Warning: the following contains SPOILERS for All Of Us Are Dead.
Netflix's new zombie series, All Of Us Are Dead season 1, arguably focused on the wrong characters and might have been improved by focusing on a different set of main characters. The Korean series follows a group of students as they try to survive a zombie outbreak at their high school. All Of Us Are Dead is a coming-of-age story that also deals with how the outside world reacts to the outbreak, especially politicians and the military. All Of Us Are Dead's ending sees a handful of the students finally escaping and returning to safety, and, considering the number of questions left unanswered by the end of season 1, a second season seems very likely.
Despite its zombie premise and high school setting, All Of Us Are Dead is actually a very politically conscious drama that tackles some difficult themes, such as school violence, loneliness, and morality and many characters in the show reflect these themes. However, the main characters of All Of Us Are Dead are On-jo, Cheong-san, and Su-hyeok; their love triangle is the heart of the series. The problem with this is that of all the characters, these three are the most "normal" and thus, aren't really related to any of the show's more complex ideas. The romance that much of their storyline revolves around seems somewhat insignificant in the context of All Of Us Are Dead's zombie apocalypse.
All Of Us Are Dead season 1 could've perhaps been improved by focusing on characters like Chul-soo and Eun-ji, the two bullying victims. In a story all about survival and how certain people are crushed under an inhumane system that disregards their well-being, it would've made sense for these two characters to have been the protagonists. Their storyline could've involved them learning to overcome their nihilism and misanthropy in order to find hope in humanity. Their character arcs would've better represented the core themes of the series. As it stands, these two characters never really change; they spend most of their time on the school rooftop, and seemingly don't even survive for All Of Us Are Dead season 2.
Similarly, Gyeong-hu and Na-yeon, two characters who find themselves on opposite ends of Korea's wealth disparity, could've been better developed. The social conflicts between the rich and the poor are raised as an interesting theme, and an extension of the All Of Us Are Dead's aforementioned interest in exploring oppression, but both of these characters are killed off early on. Their conflict is never resolved; instead, Na-yeon later regrets her actions and decides to rejoin the others but is then immediately turned into a zombie by Gwi-nam. In killing off so many of the more complex supporting characters, All Of Us Are Dead season 1 missed a number of opportunities to tell an even more interesting story.
However, it's fair to say that the fact that All Of Us Are Dead's main characters are very normal students allows for viewers to more easily identify with them. In a sense, they represent the hope of a better world to emerge from the ugliness of the previous one, so it makes sense that they'd be the audience surrogate. That said, a different set of main characters more closely related to All Of Us Are Dead season 1's central ideas would've certainly allowed for a more thematically rewarding narrative.
