A major element of the plot of the series All Of Us Are Dead, available on Netflix, the virus that infects the characters is full of mysteries. Here’s what to remember.
Warning, spoilers. It is advisable to have seen the All Of Us Are Dead series before continuing to read this article.
It’s a new hit for Netflix, the latest South Korean series All Of Us Are Dead takes first place in the platform’s top views. This series of zombies adapted from the webtoon Now at Our School by Joo Dong-geun from 2009 follows a group of students stranded on the grounds of their high school in Hyosan. Threatened by zombies, the students try everything to get out of it without becoming living dead infected by a mysterious virus in turn.
Oscillating between horror thriller and teenage melodrama, All Of Us Are Dead follows the survival of high school students and the action of the authorities as much as the love and family stories of its characters. The public also gradually understands what the virus that infects the population implies for the sequence of events and the invasion itself.
Where does the virus come from?
The virus was created by chemistry professor Lee Byung-chan (Kim Byung-chul), a doctoral student in cell biology and a former researcher at a pharmaceutical company. With this virus, he wanted to help his son, a victim of school bullying and prone to suicidal thoughts, to transform his fear into strength in order to become a predator to defend himself from his attackers in high school.
But the virus the professor created was too powerful and dangerous. His son then became a bloodthirsty zombie and infected his wife. The professor locks them up, unable to bring himself to kill them, and tries to find an antidote in the high school laboratory. The story could have ended there with a virus contained only in two bodies locked in his house.
Except that a student is bitten by one of the mice infected with the virus, for the professor’s experiments, locked up in the high school laboratory. And it is through this student, who will bite the school nurse, then other people in the hospital, that the epidemic will begin.
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How is the virus transmitted?
When a person is infected, they very quickly turn into a zombie and run to find their next prey. A person can be infected with the virus via the bite of a zombie or with the blood of an infected deposited on an open wound, as Lee Na-Yeon (Lee Yoo Mi) did with Han Kyeong-soo (Ham Sung-min) to get revenge on him and trap his comrades.
How is the virus evolving?
If the first episodes of the series explain to us that all infected people just become bloodthirsty living dead, the sequel to All Of Us Are Dead shows that the virus evolves. This twist reinforces the dangerous and unpredictable nature of the virus and further damages relationships between students.
Thus, Yoon Gwi-nam (Yoo In-Soo), one of the high school bullies, is bitten but the virus mutates in his body. He is a conscious infected, able to heal on his own and he is not attacked by “basic” zombies. This is why Yoon Gwi-nam repeatedly attacks the main group to get revenge on Lee Cheong-san (Yoo Chan-young) for gouging out his eye.
Another student affected by the mutated virus is Choi Nam-ra (Cho Yi-hyun), the class representative. Also sentient, able to heal on her own, and blessed with strength, she is not attacked by “basic” zombies, and she can control her hunger. Choi Nam-ra will prove to be a great help for his comrades.
This is also the case of Bae Eun-ji (Oh Hye-soo), a victim of harassment who becomes half-human, half-zombie. Other infected students, whose antibodies detected the virus faster, have developed a mutated version of the virus and end up with warts and other pustules on their bodies, without being aware.
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Can we cure the virus?
Professor Lee Byung-chan is adamant in his videos, there is no cure for Jonas virus. So the authorities decide to concentrate and destroy all the zombies in the city with bombardments. But there may be hope in Nam-ra, who survived and went into hiding.
Found months later by her comrades, Nam-ra no longer displays any visible signs of the virus and seems to be in perfect control in addition to having developed her exceptional abilities. Could it be the solution to find a cure?