When a drama is marketed as some big anniversary-celebrating event, you expect it to be some grandiose display of awesome action, excellent writing and characters you care about. This is why I'm honestly quite disappointed with the way that Sisyphus: The Myth panned out. Despite using a potentially super interesting concept of time travel as its basis for events, the drama descends into madness-inducing time paradox mumbo jumbo that only seeks to confuse viewers and lead us down a self-destructive path as the drama seeks to clear up misunderstandings but only makes things worse. Let's dive in.
SERIES RETROSPECT AND REVIEW (SPOILER ALERT)
The main plotline in the drama revolves around Kang Seo-hae, a young woman from the future who time travels to the present day (2020) in order to prevent a nuclear war from decimating South Korea. In order to do this, she needs to prevent Han Tae-sul, the genius engineer CEO of Quantum & Time, from creating a quantum teleportation machine (basically a time machine) known as the "uploader", and throughout the series, they have to go up against people who Tae-sul thought were on his side and even newfound foes like the time traveler-catching Control Bureau Team 7 among others.
The best part of this series was undoubtedly the set pieces. The drama prided itself and having awesome action sequences and it executes that fairly well, with episode 1 alone having given us that intense plane crash scene. The coolest sets have to be the ones from the dystopian future because everything just looks awesome. The dilapidated buildings, rubble strewn everywhere, abandoned amusement parks and shopping malls, and even just the barren landscape of this post-apocalyptic South Korea, everything was designed beautifully and realistically, fully immersing you in that environment. You can really tell that tell that the showrunners have put their about 20 million USD budget to good use there.
Another thing that I want to praise are the performances by the cast. This is the first drama I've seen with Cho Seung-woo in it and he really kills his role as the cocky and self-assured Tae-sul, masking his insecurities and guilt under a mask of aloof confidence. The minute changes in his behaviour are portrayed expertly by Cho and you feel every ounce of emotion from him. Park Shin-hye also does a pretty good job as Seo-hae and excels as the action heroine, showcasing her kickass fighting skills. She's a really badass character who, at the same time, is also prone to really cute moments, whether it's not understanding present day tropes or sayings because she lived in a dystopian future where these things don't exist, or just enjoying the childhood she never got to experience because of the war. Apart from our two leads, I also want to give special mention to Sung Dong-il and Kim Byung-chul, who play the supporting characters of Park Hyeong-do and Sigma respectively.
Hyeong-do is a broker from the future who helps to secure safe passage for time travelers and all things considered, is a pretty terrible guy. He's violent, generally unscrupulous and for a good majority of the drama, he's practically a secondary antagonist. I'm more used to seeing Sung Dong-il take on comedic roles like in the Reply series or My Girlfriend Is a Gumiho so it was really cool to see him take on a rougher gangster-like role (of course still providing a good amount of comedy for this drama). It really displays his acting chops as a veteran in the industry. As for main villain Sigma (who I'll elaborate more on later), Kim Byung-chul portrays him wonderfully, as a deranged psychopath who feels scorned by the world and hence wants to destroy it. Kim has made his name playing antagonistic or villainous characters in many dramas (just watch Sky Castle or Guardian: The Lonely and Great God if you're looking for examples) and this is no different, for he really brings across the creepy vibe that Sigma has. I think Kim Byung-chul might really be one of the most stellar "villain" actors in South Korea.
I've given compliments for this drama so far but that's pretty much where it stops because there's a lot to dislike here. For starters, the story and character motivations leave a lot to be desired. The story is a whole mess and like I correctly mentioned in my initial thoughts post, the drama's title actually references a very important idea throughout this series. The legend of Sisyphus is basically a story representing futility and this is represented in the drama by multiple characters mentioning that no matter what happens in the past (or in their case the present day), the events of the future won't change. That idea is functionally main villain Sigma's backup plan because he's relived the drama's events many many times and each time he comes out on top no matter what the heroes attempt, hence the drama's title of Sisyphus: The Myth. I applaud the drama's attempts at creating "rules" for the rampant time traveling and tying that into philosophical content but because of this, the story is paper thin and quickly breaks down because of bad writing.
Unlike popular Western films like Avengers: Endgame, which sought to explain time travel as creating alternate timelines rather than actually changing the future, this drama has literally stated that changing the events of the past won't affect the future because our heroes have actually done this multiple times and each time, they lose, with Seo-hae from the future going back in time once again to re-attempt stopping the war. Confused already? I expected as much because this timey wimey mumbo jumbo is where the drama places a lot of heavy emphasis on. Even though this was established beforehand, somehow they're miraculously able to change the future because of a deus ex machina known as "time paradox" (I'm not kidding this is literally what they called it in the drama). As an unspoken rule the time travelers can't interact with their past selves because this will cause some kind of weird time distortion thing and both selves will merge together, melding their memories into one. This is literally what happens to Tae-sul when he comes into contact with dust made from the bones of his dead future self and he magically knows how to beat Sigma because he's "seen the future". I mean, what? Why is this only happening now? Why didn't it happen in all their previous attempts to stop the war?
In all their previous attempts, our heroes fail because Sigma tells Tae-sul to choose between saving a wounded Seo-hae or the world and each time Tae-sul chooses to save her, creating the uploader and dooming South Korea to nuclear decimation. However, the Seo-hae that dies in 2020 isn't actually the present day Seo-hae but instead Seo-hae from 2035. It's a time paradox because the nuclear war can only happen if Tae-sul chooses to save 2035 Seo-hae by creating the uploader but both of them die as a result of the war. However, 2020 Seo-hae (who's actually an 8 year old kid) survives the bombing and is raised by her father to be a warrior. 2020 Seo-hae then grows up to once again become 2035 Seo-hae, who then comes across the skeletons of the previous 2035 Seo-hae and Tae-sul, as well as discovering a diary that has a note written from her previous self to her current self, telling her to go back in time and stop the war by saving Tae-sul. So the new 2035 Seo-hae will go back to 2020 and attempt to stop the war again but she'll exist at the same time as 2020 Seo-hae (even though they don't interact so it's fine). Rinse and repeat. 2035 Seo-hae will keep dying but she won't be erased from the timeline because 2020 Seo-hae will still be alive and grow up to become the next 2035 Seo-hae and repeat the cycle all over again. At the same time, Sigma has to keep existing as well and his own existence is a time paradox. Heck, the entire drama plot is a time paradox because there's no start or end to events, it's just a continuous loop of bad writing.
If you weren't confused earlier, you're probably confused by now and this is the biggest problem with the drama. Of course the drama can't actually have our heroes fail, oh no, that would be a cardinal sin in the K-drama realm so by some miracle, the events of the future are altered because Sigma is killed by an unknown sniper at the series' climax. Seo-hae and Tae-sul then run off to use the uploader for a final time to be transported back to a few hours ago, where they set off a series of events that'll lead to them being the ones that killed Sigma, while at the same time coexisting at the same point in time as their past selves from a few hours ago. What? It's made pretty clear to us that two versions of the same person from different points in time can't exist at the same time but both Tae-sul and Seo-hae were completely fine (although Seo-hae did suffer from some distortion). This is yet another event that'll keep repeating itself over and over. What terrible writing.
Let's take a look at our leads as well, with Tae-sul first. After getting dragged into this fantastical science fiction world of time travel, something which his present day self has no knowledge of, and after finding out that his brother Tae-san faked his death, his character motivation then becomes finding out what happened to his brother and actually meeting him again. This is the case for a good portion of the series, Tae-sul wanting to find out and get closure for his guilt. Eventually, after a series of events that are too convoluted to explain, the brothers meet again, this time in one of their past memories, and Tae-sul just sort of accepts everything Tae-san tells him and moves on. Just like that, one of our hero's central motivations disappears. Apart from this "brother arc", Tae-sul's other motivation is to stop the war but if you really think about it, there's no reason for him to do this because he dies more or less as the war starts, something that's confirmed throughout the series. All for what, a woman who'll disappear anyway if he doesn't create the uploader and stop the war? I don't understand his motivations.
At least Seo-hae has some kind of motivation because she wants to save her mother, who died just as the nuclear bomb went off. That's a perfectly good reason to want to stop the war and I'm honestly fine with her character wanting to do that. I just can't stand Tae-sul being such a superficial character. Another big gripe I have is the leads' chemistry. We been knew that Tae-sul and Seo-hae were going to end up as a couple (just like K-drama laws dictate) but they have absolutely zero romantic chemistry with each other. I want to preface this by saying that not having romantic chemistry doesn't mean that they can't have cute moments because we got a few of that despite the fact that I don't think this couple feels natural. There's no start to their romance it just happens. With lots of K-dramas, romances can be executed well when there's a build-up to it but we didn't get that with this one. I really don't understand why they end up together at all or how they even fall in love.
Our leads aren't the only characters where plot convenience is shoehorned into their backstories. Hyeong-do, who I really enjoyed as a character, is revealed to have somewhat benevolent motivations behind his gruff exterior. It's revealed that his 2020 self was an abusive alcoholic who constantly beats his wife for a variety of reasons, including receiving 3 million won every month from an unknown person. That unknown person is future Hyeong-do by the way. The abuse gets more and more violent until 2020 Hyeong-do is actually about to kill his wife but future Hyeong-do steps in and shoots him dead. Future Hyeong-do then gets arrested and jailed, which allows him to survive the nuclear war, wracked with guilt and regret over the abuse he inflicted in the past, which prompts him to go back and make things right, or at least that's what the story presents to us. Now, here's the thing. The drama has made it known that if you kill someone's past self, their future selves cease to exist. If that's the case, why wasn't Hyeong-do wiped from existence when he killed his past self? I don't understand it. I for one think that this tragic backstory of his is fine and all but I just can't overlook the plot holes.
Another thing is that in the final episode, it's revealed that Bing Bing (played by Lee Si-woo), one of Hyeong-do's broker associates and a time traveler, is actually his grown up daughter Ji-hun. She traveled back to 2020 and is waiting for her mother to join her but never makes her true identity known to Hyeong-do until right before he attempts murder. What was the point of this? Why did the showrunners feel the need to include this plotline, which could potentially have been way more interesting if introduced earlier or weaved in better? Instead, we just got more unnecessary subplots at the eleventh hour, which just added to more of the drama's problems.
I also felt the drama ended way too abruptly and too nonsensically. Full disclosure, after our heroes miraculously (seemingly) change the future by killing Sigma, with Seo-hae slowly fading away, we're hit with yet another crazy plot element. As Seo-hae stops fading much to our leads' surprise, Eddie Kim (played by Tae In-ho), Quantum & Time's co-CEO and Tae-sul's best friend, bursts in and shoots Seo-hae, attempting to finish Sigma's job for him. Instead of Sigma being the one who asks Tae-sul to choose between the girl or the world, it's now Eddie who does this. First of all, Eddie has really lame motivations that felt very shoehorned in. His entire villainous arc is because Tae-sul doesn't care about him. Literally, that's all it is. He resents Tae-sul for always looking down on him even though Eddie always cleans up after him, which then leads him to decide that yes, I'll go back in time after the nuclear war to take everything away from Tae-sul. What kind of lousy motivation is that? You can't just shoehorn this into the final episode and expect viewers to enjoy it. Throughout the drama Eddie has shown his open distaste for Tae-sul's erratic behaviour but is still a good person who actually cares for his friend but because he's a huge simp for Seo-jin, he snaps and becomes another bad guy. What were the screenwriters thinking when they brought this in?
Anyway, Tae-sul realises that if killing Sigma doesn't prevent the war, the only way to truly stop the war is to kill himself. And he does it! The mad lad shoots himself, preventing the uploader from being created, erasing all the time travelers from existence and stopping the war. Before she fades away, Seo-hae promises to find Tae-sul no matter what, which (again) doesn't make sense. The series itself ends with Tae-sul waking up on the plane ride in episode 1, with Seo-hae somehow next to him. He's understandably confused and is about to take his "anti-hallucination" pills but decides against it, merely accepting that he's now happy and we're left with a very weird and abrupt typical K-drama happy ending. Is this a dream sequence? If it's not, is this past Tae-sul? If it is, how is he able to recognise Seo-hae considering that at this point in the timeline Tae-sul has no idea who Seo-hae is? Like I've mentioned so many times above, the screenwriters have bent and manipulated their own established time travel rules to their own liking just to fit their own storyline, and it culminates in this ambiguous ending which throws common sense completely out the window.
That's not even the final final ending of the series. I didn't exactly delve into Sigma's role but basically he used to be Seo Won-ju, Tae-sul's elementary school classmate, who goes down the path of insanity after killing both his abusive father and his innocent grandmother. In 2020, Won-ju has taken on the name Seo Gil-bok, who's a struggling painter who contemplates suicide after being caught by the police for sending hate comments to Tae-sul (who he never forgave) but as he's about to commit suicide, the war breaks out, giving him a second chance and transforming him into Sigma. This is another time paradox that I've grown too tired and confused by to care about any longer. Anyway, after Tae-sul saves the world, Gil-bok is seemingly rehabilitated and is now making a living by painting calligraphic portraits in a park. Of course, nothing is as it seems as when he returns home, he talks to a creepy painting he drew of Tae-sul and even starts to act even crazier, bringing back one of his previous phrases from his villainous time "don't look at me with those eyes". He also has a notebook filled with information about all the time traveling shenanigans and coupled with his lingering craziness, it's evident to us that Sigma is still lurking somewhere in the recesses of Gil-bok's mind and is just waiting to emerge.
The drama sets up this cliffhanger ending of Sigma potentially making a return but at the same time, we don't get answers to any other characters, other than our leads and main villain. What happened to Eddie after he's presumably found with Tae-sul's dead body and a gun on the floor? How will Seo-jin deal with the fact that she no longer has the medicine from Sigma to save her mother? How will a young Seo-hae grow up since she doesn't have to go through war? What has happened to 2020 Hyeong-do and his family? Did Jae-sun end up finding his family in the USA? What happened to the members of Control Bureau Team 7? What will happen to Han Tae-san considering he's registered as dead? I don't understand why the screenwriters have chosen not to touch on any of these characters and what happened to them now that the war never happened, instead giving us a nonsensical ending that doesn't elicit satisfaction.
I glossed over many plot details so there might be a lot of question marks when you read this post and see character names that I didn't explain but in truth, it doesn't matter. No matter how I try to explain these characters nothing will change the fact that this was a poorly written drama that focused more on big action sets and typical K-drama tropes like romance, all while tying in a paper thin plot and a weak attempt at explaining time travel. I know there're only so many things that can be done in 16 episodes but by choosing to dive completely down the rabbit hole of science fiction with time travel, leaving little to fantasy, the screenwriters have missed out on a lot of potential storylines and interesting elements that could've been weaved in to make a better product. Sisyphus: The Myth is a confusing drama, there's no doubt about that, but if the screenwriters had just put in a little more effort in their ending and fleshing out their characters, it could've been much better and not left me in such a state of even more confusion by the end. What a wasted opportunity, especially for such a hyped up drama. Thanks for reading.
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