Letter #87: After Signal (or Heart Signal 4, Pt. II)

Good morning, Erin.

Just when you thought I’d stop talking about Heart Signal 4…

Well, actually, you undoubtedly didn’t think I would stop talking about it specifically because I told you that the after show for Heart Signal 4 was a totally separate show called After Signal and that it was getting its own letter. I know you memorize these letters, Erin. This was not a surprise. 

Now, while this is absolutely its own series, it is also very much not, acting more like (in video game terms) an expansion pack rather than a full-blown spinoff. (Or, in non-video game terms, it’s an additional, miniature version of the main show more than it is a true sequel.) Which is a distinction I only make because it means I plan on being both very general and very specific in my commentary on the show—that is, I’m going to speak about the show and its format and things of that nature more broadly, but I am very much going to spoil the dickens out of things about the cast and where they are now and who I liked best and all those things. 

So, if you’re looking for a quick overview without ruining the fun because you’re totally going to watch Heart Signal 4 as soon as you have a break and can really soak it in, maybe just read the first couple of entries below. And then the signoff at the very bottom, of course, because who knows what treasures I might leave you there. 

But, if you’re all caught up (or—break my heart—aren’t going to watch the show and therefore don’t care about spoilers), then get ready for an absolute feast, dear seonbae. A relatively condensed feast, in all likelihood, but a hearty one. 

So, in the immortal words of…I mean, just about every Korean dating show contestant who has ever let loose a rallying cry for the cast to take action: let’s get it!

1. This was suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuch a good time. I mean, I already said that I loved Heart Signal 4, so maybe that’s not a surprise. But After Signal was not only fun in its own right, it was also just more Heart Signal 4—but with the benefit of also sort of making up for the somewhat sputtered-out last couple of episodes that put a kink in the otherwise stellar season. It’s everything you loved about the main series stripped of most of its flaws and with a fresh coat of paint every now and then. It’s almost a no-brainer, if you’ve watched the main series, but this is a big, big recommend from me. (Like, assuming you’ve seen Heart Signal 4. If you haven’t, it’s not going to make any sense. Obviously.)

1A. Now, there is some small possibility that my affection for this series was somewhat buoyed by the fact that I was in the middle of the absolute drag that was Pink Lie when I started it, and this is as far from that trainwreck as a K-dating show could be. So, maybe this was more of a “healing” show to me than it would be to everyone else—but I still think it would be a fluffy good time, regardless. 

2. This show was hosted by the two ladies from the main panel of hosts—which means #BestGirl Mimi was back! And, really, anything after that was always going to be gravy. 

3. That 85% of what was driving this show’s existence was desperately trying to get the remaining unpaired members of the cast to pair up was…interesting. I mean, it was fairly playful about the whole thing, but there was clearly a sense that the producers—and MANY of the fans—were more serious than playful about it. I don’t think it ever tipped past “enthusiastic and supportive!” into “unhealthy and demanding,” but it must have been a little bit odd to have left the dating show only to then be brought back into it a month after filming wrapped up to be forced on more dates with someone you’d already spent a month “dating” to no avail. 

3A. …well, odd for some, maybe. And perhaps hopeful for others. 

4. If 85% of After Signal was a second chance at getting everyone on Heart Signal 4 to end up in a couple, the remaining 15% was an apology letter to Min-kyu x Yi-soo, who got totally screwed by the edit of the show. And, as someone who was very much rooting for them and wasn’t fooled by the production tomfoolery that wanted us to think Min-kyu was into Ji-young to the exact degree and intensity she believed he was, I greatly appreciated this. Plus, they are FRIKKIN’ ADORABLE together, so it’s great to see all the chemistry that was hidden from us for the sake of story in the main show. (Assuming, of course, that they were anywhere near as cute there as we see them being on After Signal.)

5. For the record: I do not for one second buy that Ji-young and Gyeo-re are a real couple. I thought her choice to pick him in the end was a hasty CYA so that she didn’t leave the show as the season’s big rejection, and I think whatever relationship they have now is either fake or being held together by her sheer force of will—and, even then, I feel like it’s an attempt to not make it seem like she made a mistake more than genuine affection. I mean, hey, I could be wrong—but I bet I’m not. 

5A. To that end: I feel awful for Ji-young. Well, technically, I think that scenario is kind of hilarious—but only insofar as I’m laughing at the production in revenge for its relegation of Min-kyu to being a vaguely villainous character in poor, innocent Ji-young’s story. They burned me out on her, so a big fat HA! for the undeserving princess from me. But, in reality, I am as completely in love with Ji-young as literally everyone else who has ever seen her, and she deserves so much better than whatever she’s strapped herself to Gyeo-re for. She’s just so frikkin’ cool and pretty and awesome, and there is absolutely a guy out there who’s better for her than (don’t get me wrong, he’s a sweet guy) Gyeo-re. 

5B. …that guy, of course, was Min-kyu, and she should have just taken the L and picked him, even knowing he wasn’t going to pick her back. 

5C. Just saying—I’m available, Ji-young. I’m happy to learn Korean, if you want. And I love anime, too! We can spend our first date talking about Suzume and how despairingly cheap the CGI was!

6. Speaking of: the most unforgivable crime of the Heart Signal 4 edit was how it HID THAT YI-SOO LOVED ANIME just so that the Ji-young/Min-kyu anime fan connection could seem special. The absolute jerks. I mean, as she relays the story on After Signal, loving anime was one of the things we see her EXPLICITLY MENTION as something that interested her about him, so it’s not like this is some newfound enjoyment of her boyfriend’s hobby. And they edited it out. Ugh. I’m still angry. 

7. Speaking of anime and dealing with your boyfriend’s hobby: Min-kyu going on and on like a small child about visiting the different Pokemon centers in Japan as part of his Christmas trip with Yi-soo was hilarious. (And her face…her face.)

8. I love that the cast describes Min-kyu and Yi-soo as being “annoyingly in love” with each other.

8A. You know who didn’t get mentioned by anyone in the cast as being a nice couple? or a couple of any kind? Can you guess? Why don’t you just take a guess.

9. Ji-min is obviously into Hoo-shin, and…I don’t know if he’s into her or not. I go back and forth about whether or not I think he is. But they are spending a suspicious amount of time together for two people who supposedly aren’t dating, I’ll say that. 

10. Relatedly: I do not care about the Ji-min/Hoo-shin romance subplot. And I’m not entirely sure why that is. Like, I like them both (especially Ji-min), but for some reason their very spark-filled dates never interested me, and I almost don’t want them to pair up. Maybe I’m still sore about how the situation with Min-kyu panned out. Or maybe I’m just jealous—because Ji-min would have had me absolutely wrapped around her little finger, and…well, I’m here. 

11. Relatedly: I mostly didn’t care about Ju-mi or Ji-won throughout the season…but I am ALL KINDS of hyped about the two of them maybe hooking up. Like, I get that they aren’t (or, I suspect, mostly Ju-mi isn’t) interested in dating each other—despite literally everyone else in their lives and in the public at large thinking they should—but they just flat-out click. I’m not keen on pushing them into anything, but I definitely see why others might want to. I like them so much better when they’re together than when they’re not.

12. Speaking of Ju-mi, one of my favorite moments came during the “losers” meal in Episode 1, when both Hoo-shin and Ji-won expressed how shocked they were that Gyeo-re didn’t pick Ju-mi. Yes, I know no one thought Gyeo-re was going to be the one to land Ji-young, but it seemed like the boys genuinely thought these two were a lock. Which was both surprising and kind of cool—in that it was nice to see how highly they thought of her. I really came around on Ju-mi, in the end, and I’m glad everyone else did, too. 

12A. Of course, no one seems to admire her more than Ji-min, who had to change where she was seated during the premier watch party at the restaurant so that she could have Ju-mi hold her hand and calm her nerves. And, yes, I’m still annoyed that their whole sisterly relationship was all but excised from the show. 

12B. But poor Ju-mi still seems to still be getting over the whole situation with Gyeo-re, probably kicking herself for being too timid to just go all-in on him even though she could tell he fell for Ji-young the moment he saw her. But her strategic lawyer-mind got the better of her, convincing her that it would be more expeditious to divert her attention to someone else. Alas, to no avail. 

12C. And I think Ji-won vaguely blames himself for Ju-mi maybe not landing Gyeo-re, since she used her day-date for the second day of their sleep-away trip on him, missing out on another chance to sway Gyeo-re so that she could rescue him from the mess after Ji-young rejected his date offer. I don’t know that she really would have swung Gyeo-re in her direction with that date, but…I was kind of hoping that she would. 

12D. …but, seriously, how many times do they have to say they both wish they had someone to date before they just give it a shot? I know it’s not as easy as that, but…just think how happy everyone else would be if they did! And isn’t that what matters most in a relationship? How it makes everyone else feel? 

13. That Min-kyu remembers his cuddle-date with Ji-young very differently than how it appears on the show is funny enough…but that Yi-soo went back the next day to literally measure the blanket they’d been sharing so that there was no way he could deny that they’d been all snuggled up was frikkin’ hilarious. She’s so great. 

14. That Ju-mi described the chunk of time at the very start of the show when she was alone with Min-kyu and Gyeo-re as mostly being the two boys “flirting” with each other is as hilarious as it is unsurprising, given what we learned by the end of Heart Signal 4. 

15. That Ji-min’s whole “we could go back together…” offer to Min-kyu at the end of their incredible (but ultimately ill-fated) dinner/drinks date was her way of prompting him to make a big gesture to the rest of the cast that proved his feelings…well, it’s exactly what I thought she was doing, but it was still stunning to hear it. Wow. Like, I can’t actually imagine she’d have shifted her attentions to him if he’d been clear about their date rather than evasive (because he was conflicted about flat-out rejecting Ji-young’s advances), but I think it might have finally earned him an end-of-day text message from her, which would have been huge. Of course, it also probably wouldn’t have worked out between them by the end of the show, and it probably would have ruined his chances with the other girls if he had done it. So, ultimately, quite the fortunate boneheaded move on his part, in hindsight. (See? I told you: timing.)

16. I laughed so hard at how Gyeo-re’s friends, because he brought Ji-young to meet them only a few episodes into the season airing, couldn’t understand why the two of them were together. “But he…blew it with you.” I don’t think they literally asked him why he wasn’t there with Ju-mi, but I feel like that was the subtext. 

17. Relatedly: there was something satisfying about watching Gyeo-re squirm as he watched footage of Ji-young going hard after Min-kyu.

17A. Y’know who they didn’t show footage of getting upset over any Ji-young/Min-kyu footage? Can you guess? Why don’t you take a guess. 

17B. The part where Yi-soo is bitter because she’s the one who bought the potato chips Ji-young was playfully feeding Min-kyu on their cuddle date doesn’t count. Because we don’t see her watching the footage. 

18. Oh! I don’t think I brought this up in my Pink Lie letter, but the bicycle date that Ji-young and Gyeo-re go on in the first episode which ends with them taking pictures in front of a tunnel is EXACTLY the date that Finger Guns and The “Gal” go on for their “random pairings” date. Pictures in front of the tunnel and everything. 

19. It’s subtle, but during the rough ride up the mountain to the Min-kyu/Yi-soo paragliding date, the show plays this tense string music to emphasize the mounting nervousness Yi-soo feels about the whole endeavor. I spent a full 30 minutes playing back the short clip over and over (because I just knew I knew it) until I realized it was the theme song to The Walking Dead. Which made me laugh. Very clever, show.

20. Fun moment: some random YouTube commenter burning Hoo-shin after his “In what way am I lacking compared to Min-kyu?” line with “In what way are you better?” (10 points, random internet person.)

21. My gut says that my favorite in-studio guest combo for this series was Yi-soo and Ji-young, and my notes seem to back this up. Lots of celebratory exclamation points after their names. 

22. I’m bummed that we only get Ju-mi/Hoo-shin unofficial date stuff in the deleted scenes episode, because they are great fun. No romantic vibes, but they have a dynamic that we literally NEVER get to see in the main show. And he gets her to talk A LOT. So, in a way, we’re seeing a lot more of Ju-mi than we do anywhere else in the show in this one deleted scene with the one guy she has absolutely no romantic involvement with. But, sure, let’s spend a million years watching Ji-min not have any chemistry with Ji-won, production staff. That sounds great. 

23. Okay, I could have sworn I wondered if you could guess which of the girls in the cast I’d have been most into, but I can’t seem to find the line in my Heart Signal 4 letter, so…how about you take a moment to see if you can guess which of the girls I’d have been most into!

23A. (Assume I’m humming the Jeopardy! theme.)

23B. Actually, y’know what? This might be a fun exercise that will also give your unconscious mind a chance to sort out all the things you know about me so that you can make the correct guess: I’m going to try to answer the recurring “what’s your ideal type?” question everyone asks about on these shows. Will that in any way give insight into who I would have been most interested in? Probably not. But I still think it’ll be fun. For me.

23C. Okay, so, as a slight preamble: I recognize that this is both a silly question and one that everyone is (absurdly) supposed to have a pithy answer for. It’s silly because whatever your ideal man or woman is, there is nothing to say that the person you fall in love with will be anything at all like that ideal, so it’s not even a helpful answer to know, really. (Or maybe it has helpful elements in it, but the question itself is not the best way of getting to those points.) There’s just so much that goes into it—which is the other thing: there is absolutely no way to answer that question with anything but a stupid-long list. And I think Ji-yeon from Transit Love 2 is the only one who fessed up to that.

23D. I also recognize that the only correct answer to the question is “someone who can instantly adapt to my whims—physically, mentally, and emotionally—at any given moment and also takes care of all the things in my life that I don’t want to.” But…that aside…

23E. So, for me—and, again, recognizing that this is all mostly meaningless—the stupid-long list would be…well, starting with the shallow stuff and working up from there: dark hair, dark eyes, short, cute or cute/pretty (rather than pretty or beautiful or hot), love full or squishy cheeks, definitely like plump more than skinny, indoorsy, good (especially playful) sense of humor, likes to have deep discussions about all kinds of things, doesn’t need to agree with me about stuff (though that’d be nice) but disagrees with me in the same direction (like, we might not want to fix that pothole in the same way, but we definitely both think that pothole has to be fixed), and broadly complements my strengths and balances out my weaknesses. And also doesn’t mind me talking for hours about Korean dating shows. Obvs.

23F. See? Stupid-long and practically useless. I mean, did you find it at all helpful? Could you play matchmaker with a list like that? Or, if you were on a dating show with me, would that answer help you evaluate me or our possible compatibility? 

23G. Anyway…you ready to submit your answer? No? Need more time? Okay, I’ll give you a hint: it’s not Ju-mi. (No offense, Ju-mi.) So…from shortest to tallest: is it the cool, adorable Ji-young? the flirty, energetic Ji-min? or the reserved, confident Yi-soo?

23H. Okay—time’s up. If you answered all three of them—you’re right! (Kidding, kidding.) No, I mean, it’s a tough call, and it took me a long time to figure it out myself. But, when it comes right down to it, the answer was always going to be Ji-young. She’s got one flaw that set off an alarm bell, but it wasn’t nearly loud enough an alarm to outweigh all the absolutely top-tier positives about her. She's bright, she’s fun, she’s low-key but energetic, she’s simultaneously cute and pretty, she’s thoughtful, she’s absolutely full-to-bursting with love—she’s damn near perfect. From the moment I saw her enter the house, I knew it was all over—and we hadn’t even met the third and fourth girls, yet. And I don’t mean over for me; I mean over for everyone on the show. She was the girl, and anyone who says otherwise is lying. 

23I. …which is not to say I would have been all-in on her from the start and unwavering in my feelings. I would have gone a route more like this: Ji-young grips me immediately; then her obvious popularity would make me reevaluate my chances and I’d fall back to considering “worst option” Ju-mi; then I’d have been honest with myself that I wasn’t into Ju-mi and fallen completely for the flirty charm-bomb that was Ji-min; I would have tried denying that I was not likely to succeed long-term with Ji-min but then ultimately cycled back to Ji-young. Whether I would have stayed on Ji-young or not would depend on how things felt for me and surrounding her when game-changer Yi-soo showed up. Because Yi-soo wouldn’t have grabbed me, looks-wise, but I enjoyed her quiet, direct-yet-playful personality. 

23J. And just to round out my whole…all of this point: in terms of looks, if you were asking me to pick between a girl who looked like IU and a girl who looked like the “you know I have no chingu” girl—in terms of who I’d be more attracted to in a dating sense—it’d be the “you know I have no chingu” girl. No question. For whatever context that gives you about anything. 

24. It amuses me to no end that Gyeo-re was too stupid to consider asking the girls to visit his cafe. I laughed so hard when he realized he could have been doing that all along. 

25. I don’t mean to pick on Gyeo-re. He’s a good dude, and he’s a big part of why Min-kyu and Yi-soo didn’t fall apart immediately after the show ended. He's just…so unexciting to watch. And needs to be held accountable for not choosing Ju-mi. Even though I prefer her with Ji-won. (Feelings are complicated, okay?)

25A. …though nothing will top Min-kyu throwing shade at him for how little time he spends with Ji-young: “Um, he gets off work way earlier than I do, and I still see Yi-soo five nights a week.” Delicious. 

26. So, like, I understand that Yi-soo is a model, so maybe this is something that matters for that kind of thing, but…she’s worried about her “fat cheeks”? Is she joking? The word she’s looking for is “inviting” or “kissable.” She looks fantastic. I mean, if anything, I think she should probably consider asking her doctor about gaining some weight—but, regardless, what idiot is complaining about her absolutely smoochable cheeks? Maybe she’s just feeling a little down on herself. We all get that way. 

27. Oh, and—the fact that Ji-young and Gyeo-re also had a cuddle date makes me feel a certain way. About both of them. 

And I think we’ll leave it there. Or else we’ll be here forever. Talking about what is essentially just an elongated after-show. (Goodness me, do I like the cast of Heart Signal 4.)

ANYWAY. 

Still a long way to go before I catch up with my letters, but I’m finding a groove. So, it shouldn’t be long before the backlog is cleared. 

…helped in no small part by the TWO WEEK GAPS BETWEEN EPISODES of A Good Day to be a Dog. Which is thus far cute. But, y’know, in need of being way further along than it is. 

But it’s got Park Gyu-young, so I’m with it for the long-haul. Even as it is set to take longer to finish than [deep breath so we can shout with excitement] SWEET HOME 2 LESS THAN A MONTH UNTIL IT’S OUT I AM SO SO SOOOO EXCITED!!! Which, wow, will be the third series of hers that I will have seen in 2023. How about that! Good for her. 

I’ve seen you walking to class a couple of times, but I thought you might not appreciate me sticking my head out the window to shout hello, so…I didn’t do that. (No guarantee it won’t happen next time, though. I can be mercurial.) Hope all is well as we speed towards Thanksgiving and then suddenly find ourselves staring Christmas in the face. 

More soon.

Stay warm—and watch out for marauders. 

—Daryl