Letter #85: Behind Your Touch

Good morning, Erin.

I think it’s time we had a talk about my crush. 

Admittedly, I’ve been trying to avoid having to do this—and, even now that we’re here, I still don’t feel at all ready to open up about it. But…well, timing has made it somewhat unavoidable, at this point. 

Which is an apt way to put that, as coincidence would have it…because love is all about timing. 

I’m a Romantic, in many ways, so I very much subscribe to the idea that love—for our purposes specifically romantic love—is a transcendent, ethereal force which, if we are open to it, can guide us to or help us recognize the souls of the people we are meant to be with. 

But I also recognize that this is ultimately only a possibility, not a guarantee—because A LOT influences the ability to love someone and then that person to love you back, whether you are tied together by the red string of fate or not—some of it seemingly reasonable…and some of it not.

Timing, I think, falls into the latter category. Regardless of how much sense it makes that it is an element of the puzzle, how perfectly logical that both people must be open and receptive in the same moment for the connection to be made, it is a cruel reality—because issues of timing always make themselves known, always allow you to see (and sometimes even to make) the connection you have with each other only to then realize that circumstances will not allow that connection to flourish: someone’s just started a relationship, someone’s moving for work, someone’s thoughts are in disarray, someone’s “too old” or “too young” for the other—a million variables and obstacles and obligations that make the pragmatic side of this, the tangible side of this that must be harmonious with the ethereal, insurmountable. As I have said many times before (though I cannot recall if I’ve ever said it to you): just because we find our soul mates doesn’t mean we get to keep them. 

And so I come to you, today, to finally admit what I had suspected for a while: that my crush—for all its intensity, sincerity, and boundless excitement—cannot stand up to timing, no matter how much I wish it could.

Han Ji-min and I simply are not meant to be. 

Which sounds harsher than I mean it to—especially towards my loudly-proclaimed K-drama girlfriend, Jung So-min, to whom my heart is forever committed. I would never stray from her—but, when I started Behind Your Touch, something…just…happened: I felt that ethereal tug—that same ethereal tug that I felt back while watching Because This is My First Life—for Han Ji-min, the protagonist of the series. 

I did not expect it. I did not exactly welcome it (and how could I, given how much I adore Jung So-min?). But I couldn’t deny it. I couldn’t ignore it. And so I sat with it. Stayed with it. Followed it for a bit. I thought endlessly about it every day—for weeks and weeks. 

I can stare dreamily at IU forever and never once let it sway me. But this…

It’s a crush—but it’s more than that. And it’s not going away. 

And yet…I will not take that final step. I will not turn away from Jung So-min. I can’t. How could I when I know I would regret it for the rest of my life? How could I when I know choosing Han Ji-min would mean being one Alchemy of Souls re-watch away from being in the same position I am now?

And so I am here, admitting that it can never be—though I still wish it somehow could.

If things had been a little different…if I had seen Behind Your Touch first…

But timing is like a knife twisted into your side: there is nothing to be done with it but accept the pain.

…

Oh, come on, Erin, you knew I wasn’t going to talk about my real crush. Heh, I don’t need to embarrass myself in front of you any more than I already do. (Though I honestly got knocked on my backside by Han Ji-min, and I was very much left wondering if I needed to jump ship because of it. My first bias/bias wrecker situation, if you will.)

But if you feel it unfair of me to leave you with nothing…suffice it to say that she makes me smile—in a way I didn’t think I’d be able to ever again. And that she’s so cute it hurts to look at her. 

And we’ll leave it there, because, as I said above, I don’t need to embarrass myself more than I already have, particularly since (as I have always said) it’s almost certainly not going to happen—yes, because of timing as much as because of…well, take your pick. 

Which is fine. I told you back in the Start-Up days that I can sit on a crush for years. And you know I’m a fan of just enjoying the feeling of even having the crush. So, yeah, it’s fine. 

And y’know what else is fine? Behind Your Touch, which might be my favorite Korean show so far this year. Maybe. I actually can’t quite remember how much I liked 19th Life. I mean, a lot, obviously, because 19th Life was great, but I’m fuzzy enough on my exact feelings for it that I can’t quite scale the two shows against each other. Well, and then there’s Heart Signal 4, but…should that count? It’s a totally different kind of—y’know what, it doesn't matter: I liked it, I hope you watched it, we’re gonna talk about the whole darn thing (spoilers and all) right now. 

And, after Pink Lie and A Time Called You, we could really use a little sunshine. 

And butts. Let’s not forget butts. 

1. Holy mackerel—the first episode of this series is INCREDIBLE. Instant classic. I knew the rest of the series was never going to keep up with the breakneck comic pacing or the creative (and gag-enhancing) cinematography, but as a single episode? Absolutely brilliant. Big smile on my face the whole way through. It gave you everything but the absolute core of the main plot, and you knew exactly whether you were in for the ride or not.  Off the top of my head, I can’t think of a show that’s done a “first episode is all set-up” as entertainingly as this one. I mean, I can’t say for certain that this was the best opening episode of a K-drama I’ve ever seen, but it’s got to be pretty darn close if it isn’t.

1A. For the record, though: the things that make the first episode hum so delightfully do stick around for much of the series, albeit in smaller bursts. So, to that end, it both does and doesn’t live up to the promise of the full first episode. 

1B. …though we are going to get to the way in which it definitely does not, later on.

2. One of the (many) great things about this show is the structural tightness of the script. Whatever else we can say about the writing—and we will get there—it sure does use all parts of the buffalo, as it were: pretty much everything in the story is either a set up or something that is eventually called back to. (Betcha didn’t think you should have been paying attention to the Arabic lessons!) Even the awesome end track, “Disappear” by JEMMA, gives you the killer’s perspective of the story, if you pay attention to the lyrics. (At least, it does in hindsight.) I won’t go quite so far as to say there’s no wasted time or content, but it’s pretty close to that. The writer knew what story was being told, and he tried to make every part of it work to that end. And all the setups seemed like natural story beats, too, rather than expressly like setups. Excellent work, there. 

3. Cards on the table, Erin…I am still not sure who’s getting crowned #bestgirl. Ye-bun is soooooo cute, and Ok-hui is just frikkin’ awesome. I know this is always the highlight of these letters, the one thing you probably skim to see before reading anything else, but it’s just too tough to call, right now. We’ll see by the end of the letter. 

3A. I’m not kidding, either. One of my very first notes is that Ok-hui is going to obviously run away with it (because she’s just that great—and immediately), but by the end of the first episode I was so smitten with Han Ji-min’s comedic chops (she absolutely nailed all the comic beats) and how thoroughly likeable Ye-bun was that my vote was almost irrevocably split. And I have a handful of literal “I don’t know which one to choose!” squeezed between other points I wrote down. I really don’t know what I’m going to decide. 

4. What I do know, though, is that Ok-hui was responsible(/responsible-ish) for two of my three favorite running gags of the series: playing the accordion when she’s in love (which is one of the subtlest payoffs I’ve ever seen, after Ye-bun comments that Ok-hui’s dream is to marry a Frenchman), and then her on-call army of delinquent girls. Just…just…magnifique. 

5. …of course, a sub-factor of the whole on-call army of delinquent girls is the “Unnie!” guy, which was just…good heavens, what a stroke of genius. It doesn’t quite reach its climax in the cleanest way possible, but whoever came up with that should get one heck of a pat on the back. Hilarious stuff. 

6. Speaking of hilarious running gags…I cannot tell you how hard I laughed any time the Twenty-Five, Twenty-One parodies cropped up. Literally every one of them was a masterpiece. Like, pause the video, mumble the lines while struggling to breathe, have to wipe tears away kinds of laughter. The only downside was that they went away for a long stretch in the second half—and it’s hard not to notice when something that good gets taken away. 

7. Oh! And speaking of subtle payoffs: everyone in town eating tons of fried tofu—because Ok-hui doesn’t know when Det. Moon is getting out of jail and so doesn’t know when to have tofu ready for him, so she’s been preparing it every single day, just to be sure. Incredible gag. 

8. Oh oh oh! And then for the “Unnie!” guy to be a French teacher! Just…I am jealous, at this point, of how well structured all these jokes turn out to be. 

9. And one more thing about the “Unnie!” guy running gag before I forget: he literally does a running gag (where he out-sprints the girls who have already started the race), which is what I perceived as a meta-joke and chuckled to myself over quite a bit. 

10. And that Ok-hui’s family’s store is names after her and her brother, making it the “Okee-dokee Market” was also just frikkin’ genius.

10A. Okay, I am going to do my best not to spend the rest of the letter just listing all my favorite jokes, but understand that I probably could. (You’ve seen it. Tell me I’m wrong.)

11. Actually, jumping back a little bit: I recently watched a side-by-side comparison of the Twenty-Five, Twenty-One parodies and the scenes from the real show, and it struck me that a psychic murder plot would have vastly improved the last few episodes of Twenty-Five, Twenty-One. Just for the record. 

12. Right, so, as we deliberately try to avoid spending more time listing jokes I loved…here’s the list of actors I recognized! 

• the main guy from Because This is My First Life as Det. Moon

• the restaurant-owning best friend from Fix You as Ok-hui (...where she was #bestgirl)

• the uncle from A Time Called You as the Shaman

• the main host from Change Days as herself (the interviewer after the Ep 16 time jump)

• Nam Do-son’s mom in Weightlifting Fairy as the drug kingpin

13. Which is as good a time as any to talk about Det. Moon. Or, more specifically, to talk about the actor playing him. I’ve seen him previously in Because This is My First Life and My Liberation Notes as characters on opposite sides of the spectrum, and—though I thought he was fine in both (and even quite good in My Liberation Notes)—I think he totally steps up his game in this one. Or, more precisely, I think this role either suits him best or allows his talent to shine brighter. It’s sort of midway between the robotic deadpan (First Life) and the casual exhaustion (Liberation) of the previous roles both in terms of the dramatic comedic elements of his performance. Sure, he doesn’t have to dig to deeply in the dramatic moments, here, but he does need to sell his seriousness without being bereft of any emotions as well as being over-serious in a way that was both believable and still matching in tone with the absurd comedic beats he was often participating in. I think he was really good, and I hope to see him turn up in more things I’ll find myself watching. (Which I don’t think is going to be an issue, since he seems to be fairly popular, but…still, I hope to see him again, whether in new or old stuff.)

14. Oh, and I need to confess: it took me almost the whole of the first episode to figure out that the title is just a backwards reading of “touch your behind.” (The shame, Erin. Kicking myself even now.)

15. Speaking of titles, the Korean title for this series is Hip…and I’ve seen enough Japanese po—um, I mean, arthouse cinema to know that “hip” is just a polite way to say “butt.”

16. And, yes, I did catch all the My Liberation Notes references. Especially the one where the police captain explicitly mentions My Liberation Notes as a good TV show. 

16A. For the record: not that good of a TV show. My Mister was way better. Not as funny, though. And, more importantly, not as directed by the same director as Behind Your Touch, which I imagine was at least half of why it was referenced. (The other half being that Det. Moon was one of the main actors in it.)

16B. To wit: do you think it cost the show a lot of money to use the music from Twenty-Five, Twenty-One and My Liberation Notes? It was totally worth it for the gags, in my opinion; I’m just curious. 

17. In the early part of the first episode, when they are still in high school, Ye-bun walks in on Ok-hui doing drugs on the roof of the school. I…have no idea what she was smoking. I initially thought it was meth, but then quickly reasoned it had to be pot, if only because it being meth would have been a much bigger deal than the tone of the show was making it out to be. Though, in fairness, she was using that glass…thing…I mean, is it a hash pipe? I swear it looked like a meth…pipe…bowl…look, I’ve never drugs-ed, I don’t know the lingo. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is one of my favorite books, but I can’t claim I didn’t just pretend to understand chunks of it. (“Mescaline? Isn’t that alcohol? It must have a pretty high percentage if it’s making him see giant bats.”)

18. I don’t know if I was supposed to find the coffee place the older gentleman kept frequenting (the one with the girl who eventually shacks up with the old cow farmer) hilarious or not, but…I did. I mean, the reality of the situation for the girls wasn’t funny, but the idea that this was the small-town version of a hostess bar struck me as particularly silly. Though, again, its place in the plot certainly wasn’t at all silly, despite it being a fundamentally silly thing—which may or may not be a theme with this show. (But we’ll get to that.)

19. Tangential point, but I’m obviously going to burn through as much of Han Ji-min’s filmography as I can get my hands on, and so I went to start watching Familiar Wife, the other day, because I already had it in my Netflix queue because Kang Han-na is one of the leads (and you know I’m happy to fawn over her, if I have the chance). Which is when I saw that it was no longer on Netflix! The inconvenience of it was bad enough, but you know what it then tried to do because Familiar Wife wasn’t there? It recommended The Light in Your Eyes—which, sure, also stars Han Ji-min and all, but the male lead is NAM DO-SAN. A-Are you kidding me?! Again with this guy coming up in my everything! Pink Lie, my birthday, and now this? What is this conspiracy to connect me with him?!

19A. “Weren’t you just talking about how much you enjoyed all the Twenty-Five, Twenty-One scenes, and isn’t the lead actor in that show Na—”

THERE’S NO TIME, ERIN!

20. This doesn’t happen anywhere near enough, but I loved how Ye-bun responded to congratulatory head pats like a puppy. Yes, because it was adorable (and maybe something I do maybe who’s to say), but also because she’s a vet. Which, I dunno, I just found kinda fitting.

21. Speaking of Ye-bun’s head, though: worrying about losing hair every time she used her powers sure went out the window pretty quickly, huh? Disappeared as a concern almost immediately after the plot no longer needed her to be hesitant to use the powers. Which I’m sure was a coincidence. 

22. But speaking of Ye-bun being adorable: how cute was the scene where she’s trying to sneak peeks at Cute Convenience Store Guy from behind the shelves, but he can clearly see her doing it on the security camera footage he has by the register? 

23. Oh! I mentioned digging into Han Ji-min’s filmography, and now I see that she starred in a live-action adaptation of Josee, the Tiger, and the Fish! I loved the anime movie version, so I’m very excited to check that out when I get the chaWHAT DO YOU MEAN NAM DO-SAN IS THE MALE LEAD IN THAT TOO ARE YOU FRIKKIN’ KIDDING ME.

23A. …is this you? Are you doing this???

24. Maybe not my favorite Det. Moon moment, but certainly in the running: “I just need to find a pretty girl who streams online. How long could it take?” Hilarious. Maybe straining credulity a bit, but still very, very funny. 

25. Maybe my favorite Det. Moon moment, though, is somewhere in Episode 8 when it becomes obvious that his suspicions about Cute Convenience Store Guy are as motivated by jealousy as by all the circumstantial evidence. He doesn’t realize it, of course, but we do. And I do love that trope. 

26. The Shaman’s whole General MacArthur thing is just…brilliant. I mean, yes, it becomes very clever, in the end, but it is hilarious, in isolation. It’s so weird and specific. I actually took a picture of his first appearance with the sunglasses and pipe (and the big mural behind him) and sent it to my friend. It’s such a great detail, even irrespective of the ending. 

26A. And I LOVED how he offered up a McDonald’s dollar menu meal as tribute to regain MacArthur’s favor in Episode 5—and nearly died laughing when he ended his prayer with the “ba-da bap bap baaa” jingle. Absolutely brilliant. 

27. But since we’ve arrived at the Shaman as a character…well, him turning out to be the killer was a really slick twist—particularly once we learn that the totally rad twist about there being a third psychic turned out to be about him and his ability to read minds with eye contact alone. (Such an easy way to gain TONS of information.) Sleuths on the internet cottoned on to the sunglasses being the thing that was leaving the killer able to blackout the mental “recordings” of the murders, but I was convinced that he was so hapless a character that he could only be a ridiculous red herring to churn internet theories (not unlike the cow farmer towards the very end of the show). That he actually turned out to be the killer was quite the surprise.

28. …and I’m not sure it holds up. As a solution, I mean. Like, according to interviews, Han Ji-min was the only actor who was told in advance who the killer would turn out to be. So, at a performance level, I don’t think the actor playing the Shaman gave a performance that, in hindsight, could be seen as suspicious. Like, they lay it on thick with Cute Convenience Store Guy, obviously, but nothing about the Shaman’s interactions with anyone appear—without doing an actual rewatch—to have been clues astute watchers could have argued gave him away. (Like, even the time Ye-bun caught him at the political office in the killer getup seemed so clunky and silly that I couldn’t contrive it to be actual evidence of anything.)

28A. Further, I don’t think the show does a good job of explaining exactly why he was doing it. Was he always inclined towards murder? Did his power disillusion him because of his previously gentle disposition? Was he really just broken by finding out his wife cheating on him, sending him on a spiraling decline to punish all who seemed to be caught up in betrayal? Like, it’s one thing for him to react strongly enough to his wife that he ends up killing her…but for that to awaken a serial killer? Maybe it’s realistic, but…I needed more.

28B. And did his wife being killed even line up with the timeline of events? Maybe I’m just misremembering. 

28C. Point is, I’m going to have to rewatch, at some point, to really decide if I think the Shaman being the killer works the way the show hopes it does or not. 

29. Now, a problem this presents is with Cute Convenience Store Guy—specifically, with the romance subplot he has with Ye-bun. Or, even more specifically, with how their romance subplot fits into the overall story in terms of timing. He and Ye-bun are clearly on track to start dating, but we also know that she and Det. Moon are probably going to end up together (because it’s a TV show). And the way we get to that point is that Cute Convenience Store Guy is murdered. While saving Ye-bun from the killer. Which…is a hell of a way to decide a love triangle. And, in and of itself, this isn’t the worst way to alleviate the story of that romantic path. But the way the show gets around this so that Det. Moon and Ye-bun decide to be together? Veeeeeeeeeery rushed. Like, they try to use the time jump coda to show that time has leveled things out, but they were already back to normal before he left—and, worse, they didn’t have enough of an organic realization about how much they mean to each other to prompt the total realignment of her feelings. (Because Ye-bun is the one who needs the most nudging. (Though he feels semi-responsible for for Cute Convenience Store Guy’s death, so he needs it, too.)) It needed two or three more episodes and the two of them confronting the fear of losing each other (or something like that) during the final stretch of catching the Shaman to really be believable. 

30. …not that I didn’t love the time jump coda, in this case, and how it brought everything back to the “classic” format of the show (the zany, isolated adventure (the prison infiltration)). And I thought it being the first time they’d seen each other in a long time was a great way for the show to end on them wanting to finally act on their feelings. It just felt like that 

30A. Also, what the heck—Ye-bun is basically broadcasting to the world that she’s a psychic? Is that…okay? Like, I guess that it’s the kind of thing most people would dismiss regardless of how bizarrely accurate her readings of each animal turn out to be. But…still. It probably is fine and makes perfect sense. It just struck me as a very strange choice—narratively. 

30B. Like at the very end, when they’ve thrown this haphazard “Ok-hui was kidnapped!” thread in for yet another layer of rushed last-minute plot, the on-call army of delinquent girls finally reappears and just, like, seems to already know/believe that Ye-bun is a psychic. Like, where did that—are we not going to discuss this?! 

30C. Or how one of the girls has a motorcycle helmet with the flag for the Isle of Man on it???

30D. Actually, wait—who even called the army of delinquent girls? How did they know to assemble?

30E. And where in the heck had the “Unnie” guy been this whole time? I mean, Ok-hui’s constant rejection of his advances once their romance subplot had sort of pushed him out of the story, but come on! Past a certain point, the wacky fun of the show turned solely to seriousness (I mean, it was something like half the season between the final two Twenty-Five, Twenty-One jokes), and I’m not sure this was entirely for the best, regardless of how much sense it made or whether I still really enjoyed the way things were going. 

30F. …anyway.

31. So, the Cute Convenience Store Guy red herring was too obviously a red herring to be a proper suspect…but the alternate and much more subtle red herring, Ok-hui’s brother Deok-hi, was FANTASTIC—if you ever thought to suspect him. Because, if you do, there are so many natural misdirections that would lead you away from suspecting him. One example: when Det. Moon has Ye-bun prove she’s psychic to the other cops, the only one she doesn’t touch to show her skills is Deok-hi. In the moment, he pulls away, insisting that he believes her after what she said about the other two, and it’s all very funny and framed like he doesn’t want her to grab his backside. But if you are suspicious of Deok-hi, it seems awfully convenient that this gag happened and spared his secrets coming to light. I thought these kinds of things were really clever additions to the mystery. 

32. Of course, back on the negatives side: Det. Moon drives a Hyundai, but the logo is covered up. 

33. Oh! Speaking of Det. Moon and his car: when he picks up the captain to go to whatever event he and the other homicide detectives have been sent to patrol so that they’re out of the way while Major Cases investigates the serial murders, there is someone in the back seat of his car as they drive away! I assumed he was driving all four detectives and that it was Deok-hi I was looking at in the back…but then Det. Moon eventually pulls over to drop the captain off on the side of the road so that he can go back after Ye-bun, and they’re the only ones in the car. I went back and checked multiple times. There was at least one other person sitting in the back of his car when they left. I thought it might turn out to be the killer using psychic powers to make himself invisible to people, but…no. Just some kind of continuity or production error. 

34. And...Ok-hui is #bestgirl. No, wait, Ye-bun. No—both. It's both. Because the show sort of splits itself into two separate kinds of shows between the first and second halves, so it's only logical that I would have to split my final decision into two separate selections. Which is absolutely a grounded, legitimate argument and not at all me being paralyzed with indecision. #bothgirls

35. OH MY GOD I FORGOT TO MENTION WHEN YE-BUN ESCAPES FROM THAT HOUSE THOUGH THE BATHROOM WINDOW AND ENDS UP GETTING STUCK AND TAKING THE WINDOW FRAME WITH HER. 

And…okay, any further and I’ll just descend back into listing every joke I laughed at. Which nobody wants. (Unless you do, in which case let me know and I will send you a list.)

What a great show. Really, really, really enjoyed it. It’s probably not as good as 19th Life, but I’m pretty sure I enjoyed it more. I’d probably categorize it as being somewhere between the sneaky-good of Love to Hate You and the obvious-good of Business Proposal. And I bet it’s going to have a solid rewatch factor, too. (It’s already swimming around in my “come back to these” list.)

Again, I only started this show because I assumed you would tell me to watch it. And, even just as a gut-based assumption of what you would say, you led me to a much better place than I would have led myself. Which is pretty telling.

Of what, exactly, I leave to you. Because obviously whatever I choose is going to be wrong. 

—Daryl