Letter #34: The Uncanny Counter

Good morning, Erin. 

Y’know what would be a perfect show for me to jump into, right now? Something supernatural (of course, to fit in with my Phase II plans), but also something that fills the void left in my superhero-lovin’ heart, now that the MCU has descended so thoroughly into total, unmitigated garbage. 

Also, if it could maybe have a well-deserved second season coming out in the not-too-distant futurWHAAAAAAT The Uncanny Counter is getting a second season?! That’s perfect! 

Seriously, though—that’s quite the confluence of events. It is as though, much like with Sweet Home, I was destined to watch it now. I mean, you may not quite remember this, but The Uncanny Counter is actually the first show on the recommendations list you gave me before you left for winter break 2021. So, it’s been the longest of the long-time-coming crowd. 

And I’m sure you are as excited to jump into it as I am, so—preamble over. 

On to the theater! 

1. So, yeah, this is one of my favorites, now. It’s got its problems (mostly of the “We have how many episodes left?!” variety), but it is A LOT of fun. I’m so glad we’re getting a second season. 

2. Let’s go over who I recognized: 

● Ha-ri from A Business Proposal, of course, as Ha-na. 

● Divorce Attorney Wife from Camellia as Ms. Chu. 

● Rookie Historian eunuch (again!) as…um, the counter who dies at the beginning 

● the rich old man who wanted to add the Main Girl from 100 Days My Prince to his harem as…well, the rich old man who bankrolled the team. 

     ● one of the lackeys that killed Ms. Hong’s father in Vincenzo as the uncle of that little girl who was poisoned by the contaminated groundwater. 

3. I love the counters’ uniforms. And that they even have uniforms at all. And that it’s so silly that they have to take time to change, even when they should be rushing somewhere. But I really like how they just look like leftover Wes Anderson characters. It’s charming as hell. 

3A. Whoever decided they should be in black suits and ties, at the end, should be fired. They look like generic corporate thugs, now. Or every yakuza lackey I’ve ever seen. I mean, I’m willing to bet it’s mostly some kind of sponsorship/product placement thing, but it’s still such a weird decision. The tracksuits are so distinct and, for lack of a better description, iconic. Why mess with perfection? 

4. At the start of the season, Mun and his friends are describing the superhero they’re designing: dirt poor and no girlfriend. And I was getting serious Spider-Man vibes from that. Except I then remembered that Spider-Man actually had, like, tons of girls in his romantic history. So not really like Spidey. 

5. I’d like to know what company made the discman Mun uses, that it is still operational in 2020. 

6. I don’t know that I even need to say this, but…Ha-na is #BestGirl. No question. Total badass. And in a really believable way. As in, I think the actress (and, of course, her stuntwoman, whom the show does a really good job of swapping in and out without making it super-obvious) does a great job with the fight choreography and totally sold me on every kick and punch. I was very impressed. 

6A. And her elevator fight was rad as f***. Easily better than anything in MCU Phase 4. Probably the most entertaining combat since Daredevil. (Aww…I miss Daredevil. Did you watch Daredevil? Daredevil was rad.) 

6B. And she doesn’t look silly when she runs! Huzzah! 

6C. I just wish she had more to do. Not that she didn’t have enough to do, exactly, but…we spend so much time with Mun and Mo-tak and comparatively little time with the ladies. Which felt a little wasteful. Especially when some of the Mun and Mo-tak stuff could have been trimmed. A lot. 

6D. Regardless, I’ve only seen this actress in two things, and I’ve absolutely loved her in both. So…more of her please. 

7. Speaking of the ladies, though: Ms. Chu was great, too. Suuuuuuch a mom—and I loved it. Though, towards the end, they seem to have her around mostly to get hurt so that everyone else gets angry about it. 

8. I love that they get curly hair when they get their powers. Such a fun, silly detail. 

9. A criticism I would make about this show is that, for a show that’s ostensibly about superheroes fighting demons, they don’t spend much time fighting demons. Bullies, corrupt cops, scumbag politicians—lots of that. But way less demon-smashing than I’d have thought. Kinda like if I’d gone to a new X-Men movie and it turned out to be about Storm and Cyclops fighting heroin traffickers Miami. It could be great fun, but…why is that an X-Men movie? 

9A. …that said, if that movie isn’t called MIAMI VIXE, someone should get fired. 

10. I think this is a deliberate detail: right after Mun’s leg is healed, he goes sprinting away from the noodle shop, elated that he can run, again. And he runs in a way that looks just like a little kid would run, entirely without form or concern for anything but the pursuit of speed. Because the last time he ran he was a little kid. So it’s not just that he’s throwing all his energy into running for the sheer pleasure of it, but also that his brain has defaulted to its last memory of running. At least, that’s how I read that scene. 

11. And yet another Hyundai logo goes covered up. The absolute gall of these shows. 

12. That said, at least its logo is inside a nice oval that, technically, could be any number of car logos. Later on, their company car, as it were, is upgraded to a Cadillac SUV. And they blacked out the Cadillac symbol. But they left the outline. Which…it’s a pretty distinct shape, guys. Are we even coving it up, at that point? 

13. I can’t believe they killed Detective Hottie. (That’s what I called Mo-tak’s cop girlfriend, in my notes. Which is interesting for two reasons: A) I only mention her once, and it’s to express disbelief at her death; and B) while I acknowledge that she was good looking, I did not ever think to myself that she was “hot,” so…I must have been really upset about her dying to foist such a lofty nickname upon her.) And, insult to injury: she was driving a Hyundai. 

13A. And no, as much as I loved Ha-na, I wasn’t going gaga over her looks, either. Attractive though she clearly is.

13B. “...you liked Mo-tak’s mean sprit-partner lady, didn’t you,” I hear you say. To which I say: n-none of your sass, Erin! 

13C. Seriously, though, she’d totally be my partner, if I were a counter. Cold, uptight, and overbearing? Constantly judging me? I call that downright homey. 

13D. …but back to the matter at hand: Detective Hottie was shot in the temple at point-blank range. There is absolutely no way she was rushed to the hospital or put on life support. She’d be dead. Very, very, immediately dead. With a big hole on the side of her head where the bullet exited. 

13E. “But Daryl, you famously amateur devotee of niche history,” I hear you say, “surely you know the story of Mexican soldier Wenceslao Moguel, popularly known as ‘El Fusilado’ (and immortalized in pop culture with a song of the same name by British anarcho-rock group Chumbawamba), and how he survived numerous gunshot wounds including a shot directly to his head at point-blank range?” To which I say: shh. 

13F. Regardless…they do a little, um, creative set-dressing with that scene: her window is up, when she is shot. But it’s not shattered. They just ignore whether it was up (which it was—because the shooter knocks on it to get her attention) or completely down. 

14. I like that the Evil Mayor was so affable and easygoing. At first, anyway. Made it seem somewhat questionable whether he was actually the villain or just a pawn of the gangster element surrounding him. Which was a nice choice. And I really like that it took the counters totally dicking over the announcement of his presidential run to get him to finally blow his stack. Like, it took that level of messing with him to get him to crack. 

15. That said, I thought the manner in which they broke up the announcement of his presidential bid was far too over-the-top. Pouring the sludge on him and exposing his illegal dumping? Cool. Wandering around with Ghostbusters-style backpacks on and spraying people? Cartoony. No me gusta. 

15A. To say nothing of how they take their masks off—in front of not just their targets nut also all the frikkin’ cameras! Why would you take them off just when you needed them the most?! 

16. Buuuuuuut—Mun kicking over the individual numbers in the “2020” stage decoration, then being really upset when he is stopped before he is able to kick over the last one was hilarious. Totally feel your pain, my dude. 

17. Early on, after Mun goes nuts and beats up that huge number of bullies for smacking around his friends, they are able to outmaneuver the rich kid bullies’ parents by having the mega-rich and famous older counter guy pose as his grandfather and, as such, beat everyone else in the corruption olympics that apparently very much rules the day over there. And, as much as I hate that this is something that would have to be done, I appreciated the Vincenzo-esque “send a devil to chase out the devils” ethic. Once you know the system is rigged, you have to abandon the idea of a clean fight. You don’t have to get filthy, but you can’t stay clean. And thank goodness they had that card to play. 

17A. I still think it’s interesting that bullies seem not to have gradation to them. It’s never just “they call me names” or “they shove me in the hall.” They’re always absolute sociopaths, on these shows. And…I just really, really hope this is an exaggeration. Otherwise…yikes. 

18. Related to the big brawl and out-corrupting the baddie parents: when Mun has been dismissed from the counters and must have his memory wiped, I kept shouting at the screen that wiping his memory isn’t going to work. Not in the sense that, as eventually happens, his memory will literally not be wiped, but in that he made waaaaaaay too big a splash with his powers for everyone else to forget what happened. You don’t overturn the student body hierarchy, beat up a couple dozen bullies, become the “heir” to one of the biggest companies in the country, and SUDDENLY BECOME ABLE TO WALK without everyone else around you noticing when it suddenly goes away and you act like it never happened. It was absurd on its face, and that no one even mentioned how much trouble it was going to cause him—no matter whether it was the “proper” punishment—bothered me. 

19. So…why is it that Ha-na’s trip into Mun’s memories is like walking around the holodeck on Star Trek, but Mo-tak’s memories get accessed as though they are, y’know, TV flashbacks? 

20. Speaking of: how is it that Evil Spirit Guy is able to connect to his in-memory self inside Mun’s head? They never explain this. 

21. It took, like, over half the show for them to finally do something with the million instances in which the counters used their powers in pursuit of things they are expressly forbidden to. They’re breaking rules pretty much from the very start of the show, and I kept saying, “Does this not count as revenge? Does that not count as revenge? Isn’t this all breaking all kinds of rules?” And then the inquisitor or whatever shows up and wants to hold a tribunal (possibly only after she’s been contacted by Mo-tak’s stern spirit-partner lady…I can't remember), and I’m like, “Finally! How much bureaucracy does the afterlife have that it took this long for the governing authority that deals EXPLICITLY WITH THIS SMALL GROUP OF PEOPLE to notice when the rules are broken?” I mean, I wasn’t rooting for anyone to get booted from the team, but…they put so much emphasis on the rules and rule breaking, early on, only to pretty much immediately and consistently break those exact rules. Consistency is all I ask! 

22. And speaking of taking a long time for something to come up: it takes 10 episodes for them to pay off Evil Spirit Guy seeing the mayor’s son and saying, “I’ll see you later.” He has absolutely nothing to do with the kid for almost the whole show, and then he body-jumps into the boy at the end. Briefly. And they set that up by having the kid try to strangle Evil Mayor in the hospital—which is more than enough setup for him being possessable. So…why do the thing way towards the beginning of the season? It was bugging me the whole flippin’ time. 

23. …oh my God—I forgot to rate the smooching on Extraordinary Attorney Woo! Ugh, such a rookie mistake. Okay, okay, the smooching in that was…what it needed to be. In that it was very effective, but obviously not steamy. Not that it needed to be steamy. That would have felt out of place. 

23A. Unless it involved Cute Lawyer Girl. Which it didn’t. So it’s fine. 

24. Great moment: when Evil Spirit Lady first realizes she’s possessed. It’s right after she’s killed her (current) husband, when she’s looking in the mirror, and her reflection starts talking to her. It says, “Oh, your husband totally deserved to die.” And she’s like, “OMG, right?!” I loved this. She’s just so giggly that someone finally understands her. 

25. Speaking of Evil Spirit Lady: I kinda love that they sort of fall into acting like she’s Lady Deathstrike and has fingernails made of sharpened metal. They always make that sword-cutting-through-air sound, when she takes a swing at someone. It’s ridiculous, in the best way. 

26. Actually, one more thing about Evil Spirit Lady: did they run out of budget when they went to exorcize her? It looked nothing like the other ones they’d done. 

26A. …but seeing her crumple to the ground when she got smacked across the face by that woman in lockup was pretty satisfying, I must admit. 

27. Y’know what was really slick and subtle and not at all a giant flashing neon sign telegraphing exactly what was going to happen? When they brought in the other counter from Singapore to help. I totally did not see it coming at all in any way ever in a million years that this totally new and extraneous character was being brought in to die. Incredible. Total shock. Not at all obvious. 

28. Oh, by the way: I don’t believe for a moment that Mun was 11, when his parents died. I know that’s how the math works out for him to be 18 in the present, but that kid in the car crash couldn’t have been more than 8. I mean, he’s making crayon drawings of his family. I know he’s an artsy type, but…that is not the work of an 11-year-old with any measure of talent. (Which teenage Mun clearly has.) I couldn’t believe it, when they said he was 11, back then. 

29. After our heroic quartet is supposed to have died in that explosion/fire, they spend a lot of time coming and going from their noodle shop. And then, at one point, they make a big dramatic decision about their next move and how they will need to close down the noodle shop to execute their plan (because they’ll be too busy to run it). Which…I spent the whole time shouting at the TV that they’re supposed to be dead, which they said was a good reason to lay low, so WHY ARE THEY STILL RUNNING THE NOODLE SHOP?! The bad guys know who they are and they sure as heck know where they hang out. It was bad enough that they were constantly sitting around in front of the big glass windows of the noodle shop when they wanted to stay out of sight, but to then imply that they were still open for business? Come on, guys. 

29A. Now, that said, it is entirely possible that they weren’t actually open for business, during this whole thing, because the closing of the noodle shop is framed as them having closed it down permanently and vacated the premises (the sign on the door says that the space is for rent). But my greater point still stands: why are you hanging out where you know people can look for you? It’s only by the grace of Agnor, Lord of Contrivance, that the only person on Team Baddies who thought to look for you was out of commission long enough for you to have finally closed up shop and gone into hiding before he went over to your base of operations to see if you were really gone. 

30. I was torn about whether I liked or kinda rolled my eyes at how Evil Spirit Guy’s evil spirit leaves his body so that it can take over Evil Mayor and force all plot threads into a single villain for them to fight at the end. I mean, it was already more than a little too coincidental that the bad guy the counters were having trouble with also happened to be the dude who killed Mun’s parents (and that the Evil Mayor was he one pushing all those dominos). But that it all gets funneled into the same place…eh. I dunno. Like I said, I liked it and didn’t at the same time. 

31. Oh! You know what I really liked? That Ms. Chu’s spirit-partner was her son. I thought it deserved a little more time, as a character element, but it was still really sweet. 

32. Oh, and by the way: when the Evil Spirit Guy shot himself in the head so the plot could funnel itself just into the Evil Mayor, he had a big ol’ hole on the other side of his head where the bullet exited his skull. And was, y’know, very immediately dead. Just sayin’. 

33. Speaking of the Evil Spirit Guy releasing his evil spirit: I found it, um, ill-advised that, after Evil Mayor’s son has been (temporarily) possessed and nearly killed Ms. Chu, Mun decides to let the kid—who, again, is susceptible to possession by the evil spirit that is targeting the team and has already (in the last few hours) tried to kill the team mom—stay at his house…where his grandparents are. 

34. Early on in the show, there’s a scene where Mun walks in on Ha-na as she’s training, and…they have her doing the sexy Catherine Zeta-Jones Entrapment thing, which is just…amazing. Which, okay, you’ve never seen or heard of, but it’s that move where you get on all-fours and then slide down and pop up into [rifles through college yoga class memories] cobra pose. It wasn’t gratuitous, by any means, but it was just so…delightfully cliche. And, y’know, sexy. 

35. Y’know what I found really fun? When the team used those four white-wood staves to create the magical kill-anything bubble, each of the actors gives a unique reaction to trying to control the power that flows through them. Four totally different reactions. They didn’t need to do that. But they did. And I absolutely loved it. 

36. My very first note, for this series, was about how we witness two deaths: one in a white car and the other on a black car. And I was all set to eventually find the symbolism to that. Which…never really developed. And you know how much I like when colors mean things. 

37. Oh, and one more thing before I forget: guess who figured out that the one who tipped off Mo-tak that the Evil Mayor was connected to the murder of that campaign worker was Evil Mayor’s secretary? Did you say me? Of course you did—because I am the world’s greatest detective! 

And that’s what I thought about that. 

I really liked this, and I’m glad we’re going to get more. I mean, it started stalling for time and dragging things out, as we headed to the finish line (I mean, how many times could the bad guys just happen to get away or the good guys get juuuust emotional enough that they can’t finish off the baddies before we start wonder if they’re even trying?), but if that’s the worst thing I can say about it, I think it did all right. 

And, seriously: is…wait, I need to ask the google machine…got it—is Kim Se-jeong in anything else that you’ve watched that might be worth checking out? She’s great. 

…now I want to re-watch A Business Proposal. But that’s not part of the schedule! And if I don’t stick to the schedule, then…then…wait, actually, nothing happens. 

Huh. 

–Daryl