Happiness

November 5, 2021

Jung Yi-hyun (Park Hyung-sik) and Yoon Sae-bom (Han Hyo-joo) enter a fake marriage to secure an apartment at the prestigious Seyang Forest Le Blanc complex. Hours after moving in, an outbreak begins among residents.

November 6, 2021

The complex is quarantined. Residents are locked in together — the infected below, the uninfected above, the management in the middle. Social hierarchies within the building immediately reassert themselves.

November 12, 2021

The nature of the infection — transmitted through a new drug, resembling but not identical to zombification — is established. Some infected retain partial consciousness.

November 13, 2021

The complex's management and its most powerful residents begin making decisions about resource allocation that the drama views with considerable cynicism.

November 19, 2021

Sae-bom's military training and practical intelligence make her the most effective person in the building — to the resentment of the men who expected to lead.

November 20, 2021

The origin of the drug causing the outbreak is traced. The drama's thriller and romance elements are in full balance.

November 26, 2021

The fake marriage has accumulated real feeling. Neither character is ready to name it.

November 27, 2021

The authorities' response to the quarantine — bureaucratic, self-protective — is shown from the police command exterior.

December 3, 2021

The complex fractures along class and floor lines. Korean apartment culture's real hierarchies made literal.

December 10, 2021

The outbreak reaches its crisis point. Every character's true nature — generous or predatory — is visible.

December 11, 2021

The finale. A genre drama that used its zombie premise to examine Korean apartment culture's social anxieties — who gets in, who is excluded, who decides — with unusual intelligence.