Abyss – Netflix Season 1 Episode 11 Recap & Review

The Drawings Are The Key

We return to Abyss this week, picking up where we left off from before with a much-needed injection of drama and tension throughout the episode. With a much better pacing and some welcome flashbacks to the night Se-Yeon was killed, along with the abyss finally being used as a plot device, Abyss appears to be steering the ship back in the right direction, but is it too little too late for this Korean drama?

We begin with Oh Yeong stalking Se Yeon in the middle of the night. Intending to killing her, he’s stopped by Hee Jin’s mum who smacks him in the head with a stone and flees, prompting Oh Yeong to chase after her. However, she manages to escape and as Cha Min catches up with Se-Yeon, they discuss the orb’s colour changes and what this could mean for them.

After strengthening security at the house, Se Yeon asks Cha Min to sleep with her – in the same bed that is – for extra comfort and security. He obliges, and after some procrastination, they turn around to kiss but are interrupted by security, who inform them it’s dawn already and they need to get up, especially given the bloody rock they’ve found outside.

From here the episode sees all our characters try and plot Oh Yeong’s next move while he has a meeting with Prosecutor Seo in his car. It’s here we see a series of nicely worked flashbacks, including Seo’s childhood and what led him to kill Se Yeon that night. As they go their separate ways, Seo gets a call to pick up Hee-Jin’s mum whose wandered off down the street in the middle of the night. After picking her up, he drugs her and takes her to a grateful Oh Yeong. Just before Oh kills her, Seo has a change of heart and launches himself at the murderer, throwing him off her and to the ground. As they wrestle, Oh Yeong breaks free and chaos breaks out.

Forensics then appear some time later and begin searching the area for clues. After discovering another set of footprints on the ground and receiving the lab results back, they begin to piece together the events that took place. Se Yeon and the others learn there were 3 people in the room and one of them was Oh Yeong’s son.

The final scenes of the episode then sees Cha Min becoming suspicious of Prosecutor Seo while Se Yeon herself searches through Hee-Jin’s mum’s drawings where she comes across a phone number scribbled on the paper. As she rings the number, the episode ends with Se Yeon learning Seo’s true identity.

Abyss delivers a much improved episode this week, with an injection of pace and some more urgency into the overarching story. While the show is still a far cry from where it perhaps should be, given the early work done to inject some fantastical elements into this one, there’s still some excitement left here which is nice to see. I just wish we had more backstory and a lot more drama around the abyss itself.

Still, if you’ve made it this far, Abyss is a show you’re likely to stick with until the end. Will Oh Yeong see his comeuppance? Will Cha Min and Se Yeon get their bodies back? And will Hee Jin’s Mum ever stop running off? We’re into the home stretch with this one and I genuinely cannot call which way this one will fall. Thankfully, there’s some positives here this week but whether Abyss can build on this and finish strongly, remains to be seen.