Single's Inferno
脱出おひとり島
Storyline
The whole story, ending included.
Beautiful strangers on a deserted island; a paradise hotel awaits the matched.
Single's Inferno leaves a group of young singles on a small deserted island about an hour from Seoul, the Inferno, with no phones, water to draw and meals to cook themselves. They may not say how old they are or what they do. Two people who choose each other escape to Paradise, a luxury hotel, where for one night they can ask everything the island forbids. Games win dates; the first day's anonymous postcards show who likes whom. In a studio, the model Hong Jin-kyung, the actor Lee Da-hee, the singer Kyuhyun and the rapper Hanhae watch and comment. On the last day the women stand apart on the island, each man walks to the woman he wants, and if she takes his hand they leave together.
The first season, eight episodes released between December 2021 and January 2022, covers nine days. Attention gathers early around Song Ji-a, a beauty YouTuber, and Shin Ji-yeon, a neuroscience student. Choi Si-hun goes to Paradise with each of them, and Kim Hyeon-joong, drawn to Ji-a, treats him as a rival. Moon Se-hoon, a restaurant owner, sets his heart on Ji-yeon, who turns him down again and again, and a talk with the boxer Kang So-yeon ends in a quarrel. Three newcomers, Kim Su-min, Seong Min-ji and the dancer Cha Hyun-seung, scramble the pairs: Hyun-seung courts Ji-a, and both new women are drawn to Se-hoon. When Se-hoon finally wins a ticket to Paradise he takes Ji-yeon, and at the hotel she opens up to him in tears. So-yeon grows close to Oh Jin-taek, who runs a tailoring business, and the Pilates instructor Ahn Ye-won to Kim Jun-sik.
Four couples leave. Choosing among three men, Ji-a takes Hyeon-joong's hand with the words "Let's go, puppy"; Ji-yeon takes Se-hoon's; So-yeon goes with Jin-taek; Ye-won pretends to refuse Jun-sik before accepting him. Si-hun, Hyun-seung, Su-min and Min-ji go home alone. None of the four couples lasted.
Starring
Hong Jin-kyungPanel
A model and television personality who watches every season from the studio and talks through each pairing with the other three.
Lee Da-heePanel
An actor on the studio panel, one of the four who have commented on the island since the first season.
KyuhyunPanel
A singer from the group Super Junior who sits on the studio panel and reacts to each turn in the pairings.
HanhaePanel
A rapper on the studio panel, commenting on the singles' games, dates and final choices.
Song Ji-aParticipant
A beauty YouTuber courted by three men in the first season, who leaves the island with Kim Hyeon-joong.
Moon Se-hoonParticipant
A restaurant owner who keeps pursuing Shin Ji-yeon through repeated refusals and leaves the island with her.
Why it matters
Single's Inferno makes a promise and quietly breaks it. By forbidding talk of age and work, it claims to let attraction run free of status; then it casts models, pageant contestants and fitness instructors, and looks become the only currency left. Korean viewers noticed. The first season was criticised for how often the cast praised one woman's pale skin, as if the show were endorsing a beauty standard that prizes whiteness. It was also the first Korean reality series to enter Netflix's global top ten, and it turned its cast into influencers; one of them later admitted that reports she had worn counterfeit designer goods on the show were partly true, and apologised. What it is like to watch is gentler than any of that: young people with no phones and not much to eat, nervous about being chosen, taking a long public walk across an island to find out.