Heavenly Ever After, K- Drama review: Kim Hye-ja, Son Suk Ku's soul-stirring tale turns death into new beginning

How often we wish that we knew, what comes after death.

While there have been infinite interpretations of the afterlife, supernatural, ranging from Western to Bollywood, arguably, the Koreans are in a separate league altogether. There’s always something so winsome, powerful and refreshing about their imaginings, and moreover, it’s different, each time.

In Goblin, we saw the concept of ‘written destinies’ and followed Lee Dong-wook’s morose Grim Reaper, dressed in a black coat and hat, as he carried out the difficult task of guiding souls to the afterlife—using a mysterious liquid that erased their memories of the past. In Tomorrow, the Grim Reapers face a different kind of challenge: the corporate grind. Much like any overworked office employee, they struggle with being underpaid and understaffed, adding a relatable, modern twist to the supernatural narrative.

The Koreans have a delicious knack for reimagining the supernatural, bringing something fresh and inventive to the table every time. Now, Heavenly Ever After, featuring a stellar cast including Kim Hye-ja, Song Suk-ku, and Han Ji-min, explores the journey to the afterlife with warmth and emotional depth—while never shying away from the grief that comes with death.

The story begins with Kim Hye-ja’s razor sharp Hye-sook, a woman, a steely businesswoman and a loan shark. She appears brazen and immune to all the scathing remarks thrown at her, but the truth is, she has just been hardened by her years of misfortune. When she’s around her paraplegic husband, she turns into the loving, cheery wife, who will do anything to make him happy. The scenes between the two are so natural and touching that you almost feel as if you’re intruding on their privacy. One heartwarming line that he tells her, and which stays: He calls her beautiful, and that her beauty just keeps growing.

And as time goes on, he passes away, she follows soon. At the threshold of heaven, she is asked to pick an age. Initially, she says 25 and then remembers what her husband said. So, she chooses 80. She finds him, only to learn that he is in his youth.

So begins the journeys within journeys of the afterlife, and the many people that she meets, including a mysterious woman Som Yi, played by Han Ji Min’, and the brilliant inclusion of a pastor.  Hye-sook slowly relives bits and pieces of her past, from her mother’s death, to the many ‘misdeeds’ she has committed. Moreover, heaven isn’t the paradise the couple believed it was: It takes effort, and more pain. And yet, if it involves jumping into hell to save the other, then they will. As the show proves, heaven isn’t the final destination. It’s just the journey ahead, and it’s these little messages littered in the show that don’t seem like sermons, that keeps the story going. Yet, there's grief awaiting in different, unsuspecting corners, as we keep learning and unlearning new details about our protagonists. We're ready for heartbreak; we just don't know what it is.

The best part about Heavenly Ever After is that, even though it raises more questions than it answers, it has heart. You find yourself forgiving the convoluted plots because you’re so caught up and intrigued by the countless theories. The characters keep the story going, even when the story-writing flails.