K-drama Mouse: hysterical serial killer series gets off to confusing start
- In this convoluted thriller from tvN, too many plot lines and characters appear in a disorienting narrative that jumps across time and place with abandon
- The show references the usual real-life serial killers, but this is a million miles from the coolly analytical and compelling chills of Netflix’s Mindhunters
Early on in Mouse, a new serial killer drama series from tvN, some politicians and scientists grapple with an interesting moral dilemma. A brilliant geneticist has succeeded in isolating the gene that causes people to become psychopaths – and not only that, he can identify it early in a pregnancy.
The question for these officials is whether to enact legislation that would mandate that these psychopathic fetuses be aborted. The issue is clouded by the geneticist revealing that his test works in 99 cases out of a 100. This is a number that will keep viewers guessing throughout a show that promises many twists and turns, as a series of violent murders grip the country.
Near the end of the opening episode, two pregnant women have a conversation in a hospital corridor. Their babies have both been identified with the psychopath gene. In one case the father is the notorious “headhunter” serial killer, who has just been caught, in the other the father was a kind man who recently died. Both mothers decide to go through with their pregnancies.
Many years later, these children have grown up to become Jung Ba-reum (Lee Seung-gi), a friendly neighbourhood police officer who saves cats and injured birds, and Sung Yo-han (Kwon Hwa-woon), a cold and efficient doctor who seems to have no empathy for his patients or their loved ones.
At this point we don’t know whose son is which and, as a string of gruesome slayings hit the news, we’re confronted with another question: which one of them is responsible? However, the two men aren’t the only characters with a dark backstory.