Letter #110: Goodbye Earth

Good morning, Erin.

Almost ten years ago, I started reading a comic book series called Low by Rick Remender, and I fell head over heels for it. I loved the story, I loved the art, I loved the whole aesthetic of it—and it immediately jumped onto my list of favorite graphic novels. 

Low follows an eternally (and willfully!) optimistic woman who goes on a harrowing odyssey to find humanity’s one fleeting hope of avoiding imminent extinction, despite the stifling indifference of an utterly resigned society and her immense personal tragedy. It’s a story about the power and importance of hope, a product of, per his description, the author’s personal journey out of depression. 

The last volume finally came out in January 2021…and I still haven’t read it. 

I can’t. 

Now, to be clear: I own it. I bought it pretty much as soon as it hit store shelves, and it’s right here—like, I could literally reach over to the table next to me and pick it up.

But I won’t. Or, rather, I can’t bring myself to do it.

For as much as I love it, as much as I want to finish it, as much as I know the ultimate message is about hope—the previous volume left things in such a despairing place that I’ve just been too…unprepared to revisit the story. Even knowing things will, in some fashion, turn out okay, that the entire point is that optimism in the face of seemingly unrelenting darkness will win the day, my chest tighten at the prospect of having to step back into the moment where I last left our protagonist.

…until now. 

Yes, despite my long-standing trepidations, something in my soul glanced over at that stack of books on my table and snaked its way into my brain until every third thought hummed for a return to Low. And, after a very, very deep breath, I restarted the series, intent to live the whole thing from the start (Lord knows I could use a refresher after all these years) straight through to the finish. And…well, okay, I’m only three issues into the first volume—but I’m doing it, and that’s all that matters. 

So perhaps it is no coincidence that, as I began this heart-pounding adventure into despair, Goodbye Earth finally released on Netflix at about the same time: a show about trying to do something in the face of imminent extinction. 

…I think. Maybe.

I mean, it definitely released on Netflix, but whether it’s about doing something in the face of imminent extinction…I guess we’ll see. (Sans spoilers, of course.)

So, grab your hoarded chocolate bars and hug your loved ones, Erin—there’s only 201 days until the end of the world.

1. When Netflix announced the release date for this series, I knew I was excited…but not why I was excited. That is, I remembered that it had been delayed because of a scandal with its male lead—but I could not for the life of me remember what had sparked my interest in the show to begin with. Impending extinction event? Not usually my cup of tea. But, hey, past-me can’t be any less trustworthy than present-me, when it comes to K-drama picks, so I gave it a shot. 

1A. (It was the girls. That’s why I wanted to watch the show: the girls in it.)

1B. (To the surprise of no one.)

2. To wit—shall we list the people I recognized? Yes, I think we shall:

• Mi-joo from The Good Bad Mother as our female lead, Ms. Jin

• Piano Girl from Vincenzo as Ms. Jin’s best friend, an army captain

• Zumba Snake from Vincenzo as the store owner (mini-reunion! woo!)

• the shakedown thug boss/travel-agent from Vincenzo as the store owner’s husband (woo!)

• the pawnshop lady from Vincenzo as the limping army girl (...apparently it’s a mega-reunion!)

• the shaman from Behind Your Touch as the vain YouTuber dad

• young Nam Do-san from Start-Up as one of Ms. Jin’s students

• the little girl from Carter as one of Ms. Jin’s students

• the CEO boss lady from Attorney Woo as the kids’ mother

• Braids Girl from Nevertheless as the beat-up girl

• the dolphin guy from Samdal-ri as Captain Army Girl’s attendant/driver

• the hapless dad from True Beauty as a former army commander

• the abusive father from True Beauty as the prime minister (mini-reunion! woo!)

• the Chinese fireworks dealer in Gyeongseong Creature as the sleazy ark salesman

• the second “old maid” sister from The Matchmakers as the hot delinquent girl

3. So, overall, the series is a mixed bag: some excellent performances and interesting storylines, but also too many story threads and a total lack of narrative focus. What was going on? Why were characters doing what they were doing? Does knowing why even matter? Was there a point to any of it? Not a clue. My attention was kept the whole time, but I’d be lying if I said I had any idea why any of it mattered. (More on that later on.)

4. The soundtrack for the show is great—and the opening theme song is awesome. (“Revolution” by Hwang Sang-jun.) Never skipped it. Anf, if you haven’t seen the show, check out the opening on YouTube. The full version of the song is also great, but the edited-down TV version distills all the best parts into 40 seconds or whatever, so it’s much more potent. 

5. Ahn Eun-jin, who played Ms. Jin, is great in this. I mean, she was great as Mi-joo, too, which is part of why I had wanted to watch this series, but…seriously, she’s a fantastic actress, and her performance here is excellent. She’s probably got the most complex character to play—but she’s definitely got the most interesting one, and if a lesser actress were to play her, the show would probably not be worth the watch. Because most of it rests on her performance, even if she’s not always the focus. 

6. Y’know who else did a great job? The pawn shop lady from Vincenzo. Again. This actress is just plain old funny. The limping army girl she plays is a weird addition to the story, but she nails it: doesn’t overplay it, doesn’t make the character too serious. She should be in more things. 

6A. Hang on—she and the shaman from Behind Your Touch were both in A Time Called You! Mini-reunion! 

7. Speaking of: I first recognized the shaman from a distance…because he was wearing aviator sunglasses. Which made me laugh. 

8. Piano Girl’s short, army-hair really blunts her prettiness. I suppose she looks handsome, but she definitely looks quite masculine, which is what they’re going for. However, a quick search for a picture of her with short hair reveals the slightly longer short haircut she had for Sh**ting Stars, which is still a much more masculine look than she usually has, but it’s long enough that it still softens her features a bit, and it, um…it looks nice. 

9. This show expects me to believe that a 14-year-old boy has ready access to tons of pornography and thinks it’s icky. And I absolutely call bull****.

9A. Now, yes, there is totally a story reason why he could be put off by it, but the show never indicates that this affects his feelings. Rather, that’s just me contriving a reason to justify why a boy in the midst of puberty would reject what is tantamount to the holy grail instead of locking himself in the bathroom for hours at a time. 

9B. I’m just saying…when I was a kid, you had to stumble across pornography in the woods or by dumpsters. You never went looking for it—it would just appear, when it sensed you were ready. And no one ever went “ick.” Not even if it was a single page half-submerged in a dirty puddle. 

10. Coincidence that Goodbye Earth came out at around the same time as The Three-Body Problem, a show that is ultimately about the coming destruction of humanity? 

11. Coincidence that Braids Girl was in the first thing I finished after White Nights, which featured her Nevertheless girlfriend? 

12. Speaking of: they almost manage to make Braids Girl look un-pretty. But only almost. 

13. On the other hand, young Nam Do-san is finally steering hard into puberty. Which is, um, having a much higher rate of success.

14. I’m still not sure if the title is supposed to be Goodbye Earth or Good Bye Earth. Because it’s written both ways. 

15. I have no idea what Piano Girl’s story is supposed to be, vis a vis her absolute commitment to doing things by the book.

15A. …assuming she actually did things by the book all the time. Because the show is far too ambiguous about her off-screen activities—assuming she has any. Which maybe she doesn’t. 

15B. Much less ambiguous is her big secret, which the show does a great job of showing and not telling. (Mostly. There’s one moment that’s a little exposition-y, but it comes a couple of episodes before the final hint that subtly confirms the rest of it, so I think it’s much less clunky than it could have been.) It’s subtle enough that I can understand someone not really noticing it, but I thought it was well done. And something I’d picked up on the whole time. I mean, I know I’m the world’s greatest detective and all, but I really feel like you wouldn’t need to be to get it. 

16. I have no idea what was supposed to be going on with the male lead (Ms. Jin’s fiance). Again, I know the actor got into some trouble over…a few things…and I know the response from the production was to try to edit him out of the show as much as possible—but he’s in it A LOT, so, did they edit him out? I dunno. I mean, his story doesn’t make a lick of sense, so maybe they did. But, again, if they did, and if he’s in it as much as he is after they edited his appearances down…like, how much was he in it beforehand?!

17. I have no idea what Ms. Jin’s story actually is. I know what it seems to be. I know what it looks like it should be. And I know what it seemed set up to be. But there’s a lot of ambiguity to her story that really, really, really doesn’t need to be there. I mean, yes, there’s a pretty clear throughline for what her goals are, but there are so many other things going on with everyone else—from main characters to sub-sub-support characters—that we don’t spend enough time with her for the implications of that throughline to lean more clearly in one direction. 

18. Relatedly: this show needed to decide if it was about the town in the last seven months of existence (which is what the narration explicitly says it is) or if it was about a specific plotline. Because Episode 1 seems to very clearly be about a plotline—which, for the record, I thought was bold and interesting—but it spends too much time being more of a meditation about the general goings on of the town in the midst of this bizarre circumstance for any one plotline to be the driving force of the series…while at the same time focusing too much on individual characters having very, very specific long-term plotlines for the atmosphere of the town overall to be the frame for the story. So, as I said earlier: mixed bag. 

18A. …or, as I put it in my notes, circa Episode 6: “I sort of love and hate this show. It’s both brilliant in its breadth of character…and utterly unfocused navel gazing.”

19. The politician with the shut-in son lives in a house that I know I’ve seen before. A bad guy fled there to hide out in…in…dammit, I can’t believe I can’t what show it was. My Demon? I’m looking back over my recent letters, and that’s the only one that would have a bad guy in it like what I’m thinking. Sigh. Maybe it was White Nights, like with the lounge I recognized. Regardless—I promise it was a relocation site for a bad guy. He was supposed to flee but just went to his fancy house in another part of the area. 

And, y’know what, I think we’ll leave it there. 

This was a tough one, both legitimately great and legitimately a mess. But it’s unique, if nothing else. And maybe that’s worthwhile enough. 

Or not. What do I know. 

I’ve got a bunch of weeklies wrapping up, this week, so I’ll be back to playing catchup with my letter writing as I play catchup with my viewing choices. So, y’know, plenty to keep me busy. 

I mean, I should clean my apartment. Do some furniture shopping. Exercise. Read—goodness me, should I do some reading, Erin. 

But…priorities. 

Hope all is well. Or, if it’s not, I hope I’ve distracted you for a bit. Which, I guess, is the best I can offer. 

Either way…more soon. 

—Daryl