Stream or Skip: 'The Wonderfools' on Netflix, a tale of misfits with superpowers in a small town

Introducing The Wonderfools

The new Netflix action series The Wonderfools follows a group of eccentric misfits who accidentally gain superpowers from a pool of toxic muck found in the town dump. Yes, it's a comedy—how did you guess?

Stream It or Skip It?

If you're looking for a fresh and quirky take on the superhero genre, The Wonderfools might be worth your time. With its mix of humor, action, and unexpected twists, this show offers an entertaining escape into a world where ordinary people become extraordinary.

Opening Shot

A close-up of a young woman wearing headphones. She puts goggles on, plays “Creep” on her Discman, and picks up a knife. But this isn’t a scene from a horror movie—it’s just Eun Chae-ni (Park Eun-bin) peeling onions for her grandmother, Kim Jeon-bok (Kim Hae-sook), who owns a popular restaurant in Haeseong City.

The Gist

Eun Chae-ni is dealing with a serious health issue: congestive heart failure. When her doctor tells her that her heart may give out at any time, she becomes despondent. In a moment of frustration, she joins a public gauntlet of people predicting the end of the world at the turn of the millennium. She rants at a woman handing out flyers, not knowing if she’ll even live to see the end of the world.

Meanwhile, Lee Un-jeong (Cha Eun-woo), a city employee, is told that Eun Chae-ni is known as “the trainwreck of Haeseong.” He works in an office where people file complaints, and one of his frequent visitors is Son Kyung-hoon (Choi Dae-hoon), who often draws pictures of mutated animals he sees at a landfill outside town. Kyung-hoon swears that someone is dumping phenol or something equally dangerous there, but the civil servants he complains to dismiss him as a crackpot.

A New Adventure

Determined to make the most of her remaining time, Eun Chae-ni decides to go on a trip before her heart gives out. To avoid her grandmother finding out, she sneaks out of town and enlists the help of Kang Ro-bin (Im Seong-jae), a worker at the restaurant. She calls him the “Sappiest Sap of Haeseong” for paying to have his roof fixed when he rents.

She encounters Un-jeong outside a store while lugging her suitcase. He thinks she’s hiding a body in it, and in the struggle to get her to open the suitcase, it bursts open and everything comes out as rain pours down. Eun Chae-ni decides to cool her heels at Ro-bin’s flat, where Kyung-hoon happens to be visiting. Together, they hatch a scheme to extract money from her grandmother so she can travel and Ro-bin can get his roof fixed.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of?

The Wonderfools (or The WONDERfools, depending on what press material you look at) is a comedy action-adventure superpowers show along the lines of Extraordinary. It blends humor with the typical elements of a superhero story, making it a unique addition to the genre.

Our Take

Written by Heo Da-joong, The Wonderfools takes the MCU approach to its superhero story. The entire 68-minute first episode sets up how the quartet of misfit superheroes meet and get their powers. Well, three of the four at least; we find out that the unassuming Lee Un-jeong already has those powers, as he can stop and move items in midair.

But the other three definitely get their powers from the toxic muck at the dump, and it seems that the muck affects everyone differently. For Eun Chae-ni, the muck literally brings her back to life, as her heart gave out while she was trying to execute her fake kidnapping scheme with Kyung-hoon and Ro-bin. That’s how they all ended up at the dump to begin with, as the two men decided to “store” her body there until they could figure out how they can avoid being implicated.

Performance Worth Watching

It'll be interesting to watch how Park Eun-bin’s character, Eun Chae-ni, reacts to the literal new lease on life she got from the toxic muck.

Sex And Skin

None.

Parting Shot

The member of the “end of the world” choir who has powers sees the items Un-jeong embedded into a wall so they didn’t fall on him and Chae-ni.

Sleeper Star

Kim Hae-sook’s character Kim Jeon-bok, Chae-ni’s grandmother, seems to have more influence in town than just being the owner of a popular restaurant.

Most Pilot-y Line

The way Chae-ni’s kidnapping scheme is shown is annoying, because the idea that she was the ringleader of the scheme didn’t need to be hidden for the 15 minutes or however long it took to reveal what actually happened.

Our Call

STREAM IT.

The Wonderfools looks like it’s going to be a fun and funny show about reluctant and misfit superheroes, even though the first episode takes its time to put the characters together and give them those powers.