Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Parasyte: The Grey’ On Netflix, About A Woman Sharing Her Brain With An Alien Parasite

We’ve seen many shows and movies that have the “aliens among us” theme, where invaders take human form and hide in plain sight. In a new Korean sci-fi series, the aliens are in the form of parasites that eat the brains of the human hosts they invade. Sounds pleasant, right?

PARASYTE: THE GREY: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: A man curses as he chats during a game on his computer. Then we see a bunch of pods falling through the clouds and to the earth.

The Gist: Out of the pods come tiny slithering worms. We follow one of the worms as it slithers through the stands at an EDM dance festival. It finally goes into a VIP room and inserts itself into the ear of a drunk audience member. At first he goes lifeless. But he then wakes up and walks out into the crowd. Suddenly, his head opens up, big tentacles come out, and those tentacles start attacking the crowd.

One hour before, Jeong Su-in (Jeon So-nee) is working as a cashier in a supermarket, and she comes across a belligerent customer, the same guy who was cursing while playing a video game. After their interaction, he mutters that he could kill everyone there. When she leaves at the end of her shift, the man follows her scooter in his car. In a remote area, he hits the scooter, sending her flying, then he gets out with a knife and starts stabbing her. One of the pods is nearby, and the slithering parasite goes into the ear of the badly injured Su-in. Suddenly, a tentacle shoots out and kills the knife-wielding perpetrator.

Later, we see senior police detective Cheol-min (Kwon Hae-hyo) being briefed at a local hospital. Su-in, despite being stabbed multiple times, seems to be OK; the stab wounds are healed to the point where they are perceived as old injuries. The perpetrator is dead, though how he was killed is a mystery. Cheol-min knows Su-in; he worked the case two decades ago when 10-year-old Su-in called the police on her abusive father. Despite the state of her wounds, she absolutely positive she was stabbed earlier that night, because she thought that she’s suffering through yet another misfortune in her life.

A few months later, we see Seol Kang-woo (Koo Kyo-hwan), who works as a hitman for various organized crime gangs, goes back to his family’s apartment after a hit doesn’t work out. His mom is acting strangely and his sister is gone; she’s left behind a flyer about some sort of church revival.

At this point, the parasitic aliens have found their human hosts, and they sense each other’s presence. They are forming a community in order to survive, with the symbol being the same one on that church flyer. Most of the other human hosts have been completely taken over by the parasites, but Su-in hasn’t. However, when she’s followed by two people after work, she gets cornered in a junkyard. Kang-woo, looking for his sister, happens on the scene, and when the two parasitic hosts find Su-in and communicate with the parasite inside of her, that parasite uses Kang-woo to give Su-in some information.

We also see that a task force, called “Team Grey,” has been put together to fight these parasites, led by Choi Jun-kyung (Lee Jung-hyun). When she briefs officers at the Namil Police Station, including Cheo-min, about the parasites, she presents a captured parasite host as a “Hunting Dog”; it’s been captured and trapped in a suit and helmet, and its there to flush out the other parasites via the frequency they put out to detect each other. Meanwhile, Su-in learns from the parasite inside of her why they co-exist and what the circumstances are when it takes over her consciousness.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Parasyte: The Grey is reminiscent of other aliens-in-human-form shows like V.

Our Take: Parasyte: The Grey was adapted by Yeon Sang-ho and Ryu Yong-jae from the manga Parasyte by Hitoshi Iwaaki. It keeps things relatively simple, given it’s an alien-invasion story that basically comes close to being an apocalyptic tale. For now, the characters that serve as parasite hosts are generally nameless; what makes them stand out is the form their tentacles take when they open up their heads; one looks suspiciously like the demogorgon from Stranger Things.

Where the story is focused is mostly on four people: Su-in, Jun-kyung, Cheo-min and Kang-woo. Su-in is the key to this story; because the parasite in her took energy to heal her wounds, it couldn’t take over her brain, leading to Su-in becoming a mutant. She’s the hope that the human race won’t be obliterated by these tentacle-waggers, because at some point, she and the monster inside of her will learn to figure out how each other works.

The monster already knows that the presence of a mutant won’t be tolerated by the aliens that have fully inhabited their hosts, and as far as we know, Su-in is the only mutant that exists. So, just to ensure their mutual survival, we bet that Su-in will learn how to avoid and then kill the monsters that she encounters.

It’s that humanity that will make Parasyte more than just a story of humans losing a battle of attrition to the aliens. Will the series end up being a Walking Dead-style post-apocalyptic tale where the number of survivors shrinks and society eventually breaks down? Maybe. But we hope that part of the story either doesn’t come or is held off for as long as possible. We want to see Su-in figure out her new normal and band together with people like Cheo-min and Kang-woo. It’s fairly obvious that her adversaries will be the other aliens as well as Jun-kyung, and that chess match will also be interesting to watch.

Sex and Skin: None.

Parting Shot: After getting information about the alien that’s inside of her, Su-in sits in a bus shelter, screams, and sighs.

Sleeper Star: We’ve seen Kwon Hae-hyo in a ton of K-dramas, and we know he’ll bring his standard world weariness to lead detective Cheol-min.

Most Pilot-y Line: “Simply put, you’re a mutant, OK?” Kang-woo says to Su-in.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Parasyte: The Grey has enough action to hold viewers’ interest, but the story of Su-in’s mutant existence is also what’s going to keep us watching.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.