Letter #82: Heart Signal 4

Good morning, Erin.

That’s right: it’s time.

Or, well, it turns out that it could well have been “time” last week, since my decision to include the where-are-they-now episode in that discussion was somewhat misinformed: rather than a one-off reunion special, Heart Signal 4 has apparently decided to wrap up with a six-episode spinoff/sequel called After Signal, in which the cast gets followed around for the months after their time in the house to document what it’s like for them and their relationships with each other (coupled up or otherwise) as the show is being aired. So…yeah, that’s gonna be a totally separate letter, it seems. 

Truly, this show has been a gift that never stops giving. 

Which I’m sure is a bit of a giveaway of my feelings about this season, if the half-dozen other references I’ve made to it over the last few letters were not clear enough: I absolutely adored this show.

BUT…did I ultimately like it more than Single’s Inferno 2? Am I hyped to watch the seasons that preceded it? Has one of the ladies on this show managed to supplant So-e as my K-date girlfriend? 

Only one way to find out—let’s go!

1. No, none of the girls beats So-e. You can relax, now. The world hasn’t entirely flipped upside down. 

1A. That said, this cast was incredible—individually and as a group, with great chemistry all around and in all directions…and I’m pretty sure I had fallen in love with all four of the girls (at least briefly) by the end of the season.

2. With that in mind: the popstar member of the host panel, Mimi, is #BestGirl. Because my feelings for her never wavered. No, I was never as smitten with her as I was with the girls in the cast, but golly-gosh was she an absolute pip. So much fun to watch. (And, thankfully, she’s one of the two hosts of After Signal, so even more Mimi to enjoy!)

3. Speaking of the hosts: one of my favorite things about them is that they all think they’re body language experts, since the whole frame of the show is that they’re supposed to try to read the unspoken “heart signals” the guys and girls are sending each other. So, in the first episode, several of them are like, “Oh, I think her eyes are giving us some insight into which boy she might like,” and I’m looking at it going, “You mean the boy who made her blush and giggle and start playing with her hair the moment he walked in? That boy?” I mean, I know I’m the world’s greatest detective, but…come on. Talk about a gimme. 

4. You’re never going to believe this, but the cast actually introduced themselves every time someone new arrived. Well, not when the game-changer guy showed up, but for every other arrival, they did. Which is better than most every other of these shows I’ve seen. 

5. My early favorite guy and girl were both fans of Makoto Shinkai, my favorite anime director. And they both explicitly mention my favorite of his movies, 5 Centimeters per Second. Which means my instincts are not totally broken—which I think, to this point in our time together, is some pretty big news!

5A. It was hilarious to watch the other boys try not to lose pace with this girl to the other guy, once they started in on the Makoto Shinkai talk. One of them is like, “Um, I’ve seen your name!” like an absolute pleb. (It does not register with her. Nor should it. [cackles in anime fan])

5B. The Makoto Shinkai fans also have a conversation about meeting up after the show is over to see his (at the time of filming) as-yet-unreleased movie, Suzume. Which I have seen. And it is terrible. Like, whatever you thought of your name, this is 10-times worse. It is a knockoff of a knockoff of your name. Ugh. 

6. There is an unsurprising bromance that the edit really downplays despite the influence it has on some of the things that happen in the show…but there was apparently a womance that was almost entirely cut from the show, with only an unavoidable glimpse at it in the finale to let us know those two ladies had developed such a significant, sisterly relationship. I had no idea they’d been that close, and I’m a little miffed that we didn’t see more of it. 

7. Actually, the guys and the girls both have really good friendships within their own groups that we don’t spend much time on, really, but I think we get glimpses of the guys being “bros” with at least some amount of frequency. I’m not sure if the girls got less play because they were being too frank with each other about their feelings (and thus would have ruined the tension of the story) or if they just weren’t quite as cohesive as a friend group as the guys were…but the edit sure put effort into emphasizing the knives-out portions of their relationships, when they cropped up. So…make of that what you will.

7A. Speaking of: my favorite of these knives-out moments is the girls’ night out, which—though not at all antagonistic—I kept referring to as the Red Wedding because of how one of the girls absolutely slaughtered the others in the way she guided the conversation to her own ends. It was masterful. 

8. There were at least two awesome Subway product placement moments, and I loved them with every ounce of my being. 

9. This show has my absolute favorite ship on any of the Korean dating shows I’ve watched. Yes, even more than So-e x Se-jun. Whether that ship sails or sinks, I won’t say. But the pairing is incomparably adorable. 

10. Every episode ends with the guys and girls sending an anonymous text message to their top girl or guy of the day, and the hosts have to guess who will have picked whom—just like we do at home! The segment goes on for way too long, but it’s still fun to see them puzzle through and come to a consensus. 

10A. That said, the texts frequently do not match the story the edit is trying to tell us each episode.

11. Something un-fun about the hosts is that they are allowed to talk over the scenes we’re watching play out. So, especially with the subtitles, it’s sometimes hard to know whether it’s the hosts or the contestants speaking. 

12. Y’know, I like a girl who isn’t shy about eating. And we get a couple of those, here.

13. Oh! I totally forgot about this! (Good job writing this down back in the day, past-Daryl!) I mentioned the big bromance of the season. The two guys in question are roommates, and on one particular night that one of those guys was out of the house for a loooooong time, we got a short scene of his roommate going in and out of their room for a moment—and, as he does, he looks over at the other guy’s bed and sings a little song about how he misses him when he’s not around. 

14. Speaking of songs, all of the background music choices are in English, which I thought was interesting—and, for me, fun. I mean, they used “I Love You Always Forever” by Donna Lewis, at one point. The production staff knows how to manipulate me. 

14A. To wit: they tried to get me to enjoy a date between one of my favorite girls and a guy I absolutely did not want her to go out with by playing V’s “Christmas Trees” (from Our Beloved Summer) under the whole thing, and I absolutely shouted at the TV because of it. 

14B. At one point, one of the girls was alone in the house watching The Glory. And, given her actions immediately following this, it seemed wholly appropriate that she was—which was then underlined by the musical cue for her during this segment being a song called “Sociopath.” Hilarious.

15. There’s an episode where everyone has to dress up fancy. Two of the boys look great: one because he’s in a fantastic suit that fits him perfectly; and the other because he’s, yes, in a nice suit, but mostly because he did something fancy with his hair that made him look like the chaebol lead of a romance drama. (The other boys were…certainly in suits. Technically.) Meanwhile, all of the girls look great—but the interesting thing was that, while two of them looked (somehow) even more beautiful, the prettiest girl looked exactly as pretty as she always does in literally every other scenario. Which weirdly made her seem less attractive in that moment by comparison. 

16. Speaking of being pretty: one of the girls does the Kim Go-eun nose-wrinkle smile. Which…I mean, as if I wasn’t already in love with her. 

16A. Wait, what in the f*** is—KIM GO-EUN DID A COMMERCIAL WITH GEORGE CLOONEY?! When did this happ—in f***ing June?! WHY AM I ONLY JUST NOW HEARING ABOUT THIS?!

17. Oh, here’s a cool feature of the show: they don’t do confessionals. Instead of production interviewing them, they sometimes go out with their real-life friends and discuss things with them. (We didn’t get a lot of this, though. I am unsure if that was normal or if the show needed to edit most of these out because they wouldn’t have helped with the story they were telling.)

18. How much do I like this show? Well, it has a Truth or Dare game in it—and I really enjoyed it. Which ought to tell you everything you need to know.

19. God, I would be awful on one of these shows. Like, ignoring for the moment that I’m not the, y’know, ideal age (...or physique) for this kind of thing, this nearly year-long dance through dating shows made me more than a little self-reflective on just how ill-suited I would be for the whole experience. 

19A. Seriously, there is a 70% chance I would walk in, take one look at my competition, and then just openly tell everyone that I totally understand no one voting for me and that I’d be over in that corner of the room reading Rent-a-Girlfriend if anyone needs help carrying groceries in.

19B. It is a coin flip whether I react to a girl I’m interested in with immediate flirtiness or the social awkwardness of a kindergartener with a crush on his teacher. And—fun fact!—you’d think the comfortable charm would indicate that I’m really jiving with the girl, but it usually means I’m not feeling anything particularly strongly (though I am still feeling something). No, if you want to catch me with real feelings, watch for me nervously looking at anything but the girl I’m interested in and giving a bashful grin. Dead giveaway. 

19C. …which is part of why I keep saying that I never make the right calls with my romantic choices: I’m always torn between something light and engaging…and something deep and consuming. When it works with the former, I eventually realize I’m not being as sincere with myself as I should be. When it works with the latter, the girl tends not to like the unseriousness that I eventually feel comfortable allowing myself to express. 

19D. Now, whether or not you think that would make for good casting, I dunno. Maybe seeing me flounder would be amusing enough to keep me around. Maybe the three days I would spend pacing around the unlit den composing a four-sentence poem expressing my feelings only to then have my romantic target start making out with the guy she’s more interested in just as I go to hand it to her would be good TV. I leave that to you to decide. 

19E. And yes, believe it or not, I am capable of being quite charming. In fact, I used to be quite popular because of my charm, once upon a time. But, not unlike one of the popular contestants on this show, I wasn’t the best at handling the attention. I’m also not a big fan of the aspects of my personality that manifested alongside the attention-getting charm, so I now do my best to avoid that in favor of…well, apparently in favor of struggling to interact with anyone for any reason.

19F. And can you even imagine me trying to plan TV-impressive dates? “What do you mean I can’t just order pizza and watch Netflix? You already told me we can’t go to Barnes & Noble all day—what else is there to do?” 

19G. …which is an exaggeration, of course, but I feel like I would be pressured to come up with either flashy locations or really active activities—and my strengths and interests are in deep discussions (which can be had anywhere, I understand, but heaven knows I’m so low-maintenance that I just need a room with someplace to sit for that to appeal to me, so I’m not typically on the lookout for swish new places to sit down) and anything that…how do I phrase this…requires the absorbing of information (movies, plays, museums, tours, tutorials on pretzel making at historic factories, etc). I am not big into, like, doing things. The production staff would be like, “How about paragliding?” and I’d end up punching someone. Total disaster. 

19H. Though…I guess I could carve out a niche as being the one to whom the girls could go for stress-free reprieves from their other romantic drama on the show, which could boomerang back in my favor, so…maybe it would be okay. Unless, like, they’d fall asleep in the car for the whole date because of how relaxed and free of pressure my dates would be. Which…now that I’ve said it, seems likely. It’d make a nice running gag, though, wouldn’t it? Like, as a viewer, I’d laugh. But would anyone else?

19I. Thus, given my rusty social skills, vague disinterest in “exciting locales,” and copious self-pessimism: “I’ll be over in that corner of the room reading Rent-a-Girlfriend, if anyone needs help carrying groceries in.”

19J. Though, again, I leave it to you to decide. 

20. One of the girls tells one of the guys to listen to a One Direction song because she thinks the lyrics describe how she feels. Which surprised me, because I didn’t think he understood English well enough to be able to get what she was trying to say—but then she just translates the lyrics for him as the song plays. Which seemed like a lot of extra work, to me, but what do I know?

21. I give translations a lot of flak for their frequent lack of consistency, but I also recognize that it’s an art more than a science, with the range of options for even simple dialogue making the likelihood of any two translators coming to the same result much less likely than one might otherwise expect. HOWEVER…I am going to need someone to explain the disagreement on whether the word daebak needs to be translated or not. Because the last few episodes had a different translator than the rest of the season, and suddenly all the contestants were exclaiming “Daebak!” instead of their normal “That’s so cool!” or “Oh, awesome!” and I cannot for the life of me figure out why. 

21A. That said, I’m sure you would have gotten a kick out of me rewinding a half-dozen times to try to figure out who this Dae-bak fellow was that they kept referring to, the first time it popped up on screen. So maybe that alone would have made the decision worthwhile. 

22. Half the time, the show opened with a quick advertisement that featured Kim Tae-ri, and that was perfectly fine by me.

23. At one point, the prettiest girl on the show is wearing an outfit that looks like a cross between a schoolgirl and a cheerleader. The outfit is a little too young for her, but she looks hot as f***, so I don’t think it matters. But I mention it because no one compliments her—to the point where she assumes someone does and he has to correct her. So, assuming it wasn’t edited out, I think the boys were too afraid to say anything because she looked too hot for them to say, “Oh, you look nice” without a heavy “daaaaamn, girl!” subtext to it. Which I can sympathize with. I have to psych myself up to give simple compliments to neatly-dressed coworkers I don’t have any romantic interest in. If I’m actually attracted to her? Forget it. I’d choke on the embarrassment halfway through.

23A. So, there’s another tell to keep track of: if I’m not giving a girl a compliment on her appearance, there’s a 50-50 chance it’s because I think she looks amazing.

24. One of the girls says that having a one-sided crush is thrilling. And, given how often I’ve said I support the Weightlifting Fairy “Why can’t I just like you?” idea, I’m sure it doesn’t surprise you to know I agree with her. Of course, she also says that you should only do this once, so…maybe that’s the part where I’ve gone wrong with that whole concept. (Of course, curiously, I think we see her do this twice just on this show, but…who’s to say.)

25. Relatedly, I feel confident in saying that I am at the point in my emotional evolution where I would totally not have tunnel vision on one of these shows like so many contestants wind up having. Not even if I was on the show with So-e. Well, I mean, obviously I’d be as all-in on her as I could be, but I’d be open to other options, as well, if I didn’t think she was responsive to my overtures. I can 

26. One of the cast members made an Itaewan Class reference, and I kicked myself for not knowing it. Literally the only K-drama from your Winter 2021 list that I skipped, and it came back to humble me. 

27. But then one of them made a reference to Little Forest, and I totally knew that one. So…equilibrium reestablished. 

28. Hey, look! The walking-around-Seoul video that’s playing as I type this just passed by a beer advertisement with Princess My Name on it! I recognized her! I think! Lemme just real quick ask the google machine if…yes, yes it was her. And also it seems she posted some weird drawings on her instagram that divided her fans into those concerned about her welfare and hipsters who were like, “You new here, bro? She used to post weird stuff like this all the time. She’s an art student, you know.” Which, um, okay. (Though, given this and everything else I’ve seen about her, I’m starting to understand some of her acting choices a little bit better, now.)

29. For such a stellar season, the show really trips all over itself as it crosses the finish line. The last two or three episodes are kind of boring, insofar as there’s not much to be learned from the dates and interactions, and there’s nothing particularly game-changing or dramatic going on. Worse, though, is that the last couple of episodes make it pretty clear that the edit made some very controversial choices to tell a very specific story that’s led to A LOT of online arguments among the fans. I mean, we all agree that the final few episodes burned us out on people we were previously very high on, but who they were for each viewer is pretty clearly divided into an us-and-them kind of split. I haven’t had to get into this many internet tussles since the Emilia vs. Rem Best Girl Wars in the anime forums. (#TeamEmilia, btw.) I’m not going to go so far as to say the edit lies to us, but it definitely picks a side, narratively, and frames the other side in a way that is more confusing/misleading than it needed to be. And, I mean, someone has to correct all the fools who fell for the edit, right?

29A. …which means, yes, Single’s Inferno 2 is still my #1 Korean dating show. Though Heart Signal 4 is awfully darn close in second. 

And that, I think, is all I will say about that. 

Wowza, this was an awesome season, even with the flailing final stretch of the show. It was cozier and sweeter than Single’s Inferno 2, and it had the long-term character arcs of Transit Love 2 without any of the trashfire cast to ruin the good vibes. It is a huuuuuuuuge recommend from me, and I’ve already downloaded the three previous seasons (which will undoubtedly not live up to this one, but…that’s fine). 

Man, I really want you to watch this. I hope you do. Because it’s great, and definitely not because I’m wondering how you’d do on this show. (You’d totally leave in a couple. Calling it now.)

It’ll be another month before After Signal is done, and another couple of weeks before Behind Your Touch wraps up (please tell me you’re watching that), which means one of the two shows I’m on the cusp of completing will be next. Assuming my great desire to—spoiler alert—avoid them both doesn’t get the better of me. 

And let’s hear it for my willpower, since I didn’t give in to the desire to watch Nineteen to Twenty. Pretty good, huh?

[new favorite YouTube channel previews reaction/commentary for Nineteen to Twenty]

…dammit.

—Daryl