Parasyte: The Gray is a gripping new sci-fi K-drama streaming on Netflix, adapted from a Japanese anime of the same name. The world featured in the series is suddenly faced with an unusual form of invasion from an alien species, as parasitic creatures silently penetrate inside human bodies, taking complete control and also planning to take over. control of the Earth.
Amidst all this, a young woman must accept a strange coexistence with the parasite in her body, because she cannot be completely dominated. Overall, Parasyte: The Gray is a gripping and enjoyable K-drama to watch, even if it’s not necessarily the most compelling of its genre.
What is this K-drama about?
Parasyte: The Gray begins with a man boasting about his bravery and willingness to kill people on an online forum, demonstrating that he is clearly a loner and not entirely sane individual. Within the hour, the man leaves his house and goes to the nearby supermarket to buy a few items and has a terrible argument with the woman working as a cashier. The man had not followed the instructions given for purchasing items at the store and when the cashier pointed this out to him, he was furious.
Already heated by the harassment he suffered online, and also because he suffers from schizophrenia, the man decides to take revenge on the cashier for the humiliation. As the woman leaves the store at the end of her shift, the man begins to follow her in his car. On a deserted road, he crashed into his scooter and stabbed him several times in the waist. The woman somehow manages to drag herself to the bushes, fighting through pain and blood loss, when something very strange happens. The violent man suddenly collapses to the ground as if torn by invisible, sharp blades.
When another car passes by and reports the incident, the woman is immediately admitted to the local hospital. She is introduced as Jeong Su-in, also a lonely person without a family since a young age, after her mother abandoned the family and she had to report her own father because of his abusive habits. At present, Su-in’s survival remains a mystery to herself and the police, especially because the stab wounds on her body are not recent at all and appear to simply be long-standing scars.
The mutilated body of her attacker remained unexplained until further incidents were discovered by police. Around the same time as Su-in’s face-to-face encounter with her attacker on the deserted road, a bizarre scene unfolded at a music festival in Korea, where a human being was transformed into something monstrous and attacked and killed many artists and fans present at the venue.
Gradually, the premise of Parasyte: The Gray becomes clear, as it is revealed that a handful of a few hundred parasitic organisms from outer space have descended on South Korea and various other locations around the world this fateful evening. These organisms then entered the bodies of the closest humans they could find and took control of their brains, transforming them into puppets. These parasites used their long tentacles to kill other people and sow chaos, with the sole goal of conquering planet Earth. By accident, Su-in had been invaded by a similar parasite, but the effect on her was very different from that on everyone else.
Since the woman had already been injured by the time the parasite entered her body, and was on the verge of death from the stab wounds, the parasite had to focus on healing her body first , which prevented him from reaching his brain and completely taking control of his body. As a result, Su-in lives normally most of the time, while her parasitic alter ego, later named Heidi, appears whenever she is in danger. The parasite is very dependent on the body it is in, as it would die if the body were dead, so Heidi is careful to use her powers and protect Su-in at all times. Su-in, meanwhile, must deal with this unnatural coexistence while avoiding trouble for herself and her friends.
How do the parasites plan to take over Earth?
After taking over human bodies, the parasites in Parasyte: The Gray hatch a sophisticated plan to achieve their ultimate goal, which is world domination. Although few details about this invading alien species or their sudden arrival on Earth are provided, it is evident that the plan for world domination is not something very sudden. It is mentioned that these organisms were in fact raised with proper training on how to take control of human bodies and were indeed prepared before landing on the planet.
This is why they can infiltrate human society with relative ease and are particularly adept at keeping their presence and mission secret from the rest of the world. It is well known, even among extraterrestrials, that human beings have many religious cults that the authorities do not disrupt and, therefore, are safe spaces for various unusual and sometimes dangerous practices. Therefore, the Parasites’ first step is to create a religious body called the Church of Saejin, which is really just a front for all of their kind to come together and form an organization.
In addition to primarily focusing on taking over human society, the alien parasites also seem interested in understanding human minds and especially emotions, which are completely foreign to them. This is why there are examples of parasites learning about human feelings and being amused by it. For the first few weeks, the plan goes quite well as more and more parasites gather at the Saejin Church and discuss their next steps regarding world domination, while hunting normal humans and storing them in a pantry as well.
The human bodies in the pantry are either preserved for consumption or to ensure that there would be enough extra bodies for the parasites if their current human bodies were damaged or lost in any way. The Saejin Church Front is lost due to the personal investigation of Seol Kang-woo, a young man searching for his beloved younger sister. When Kang-woo ends up finding his sister’s body in the pantry, he decides to go after the pests on a very personal revenge mission and gives an anonymous tip to the police about the church.
Meanwhile, the lead anti-parasite investigator leading a special police unit called Gray Team, Choi Jun-kyung, had found a unique method to track the activities of the parasites. Choi’s husband had been affected by a parasite and transformed into a monstrosity. Following this, she captured the man using a special mask. This mask ensured that the parasite could not take control of the human body and Choi had forced her husband to reveal the activities of his new kind to her.
The head of the Saejin Church, Pastor Kwon, finally manages to have the captured parasite, nicknamed The Hound, killed so that the police can no longer track their movements thanks to the creatures’ ability to communicate via brain waves. After this success, the parasites move to another abandoned shelter in Namil while planning their next big move. The town’s mayor is coming to the neighborhood soon as part of his presidential campaign, and the parasites want to take over his body and infiltrate the government.
Why is Won-Seok working for the parasites?
Won-seok is a police officer and detective working at Namil Police Station and he is an experienced professional in a high position. Although there are superiors at the station, including the lead detective, Cheol-min, Won-seok is considered a fairly important individual by most of the station. After Choi Jun-kyung and his Gray team arrive, Won-seok gets to know the woman personally, stating that he is a big fan of her detective work and would be honored to help her mission in any way whether it be.
However, Won-seok turns out to be a double agent, who is actually in alliance with Pastor Kwon and the Parasites, revealing to them all the police’s next moves and warning them in advance of planned attacks. It is also Won-seok who secretly murders the Hound, ensuring that Choi is deprived of any internal connection with the parasites, thus making her job and that of the human side extremely difficult.
Interestingly, Won-seok is the only human being to have conspired against his species and become friends with the aliens, without being invaded by any parasites. Everything this man does is a result of his own will, which makes the choice to harm humans all the more puzzling. But Won-seok is a perfect example of human betrayal for his own good, as he becomes an ally of the parasites solely to ensure his own professional advancement. Indeed, man aspires to become a politician only for the money and power associated with it.
When the invasion first took place, Won-seok was already a member of a local church whose leader was Pastor Kwon. After learning that their dear pastor seemed ill and missing for a few days, Won-seok went to check on his home, only to discover that Pastor Kwon had been possessed by the parasite and had also murdered his wife.
The parasite then threatened to kill Won-seok, while offering him the chance to be safe in exchange for his work on their behalf, to which Won-seok quickly agreed. The policeman never really regrets this decision, even going so far as to directly ask for a role in the political scene. However, in the end, the leader of the evil parasite does not hesitate to kill Won-seok and take possession of his body, thus making all his services for them meaningless.
When Seol Kang-woo returns home, he must hide from a criminal gang after a failed assassination attempt puts his own life in danger. Kang-woo was part of the Mangnanis criminal gang, who sent him to kill the leader of their rival gang, the Cheolis, but the young man failed to carry out the murder. Therefore, the Cheolis were now in pursuit, and Kang-woo had to flee away from the location, returning to the family home in Namil and hiding in the neighborhood to escape his pursuers.
However, as the plot progresses, Kang-woo discovers that a great betrayal has taken place against him, as it is his own gang members who are now looking for him. Seeing this as an opportunity to repair their relations with the rivals, the Mangnanis wanted to use Kang-woo as a mere pawn by turning him over to the Cheolis and letting them kill him.
Why does Kyung-Hee turn against the Parasites?
Although this level of betrayal is common among human beings, parasites are not at all accustomed to such complexities until they too develop this very human trait. Kang-woo’s older sister, Seol Kyung-hee, had been taken in by a parasite, and since then, she had been a very dedicated and selfless worker for their organization. However, as Pastor Kwon wanted to target the mayor, he needed Team Gray’s force to be occupied with a raid at a different location, which was planned to be in the parasites’ second lair.
Therefore, the leader assured, through Won-seok, that this hideout would be attacked by the police, who would also be satisfied that all pests in the area had been eliminated and would not be prepared for the attack on the mayor. But due to this planned raid, many parasites, including Kyung-hee, would be sacrificed and killed. Kyung-hee finally realizes that her parasitic leader has also become selfish and scheming like humans, and so, she turns against them, making an alliance with Su-in and Kang-woo instead.
Do Su-In and Heidi end up breaking up?
For the most part, Jeong Su-in had the strong and loving support of police detective Cheol-min, who was almost like a father figure to her. But towards the end, Cheol-min gets killed, and his body is taken over by the parasite that previously controlled Pastor Kwon. Therefore, Cheol-min also begins working against the police force, alongside Won-seok, and at the end of Parasyte: The Grey, the parasites launch a serious attack on the mayor, intending to take over of his body. However, Su-in and her parasitic alter ego, Heidi, were also ready for this attack, alongside Kang-woo. They had tried several times to inform Choi Jun-kyung about the moles within the police force, but she refused to listen.
Eventually, Jun-kyung agrees to attend the ceremony supervised by the mayor, mainly because she is still pursuing Su-in, whom she considers a parasite. Although Heidi pushes Won-seok away and protects the mayor, she is targeted by Jun-kyung. However, instead of fighting back, Heidi kills a parasite that was about to infect Jun-kyung and the strike team leader shoots Won-seok dead. Heidi admits that having a sensitive and caring person like Su-in as a host taught her a very positive human feeling of trust and it was through her decision to trust Jun-kyung that the two women were saved and evil defeated.
At the end of Parasyte: The Grey, we see Su-in returning to her lonely life, working as a cashier at the grocery store, when Kang-woo comes to visit her. The young man is now a member of Choi’s special force, Team Grey, and the same offer is valid for Su-in as well. Kang-woo leaves the protagonist a letter written by his alter ego, Heidi, in which the latter mentions how Su-in will never be alone in life again. Although Heidi appears to have left Su-in to take full control of her body, the parasite is never seen leaving, suggesting that Heidi still lives dormant inside Su-in’s body.
Su-in and Heidi’s combined powers as mutants could once again come in handy in the future, as Parasyte: The Gray ends with a hint as to whether its plot will continue, as all the alien parasites on Earth n were not killed. The first season of the show ends with a young man coming to meet Jun-kyung in his office at Team Gray and he introduces himself as a journalist with particular expertise on alien parasites. The man, named Shinichi, apparently has very important information about the parasites and it is likely that a second, even larger invasion is headed to Earth.