The Fool of the End (2024)

A Disorienting Yet Poignant Tale of Humanity’s Final Days

Goodbye Earth, a sci-fi dystopian series set in Woongcheon, South Korea, offers a gripping premise: humanity faces its final 200 days before an asteroid obliterates Earth. The show follows Jin Se-kyung, a former teacher turned volunteer, portrayed with heartfelt resilience by Ahn Eun-jin, as she navigates a crumbling society under martial law alongside her boyfriend. The narrative explores how people cling to hope, love, or vengeance in the face of certain doom, prioritizing human connection over apocalyptic spectacle. Yet, its ambitious storytelling is marred by initial narrative disarray, gradually finding its footing as it delves into profound human moments.

The series shines brightest when it focuses on personal stories. Se-kyung’s quiet strength anchors the chaos as she fights to protect children caught in societal collapse. The ensemble cast delivers solid performances, bringing depth to characters grappling with despair, faith, or defiance. Visually, the show captures a gritty, grounded apocalypse, with scenes of looting, military crackdowns, and eerie normalcy that evoke the weight of impending doom. These moments of joy, sorrow, and connection feel authentic and moving, offering a fresh take on the end-of-the-world narrative.

However, the first three episodes present a disorienting experience, with a narrative structure lacking clarity and coherence. The plot jumps haphazardly between timelines without clear indicators, blending flashbacks and present-day scenes in a way that makes it challenging to follow the sequence of events. This lack of a clear timeline detracts from the viewing experience, leaving viewers struggling to engage fully. Additionally, the abundance of characters introduced early on adds to the confusion. While a large cast could enrich the story with diverse perspectives, many characters feel underutilized or underdeveloped, diminishing their impact on the overarching plot.

By the fourth episode, Goodbye Earth begins to coalesce. The timelines become more discernible, and the once-disparate characters start to intertwine in meaningful ways, creating a more cohesive and engaging experience.

As a philosophical drama with grand aspirations, the series overcomes its initial shortcomings to deliver a poignant exploration of humanity’s resilience and fragility in the face of extinction.

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Slow paced & soulful slice of life - HOW we are living being more important than surviving

Beforehand: Anyone who expects "Goodbye Earth" to be a 12 episodes long doomsday blockbuster in the face of an impending apocalypse is completely wrong here. The KDrama has nothing to do with a fast-paced, action-packed and adrenaline-arousing desperate fight against an approaching asteroid.
Plus: Yoo Ah-in's lead role, due to a charge of illegal drug use, was reduced to a minimum during production. So somehow it had to be improvised in terms of content. But in my opinion, a stronger focus on the female lead (played by Ahn Eun-jin) didn't hurt.


I would say "Goodbye Earth" is a ´slice of life´ centering around a bunch of rather ordinary people in a rather ordinary residential area in the city of Ungcheon. The remaining city population is expecting the crash of an asteroid that is on a collision course with the Earth and, according to calculations, will hit the Korean peninsula. Other than that, people live their lives - which, compared to before, obviously are not quite the same... So this dystopian KDrama is not about averting disaster. It's about continuing with life - until the end. Together. But, now, what do all the noble, dutiful, corrupt, holy, street-smart, arrogant, simple, life-hungry, in love, pregnant, believing and criminal variations of human beings do with this knowledge of their collective death?

Significantly, the looming asteroid isn't the worst thing at all in “Goodbye Earth”. In this particular scenario, the political order had already largely collapsed. Those who could afford it, had tried to save themselves. Eventually, the power vacuum was filled in no time. But fortunately, "Goodbye Earth" does not medially exploit the dystopian scenario to gleefully indulge into man's cruelty, unscrupulousness and insatiable greed even in the face of the bitter end. In fact, the KDrama gives its time and space mainly to interpersonal dynamics of a certain community - a diverse collection of people, young and old, who know each other from their community life, from school, from childhood. Only over time, little by little, in interspersed flashbacks, do we find out how they are all related to each other and what actually connects them. We walk along with them - during their last days, which are unstoppably shrinking in number… until the collision with the asteroid. Thus, emotionally, episode by episode, we get to know the people and their neighborhood better and might even grow fond of them, too.

The people in Ungcheon are actually less concerned with the approaching asteroid itself than with why and where their priest had disappeared or what had happened to the church money. And then there is this gang of criminals who among others specialized in child trafficking. The pain, fear and hopelessness felt by the people of Ungcheon is more likely to be caused by the collateral damages beforehand of the asteroid collision, than by actually facing their end.

It is slice of life in the context of a rather bizarre, extraordinary life situation. While people have to process their traumatic, crucial life experiences, talking and sharing might actually help to overcome emotional alienation or even frenzy. Yet... This is beautifully demonstrated in several examples. Sooner or later, close to the end the question arises as to what really counts...

In my opinion, this is a quietly gripping and complex KDrama. So complex that a few questions might remain unanswered at the end. But for me they are not so important here, therefore I can leave it at that. I´d say “Goodbye Earth” is rather about the personal processes that all those different characters have to go through, while dealing with those obviously extraordinary challenges their ordinary life is confronting them with.

For all those who expected e.g. “Deep Impact” in a series format, "Goodbye Earth" is certainly disappointing. For fans of slice of life, however, an almost unique scenario opens up in this rare dystopian context. The focus is on a former teacher who had to helplessly watch the children of her mid-school class becoming the greatest collateral damage in the run-up to the asteroid collision. For her this is representing the actual catastrophe.

"Goodbye Earth" lives from subtle interpersonal dynamics, coping with everyday life in a state of emergency and the daily struggles for emotional balance, for humanity and structure, for law and order in the midst of chaos. The KDrama is primarily a soulful and slow-paced study about the people of a neighborhood in Ungcheon bravely continuing with their lives in the light of their definitive collective death date. Because it's not over yet. Well aware about day X, life goes on. Until then. Together.
Bottom line: In the end, HOW we are living is more important, than surviving no matter what.

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