“Boots” begins with best friends Cameron Cope (Miles Heizer, “13 Reasons Why“) and Ray McAffey (Liam Oh) deciding to join the Marines. Soon, the two young men and other recruits find themselves on a bus bound for the Marine Corps Recruit Depot at Parris Island, which Cam mistakenly pictures as a camping excursion. But soon after the transport pulls into the base, the torture begins.

Drill sergeants greet them with abusive screaming before shaving their heads and shoving uniforms into their hands. Cam is appalled at the lack of privacy in the bathrooms. He quickly concludes he’s made a huge mistake, but he’s not alone. The next morning, when the recruits are ordered to shave, one nervously eyes his razor and curses to himself.

“What’s the matter? You got sensitive skin?” another recruit says tauntingly. But the young man simply replies, “I’ve got my skin.”

Like every other branch of the United States’ armed forces, the Marine Corps has standards that it drills into its personnel, the most key being those that instill the importance of “finding individual purpose in a collective cause.” That quote comes from the Marines’ official website, not the speech Pete Hegseth inflicted on the generals, admirals and senior enlisted personnel he called to Quantico, Virginia, on Sept. 30.

In Hegseth’s “warrior” fantasies, the greatness of our military rests in a rigid conformity to what he refers to as gender-neutral age-normed male standards. The former Fox News personality turned Defense Secretary explained that meant no “fat troops,” fewer women in combat roles and, amazingly, “No beardos.”

(Netflix) Nicholas Logan as Sgt. Howitt, Liam Oh as Ray McAffey and Zach Roerig as Sgt. Knox in “Boots”

That term wasn’t the only frat bro idiocy Hegseth tossed off in this blender of oratory embarrassment; he also warned our enemies to “FAFO.” But it has discriminatory implications.

Hegseth was referring to enlisted personnel who have been allowed waivers for religious or medical purposes, such as Orthodox Jewish, Sikh or Muslim personnel. But it also disparages those susceptible to pseudofolliculitis barbae, a medical condition primarily affecting Black men like the show’s razor-shy recruit, wherein regular shaving causes inflammation and a higher likelihood of scarring and developing keloids.

“Of course, being a racist has been illegal in our formation since 1948. The same goes for sexual harassment,” Hegseth offered, possibly to cover his backside, only to expose it again a few sentences later. “But telling someone to shave or get a haircut or to get in shape or to fix their uniform or to show up on time, to work hard, that’s exactly the kind of discrimination we want.”

And when were the American military’s standards at their most glorious? In 1990, it seems.

Hegseth is a believer in what he refers to as “the 1990 test.” “The 1990 test is simple. What were the military standards in 1990? And if they have changed, tell me why,” he said to the stone-faced senior officers gathered before him, every single one of them possessing more military experience than him. “Was it a necessary change based on the evolving landscape of combat, or was the change due to a softening, weakening or gender-based pursuit of other priorities? 1990 seems to be as good a place to start as any.”

Purely by coincidence, 1990 is when “Boots” begins.

Every military movie or TV show is a soft recruitment tool, intentionally or otherwise. (One covert midnight conversation between Cam and Ray jokingly nods at this, when Ray asks his best friend if he watched “Full Metal Jacket” as he instructed him to, and Cam confesses he got caught up in a “Golden Girls” marathon instead.) In her 1986 review, the legendary Pauline Kael famously summed up “Top Gun” as “a recruiting poster that isn’t concerned with recruiting but with being a poster.” Nevertheless, it was given credit for a modest enlistment bump that year. The jingoistic propaganda haloing “Top Gun: Maverick” puffed up an American ego deflated by the pandemic.

“Boots” isn’t like most cinematic Defense Department military-entertainment complex propaganda. This adaptation of Greg Cope White’s memoir, “The Pink Marine,” refutes Hegseth’s theory of inhumane treatment as the best way to build warriors while cautioning against returning to what he considers to be the “basics of basic.”

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Weeks before his basic experience, we meet Cam fresh out of high school and still soaked in toilet water from his bullies’ final baptism. Even with that chapter behind him, he fails to see a brighter future. Aimlessness runs in his family: His emotionally absent mother, Barbara (Vera Farmiga), is on the verge of uprooting their lives again, as he explains to a new friend, due to an aversion to facing the consequences of her actions.

But Barbara’s main flaw is a lack of caring. Although she claims that Cam is her favorite kid, she only half-listens to him when he says he’s headed to boot camp, instructing him to return home with a carton of milk.

Parris Island’s staff, perversely enough, represents the exact opposite of Barbara’s parenting style. Its drill sergeants are on Cam and the rest of his new platoon like flies on dung from the moment they wake until they go to sleep. The end of a rushed first meal is marked by Staff Sgt. McKinnon (Cedrick Cooper) ordering Cam to finish his plate so he can gain weight. Of course, McKinnon does it in the worst way possible, forcing Cam to fish the leftovers he’s scraped from his tray out of the garbage and making sure the recruit stuffs them in his mouth.

(Netflix) Johnathan Nieves as Ochoa and Ana Ayora as Capt. Denise Fajardo in “Boots”

Hegseth told his top officers that drill sergeants should be free to psychologically and verbally abuse the people they train in his manner —  “and yes, they can put their hands on recruits,” he assured his generals. “Boots” depicts what that looks like, including in a scene when a sergeant punches one young man hard enough to send him to the infirmary, simply for cutting his eyes at him.

But the lesson isn’t for the recruit to learn. McKinnon penalizes his fellow drill sergeant by dismissing him from overseeing that unit. Assaulting inexperienced servicemen doesn’t make them warriors. Teaching them how to survive while helping the people around them gets that job done.

In this way, “Boots” espouses a determinist philosophy meant to inspire the types of people Hegseth wants to scrub from the U.S. military or bar from serving. In its portrayal, strength isn’t about posturing but an individual hallmark that can be shored up and channeled. Cam came to the Marines to transform himself. The only trait military training can’t change is his queerness.

Fictionalized versions of real-world scenarios are never going to be as accurate as the true experience, but the show’s 1990 version of a platoon better approximates the Marines’ professed ideal. It is composed of Latinos, a Black college-bound overachiever, a barely literate country boy and an aggressive goon who chose the Marines over a prison sentence. Ray is the son of an Asian woman and a serviceman who fought in Vietnam. A pair of brothers are also part of his band, one muscular, dim and arrogant, and the other intelligent, sensitive and fat.

The camp’s commanding officer, Captain Fajardo (Ana Ayora), is a Hispanic woman. McKinnon is carrying on a family tradition of military service dating back to the first year that Black men were allowed to enlist.

Everybody in Cam’s platoon has something to prove or an internalized inadequacy to overcome, which is what drew him to boot camp, too. Up to and including his high school graduation, Cam was brutalized by his classmates, who found him to be easy pickings. The Marines promise to make him battle-ready. As for the part of his identity he must keep hidden, that’s a fight he must figure out on his own.

Barring homosexuals from serving in the military was one of those standards that’s changed several times since 1990, first with the implication of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” during the Clinton administration, then with its full abolition in 2011, allowing openly LGBTQ people to serve in the armed forces. For most of the dramedy’s eight episodes, the only person who knows about Cam’s sexual orientation is Ray. Eventually, others recognize it because they’re also closeted.

(Patti Perret/Netflix) Miles Heizer as Cameron Cope in “Boots”

What they do with that knowledge, however, affirms the necessity of the military’s shift toward accepting broader diversity in its ranks. Hegseth shrugged at the prospect of more restrictive fitness tests disqualifying women who are currently serving capably and with honor from combat jobs — “So be it,” he said — while also celebrating that his envisioned standards would also mean “weak” men won’t qualify. He means men like Cam, who barely passes the first fitness qualifier.

Hegseth’s imaginings of scrawny mice who don’t deserve to fight for America are nothing like the reality lived by people like Heizer’s green recruit, who steadily improves and sharpens over his 13 weeks of basic training.

His story is one of determination, unearthed as a rebuttal to the many insistences that he doesn’t belong in the Marines. One particularly strict drill instructor, Sergeant Sullivan (Max Parker), pushes that on him to an aggravating degree. Later, we find out that he, too, has spent his military career striving to be the best of the best as a survival mechanism.

That shaving scene referenced earlier dramatizes why this and other supposedly neutral policies painfully disfavor some people without diving into a medical manual. The recruit in question isn’t “sensitive,” which would imply weakness. His skin simply has challenges that most of his peers don’t ever need to worry about.

Since this is feel-good TV, McKinnon quietly strides over to the man and places a can of depilatory powder on his sink top, giving him a meaningful look before walking away. The implied message may as well be a reveille blare: Nothing so minor should get in the way of anyone’s aspirations to serve their country. However, the viewer should also bear in mind that real boot camps aren’t likely to have such sympathetic superiors — and maybe even fewer of them henceforth, if our so-called Secretary of War has his way.

“Boots” is currently streaming on Netflix.

The following review of Wayward on Netflix contains some spoilers.

Wayward, an eight-episode queer horror series on Netflix created by Mae Martin, opens with an escape. A young boy pulls himself through the window of a building in the night and runs to the property’s edge. A woman’s voice cuts through the sounds of his panting and heavy footsteps, echoing a verse that will soon become as disturbing for viewers to hear as it is for the young characters of this show. He pulls himself over a barbed-wire fence and eventually plummets into a swampy lake to evade his captors. In the lake? A door. An image that will also soon haunt viewers. In Tall Pines, the small Vermont town where Wayward is set, there is no escaping the damage adults do to teens, all in the name of supposedly undoing the damage adults do to teens.

The year is 2003. The boy will soon be dead. It’s difficult — if not impossible — to fully make it out of Tall Pines, a town defined and ultimately run by its eponymously named “school” for troubled teens that functions much more similarly to prison. Across the border in Toronto, we meet high school girls and best friends Abbie (Sydney Topliffe) and Leila (Alyvia Alyn Lind). They care more about music, getting high, and being together than they do about going to class. They are, by all accounts, regular teens. Sure, a little damaged (Leila’s got a dead sister she metaphorically carries around with her) and a little disobedient (Abbie refuses to kowtow to her rich family’s expectations for her, but to be fair…her dad doesn’t really try to hide his disdain for her). But they are just kids acting out, sometimes encouraging each other’s worst habits, as teens in these ultra close friendships often do. The adults in their lives, though, see them as something worse, as wholly broken menaces to society. Abbie ends up forcibly shipped off to Tall Pines, and when Leila follows her there in an ill-advised but loving rescue attempt, she ends up pushed into the Tall Pines system, too, where kids from all walks of life are forced to adhere to strict codes of conduct and ascend their way through a series of “levels” designed supposedly to help them achieve their highest selves, accompanied by “therapy” methods that even the teens know are rooted in junk science.

If it sounds like a cult, it is. And it’s all run by Evelyn, a woman who looks like she walked straight out of the 1970s and into 2003. She’s played by Toni Collette — an inspired casting choice. Collette has the range to portray the character’s wickedness while still, somehow, making her human. It’s not that we ever feel for Evelyn or empathize with her choices; rather, her evil tendencies feel so believable, so reflective of the real world where too many adults think teens must be controlled, manipulated, and formed into some sort of dutiful soldier. Her kind of evil is the human kind. She’s power-hungry and obsessed with the idea of suppressing anything remotely perceived as free will or rebellion in children. She’s not unlike the Moms for Liberty.

(Side note: If I don’t see Evelyns this Halloween, I’ll be sorely disappointed.)

While most of our teen protagonists are desperately trying to get out of Tall Pines, our two adult protagonists — married couple Alex (Mae Martin) and Laura (Sarah Gadon) — are actually moving to this strange place. Laura, who is pregnant, is a graduate of Tall Pines, and she has told her husband very little about her past and this place. Alex is a trans dude and also a cop. I spent much of my time watching the series trying to figure out if the writing decision to make his character a cop pays off in any meaningful way. Sure, the series is far from celebratory of the police. The local cops are just one violent cog in the whole violent machine of the Tall Pines project. But it feels at times as if Alex is here to be the “one good cop,” a trope that rarely lands and often actively works against any critique of policing in a narrative. He seems to be a cop mostly for the sake of servicing the plot, but I can’t help but think there would have been other ways to position him as the investigative outsider to the world of Tall Pines.

Considering he’s a small-town cop in 2003, Alex’s transness is pretty chill. No one else in town seems to bat an eye at it, and he casually talks about his T shots and other everyday aspects of trans life. Many of the show’s characters are queer, including bisexual teen Leila and one of the school’s guards (and Evelyn’s main foot soldier) Rabbit. Queerness and transness are not presented as problems to be solved in Wayward. Tall Pines Academy doesn’t pray the gay away. More accurately, it drugs and tortures the soul away. The choice to make Wayward less about queerness and more about obsessive control over all teens’ autonomy works quite well. It’s a stark reminder that the real-world targeting of queer and trans kids does in fact hurt all kids in their abilities to express themselves and live freely.

The series is at its best when really leaning into its horror elements, epitomized in episode six (six through eight is the strongest stretch by far, and the ending is so thoroughly haunting), when Evelyn forcibly makes Leila relive the day her sister died, the past and present merging in disturbing ways. In general, the series harnesses some of the same strengths as Yellowjackets, particularly in the way it lays breadcrumbs for supernatural potential. The hold Evelyn has over her followers, the doors, the memory disruptions, the toads croaking — there’s so much to suggest something supernatural is afoot, but for all its horror and surreal devices, Wayward is starkly rooted in reality. Just as Yellowjackets shows, the destabilizing effects of trauma can sometimes be experienced as the supernatural. Far too many reform schools like the one depicted operate in this country with little oversight. Many target queer and trans teens specifically. Wayward is not some work of science-fiction; it captures real-life horror and, despite its 2003 setting, feels achingly of-the-moment considering present-day rampant attempts to indoctrinate, control, and punitively punish youth as a tool of fascism.

The cult mentality that rules Tall Pines is predicated on the belief that intergenerational trauma can be broken, but it also relies on the same methods of dominance, rules, and punishment to supposedly undo those horrors, breaking patterns by reinforcing new ones. Sydney Topliffe and Alyvia Alyn Lind give standout performances as the series’ central “troubled” teens, depicting Abbie and Leila as fully realized characters, giving them all the depth and agency the fictional adults on the show try to stamp out. Sarah Gadon’s performance is subtle, Laura’s behavior gradually becoming more unnerving to both Alex and the viewer.

Wayward gives just enough of the town’s backstory and the roots of its mystery to provide enough narrative scaffolding without becoming overly bogged down by the worldbuilding and mythology. At the end of the day, it’s not hard to imagine why this town operates the way it does. Attempts to control youth are baked into this country’s penal history. Wayward just takes those nightmarish realities and makes them more on-the-nose. Even when the writing isn’t at its tightest, the result is quite terrifying.

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Ransom Canyon‘s Andrew Liner hinted at a significant story line for Reid in season 2 before his shocking exit from the show.

News broke on Monday, September 22, that Liner, 24, and his onscreen dad, Eoin Macken, will not be returning as series regulars. It is unclear whether they could return in a guest star capacity after they were both large parts of the hit Netflix show’s first season.

Ransom Canyon, which premiered in April, put Reid through the wringer as he was initially mourning the loss of his cousin-in-law while fresh off a breakup with ex Lauren (Lizzy Greene). As the first season unfolded, Reid found himself at odds with his dad, Davis (Macken) and in a love triangle with Lauren and Lucas (Garrett Wareing).

Liner spoke exclusively to Us Weekly in April about where he saw Reid’s story going next.

“He should have never gone against his family. He was trying to do the right thing and he’s figuring out what is right for him. He’s constantly in this battle of what is good,” Liner explained. “I think that the most interesting stuff is going to be with his dad, with his mom and figuring out that world. Because we don’t get to see much of it in season 1 — even though it’s discussed a lot and we get to see glimpses. I am very fascinated with that.”

At the time, Liner praised Ransom Canyon for investing time in Reid’s friendship with Lucas.

“There is something to say about male friendships in general. It feels like it is a deep love,” he continued. “So I think that having that you see them come together as friends — because they’re not from jump — is a version of its own love story. But maybe it’s not as romantic.”

The actor also looked ahead at Reid’s love life. While Lauren chose Lucas in the season 1 finale, Liner expressed hope that Reid would find someone special too. (He even called Us‘ pitch for his former Vampire Academy love interest Sisi Stringer to play his Ransom Canyon girlfriend “really interesting.”)

Related: What to Know About ‘Ransom Canyon’ Season 2 After Triangles and Twists

Ransom Canyon has finally been renewed for season 2 — and there have already been teases about possible love triangle outcomes, spinoff plans and more. Based on Jodi Thomas‘ book series of the same name, Ransom Canyon introduced Us to a town full of drama, romance and hope. The first season kicked off with stoic […]

“There is something to say about being on the losing side of a love triangle because oftentimes, in the most dramatic ways of TV and movies, the guy who loses is obviously the best choice,” he noted before confirming that “the door is open” for season 2.

“Reid is in a very complicated state of mind where he is ready to be truly bad or truly good,” Liner teased. “It’s the decision of whether or not he wants to lean into one or the other. So maybe he does find a girl and it’s them together forever — or maybe he’s going to go on a tear. I don’t know which way we’re going to go.”

Ransom Canyon has been renewed for season 2 and is currently streaming on Netflix.

Selling the OC’s newest cast member, Ashtyn Zerboni, is a new mom!

The luxury real estate agent revealed exclusively to Us Weekly that she welcomed a daughter, Juliette Jolie, with husband Jeffrey Zerboni on Tuesday, July 22. She also shared a photo of herself snuggling Juliette as Jeffrey stood next to her hospital bed.

“There are moments in life that change you forever — and for me, meeting our daughter for the first time was one of them. On the beautiful summer evening of July 22 [at] 7:45 p.m. Jeffrey and I welcomed our baby girl into the world: Juliette Jolie Zerboni. She weighed 6 pounds and 9 ounces,” Ashtyn shared with Us.

Ashtyn said it was “a special process” choosing her baby girl’s name.

“We wanted something soft and elegant, something that felt like her — even before we knew her,” she explained. “Juliette was inspired by Jeffrey’s roots — he was born in Nice, France, and we both loved the timeless romantic beauty of the name. Her middle name, Jolie, means ‘pretty’ in French, and it just felt so natural and fitting for the little girl we’d been dreaming of.”

Related: Do ‘Selling Sunset’ Stars Actually Sell Homes — And How Much Do They Make?

Real estate agents who look like supermodels sashaying down spectacular glass staircases overlooking glistening infinity pools. Asking prices with so many zeros on, you don’t even know how to say them out loud. Colleagues who spend more time flirting, fighting and eating in moodily lit small-plate restaurants than they do actually working. It’s fair to […]

Ashtyn added, “But perhaps the most touching part of Juliette’s name is the nickname that Jeffrey plans to call her: ‘Jo.’ It’s a sweet tribute to his late father, Joseph, who recently passed away. Carrying his name forward in this quiet, powerful way ensures that his memory will always be woven into the fabric of Juliette’s life.”

Ashtyn said that everyone in Jeffrey’s family has a “J” name, so monogrammed “JZ” hand-me-downs are plentiful and will “work perfectly” for their new addition.

“Jeffrey and I are completely smitten,” she said. “We spent our day just staring at her little face, soaking in the tiniest expressions and moments. She’s brought so much love and light into our lives — more than we ever imagined possible.”

Ashtyn has had a busy few weeks, as she was recently cast in Netflix’s Selling the OC, which follows the Oppenheim Group’s Orange County real estate agents. “The secret’s out… I’m one of the newest cast members on Selling the OC Season 4,” she shared via Instagram on July 14.

The former model and actress has “a passion for high fashion, photography and the arts,” according to Netflix’s Tudum and is known “for her commitment to personalized service and leveraging her thriving social network to unlock exclusive opportunities for her clients.”

Related: ‘Selling Sunset’ Cast’s Love Lives: Who the Netflix Stars Are Dating Off Screen

Selling Sunset is partly about the luxury home market in Southern California, but it still devotes plenty of airtime to the cast’s personal lives. When the agents of the Oppenheim Group aren’t pounding the pavement in five-inch stilettos, they’re sitting around their West Hollywood office catching up on gossip with their coworkers — especially the […]

In addition to returning cast members Jason Oppenheim, Alex Hall, Polly Brindle, Tyler Stanaland, Gio Helou, Austin Victoria, and Brandi Marshall, Ashtyn and two other agents — Fiona Belle and Kaylee Ricciardi — will be joining the Orange County office when season 4 premieres on November 12.

“It’s been exciting, surreal and definitely a whirlwind. But through all of that, nothing compares to the love I feel holding our baby girl,” Ashtyn told Us. “So here we are — a new baby, a new chapter and a heart fuller than I ever thought mine could be. Juliette Jolie Zerboni is sure to grow up surrounded by a whole lot of love — and a little bit of Hollywood sparkle.”

With reporting by Erin Strecker

On Location peels back the curtain on some of your favorite films, television shows, and more.

If Lena Dunham’s first TV hit, Girls, was her millennial-generation answer to Sex and the City, then her latest is a touching salute to all things British. Too Much is a 10-episode riff on the great Richard Curtis romcom model, from Four Weddings and a Funeral to Bridget Jones, complete with nods to the Jane Austen period dramas that gave him his template.

Also taking cues from the success of Emily in Paris, the show plunges heartbroken New Yorker Jess (character comedian Megan Stalter, recently seen in Hacks) into the heart of hipster London and the arms of tall, handsome and complicated indie singer Felix (Will Sharpe of The White Lotus Season two, Giri/Haji and more). Making merry with the clash between romcom London and the grubbier, grittier (but still pretty glamorous) real thing, it’s London-based expat Dunham having fun with friends in her new home.

Emily Ratajkowski on the streets of Brooklyn in Too Much.

Netflix

While there’s still some of the angst and self-searching of Girls, Too Much is classic odd-couple romcom. The two leads are excellent, boldly resisting the threat of a glittering cast that includes Jennifer Saunders, Richard E Grant, Andrew Scott of Fleabag, Stephen Fry, French star Adèle Exarchopoulos, and a ridiculous number of other familiar faces.

Just as important is the backdrop, which takes us all over London and beyond to stately Home Counties, down dark alleys and across landscaped lawns, as if searching for the essence of England, real and imagined. Here, not including the shot of Tower Bridge that opens the show, is our guide to the highlights.

Where is Jess’s flat in Too Much?

When Jess arrives in London, she finds her Airbnb is not quite as expected. She’s booked herself into the “Hoxton Grove Estate” with an idea of the country-house lawns of her English romcom dreams, but finds herself instead in the heart of the city. Although Too Much does use a number of real-life London locations, Hoxton Grove doesn’t in fact exist; the production used St Peter’s Estate, a 1960s red-brick complex, for the exteriors and filmed the interior on a soundstage.

In recent decades, South Korea has released a variety of exceptional thrillers into the global film and TV scene. Bong Joon-ho‘s history-making masterpiece Parasite and Hwang Dong-hkuk‘s international phenomenon Squid Game both connected with international audiences through their incisive look at the ills of capitalism. Park Chan-wook‘s devastating Oldboy and Kim Jee-woon‘s I Saw the Devil take audiences and protagonists alike to dark places. Jung Byung-Gil‘s The Man from Nowhere is exceptional, while Na Hong-jin‘s horrific The Wailing is one of the better supernatural horror films in our era.

Many of these projects blend unflinching looks at human villainy, visceral action, surprising plot twists, and high production value to create some of the most watchable and heart-pounding thrillers we’ve seen. In Mercy for None, So Ji-seob powerfully adeptly plays an emotional juggernaut on a campaign of revenge. Some of it requires suspension of disbelief, but it’s a gritty, action-packed, twisty thriller that satisfies the itch to see hundreds of gangsters yeeted across a room by a very sad man.

What Is ‘Mercy for None’ About?

Eleven years before the events of Mercy for None, legendary gangster Nam Ki-jun (So Ji-seob) has long since abandoned a life of crime (severing his Achilles tendon to do so). When his younger brother, Nam Ki-seok (Lee Jun-hyuk), is ambushed and killed, Ki-jun comes out of retirement to hunt down people and leads to discover who killed his brother and why. He puts himself in the crosshairs of a number of criminal organizations as he plows through opposition, even coming face to face with unhinged young mob heir Koo Jun-Mo (Gong Myoung) and his seemingly endless supply of thugs. It spirals into enjoyably unexpected directions as betrayals, secret plans, and the consequences of vengeance come to light.

So Ji-seob gives a strong performance as grizzled protagonist Nam Ki-jun. He’s certainly a character who does more with actions than words, but Ji-seob emotes well, plodding through obstacles and over bodies with an evident sadness befitting a character suffering loss. He also capably handles the action choreography, with his combat feeling natural with expert efficiency. The series features a few distinct sociopaths who are played with flair, including Gong Myoung as heir apparent Koo Jun-mo. An Kil-kang and Heo Jun-ho also adeptly portray dueling gang heads facing a vulnerable truce.

Many projects attempt to be John Wick-esque these days, but Mercy for None actually deserves the title. The “returned ultra-violent criminal carves a body-strewn path through gangland” similarities are clear from Episode 1, but key differences in style set the projects apart. Avoiding guns allows fight sequences to feel gritty, close, and personal, closer in spirit to Oldboy‘s signature hallway hammer fight than to Wick‘s polished gun-fu. The fight sequences are visceral, bloody, and intense, while So Ji-seob conjures his inner Michael Myers and regulates dozens of foes at a time. It’s not always plausible (sometimes he hits a man, and they go flying in irrational ways), but it’s genuinely fun to watch.

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Prepare to be disturbed.

If You Want a Bloody Action Thriller With Flair, Look No Further Than ‘Mercy for None’

There are minor quibbles that could be had with Mercy for None. It doesn’t dive deep into the interiority of Nam Ki-jun or other major characters. Ki-jun is often silent and perpetually vaguely sad, and rarely do we get a deeper sense of any character beyond dangerous motives like revenge or ambition. One has to simply accept that things are happening and leave it there. That said, Mercy for None lands its blood-soaked action sequences and sufficiently surprising plotting to stay engaging, alongside a solid set of central performances that elevate the threadbare characterization.

It’s hard to describe Mercy for None in a way that doesn’t sound like a John Wick ripoff, but it leans into the tropes of South Korean thrillers to elevate an otherwise simple revenge narrative. So Ji-seob is great as the grieving but deadly protagonist, while supporting players give personality to sometimes underdeveloped characters. It’s a simple series that knows exactly what it is–an exploration of how breakable bodies are — and on that score, it delivers in continually entertaining ways. Bones crack, bodies fly, and blood stains the walls of many villains’ hideaways. Some of the characterization could be richer, details could make more sense, and the physics of particular action scenes is occasionally suspect, but it’s a well-executed thriller series nonetheless.

Mercy for None

Fans of action-heavy South Korean thrillers can’t miss Mercy for None.

Release Date

June 6, 2025

Network

Netflix

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Pros & Cons

• So Ji-sub is great as the grieving, violent protagonist, anchoring the character and landing the action sequences.
• The series maintains the high-energy melee flair that the best South Korean thrillers have, with stellar fight choreography.
• The narrative is sufficiently complex to keep the tale fresh and surprising.

• Some of the characters could be written with greater depth, or specific plot threads developed further.