Letter #120: Connection

Good morning, Erin.

My littler little sister got me a couple of those murder mysteries in a box for Christmas, a few years ago, and I still haven’t opened one of them. I keep meaning to, but then I forget or find myself not in the mood to spend an hour trying to use a Caesar cipher to unscramble a secret message because the instructions in the game told me that it would be one of the methods I would need to use but then in actuality the cipher alternated the shift amount with every letter rather than just picking one for the whole message—and, yeah, they put some random number up above the encoded message that was supposed to let me know that the first numeral in the number was for the first letter and the second for the second (etc) but WHY THE F*** WOULD I THINK THAT when you made very clear in your instructions that the Caesar cipher was a message shifted by a specific single number FOR THE ENTIRE MESSAGE?! So, no, Hunt-a-Killer, I was not pleased by this part of your game, and you’re just lucky that I’m the world’s greatest detective and was able to crack the case without your stupid encrypted message or else I’d have been even angrier than I still am THREE YEARS LATER. 

…which is to say, I like a good murder mystery.

And I have to assume that was why I’d made note of Connection, a twisty-turny cop thriller that doesn’t have a romance subplot or a sudden detour into being a dating show for three or four episodes. I remember liking the poster and the preview blurb sounded interesting—which, in fairness, is often how I decide which anime series I want to try out. So, maybe this was a less surprising pick than I think.

Regardless, I watched Connection, which means we’re going to get into i—mostly spoiler free, in case you want to track it down—right…now:

1. Is it good? Definitely yes. Is it horribly contrived? Definitely yes. 

1A. Well…okay, maybe “contrived” isn’t quite the right way to describe it, but A LOT of the story comes down to characters just so happening to be exactly where they need to be at exactly the time they’d need to be there for the next element of the plot to happen. And, in more than one instance, there’s a timer put on something that the show conveniently forgets about so the dramatic element they want in one moment can play out but not interfere with something that comes later. That is to say, just about everything that happens is subservient to the needs of the plot rather than the plot unfolding along with or because of various character choices. And I don’t think I’m particularly sharp for noticing these things, either; I’m pretty sure anyone would start to wonder about one or two of any number of details that the show seems to forget or suddenly diminish in importance. 

1B. But, even so, the story’s overall pacing and the rollout of its many revelations are more than enough to keep the tension up and the audience guessing, so I definitely say it’s worth a watch, if it sounds like something that would suit your mood. (That being how a man’s unexpected death drags his estranged friends—a troubled cop, a shady reporter, and a dopey insurance salesman—into the middle of something none of them is ready for.)

2. So, every episode, the show splashes the show’s title across the screen twice: after the opening sequence of the narrative, and at the very end of the episode. Sometimes, the title is written in red. And, sometimes, the title is written in yellow. Sometimes the first and second splash match their colors—and sometimes they don’t. I have no idea what—if anything—to make of this. I thought maybe it was specific to even- or odd-numbered episodes, or maybe they synced up to a specific thread to the story (yellow for drugs and red for murder, for example), but there didn’t seem to be an obvious pattern. That said, I didn’t actively look to see if there was a pattern until a little past the halfway point, so I don’t know there isn’t something to it. But I also wasn’t invested enough to go back and scrub through every episode to see. So…I dunno. It sure felt like it wasn’t just random, is all. But, if you give this one a shot, try to keep track and let me know if you come up with anything. A connection, if you will.

3. Speaking of connections, though, I promised you a connection between Dreaming of a Freaking Fairy Tale and this show—and, lo!, here it is: they both utilize the same very distinctly-shaped cafe!

^exterior, Connection

^exterior, Dreaming…

^interior, Connection

^interior, Dreaming…

It’s a recurring location in Connection, and, because I was watching the shows at the same time, it was pretty easy to spot when it showed up in Dreaming… because it is, as I said, more than a little distinct-looking. 

4. But that’s not all! Kind of! Which will be revealed in this list of people I recognized!

• Actor Friend from Thirty-Nine as Yoon-jin, the reporter

• Young-woo’s CEO from Attorney Woo as CEO Yoon, a big-time drug dealer

• the newlywed influencer from Celebrity as Ji-yeon, the dead guy’s wife

• the chunky bandit from Song of the Bandits as…um, the chunky bully/assistant

• the cringe-y blind date prosecutor from My Demon as the creepy idiot taxi driver lackey

• the abusive dad from True Beauty as the police captain (or whatever)

• the violent bully’s ***hole father from Pyramid Game as a hospital patient’s son

4A. …the other connection being that both shows have a member of the influencer cadre from Celebrity in the cast!

5. Speaking of the cast: the high school versions of the adult cast are really, really good. They aren’t all dead-ringers, but they’ve almost all got the mannerisms of their adult counterparts down pat. I was impressed. 

6. I found where all the Hyundai logos go that they remove from K-dramas: this show. Everything is a Hyundai. And it’s amazing. 

7. Speaking of product placement: we’ve got a couple of appearances of everyone’s favorite coffee candy! 

8. I have a long rant in my notes for the first episode about how Jae-kyung, the cop protagonist, is disgustingly irresponsible with his firearm, even for an action-y TV scene, literally bursting into a room and firing off a warning shot into the crowd just to get everyone to get everyone to listen to him. I could not believe what I was seeing, because this guy was undoubtedly going to murder someone with behavior like that—or, barring that, I was certain the show was just going to ignore it because lol exciting action tough guy cop man. But, silly me, the show actually addresses his behavior directly, explaining that (here, if not all over Korea in real life) his gun, in accordance with regulations, had two blanks loaded in it so that he could, in fact, fire loud noises into a crowded room to cow suspects. Not anywhere near as irresponsible (though, of course, not entirely un-dangerous), but…man, that is nuts.

9. The mysterious death that kicks off the whole story occurs on my birthday. And…that didn’t feel great. 

10. The “previously on…” segments are hilarious. Every scene they reference has a caption straight out of a silent movie: “His symptoms reappear!” or “She opens the mysterious package!” Because seeing the footage from previous episodes wasn’t enough to let us know what we were seeing. 

11. I spent so much of this show waiting for my favorite character to suddenly turn out to be a villain. I have a dozen instances of, “Oh, no—this is it…it’s finally happening!” in my notes, because there were so many little details I picked up that made this seem inevitable. Did it happen? Well, I won’t say. But I can tell you that confirmation one way or the other doesn’t come until very, very far into the season. And, regardless of whether I was heartbroken or not, I think it was a good ending for the character. 

11A. If you watched this, I wonder if you’d be able to guess who I’m talking about.

12. One thing I’m half-sure you would be able to guess is that I had a bit of a crush on Ji-yeon, the dead guy’s wife. I realized it in Episode 10—which I can tell because I just have “daaaaaaaaaammit” written over and over again in my notes. Because of course.

13. Which is not me turning my nose up at Woon-jin, who is both clearly 40 and also who-gives-a-crap levels of pretty. Which I only mention because I found it interesting that I didn’t think, “Oh, she looks good for 40!” or “I can’t believe she’s 40!” but, rather, “She is definitely 40—and quite pretty.” (Interesting to me, of course. Probably not to you.)

14. One of the twists at the end that helps resolve the story was mistranslated in my subtitles, and it made the entire final scene of the show not make any sense. Fortunately, someone on the internet let everyone know what was actually said, and that made perfect sense. So…be on the lookout for that subtitle stumble at the end of Episode 14. 

15. One of the inciting incidents for the story relies on one of the main characters pulling a perfectly acceptable cliche hero move in maybe the most ridiculous, contrived way possible. And I never quite got over that. Because it didn’t need to be anywhere near as silly as it was.

16. The sound in this show is bizarre. I mean, as someone who doesn’t know anything about how sound is done, I think it’s bizarre. Because literally every piece of dialogue is crisp and clear—and clearly resulting from absolutely muting any sounds around the actors. Like, sometimes you can catch a little bit of ambient noise right before an actor speaks, as though they couldn’t quite edit down to the exact moment the recording of the actor saying his lines. And we’re talking outdoors, indoors scenes—literally all of them, no matter what the conditions are. I’ve only ever seen (well, heard) this happen in segments of episodes where two actors are having a conversation outside on a really windy day or at the beach where the waves are really crashing in the background. It was so weird. 

17. For all the times something too convenient or contrived happens to keep the plot moving along, there are definitely more than a couple of excellent moments where the show completely subverts average storytelling expectations by having characters act immediately (instead of letting a story beat drag out for a bit) or sometimes foolishly but with immediate ramifications. I quite appreciated those moments. 

18. Continuity error: when the protagonists hop into a guy’s car right after he does so they can interrogate him, there is one shot from a take where he has already put on his seat belt—but he hasn’t in every other shot before and after it. And, in fact, the scene ends with him putting on his seat belt and driving them somewhere. 

19. Continuity error?: they use some pretty good CGI fire for a scene where the protagonists are caught in a burning house, but all external shots of the house after it catches fire (beginning in an interior room) look as though there isn’t any threat of fire at all. Like, there might be a gentle flicker as though from a candle in the living room, but that’s about it. Which…I dunno, maybe that’s how it would look, at first. But I raised an eyebrow over it.

20. I really liked all the little details in the opening title sequence. It basically tells you the plot of the show, but you won’t recognize the significance of any of it until the related moment in the show passes. And you can’t really use it to predict what will happen, because so much of what’s there is fairly generic “solving a murder” stuff. But you get about two-thirds into the season, and a lot of it starts to make sense. 

And that’s all I have to say about Connection. Well, that doesn’t involve me going into great details about specific elements of the plot, at least. And, given how immediately I know you’ll want to snatch this up, I’m sure you’re glad I didn’t. 

Next up is Possessed Love, which…well, you’ll see. 

After that…a mystery! Or, well, not a mystery at all, really, just…not a definite. I’m in the middle of Sweet Home 3, of course, but also The Whirlwind (which…wow) and the weekly series Miss Night and Day (which I’m going to assume you’re watching, seonbae, because you should be). 

Now, Miss Night and Day is not going to wrap up until next Sunday, so you’d think I would probably get through both other series before then, but…you never can tell. One of the shows is stupid, and the other is so good that I need to catch my breath after every episode. Plus I’ve got the Weki Meki reality show to finish up as my personal memorial to their girl group demise in August. And, hey, what if you visit me in a dream and tell me to throw all of that aside and finally start Legend of the Blue Sea like you told me to, like, two years ago? What then?

So, like I said: mystery. 

But definitely Possessed Love next. For better or worse. Or neither. You’ll just have to wait and see.

More soon.

—Daryl