Single’s Inferno Season 4 ends as every season of the hit Korean reality dating show does: with a host of young, hot single people choosing the person they would most like to date from their fellow singles and hoping they will choose them back. For the producers of Single’s Inferno, this ending will inform everything that comes before on screen. “For us, the creators and crew, we know the final choices, and then we edit the whole thing,” co-creator and producer Kim Jae-won tells TIME, through an interpreter. “So we try to build up that suspense for the people watching.”
In Single’s Inferno Season 4, which just wrapped its 12-episode run on Netflix, four couples matched, leaving the island known as “Inferno” together. This left three men and four women from the 13-person cast alone, unlucky in love for now. Who ended up together at the end of Season 4? Are they still together now? And how does Kim and the rest of his Single’s Inferno team go about creating an atmosphere where people could possibly fall in love in such a short period of time? Let’s talk about the global hit that is Single’s Inferno…
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The Single’s Inferno Global Phenomenon
Kim, who co-created the show alongside Kim Na-hyun, said the idea came while he was working on another reality show. “It was a survival show on an uninhabited island,” says Kim. “I felt like the island was so beautiful. So I thought, ‘What if we have a dating show on this beautiful scenery?’” The island setting differs from those of most Korean reality dating shows, which often lean into the romantic coziness of winter in the city, says Kim. “I thought, ‘What if we turn it around and try a sizzling hot summer on an island?’”
The basic concept of Single’s Inferno is to strand a dozen or so Koreans looking for love on a deserted island, a.k.a. Inferno. For Season 4, seven single women and six single men spent 10 days together on Inferno. The contestants have a chance to escape the island for dates together at a fancy hotel, a.k.a. Paradise. Sometimes, the dates are secured through the winning of a physical competition, such as a traditional ssireum wrestling match or a pool-bound Chicken fight. Other times, an overnight escape to Paradise is earned when two singles choose one another as a date. Once at Paradise, the singles are allowed to reveal their ages and jobs, which is forbidden on the island. The contestants don’t have access to their phones, which heightens the intensity of the camp-like experience, and mirrors the restrictions of other sequestered Netflix dating shows like Love Is Blind.
The first season of Single’s Inferno hit Netflix in December 2021, just a few months after the massive success of Squid Game, becoming the first Korean reality show to make it into the Netflix Top Ten. Kim thinks this timing played a role in the show’s initial global success. “People were more interested in Korean content. And because they see these actors in Korean shows, they wonder, ‘How are these people in real life?’” he says. Once hooked, many global viewers responded to the relative tameness of Single’s Inferno compared to Western reality dating shows, such as Netflix’s own Too Hot to Handle or Love Island. “They’re more racy, more speedy, and things change so quickly,” says Kim. “But, with Single’s Inferno, I think it’s a little more slow-cooking, and we tend to focus more on the emotional evolution of the participants.” Season 3, which featured basketball player Lee Gwan-hee as a popular yet contentious contestant, was particularly well received. The season racked up more than 71 million watch hours during its four-week run. As of Feb. 2, Season 4 had accumulated over 21 million watch hours.
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Single’s Inferno Season 4 Explained—From Casting to That Double Date
While the basic premise of Single’s Inferno has stayed the same across seasons, the producers have tweaked some elements. In this most recent season, the time contestants spent on the island was extended slightly, to 10 days from the original nine. Another change came in the introduction of the “gamechangers,” the contestants who are introduced mid-season to shake things up. While 24-year-old college acting student Park Hae-lin was selected by the producers as the female game-changer, the women contestants were allowed to pick between three possible male additions to the cast. They selected 32-year-old restaurateur An Jong-hoon.
Casting is one of the most important aspects of Single’s Inferno, says Kim. In some ways, the process has become easier since Season 1, given the show’s massive success, because there are more candidates willing to join the show. However, now the challenge comes in finding contestants who are earnest about their interest in dating. “Dating programs are supposed to help you find love, but [some people] try to find things that are other than love through the show, because it gives you so much fame,” says Kim. For some reality TV shows, a contestant looking for fame might make for good TV. However, according to Kim, the producers of Single’s Inferno do everything they can to preserve the core nature of the show: the search for a true romantic connection.
While the Single’s Inferno producers and crew have a firm plan heading into filming, Kim says there is some room for flexibility. This season’s central drama around who 25-year-old model and former idol survivor show contestant Lee Si-an will choose among her many male suitors hit a peak in Episode 9, when producers arranged for the two couples at Paradise to go on a surprise double date. Si-an had come to Paradise with 28-year-old artist and actor Yuk Jun-seo, with whom she had begun to foster a romantic connection. Meanwhile, 33-year-old cafe owner Kim Jeong-su had come to Paradise with 28-year-old dancer Chung You-jin, but only because his first choice, Si-an, was already taken. The double date was a first for the show, which usually preserves the exclusive intimacy of the Paradise date between two contestants.
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According to Kim, the double date was not a spur-of-the-moment decision, driven by the Si-an love polygon. “The double date was planned, but we didn’t know which two couples [would go] or when to send them to Paradise,” he says. “So not everything is set in stone. We have the big overarching plan, but we can meddle with things in the middle.” The decision to give the double date to Si-an, Jun-seo, Jeong-su, and You-jin was made “because there were so many things that were complex between the four of them,” says Kim. It was also the second night in a row Si-an and Jun-seo would be going to Paradise together, and the producers wanted to introduce a new challenge and atmosphere.
Another example of the flexible plan comes in the rollout of the games, which often determine who will get to choose a date for Paradise. “Although we have everything prepared, we can decide things on the fly—for example, are we going to do a girl’s game today or a guy’s game today?”
Of course, the production team only has so much control. And, sometimes, production choices can have unintended consequences. In Season 4, for example, there were fewer romantic connections formed and nurtured on Inferno. “It wasn’t planned at all,” says Kim. “It just happened. And I think it’s because we had the two game-changers, and we sent everyone to Paradise, and it was only the men who remained in the Inferno [with just Hae-lin].” At the beginning of the season, the cast was split by gender into two Inferno camps on separate islands, limiting the contestants’ time together. “I think they just had little physical time to be together and mingle on Inferno,” says Kim. “So that is something that we actually very much regretted after filming everything.”
Single’s Inferno Season 4 Ending Couples: Who Did Si-an Choose?
Ultimately, four couples matched and left Inferno together, following a suspenseful selection ceremony. “The [finale] atmosphere on set is exactly what you feel watching the show,” says Kim. “They’re not supposed to talk about their final choices, so none of them knows for sure that this guy will pick me or this girl will pick me.”
Bae Ji-yeon, a 25-year-old spatial designer, chose Kim Tae-hwan, a 31-year-old DJ, despite her reservations that his feelings for her may not be completely earnest. He chose her back, and the two left Inferno together.
An Jong-hoon and Kim Hye-jin, a 25-year-old model, chose one another, and left Inferno hand and hand. Hye-jin was one of the female contestants who voted for Jong-hoon as the male game-changer.
Kim A-rin, a 25-year-old model, and Koon Dong-ho, a 30-year-old accountant, chose one another. Dong-ho was one of the most popular guys on Single’s Inferno this season, and Hae-lin
also selected him as her final choice. Dong-ho and Hae-lin went on one last date to Paradise together in the penultimate episode, despite Dong-ho making it clear to her that he was most interested in A-rin and would not likely change his mind. During A-rin and Dong-ho’s Paradise date, the two discovered they live in the same Seoul neighborhood and work in the same area.
You-jin was also interested in Dong-ho, but named Jeong-su as her final choice. The two had connected as friends during their Paradise date. “We didn’t have as many love lines as we would have wanted,” says Kim of Season 4, using You-jin as an example. “She’s a very attractive contestant, and she’s always frank about her emotions. I think she’s really fit for a dating show, but because we didn’t give her enough time to explore the options that she had, I think that’s a pity.”
Lee Si-an broke out as a main character in Season 4, as male contestants including Yuk Jun-seo, Kim Jeong-su, and Jang Theo, a 29-year-old actor, all fell for her beauty and charms. All three men picked Si-an as their final choice. While Si-an selected Jeong-su for her last Paradise date, she ultimately selected Jun-seo as her partner to leave the island. In her introduction video at the beginning of the season, Si-an said she wanted to be swept up in love, and ultimately described her feelings for Jun-seo as a whirlwind. As the two left the island, he picked her up and threw her over his shoulder, jokingly.
“When I was editing Season 4, even though I knew the final choices, I was quite perplexed seeing Si-an’s final Paradise date and seeing her final choice,” says Kim, when asked if he was personally surprised by any of the final selections. “When you see the last episode, I can tell you that [Si-an] was very serious about her choice, and she considered all the aspects and made the right choice for her.”
Kim Min-seol, a 23-year-old freelance news anchor and fan favorite, also chose Jun-seo, but was left alone on the island. The other contestants left single on the island included Jung You-jin, Park Hae-lin, Kim Jeong-su, and Jang Theo.
Are Any of the Single’s Inferno Season 4 Couples Still Together?
To preserve the suspense of Single’s Inferno, the contestants are not allowed to share anything about their dating life on social media. Kim noted that the duration between the shoot and release of the series was the longest yet for Season 4, at eight months. The season was shot in June 2024, and the finale was released on Netflix in February 2025. The show took roughly three months to edit, with the production filming the emcee segments, which see hosts Lee Da-hee, Dex, Hong Jin-kyung, Hanhae, and Kyuhyun watching and reacting to the episodes, during the editing process.
Given the social media restrictions put on the contestants over the past eight months, it is still too soon to tell how many of the couples who left the Inferno together remain a couple. There are currently no couples still together from previous seasons. For what it’s worth, Korean netizens claim to have seen Si-an and Jun-seo out together in Seoul, but there has been no official confirmation or denial at the time of this writing.
In a recent interview with Marie Claire, conducted before the release of the finale, Si-an was asked if she was still in touch with her final pick. She side-stepped the question, saying: “Well, I’m in contact with all of the contestants. We regularly get together to have some good food together or have some booze. And we are also doing promos together. When we have promos, we come together, have this walk down memory lane, and talk about what happened when we were filming. So, yeah, we’ve been seeing one another a lot.” You can see some of the cast reflecting on the season in this short video.
The Future of Single’s Inferno: Season 5 and Beyond
Single’s Inferno is one of Netflix’s biggest non-English-language hits. The show has already been renewed for a fifth season, and is currently recruiting cast members. In a December 2024 Instagram post, producer Kim said of the show and its future: “I’m grateful to have made it to the fourth season. I sincerely thank all the viewers who continue to support us with each new season. Now that we’ve made it to season 4, we’re aiming for season 10 and hoping to become the longest-running dating show in Korea.”
