In the aftermath of the earthquake, the detective is trying to… to… do something or other which involves a lot of shouting and fighting and stabbing.

At the end of my review for the near flawless season opener of Bargain, I had my fingers crossed that the series wouldn’t descend into protracted incoherence as so many Korean dramas I’ve seen seem to do. Unfortunately, my digital contortions weren’t enough to stave off the inevitable.

There’s no doubt that Bargain looks great. The design is superb. Everyone is really into what they’re doing and there’s a conviction to the performances that is compelling, up to a point. Who can fail to admire Jin Seon-kyu for playing the whole thing in a pair of red underpants and bright orange rubber boots? But being dressed like a comedy loon in the middle of a dystopian action thriller only goes so far.

I have absolutely no idea what’s going on. The whole thing is turned up to eleven, and every scene is yelled at the top of everyone’s voices. Characters come, go, fall down holes, reemerge, hit each other, get stabbed, shout angrily in each other’s faces… The one-shot conceit, which worked so brilliantly in the first episode, is now holding the show back. As new characters arrive, they have to have everything explained to them, which means that the plot is repeated ad nauseum (and somehow still fails to make any sense). I have rarely wanted to cut to the chase – or anything else coherent – as much as I have watching Bargain.

It’s such a shame because the premise is terrific. I don’t want to generalise because of course I only get to see the stuff that makes it onto Netflix or Paramount+, and I accept that perhaps I expect something different, having worked all my life in northern European and American narrative culture, but Korean dramas frustrate me again and again. They seem to jump off a cliff without knowing where they’re going, and while the sky diving nature of the story telling is exhilarating for a while, it soon palls into ‘stuff happening’ seemingly for the sake of it, without any sense of how narrative and character working together create meaning.

Verdict: I will watch the rest of the series out of curiosity – as the episodes are short – but unless it manages to pull the narrative rip cord soon, Bargain is going to be yet another K drama that crashes pointlessly to earth, making you wish you’d taken the stairs – or not bothered at all. 5/10

Martin Jameson

www.ninjamarmoset.com