"The Frog."

Netflix's new Korean series gets the Two Episode Test.

The best mystery thrillers have a slow burn intensity to them, and there’s a certain variety that can convey everyday life in all its calm simplicity and mundane features while simultaneously pulling you closer with a vague, dread-filled creepiness about them.

“The Frog,” after just two episodes, has that formula nailed down and uses it to make you want to watch all eight episodes immediately (save for potentially being creeped out).

Also, as a quick aside: Absolutely DO NOT watch the trailers for the show or you’ll be drowning in spoilers for the entire series (while all trailers are annoying in their eagerness to spoil, this one from Netflix reaches new heights).

Created and written by Son Ho-young and directed by Mo Wan-il, “The Frog” isn’t easy to define just wandering into it (if you watch the trailers you’ll know all-too-much), as we meet Jeon Yeong-ha (Kim Yoon-seok), a widower who runs a small but lovely inn (aka pension house) in the woods, near a lake, a few hours from Seoul.

He’s good friends with Yong-chae, another older man who runs his own inn and encourages Young-ha to do a better job of running his own place, but helps him with the chores when Young-ha doesn’t seem to have the spirit for it.

Guests are sporadic. When an enigmatic young woman and her son show up, things get interesting. Simultaneously (and a bit confusingly if you’re watching it with subtitles, as you should) “The Frog” also introduces a younger couple who run a motel that overlooks the lake in the same wooded area. But this is a time jump to 20 years earlier when another (and different) strange visitor stayed there.

If you’re thinking bucolic-setting-with-terror-gurgling-up, you wouldn’t be half-wrong, let’s just say.