Letter #56: The Glory (Part 1)

Good morning, Erin.

Here’s a little “inside baseball” for you: as rambling and unnecessary as the opening paragraphs to my letters always seem to be, I actually have them sort of (I stress sort of) sketched out well in advance of sitting down to write them. They are, in fact, usually some of the first things I jot down in my notes for each show, often being what I’m thinking as I head into the first episode or what my experience around watching the show has been. I don’t always stick to it, but it’s rare for me to toss it aside completely. 

For The Glory, though, I…don’t have anything. For the first time, I have absolutely no notes to guide my idiosyncratic (and, I’d like to think, in its own way charming) habit of spending a bit too much time in a preamble to the reason we’re here. 

Imagine my terror.

…but it’s fine, of course, because I then quickly settled on the lack of planned preamble as the topic for my preamble—such a clever boy am I. 

Oh! I was probably going to say something about the lead actress being briefly (and recently) married to Vincenzo! Because, gosh, I think the hosts of this K-drama podcast I started listening to (two hilarious, blunt French girls whose tastes are almost exactly mine) spent half of their chat about Vincenzo talking about his divorce. Which I mention mostly because they said he apparently bulldozed the house he and his wife had built, which sounds vaguely like an act of revenge, which is fitting considering the topic of the show his now-ex-wife is starring in that we are about to discuss. 

…wait, is that the sound of you sighing to yourself that you told me all about this when it happened? 

…is…that the sound of you sighing about me not being sure about why you’re sighing?

…and is that the sound of you si—y’know what, the important thing is that I watched Part 1 of The Glory, and I’m sure you’ve been itching to hear all about it:

1. We start with our protagonist taking up residence in her new home at the Eden Apartments, the first of a handful of almost painfully unsubtle religious references that come at us in quick succession. 

2. Next, the landlady talks to us about the flowers she grows on the roof of the apartment complex—which are, of course, literally called angels’ and devils’ trumpets. (Because religious motif.)

3. …flowers which are found in the rooftop garden of the Eden Apartments. Which…is more subtle, I guess, in that the show doesn’t just hand that one to you. 

4. To what end, these religious motifs? I’m not sure—as in, I’m not even sure if there will ultimately be one. I know the show is called The Glory, I know the advertising is very much done in the style of religious iconography (not super-overtly, but it’s certainly there), I know one of the bullies is literally the daughter of a preacher, and, heck, one of the bullies has a mom who spends an awful lot of time with a shaman. There’s religion all over the place, but…as of right now, I haven’t seen it utilized in any narrative sense (which…is a concern that I have about the show in a general sense). I figure with it being so unsubtle it’s going to have to come to something, but…I dunno. Halfway through and no indication of why it’s being done is…well. Either way, I guess we’ll see. 

5. Wait—before we go any further, I think we need to make it clear that I cannot for the life of me remember any of the characters’ names in this series. (Maybe Ms. Kang. Is her name Ms. Kang?) So, I came up with nicknames for some of them—but really only some of them. The others are just generic descriptors. Just needed to make that clear. Because I will from here on in, for example, call the protagonist “Gloria” (because The Glory), and I wanted to be sure you know that I know that isn’t her name. But damned if I ever clearly read what it really is. And so…Gloria.

5A. Oh—and the dude you like who is desperately in love with her? I call him Dr. Go. Because he’s a doctor and taught her how to play Go. And “Go” is a Korean last name. So…double-funny! 

6. I know we’re supposed to be outraged by the cruelty of the bullies and the corrupt or callous adults who didn’t do anything—and I’ve already mentioned to you my particular distaste for those particular wastes of oxygen—but I can’t even begin to understand how something this egregious could be allowed to happen. I mean, I know things can get much worse than they should (with an upsetting amount of frequency), when it comes to this kind of thing, but when the core argument is that being repeatedly burned with an iron is fine because you can still walk and stuff, I don’t know how you can still live with yourself. And, in that regard, I found a lot of the flashback stuff hard to sit through. Which was the point, I know, but…I had a strong reaction, is what I’m saying. Like, worse than the Single’s Inferno 2 fight pit. 

7. Whatever else I can say about Gloria, I absolutely love that she’s been writing (unsent) letters to the main target of her vengeance. It clearly displays her obsession and how this girl has been her constant companion for the last 20 years. 

7A. Now, you can extend that sentiment to the torment she endured being her constant companion, as well, but…I think that’s implicit in the whole revenge deal—which you can also argue for her bully, of course, but I think it’s important to distinguish that this whole thing is very, very much about specifically this one bully, rather than about the group or even the bullying itself. (Though it is, of course, also about those things.) 

7B. Further, the letters emphasize that Gloria has redefined herself entirely in relation to Queen Meanie, and she’s going to find herself on the precipice of self-destruction when she finally has the chance to strike the final blow—because she will be (and have) nothing without her. She’s Gloria’s reason for being…and, without her, she will die (literally or figuratively). 

8. Also: I call the main bully Queen Meanie.

9. It’s a bit of a trope that the bullied girl in these kinds of stories (by which I mean ones where the protagonist is picked on, not strictly stories of obsessive, long-planned revenge) grow up to look like, well, the gorgeous actresses who always end up playing them, but I give The Glory credit for specifically pointing out that teenage Gloria was pretty much broadly considered very pretty, so it’s not much of a duckling/swan transformation for her to be seen as the sophisticated beauty she is as an adult. 

9A. It’s also one of the reasons Queen Meanie hates her so much, back when they’re kids: she feels threatened by her looks. (Which…I dunno, I think Young Queen Meanie was clearly a step or two higher on the prettiness scale, so I’m not sure why that’s the case, but…whatever, my thoughts on this aren’t important to the point.)

9B. (…though, in terms of looks…I don’t know what they’ve done to the actress who plays Queen Meanie, ‘cus she looks terrible. And I’ve seen her in interviews. She’s way prettier than she looks on this show. Maybe it’s deliberate. Or it’s just the way it’s shot. Or maybe it’s that she’s not a psychopath in real life. I dunno.)

9C. Also, I think the casting of Young Gloria is pretty good, in terms of believing she could grow up to turn into Gloria. I mean, I don’t think the timing quite works out, technically, in terms of how many years would have to pass for her looks to sharpen and slim down or whatever, but…hey, not everything can be Glitch. It’s more than good enough. 

10. And can we explain why the guys were able to play their younger counterparts? I get that the women are all around 40, which isn’t easy to age down, but…are they male actors playing a lot older when they’re adults? Actually, y’know what, I’m gonna look this up right now and…um, one of the men is almost 40, but the rest of the adult-actor bullies are about 30. So…why did…I mean, Gloria is 41, so I get it, but why are the guys able to—okay, whatever. There are bigger mysteries afoot.

11. I don’t think there was a single Edmond Dantes reference in the whole (half-)season, and I am kind of miffed about that. 

12. I’m pretty we’re being shown this story out of sequence—and not always in obvious ways. I think it’s all part of a storytelling misdirection scheme…or maybe it’s not told as out-of-sequence as I think it is and we’re just going to find that I didn’t like/get the storytelling. I dunno. We’ll see. 

13. Wait—we need to talk about who I recognized:

• SO-E!!! as the girl who killed herself. (Or did she???) I’m pretty sure you told me she was in this, but I was still surprised. I can’t wait to see her in more things. 

• the mute grandmother from My Mister as the landlady for Gloria’s apartment building

• the divorce lawyer from Camellia as Ms. Kang

• the youth psychiatrist guy from Bad and Crazy as Queen Meanie’s husband

• the rich daughter from Parasite as Young Gloria

• Actress Friend’s boyfriend from Thirty-Nine as the dude who killed Dr. Go’s dad

• Firefly Dude from Hotel Del Luna as Dr. Go

• the thug younger brother in The Uncanny Counter as the guy who hits Gloria’s car

14. There are two locations I swear I totally recognize (a streetcorner (in Ep 1) looks like it’s roughly where Kim Go-eun was working at the start of Tune in for Love; and Dr. Go’s new apartment looks just like the multipurpose deity meeting place in A Korean Odyssey)…but I’m also wondering if maybe I’m just being “tunnel racist,” again. 

15. Did you pick up on all the symbolism of Gloria and Dr. Go being similar but also different? Like how she’s always playing the black pieces in Go and he’s always playing the white pieces because she’s a dark character (obsessed with vengeance) and he’s a light one (obsessed with…well, vengeance, but in a technically more benign sense)? Or how she can’t listen to the sound of sizzling bacon (because it reminds her of her burning flesh) but he can only relax when he hears the fizzling of an Alka-Seltzer tablet? Hmmmmm I wonder if this means they may come into conflict later on. 

15A. …seriously, though, this inevitable antagonists thing had better pan out. You don’t get to throw all that symbolism out there and then not do anything with it. That’s now how writing works. 

15B. That said, I was complaining about the seemingly pointless but very heavy-handedly overt religious symbolism, earlier, and that hasn’t had even a sliver of payoff, so…what do I know.

16. A bit of really, really good symbolism for these two, though, comes when she’s stumbled to his new apartment after her freakout at the mechanic and, in the end, accepts his help in furthering her revenge scheme. He notices she’s lost the button on her coat cuff, and he sews on a new one—specifically he sews on whatever he has to hand…which turns out to be a large black button. When you are a beginner at Go, you play the black stones. Here, they symbolically establish her accepting him into her plans with her acquiescing to his offer to fix her button…and, because he’s a beginner at revenge, his opening move is with a black “stone.” It’s very clever.

16A. …and there’s the part where she doesn’t want the dry cleaner to replace the button, which is adorable. Perhaps more sentimental than the story should call for, but…I’m a sap, so it’s fine. 

17. I don’t understand that arrogant jerk co-worker teacher’s haircut. You know who I mean. The guy who looks like 1970 vomited all over him. What an absolute joke of a design decision—unless, of course, it’s leading to something. Which, like sooooo much of this show, it may or may not. 

18. I’m 80% sure Gloria is lying about seeing So-e kill herself/get pushed off the roof. Like, I’m 95% sure Queen Meanie didn’t do it, as Gloria claims she did, but I’m leaning very heavily into the whole thing is made up just to lure Long-Haired Bully to her cause.

19. I’m 100% sure this whole green shoes game of Three Card Monte is a misdirect—and a silly one at that. By which I mean I think the misdirection is that it’s a misdirection. 

19A. …on the other hand, I’m also pretty sure we’re being told the story secretly out of sequence, so it’s also possible that the misdirect we’re getting is also deliberately misleading in how silly (that is, how obvious) it is. 

19B. …which is the problem/“problem” I have with the show—or, rather, at least in terms of how they’ve split the show in half: there are too many irons in the fire. I mean, I’m fine with the whole story being a tapestry woven of a million little threads, some significant and some misdirection, but our so-called Part 1 doesn’t end at even a cliffhanger-y stopping point, let alone a moment where any of the many potential story threads seem to coalesce or clarify themselves as definitely significant. It just sort of…stops. Which is its own problem, in that it is an odd choice to leave the audience not particularly wanting (or not wanting in a way that is any different from any other episode—which is to say enjoying ourselves, but not dying to find out what happens next), but it is specifically worse for The Glory because it is structured—whether it knows this or not—as, fittingly, a game of Go: a slowly-woven net used to surround the opponent (in this case, the audience) until the overall endgame becomes apparent. As such, the story gaps and loose threads and seeming incongruities (of which there is no small amount) could be easily set aside as we wait for the rest of the story to (we hope) explain or justify or minimize the negative impact of them as it slow-burns its way (again, we hope) to its climax and conclusion. But, as it stands, there are A LOT of loose threads, and a lot of story beats that don't quite line up, and a lot of story details that feel extraneous to or detached from the central plot (cough Dr. Go and the guy who killed his dad cough cough)—and that sort of leaves us wondering what the heck we’ve just spent 8 episodes watching, because the eight episode does nothing to act as a chapter closing that pulls any of these things into even a loose kind of wrap-up or even a general shape. They’re just…there. As such, Part 1 doesn't feel like a deliberate first part so much as where the story happened to have its numerical halfway point. Which means we’re left wondering whether any of the details we’ve seen are important rather than how they might be important in the second half. 

19C. Or, put more succinctly, I’m left wondering which details are meant as foreshadowing and which are just (for lack of a better way to describe it) artistic flare.

20. Relatedly, whatever I think the show’s overall (or perhaps I mean seeming) storytelling flaws are, each episode is EXACTLY the perfect length for those flaws not to feel like they matter too much, because you are given the perfect amount of story and intrigue to make you want to watch the next episode. There’s very little fluff, so there’s very little time for your mind to wander very far (which is when you start to ask questions the writers don’t want you to), and the short-ish runtime forces the slow unraveling of the story to feel like it’s constantly moving…even if, really, I couldn’t tell you if anything is actually happening. 

21. And speaking of foreshadowing vs. artistic flare: I’m also wondering if Gloria hallucinates some of the interactions we see her have. Like, I’m not committed to this idea or anything. It just occurred to me that, given how I think there are way too many dangling threads of far too unconfirmed significance, the part near the start of the show where she imagines Queen Meanie walking into her apartment so she can beat her a bit and then give her all the exposition the audience needs might have been more than just an artsy way to tell us some exposition. 

21A. To wit: what if Gloria is actually responsible for some of what she’s claiming Queen Meanie did

21B. Again, I’m not committed to this idea, just…literally anything is possible, at this point, is what I’m trying to say. I can’t tell which of the thousand seeds the show has planted is meant to sprout and which is not. Which is more than I think is good for this kind of thing. 

22. Oh, here’s a question: does Ms. Kang have a job or not? I thought she worked for the school administrator guy whose trash Gloria was stealing. Is that not the case? Is that why she’s able to just start working for Gloria? I thought Gloria specifically referred to her (in voiceover narration) as being a member of the administrator’s house staff. Did I misunderstand? Was Gloria wrong? Does Ms. Kang quit? These are the kinds of questions that plague me as a viewer, Erin. 

23. Speaking of Ms. Kang, though…sort of: for all her reluctance to connect with others, it is established very early on that Gloria is absolutely not working on her own. Her friend from the cloth manufacturing plant has been with her and helping her for a looooong time. 

23A. Also: I thought we’d see more of her.

23B. Also also: I wish she’d been Excessive English Girl. 

23C. …I wish that about a lot of things, though, don’t I. 

24. Did you notice how many Hyundais there were—logos and all? That was rad. (“Hyundai…we help you get to your revenge in style!”)

25. Queen Meanie passes as a smoker, by the way. As in, the actress probably doesn’t smoke, but she doesn’t look like a total phony when she has her smoking scenes. Which, as many a K-drama has shown us, is not easy. 

26. Is it okay for Queen Meanie’s daughter to play Among Us? I feel like she’s too young for that. 

27. We’re well past the point in the story where Gloria should be running into problems. I mean, we may just be getting to the point where she gets put on the backfoot, technically, but she’s pretty much breezed through the first half of the show—and I’m a little wary of that. She should have at least been forced to improvise a couple of times, but the worst thing she’s had to deal with, really, is Ms. Kang showing up out of nowhere…to ultimately become her best friend and helper, so I dunno that that’s much of a hiccup in her plans. I assume we’re going to get more of that in Part 2, but…I spent a chunk of the last couple of episodes wondering why it hadn’t happened yet. 

28. Speaking of: if Mr. Queen Meanie (that is, the main bully’s husband) doesn't end up playing spoiler for Gloria’s plans, I'm going to be very, very disappointed. He's been portrayed as strategic and particular about his things, so if anyone's going to manage to get in her way, it should absolutely be him. 

28A. Now, I'm not saying he won't sympathize with her, but there's no way he lets her dictate the way things play out. He's going to protect his daughter—which means eliminating all the bad influences in her orbit, which absolutely works out for Gloria. But I have to imagine he’s not going to just let Gloria disrupt his world without there being some kind of blowback. 

28B. Also: I really like Mr. Queen Meanie. I think he might be my favorite character. He’s smart, seems mostly a decent person, and, in a fairly subtle bit of narrative parallel, he operates on the edges of problems he wants to solve—that is, like Gloria, he’s employing Go strategies and trying to surround his opponents rather than attacking them directly. That’s always fun. 

28C. Also: I suspect he might—might—be the one who sets the world of the story back to some semblance of order, once everything is said and done…though that will depend on what kind of story it ultimately turns out to be.

29. To wit: I'd like to think we're headed to a kind of Shakespearean, bittersweet ending—insofar as the baddies will all get their just desserts, but our protagonist will have lost her life (literally or figuratively) to do it, her revenge being both karmically justified but also so all-consuming that she had to become a monster befitting of a karmic punishment herself to get it. (I mean, her opening volley against the bullies is to go after Queen Meanie’s kid. Which, sure, you could argue she’s not going to do anything specifically to the kid, but she’s directly involving the kid in her scheme, which means she’s on the game board, which means she’s potentially in harm’s way. Not a hero-y move, is what I’m saying.)  BUT…that nothing has gone amiss, yet, makes me wonder if the overall arc of this story will wind up being more of a cathartic tale than a morality play. (Even if it is called The Glory…)

30. I don't think Dr. Go will get his revenge on the guy who killed his dad. But look for him to be the one who takes out Gloria (in one sense or the other) as the big twist. That’s my big prediction. 

31. I cannot understand why Gloria openly threatens the bullies. I mean, I get the impulse to do it, to gloat, to make them feel the kind of dread they made her feel. But these are still powerful people operating within a very corrupt system, and she—no matter how much planning she has done—is not. The logical first or second move for Queen Meanie and Colorblind Bully would be to just disappear her. 

31A. Now, this can be one of two things, as I see it: a flaw with Gloria or a flaw with the storytelling. If it is a flaw in the writing, this was done for dramatic effect and is ignoring what I would call an obvious snag in the believability of the story. If it's a flaw in her that the makers of the show are aware of, then we should see this come around to bite her in the patoot (as we sit around wondering why she didn't think this was something that she should prepare for…but I digress). 

31B. Personally, I hope this is a flaw in her and therefore in her otherwise careful plan—in that I hope her emotions clouded her judgment and made her think that striking from the shadows (and making them destroy each other, which seemed to be working pretty well) wasn't satisfying enough. At which point I think her seeming aversion to killing them would become a necessary debate for her to have with herself on screen: she's goaded her targets into open combat, so...how committed is she to hurting them, once it stops being a game of Go and becomes checkers? And seeing that could be a lot of fun. 

31C. That said, there is an argument to be made that Queen Meanie is so afraid of her daughter being hurt or finding out about her past or in some other sense falling victim to the sins of her (Queen Meanie’s) past that she refuses to act. It’s a really flimsy argument (especially after we see she’s willing to set some thugs to quietly pestering Gloria—though, importantly, not to actually do anything to her, for some reason), but it can be argued. Like, in terms of that’s what the show is hoping is a good enough reason for us to let her lack of obvious reaction slide. I mean, maybe I’m being too critical with this point, because maybe she thinks fighting back will expose her past to her husband, which will then ruin her life, but…I dunno, I just think this is a situation that demands more clarity than the show gives us. 

31D. But if we set all of that aside…revealing herself to the bullies before the big reveal (to them) that she’s Queen Meanie’s daughter’s teacher is great—because it makes that reveal absolutely terrifying.

32. How stupid is Queen Meanie that she thinks the best response to her husband trying to figure out what’s up with her past is to threaten him? I mean, it makes sense for her character to default to that, but it’s such a bad move. She should know him well enough to know that her only real move is to soften things and appease him. Going at him will only make him go harder against her. 

33. Stewardess Bully is hot. (And maybe #BestGirl. Maybe.) Which I’m mentioning for a reason, by the way, not just, y’know, because I think she’s hot: I don’t think it’s a coincidence that they keep her (and, for that matter, Long-Haired Bully) around basically just to act as a whipping boy and she’s actually much better looking than the other girls in the group, given how much Queen Meanie loathed Gloria for being pretty. 

34. I like that Gloria gets the school nurse who “quit” her job, back in the day, a new job with Dr. Go. It’s a nice way to show that she’s not entirely lost to her revenge scheme, that she can still easily care about other people, that she is driven by a sense of justice, even if it is buried under all the thoughts of vengeance. (Though I can also argue that the detail here loses its gloss when the nurse is just one of a handful of people she concerns herself with. And, further, that building a team of allies would seem to undercut the severity of her story…unless, of course, that’s the point. But I digress.)

35. THey just sort of slide it in there, but I love the moment when Colorblind Bully gives away the game,  when he confronts Queen Meanie about knowing her daughter is his and not her husband’s: he talks about her leaving her husband so that he and she and their daughter can be a family. He doesn’t talk about being a father to the girl but, rather, what being her father “entitles” him to—which, in this case, is Queen Meanie. He cares much, much less about the kid than he does parlaying her into finally being able to be with the girl he’s been in love (and having a long-standing affair) with.

35A. Of course, if she’s smart, Queen Meanie will be able to use this to her advantage as a defense against however her husband will presumably try to punish her…but I suppose we’ll have to see. 

36. So…the jerk homeroom teacher who ignored Gloria’s pleas for help as a teen (and beat her about the head for refusing to just ignore her torment) dies of a severe flower allergy. Which he walks into a room full of flowers. And then…doesn’t try to leave. From the room full of flowers. Which he can see. And run from. But doesn’t. Because…?

37. I’m not sure if the memento mori/“me mori” tattoo covering thing is clever or pretentious. But I did think it was a believable beat, regardless. 

38. I am sure, though, that I absolutely did not buy the scene where Dr. Go begged Gloria to let him be her executioner. Or, rather, I didn’t think the acting was believable. I thought the scene was written well enough, but I didn’t think either of the actors were quite up to the task. Like, her laughter at his innocence or naivety as he insists her revenge should be accepting that she’s just a better person than her bullies doesn’t sound at all spontaneous, and his later insistence that she let him be the one to wield the knife for her doesn’t look or sound like it’s coming from the horror and despair that hearing the full account of her suffering is clearly meant to induce in him. 

39. …but, like, seriously, we’re going to come back to the whole thing about Stewardess Bully probably being pregnant with Long-Haired Bully’s kid, right? Right? Show, why aren’t you answering me?

And that’s all I have to say about that. 

…for now, at least. Part 2 drops in a couple of days, and I guess we’ll see how things go from there. 

But, as far as these eight episodes are concerned, I’d say this was pretty good. Very, very watchable. Maybe-flawed, or maybe forgivably flawed. Or maybe brilliant, who knows, stopping after Episode 8 was just silly.

I’m looking forward to the second half—even if it makes me take a break from Transit Love 2. Which, yes, I am absolutely watching. And kind of loving. And will continue to ask you to watch, even though I know you won’t. 

Which, given my track record, is actually pretty smart. Hmm. 

Hmmmmm. 

—Daryl