Waiting For Rescue
Episode 4 of All of Us Are Dead begins with an influencer, who is heading to Hyosan, trying to figure out if the infection is really as bad as everyone is saying it is. Armed with a whole stack of survival gear, he heads into the heart of town… and tries to find a safe place to hide. ..
As the helicopter closes in on the school, Cheong-San’s mother manages to escape the horde nearby and limps toward the school herself. Unfortunately she recognizes Gyeong-Su and calls out for him. But of course in doing so, he’s infected so that’s a bad move. And it leads to her surrounded and killed for her efforts.
Eun-Ji and Cheol-Su are still on the roof of the school, overlooking the carnage going on below. They both embrace the violence going on, wanting to kill those inside the school who have wronged them. The difference here though is that Cheol-Su wants to live, while Eun-Ji is still flirting with suicidal tendencies.
The broadcast room is tense as the kids come up with a plan to solve their bathroom woes. It may be a while before rescuers arrive. Like father like daughter; On-Jo and her dad both organize traffic and arrange for their respective groups to hunker down and wait for rescue.
Gwi-Nam is still fighting and he manages to survive by slaughtering more of the infected. Another rabble of survivors happen to be held up in the girls’ bathroom. We saw glimmers of this last episode but here we see things kick off when Min-Jae and Mi-Jin fight.
Since the bullying incident, Byeong-Chan has become more determined than ever to stand up for his son. He’s not going to let anyone bully him or make him feel like he’s not worth anything. He’s going to fight for his son and protect him from any harm.
Jin-Soo’s bullying got out of hand and moving classes just made things worse. Believing he’s living in a system of assault, Byeong-Chan took the bold decision to infect his own son in the hopes of helping him fight back. Only, he created a monster in the process.
The interview quickly comes to an end when the zombie infection spreads across to the police station. Jae-Ik fights them back as best he can but he ends up infected. Byeong-Chan saves the detective’s life, letting Jae-Ik escape but becomes infected in the process.
The thing is, Byeong-Chan doesn’t seem to be like the other infected. He seems more in control, able to walk calmly through the hallways. Before he was turned, he told Jae-Ik about his laptop which could hold crucial clues to stopping this infection. With this knowledge, Jae-Ik heads to Hyosan High School. ..
As helicopters begin flying into town, On-Jo notices and tries to get the attention of Cheong-San and Nam-Ri. Nam-Ri brings up the fact that they are dangerously dehydrated, and although they have sorted out their bathroom woes, they don’t have any water or food. ..
The kids decide to find Gwi-nam’s phone no matter what in order to figure out what’s going on. This decision is problematic because up on the roof, Eun-Ji makes a bold decision.
The video Gwi-nam took of her during episode 1 was actually scheduled to go live at 9am. That time has now passed and because Cheol-Su has been unable to pay him (thanks to the little complication of a zombie outbreak) their time is up. So Eun-Ji heads for the teacher’s lounge.
Eun-Ji is infected by the zombies on the way down. Unbeknownst to her, that’s the reason the infected have stopped biting. Anyway, she does manage to make it into the office but so too do Cheong-San and Su-Hyeok. Unfortunately, Eun-Ji smashes up most of the phones. In their eagerness to find a working phone, Cheong-San and Su-Hyeok end up separated as they try to evade the zombies.
In the office building, On-Jo’s father manages to hold off the oncoming horde thanks to a hose and some ingenuity. While the Congresswoman and the others scramble up the stairs. The firemen are left to hold several doors shut and use the hose to fend off the zombies. With the door upstairs to the roof locked, On-Jo’s dad is left alone to try and hold them all off and buy the group precious time to escape.
The group manage to escape but for On-Jo’s father, it seems like he may be infected. The zombies are nowhere to be found and he’s left breathing heavily as they all make it to the rooftop. Throwing a signal flare, the helicopters nearby fast approach.
Meanwhile, Cheong-San is in the principal’s office with Gwi-Nam, who ties up the principal and prepares to kill him. With Cheong-San filming, he watches in shock as Gwi-Nam slashes the man’s throat and murders him. Cheong-San grabs the phone and rushes to safety, leaving the bully stalking through the hallways after him. As he throws his knife, whistling through the air, it hits Cheong-San right in the spine.
The Episode Review
The episode is also the most fitting thanks to the way these men and women are surviving through the night and into the early morning. There’s a consistent timeframe to all of this now too and the show has done a brilliant job so far setting everything up for a turbulent second half to this series.
While this chapter is arguably the slowest of the bunch, there’s a good deal of tension through the different set pieces. The office complex, with On-Jo’s father working to stop the zombies from approaching for example, is a really nice set piece and certainly tense.
The drama inside the school is starting to fragment the group, with the kids separated into different areas.
The camera work in this show has been really good so far, and it matches the tone of the show perfectly. However, it’s still unknown if the show can keep this up through the rest of the episodes.
