Ok so The Silent Sea has just dropped on Netflix and the Sci-Fi Thriller features an all star
Korean Cast that pulls from the likes of Kingdom, Train To Busan and a lot more.
Set in a dystopian future we watch as the world has been turned into a dry desert that
looks like your girl when she sees Tobey Maguire dancing. Sh'bow. We follow a crew led by Dr.
Song as they travel to the moon in order to find humanity's last hope but in doing so
they unearth a dark secret connected to Song's sister and the people she worked for.
Now one thing I love about Korean shows like this is that they put in place a concept where
the thrust of the main story takes place but they also make the surrounding elements just
as interesting. Whereas in Kingdom we had Ancient Korean Kingdoms battling it out in
the midst of the Zombie Apocalypse, here we watch as the world has had to really resort
to some sickening depths in order to survive. This includes euthanising animals, dividing
up how water is distributed amongst the wealthy and it's basically a world where ou wish that
sitting around watching Tiger King all day was the worst of your problems.
Early on in the series Dr Song is placed into a team led by Captain Han played by Gong Woo
and they're tasked with travelling to the Lunar Balhae station in order to retrieve
a sample. Upon crash landing on the moon, they make the perilous journey across the
surface to the station and early on realise that something is amiss when they find a man
who appears to have died from drowning.
To make matters worse, as they slowly start to go deeper into the station it's clear that
something is stalking them and we get a lot of callbacks to movies like Alien as they
try to get to the bottom of what's going on.
Now we discover in the series that the sample they're after is after called Lunar Water,
a highly volatile substance based on H20 that grows like a virus and spreads liquid all
over an environment upon being released.
However this is extremely dangerous to humans and if someone is infected with the water
they will slowly drown from the inside out as as it spreads within their body.
The show depicts this beautifully and shows people basically plunging into a vast body
of water as it completely envelopes their blood cells and lungs.
Lunar Water very much becomes the macguffin in the series as there are several ways it
could be used. Potentially humanity could allow it to bring water to the planet but
The Silent Sea is far more cynical than that and that's not just because cynical has a
silent c in it ey.
Or does it?
I dunno I'll leave that scenario for you to decide.
Now it is said throughout the series that Lunar Water could potentially be turned into
a weapon but beyond that it could also end up tipping the balance of inequality even
further. If someone were to own Lunar Water then they could very much sell distribute
it amongst the people how they see fit and gain complete control of the planet.
Yikes.
Even within the group we learn that there are different factions that all have their
own agenda and missions that they've been sent to the moon for and we slowly start to
get more and more answers as the show unravels.
Now due to the volatility of the water it's going to be impossible for people to consume
unless there's a way to do so. This is where the second subplot comes in and we find that
the station was actually the home of human experimentations headed up by Dr. Song's sister.
Throughout the season we learn that she worked for the national ministry of defence and carried
out several experiments on children in order to see if there was a way to evolve humans
to the point that they could survive coming into contact with Lunar Water. Lots of clone
kids were killed except for one, the mysterious Luna 073. Capable of moving at advance speeds,
possessing super strength and also blinking like that Alien from the Men In Black, Lunar
has made a home for herself at the station and will do anything she can to keep ahold
of the Lunar Water. We discover that Luna is actually immune to the effects of Lunar
Water and that she possesses anti-bodies that can be passed onto others in order to provide
them with immunity too. Song's sister leaves her with a message saying to find Luna and
she very much becomes paramount to the mission.
Now Initially the group were sent up to the moon by Director Cho who believed that all
of the specimens would be dead and even if the secrets were unearthed that Song would
keep things quiet. She very much had faith that Song would think about the situation
logically and realise that though what the Ministry Of Defense carried out was horrendous,
it was necessary for the rest of humanity's survival.
Exposing the secret wouldn't actually gain anything and not only would it bring the atrocities
her sister committed into the light but it would also cause uproar over the Lunar Water.
As the series progresses we see that Cho had the entire facility locked down by the military
and that all were either killed by them or left there to die.
Since the strike Luna has hidden out there and she very much becomes as important humanity's
future as the lunar water is.
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then I'm your host Paul aka the guy who will put you in the H2Know as we breakdown every
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just like that, now let's get into the rest of the video.
Now from the beginning, Song is very protective over Luna and though Han is very much focused
on the mission, as he learns more about her he starts to see similarities with the daughter
that he left back home.
However there's a bit of a...of a moral quandry as he knows that returning Luna to Earth will
mean that she's once more gonna be subjected to science experiments carried out by the
ministry. Thus they decide to take her to the International Institute Of Space Biology
instead which will open up Lunar Water to the world instead of just restricting the
advancements to one country.
Beyond this though is the corporation RX who we learn that two people aboard the team are
working for. This is Lee Gisu who dies early on and Lieutenant Ryu who has been tasked
with taking the Lunar Water so that they can sell it off to the highest bidder. In the
final few episodes we learn that Ryu was actually a member of the outfit that were sent up to
shutdown Balhae Station which led to the deaths of hundreds of people including Song's sister.
Feeling guilt over this he started working for RX in order to sabotage this new mission.
The season culminates with Lunar Water ripping through the station as the survivors attempt
to make their escape. Several are slowly picked off one by one leaving just Luna, Dr. Song,
Dr. Hong and Captain Han. As they make it to the airlock Han realises that it's gonna
need to be operated from inside the station and he returns to the operation passageway
in order to depressurise it so that they can escape.
Immediately after pressing the button, the Lunar Water floods the base seemingly killing
Han though we later learn that he did make it out of this. Luna is nowhere to be found
and Song and Hong run out of the base as the water slowly breaks into the airlock too.
Upon coming into contact with the moon's atmosphere it instantly freezes creating somewhat of
an explosion that's such a cool effect.
It send Song and Hong hurtling forward and though the pair survive, they're initially
without Luna. However amongst the rocks they find her standing on the surface of the Moon
minus a space suit showing that she doesn't need it in order to survive the harsh landscape.
My guess is that her body doesn't rely on H20 or Oxygen and this is how that she is
able to survive not only being out on the moon but also how she isn't affected by the
Lunar Water. It's unclear whether Dr. Song will have this immunity either but I do think
that she will gain it overtime. Now what this could mean for the future of humanity is that
if they harness Luna's immunity that they won't be so reliant on Earth. Though not really
touched upon in the season, Luna actually provides a way for us to travel to other planets
as well.
I could actually see it so that we are able to survive on Earth after spreading Lunar
water but beyond that we'll also be able to terraform other planets and live there, dismantling
more of the inequality and divides that the water shortages cost.
They do something very subtle with Luna and whilst she pretty much always appeared in
the season with blood on her face, here they've removed it to show that she's somewhat escape
that life when staring at the Earth. This very much shows her future will be a brighter
one than her past and amongst the Moons surface she also comes across Han.
Luna gives him the badge that his daughter added a sticker to and this very much calls
back to earlier in the season when she said that she would fly and rescue him if he pressed
it. Though Luna isn't his daughter, she's very much a representation of her and all
the children that he's saved on Earth by completing the mission. In flashbacks his daughter would
tell him of things that she wanted to do when she was older which he didn't really believe
would happen because of how messed up the planet was. However, Luna very much shows
that he has saved her and though he won't get to be there to watch her grow up she will
at least have a future.
Sadly Han dies shortly after seeing this but the rescue ship arrives to pick them up, meaning
that they will now return home bringing hope with them.
That ends the season and as for my thoughts on it I think that there were some low points
but overall I had a fun ride as I watched it over the weekend. If you've ben following
the channel for a while then you'll know that we always try and cover Korean shows where
possible as they're always pretty high quality. This was no different and though I felt that
the first half of the season dragged a bit as we tried to uncover the mystery, the second
part was tense, enthralling and really well put together. I don't think that this is gonna
do numbers like Squid Game or even Kingdom but there are a number of different elements
in it that work really well and though it's derivative of a lot of different movies in
the sci-fi genre, it still has it's own unique concept and premise.
I think if you're a fan of Korean shows and are familiar with the cast then you'll have
a good time with this and that's why it gets a...
7/10
Now obviously I'd love to hear your thoughts so make sure you comment below and let me
know.
Now I'd of course love to hear your thoughts so make sure you comment below and let me
know.
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If you want something else to watch then make sure you check out our breakdown of perfect
scene in Spider-Man Homecoming. We break down the entire thing so it's definitely worth
checking out if you wanna know more.
With that out the way thank you for sitting through the video, I’ve been Paul and I’ll
see you next time. Take care, Peace