With Sweet Home season 3, things kicked into high gear by introducing more special infected and neo-humans and giving them great importance in the K-drama’s final series. Indeed, there are many types of monsters found in Sweet Home, ranging from huge monsters that love protein to ones that look like green goo, but the latest additions to the monster lineage create a new level of complexity for the outbreak viral which is at the origin of all this.
In Sweet Home, characters like Song Kang, Lee Do-hyun, Go Min-si, Lee Jin-wook, and Lee Si-young try to survive a mysterious virus that has started transforming people into various types of monsters. If season 1 focused on the effects of the virus on the residents of an apartment complex, Green Home, season 2 expanded the universe to the world the characters so feared. As for Sweet Home 3, it blends the themes of its previous two installments to create a powerful conclusion, full of new types of monsters and lore that deepen the world even further.
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What Special Infected are in Sweet Home
They are both human and monsters. While the Special Infected have always been an important part of Sweet Home, their identities can sometimes be confusing, especially when the series takes creative liberties from the webtoon it’s based on. Simply put, Special Infected are people who have been infected by the monster virus and are resistant to full transformation, meaning that these beings are indeed caught in the middle of the battle between humanity and monsters .
The most striking case is that of Sweet Home’s protagonist, Cha Hyun-su (Song Kang). Indeed, the first season of the series is marked by the fact that the latter becomes one of the first people in Green Home to be infected by the virus although he never completely succumbs to its effects, unlike several other survivors. . On the contrary, he manages to control the monstrous part within him, as Hyun-su learns to accept that the hallucinations that accompany the virus are simply not real.
It should be noted that Seo Yi-kyung’s daughter Seo Yi-su could be considered a special infected as she is both human and a monster, although her characteristics are much more different. Born as a human monster, she was not transformed making her an entirely new being that could show what the future might look like when monsters and humans live together. However, this does not mean that Cha Hyun-su is spared from the effects of the monstrosity, because in Sweet Home 3, the latter succumbs more than ever to the monster that inhabits him, without being able to kill him, given that they both need to exist together in order to live. This situation serves as an excellent analogy for what will happen in the Sweet Home finale by bringing peace to the conflicted sides of Hyun-su, who is however not the only special infected in Sweet Home.
In Sweet Home 3, the importance of the Special Infected grows further with the arrival of a group of Human Monsters (MH) led by Nam Sang-won (Lee Jin-wook), who joins him on his quest of destruction of humanity. This follows the experiments they were all subjected to due to Dr. Lim’s (Oh Jung-se) strong curiosity about monsters and why these particular people are exempt from any effects. It is true that special infected can arise spontaneously, like Cha Hyun-su, but it is also implied that they can be manufactured, causing problems for another of Sweet Home’s new beings.
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What Neo-humans are in Sweet Home
They are proof that the phenomenon of monstrosity is far from over. Contrary to what was initially thought, Neo-Humans are completely different from Special Infected. Indeed, the latter never completely go through the monsterization process and coexist with the monster virus that inhabits them, while the neo-humans show what the future looks like for humans who have been transformed into monsters. You should know that becoming a neo-human is the last stage of the monsterization process which has been shown in its different stages throughout Sweet Home. Below you will find the monsterization process in Sweet Home:
- Stage 1: People who catch the virus become symptomatic.
- Step 2: Humans turn into monsters.
- Step 3: The monsters then enter a cocoon.
- Stage 4: Neo-humans emerge from the cocoon and resemble their original human counterparts.
Despite the fact that neo-humans are reborn as their original human beings, they are entirely different, as explained by Lee Do-hyun’s return in Sweet Home, where his character Lee Eun-hyuk becomes the the most notable neo-human in the series. Like all neo-humans, Eun-hyuk has retained the memories of his human life, without however being able to feel emotions, which does not prevent him from learning quickly and being reborn after his death thanks to to its cocoon, which turns out to be an interesting addition to Sweet Home 3.
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How Neo-Humans and Special Infected Come into Play in Sweet Home Season 3
They are all very important in the final season. In Sweet Home 3, Neo-Humans and Special Infected take center stage, albeit for entirely different reasons. If most of the characters in Sweet Home spend their time denigrating what their peers have become, the neo-humans are proof that monstrosity is not an end in itself; glimmer of hope for those who are infected. Despite their change in nature, they retain the essence of their former personality. So in Sweet Home 3, they value their own species and seek to restore the natural order of things, which has been disrupted by the presence of special infectious people.
It is worth noting that the final scene of Sweet Home also suggests that neo-humans can learn to regain their emotions, given that Lee Eun-hyuk, who was previously very cold towards his younger sister, smiles at Eun-yu as she walks on the roof of their new residence. This attitude suggests that despite their rebirth as a new being, neo-humans can also regain some of their more human traits.
For their part, the Special Infected are much more complicated, as there are those who, like Cha Hyun-su, are deeply empathetic towards monsters and humans, while most of the latter in the series choose to feel resentment towards humanity. This is why the Special Infected are the antagonists of Sweet Home 3, as they attempt to rid the world of humanity, and this is a desire largely encouraged by Nam Sang-won, who was the first special infected and who takes many different forms to get what he truly desires.
It’s Cha Hyun-su’s sympathy for all species that makes him a key player in Sweet Home’s climax, unlike the other Special Infected. In this context, Eun-hyuk personally searches for him, knowing that as a Special Infected, Hyun-su is one of the few people who can stop Sang-won. Despite the fact that it is Sang-wook’s (Lee Jin-wook) regained consciousness that saves them in the end, Eun-hyuk and Hyun-su’s reunion highlights the roles of neo-humans and special infected. It is together that they show that the only way to move forward is to accept each other in order to live in peace.
What do you think of these neo-humans and special infected in Sweet Home 3?