Calling this an enjoyable watch feels wrong given I was holding in my stomach for most of it, either at the nail-biting tension or the exploding moments of gore and blood. But it was an excellent show. It built up the sense of crisis, the hopelessness and through it, the characters. The relationships that were formed were organically done and realistic, and thus made you root for characters sometimes simply because of what they meant to everyone else. This show did really well in highlighting the importance of family and social rootedness because people are stronger when compassion is plentiful. I've always found Korean shows to be thoughtful in the social analysis of these things and this show hinted well at that.

The other thing they did well with was the issue of survivors' guilt. Living on felt very difficult for characters but giving up was a betrayal of the memory and sacrifice of those who died for them to live. I thought the show was beautifully written in that way. The casting was good and there was an innocent charm to a lot of these characters, who ultimately, were just teenagers having a very rotten school week.

The standout character was Nam-ra and her ending was beautiful and deserved. Her struggle for clinging onto her humanity manifesting in that feral shriek of despair at the end really underlined the sheer goodness of her character, her overwhelming desire to hold onto the essence of who she is and not give in. I give the show 5 stars for how it wrote her, she quickly grew into the most interesting character.

The show had some excellent sections. Moments when they were trapped in one place for too long only to escape and get trapped elsewhere within the school and then during the second half of the show when their movement was more fluid and constant simply because staying in one place, they realised, was just delaying the impending doom. The final two episodes of the show blew me away because many things I did not expect to happen took place. Even though the ending was a little foreshadowed, it was a deserved one but everything else during those final episodes left me stunned. In a zombie apocalypse, there are no main characters with plot armour.

There were things I didn't like. Far too many characters had heroic deaths to the point where it sort of lost value. It was more gripping when people are trying to escape but the zombies take them. I think the hero complex was a real problem with Cheong-San. I liked him a lot but I was tired by his need to always elect himself as the sacrificial lamb for the group. I also thought how his death came about was foolish. They were all just standing there while he was slowly getting attacked. it didn't make sense especially given Nam-ra's superhuman feats that she just stood there.

Then there is Nayeon's character. I cannot accept that she purposefully infected someone just to be proven right. Her death was sad in that the group didn't realise she had only died due to her desire for redemption. I was a little annoyed at first before I realised it worked out better like this. It would have been too neat for her to reconnect with them.

My main issue perhaps, is the idea that this virus began because someone's dad got fed up with school bullying and decided humanity was irredeemable and evil. You're telling me that's how everyone got infected? I lost all sympathy with him when he was talking about how the system failed his son because of what he then transpired to do. There were also some payoffs I was waiting for, such as the girl who got videotaped getting her revenge during the apocalypse but the show didn't even hint towards that.

Those were my only real complaints, because otherwise it was an entirely excellent show.