Aahana Swrup
The events of ‘Hellbound’ season 1 set up a wild footing for season 2 of Netflix’s supernatural Kdrama. After Bae Young-jae and his wife’s sacrifice for their condemned baby saves the child’s life, it heralds a new era for the world where the New Truth loses its credibility. The same paves the way for the rise of the Arrowheads and their anarchy, cementing another power for Hey-jin and her companions at Sodo to fight back against. However, with Park Jung-ja—freshly resurrected and back from hell—under their control, the New Truth plans to regain control over society. Yet, Jung Jin-soo’s return promises to turn the world upside down once again.
Season 2 of the show seamlessly shifts the focus from the horrors of the death decrees and the Executor’s violence onto the growing social unrest that the organizations feed by capitalizing on the public’s fear and judgments. As such, it retains the mystery central to the premise while also opening up an entirely new can of worms. SPOILERS AHEAD!
Hellbound Season 2 Recap
Five years after Bae Young-jae and his wife’s death, the world devolves into an even bigger nightmare—now controlled by the violent fanatic group The Arrowheads. While the New Truth fell from grace for trying to keep Young-jae’s baby’s decree a secret, the Arrowheads acted quickly and gained public favor by putting out an interpretation of the infant’s decree. Thus, they now believe decrees can be used as a chance to repent by throwing oneself on the condemned and subjecting themselves to God’s judgment. If one survives the Executor’s light—like the baby did—they will be purified of all sins. Naturally, this regularly leads to the deaths of multiple fanatic Arrowheads.
In light of these events, the government decides to intervene from the shadows, sending the President’s Senior Secretary, Lee Soo-kyung, to collaborate with the New Truth. They know they will lose public favor if they side against the religious interpretation of the decrees. Therefore, the consensus remains that destroying the Arrowheads and restoring the New Truth to their previous power would be best. To achieve this, Soo-kyung wants Chairman Kim to utilize Park Jung-ja, the woman whose demonstration jumpstarted the organization’s rise to power. However, Kim and his team aren’t any closer to coaxing out anything cohesive from the woman in the five years since her resurrection.
Nonetheless, Soo-kyung isn’t interested in extracting any cosmic truths from Soo-kyung. Instead, she wants to use the woman as a symbol to help the New Truth restore its credibility. Yet, one problem persists. Given Soo-kyung’s return, it’s only a matter of time before Jin-soo, the original cult chairman, would be resurrected. Since Jin-soo would overpower Jung-ja in terms of influence, Soo-kyung realizes she must get to him before the Arrowheads or the Sodos. Unbeknownst to her, Sodo already has moles inside the cult, who pass on the information of Kim’s plan to use Jung-ja.
Fortunately, Hey-jin and her team are able to arrive in the knick of time to intercept the New Future’s attempts to abduct Kyung-hun. Since Kyung-hun is the only person who witnessed Jin-soo’s demonstration, he’s able to share the location where the other man could be resurrected. As such, the Sodos set up surveillance in the area and assigned Cheon Se-hyung to wait for Jin-soo’s return. After losing out to Kyung-hun, the New Truth moves fast and reveals Jung-ja’s return. Furthermore, they announced that they would share a new doctrine soon updated with the revelations about God’s will from the Resurrected One. The same compels Hey-jin to advocate for a mission to rescue Jung-ja and reunite her with her kids. Nonetheless, the idea doesn’t go over well with the rest of the council.
Meanwhile, Jin-soo’s resurrection occurs, and Se-hyung manages to subjugate him under his control. After his resurrection, Jin-soo is notably spooked and hallucinates the Executors who tortured him in hell. Even so, he is still quick on his feet and manipulates Se-hyung into doing his bidding. Surprisingly, Jin-soo wants to go to the Arrowheads instead of the New Truth. Once Jin-soo meets with the Arrowhead’s leader, Pinwheel, he instantly gains control over the organization. Thus, as he announces his wish to meet with Jung-ja, the Arrowheads prepare to storm the New Truth HQ on the day of the Resurrected One’s Speech. Simultaneously, the Sodo head, Sung-jip—who is secretly working with Soo-Kyung—also prepares for a rescue mission for Jung-ja with Hey-jin.
Hellbound Season 2 Ending: Why is Jin-soo Hallucinating The Executors?
Jin-soo and Jun-ja’s resurrections undoubtedly present the most intriguing mysteries of season 2. While little is known about the latter’s afterlife experience, the narrative actively delves into Jin-soo’s hellish encounters. In the afterlife, the man is forced to live out some of the worst beats of his life—even those perpetrated by other people—followed by brutal altercations with the Executor creatures. Therefore, by the time he resurrects into his own body in the mortal realm, he’s disoriented and unsure of his identity. Worse yet, every time he looks in the mirror to assuage himself, he hallucinates the Executors in the background, which triggers his traumatic memories.
Therefore, Jin-soo remains lost throughout the season. Nonetheless, he finds a beacon of hope in Jung-ja. Jung-ja is the only other person who is known to have returned from the afterlife. As such, Jin-soo reasons that she must share his experiences. He’s searching for the truth about his current existence and believes he can find it in a kindred Jung-ja. For the same reason, he partners with the Arrowheads to use them as a tool to get to the woman. As a result, the day of Jung-ja’s speech becomes a significant moment even outside of the obvious reasons. While the New Truth is desperate to hold onto the woman, Jin-soo and Hey-jin both plan to crash the event.
The same results in an explosive event where the Arrowheads attack the New Truth HQ and announce Jin-soo’s resurrection to the public. In the chaos that follows, Hye-min and Sung-jip manage to grab and make it as far as the parking lot. Nonetheless, Jin-soo and the Arrowheads catch up to them, allowing the man to meet with Jung-ja. However, the meeting didn’t go as quiet as Jin-soo had imagined. He wanted to know that the woman shared his experiences and feelings so that he could make sense of his own existence. Nonetheless, unlike him, Jung-ja never faltered from her sense of self throughout her hellish torture.
As it turns out, Jin-soo and Jung-ja returned from their deaths to widely different outcomes. Where she becomes a bit more enlightened, even if incomprehensibly so; he has inherited a world of nightmares. Still, there’s more to his hallucinations than simply trauma. Looking into this destiny, Jung-ja reveals that Jin-soo sees the Executors in the mirror because the mirror compels him to look inside himself. The Executor he glimpses inside the mirror is actually the monster trapped within him.
Naturally, this compels Jin-soo to vehemently deny the claim and attempt to disprove it by looking into a mirror. However, as he continues staring at it, some invisible force attacks him. Thus begins Jin-soo’s final transformation. In the parking lot, surrounded by his devoted followers, Jin-soo slowly but surely turns into an Execturor himself. The same brings up crucial new questions about the nature of the creatures, who have so far been assumed to be the executors of God’s will. Ultimately, this transformation further proves the ungodly nature of the decrees and brings a sobering conclusion to a chapter of Jin-soo’s life.
Does Jung-ja’s Prediction About Hey-jin Come True?
Jung-ja makes a strange prophecy during Hye-min’s attempts to rescue her from the New Truth HQ. After her return from the afterlife, Jung-ja entered an uncanny state of mind. Often, she speaks in metaphors, evoking incomprehensible visuals and emotions. Eventually, Soo-kyung discovers that these riddles are actually predicting the deaths of those around Jung-ja. The same proves to be true after she accurately—if cryptically—prophecizes Chairman Kim’s demise. Therefore, Jung-ja’s prediction that Hye-min’s death will have something to do with a kid’s toy and an elephant looms like a threat over the finale.
After Jin-soo, now an Executor, runs off into the void like other creatures like him tend to, Hye-min and the others escape from the New Truth HQ. She drives them to some covert location where one of her trusted men will be waiting to take Jung-ja to her kids. So far, Hye-min has intentionally kept the locations of the kids, Eun-yul and Ha-yul a secret. Despite working with them, she doesn’t trust the higher-ups at Sodo not to exploit the kids and their mother for their own benefit. As a result, she’s already suitably suspicious of Sung-jip when she spots an elephant painting at the junkyard—and successfully dodges her partner’s attack.
As it turns out, Sung-jip never had Jung-ja’s best at heart. The only reason he goes through with the rescue mission is because he collaborated with Soo-kyung. As such, now that Jung-ja is out from under the New Truth’s control, he wants to kill the woman. He knows she has too much influence over the public’s opinion and understanding of the decrees. For the same reason, he wants to neutralize her to ensure no one can use her as a tool to propagate their ideology. In doing so, he entirely strips the woman of her humanity.
Nonetheless, Hye-min fights for Jung-ja’s survival—in an epic battle at the junkyard. In the end, she overpowers Sung-jip and saves Jung-ja’s life. Yet, while she has evaded her death at the junkyard, the other woman’s prophecy still stands. So far, Jung-ja’s predictions of other people’s deaths have been known to be cryptic but true. As a result, it is possible that she glimpsed another instance from Hye-min’s life where she would indeed die surrounded by children’s toys and a different elephant. For the time being, Hye-min has evaded her demise, yet death comes for all sooner or later.
Does Park Jung-ja Reunite With Her Kids?
When Jung-ja initially agreed to broadcast her demonstration on television for the New Truth, she did so to ensure a safe future for her children, Eun-yul and Ha-yul. Nevertheless, in the five years that she’s been back, she hasn’t been able to reunite with her family. Her kid’s safety is the most crucial thing for Jung-ja. For the same reason, she agrees to become the New Truth’s mouthpiece to ensure they don’t go after her kids. However, once Hye-min rescues her from the cult’s imprisonment, the woman finally has the freedom to see her kids again safely. Despite the boulders in their path, Hye-min manages to get Jung-ja to safety and deposits her with one of her most trusted men.
It’s only once Jung-ja leaves with Hye-min’s associate that the latter’s identity finally emerges. Hye-min previously sent Eun-yul and Ha-yul to oversee the children’s safety. In the years that followed, no one has been able to track them down. As it turns out, this is because Hye-min has been cleverly keeping the kids closer to her than expected. The man who picks Jung-ja up from the junkyard is actually Eun-yul, her older son who has grown up into a young man in her absence. Thus, the mother-son duo gets to have a teary reunion as they drive away and toward Ha-yul.
How Did Jaehyeon Survive the Demonstration?
Before Jung-ja leaves, she imparts one final wisdom to Hye-min. Jung-ja can see the end of people’s lives. However, she has recently been plagued with visions of the world’s looming end. Even though she doesn’t share details, she advises Hye-min to live without inhibitions since the world as she knows it will soon change. Thus, Hye-min does the one thing she has been wanting all this time and adopts Jaehyeon. Jaehyeon is Toughie, Young-jae & So-hyun’s daughter. Ever since her parents sacrificed themselves for her, Hye-min has been looking over her as an aunt.
Yet, under Sodo, Hye-min also has to keep Jaehyeon under the surveillance of a team, confined to one room in an underground lair. Jaehyeon is the only known individual who has survived a decree. During her demonstration, her parents had cocooned her body between theirs, shielding her from the Executors’ light. While their bodies had crumpled into ash, their baby managed to survive. Naturally, this makes the kid a point of intrigue, which compels Sodo to keep her cut off from the outside world as a subject to be studied.
Nonetheless, in the wake of Sung-jip’s actions and Jung-ja’s prophecy, Hye-min has had enough of playing by the Sodo’s rules. Therefore, in the end, she takes Jaehyeon away from the facility to ensure the girl can live a normal life. Unsurprisingly, none of her team members attempt to stop her. However, even though Hye-min is content with remaining in the dark about Jaehyeon’s inexplicable survival, the narrative doesn’t leave the thread alone. Through a flashback sequence, we learn that Young-jae and So-hyun actually failed to save their daughter from her demonstration.
After Young-jae and So-hyun covered baby Jaehyeon’s body with their own, the Executor’s light burned through all three of them. However, in a short while, the baby came back to life through a resurrection, similar to the one Jin-soo and Jung-ja underwent. In the baby’s resulting cry, Hye-min and everyone else assumed that the baby never actually died. This brings up questions about the time span between someone’s demonstration and resurrection. Furthermore, it invites intrigue about how Jaehyeon will be affected by undergoing the demonstration. Even so, more importantly, it solves the mystery of Jaehyeon’s survival and establishes that no one is safe from the Executors.
What Do the Mass Decrees Mean?
Before the season comes to an end, it brings one final damnation for the world. As everyone recovers from the startling aftershocks of the recent events, a mass decree comes for almost every other person. As the sky becomes littered with the haunting face of doom, numerous people receive decrees predicting their upcoming deaths, whether they be days or years away. Although decrees have become a norm in the past few years, such massive premonitions for the population haven’t yet occurred. Given the public’s inclination toward associating decrees with sin, this can only lead to further upheaval of society. Consequently, it seems Jung-ja’s prophecy about the end of the world is about to come true with the mass decree as the first omen.
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