This Zombie K-Drama From 3 Years Ago Is A Must-Watch If You Were Disappointed With Sweet Home’s Final 2 Seasons

WARNING: This article contains spoilers for Sweet Home season 3.

Summary Happiness balances multiple storylines with great success, giving each character ample screen time for individual story arcs to flourish.

Sweet Home missed out on exploring the origins of the virus, unlike Happiness, which effectively ties the virus to a drug named "Next."

Happiness delivers the romance Sweet Home couldn't, with a well-developed romantic subplot between the leading characters adding depth to the series.

Sweet Home's final two seasons failed to meet the same critical success as its first, but there is a zombie K-drama from three years ago that fixes some of Sweet Home's biggest mistakes. Starring Song Kang, Lee Do-hyun, Lee Jin-wook, Go Min-si and Lee Si-young, Sweet Home was one of the first Netflix original K-dramas to capture international attention. The K-drama depiction of a battle between humans and monsters is entirely engrossing and has quickly made its mark as one of the best K-dramas of all time.

Sweet Home's first season deals solely with the effects of a monsterization outbreak on the residents of one apartment complex, Green Home, before expanding its story into the world in its later seasons. This new direction was a risky move for Sweet Home, particularly as the newer seasons focused more on military and scientific responses to the outbreak. As a result, Sweet Home's final seasons lack the same nuance many loved from its first. However, there's a zombie K-drama that manages to do what Sweet Home couldn't in just 12 episodes.

Related Sweet Home’s Most Controversial Decision Makes Way More Sense After Season 3 Sweet Home’s most controversial story decision almost ruined the Song Kang K-drama, but it all made sense after the events of season 3.

Happiness Treated Its Main Characters Better Than Sweet Home

Sweet Home Underused Many Original Characters

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While Sweet Home's first season soared thanks to its ensemble cast, Sweet Home's following seasons failed to capitalize on the brilliant characters it had created. This first came with the shocking absence of Song Kang's Cha Hyun-su in Sweet Home season 2. Despite being the show's main character, he only appeared in half of season 2 and still had a relatively short storyline in season 3. His character's unique position held a lot of potential in Sweet Home season 2's change of direction. However, this was ultimately wasted in favor of the introduction of Sweet Home season 2's new characters.

Out of all of Sweet Home's original characters introduced in season 1, only four make it to the end of the series alive, but none of them make it to the end as humans.

Sweet Home's new characters greatly helped in expanding the Sweet Home universe but came at the expense of the original characters, many of whom were killed far too soon. Yoon Ji-su (Park Gyu-young) died only three episodes into season 2 despite her importance to the webtoon. One of Sweet Home's biggest webtoon changes also saw Yu-ri (Go Youn-jung) and Sang-wook (Lee Jin-wook) die in season 1, despite surviving in the webtoon. Seo Yi-kyung's resurrection was another wasted opportunity, as Hyun-su returned her humanity only for her to be killed a few episodes later. Fortunately, Happiness solves this issue.

Though Happiness and Sweet Home's season 1 premises are strikingly similar, their handling of their characters is very different. Character deaths are a necessary evil in an apocalyptic genre, but Happiness keeps these to a minimum. This could have been a clear weakness compared to Sweet Home. Yet, Happiness's character-focused narrative ensures each death has a meaning in the overall storyline, rather than just for shock factor or storyline reduction. Plus, Happiness's social commentary relies heavily on its cast, who are given ample opportunity to show the best of their abilities in a uniquely tense environment.

Happiness (2021) Happiness (2021) is a South Korean drama series directed by Ahn Gil-ho. Set in a post-apocalyptic world plagued by a deadly virus, the plot centers around a group of people quarantined in an apartment complex as they navigate survival and psychological challenges. Park Hyung-sik and Han Hyo-joo lead the cast, portraying characters who face moral dilemmas and societal breakdowns while striving to maintain their humanity. Cast Han Hyo-joo , Park Hyung-sik , Jo Woo-jin , Lee Jun-hyeok , Park Joo-hee Release Date November 5, 2021 Creator(s) Han Sang-un

Happiness Balances Multiple Storylines With Great Success

Sweet Home Fails To Capitalize On The Stories It Creates

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Much like Sweet Home, Happiness needs multiple storylines for it to succeed. Fortunately, Happiness effectively uses its ensemble cast. While Happiness's central storyline revolves around Yoon Sae-bom (Han Hyo-joo), Jung Yi-hyun (Park Hyung-sik), and their attempts to survive the impending zombie threat, their actions are also heavily questioned by other members of the apartment complex, adding an interesting new dynamic to the series. Plus, other characters in Happiness are given ample screen time, which lets their individual storylines flourish and makes the K-drama all the more tense and unpredictable.

Happiness's Cast Character Han Hyo-joo Yoon Sae-bom Park Hyung-sik Jung Yi-hyun Jo Woo-jin Han Tae-seok Baek Hyun-jin Oh Joo-hyeong Bae Hae-sun Oh Yeon-ok Park Joo-Hee Lee Ji-soo Park Hyoung-soo Kook Hae-sung Jung Woon-sun Shin So-yoon

What Happiness also succeeds in adding context to the origins of the zombie virus, something Sweet Home sorely missed. Happiness's virus comes from a drug named "Next," which turns users into zombies. The army's efforts to contain the crisis are constantly monitored but also questioned as Sae-bom's significance to the cure becomes more apparent. This is almost a parallel to Sweet Home's Hyun-su, who was also thought to be essential to curing the monster virus. However, efforts to understand Sweet Home's virus were sorely squandered.

In comparison to Happiness, Sweet Home’s virus was more ambiguous. This was a deliberate decision in the webtoon, yet introducing the military and scientific aspects of Sweet Home’s outer universe removed the same suspense the source material had, thus making the subplots feel unfinished and the virus' origins a missed opportunity. Plus, this crowded the show overall and left it struggling to finish the storylines it had created.

Related 10 Best K-Dramas To Watch After Sweet Home Sweet Home's third and final season draws Cha Hyun-su's story to a close, but there are plenty of other K-dramas that match its unique appeal.

Happiness Delivers The Romance That Sweet Home Couldn’t

Sweet Home Missed Out On A Big Opportunity

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Romance isn't necessary for a K-drama to succeed. In fact, many choose to forgo romantic subplots altogether and focus on more pressing themes. Sweet Home didn't decide to go in this direction and hinted at who Hyun-su ends up with in Sweet Home season 3. However, after several teases that suggested that Hyun-su and Eun-yu's relationship would develop into something more than friendship, the K-drama squandered its opportunity and instead chose to keep its options open.

While Sweet Home's Cha Hyun-su certainly didn't need to end up with someone at the end of the K-drama, the budding subplot was another wasted opportunity, particularly as Song Kang's K-drama couples are incredibly popular. Sweet Home did introduce some other romantic subplots, i.e., Yu-ri and Sang-wook's ill-fated relationship in season 1, but the show didn't give them enough screen time to make a significant impact. However, Happiness fixes this with its stellar leading couple.

Sae-bom and Yi-hyun's romantic subplot doesn't take away from the series, but instead enhances it by giving the two leading characters and the audience something to root for.

A fake marriage trope shouldn't work in a zombie K-drama, but in Happiness, it absolutely does. Sae-bom and Yi-hyun's close relationship already hints at the development of something more from the flashbacks in the very first episode. Still, the combination of such an out-of-pocket trope adds a lot of much-needed humor and potential to the series. Sae-bom and Yi-hyun's romantic subplot doesn't take away from the series but instead enhances it by giving the two leading characters and the audience something to root for. Sweet Home failed to capitalize on this, adding even more disappointment to the final two seasons.

Sweet Home (2020) Where to Watch stream

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buy Not available Not available Not available *Availability in US Cast Song Kang , Lee Jin-Wook , Lee Si-young , Park Gyu-young , Go Min-si , Kim Hee-jung , Kim Gook-hee , Lee Joon-woo Release Date December 18, 2020 Seasons 3 Directors Lee Eung-bok , Jang Young-woo , Park So-hyun Streaming Service(s) Netflix Creator(s) Kim Seol-jin , Kim Carnby , Hwang Young-chan Expand