Letter #57: Welcome to Waikiki 2
Good morning, Erin.
I’ve recently been very into a song called “Good Boy Gone Bad” by a group you’ve probably never heard of (but I think you’d probably really like) called TXT. So, of course you would then recommend I turn my attention to something with a hefty amount of Good Boy in it.
Which is exactly what I did—and how could I not? Good Boy + you telling me what to do + a string of mostly disappointing Korean movies (which just you wait for when I drop that monster letter on you) that left me desperate for some kind of treat for myself? Of course I was going to watch it.
So, settle in, my K-drama seonbae, so we can discuss (briefly? I don’t actually have tons of notes on this one—but when has that ever meant anything, right?) Welcome to Waikiki 2.
1. The show starts off with an obvious homage to both Kill Bill and (unless I’m just reading into it) Suckerpunch, so it only took a couple of seconds to reestablish that I really need to leave all of my entertainment decisions to you. Erin makes everything better. Well, makes TV picks better.
2. I’m not going to bury the lede, here: Good Boy’s Sister was my favorite character and #BestGirl. Which is probably not surprising, both in terms of my taste in characters and in terms of her being probably the most complex character in the series. (Not that any of them is particularly complex.) I thought she was fun, funny, and exactly my kind of ridiculous.
3. Speaking of Good Boy’s Sister, my absolute favorite thing in the whole show is this little acting detail in her performance: she has the exact same quiet self-pleased laugh as Good Boy. Early in the show, he gives more than one little actor-affected odd chuckle, and (if I remember correctly) it’s meant as a very small joke that he has an unusual chuckle. No one talks about it, but I think someone maybe gives him a look. But then, in Episode 5, she chuckles to herself over some idea she has to ingratiate herself to the folks at the guesthouse to let her stay there, and I immediately sat up in my chair. What a great way to reinforce that they’re siblings. Absolutely loved it.
4. Of course, my second favorite thing is a quick shot of Good Boy running away from the gag boss that showed that he’s wearing THE EXACT SAME SNEAKERS AS I AM. Yeah, that’s right: me and Good Boy, #twinsies. I bet you’re seeing me in a whole new light, now.
5. Speaking of Good Boy (and we always should be): gosh, he’s good. He absolutely nails the very jokey tone of the show without ever being over-goofy or too exaggerated. Which, given a lot of the show, is a difficult thing to do.
6. The first episode does a really good job of immediately establishing both the look of the show and differentiating the members of the cast with its use of bright blocks of primary colors. In terms of the cast, the first four members are each introduced wearing obviously single-color-dominant outfits (blue dinner jacket, red baseball outfit, yellow Bruce Lee tracksuit, and green sweatsuit), so you are going to remember them by color if nothing else. I liked that.
6A. And, of course, they keep this look going, with the characters donning a rotation of solid colors throughout the series, the car being fire engine red, the food truck being bright green, the trashcans and mailboxes outside the guesthouse being color-coded for the type of trash or mail each is designated for, and even the decorative background in Actor Guy’s stage play being three solid columns of colored lights (yellow, blue, and red, appropriately).
6B. Also, in a nice bit of foreshadowing, Good Boy’s Sister makes her first appearance in a bright red coat…and eventually ends up with Baseball Guy, whose uniform is, of course, mostly red.
6C. Actually, speaking of the colors thing…there are three parking spots in front of the guest house, and two of them are occupied: the red car, and the green food truck. The food truck comes later on in the show, but, when it did, I assumed we were going to get either a yellow or blue motorcycle added in that third spot. We did not. And I was very disappointed by that.
7. Speaking of the red car, though, Actor guy gave it a name, and it’s same name as my sister. So, every time one of the characters would refer to it by name, I would take a picture of the screen and text it to her. She did not think it was funny, after the first six or seven times. Presumably because she’s a grumpypants.
8. I recognized a lot of people on this show, both in the main cast and among the one-off characters:
· Good Boy from…well, take your pick, but he’s the musician
8A. I mentioned in my Alchemy of Souls letter than I knew Maidservant Kim from My Mister but that I also couldn’t really recognize it was the same actress. Well, in this show, she looks much more like I remember her from My Mister. And…it’s that her hair is so different in the shows that threw me off. It’s always the hair, with me.
8B. This is a little out of order, but I told you that I started watching Transit Love 2 (soooo good!), and I started right after I finished this show. And one of the hosts is Good Boy’s Sister! I was so excited to see that. She’s adorable. And a total introvert. Me gusta mucho.
9. There are a couple of instances of one or more of the protagonists sitting around watching TV and that show specifically being the variety show Men on a Mission—which is a show I actually recognize! I just recently watched an episode because it featured Jung So-min, who, after much deliberation, I have officially decided is my K-drama girlfriend. (A list of all candidates and their statistics/rankings in making the final decision can be made available upon request.)
10. I really appreciate that the show doesn’t beat around the bush with the Good Boy x True Beauty romance subplot. I mean, they don’t openly confirm it until Episode 4 (I think), but they also don’t at all hide that it’s going to happen—first because Actor Guy and Baseball Guy so obviously form their own little unit (even sharing a bed), leaving Good Boy to his own devices and, as such, his own subplots; and second because the story immediately hamstrings his romantic prospects when True Beauty moves in by forcing him into that fake relationship with the landlady so she won’t evict them.
10A. They even reinforce the implication of their coming romance in Episode 2 by creating that odd little love triangle of Good Boy lying to both True Beauty and the landlady that the other woman is only hanging around him because she’s literally crazy.
11. It took me almost literally half the series to realize that Actor Guy and Actor Guy’s Friend were not siblings. They don’t say it outright until a few episodes later, but I just interpreted their comfortable bickering as a brother-sister kind of interaction pretty much from the start. Especially after her introduction to the show is more-or-less to mention that she’s freeloading—which I must have assumed he would only allow for his sister, much like Good Boy does with his own sister.
12. Speaking of siblings: I love Good Boy’s Sister wingmanning for him as much as she does, because it is (especially early on) equal parts sincere and ruse to keep him from kicking her out.
13. And speaking of things I didn’t realize right away: apparently their guesthouse is, like, a nice hostel, right? I mean, I still haven’t 100% confirmed this, but I had spent the first several episodes assuming it was some kind of hotel—and then they start to actually get guests, and it seems like all their guests are young white people. Which is when I thought, “Ah, maybe it’s a hostel. Which would also explain the bunkbeds.”
14. And speaking of them finally getting guests AND things it took me a little while to notice: it’s so easy to miss the banner atop the guesthouse advertising it’s where you can go to see the “goatman” and “tranq bear”—which is a shame, because it’s hilarious.
15. Interesting how the guesthouse is always as busy or empty as the script needs it to be, allowing it to act just as the six protagonists’ shared living space whenever it would be inconvenient for anyone else to disrupt their ability to sit around or eat dinner or fold some laundry.
16. Also interesting how, for a bunch of poor people, they never wear the same outfits twice.
17. Speaking of clothes, though: I looooooove Good Boy’s Sister’s outfit for when she’s at her food truck. That little matching shirt and headband. Adorable.
17A. Actor Guy’s Friend’s sailor outfits are also adorable. A surprising choice for her character, in my opinion, but still adorable.
18. “The pervert is stressing me our already. Why did you bring this snake?!” (An amusing enough line in-context, but a HILARIOUS line out of context.)
19. Actually, jumping back to outfits for a moment: when Baseball Guy and Good Boy’s Sister go out on their first date, they lament that they don’t have anything in common by saying that they just don’t “match” (when they express what they want to do or where they want to go)…but the first thing I noticed, when they met up for the date, was that their outfits were very similar but didn’t quite match. So, the outfits certainly went together very well, but they weren’t literally the same. Which I thought was a fun bit of visual reinforcement of the scene.
20. Of course, the best thing about the date sequence was that it was ultimately a brief meditation on how you shouldn’t doubt the connection you feel for each other just because, upon inspection, you don’t seem to be on the same page about more superficial things. Sure, that connection could just be that you both want to get smoochy with one another, but it could also mean that you just need to dig down into the important stuff to find where you really meet up. And I like that.
21. True Beauty makes an IU reference—10 points!
21A. …but it’s an IU song I don’t know—so, -1 points!
22. At the start of the show, the boys all come up with cover stories to tell True Beauty that make them sound cooler than they are for when they tell her why they’re all working at this guesthouse. But, as the show goes on, it seems like these cover stories turn out to be true (just not as cool as they pretend that they are). And I’m not sure if I just misunderstood the intention of the whole “cover story” element or if the show retconned in what they said. But I was very confused, regardless. (It was the “wait, they’re not siblings?!” thing all over again.)
23. And speaking of retcons (…maybe-ish): early in the show, after Good Boy’s Sister kisses Baseball Guy to hide that she’s been secretly staying in the guesthouse, Baseball Guy runs away crying about how she stole his first kiss. But a few episodes later, when he and Good Boy’s Sister wake up in the same bed after a night of blackout drinking, they both worry that they might have slept with each other—but they worry about it in the typical “oh nooooo I can’t belieeeeeve it!” kind of comedy way. But…if Baseball Guy was sad about how he got his first kiss, why in the hell is he so otherwise blasé about accidentally losing his virginity?!
23A. And it’s not like the show did the “ah, but they didn’t really have sex, they just didn’t realize they didn’t!” thing, either, because SHE ENDS UP BEING PREGNANT. Now, admittedly, I can’t 100% confirm that they weren’t getting busy after that whole wake-up-in-same-bed gag, particularly since they were secretly dating for a while by the time she finds out she’s pregnant, but…y’know, I can’t 100% confirm that they didn’t have sex when they blacked out, which means my point still stands: he should have freaked out over it a lot more than he did.
23B. And no, I don’t think it gets explained away by him having to hide all day in her bed because of goofy sitcom shenanigans. (Even if that turns out to be the show’s way of side-stepping that plot.)
24. Man, this show loves a good wig. Or a bad wig. To the point where I wonder if they had to justify their budget and just added the “need” for a wig in every episode.
25. It also loves this small, green-bristled broom, ‘cus it shows up A LOT.
26. It also also loves an overt A-story/B-story parallel or an overt character callback-parallel—but none so overtly as:
· when Actor Guy turns in one of his best acting performances because he’s not allowed to run to the bathroom, and Baseball Guy’s good-luck superstition is not allowing himself a bowel movement before an important pitching performance.
27. Everyone seemed surprisingly amped that Actor Guy had a dream with Kim Jong-un in it. I would not have thought that to be something anyone would think was cool, but…clearly I’d be wrong.
28. Be proud of me: the show doesn’t outright tell us that Good Boy’s Sister is his older sister until pretty late in the series…but I figured it out (in much the same way I assume the show would have originally intended the audience to) by noticing that the boys kept referring to her as noona. I am the world’s greatest detective.
28A. While we’re on the word-related train: I don’t know what the landlady was calling Good Boy, once they started dating, but—because his last name is Cha—it sounded like “cha-cha-cha.” Which, for obvious reasons, amused me greatly.
28B. Still word-ish stuff: I’ve seen this in anime, too, but subtitles seem to use the word “dumped” to describe what I would describe as “rejected,” when a character confesses or sort of confesses to another and isn’t immediately met with hugs and kisses. I don’t know if this is a common mistake (that no one ever feels the need to correct) or if there’s some cultural reason for why the rejected party in these scenarios feels let go rather than turned away, but…well, there we are.
28C. They make a Japanese grammar joke in Episode 1, and I totally got it.
29. I still can't believe they didn't do anything with Baseball Guy finding out how much effort it took for Good Boy's Sister to buy him those chocolates. Like, he never connects how much effort it would have taken her to get them for him and, as such, how much he must matter to her for her to do it.
30. They thought they could slip this one past me, but: there’s a scene in Episode 8 where Good Boy is in the main sitting area with his sister, and the focus of the scene is him being on the phone. His sister, meanwhile, is just sitting in the same room, watching TV. Or, rather, the actress is acting like that’s what she’s doing, but when the camera angle changes, the TV is off. So, I don’t know if they forgot to superimpose some TV footage or if they edited out the sister turning off the TV when she turned to join the rest of the scene or if they didn’t think anyone would notice (and, as such, didn’t anticipate coming face to face with the world’s greatest detective)…but I noticed.
30A. Similarly, there’s a scene where Good Boy drops True Beauty off at work and, between getting out of the car and when she enters the office where she’s working with one of the writers for her show, she’s changed outfits. Is it normal for someone in her position to do that, or is this a mistake they hoped no one would notice (and, as such, didn’t anticipate coming face to face with the world’s greatest detective)…but I noticed.
31. Speaking of True Beauty: I know none of the characters has all that much going on, but she’s barely more than a function of Good Boy’s story, rather than a proper character. And that kinda sucks.
32. For as much as they nailed the similar chuckles of Good Boy and his sister, they totally didn’t nail the efficacy of their smoochy scenes, with Good Boy’s being not very good and his sister’s being not terrible.
33. And…I’m not 100% sure what prompts this note, but I have here that I like the name Bo-ra. Which I do. I just don’t know why I wrote that down. Maybe a character had that name? I dunno. But I do like it.
33A. I also note that I like Korean names that start with Ji-, and how that maybe makes sense because I like “J” names in English.
33B. Not Ji-a, obviously. But other names.
33C. I’m also partial to “E” names, though really only in English, and really only for girls, and really I don’t know why all of this is written in my notes for this show.
And…well, that’s about that, isn’t it.
This show was fine, just like you said it would be. Certainly watchable and inoffensive. Didn’t have the best ratio of skit-comedy to character-based comedy, and the goofier stuff did seem to go on for too long, often severely hampering the momentum of the show. But it did make me laugh, so…mission accomplished.
Next is…oh, actually, it’s The Glory (Part 2), isn’t it, because it’s all released all at once. Gotta get on that before the interweb spoils the whole thing.
But after that is…well, Transit Love 2, which I am going to have to force myself to leave for the weekend as I pour myself into the aforementioned The Glory (Part 2), of course.
But after that…who knows. Could be anything.
Though, as we’ve established, it’s best if it’s something you tell me to watch. Because Erin makes everything better.
…at least with K-drama stuff. It remains to be seen how you would affect ice cream.
—Daryl
I’ve recently been very into a song called “Good Boy Gone Bad” by a group you’ve probably never heard of (but I think you’d probably really like) called TXT. So, of course you would then recommend I turn my attention to something with a hefty amount of Good Boy in it.
Which is exactly what I did—and how could I not? Good Boy + you telling me what to do + a string of mostly disappointing Korean movies (which just you wait for when I drop that monster letter on you) that left me desperate for some kind of treat for myself? Of course I was going to watch it.
So, settle in, my K-drama seonbae, so we can discuss (briefly? I don’t actually have tons of notes on this one—but when has that ever meant anything, right?) Welcome to Waikiki 2.
1. The show starts off with an obvious homage to both Kill Bill and (unless I’m just reading into it) Suckerpunch, so it only took a couple of seconds to reestablish that I really need to leave all of my entertainment decisions to you. Erin makes everything better. Well, makes TV picks better.
2. I’m not going to bury the lede, here: Good Boy’s Sister was my favorite character and #BestGirl. Which is probably not surprising, both in terms of my taste in characters and in terms of her being probably the most complex character in the series. (Not that any of them is particularly complex.) I thought she was fun, funny, and exactly my kind of ridiculous.
3. Speaking of Good Boy’s Sister, my absolute favorite thing in the whole show is this little acting detail in her performance: she has the exact same quiet self-pleased laugh as Good Boy. Early in the show, he gives more than one little actor-affected odd chuckle, and (if I remember correctly) it’s meant as a very small joke that he has an unusual chuckle. No one talks about it, but I think someone maybe gives him a look. But then, in Episode 5, she chuckles to herself over some idea she has to ingratiate herself to the folks at the guesthouse to let her stay there, and I immediately sat up in my chair. What a great way to reinforce that they’re siblings. Absolutely loved it.
4. Of course, my second favorite thing is a quick shot of Good Boy running away from the gag boss that showed that he’s wearing THE EXACT SAME SNEAKERS AS I AM. Yeah, that’s right: me and Good Boy, #twinsies. I bet you’re seeing me in a whole new light, now.
5. Speaking of Good Boy (and we always should be): gosh, he’s good. He absolutely nails the very jokey tone of the show without ever being over-goofy or too exaggerated. Which, given a lot of the show, is a difficult thing to do.
6. The first episode does a really good job of immediately establishing both the look of the show and differentiating the members of the cast with its use of bright blocks of primary colors. In terms of the cast, the first four members are each introduced wearing obviously single-color-dominant outfits (blue dinner jacket, red baseball outfit, yellow Bruce Lee tracksuit, and green sweatsuit), so you are going to remember them by color if nothing else. I liked that.
6A. And, of course, they keep this look going, with the characters donning a rotation of solid colors throughout the series, the car being fire engine red, the food truck being bright green, the trashcans and mailboxes outside the guesthouse being color-coded for the type of trash or mail each is designated for, and even the decorative background in Actor Guy’s stage play being three solid columns of colored lights (yellow, blue, and red, appropriately).
6B. Also, in a nice bit of foreshadowing, Good Boy’s Sister makes her first appearance in a bright red coat…and eventually ends up with Baseball Guy, whose uniform is, of course, mostly red.
6C. Actually, speaking of the colors thing…there are three parking spots in front of the guest house, and two of them are occupied: the red car, and the green food truck. The food truck comes later on in the show, but, when it did, I assumed we were going to get either a yellow or blue motorcycle added in that third spot. We did not. And I was very disappointed by that.
7. Speaking of the red car, though, Actor guy gave it a name, and it’s same name as my sister. So, every time one of the characters would refer to it by name, I would take a picture of the screen and text it to her. She did not think it was funny, after the first six or seven times. Presumably because she’s a grumpypants.
8. I recognized a lot of people on this show, both in the main cast and among the one-off characters:
· Good Boy from…well, take your pick, but he’s the musician
8A. I mentioned in my Alchemy of Souls letter than I knew Maidservant Kim from My Mister but that I also couldn’t really recognize it was the same actress. Well, in this show, she looks much more like I remember her from My Mister. And…it’s that her hair is so different in the shows that threw me off. It’s always the hair, with me.
8B. This is a little out of order, but I told you that I started watching Transit Love 2 (soooo good!), and I started right after I finished this show. And one of the hosts is Good Boy’s Sister! I was so excited to see that. She’s adorable. And a total introvert. Me gusta mucho.
9. There are a couple of instances of one or more of the protagonists sitting around watching TV and that show specifically being the variety show Men on a Mission—which is a show I actually recognize! I just recently watched an episode because it featured Jung So-min, who, after much deliberation, I have officially decided is my K-drama girlfriend. (A list of all candidates and their statistics/rankings in making the final decision can be made available upon request.)
10. I really appreciate that the show doesn’t beat around the bush with the Good Boy x True Beauty romance subplot. I mean, they don’t openly confirm it until Episode 4 (I think), but they also don’t at all hide that it’s going to happen—first because Actor Guy and Baseball Guy so obviously form their own little unit (even sharing a bed), leaving Good Boy to his own devices and, as such, his own subplots; and second because the story immediately hamstrings his romantic prospects when True Beauty moves in by forcing him into that fake relationship with the landlady so she won’t evict them.
10A. They even reinforce the implication of their coming romance in Episode 2 by creating that odd little love triangle of Good Boy lying to both True Beauty and the landlady that the other woman is only hanging around him because she’s literally crazy.
11. It took me almost literally half the series to realize that Actor Guy and Actor Guy’s Friend were not siblings. They don’t say it outright until a few episodes later, but I just interpreted their comfortable bickering as a brother-sister kind of interaction pretty much from the start. Especially after her introduction to the show is more-or-less to mention that she’s freeloading—which I must have assumed he would only allow for his sister, much like Good Boy does with his own sister.
12. Speaking of siblings: I love Good Boy’s Sister wingmanning for him as much as she does, because it is (especially early on) equal parts sincere and ruse to keep him from kicking her out.
13. And speaking of things I didn’t realize right away: apparently their guesthouse is, like, a nice hostel, right? I mean, I still haven’t 100% confirmed this, but I had spent the first several episodes assuming it was some kind of hotel—and then they start to actually get guests, and it seems like all their guests are young white people. Which is when I thought, “Ah, maybe it’s a hostel. Which would also explain the bunkbeds.”
14. And speaking of them finally getting guests AND things it took me a little while to notice: it’s so easy to miss the banner atop the guesthouse advertising it’s where you can go to see the “goatman” and “tranq bear”—which is a shame, because it’s hilarious.
15. Interesting how the guesthouse is always as busy or empty as the script needs it to be, allowing it to act just as the six protagonists’ shared living space whenever it would be inconvenient for anyone else to disrupt their ability to sit around or eat dinner or fold some laundry.
16. Also interesting how, for a bunch of poor people, they never wear the same outfits twice.
17. Speaking of clothes, though: I looooooove Good Boy’s Sister’s outfit for when she’s at her food truck. That little matching shirt and headband. Adorable.
17A. Actor Guy’s Friend’s sailor outfits are also adorable. A surprising choice for her character, in my opinion, but still adorable.
18. “The pervert is stressing me our already. Why did you bring this snake?!” (An amusing enough line in-context, but a HILARIOUS line out of context.)
19. Actually, jumping back to outfits for a moment: when Baseball Guy and Good Boy’s Sister go out on their first date, they lament that they don’t have anything in common by saying that they just don’t “match” (when they express what they want to do or where they want to go)…but the first thing I noticed, when they met up for the date, was that their outfits were very similar but didn’t quite match. So, the outfits certainly went together very well, but they weren’t literally the same. Which I thought was a fun bit of visual reinforcement of the scene.
20. Of course, the best thing about the date sequence was that it was ultimately a brief meditation on how you shouldn’t doubt the connection you feel for each other just because, upon inspection, you don’t seem to be on the same page about more superficial things. Sure, that connection could just be that you both want to get smoochy with one another, but it could also mean that you just need to dig down into the important stuff to find where you really meet up. And I like that.
21. True Beauty makes an IU reference—10 points!
21A. …but it’s an IU song I don’t know—so, -1 points!
22. At the start of the show, the boys all come up with cover stories to tell True Beauty that make them sound cooler than they are for when they tell her why they’re all working at this guesthouse. But, as the show goes on, it seems like these cover stories turn out to be true (just not as cool as they pretend that they are). And I’m not sure if I just misunderstood the intention of the whole “cover story” element or if the show retconned in what they said. But I was very confused, regardless. (It was the “wait, they’re not siblings?!” thing all over again.)
23. And speaking of retcons (…maybe-ish): early in the show, after Good Boy’s Sister kisses Baseball Guy to hide that she’s been secretly staying in the guesthouse, Baseball Guy runs away crying about how she stole his first kiss. But a few episodes later, when he and Good Boy’s Sister wake up in the same bed after a night of blackout drinking, they both worry that they might have slept with each other—but they worry about it in the typical “oh nooooo I can’t belieeeeeve it!” kind of comedy way. But…if Baseball Guy was sad about how he got his first kiss, why in the hell is he so otherwise blasé about accidentally losing his virginity?!
23A. And it’s not like the show did the “ah, but they didn’t really have sex, they just didn’t realize they didn’t!” thing, either, because SHE ENDS UP BEING PREGNANT. Now, admittedly, I can’t 100% confirm that they weren’t getting busy after that whole wake-up-in-same-bed gag, particularly since they were secretly dating for a while by the time she finds out she’s pregnant, but…y’know, I can’t 100% confirm that they didn’t have sex when they blacked out, which means my point still stands: he should have freaked out over it a lot more than he did.
23B. And no, I don’t think it gets explained away by him having to hide all day in her bed because of goofy sitcom shenanigans. (Even if that turns out to be the show’s way of side-stepping that plot.)
24. Man, this show loves a good wig. Or a bad wig. To the point where I wonder if they had to justify their budget and just added the “need” for a wig in every episode.
25. It also loves this small, green-bristled broom, ‘cus it shows up A LOT.
26. It also also loves an overt A-story/B-story parallel or an overt character callback-parallel—but none so overtly as:
· when Actor Guy turns in one of his best acting performances because he’s not allowed to run to the bathroom, and Baseball Guy’s good-luck superstition is not allowing himself a bowel movement before an important pitching performance.
27. Everyone seemed surprisingly amped that Actor Guy had a dream with Kim Jong-un in it. I would not have thought that to be something anyone would think was cool, but…clearly I’d be wrong.
28. Be proud of me: the show doesn’t outright tell us that Good Boy’s Sister is his older sister until pretty late in the series…but I figured it out (in much the same way I assume the show would have originally intended the audience to) by noticing that the boys kept referring to her as noona. I am the world’s greatest detective.
28A. While we’re on the word-related train: I don’t know what the landlady was calling Good Boy, once they started dating, but—because his last name is Cha—it sounded like “cha-cha-cha.” Which, for obvious reasons, amused me greatly.
28B. Still word-ish stuff: I’ve seen this in anime, too, but subtitles seem to use the word “dumped” to describe what I would describe as “rejected,” when a character confesses or sort of confesses to another and isn’t immediately met with hugs and kisses. I don’t know if this is a common mistake (that no one ever feels the need to correct) or if there’s some cultural reason for why the rejected party in these scenarios feels let go rather than turned away, but…well, there we are.
28C. They make a Japanese grammar joke in Episode 1, and I totally got it.
29. I still can't believe they didn't do anything with Baseball Guy finding out how much effort it took for Good Boy's Sister to buy him those chocolates. Like, he never connects how much effort it would have taken her to get them for him and, as such, how much he must matter to her for her to do it.
30. They thought they could slip this one past me, but: there’s a scene in Episode 8 where Good Boy is in the main sitting area with his sister, and the focus of the scene is him being on the phone. His sister, meanwhile, is just sitting in the same room, watching TV. Or, rather, the actress is acting like that’s what she’s doing, but when the camera angle changes, the TV is off. So, I don’t know if they forgot to superimpose some TV footage or if they edited out the sister turning off the TV when she turned to join the rest of the scene or if they didn’t think anyone would notice (and, as such, didn’t anticipate coming face to face with the world’s greatest detective)…but I noticed.
30A. Similarly, there’s a scene where Good Boy drops True Beauty off at work and, between getting out of the car and when she enters the office where she’s working with one of the writers for her show, she’s changed outfits. Is it normal for someone in her position to do that, or is this a mistake they hoped no one would notice (and, as such, didn’t anticipate coming face to face with the world’s greatest detective)…but I noticed.
31. Speaking of True Beauty: I know none of the characters has all that much going on, but she’s barely more than a function of Good Boy’s story, rather than a proper character. And that kinda sucks.
32. For as much as they nailed the similar chuckles of Good Boy and his sister, they totally didn’t nail the efficacy of their smoochy scenes, with Good Boy’s being not very good and his sister’s being not terrible.
33. And…I’m not 100% sure what prompts this note, but I have here that I like the name Bo-ra. Which I do. I just don’t know why I wrote that down. Maybe a character had that name? I dunno. But I do like it.
33A. I also note that I like Korean names that start with Ji-, and how that maybe makes sense because I like “J” names in English.
33B. Not Ji-a, obviously. But other names.
33C. I’m also partial to “E” names, though really only in English, and really only for girls, and really I don’t know why all of this is written in my notes for this show.
And…well, that’s about that, isn’t it.
This show was fine, just like you said it would be. Certainly watchable and inoffensive. Didn’t have the best ratio of skit-comedy to character-based comedy, and the goofier stuff did seem to go on for too long, often severely hampering the momentum of the show. But it did make me laugh, so…mission accomplished.
Next is…oh, actually, it’s The Glory (Part 2), isn’t it, because it’s all released all at once. Gotta get on that before the interweb spoils the whole thing.
But after that is…well, Transit Love 2, which I am going to have to force myself to leave for the weekend as I pour myself into the aforementioned The Glory (Part 2), of course.
But after that…who knows. Could be anything.
Though, as we’ve established, it’s best if it’s something you tell me to watch. Because Erin makes everything better.
…at least with K-drama stuff. It remains to be seen how you would affect ice cream.
—Daryl
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