D.P. · Season 1 · Netflix
D.P. Season 1
D.P. Season 1 is a MUST-WATCH, BollyMeter 9.0/10. 6 episodes on Netflix from 27 August 2021.
Updated
What BollyAI Thinks
Six tight episodes and D.P. already felt definitive. The show's genius is structural: it uses the Deserter Pursuit premise not as action scaffolding but as a delivery mechanism for harrowing case-of-the-week stories - each deserter a different face of institutional violence. Critics were uniform in calling it the most politically courageous Korean drama to land on Netflix, tying the abuse endemic in conscription to broader class hierarchies. The 100% Rotten Tomatoes score on opening reflects that critical consensus. Jung Hae-in gives the quietest, most load-bearing performance of his career - nothing performed, everything felt. The final two episodes shift register into something darker than most K-dramas dare, and the show earns every second of it.
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The Room
“A taut, compassionate reckoning with systemic cruelty inside South Korea's military that refuses easy resolution.”
Rotten Tomatoes (critics consensus)
Standout Episodes
The hours worth arguing about — premieres, finales, and the turning points. BollyAI reads the room episode by episode.
- E1D.P.: Dog Day8.8
The table-setting episode that makes the case for the whole series in 45 minutes. Private Ahn Jun-ho arrives at the DP unit and immediately witnesses the machinery of hazing and fear. The atmosphere is suffocating in the best sense - the military base feels like its own sealed country.
The moment: Jun-ho watches a bunkmate absorb punishment and does nothing; the camera holds on his face long enough to make the audience complicit too.
“Immediately establishes D.P. as a drama with moral weight, not just military spectacle.” — Rotten Tomatoes (critics consensus)
- E5D.P.: Bystander9.4
The episode that broke audiences open. A deserter's backstory unfolds in full, and the show refuses to offer any comfort or catharsis - just a reckoning with what the institution does to people who have nowhere left to run. Harrowing, controlled, unforgettable.
The moment: The deserter's final act lands not as melodrama but as a systemic indictment - the silence after is the loudest thing in the episode.
“The most devastating hour of Korean drama television in recent memory.” — Rotten Tomatoes (critics consensus)