Letter #81: The Uncanny Counter 2

Good morning, Erin.

So, cards on the table: I was supposed to get you the letter for Heart Signal 4, today, but I convinced myself I needed to see the where-are-they-now episode before I wrote it—a decision that, because I was unaware that it was considered an entirely separate and differently-named TV show, cost me some time clicking refresh on my laptop for the 16th episode to load. As such, I have not yet had time to watch it…but I did manage to finish The Uncanny Counter 2. 

I know. I’ve disappointed you beyond measure. And, for that, I will never forgive myself. 

But I can promise you three things, if you’ll let me: 1) that I will make sure to describe for you—in detail—exactly how poorly I would do on one of these reality dating shows over the course of the forthcoming Heart Signal 4 letter, and I can’t imagine you’d be upset over the prospect of me humiliating myself for your entertainment; 2) that I have made it through half of an entirely other Korean reality dating show even as I write this, and that’s going to be a whole different kind of letter, when we get to it; and 3) that this very letter you’re reading right now will be relatively short—not just because I assume you haven’t seen this show (if I remember correctly, you hadn’t seen the first season) and, therefore, wouldn’t want to risk spoilers, but because it was kind of awful, and I don’t have too much to say about it. 

…as opposed to Heart Signal 4. I imagine that will be a whopper. 

Anyway. That’s housekeeping done. Let’s just try to get through this. 

1. Pretty much this whole season was a disaster, and it all stems from the writing. Every plot point is driven by characters outside of our protagonists, almost reducing them to passengers in their own story—which is doubly bad when the protagonists were most of what made S1 work as well as it did. Worse, the conflicts in the second season feel not just contrived but also lack a genuine emotional hook for the characters (which S1 absolutely had), meaning their connection to the supposed heart of the story exists entirely by proxy. And worse than that, this contrived proxy investment is only there to contrive a way to bring the villains into the orbit of the heroes. It’s a lot of the show telling us that things are or feel a certain way, begging us to believe it, because otherwise it won’t mean anything to us as viewers. But it not only goes a bridge too far with these requests to just take these assurances as fact, the show goes five or six bridges even beyond that. It could not have been better designed as an example of how to fail at a sequel. 

1A. But the biggest failing is undoubtedly the villains. They look cool, they’re properly dangerous, they’re played by interesting actors, and…they don’t do anything. I mean, obviously they do stuff, but nothing worthy of their potential—particularly in terms of the storytelling failure this wasted potential presents: they are a thematic flip/mirror of the “uncanny” edge gained by the protagonists in the first season. It’s not just an escalation of the stakes but a neutralizing of the heroes’ (admittedly too-powerful) S1 advantages. It’s thematically brilliant. And yet…this plays into no part of the story. Which was really, really frustrating.

1B. And boring. Ugh, what a slog. 

1C. It was a disappointing season, is what I’m trying to say. 

2. On the other hand, Kim Se-jeong has dark hair in this one, so 10/10 #BestSeasonEver.

3. …okay, maybe that’s an exaggeration. But credit where it’s due: the telekinesis fights were pretty decent. Which is no small achievement. I mean, it’s just a bunch of people pointing their hands at each other and acting like it’s really strenuous to do so. It can so very, very easily look bad or silly. So, not a total disaster. 

4. The CGI, though… and the wire-work…oof. 

5. But who was in it that I knew, I hear you ask. (Like, beyond the original cast.)

• Druggie Bully from The Glory as the eyepatch-wearing villain (mini-reunion with Ms. Chu!)

• Young-woo’s Boss from Attorney Woo as the slicked-back-hair villain

• the protagonist’s father from Revenant as a fireman

• the woman in love with Landlady Divorcee on Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha as the fireman’s wife

• the bleach-haired mage from Alchemy of Souls as the new counter (mini-reunion with Mo-tak!)

• the disgraced shrink from Bad and Crazy as the new counter’s spirit partner guy

• the pedophile teacher from The Glory as a bus driver (mini-reunion with Druggie Bully!)

• the child version of the protagonist from Revenant as a little girl (mini-reunion with the dad!)

• that coffee-substitution candy thing they promoted all the time in Vincenzo

5. We need to talk about the eye-patch villain and how f***ing cool she was. Such a fun character and a fun performance from Druggie Bully. Easily the best part of the season and easily #bestgirl. (She also delivers the best—and, in my opinion, most villainous—moment of the season. Very cool. Very satisfying.) This actress is great and needs to be in more things. Preferably not as a crazy, screeching bad guy character. I want to see her get something she can really chew, see how well she flexes her acting muscles when given the chance. 

5A. Oh! Speaking of: wanna hear something that really surprised me? Turns out I’d seen her in something before seeing her in The Glory. She was the Russian-raised gang leader from Bad and Crazy. And she was super-cool in that series, too. (And, as I recall, was #bestgirl in that, as well.) So, I’ve apparently been a fan for a little while already. 

5B. Wait—that means we had a mini-reunion with her and the new counter’s spirit dude! How ‘bout that!

6. Young-woo’s Boss was less impressive as the slicked-back-hair villain, but that was as much because of the writing/directing as his performance. He looked awesome, but I honestly can’t tell if he was miscast because he had surprisingly little to work with. I think he could have done more with it, but I’m not sure if he wasn’t quite up to the task or was just following directions. But I suspect that, were he as good of an actor as Druggie Bully, he’d have been able to pull a bit more from the character than he did. 

7. …but he wasn’t anywhere near as bad as the new counter. Oof, what a mistake that whole scenario is. I mean, I love the actor, even though he’s never been a particularly good actor. The character is near-pointless, despite being introduced for necessary(?) plot reasons, and the performance needed to be rolled back A LOT. There’s no excuse for allowing him to play things that over-the-top high school stage play-level. 

8. Kim Se-jeon, on the other hand, was…well, she’s still good as Ha-na, of course. But I mention it because I noticed that, though she is not a particularly noteworthy actress, she seems to be really good at doing more than just playing different versions of herself. Like, her character here and the one from A Business Proposal feel very, very distinct from each other. Even great actors will fall into sort of stock-acting for certain reactions or ways of expressing emotions, but she seems pretty good at playing these moments as her characters would, not just how she would. (...that makes sense, right?)

9. The story does an excellent job setting up a very obvious, very character-driven romance subplot.

9A. …and does absolutely nothing with it. To my very great consternation. 

9B. But boy-howdy does it put all the effort it can muster into forcing a really hackneyed separate romance subplot that LITERALLY NO ONE WANTS and desperately wants us to invest in. 

9C. To my very great consternation. 

10. I was happy to see some product placement for that makeup stick that freshens up your face or reduces wrinkles or whatever it’s supposed to do. I haven’t seen that one in a while. That was a nice surprise. 

11. Just to reiterate: Mo-tak’s sexy, icy spirit partner would 100% be my spirit partner, were I a counter. 

12. At one point, the subtitles employ the word inexplainable—which is, in fact, not a word. Inexplicable is a word. Unexplainable is a word. They mean the same thing. Either could have been used. Who in the f*** was proofreading the script and missed this inexcusable blunder?

13. Speaking of subtitles: they totally botched a pun comparing Ha-na’s last name (Do) to the musical note “do.” Which…I mean, it’s right there, guys. How do you screw that up?

14. Oh oh oh—and, of course, did they do anything to let me know that a bunch of characters were jumping between speaking Korean and Chinese? No. Of course not. Because Daryl can’t have nice things. 

15. But I think the most brazenly galling thing in the entire season is the scene where the good guys have an explicit four-minute countdown to complete something, and the scene lasts—no exaggeration—a full 15 minutes. That’s literal, realtime time. In the real world. In the one location. No jumping into a mindscape or magical or metaphorical realm that could be said to have seemingly huge amounts of time pass in the blink of an eye. Just a timer that must have reset THREE SEPARATE TIMES to accommodate the action of the scene. Just…patently absurd. 

16. And adding insult to injury: there’s a f***ing time jump, at the end. Because why not spite me even more, S2. 

16A. “Oh, but it’s just a coda to the season! You don’t mind those, right?” That is certainly true, hypothetical member of the production staff for this season, but I would also emphasize that those other instances of these coda-like time jumps almost always came at the end of series that hadn’t left me shouting at the screen in the lead-up to said time jump. Which, I think, is a key difference, no?

17. There’s a marked improvement in graying up Ms. Chu’s hair, this season. I mean, the advantage is that she’s starting the season with gray hair instead of it appearing midway through, as it did in S1, but still. It looks good. Well done.

18. Speaking of hair color: I mentioned before that Kim Se-jeong darkened her hair (or let it return to her natural color, I’m not sure), and don’t think I didn’t notice that this change happened just in time for her to gain a nemesis in eye-patch villain, who is a woman with bleach-blonde hair. Subtle. I like it. 

And…yeah, that’s as good a place to stop as any. 

Gosh, what a mess. Do not recommend. 

I’ll be more enthused for the Heart Signal one, Erin. Promise.

….I mean, unless they totally botch the catchup episode. Which, well…who knows. 

After all, I can’t have nice things. 

Welcome to September.

—Daryl