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Through the Darkness · Season 1 · SBS

Through the Darkness Season 1

Through the Darkness Season 1 is a MUST-WATCH, BollyMeter 8.4/10. 12 episodes on SBS from 14 January 2022.

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BollyMeter8.4/10An 8.0 IMDb rating from a substantial international viewer base and a MyDramaList score of 8.7 across 13,558 users place this firmly in the upper tier of Korean crime procedurals. Kim Nam-gil's Daesang win at the SBS Drama Awards anchors a critical consensus that the lead performance alone elevates the material.

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What BollyAI Thinks

Through the Darkness aired on SBS from January to March 2022, adapted from the memoir of Kwon Il-yong, Korea's first criminal profiler. The series follows Song Ha-young as he and his team at the Criminal Behaviour Analysis Unit reconstruct the psychology of serial killers from the 1980s and 90s, a period when Korean law enforcement had no vocabulary for behavioural evidence. Kim Nam-gil won the SBS Daesang for his performance - reserved, methodical, and haunted - which reviewers consistently identified as the anchor of the entire series. The procedural structure is deliberately unglamorous: investigations unfold through paperwork, interviews, and incremental insight rather than thriller set-pieces. The MyDramaList community scored it 8.7 out of 10 across more than 13,500 ratings, placing it among the best-reviewed crime dramas of 2022 on that platform. Critics who covered the show praised its patient storytelling and the authenticity it draws from the source material.

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The Room

8/10IMDb audience
  • “Through the Darkness breaks away from the conventional format and sheds light on those who look into the cases.”
    ZAPZEE

Standout Episodes

The hours worth arguing about - premieres, finales, and the turning points. BollyAI reads the room episode by episode.

  1. E1Episode 18.2

    The premiere establishes the procedural in its most stripped-down form - a detective who believes in reading crime scenes the way a psychologist reads a patient, at a time when Korean law enforcement considers that approach frivolous. The period detail and Kim Nam-gil's physical restraint make an immediate case for the show's seriousness.

    The moment: Song Ha-young's first walk through a crime scene - the camera following his gaze as he reconstructs motive from evidence most officers are already bagging for court.

    Full review of E1 →
  2. E12Episode 128.5

    The finale delivers the personal cost accumulated across twelve episodes and closes on the unit's institutional legitimation - earned, not given. The emotional resolution is as quiet as the procedural method it embodies.

    The moment: The team's formal recognition by a sceptical institution - the scene that confirms the unit's survival and the human price paid for it.

    Full review of E12 →