[HanCinema's Drama Review] "God's Quiz Season 4" Episode 5

This time the drama deals with a serial killer who throws women away in refrigerators. It's about as pleasant as it sounds, but really, anybody watching "God's Quiz Season 4" by this point must have a pretty decent tolerance for squeamishness. This is the most directly engaging episode so far- a crisis situation is laid out and the detectives have to race to capture the killer before he strikes again.

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The clues are fairly well-designed, and the psychological explanations all follow along pretty well. There's just one problem. While the basic conceit was easy enough to understand, in understanding it, I really, really did not enjoy the greater paranoid implications of the story. Killers are out there, everywhere. They might be the people you let into your home. They might just be wandering the street. Either way, lock up your children. It's for their own good.

Jin-woo tries to sell us on the idea that this isn't as clear cut a case as super evil as it may initially seem. I do have to give the drama some credit for portraying the serial killer as being a victim of his own mental illness. At the same time, when the climax is this incredibly grotesque, there's only so much leeway that can be provided for here. Just because the characters say that the guy isn't totally evil doesn't make any of the events that lead up to the ending any less disgusting and horrible.

To be fair, that's really more a criticism of this kind of genre fiction as awhole than it is a specific gripe with "God's Quiz Season 4". If I take this episode on comparative terms, and stack it up against the umptysquat American detective dramas that utilize the same tropes, "God's Quiz Season 4" actually comes out looking pretty good. The mystery here is less about how they're going to catch or identify the killer as it is about his motives, which right to the end are consistent yet not particularly well defined.

Of course, there's also other relevant mysteries, like how a man who is obviously mentally ill has been able to operate his weird disgusting delusions without anybody noticing. Perhaps this is social commentary on societal ignorance of mental health resources? Eh, maybe, but I'm not willing to give the writer that much credit. I really disliked this episode. Still, for fans of the series, I imagine this is exactly the kind of high tension action you're looking for.

Review by William Schwartz

"God's Quiz Season 4" is directed by Lee Min-woo-II, written by Park Jae-beom-I and features Ryu Deok-hwan, Yoon Joo-hee, Donghae, Kim Jae-kyung, Kang Sung-pil, Park Jun-myun,...

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