Recap "Grid (2022)" Episode 1

Off to a suspenseful start, Grid introduces us to an alternate universe where solar winds pose a constant threat to Earth’s safety. A brutal murderer and an enigmatic phantom are also afoot, and they’re clearly only the first of many more mysteries to come.

When your scriptwriter is Lee Soo-yeon, who penned the critically-acclaimed Forest of Secrets, it’s a struggle to keep expectations low. I couldn’t help but get my hopes up, despite having seen a teaser with the tagline “It’s all action” (it better not be only that!). And yet, the drama still blew both my expectations and my worries out of the water. It’s so good!

The first episode is mostly a setup for the events to come, allowing us to get to know our characters and the world they live in. Still, it sets the stage well without leaning too much into exposition and instead, deftly weaves subtle hints at unexplained mysteries into its intriguing world-building.

Our tale starts in 2004, the year when a solar wind hit the Earth. We’re told that if it had come even one year earlier, two-thirds of mankind would have perished; thankfully, the world now has a system called the Grid that shields the planet.

Still, while the danger of the solar winds has been abated, it isn’t completely eliminated. In 2005, a factory worker takes a call from her son KIM SAE-HA, but the connection is interrupted by static. Shortly after, the lights go out — there’s been a power outage due to a solar wind.

At home, Sae-ha looks out the window to see a strange aurora begin to spread across the sky. Meanwhile, in a school field, students are hastily evacuated to the classroom. A news program explains that in the increasingly digital age, the ramifications of the solar flare are far more devastating. Power and internet outages would effectively halt trade routes, leading to famine.

In a control room, numerous employees type away at their computers, preparing for a shield transmission to reinforce the Grid. The operation is overseen by CHOI SUN-WOOL (Jang So-yeon), and across the world, political leaders of various countries keep a close watch too.

An alarm blares, indicating something wrong with the system update, but soon it’s resolved and the Grid is strengthened. Once Sun-wool’s alone, however, she sinks into a chair, looking shaken. Pensively, she muses, “that girl was right.”

We fast forward to 2021, where a grown-up Sae-ha (Seo Kang-joon) buys a pack of garbage bags at a convenience store. The convenience store worker seems shifty, and he won’t meet Sae-ha’s gaze. It’s only once Sae-ha gets back in his car that he realizes there’s blood on his finger, but it’s not his.

He’s about to drive off, but then thinks better of it and gets out of the car — looks like he can’t ignore his moral compass after all. It turns out Sae-ha’s hunch was right, and the shady man, KIM MA-NOK (Kim Sung-kyun) had murdered the actual convenience store worker, stabbing his neck with a pair of scissors.

JUNG SAE-BYUK (Kim Ah-joong) is one of the police officers that arrive at the scene to investigate, and when she tosses her ID lanyard over her shoulder to get it out of her way, Sae-ha takes note of her name.

Peering at the CCTV footage, the police can’t figure out what the victim said to the murderer, but Sae-ha takes one look and repeats it word for word. Sae-byuk realizes that he can read lips, and she gets him to read the words that riled the murderer up so much that he killed the victim: “What an ill-bred punk. Does he not have any parents?”

Of course, it’s practically a prerequisite that all tormented sci-fi heroes must have a tragic backstory, and Sae-ha is no exception. At home, his mother lies in bed hooked up to an IV drip and ECG monitor, and when he sees the news report on the murderer, there’s barely-concealed pain in his eyes. In a flashback, we see a young Sae-ha running down a hallway, holding his mother’s hand.

Sae-ha works at the administration bureau, along with coworker SONG EO-JIN (Kim Mu-yeol) and supervisor Sun-wool. It appears that their job is to surveil the country, and though it’s not clear what exactly they’re monitoring, their usual duties seem to be searching up three keywords each. Eo-jin searches up female, vanishing, and phenomenon; another employee searches up female, teleportation, and death; and Sae-ha searches up female, unidentified, and disappeared.

Moving on to our other protagonist, Sae-byuk — she’s competent, capable, and dauntless. The police break into Ma-nok’s abandoned dental clinic hideout to apprehend him, but he manages to sneak past and climb out a window. When a rope drops down from above, providing Ma-nok with an escape route, Sae-byuk climbs up the rope after him without even a second of hesitation. Gosh, she’s so cool!

Unfortunately, Ma-nok makes it up first and cuts the rope (Sae-byuk’s colleague catches her, phew), and by the time the police run up the stairs and break the chain locking the rooftop door shut, Ma-nok is long gone.

They spread out to search the streets, but they miss Ma-nok hidden beneath a truck — or so it seems, because the moment he crawls out thinking the coast is clear, he’s met with Sae-byuk’s taser gun. Before she can apprehend him, though, she’s kicked to the ground by a hooded figure (Lee Shi-young). The hooded figure is clearly a skillful fighter, but Sae-byuk isn’t cowed, and she manages to knock off the figure’s cap — revealing a head of long hair.

Right at that moment, though, the figure disappears into thin air right in front of Sae-byuk’s eyes. All that remains is the fallen cap.

Sae-ha, having discovered the case report by way of the damaged equipment report that Sae-byuk lodged, is brought up to speed on this latest development. It’s not clear what exactly his job scope entails, but it does seem like this might fall under his purview, given the unidentified disappearing female. Plus, he’s already tied to the case whether he likes it or not, and as much as he might want to wash his hands of it, he’s clearly intrigued.

There’s so much advanced technology in the drama’s present day, such as the security system in the lobby of Sae-ha’s workplace, which can identify the people walking through and detect any prohibited items. In addition, there’s also the biometric sensors that scan employees’ palms instead of their ID cards to grant entry into their offices.

I can’t help but wonder — where is the line between safety and privacy, and is it acceptable to sacrifice the latter in favor of the former? These technological systems are convenient and secure, but I wonder if they will pose a consequence later on, especially once all the time- and dimension-hopping is introduced.

Sci-fi is a genre that can easily fall flat if its logic is weak and requires too much suspension of disbelief, and K-dramas don’t exactly have the best track record. Add time travel and alternate universes to the mix, and it sounds like yet another train wreck waiting to happen.

Still, if there’s a writer that I trust who has the ability to pull this off, it’s Lee Soo-yeon. She’s already demonstrated her capability for compelling storytelling and masterful dialogue in her previous works, so while I’m still trying to remain cautiously optimistic, I have faith in her writing prowess. I’m definitely looking forward to how the rest of the story plays out, and I’m very much anticipating Lee Soo-yeon’s trademark nuanced social commentary.