Letter #55: Change Days

Good morning, Erin.

One day, I will be able to say no to one of your recommendations. And on that day…Lord knows what cataclysm may befall us.

But, of course, today is not that day, so—you guessed it—we have some Change Days to talk about.

1. I was kinda shocked to hear the main host refer to this as Change Days 2, especially since this is the only season of the show that’s on Netflix. Which makes me wonder: what could possibly have been going on with the first season of this show that they started with the second season? 

1A. Well, aside from not having #BestGirl Ji-yu in it. Obviously. 

1B. …um, spoiler. 

2. One of the first things I noticed is that taking numerous sips of whatever drink is in front of you is this show’s equivalent of Single’s Inferno’s piling pillows in your lap. (Like, as defense against nerves or discomfort. Not as a way of keeping a girl’s skirt from going too high when she’s sitting down. Drinking doesn’t help with that.)

3. Even given the caveat that, of course, we’re not seeing them at their best and with very little real context for what has or has not happened between each couple prior to being on the show, my opinions of everyone—both as individuals and as couples—changed with intense frequency (nearly multiple times an episode). And since that’s really what we’re here to gossip about discuss:

3A. Initially, I ranked the couples (from worst to least-worst) as 

• Tae-won/Hye-yeon

• Hyo-gi/Yun-seul

• …a big gap…

• Jeong-hun/Hui-hyeon

• Do-hyeong/Ji-yu

And…things did not stay that way. Which I’m sure doesn’t shock you. 

3B. Initially, I ranked the girls (from worst to least-worst) as

• Hye-yeon

• Yun-seul

• Ji-yu

• Hui-hyeon

And…things did not stay that way. Which I’m…I dunno, maybe that will shock you. We’ll see. I mean, this is basically just where I thought things stood at the end of Episode 1 or 2. And, admittedly, part of this had to do with Hui-hyeon being so much more dynamic than the other girls, maybe reminding me a little bit of a girl I dated in college maybe, and being the only one I felt didn’t have a plastic surgery-y face (whether that was the case or not). The other part was that Hye-yeon IMMEDIATELY jumped into touching up her makeup the moment they were told that they were going on dates right away. (Which Hui-hyeon also did, yes, but in a way I didn’t think was quite as overtly bad because I thought she was pretty.) And the other-other part is that Ji-yu had a short enough name that I could remember it easily. 

3C. Initially, I ranked the guys as pretty much dead-even. Which, yes, did not stay that way—and I mean it didn’t last more than a few minutes into Episode 2 when Do-hyeong began his little stint of acting like he was dating two girls at the same time, rather than dating Ji-yu and going on dates with Hye-yeon, and Tae-won shifted from being justifiably upset at his girlfriend’s behavior to proving her assertion that she was kind of a bratty little kid. 

3D. …and then the rest of the season played out—and Sweet Jiminy F*** did my ranking for the guys solidify:

• Hyo-gi: a sentient bag of dicks that clumsily tries to approximate human speech. I swear to all things holy that I thought I was going to die if I had to listen to him launch into his ubiquitous “I’ve sacrificed so much!” monologue even one more time. Every time he spoke it was like a bad line reading by an actor who didn’t know how to wait for the other actors to finish delivering their lines before he spoke—which was hilarious because HE’S A F***ING ACTOR. Put him on a raft, and set him adrift in the sea. I could not have been more done with him. 

• Tae-won: a constantly spinning coin, with one side being self-obsessed insecure pre-teen and the other a self-aware and modestly less insecure middle-aged man. I don’t think I’ve ever put someone on and off the figurative “adrift in the sea” boat as many times as I did with him. He just kept swinging between being a horrendous brat in a life-or-death fight with Hyo-gi for my least favorite person in Korea and being, well, right. And he could jump from one mode to the next several times in a single sentence, as well, which was especially infuriating. And, in the end, I was appropriately torn between wanting to leave him in the desert and wanting to leave him in the desert with a bottle of water and a map. 

• Do-hyeong: the one guy who seemed entirely keyed in to the purpose of the “change date” idea but who also seemed utterly incapable of properly expressing this to his girlfriend. My overall feelings about him were mostly positive, as he seemed generally level-headed and sincere throughout the season. But whether the show gave him a somewhat “callous boyfriend” edit or if he really was just daft, something about the way he constantly sent Ji-yu moping about the house seemed a lot more a flaw in him than in her or their relationship. 

• Jeong-hun:  the one guy I actually liked, if only because he never gave anyone a reason to hold anything against him. Polite, positive (at least on the outside), and pretty much solely focused on what he thought would be best for his girlfriend. Plus, he hustled everyone at pool. Which was hilarious. (And serves them right for thinking he was the general outlier of the group.)

3E. And then there were the girls:

• Yun-seul: not the least charming member of the cast, but certainly the least dynamic. She spends most of the show being lambasted by turd of a man Hyo-gi, which certainly makes her seem comparably likeable—though the way she reacts to him when they fight (not when she’s insulted or frustrated by his diatribes, but when she starts to whine about his diatribes) seems to put at least a bit of the lie to her side of the story: he’s undoubtedly a bag of feminine cleansing product, but he’s probably not as off-base as his frequent lack of humanity would seem to indicate. Plus, she spends an awful lot of time sleeping. Which, undoubtedly, is her response to being stressed and/or depressed over their situation (which I can totally sympathize with)…but it’s also a pretty good sign that she’s more than likely adrift in her own isolated sphere within their relationship, which is not a good trait in a romantic partner.

• Hye-yeon: the obvious villain of the story (insofar as this show can have one) who, by the end, turns out to be a walking thought experiment: can you 180 on someone you dislike and still dislike her? (Answer: yes.) I didn’t want to let my gut reaction to literally just how she looked in the opening few moments she was on screen dictate my opinion of her—but it was hard to be equitable when I saw the glee with which she started touching up her makeup when they were told they’d be going on dates immediately. My natural inclination against her personality aside, she could not have done less to ingratiate herself to me, in that first episode, given her (not dissimilar to Do-hyeong’s) cake-and-eat-it-too treatment of the situation, wherein she managed to patronize Ji-yu, belittle Tae-won, and give Yun-seul the evil eye (for, of course, trying to take Tae-won from her) all in a two-minute span. And, of course, it only built up from there—until things took a left turn, and Tae-won managed to out-dick Hye-yeon and make her seem sympathetic. (Plus, she is probably the member of the cast we should be happiest to have in the cast, because, if nothing else, she’s dynamic—as in, if Hye-yeon is around, s*** happens.) By the end, I found that I no longer thought of her as a villain and, instead, thought of her as someone who was just…lost, and, as such, worth warming to. And so I did…by just finding her thoroughly unlikeable instead of detestable. 

• Hui-hyeon: the girl I would have been immediately interested in—and then also immediately wary of because of how I was immediately interested in her. She’s charming, fun, straightforward, and, for much of the show, exceedingly selfish. She was obviously very much keyed in to the purpose of the dates…but she’s also had to sort of repress certain things for a while—and, as always happens with people like this who are given permission to let loose, she gets a little too wrapped up in it, a little too carried away. Which she only realizes when her behavior boomerangs back in her face with the (to her) unexpected, late-breaking popularity/“popularity” of Jeong-hun with the other girls. And then she gets cute, again…even if I was also a bit pouty about her (as she openly admits) hypocrisy over the whole thing. Though, of course, I didn’t end up pouting for very long. 

• Ji-yu: #BestGirl–end of story. I found her down to earth, charming, adorable, and just the right amount of too-tired-to-give-a-crap. Am I wildly biased because she’s the one I would have absolutely wanted to date? Yes. But I also think she was genuinely the coolest girl there. Her mumbly-whiny way of giving in to her reluctance to speak up, often half-addressing what was on her mind, was a major problem (even though I found it admittedly endearing) and her biggest contribution to the struggle in her relationship—even apart from, in my opinion, their mutual desire not to address problems for fear that they’ll fall out over it. The she ultimately got angry/hurt enough to take down those barriers she gave herself was great to see, and it just made me like her more.

3F. As for the endgame state of the relationships themselves:

• Hyo-gi/Yun-seul: Oh, thank God she dumped him. They were a disaster. Good for her. 

• Jeong-hun/Hui-hyeon: Oh, thank God they stayed together. Their issue was clearly not the two of them (though they very much had some things to work out, as all couples do), and I’m glad to see their love for each other is going to trump the outside nonsense they have to deal with. 

• Tae-won/Hye-yeon: What the hell are these two thinking, staying together? I mean, great if they think they can both really work at it and find a way to live up to their (apparent) affections for each other, but…I don’t think either of them deserves the stress of their relationship. I just think they’re out of step enough that they can’t quite make it work out.

• Do-hyeong/Ji-yu: I…guess them staying together is okay. Maybe. I dunno. By the end, I kinda wanted the newly enervated Ji-yu to walk away. But maybe her new enervation is more a sign that she’s finally getting invested in their relatioship in a more substantive way than she had been. Though they can probably both do better, honestly. (Then again, what do I know.)

4. Why wasn’t this show called “Change Dates” instead of Change Days? I’m not crazy for wondering that, right? I mean, they kept referring to the partner-swapper outings as “change dates,” so…

5. Oh oh oh! “Yun-seul” means “light sparkling off the water”! I remember that from Single’s Inferno 2! 

6. I mentioned Hye-yeon giving Yun-seul the sideglare at the dinner table, that first night…but did you notice the power move she pulled later on when she pushed her way into checking out Do-hyeong and Ji-yu’s room? 

7. One of my many favorite Ji-yu moments comes in Episode 4(?), when the group that’s still at home decides to play with the “lie detector” game. Because, knowing what that’s going to entail (and how it almost always ends with someone crying or angry), she sort of quietly says, “...there’s also Jenga.”

7A. The great irony of that, of course, is that this game of Jenga is chock full of those awkward truth-or-dare types of questions they’ll undoubtedly be answering with the “lie detector.” 

8. I like that the hosts acknowledge that, early on, some of the amped up individual members of the cast might be fooling themselves based on the opening pangs of what is essentially puppy love. It sort of undercuts the sincerity of the show’s purpose for them to admit this, but it was still nice of them to point out that those folks needed to take a moment to let the excitement die down. 

9. Alcohol is probably one of the least helpful solutions to any of the situations these guys find themselves in, but…gosh, does not one of them shy away from it. 

10. One of the things I don’t like about this show is how it is deliberately designed to needle the contestants, to stir the pot to elicit the strongest emotional responses. I understand that these kinds of shows want to manufacture as much drama as they can, but…the way they do it, here, just feels mean-spirited. Like, I dunno if it’s that the premise turns out not to be as inherently prone to drama as, say, the mostly organic tensions on Single’s Inferno, but there’s way less “let’s see how this turns out” and way more “turn up the heat, things aren’t spicy enough.” And I was not fond of that.

10A. Like the whole thing about the photos. There was no need to show those around. I mean, there were a couple of times when it seemed like it gave the other member of the couple some food for thought about how he or she might have gotten a little complacent and then prompted some reflection on why and whether that could change…but, most of the time, it just made everyone feel jealous and resentful. And I don’t see how that helped anything. (Which is maybe naivete on my part, since I’m so new to reality dating shows.) I mean, it’d be one thing if they just sent everyone a photo or two after the first few rounds of change dates to maybe jar the participants from their respective reveries and remind them of how they’re supposed to be with their partners (like they do when they surprised everyone by announcing the date couples out loud in the living room), but to constantly ask them if they want to take a peek? To what end? Beyond causing a fuss, that is. 

10B. And what’s almost worse is that (and I think it’s Hye-yeon—of all people—who points this out) the photos are completely misleading, just screenshots of the exact microframe that looks the most compromising (like tabloid pictures). And, certainly by the end, I don’t know how anyone puts any stock in them AT ALL. 

10C. …that said, you were totally leaning on Do-hyeong on that dolphin tour boat, Hye-yeon, don’t even pretend that you just got jostled into him in that photo. 

11. I still think it’s funny that Hye-yeon’s bathing suit on her pool date is both more and less revealing than if it were just a regular bikini—and that, because of this, the camera DOES NOT CARE that a totally shirtless Hyo-gi is also in the pool.

12. I don’t know how you can consider an afternoon with a bonfire and a massive tent to be camping (glamourous or otherwise). It’s a barbecue. Why big it up to make it sound like a romantic getaway? 

12A. And, while I’m on it…how long do you need to hold a blowtorch to pile of dry kindling before it becomes an actual fire? Hui-hyeon and Tae-won must have spent a combined 10 minutes trying to get that fire going. My mom can use a single match on some crappy backyard charcoal to greater effect.

13. I know I mentioned it already, but I really got a kick out of Jeong-hun hustling everyone at pool. Not least because of how annoyed Hui-hyeon was that everyone suddenly thought he was cool.

14. There’s something grim and ominous about the cast receiving instructions pretty much exclusively through text messages. And not just because I’m 100 years old and think phones are scary. 

15. I love that the hosts have pens and some papers to write on…but clearly only use it to doodle nervously in the margins or to trace and retrace shapes on the page. (You thought I wouldn’t notice, Mr. Older Host, but I am the world’s greatest detective!)

16. …that said, I don’t think I made a single correct prediction about who would ask whom out on a date or who’d choose to look at the photos or how they’d react to most things. Which is just one more reason I’d be a terrible participant on a dating show. 

16A. I mean, did I ever tell you the story about the girl who sat behind me in basically all my classes when I was a freshman in high school? I think the broadest way to describe it was to say that she would sometimes pester me or try to get a reaction out of me when she was bored. Well, one day, she borrowed my notebook to get copy notes or maybe the homework that was due that day, I can’t remember. But, when she gave the notebook back, I saw that she’d written her phone number in the back. And I thought to myself, “Why would I need her phone number?” I’m an embarrassment. 

17. It hurt my soul when Jeong-hun and Hye-yeon went on their picture-taking date and had to have film cameras explained to them. Particularly since I think my parents had the exact camera they were marveling over as ancient technology. 

18. I laughed really hard at the scene where Hyo-gi has crawled into bed with Do-hyeong to berate Yun-seul as she sits at the end of the bed. Oh, the look on Do-hyeong’s face as they both say mean things about each other to him instead of directly to each other!

19. It was unsurprising to discover that Ji-yu and Hye-yeon turned out to be total opposites, given my strong responses to both of them (in opposite ways, of course). 

20. One of the things I noticed about Hyo-gi, when he was with girls on the change dates, was that he often left a good impression because he’s basically a living Rorschach test: they see in him what they’d like to see rather than seeing him. He doesn’t have much to him, in the way of substance, which makes it easy to fill in the blanks with whatever traits he girls want—but it’s also part of the problem that he has with Yun-seul: she doesn’t see him for him because he’s barely got a “him” to be seen as. So she ends up seeing him as an extension of herself. 

21. Ji-yu spending most of the series in an oversize sweatshirt and comfy pants just made it that much easier to love her. 

21A. And I don’t know why she has an oversized fleece-y hoodie with ye olde Kodak logo on it, but…it definitely earned her a few move Daryl points. Just for the record.

22. It was fun watching the evolution of the hosts’ reaction to Tae-won interrupting Hye-yeon’s date with Jeong-hun. (“I’m glad he’s doing this. I think it’s a good move, given his personality, because it will allow him t—no no no, what is he doing?! Oh f***, why is he…oh dear God…”)

23. Another of my favorite Ji-yu moments is when she just happens to have come out of her room to sit in the living room because she couldn’t sleep and finds Hyo-gi is sitting there…just moments before Yun-seul walks in to misinterpret the scene. 

24. I absolutely roared at the two young hosts’ exasperated “THAT’S WHY IT’S NO FUN TO PLAY WITH BOOMERS!” when they tried to explain the whisper game to the older hosts, who immediately questioned how flimsy the premise of the game is (when that’s actually the point). 

25. I admit that, during the “original couples” date for Hui-hyeon and Jeong-hun, when he told her that he was thinking about whether breaking up with her might be the last kindness he could do for her, I got a little sniffly. It was just so unfair that these two obviously loved one another, and they were really only in distress because of his impending compulsory military service. (I mean, they had other things to work out, too, but…that’s normal.)

26. Another of my favorite Ji-yu moments was when she showed Tae-won the photos of Do-hyeong’s date with Hye-yeon, even though he told the show that he wouldn’t look at them.

Ji-yu: “Okay, I’ll show you, but don’t tell Hye-yeon that you saw them.”

Tae-won: “I promise I won’t. But also I’m doing exactly that right now.”

Ji-yu: “Dude, what the f***?!”

26A. Seriously, her utterly betrayed, “You…you said you wouldn’t!” absolutely delighted me. 

27. During the “six people have thought about breaking up” segment, I was less wrong about who the two people who never thought about breaking up turned out to be than pretty much everyone else in the show. I knew Ji-yu was going to be one of them, but I didn’t think Do-hyeong would be the other one. 

28. I almost could not believe how much the “girls’ night out!” dinner turned out to be a “girls’ knives out!” dinner, in the end. Yikes. I mean, when it takes Hye-yeon to try and play the rational diplomat, you know things have gotten tense. 

28A. Like, Hui-hyeon did not give a single f*** about going right after Ji-yu about her overnight date with Jeong-hun. “The pictures didn’t bother me, because he wasn’t doing any of the things I know mean he’s having fun.” And the look on Ji-yu’s face! Sittin’ there thinking, “Whatta ya mean he didn’t have fun?!” while also thinking “AND YOU TRIED TO STEAL MY MAN!”

28B. I especially liked that Yun-seul didn’t want any part of that bloodbath and just kept quiet. Particularly since Hui-hyeon’s ire turned to Hye-yeon as soon as she opened her mouth, as well. 

29. The boys were less coy about going after each other. (Or, well, Tae-won and Do-hyeong were less coy about it, I guess, since Jeong-hun was too polite (and sober) to partake and Hyo-gi is a robot man and so could only repeat his NPC dialogue about how little Yun-seul appreciate his “sacrificing so much” for her.) Which was way less fun than the girl-fight. 

30. I think it’s interesting that the girls were so upset about the surprise roommate swap that not one of them at any point considers that the boys being unperturbed by the swap has anything to do with them being mostly very drunk. 

31. …of course, then there’s Yun-seul who literally does a dance to celebrate that she’s moving into the big fancy room with Ji-yu. (“Huh? Oh, yeah, being forced apart from each other is just awful IS THAT OUR CLOSET THIS IS AMAZING!!!”) Which is pretty great. 

32. Speaking of Ji-yu: why wasn’t anyone wildly impressed with her drawing skills? She can do comic book-accurate sketches of anyone there, and…nothing? Really? 

33. I find it amusing that the girls have “don’t look at me I don’t have makeup on” hats. 

34. Less amusing hat details is that Tae-won usually wears a Yankees hat. Which upsets me. Because I like the Yankees. And think Tae-won is a dick. 

35. I really hope Ji-yu and Jeong-hun were just goofing around when they repeatedly failed to get into the hammock at their overnight date. (You go butt-first, you plebs!)

36. After the boys’ night dinner, that Hyo-gi is furious at Yun-seul because of something Tae-won said to him is so perfect—because only Hyo-gi is stupid enough to think Tae-won knows anything about anything. 

37. Y’know what else was pretty good about this show? The background music. I thought it was usually really on point. 

38. This show is full of these really stellar lines that writers can only wish they cooked up, each carrying tons of dramatic weight and conveying all kinds of information by implication. But my favorite comes early on from (you guessed it) Ji-yu, as she mutters unhappily about Do-hyeong and Hye-yeon bonding over being from the same hometown, repeatedly pointing out that Do-hyeong only lived there for about a year when he was a baby. Which…is such a rich line. 

39. I was genuinely surprised how “STAY AWAY FROM MY MAN!” Hui-hyeon got after the room swap and the 48-hour “free date!” announcement. I mean, she quite literally just lays down on top of him so that the other girls can’t get near him and, further, he can’t leave. It was wildly hypocritical of her, given her past behavior (which, again, she owns up to), but I still thought it was kinda sweet. 

39A. …though it is pretty funny, isn’t it, that we get this right after the interview scene Jeong-hun has where he suggests the room swap might give him the alone-time he needs to really think about what he should do.

40. A Ji-yu thing that isn’t a favorite Ji-yu thing but just a detail about Ji-yu: did you notice how, when she was uncomfortable (in a hurt or annoyed sense) she would open her mouth and let her tongue just poke out? She’d just part her lips, and, after seemingly retracting her teeth into her head, her tongue would just extend outwards from the blackness. (What’s that? You didn’t notice that? Well, it’s probably just because I’m the world’s greatest detective and absolutely nothing at all to do with me having a crush on Ji-yu which I definitely don’t have and I’m not currently watching her backlog of YouTube makeup tutorials what are you talking about that’s just silly no it’s because I’m the world’s greatest detective obviously why would you suggest otherwise Erin.)

41. At their final serious discussion/date, I could not figure out why Do-hyeong’s crotch seemed to keep lighting up (as though there was a flashlight stuffed down his pants)—and then I realized it was because we were watching him and Ji-yu though a window, and so I was seeing the reflection of a car’s brake light that just so happened to be exactly where his crotch was. 

42. I cannot explain to you how much I was laughing as we watched Hyo-gi struggle to make it back to his car after Yun-seul dumped him—not because I was amused by how upset he was (and I honestly wasn’t) but because the camera tracking his walk to the car caught sight of the camera they’d used to film their discussion from the outside…which had been haphazardly stuffed in a bush to seem inconspicuous. And I absolutely lost it over that. 

43. Another of my favorite Ji-yu moments: that she cannot understand how (according to the photos from the change dates) her boyfriend is able to make all the other girls laugh. 

43A. Relatedly: I’m not suggesting that I think Ji-yu should have ended up with Jeong-hun…but if it had happened, I don’t know that I would have been all that upset. (Except for the part where I wanted Jeong-hun and Hui-hyeon to stay together. (Eh. Details.))

43B. Further: Ji-yu specifically mentions that she dolled herself up on the last change date day in anticipation of going on a date with Jeong-hun (which, of course, doesn’t happen because half the people deliberately threw their choices so they wouldn’t be able to go out)—and I want to mention that I totally noticed the effort she put in, that day. And not just because she wasn’t in a fluffy, oversized sweatshirt. 

…which is all I have to say about that.

This was a much more difficult time to get through than either of the seasons of Single’s Inferno. Like, in terms of how anxious it made me. (I told you: I’m a Pisces/Pisces. I’m far too sensitive for this kind of uncomfortable tension!)

Fortunately, I got the chance to unwind with the much more lighthearted recommendation you gave me to work on next: The Glory. 

…cough.

Happy George Washington’s Birthday, Erin. 

–Daryl