Advertising and Donations - advertising-newsandtimes.com

Warning: This post contains spoilers for Mercy for None.

Bloody and brutal, the backstabbing in Mercy For None is both figurative and literal. Based on a webtoon called Mercy For None: Plaza Wars, the Netflix noir follows the vengeance campaign of Nam Gi-jun (Doctor Lawyer’s So Ji-sub), a former key member of Seoul’s criminal underworld. When Gi-jun’s little brother, Nam Gi-seok (Vigilante’s Lee Jun-hyuk) is killed, he returns from exile to bring those responsible to justice. 

[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]

However, determining who is behind Gi-seok’s murder is not so simple. Gi-seok had been caught up in the delicate web of power and deceit that holds Seoul’s two major gangs—the Juwoon Group and the Bongsan Group—in place. While Gi-jun left his life of crime behind a decade ago, Gi-seok was in line to inherit the Jowoon Group from chairman Lee Ju-woon (Bloodhound’s Huh Joon-ho). 

Unbeknownst to Chairman Lee, his intention to pass the baton to Gi-seok would lead to Gi-seok’s death and, in Gi-jun’s vengeance, the deaths of an entire generation of the criminal community. Let’s talk about the twisty and twisted ending of Mercy For None…

Read more: The 10 Best K-Dramas of 2024

The fall of Beomyeongdong

Mercy For None’s story begins over a decade ago, when Seoul was ruled by one gang: Beomyeongdong. Controlled by Chairman Oh, Lee Ju-woon and Gu Bong-san (A Shop For Killers’ Ahn Kil-kang) were his right-hand men, and Gi-jun was their most effective fighter. Under this dream team, Beomyeongdong’s power and wealth grew, leading to rumors that Chairman Oh was planning to pass the organization on to Ju-woon and Bong-san after his death. These rumors didn’t sit well with Oh’s son, Seung-won. He ordered hits on Bong-san and Ju-woon. 

Meanwhile, dirty cop Cha Yeong-do (Our Blues’ Cha Seung-won), known in the crime world by alias Mr. Kim, saw an opportunity to grow his control within the organization. He told Gi-seok (at that time, a rookie member of Beomyeongdong) that Oh Seung-won planned on killing his brother, Gi-jun. Gi-seok killed Seung-won, sending the organization into further chaos. In order to protect his brother, Gi-jun encouraged Ju-woon and Bong-san to stage a coup. He helped them overthrow Oh, and the gang was split into two: the Bongsan Group and the Juwoon Group. 

Still, someone had to pay for upsetting the balance. Gi-jun took the fall for it all, leading people to believe that it was him, and not his little brother, who killed Oh Seung-won. Ju-woon and Bong-san owed Gi-jun a lot, so they made a deal: If Gi-jun left the business and never came back, they would let him live. To prove his commitment, Gi-jun sliced his own Achilles tendon, diminishing his ability to fight, and disappeared into the countryside. Before he left, he made Ju-woon promise to look after Gi-seok.

Read more: Here’s What’s New on Netflix in June 2025

The Graveyard hit

Initially, the death of Gi-seok is blamed on a group of young hooligans, who pick up the job of killing Gi-seok on The Graveyard, a kind of gig economy app for the criminal community. In the first episode, we see the ragtag group of wannabe gangsters attack Gi-seok in a parking garage, getting in some good hits, but ultimately not finishing the job. Later, we find out the hit was ordered by Chairman Gu’s dangerously entitled son, Gu Jun-mo (Way Back Love’s Gong Myung). 

Gu Jun-mo is a thorn in his father’s side, causing chaos within the Bongsang Group, and rarely facing accountability for his actions. When Jun-mo hires some foreign thugs to kill a fellow Bongsan manager encroaching on his share of the business, Chairman Gu asks old friend Chairman Lee for his help. He needs to make it clear to his son that his behavior is unacceptable, but thinks it will look bad if it comes from him. In exchange, Gu promises to help Lee with some of his land acquisition troubles. Lee agrees to the deal, and sends Gi-seok to rough Jun-mo up. Jun-mo takes out the hit on Gi-seok in retribution.

When the truth of Jun-mo’s hit against Gi-seok surfaces, the carefully maintained peace between the Bongsan Group and the Juwoon Group is threatened. They turn against one another, and Ju-woon comes out on top, with a little help from Ju-woon’s prosecutor son, Lee Geum-son (The Trauma Code’s Choo Young-woo), who greenlights a raid on the Bongsan Group. Ju-woon kills Bong-san, the man who was once his colleague and friend, but his victory will be short-lived. 

Meanwhile, Gi-jun’s rogue mission to find justice for his brother has led to Jun-mo’s death. Gi-jun fights through dozens of men to do so, and kills Jun-mo even after realizing that it was not Jun-mo’s hired thugs who dealt the killing blow on his brother. For Gi-jun, it is enough that Jun-mo tried.

Read more: The Best TV Shows of 2025 So Far

The plot behind Gi-seok’s death

Gi-seok’s death was envisioned as the catalyst for a gang war. The person behind it all? Chairman Lee’s son, Geum-son. For his whole life, Geum-son has been intentionally kept from the criminal world by his father, who wanted a better life for his son. When we meet Geum-son, he is a prosecutor in the Seoul Central District Attorney’s office, living his life on the right side of the law. 

However, Geum-son dreams of running a criminal organization like his father, and will do anything to make it happen. He hatches a plan to take over both the Juwoon Group and the Bongsan Group. He recruits Cha Yeong-do, whose plan led to the fall of Beomyeongdong 11 years prior, to help. Together, they put into motion the death of Gi-seok, and the plan to pin it on Jun-mo. To ensure that Gi-seok actually dies, Geum-son sends assassin Shimane to finish him off. 

When the dust settles on the gang war that follows, Ju-woon has killed Bong-san, Yeong-do has killed Ju-woon, and Geum-son is in charge of the organization.  

Gi-jun’s relentless rampage

But Gi-jun doesn’t care about power; he only cares about his brother. While Chairman Gu, Chairman Lee, Cha Yeong-do, Gu Jun-mo, and Lee Geum-son fight for control of the criminal organizations, Gi-jun cuts a relentless, ruthless path through their ranks. He kills Jun-mo, Shimane, Yeong-do, and eventually Geum-son for their roles in Gi-seok’s death. 

Before Gi-jun kills Geum-son, they discuss the plot that would lead to so much death and destruction. Geum-son feels no remorse, but he also isn’t sure if it was worth it. Gi-jun has leaked Yeong-do’s recording of Geum-son, implicating him in the murder of Gi-seok, to the press. Geum-son has lost everything, including his father. 

“Everyone feels that way,” Gi-jun tells him, offering insight but no mercy. “They’ll do anything to get there. But when they finally do, only emptiness is left. Because they can only go down from there.” Geum-son tries to shoot himself in the head, but Gi-jun stops him, hacking into his wrist. “You don’t get to die like that,” he tells Geum-son, before slicing his throat and killing Geum-son himself.

How Mercy For None ends

After Gi-jun kills Geum-son, he returns to the campground he runs. As he sits dying from the many bullet and stab wounds he accumulated during his rampage, he remembers his brother. 

Gi-seok visited Gi-jun shortly before his death, and they sat by the campfire. “Should I just come work with you here?” He remembers Gi-seok asking—later, Gi-jun will find books on the business of camping that imply Gi-seok was really considering it. Gi-jun tells him to do it, and the brothers laugh together. They both already know that there is no leaving the organization behind—not really. 

Gi-jun dies, after having avenged his little brother, immune to the promises of power that swayed so many.

Cavities and dental costs are at risk of skyrocketing as a growing number of states consider banning the use of fluoride in public water—and children from low-income households are likely most vulnerable.

In March, Utah became the first state to prohibit adding fluoride to drinking water. A couple months later, Florida followed suit. Several other states are now considering similar bills.

[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]

In a recent study published in JAMA Health Forum, researchers projected what would happen if the entire country were to stop adding fluoride to the water supply. The potential impact on both people’s oral health and their dental bills was substantial: Tooth decay, the study found, would increase by about 7.5%—representing about 25 million more cavities—and the U.S. would face about $9.8 billion in additional costs over five years, including both what families would have to pay out-of-pocket for dental care and what the government would need to pay for public health insurance.

And those impacts would disproportionately affect children on public insurance plans or without insurance, the researchers found.

Fluoridated water is “an amazing public health intervention that comes straight from the tap,” says the senior author of the study, Dr. Lisa Simon, an internal medicine physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, who is also a general dentist.

Read More: The Science Behind Fluoride in Drinking Water

“Fluoride works for everyone—it benefits adults, it benefits children,” Simon says. “But the people who derive the most benefit from it are people who have a harder time accessing routine dental care.”

“Unfortunately, in our country, that is more likely to be children and families who are low-income, who rely on public insurance, or who otherwise face challenges in getting to a dentist,” she says.

States’ moves to ban the use of fluoride in public drinking water come as the Trump Administration—due in large part to the influence of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)—has pushed back against the practice. Kennedy has long blasted water fluoridation, claiming it is linked to arthritis, bone cancer, IQ loss, and more, and signaled that HHS will stop recommending it. The Environmental Protection Agency has said that it is studying the potential health risks of fluoride, and the Food and Drug Administration said it is taking steps to remove prescription ingestible fluoride supplements for children from the market.

Some research suggests that fluoride could be associated with lower IQ scores, but only at significantly high levels of exposure—the amount of fluoride that is added to public water, based on federal guidelines, is far lower.

And the majority of public health experts, pediatricians, and dentists insist that water fluoridation is a long-standing practice that is both safe and effective at protecting oral health and fighting cavities and tooth decay.

Read More: America’s Dental Health Is in Trouble

“It’s been touted to be one of the most successful or greatest public health initiatives, right up there with vaccinations,” says Dr. Tomitra Latimer, a pediatrician at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago.

U.S. localities started adding fluoride to public water in 1945, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has credited the public health initiative for the “dramatic decline in cavities” in the country in the years since. According to the CDC, drinking fluoridated water reduces cavities by roughly 25% in both children and adults.

Tooth decay, though preventable, is one of the most common childhood diseases. And children of color, children who come from low-income households, children on public insurance plans that limit which providers they can see, and children who live in rural areas and have to travel long distances to access care—all of them are at greater risk of developing cavities, according to Latimer. Children with autism also tend to have a heightened risk of developing cavities because they may struggle with brushing their teeth regularly, she says.

While there are alternative sources of fluoride that people can purchase, the cost may be out of reach for many families, Latimer says. That’s why, she says, fluoridated water is so critical: It’s an easily accessible tool that can help protect the oral health of children who are most vulnerable to cavities. And for generations, it’s flowed straight from the tap.