In Season one, we met So Mun (Jo Byeong-kyu), who was left with a maimed left leg after losing his parents in a horrible car accident. So finds his true purpose in life (and gets a healthy body and new powers) when he awakens as a retrieval specialist for evil spirits who have escaped the confines of the afterlife. These specialists are called Counters.

Counters take on especially evil spirits that inhabit cruel humans and cause destruction and chaos. Along with a team of Counters who work at a noodle shop in town, So Mun becomes the team leader, with an “uncanny” ability to open a spiritual space where Counters are stronger and innocent humans are protected from spirits.

Season two starts with the Counters’ worst nightmare. Impossibly powerful spirits have killed and possessed the bodies of a team of Counters from China. These evil spirits are exceptionally violent. Led by Pil-Gwang, these spirits have a goal—to destroy the Counters. And they are getting close to that goal.

Each Counter has a partner in the Afterlife. Each partner is, theoretically, meant to provide spiritual power and emotional support. So Mun’s team has very complicated relationships with their Afterlife partners, and as Pil-Gwang makes headway on killing counters and destroying the Afterlife’s spiritual energy, our Counters find their connections are weakening. To regain that connection, each of our Counters will have to reckon with their own past. Chu Mae Ok (Yeom Hye Ran) had to come to terms with the loss of someone who left a hole in her life, while Ha-na (Kim Se-jeong) meets someone she cared about and has to reconcile feelings gi she has been denying. And finally, ex-cop Mo Tak can solve the case and the betrayal that caused not only his own death, but that of So Mun’s parents. Once these three reclaim their powers, they turn to So Mun and stand by him, giving him the confidence he needs to defeat Pil-Gwang, save the Afterlife and, finally, say goodbye to his parents.

Where Season one focused on bullying, from schoolyard thugs to political bullies, Season two is much darker. The story begins with Pil-gwang, Gelly, and Wong Yeok committing exceptionally brutal murders…and then spending the rest of the series torturing and murdering their way through the story. As much as I don’t mind violence in service to a story, I found the extended scenes of torture very unentertaining. And, good heavens, do I hate gloating. Every two-bit manager in a K-Drama who gloats and bullies subordinates steals moments of enjoyment from me, and I resent it.

As Pil-gwang’s gang gains power, the useless, often antagonistic, and unsupportive spiritual partners for the Counters finally begin to suffer. I say finally, because no matter how badly Counters are injured, physically or psychically, their partners tend to nitpick over obscure rules which seem to be unpleasantly fungible to make the Counters’ jobs harder. It is, of course, on the Counters to save their partners, and it is on So Mun to save his team.

All the while, a young man who has lost everything is taken over by an evil spirit and is threatening So Mun’s family and neighbors, because, of course, he is!

There are a lot of tears in this story. Terrified tears, sad tears, tears of rage, frustration, melancholy, even of joy. Everyone cries at least once, and So Mun cries basically through the whole story.

I read The Uncanny Counter webcomic when I watched Season one, and was a little sad that that season did not borrow the ending of the comic. Well, here it did, and with the set-up of the story, it worked even better. I was glad to see that callout to the source material, used in a way that made actual sense for the story.

Once again, the acting by our principals was excellent. Jin Sun Kyu as Ma Ju Seok did a fantastic job of morphing a friendly, helpful, loving man into a psychopathic spirit who still had to play the good guy. Pil-gwang’s team was less wonderful, as he and Gelly mostly just gloated, which got real tired, real fast.

While it took what felt like a lot of time to get there, being able to learn more about —and spend more time with—Chu Mae Ok, Mo Tak, and Do Ha Na were some of the very best moments of the story, proving that, once again, the best part of any narrative about a team is the parts about the team. Everyone got to have their moment of pathos, forgiveness, and renewal in this season

Overall, Season two was less fun to watch, with a lot more psychopathic cruelty in the torture scenes, but the strengths of the first season remain and keep you tuning in. Great acting, good action in the fight scenes, and a team of sympathetic weirdos who do their best to save the world…and serve yummy noodles.