The final scenes of Parasite show the collapse of everything the Kim family has worked so carefully to construct, and expose the limits of social mobility in Bong Joon Ho’s version of contemporary Seoul. What begins as a clever plan to rise within the social system ends in failure, violence, and exile for the Kims, ultimately reinforcing the permanence of class divisions. 

After the explosion of violence that Geun-sae incites at Da-song’s birthday party, Ki-taek fatally stabs Mr. Park. This action may seem shocking and unexpected,  but an attentive audience can see how Bong laid the groundwork to justify it throughout the movie. Ki-taek has spent a lifetime watching his family suffer because of their social class. He tolerates Mr. Park’s veiled condescension because it comes with more money than he’s ever made, with relative job security, and with the hope of a better life. However, when Ki-taek sees Mr. Park ignore Ki-jung’s death and express physical disgust at Geun-sae’s body odor, he snaps. Choosing to violently murder Mr. Park is not random: it’s an emotional reaction to years of living in a cramped, shabby apartment underground, performing thankless labor, and being mistreated and overlooked. It’s the climax of all of his unspoken humiliation and disillusionment. It’s also his last act as a citizen of the visible world—because Parasite doesn’t end with Ki-taek’s capture or punishment by the authorities. Instead, it's revealed that he is now hiding in the secret bunker beneath the Park house. Ki-woo discovers that his father is there when he realizes Ki-taek is using the house’s lighting to send a signal in Morse code.  

By moving into the bunker and leaving behind his life in the wider world, Ki-taek takes up Geun-sae’s position on the lowest rung of the Parasite social hierarchy. Living in a dark, dank basement has now become his only option, and in many ways, it mirrors the consequence he would face if he stayed on the surface to accept his lawful punishment: in both situations, his future is one of isolation and imprisonment. Ki- 

The movie’s final sequence shifts the perspective to Ki-woo. He has mostly recovered from the head injury inflicted by Geun-sae and now lives with his mother in another squalid semi-basement. His sister is dead and his father is living as a fugitive in the former home of the man he murdered. Despite this, Ki-woo still clings to a dream of a better life. He imagines earning enough money to buy the Parks’ old house, free Ki-taek from the basement, and reunite the family. This lovely fantasy unfolds on screen with warm colors and sweeping music, a stark contrast to the tone of the scenes that came before. Ki-woo writes a letter to his father, promising that one day they’ll be together in the sunlit yard of the Park home, and there’s a moment when it almost seems that this dream has become a reality. But then the camera cuts back to the dark, cramped basement where Ki-woo still sits.  

This final bitter twist reasserts Parasite’s main argument: real upward mobility is a pipe dream. No matter how clever, hardworking, or determined people like the Kims are, without the advantages of money and privilege, they’re almost certainly doomed to live predictable, impoverished lives. Bong’s choice to center the final minutes of Parasite on Ki-woo’s surreal fantasy also exposes how powerfully the myth of economic progress shapes people’s beliefs in the times of late-stage capitalism. Ki-woo still believes that money is the answer, even after everything he’s lost in pursuit of it. He doesn’t reject the system that destroyed his family but continues to try to imagine a way to succeed within it. Bong makes it painfully clear that this is a futile. Delusion. Ki-taek is still trapped beneath the home of people who treated him with utter disregard, and Ki-woo and Chung-soo are right back where they started—only now, they’ve lost two people that they love. 

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