell the outbreak. This means that Cheon-San’s mother has to take a risky route through the back alleys in order to get away. Out of all the people she could run into, it’s Hee-Sun. She’s still holding her baby and runs away, leaving the woman alone to face a horde of zombies chasing after her. ..
Sun takes a turn for the worse when she becomes infected and wants to protect her child. She ties knots on the door to herself to try and stop the zombies from getting to the baby and from doing something awful.
Sun-Hwa and the kids come up with a plan to get Gyeong-Su out of the recording room. They convince Na-Yeon to go in and talk to him, but this just makes things worse. ..
Gyeong-Su soon begins bleeding from the nose when he’s let out and it seems like Na-Yeon was right after all. With a shaky voice, Gyeong-Su decides to leave on his own accord and do the right thing. Just before he turns, Gyeong-Su experiences some frightening visions.
Na-Yeon manages to distract him by whistling their favourite tune together, which sees him dive out the window and join the rest of the horde. The thing is, Na-Yeon actually wiped infected blood from the broom used earlier on to fend off the infected. She then used that to infect Gyeong-Su’s wound. Nam-Ri saw the whole thing and the group turn on her.
Na-Yeon quickly admits that she has killed before. Sun-Hwa sternly tells the other kids not to take another life. In doing so, that makes life itself meaningless.
After her speech, Park Geun-Hye heads outside to try and save Na-Yeon. Grabbing her hand, they hurry away from the horde, leaving the kids on their own. But not for long – a helicopter shows up which could prove to be their salvation. ..
The Episode Review
The zombie series is spreading, and with it, the reach of the characters. Now that more characters have come to the forefront, it’s nice to see how their individual stories connect to the wider world. Seeing how different parts of the infection have affected different people is a great way to show just how devastating this pandemic has been. ..
Unfortunately, All of Us Are Dead also suffers from Black Summer Syndrome, with characters killed off without much of a plan or development. Eun-Ji in particular is killed without much of a sense of purpose or impact, making her screen time redundant by the end. However, this also makes the show very unpredictable and knowing that anyone could die does help to raise the stakes too.
The tension is still rife here too and the ending with the helicopter is a nice way to end things on a big cliffhanger. Is rescue coming?
