Letter #69: It's Okay, That's Love

Good morning, Erin. 

If you want to destroy my sweater…

There’s a little something for you to look up and enjoy, if you don’t already know it.

And it’s not just what I’ve been singing to myself all morning before starting this letter—it’s also a great segue into today’s letter, because the show we’re discussing has a pretty solid soundtrack…which it employs maybe too much, but also an understandable amount, if they paid for the rights to it in any fashion. 

So, are you ready? Of course you’re ready. As if you’re ever not ready. 

Let’s talk about It’s Okay, That’s Love, the older show you picked for me without even knowing that was going to be my Phase III theme. Because you’re just that good. 

1. Since I’ve already mentioned the soundtrack, there are two English-language popular rock songs that are used to pretty good effect: first, of course, is the cover of Queen’s “My Best Friend,” which is delightful (even preferable to the original, in my opinion), if used perhaps too often…since it is used twice an episode for the whole damn series; and, secondly, there’s the cover of the Pixies song “Here Comes Your Man,” which plays in the first episode while the female lead watched the male lead on TV, as a nice, subtle way of letting us know that he’s going to be her fellah. (I’m giving bonus points to the use of “Here Comes Your Man” because it’s a great song, but also deducting points because the cover used is from the soundtrack to (500) Days of Summer, and we all know that’s the only reason it was used. Because (500) Days of Summer is inexplicably Korea’s favorite movie, K-dramas have taught me. Which, I mean, I quite enjoy the movie, but…it’s not Lord of the Rings.)

2. And…y’know what, I think we should jump into the list of folks I know, now, if only to establish what I’m going to call everyone:

• the female lead from When the Camellia Blooms as Dr. Camellia, our psychiatrist female lead

• Faux-Soo from That Winter, the Wind Blows as…well, I still call him Faux-Soo, our male lead

• the tall, idiot detective from Busted! as the Tourrette’s Guy

• a very young Bok-joo from Weightlifting Fairy as…as…um, the Hot Delinquent Schoolgirl

• Young-woo’s mom from Extraordinary Attorney Woo as Dr. Young-woo’s Mom

• Yul’s skeevy uncle from Alchemy of Souls 2 as Dr. Camellia’s skeevy (ex-)boyfriend

• the black market dude from Busted! as Faux-Soo’s publisher/childhood friend

• Ms. Na’s mom from Crash Course in Romance as Dr. Camellia’s mom

• the third guy from the main girl’s office-club in My Liberation Notes as a doctor of some kind

• the 100-Day Prince from 100 Days My Prince as the kid Faux-soo mentors

• EL as a transgender patient

2A. Just to make clear how unhappy I instinctively was to see the 100-Day Prince, here is my exact note from when I first recognized him in Episode 1: “oh, f*** off—that’s the 100-Day Prince. Ugh. I knew that kid annoyed me.”

2B. Followed by: “...no way is he in the same group as precious Sehun (whom I know from Busted!); I…I can’t believe he’d dare.”

2C. …though, to the show’s credit, he isn’t entirely insufferable, by the end. Which is saying something. 

3. Speaking of music: this show has a real problem with trying to match its music to the tone of what’s on screen—in that I think many scenes in the show are meant to come off a certain way but are written so…strangely? poorly? that the background music is meant to guide us to the intended tone of those scenes more so than what we’re watching play out on screen. At least, that’s how I came to justify the often seemingly ill-suited comedy-indicative score playing during what seemed to be written as an otherwise very serious scene. (Or, more often than not—particularly in the early going—during what was a very hard to decipher scene in which the main cast seemed to act like total loons rather than just quirky social misfits.)

4. But, despite those writing issues, I think Faux-Soo’s actor had a much easier time working with this script than he did with That Winter. 

5. …though he still looks super-silly when he runs. 

5A. I mean, so does Dr. Camellia, to be fair. Just not anywhere near as silly as Faux-Soo. (Because he’s noticeably more on the spindly side? Because he needs to cut his natural stride down so much more severely so that he can keep the pace required for the shots of him running? I mean, he doesn’t look all that silly when he’s allowed to jubilantly sprint through the streets with the 100-Day Prince, but…what do I know. Like, aside from that he looks sillier than Dr. Camellia in the running scenes.)

6. Oh! Your name is on my request list, today! Oh, how exciting! I didn’t see it until I got to it. That was quite the nice surprise. For me. For you it was probably a lot of tapping your foot and wondering why it wasn’t done immediately. Well…I wasn’t in the office. Or I’d have done it days ago.

7.  …or maybe I wouldn’t have, since this series starts with a time skip, which leads me to wonder if you recommended this to play a mean trick on me.

8. The first episode sort of wanders into deeply philosophical territory, so I would like to needlessly interject my perspective on the whole debate about the nature of man: people are neither inherently good nor inherently evil. We are born with the capacity to do either—and the ability to choose between both. 

8A. And, yes, I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned this before, but…I dunno, maybe you haven’t read that letter. So I’m mentioning it again. Or for the first time, if you don’t remember me saying it before. 

9. The casting for little girl-Dr. Camellia was pretty good: same eyes, same cheeks. I could totally see her growing up to look like the other actress. (Which, of course, is way more than I can say for the boys playing young Faux-Soo and young Faux-Soo’s brother.)

10. Unless I’m mistaken, they never really get into why Faux-Soo’s OCD manifests as an obsession with specific colors (apart from the relatively quiet explanation for his frequent employ of the color yellow), but I appreciate that it’s based around the red/blue/yellow primary color theory I know and love. 

10A. If only he’d also loudly declared that Pluto is still a planet, he’d have been one of my favorite K-drama characters of all time. But, alas, it was not to be. 

11. I’m 95% sure our main couple visits the cave/waterfall/pond thing featured in a crucial scene from Kingdom and that I’m not cave/waterfall/pond racist. 

12. I don’t know how technically accurate Tourette’s Guy’s portrayal of Tourette’s is, but…it’s consistent throughout, if nothing else, which makes me believe it regardless. And I’m particularly fond of how it manifests in his speech patterns and the repetition thereof—especially the speed with which he will contradict his just-stated assertions to sate his curiosity or whims. 

13. …that said, I’m going to need a check on how old he was supposed to be that his flirtations with Hot Delinquent Schoolgirl weren’t held to the same judgmental frowns about her age that Faux-Soo was subject to. 

14. Speaking of schoolgirls, though…did I tell you that I started re-reading Osamu Dazai’s Schoolgirl? It’s a very, very, very short novella (though I’d call it a modestly long short story) that’s basically the running internal narration of a Japanese schoolgirl in the 1930s. It’s pretty great. I mean, I don’t know that you’d like it (or dislike it), but I bet it would take you an hour or so to read the whole thing, if you wanted to give it a shot. It’s very prose poem-y, but it’s also got all the angst and philosophical musings of The Catcher in the Rye, but infinitely shorter and less pretentious (or, like, maybe it’s just as pretentious, but it’s way more tolerable because it’s so short). 

15. I’ve just watched two shows in a row starring Faux-Soo…and in both shows he’s A) been stabbed, and B) stopped someone from walking into the sea to drown. Which seems less likely than him looking silly when he runs in back-to-back shows. Which he absolutely did.

16. Given that Dr. Camellia’s main character hangup is that she is incapable of physical romantic intimacy without breaking out in a panic attack, I cannot tell you how f***ing flabbergasted I was when the show just casually had the main duo f*** on the beach. “Oh, gosh, I can barely even kiss a man I have feelings for! But I’m starting to think I might have stronger feelings for this new guy than I originally realized, so…yeah, this PUBLIC BEACH IN A RESORT TOWN seems like a totally believable place for me to spontaneously lose my virginity.” Like, one episode ends with them kissing, and the next stars with her curled up and whimpering to herself, so I assumed that she fell into a panic attack after they started to get intimate—but that she was more into it than she’d been with anyone else before. And it wasn’t until many, many scenes later, when they explicitly say that she’s had sex for the first time, that I took the repeated references to them “sleeping together” to be anything more than literally sleeping in the same bed, which is something she’d never been able to do before. I mean…I genuinely could not believe it. 

17. …I mean, in fairness to me, Faux-Soo spent much of the episode up to that point dressed like he was a gondolier, which is the least-sexy vacation outfit a man can wear. I defy you to justify assuming this would precede banging on the beach. 

18. But, y’know, since we’re on the topic of sexy things…boy-howdy does someone who is responsible for this show love looking at ladies’ legs. Like, a lot. I don’t know if you noticed it, but I certainly did. ‘Cus it’s EVERY WOMAN who walks on screen, whether it’s short-shorts or a short skirt—bare legs to the extreme. Main characters, support characters, women who are on screen for a split second in the background…I mean, I enjoyed it, so it’s not like I’m not objecting to it, exactly, but…it did feel more shameless than knowingly shameless, particularly since we don’t get any kind of equivalent for the guys. 

18A. …unless you count that all the guys were almost constantly in sandals. No matter what they were wearing, from shorts to a full suit. Which, frankly, I think you should—if only because the women were also (though, to a lesser extent) frequently in sandals or similar open-toed footwear…or just barefoot. Which I only think is important to note because there’s a part where Faux-Soo specifically asks to take a picture of Dr. Camellia’s feet. Which, sure, there was a light in-universe explanation given for why (since he also took a picture of her hands), but it felt like a very strange moment, when it happened, and that’s when it occurred to me that maybe there was more to the whole sandals thing than just an odd fashion choice. 

18B. That said…pretty much every one of the ladies had very shapely legs and absolutely should have flaunted them. So, it’s not like I didn’t believe their characters would.

18C. …except for Hot Delinquent Schoolgirl. I mean, yes, she absolutely would have been the first one to walk around with her legs bare, but, of her admittedly myriad beauties, it was not her strong suit. 

18D. On the other hand—and you betcha I’m still going on about this—they kept Dr. Young-woo’s Mom pretty much away from all this leg-showing for almost the whole show…until we got to the last couple of episodes, and then she was like, “Boom—sexy but appropriate business skirt.” 

18E. And, while we’re talking about Dr. Young-woo’s Mom, I want to go on record as mentioning how good she looked, in this. I mean, she’s still obviously a good-looking woman now, but seeing her about 10 years younger…like, if that’s her at 40, what’d she look like at 25?

18E1. …not to harp on her looks, of course, because I am absolutely going to talk more about her character and her performance later on, I just…look, we’re here, now. We’re talking about the pretty ladies and how they were pretty. And Dr. Young-woo’s Mom? I don’t care how many dazzling smiles Hot Delinquent Schoolgirl shoots my way—I’ve made my choice. Final score: wowza. 

18F. Also, it turns out Dr. Camellia has really nice hands, which is not a thing I usually think much about. I mean, they’re not as nice as Gloria’s in That Winter, but OKAY OKAY WE’RE DONE WITH THIS PART WE’RE MOVING ON. 

19. Actually, speaking of Gloria (and That Winter), I could have sworn that Faux-Soo’s mom was watching a drama with Gloria in it. I initially thought it was a scene of her lying down in bed in That Winter (because that was Faux-Soo’s previous drama), but no. By which I mean, if it was her—and I could not say for certain in either direction—it was definitely not from that show. ‘Cus I checked, and the bed was different. 

20. For a show that has such bizarre character writing (see my earlier comments about the music having to make up for the way scenes are written), it does some absolutely stellar setup/payoff writing. For example, I have this whole section in my notes about Faux-Soo’s Yankee cap and how rad and fun that it happens to be a design that celebrates the absolute legend that was Lou Gehrig—but it’s a stupid, piddly note to include, once you realize it’s not there as a rad and fun throwaway happenstance but as a very, very plot-necessary detail. I could go into more detail about it (and his only using yellow towels…and the whole first-meeting debate performance between the two), but suffice it to say that the writers knew how to plant seeds and let them grow. Which was surprising and very much appreciated. 

21. Relatedly: everything having to do with Faux-Soo’s illness and the fallout from it was great. It’s so well done, in fact, that I wonder if that section was the original idea for the story and the rest was sort of piled onto it to make it worthwhile to produce as a series. 

22. And speaking of things that were well done: hats off to Dr. Young-woo’s Mom for giving (I think) the best performance of the series—which is particularly noteworthy because she has way less screen time than most of the other major cast members. But what time she does have is frequently spent with quite nuanced material, when it focuses on her character, and I thought she handled it with a lot more subtlety and gravitas than another actor in her role might have. Her character was also the only one I liked the whole way through the show, and I found her subplot with her ex-husband to be the most compelling of the series. She was great. And, obviously, #BestGirl. 

22A. I mean, we do get a scene of Dr. Camellia in a big floppy beach hat, so it was close. But she edged it out, in the end. 

23. I was surprised by how much I bought into the main couple. They were much more adorable together than I would have anticipated. (And some good smooches, too.) And their struggle with his illness was appropriately heartbreaking because of it. 

24. It’s sort of perfunctory (in the same way that the few psych cases we see on the show are), but there was something surprisingly deep and substantive to the EL transgender/depression/love/abuse sub-sub-subplot that I sort of wish they’d had room to get into. I don’t think it had a place in the show, but…it caught my attention as potentially having something to say. 

25. I think the show is way too generous to Faux-Soo’s psycho older brother.

26. Speaking of: don’t think I didn’t notice that Faux-Soo’s five o’clock shadow came in in the same pattern as his brother’s facial hair. (And that the rest of Faux-Soo’s face was awfully smooth considering he wasn’t shaving at all.)

27. I don’t think Dr. Camellia’s panic disorder makes any sense. And the show doesn’t play it off as being one of those “hey, it doesn’t have to ‘make sense’ to us” situations but as a “you’ll understand once we reveal the reason” deal. But that, for my money, was not the case. 

28. I somehow don’t have anything in my notes about noticing the Hyundai logos were covered up on this series (though they totally were), but I have a great big note about how they fudged the SBARRO’S logo to read as “ARRO” in the background of one shot and thought I wouldn’t notice. Little did they know they were dealing with the world’s greatest detective!

29. To wit: in the paintings of the camels in Faux-Soo’s bathroom, the camels cast shadows in the wrong direction, if you take the position of the sun/moon to be literal within the context of the paintings. Bet no one else is calling them out on that. 

30. And don’t think I didn’t notice that, in one of the rare instances of Dr. Camellia wearing a real pair of pants, she gets mad at Faux-Soo for innocently talking to Hot Delinquent Schoolgirl—who was absolutely showing off her legs. 

31. And speaking of Hot Delinquent Schoolgirl: she is waaaaaaaaaay too pretty for Tourette’s Guy. I’m not saying they couldn’t be together because she’s a 9 and he’s a 6, but they needed to explain what was bridging that gap, and I don’t feel like they did. I mean, they sort of start to, but it doesn’t go far enough for me. 

31A. And I’m saying that as an English major and not as a very, very, very jealous man. 

32. Daryl, circa Episode 16: “I’m certain I know the actress who played the girl asking for Faux-Soo’s autograph. Lemme just look her up and…and…no, she’s not anyone I know. Huh. Oh, and she may have killed herself? Goodness, that’s awf—wait, and she was friends with Sulli, the girl from Hotel Del Luna who I know killed herself?! What the f***?!”

33. I absolutely loved the subtle way the show let us know that it was okay for Dr. Camellia to be pregnant, at the end, by immediately showing us 10 giant, conspicuously-placed wedding portraits right after the pregnancy test reveal. 

34. …but not as much as I loved the even more subtle way Hot Delinquent Schoolgirl practically turned to the camera and said, “I AM NOW 19 YEARS OLD SO I AM A LEGAL ADULT AND THEREFORE ABLE TO LEGALLY HAVE AN ADULT ROMANCE SUBPLOT WITH AN OLDER MAN” when her romance subplot started in earnest. 

And that’s that, I think.

Not a bad show, overall, though I had a lot of trouble getting past the seemingly dissonant opening act of the series. But, once the romance settles in—and particularly once the very serious sections kick into gear—it was pretty solid. 

In other news, my April-in-May continued right up until the very last hours of May, just so you’re aware. Or, specifically, so you’re aware that I’m currently unable to watch Netflix because of its ludicrous new “share within your home” reasons, despite my family having consistently paid for the “three screens at once” option (as if it matters where those three screens are), so…yeah, that’s slowed some of my upcoming viewing down more than I’d planned.

…and then there’s a dozen other things of varying degrees of tragicomic standing—but, hey, it’s June now! Maybe good things are on the way! 

…

Yes, I am trying very hard not to sigh—how did you know?

—Daryl

P.S. - I know this isn’t something I necessarily need to apologize for, but I’m sorry it took me so long to get this letter posted. I was supposed to work on it on my days off, but things sort of conspired against me. By which I mean I slept for 12-hour stretches, and then I got really into Bo Ra! Deborah, that new show starring Sunny from Goblin) and burned through that in two days. So…y’know, typical me stuff. I’m back to being more diligent, though, so expect the impromptu Sunny letter to follow pretty quickly on the heels of this one. And, if all goes to plan, another (potentially anticipated!) even more quickly on the heels of that. 

P.P.S. - Speaking of things I know I don’t need to apologize for: I’m sorry I have no sage words or comforting distractions to offer against the stress and disappointment of being tied to, y’know, school and stuff instead of some kind of summer cool-off period. Why do I feel the need to apologize? Dunno. Except to say that it bums me out when things get in your way. Perhaps I’m just getting sentimental. Wistful. Metaphorically staring out the window and sighing, wishing I could untether myself from the anchor of my melancholy and embrace the sheer, wide-open sense of possibility that wait wait I think I know why not being able to help is bumming me out.