I have to admit that I start 2026 with some trepidation on every level. Also without resolutions and without resolution.

Our New Year’s eve was quiet as is typical for us. We did not watch any of the televised New Year’s eve festivities. We had dinner (I am the normal New Year’s eve chef) and we watched some Netflix offerings on TV.

For the past few weeks, we have been watching a South Korean show titled, in English, The Price of Confession. It is 12 episodes long and it actually has an ending, so I am sure there will not be a second season. The plot is complex, which means there are many times when the TV must be put on hold or backed up a bit to keep everything straight.

A young Korean artist is brutally murdered in his studio. His wife calls the Seoul equivalent of 911 (maybe it is 911), but he is obviously dead and, after being interrogated at the police station, she becomes the suspect, is arrested, tried, convicted, and imprisoned. We, the viewers, did not see the actual murder, but assume there may have been a miscarriage of justice.

In the meantime, there is another murder, a double murder, of a wealthy couple who live in a very fancy modern house. These murders, we witness. The perpetrator is a very young woman, who seems to be a dinner guest who turns violent. She is arrested, convicted, and jailed, as well.

The two women meet in prison and work out a deal. The second woman will confess it was she who killed the husband of the first woman, and if the first woman gets out of jail, she will have a task to complete as payment for her freedom. She has to commit a fourth murder (and obviously get away with it). She must kill the teenage son of the wealthy couple who were murdered by the second woman.

Okay, I know this does not sound very appetizing, but take my word for it. It is better than you think.

The first woman is released from prison, while the authorities investigate the confession of the second, but free on bail, and required to wear an ankle bracelet, which obviously complicates her task.

I am going to stop giving the plot away here (I am still talking about episode 1 or 2), and viewers don’t understand how and why and by whom the artist was murdered until episode 11 or 12.

You do learn earlier why the second woman murdered the wealthy couple and wants their son dead. It is revenge, pure and simple, and you learn why she feels this revenge is both justified and necessary. Her crime is extreme, but understandable.

But who killed the artist (you really aren’t certain it wasn’t the wife), and why? At the end, you see exactly what happened. You learn who the murderer was and why it occurred.

While the murders perpetrated by the second woman were the result of a perceived need for revenge for some serious misdeeds on the part of the victims, the murder of the artist, equally brutal, was the result of a chain of extraordinarily minor events. You see how a seemingly unimportant occurrence leads to this shocking crime. I won’t say more (you wonder why I say this much, I know), but will give you one more clue: the adage about the results of sticks and stones, but not words, breaking one’s back does not seem to hold true in South Korea.

I give you that last clue, because that adage does not seem to hold true in Washington DC, either. We have a president, as we know, whose entire life seems to be based on taking massive amounts of revenge on people based on very insignificant things they do or say that he perceives are interfering with his plans. It’s really just the same emotional immaturity that caused an artist’s death in a South Korean drama and turned many lives upside down. But with Trump, it’s real life.

Happy New Year.