It might not have been the biggest South Korean streaming show that Netflix released in 2021, but despite the long shadow of Squid Game, Hellbound found itself a really fervid audience when it hit a few weeks after that first mega-hit.
The show offered up a weird and dark story of demons bursting out of hell to violently end the lives of citizens who've been named by a mysterious angel, with society rapidly adapting around these fairly apocalyptic events. Now we're getting a second season, and its first trailer has arrived.
With just a matter of days left until Hellbound Season 2 arrives on 25 October, the trailer gives us enough detail to get a good sense of what's going to happen. For one thing, it looks like the big instigating event will be the return from hell of one of the very first people to have been killed in Season 1.
With a dark near-future setting that lets it play with satire in a world that fairly closely resembles our own, the show is also using another time skip this time to take us further into the future. It would seem that we can expect more mysteries and, crucially, more demons (or monsters, take your pick).
While Squid Game's huge international success meant that its long-gestating second season always felt inevitable, some fans are rejoicing that Hellbound is back given its lower profile. You only have to check the YouTube comments under that trailer to see the happiness.
One user wrote: "I feel like it’s been 10 years". Another gushed: "OMG I've been waiting for Hellbound Season 2 and it's finally here!!" Of course, they'll all be hoping that the second season lives up to the first, which managed an impressive 97% score on Rotten Tomatoes from critics to back up its solid viewer figures.
Netflix has managed to carve out a niche for itself (one of many) as one of the best streaming services for Korean dramas, and these new episodes should only cement that further. If you're struggling to remember Hellbound's last season, you should still have time to refresh yourself before the new one starts on 25 October.
