Letter #20: It's Okay to Not be Okay
Good
afternoon, Erin.
Thank you for remembering my deep affection for NJ. It meant a lot that you did.
I mean, I must have brought it up about 900 times, so I’d be a little hurt if you didn’t remember, but still...thanks. I didn’t know I needed to see her dancing in an oversized blazer and white cowboy boots. And yet my heart is all the better for it.
Which is quite the thing in general, of course, but after having watched It’s Okay to Not be Okay...well, let’s talk about it, shall we?
1. So, that was a cry-fest, huh. Geez. I don’t think it got to me the way Hotel Del Luna’s final episode or two did, or the climax of Goblin, or the entire second half of My Mister, but I think I spent most of the series with a steady drip of tears running out of one of my eyes. Very understated. Well, much more understated than me clutching a pillow to my chest the whole time. Which I was also doing.
2. No time jump, though. Which I didn’t think they were going to manage, honestly. They were really leaning on it, in those last couple of episodes.
3. So, this turned out to be a medley of my “watched” list, didn't it:
5. And let’s also not beat around the bush about how Ju-ri was—without question—the undisputed #BestGirl. I mean...come on. Come on. How could she not be? My, like, fifth note is just “please let Nurse Ju-ri stay in the story” about eight times in a row.
5A. I think my favorite detail involving Ju-ri was that, despite how much effort was expended on making Mun-yeong (the main girl) walk into every scene as though she was the cover of a magazine, the guys in the show were much more responsive to Ju-ri. Well, except Main Brother. But whatever. It’s still funny. In a sort of heartbreaking way.
5B. Okay, so, maybe this is just me, but the actress playing Ju-ri reminded me so much of the actress who played Ms. Song (my fave) from Rookie Historian. Like, their facial features. They have the same last name, which I know is about as indicative of anything as if they both had the last name Smith, but I couldn’t find anything saying they were related. Which I guess means they’re not. Maybe they just look kind of similar. Or they look nothing alike at all, and I’m just seeing them through crush-colored glasses.
5C. Also: Ju-ri’s a pretty name. I think, anyway.
6. Oh—I really like this show, by the way. I don’t think I’ve burned through a show this quickly since...Start-Up? Something like that. I really couldn’t put it down. (I mean, I did, because Ep 1 of Kaguya-sama’s third season came out on Friday—but other than that...) Solid story, compelling pace, and a cast chock full of really good performances. And that soundtrack!
7. Assistant Girl was hilarious. And adorable. But mostly hilarious. Particularly how she did those little exaggerated hop-steps whenever she moved around. But her whole character was fun, with her played-up voice and airheadedness. And when Book Manager reveals that she’s just putting on an act...and that she's much older than she makes herself out to be...big laugh from me.
8. Then there’s Book Manager, who was such a likeable jerk. Really enjoyed him. Though...he looked better with the goatee. In my opinion.
8A. Oh, and—for the record—the moment they showed him react to Ju-ri for the first time, with the over-the-top slow-mo-and-wind, like she was the love interest in a music video, I actually said (out loud): “I am 100% okay with this pairing.” And I’m glad it wasn’t just for that gag. ‘Cus I quite liked them. In fact, I could have done with more of that subplot, to be honest. Not just because I wanted more Ju-ri, of course, but because we don’t get all that much reward for it, time-wise, considering how many episodes we had Ju-ri aware that she was into Book Manager. But, y’know, I guess you couldn’t keep at it too long, if you were going to squeeze in yet another scene of Main Brother crying. And why wouldn’t you want that?
9. Also: big love to Pizza Friend, who was both an underappreciated part of the group and cast. Just a standup dude. I'm glad he really caught Assistant Girl’s eye, at the end.
10. Sang-tae (the autistic brother) did a good job, as far as I can tell, but I think—narratively—he was eventually used a liiiiittle too much like a plot-point cure-all. Or, like, that the story would suddenly decide that he was more perceptive or more communicative than he probably should have been in order to resolve some dramatic moments or to move things along to the next beat. That it was done at all is fine, just a little much to ask that it happen as frequently as it did, especially in the last few episodes.
11. Main Brother was...fine. I have no complaints, particularly. He was a nice enough guy.
12. Now, Mun-yeong...gosh where do I begin. Um, I guess I...appreciated her, let’s say. Like, the actress was fantastic. It’s not easy to pull off being, well, all that: magnetic and striking and dangerous and vulnerable and funny—and she manages to do all of this within a very strict external comportment. She isn’t only deadpan or anything like that, but she maintains a certain look, a certain poise but brings enough below the surface that she absolutely nails the shifts from the macabre to the zany to the psychopathic to the passionate elements of her character without really dropping the protective facade she has. And, of course, she's just electric, isn't she. She walks into a room and you can't take your eyes off her. She's very much the flame to which moths are drawn, in that regard, oozing all the signs that she is something to stay away from but with an almost unavoidable pull, even knowing the dangers. Again, it's hard to do crazy-sexy without tipping too far into either bonkers or seductive, but they get the balance exactly right, making her not just alluring but compelling.
12A. (As a sort of sidebar...I was all set to sort of dismiss a lot of her appeal as being the atmosphere around her (the outfits, the brashness, the sort of framing of her shots, etc) rather than necessarily her, but...well, then we get the episode where she stays at Main Brother’s and is in his t-shirt and sweats. Apparently it’s just that she’s gorgeous. Shows what I know.)
12B. (...which, again, who cares. The rest of us are looking at Ju-ri, thanks.)
12C. THAT SAID...I also kinda hate Mun-yeong. I don’t, really, otherwise I wouldn’t like the show, but I think there are more than a couple of instances where she doesn’t reap an appropriate consequence to her maliciousness—to the point where I think the show tacitly approves of what she does, which I did not appreciate. The two examples in my notes are when she “kidnaps” Fake CEO from Vincenzo to let him loose on his jerkwad politician dad (because acting out like that turns out to be the “treatment” he needs to get past his issue) and when she hires Sang-tae to be the illustrator for her non-existent new book (which works out for everybody, in the end). It’s destructive behavior motivated only by selfishness. If she were Ms. Jang from Hotel Del Luna, there would be an ultimate good intent to her selfishness, a sort of 4-D chess long game that would get all parties involved that which they both want and need—intentionally. Instead, Mun-yeong’s just an agent of chaos, lashing out when she doesn’t get her way. I mean, hiring Sang-tae is pretty close to despicable, taking advantage of a handicapped man to box his brother into staying with her because she has a crush on him and can’t persuade him to her side. And you cannot give context to her joyride with Fake CEO that makes it anything more than an impulsive lashing out. And yet...nothing swings back around to hurt her in either case. Which didn’t sit right with me.
12D. ...but then she screams at that deer, so who cares what I think. ‘Cus that’s hilarious.
12E. Actually, speaking of Ms. Jang: Mun-yeong’s outfits are really good, but they never quite hit her level, do they. I mean, she even tries with that enormous floppy beach hat, but it’s just a bit too cartoonish, in the end, to earn points for it. (Though I appreciate the hustle.)
12F. And for the record: shorter hair > longer hair. That’s not even a question.
12G. Oh, one more thing, before I forget: if I were to say that Mun-yeong is basically Tim Burton...would that mean anything to you, or am I unwittingly making a dated reference?
13. If we can go back to Ju-ri for a moment, though, I wasn’t thrilled with the scene where she’s in bed and her mom is trying to feed her after the physical fight she just had with Mun-yeong outside the brothers’ apartment. Or, more specifically, I didn’t like that the scene was played for laughs (indicated mostly by the music that plays under the scene). I just don’t understand why the whole thing is framed as a joke. Like, I know that some of the dialogue is funny, but Ju-ri’s pain isn’t, y'know, silly or unwarranted. She’s got such a crush on Main Brother, and LITERALLY the only person on the planet she wouldn’t want to compete with for his attention has swooped in—on the winds of fate!—and gotten to him first. It’s tragic. And I can’t really understand why we wanted such lighthearted/goofy music to play during this scene.
14. That said, I really liked that Ju-ri and Mun-yeong are both upset about how Main Brother only scolded Mun-yeong for the fight, but for opposing reasons.
15. So, when you watched this, did you also look up “My Darling Clementine”? I don't think I've heard the whole thing...possibly ever, but definitely not since I was a little kid. Well, I listened to the whole song. And it is dark as f***. All this time, I had no idea.
16. I really liked the long-running romance sub-subplot between the two young patients. Adorable. And they built up to it really well.
17. Y’know, for all the flak Main Brother ends up taking because Sang-tae starts shouting that Main Brother didn’t immediately go to save him from falling in the ice, I was kind of annoyed that it seems to count for nothing that he literally jumps into the water to save him, in the end. And that Sang-tae just leaves him there once he’s out. (Also, please note that Main Brother tried to stop him from running over to the area of thin ice. He sure as hell didn’t push him—he was nowhere near him!)
18. Assistant Girl to Ju-ri, who is looking to open up about her unrequited romance: “One-sided love? No, that would be dumb.” Hilarious. (And also something my mom has probably said to me, on the rare occasion I have been fool enough to believe her assurances that I can talk to her about anything. But it’s funny when it’s happening to someone else.)
19. In fairness to Sang-tae, regardless of the mom’s murder, butterflies are pretty terrifying. Like, have you ever looked at one up close? [shudders]
20. Oh! Someone on the anime website I use asked if anyone else had watched Twenty-Five Twenty-One. And, don’t worry, I set her straight about how wrong she was about the ending.
20A. That said, she also complained about the ending of True Beauty, saying that they did “Bad” Boy wrong. Which I’m sure you appreciate.
21. There’s...an indulgent number of shots of intense staring at characters who are standing directly next to each other.
22. Y’know, I’m sure that, if I were to go back, I’d be able to tell exactly what prompts Mun-yeong’s changeover from black nail polish to white nail polish, early in the show, but...I don’t feel like looking. I mean, there’s the possibility it was just a matter of matching her outfits, but that’d be boring, so let’s assume it’s more important than that. I’m still not going back to look, but I say we assume it’s important.
23. It’s very hard to write modern fairy tales. It’s easy enough to copy the structure or style—as in, it’s certainly easy to write a modern fairy tale, but it’s hard to write them to be profound, like so many of the classics are. Which is a problem that finds its way into Mun-yeong’s work, here, because the show needs her writing to be profound, but profundity isn’t something you can just turn on and off when needed. You can have people within the story think her writing is profound, and you can hide the full content of the stories so the audience can’t evaluate for themselves, but presenting the whole thing under the auspices of needing it to seem profound…well, it doesn’t work. The classic fairy tales have endured the test of time. Something created just for this show runs the risk of falling flat, which weakens the story overall. And Mun-yeong’s work is…iffy, depending on which one you look at and how it’s used.
23A. Part of the reason they give us the full content of some of the stories is specifically so they can use it for plot and character stuff, later on, but…still. It’s a tough sell.
24. I know I criticized the show for letting Mun-yeong get away with some things that I thought it shouldn’t, but, at the same time, the show is also very aware that nothing happens in a vacuum. And it constantly takes care to remind us of that—sometimes explicitly, like when (ironically) Coach Choi wags her finger at the gossipy folks at the front desk, or even when Fake CEO’s mother goes off on him before he’s hauled back to the hospital.
25. It’s quick, but did you catch that the idol(?) Mun-yeong steals from Dr. Director’s office is meant to prevent sleep paralysis? You know, the one she puts by her bedside right before she has…sleep paralysis? (Where she sees the ghost of the mother floating above her.) Very slick, show.
26. I was a little annoyed to see we were doing the “they met as kids” thing again, but they actually managed to make it necessary to the plot that this be true. I mean, it’s also part of a greater problem the show has with massive contrivance—and we’ll get to that—but I thought the “this was always fate” part of the story was done quite well, overall, and that the story would not have worked as well as it did without that element. So, kudos for that.
27. Similarly, the show manages to sublimate the typical melodramatic mood swings that are often contrivances in other shows by having this kind of behavior baked into the story: pretty much everyone is some kind of off-kilter, here.
28. I don’t know if you noticed this, but there’s this thing that constantly happens with the audio in a lot of the scenes: when they film by the water, for example, the waves and wind are obviously playing havoc with sound capture, so they basically mute out all sound unless someone is speaking—which means that, when someone does speak, they bring the audio back up, but it’s toyed with so that only the dialogue is what’s heard. Which is not really possible, so we end up with this weird buzzing that surrounds everyone’s voices as the roar of the background noises plays behind them.
28A. CUT TO Erin rolling her eyes at the totally amateurish and technically inaccurate explanation for the weird buzzing sound with some of the audio before tossing the letter in the trash and texting all her audiophile friends about how she’s surrounded by morons.
29. I liked Dr. Director. He was fun. Some really slick “clever guy” writing.
30. I love that scene where Ju-ri’s mom insists that she wear lipstick, at least, when she heads off to have lunch with Book Manager because it’s a date and it would be arrogant of Ju-ri to think that her normal appearance will be enough to impress him—because it’s hilarious that she doesn’t seem to care that Ju-ri, having put forth no effort at all to impress him, has already totally ensnared Book Manager. (That said, he notices that she’s got the lipstick on and is quite flattered that she would doll herself up at all for him, so I guess she was half-right.)
31. They do that daydream sequence, later in the show, where Main Brother talks about how he wishes he could lie a version of his life where he got to go to high school and wear a uniform and all the normal teen stuff, and…I mean, it’s fine, there’s nothing explicitly wrong with it. It just struck me as kind of silly, in that Mun-yeong DOES NOT come off as a teen AT ALL in that section. First off, even the prettiest teens don’t look pretty in that way—but fine, it’s a daydream, of course it’s just gonna be how she looks now. Second, though, is that there has never been a schoolgirl in the history of EVER that sounds like she does. I mean, seriously, show me the 17-year-old girl who just casually sounds like Jessica Rabbit.
31A. …is that unwittingly a dated reference? How much am I embarrassing myself, here?
32. So, the “family portrait” that Mun-yeong and Main Brother and Sang-tae take that hangs up in the study isn’t the photo that we see them take when they’re at the studio—which is fine, because we can assume they took more than one photo and picked the one they liked best. Standard stuff. But I mention it because…well, A) they took such great pains to show them taking that first photo that it feels weird that the show didn’t go with that for the final version, and B) they all have big, toothy smiles, in the final version…which bothers me only because the guy told them to give great big smiles for the photo we watch them take—and only Sang-tae does. I was like, “The man said to smile, guys—come on!” Which is what I imagine all parents feel like trying to get their pre-teens to smile in a family portrait.
33. For the record: I am really glad Main Brother and Mun-yeong didn’t have sex in the study. I was shouting at the TV for them to stop, because it was SO WEIRD that they were like, “Hey, let’s f*** on the table where I almost strangled your mom to death.” Ugh, it was so uncomfortable—but then the deer rode in like a hero and stopped everything, and it was so worth the discomfort for that punchline.
34. Oh—do not think I didn’t notice they were yet again covering up all the Hyundai symbols. We will be avenged, I promise you that.
35. So, when Mun-yeong goes to stab her mother, Main Guy throws his hand up to stop her and gets stabbed instead, calling back to the start of the show. BUT…did you also catch that, when Coach Choi drugs him, she jabs the needle into his side? So that’s a wound in both palms and one in his side. We were a double-foot injury away from having him get the full stigmata. And, believe me, I was waiting for it.
36. Which brings us to the last thing we need to get into: the whole thing about the mom.
36A. I don’t think the logistics of the mom being alive actually work out. Cracked the back of her head open after a 10-foot fall onto a staircase, left to bleed for hours if not days, and then thrown into a river. That’s comic book-level stuff. (And, even then, there’s usually some kind of chemical in the water that something something something.) I didn’t like that she was actually alive—as opposed to Coach Choi being, I dunno, her twin or someone who believed she was the dead wife.
36B. That said, I’d probably have less of a problem with it if she wasn’t also the one who murdered the brothers’ mom. I mean…really. How unlikely is all this.
36C. Like, I’m actually fine to chalk this up to the whole “fate” part of the story, that her wicked mother murdered their mother and caused them to run away and live the strenuous lived they did and how she locked herself away in the macabre because of it all—it’s a little much, but it’s still within the acceptable suspension of disbelief that the show has earned itself. But the mom still being alive is just…it’s one absurdity too many, for me.
36D. Add to this that she was Coach Choi the whole time? Ugh. This is a lot for me to go along with, show. (And then you further ask me to give you a pass for Sang-tae waking up juuuuust in time to save the day? But that’s…whatever.)
36E. I cannot believe she was literally her mom. I know I’ve said that. I’m saying it again. Because I really, really can’t.
36F. That said, I do like that it being her mom sort of explains why Sang-tae likes looking at Mun-yeong. Because she looks so much like her mother, who he doesn’t quite realize he’s seen kill his mother. It’s a very subtle way his brain has processed the trauma: obsessing over the mom’s killer without realizing it.
36G. Further, that the butterfly Sang-tae saw is the mom’s broach—good detail. That Mun-yeong’s mom grabs him by the hair—fantastic detail, because it either explain why he hates people touching his hair OR emphasizes just how awful the situation was for him.
36H. Like I said, I’m actually pretty okay with the mom being the killer, even if it comes close to being too much contrivance, in light of everything else. But the stuff with her being alive and having gotten plastic surgery…no. Sorry. Didn’t work for me. Even when I saw it coming a mile away, I didn’t want it, kept hoping it would be some kind of misdirect or have a final twist. But no dice. And more’s the pity.
And…yeah, that’s all I have on that.
This was a really good time. I thought I was going to take a couple more days to get through it, when I started, but then I got rolling and, like I said before, I kinda couldn’t put it down.
I don’t know exactly where it falls on my now pretty long list, but I think it’s safe to say it’s in the upper half. Probably not cracking the top five, but it might be top ten. Maybe. I guess we’ll see, at some point.
Oh! I almost forgot to ask you: because you mentioned that Main Brother is the new owner of the hotel at the end of Hotel Del Luna, and because you mentioned that you’d want to see a sequel series with his version of the hotel, I wonder what kind of show you’d envision it being. Any thoughts on that?
I’d probably start looking for stories in the mostly opposite direction of everything we got in the original. Have him go through growing pains (of starting the hotel—which he is suuuuper-psyched to do), probably avoid him having a romance, but definitely have the main female lead (who would stumble into being brought on as the manager, naturally) fall in love with…someone connected to the hotel. Maybe make the romance plot not about the power or love but of letting go? I dunno. I’m spitballing.
But never mind me—I’d love to hear what you would want to see. Like, other than Main Brother being shirtless. I know that’s a given.
Anyway.
As ever, I look forward to where I’m headed next. Let’s see if we can keep this momentum up.
--Daryl
Thank you for remembering my deep affection for NJ. It meant a lot that you did.
I mean, I must have brought it up about 900 times, so I’d be a little hurt if you didn’t remember, but still...thanks. I didn’t know I needed to see her dancing in an oversized blazer and white cowboy boots. And yet my heart is all the better for it.
Which is quite the thing in general, of course, but after having watched It’s Okay to Not be Okay...well, let’s talk about it, shall we?
1. So, that was a cry-fest, huh. Geez. I don’t think it got to me the way Hotel Del Luna’s final episode or two did, or the climax of Goblin, or the entire second half of My Mister, but I think I spent most of the series with a steady drip of tears running out of one of my eyes. Very understated. Well, much more understated than me clutching a pillow to my chest the whole time. Which I was also doing.
2. No time jump, though. Which I didn’t think they were going to manage, honestly. They were really leaning on it, in those last couple of episodes.
3. So, this turned out to be a medley of my “watched” list, didn't it:
- Main Brother is the new owner from Hotel Del Luna.
- Book Manager is the dead dad from Start-Up.
- Assistant Girl is the restaurant-owner friend from Our Beloved Summer. (Can’t miss that face.)
- The head nurse is Coach Choi from Weightlifting Fairy.
- The naked patient is Fake CEO from Vincenzo.
- The skeevy book critic who gets pushed down the stairs is one of the cops in Mad for Each Other.
- The “rich” lady patient is Ms. Choi from Hotel Del Luna.
- Someone mentions IU, which (per my Start-Up notes) counts as a Hotel Del Luna cameo.
- We got Subway sponsorship. Which...maybe that should count as one of my K-drama crushes, I like seeing it so much.
5. And let’s also not beat around the bush about how Ju-ri was—without question—the undisputed #BestGirl. I mean...come on. Come on. How could she not be? My, like, fifth note is just “please let Nurse Ju-ri stay in the story” about eight times in a row.
5A. I think my favorite detail involving Ju-ri was that, despite how much effort was expended on making Mun-yeong (the main girl) walk into every scene as though she was the cover of a magazine, the guys in the show were much more responsive to Ju-ri. Well, except Main Brother. But whatever. It’s still funny. In a sort of heartbreaking way.
5B. Okay, so, maybe this is just me, but the actress playing Ju-ri reminded me so much of the actress who played Ms. Song (my fave) from Rookie Historian. Like, their facial features. They have the same last name, which I know is about as indicative of anything as if they both had the last name Smith, but I couldn’t find anything saying they were related. Which I guess means they’re not. Maybe they just look kind of similar. Or they look nothing alike at all, and I’m just seeing them through crush-colored glasses.
5C. Also: Ju-ri’s a pretty name. I think, anyway.
6. Oh—I really like this show, by the way. I don’t think I’ve burned through a show this quickly since...Start-Up? Something like that. I really couldn’t put it down. (I mean, I did, because Ep 1 of Kaguya-sama’s third season came out on Friday—but other than that...) Solid story, compelling pace, and a cast chock full of really good performances. And that soundtrack!
7. Assistant Girl was hilarious. And adorable. But mostly hilarious. Particularly how she did those little exaggerated hop-steps whenever she moved around. But her whole character was fun, with her played-up voice and airheadedness. And when Book Manager reveals that she’s just putting on an act...and that she's much older than she makes herself out to be...big laugh from me.
8. Then there’s Book Manager, who was such a likeable jerk. Really enjoyed him. Though...he looked better with the goatee. In my opinion.
8A. Oh, and—for the record—the moment they showed him react to Ju-ri for the first time, with the over-the-top slow-mo-and-wind, like she was the love interest in a music video, I actually said (out loud): “I am 100% okay with this pairing.” And I’m glad it wasn’t just for that gag. ‘Cus I quite liked them. In fact, I could have done with more of that subplot, to be honest. Not just because I wanted more Ju-ri, of course, but because we don’t get all that much reward for it, time-wise, considering how many episodes we had Ju-ri aware that she was into Book Manager. But, y’know, I guess you couldn’t keep at it too long, if you were going to squeeze in yet another scene of Main Brother crying. And why wouldn’t you want that?
9. Also: big love to Pizza Friend, who was both an underappreciated part of the group and cast. Just a standup dude. I'm glad he really caught Assistant Girl’s eye, at the end.
10. Sang-tae (the autistic brother) did a good job, as far as I can tell, but I think—narratively—he was eventually used a liiiiittle too much like a plot-point cure-all. Or, like, that the story would suddenly decide that he was more perceptive or more communicative than he probably should have been in order to resolve some dramatic moments or to move things along to the next beat. That it was done at all is fine, just a little much to ask that it happen as frequently as it did, especially in the last few episodes.
11. Main Brother was...fine. I have no complaints, particularly. He was a nice enough guy.
12. Now, Mun-yeong...gosh where do I begin. Um, I guess I...appreciated her, let’s say. Like, the actress was fantastic. It’s not easy to pull off being, well, all that: magnetic and striking and dangerous and vulnerable and funny—and she manages to do all of this within a very strict external comportment. She isn’t only deadpan or anything like that, but she maintains a certain look, a certain poise but brings enough below the surface that she absolutely nails the shifts from the macabre to the zany to the psychopathic to the passionate elements of her character without really dropping the protective facade she has. And, of course, she's just electric, isn't she. She walks into a room and you can't take your eyes off her. She's very much the flame to which moths are drawn, in that regard, oozing all the signs that she is something to stay away from but with an almost unavoidable pull, even knowing the dangers. Again, it's hard to do crazy-sexy without tipping too far into either bonkers or seductive, but they get the balance exactly right, making her not just alluring but compelling.
12A. (As a sort of sidebar...I was all set to sort of dismiss a lot of her appeal as being the atmosphere around her (the outfits, the brashness, the sort of framing of her shots, etc) rather than necessarily her, but...well, then we get the episode where she stays at Main Brother’s and is in his t-shirt and sweats. Apparently it’s just that she’s gorgeous. Shows what I know.)
12B. (...which, again, who cares. The rest of us are looking at Ju-ri, thanks.)
12C. THAT SAID...I also kinda hate Mun-yeong. I don’t, really, otherwise I wouldn’t like the show, but I think there are more than a couple of instances where she doesn’t reap an appropriate consequence to her maliciousness—to the point where I think the show tacitly approves of what she does, which I did not appreciate. The two examples in my notes are when she “kidnaps” Fake CEO from Vincenzo to let him loose on his jerkwad politician dad (because acting out like that turns out to be the “treatment” he needs to get past his issue) and when she hires Sang-tae to be the illustrator for her non-existent new book (which works out for everybody, in the end). It’s destructive behavior motivated only by selfishness. If she were Ms. Jang from Hotel Del Luna, there would be an ultimate good intent to her selfishness, a sort of 4-D chess long game that would get all parties involved that which they both want and need—intentionally. Instead, Mun-yeong’s just an agent of chaos, lashing out when she doesn’t get her way. I mean, hiring Sang-tae is pretty close to despicable, taking advantage of a handicapped man to box his brother into staying with her because she has a crush on him and can’t persuade him to her side. And you cannot give context to her joyride with Fake CEO that makes it anything more than an impulsive lashing out. And yet...nothing swings back around to hurt her in either case. Which didn’t sit right with me.
12D. ...but then she screams at that deer, so who cares what I think. ‘Cus that’s hilarious.
12E. Actually, speaking of Ms. Jang: Mun-yeong’s outfits are really good, but they never quite hit her level, do they. I mean, she even tries with that enormous floppy beach hat, but it’s just a bit too cartoonish, in the end, to earn points for it. (Though I appreciate the hustle.)
12F. And for the record: shorter hair > longer hair. That’s not even a question.
12G. Oh, one more thing, before I forget: if I were to say that Mun-yeong is basically Tim Burton...would that mean anything to you, or am I unwittingly making a dated reference?
13. If we can go back to Ju-ri for a moment, though, I wasn’t thrilled with the scene where she’s in bed and her mom is trying to feed her after the physical fight she just had with Mun-yeong outside the brothers’ apartment. Or, more specifically, I didn’t like that the scene was played for laughs (indicated mostly by the music that plays under the scene). I just don’t understand why the whole thing is framed as a joke. Like, I know that some of the dialogue is funny, but Ju-ri’s pain isn’t, y'know, silly or unwarranted. She’s got such a crush on Main Brother, and LITERALLY the only person on the planet she wouldn’t want to compete with for his attention has swooped in—on the winds of fate!—and gotten to him first. It’s tragic. And I can’t really understand why we wanted such lighthearted/goofy music to play during this scene.
14. That said, I really liked that Ju-ri and Mun-yeong are both upset about how Main Brother only scolded Mun-yeong for the fight, but for opposing reasons.
15. So, when you watched this, did you also look up “My Darling Clementine”? I don't think I've heard the whole thing...possibly ever, but definitely not since I was a little kid. Well, I listened to the whole song. And it is dark as f***. All this time, I had no idea.
16. I really liked the long-running romance sub-subplot between the two young patients. Adorable. And they built up to it really well.
17. Y’know, for all the flak Main Brother ends up taking because Sang-tae starts shouting that Main Brother didn’t immediately go to save him from falling in the ice, I was kind of annoyed that it seems to count for nothing that he literally jumps into the water to save him, in the end. And that Sang-tae just leaves him there once he’s out. (Also, please note that Main Brother tried to stop him from running over to the area of thin ice. He sure as hell didn’t push him—he was nowhere near him!)
18. Assistant Girl to Ju-ri, who is looking to open up about her unrequited romance: “One-sided love? No, that would be dumb.” Hilarious. (And also something my mom has probably said to me, on the rare occasion I have been fool enough to believe her assurances that I can talk to her about anything. But it’s funny when it’s happening to someone else.)
19. In fairness to Sang-tae, regardless of the mom’s murder, butterflies are pretty terrifying. Like, have you ever looked at one up close? [shudders]
20. Oh! Someone on the anime website I use asked if anyone else had watched Twenty-Five Twenty-One. And, don’t worry, I set her straight about how wrong she was about the ending.
20A. That said, she also complained about the ending of True Beauty, saying that they did “Bad” Boy wrong. Which I’m sure you appreciate.
21. There’s...an indulgent number of shots of intense staring at characters who are standing directly next to each other.
22. Y’know, I’m sure that, if I were to go back, I’d be able to tell exactly what prompts Mun-yeong’s changeover from black nail polish to white nail polish, early in the show, but...I don’t feel like looking. I mean, there’s the possibility it was just a matter of matching her outfits, but that’d be boring, so let’s assume it’s more important than that. I’m still not going back to look, but I say we assume it’s important.
23. It’s very hard to write modern fairy tales. It’s easy enough to copy the structure or style—as in, it’s certainly easy to write a modern fairy tale, but it’s hard to write them to be profound, like so many of the classics are. Which is a problem that finds its way into Mun-yeong’s work, here, because the show needs her writing to be profound, but profundity isn’t something you can just turn on and off when needed. You can have people within the story think her writing is profound, and you can hide the full content of the stories so the audience can’t evaluate for themselves, but presenting the whole thing under the auspices of needing it to seem profound…well, it doesn’t work. The classic fairy tales have endured the test of time. Something created just for this show runs the risk of falling flat, which weakens the story overall. And Mun-yeong’s work is…iffy, depending on which one you look at and how it’s used.
23A. Part of the reason they give us the full content of some of the stories is specifically so they can use it for plot and character stuff, later on, but…still. It’s a tough sell.
24. I know I criticized the show for letting Mun-yeong get away with some things that I thought it shouldn’t, but, at the same time, the show is also very aware that nothing happens in a vacuum. And it constantly takes care to remind us of that—sometimes explicitly, like when (ironically) Coach Choi wags her finger at the gossipy folks at the front desk, or even when Fake CEO’s mother goes off on him before he’s hauled back to the hospital.
25. It’s quick, but did you catch that the idol(?) Mun-yeong steals from Dr. Director’s office is meant to prevent sleep paralysis? You know, the one she puts by her bedside right before she has…sleep paralysis? (Where she sees the ghost of the mother floating above her.) Very slick, show.
26. I was a little annoyed to see we were doing the “they met as kids” thing again, but they actually managed to make it necessary to the plot that this be true. I mean, it’s also part of a greater problem the show has with massive contrivance—and we’ll get to that—but I thought the “this was always fate” part of the story was done quite well, overall, and that the story would not have worked as well as it did without that element. So, kudos for that.
27. Similarly, the show manages to sublimate the typical melodramatic mood swings that are often contrivances in other shows by having this kind of behavior baked into the story: pretty much everyone is some kind of off-kilter, here.
28. I don’t know if you noticed this, but there’s this thing that constantly happens with the audio in a lot of the scenes: when they film by the water, for example, the waves and wind are obviously playing havoc with sound capture, so they basically mute out all sound unless someone is speaking—which means that, when someone does speak, they bring the audio back up, but it’s toyed with so that only the dialogue is what’s heard. Which is not really possible, so we end up with this weird buzzing that surrounds everyone’s voices as the roar of the background noises plays behind them.
28A. CUT TO Erin rolling her eyes at the totally amateurish and technically inaccurate explanation for the weird buzzing sound with some of the audio before tossing the letter in the trash and texting all her audiophile friends about how she’s surrounded by morons.
29. I liked Dr. Director. He was fun. Some really slick “clever guy” writing.
30. I love that scene where Ju-ri’s mom insists that she wear lipstick, at least, when she heads off to have lunch with Book Manager because it’s a date and it would be arrogant of Ju-ri to think that her normal appearance will be enough to impress him—because it’s hilarious that she doesn’t seem to care that Ju-ri, having put forth no effort at all to impress him, has already totally ensnared Book Manager. (That said, he notices that she’s got the lipstick on and is quite flattered that she would doll herself up at all for him, so I guess she was half-right.)
31. They do that daydream sequence, later in the show, where Main Brother talks about how he wishes he could lie a version of his life where he got to go to high school and wear a uniform and all the normal teen stuff, and…I mean, it’s fine, there’s nothing explicitly wrong with it. It just struck me as kind of silly, in that Mun-yeong DOES NOT come off as a teen AT ALL in that section. First off, even the prettiest teens don’t look pretty in that way—but fine, it’s a daydream, of course it’s just gonna be how she looks now. Second, though, is that there has never been a schoolgirl in the history of EVER that sounds like she does. I mean, seriously, show me the 17-year-old girl who just casually sounds like Jessica Rabbit.
31A. …is that unwittingly a dated reference? How much am I embarrassing myself, here?
32. So, the “family portrait” that Mun-yeong and Main Brother and Sang-tae take that hangs up in the study isn’t the photo that we see them take when they’re at the studio—which is fine, because we can assume they took more than one photo and picked the one they liked best. Standard stuff. But I mention it because…well, A) they took such great pains to show them taking that first photo that it feels weird that the show didn’t go with that for the final version, and B) they all have big, toothy smiles, in the final version…which bothers me only because the guy told them to give great big smiles for the photo we watch them take—and only Sang-tae does. I was like, “The man said to smile, guys—come on!” Which is what I imagine all parents feel like trying to get their pre-teens to smile in a family portrait.
33. For the record: I am really glad Main Brother and Mun-yeong didn’t have sex in the study. I was shouting at the TV for them to stop, because it was SO WEIRD that they were like, “Hey, let’s f*** on the table where I almost strangled your mom to death.” Ugh, it was so uncomfortable—but then the deer rode in like a hero and stopped everything, and it was so worth the discomfort for that punchline.
34. Oh—do not think I didn’t notice they were yet again covering up all the Hyundai symbols. We will be avenged, I promise you that.
35. So, when Mun-yeong goes to stab her mother, Main Guy throws his hand up to stop her and gets stabbed instead, calling back to the start of the show. BUT…did you also catch that, when Coach Choi drugs him, she jabs the needle into his side? So that’s a wound in both palms and one in his side. We were a double-foot injury away from having him get the full stigmata. And, believe me, I was waiting for it.
36. Which brings us to the last thing we need to get into: the whole thing about the mom.
36A. I don’t think the logistics of the mom being alive actually work out. Cracked the back of her head open after a 10-foot fall onto a staircase, left to bleed for hours if not days, and then thrown into a river. That’s comic book-level stuff. (And, even then, there’s usually some kind of chemical in the water that something something something.) I didn’t like that she was actually alive—as opposed to Coach Choi being, I dunno, her twin or someone who believed she was the dead wife.
36B. That said, I’d probably have less of a problem with it if she wasn’t also the one who murdered the brothers’ mom. I mean…really. How unlikely is all this.
36C. Like, I’m actually fine to chalk this up to the whole “fate” part of the story, that her wicked mother murdered their mother and caused them to run away and live the strenuous lived they did and how she locked herself away in the macabre because of it all—it’s a little much, but it’s still within the acceptable suspension of disbelief that the show has earned itself. But the mom still being alive is just…it’s one absurdity too many, for me.
36D. Add to this that she was Coach Choi the whole time? Ugh. This is a lot for me to go along with, show. (And then you further ask me to give you a pass for Sang-tae waking up juuuuust in time to save the day? But that’s…whatever.)
36E. I cannot believe she was literally her mom. I know I’ve said that. I’m saying it again. Because I really, really can’t.
36F. That said, I do like that it being her mom sort of explains why Sang-tae likes looking at Mun-yeong. Because she looks so much like her mother, who he doesn’t quite realize he’s seen kill his mother. It’s a very subtle way his brain has processed the trauma: obsessing over the mom’s killer without realizing it.
36G. Further, that the butterfly Sang-tae saw is the mom’s broach—good detail. That Mun-yeong’s mom grabs him by the hair—fantastic detail, because it either explain why he hates people touching his hair OR emphasizes just how awful the situation was for him.
36H. Like I said, I’m actually pretty okay with the mom being the killer, even if it comes close to being too much contrivance, in light of everything else. But the stuff with her being alive and having gotten plastic surgery…no. Sorry. Didn’t work for me. Even when I saw it coming a mile away, I didn’t want it, kept hoping it would be some kind of misdirect or have a final twist. But no dice. And more’s the pity.
And…yeah, that’s all I have on that.
This was a really good time. I thought I was going to take a couple more days to get through it, when I started, but then I got rolling and, like I said before, I kinda couldn’t put it down.
I don’t know exactly where it falls on my now pretty long list, but I think it’s safe to say it’s in the upper half. Probably not cracking the top five, but it might be top ten. Maybe. I guess we’ll see, at some point.
Oh! I almost forgot to ask you: because you mentioned that Main Brother is the new owner of the hotel at the end of Hotel Del Luna, and because you mentioned that you’d want to see a sequel series with his version of the hotel, I wonder what kind of show you’d envision it being. Any thoughts on that?
I’d probably start looking for stories in the mostly opposite direction of everything we got in the original. Have him go through growing pains (of starting the hotel—which he is suuuuper-psyched to do), probably avoid him having a romance, but definitely have the main female lead (who would stumble into being brought on as the manager, naturally) fall in love with…someone connected to the hotel. Maybe make the romance plot not about the power or love but of letting go? I dunno. I’m spitballing.
But never mind me—I’d love to hear what you would want to see. Like, other than Main Brother being shirtless. I know that’s a given.
Anyway.
As ever, I look forward to where I’m headed next. Let’s see if we can keep this momentum up.
--Daryl
Comments
Post a Comment