Letter #149: Dear.M

Good morning, Erin.

I’m going to level with you: it’s been a lousy week. 

It could be worse, of course—and let’s put aside any worries that something devastating has happened, because it hasn’t. Everything is technically fine. I’ve just had a moment of realization about something, and…well, without getting into specifics, it’s rough being reminded that I’m not special. 

Occasionally forgetting this fact is one of my persistent character flaws. And what inevitably follows this lapse in memory is never pleasant. 

So, suffice it to say, it’s been a lousy week. The kind of week that could probably only be made better by an anonymous love letter being addressed to me on the internet. 

…which, in case you were not aware, is more or less the inciting plot element for Dear.M, a show that’s been in my queue for a while and which, at long last, you and I will be discussing today. Which isn’t lousy at all.

Unless it is. Though, I suppose you will need to read on to determine whether or not that’s the case. 

So, until such time as you do, let’s talk Dear.M.

1. If you think the only reason I watched this show was because Roh Jeong-eui is in it, then I am saddened to hear that you think I’m so shallow. Because I watched this show because Roh Jeong-eui is in it as well as the two hot roommates from At a Distance, Spring is Green. 

1A. What? Three hot girls is literally deeper than just one hot girl. That’s basic geometry. 

1B. …but, yes, in every other respect, the choice to watch this was entirely shallow. Obviously. Because this is me we’re talking about. We both know it’d be weirder if I started making decisions based on potential story quality. I mean, ask me if I had any idea what this show was about when I started it. Because I didn’t—and I didn’t need to. 

2. Ultimately, this show is probably not that great, but I certainly enjoyed it as I was watching. Not in the same way that I think Alchemy of Souls is probably not objectively great but still one of the best shows I’ve ever seen. No, I think this is one of those shows you watch because you started it and find you have no objections to, so you keep watching. The cast is likeable enough, and the main romance is done pretty well. A lot of the character interactions are solid. The story kind of trips over itself as you get towards the end, but the main romance works well enough that it basically balances the rest out. Forgettable, but it’ll do. Like a vending machine snack. I’m not going to tell you to try it, but…if you need a little something…

3. That said, I’m going to need someone to explain to me why the show wasn’t about Ro-sa, because it is incomprehensible to me that it wasn’t. And that she’s listed as a supporting character when she’s almost half the story. And easily the best character. And the—okay, just…look, we’ll get into it. Later. For now, just know that we’re going spoilers, from here on out. (Not just to complain though. Promise.)

4. Did you know that I knew some folks in this? I bet you did!

• NJ from Our Beloved Summer as Ji-min, our second female lead

• the antagonist super-soldier kid from Gyeongseong Creature 2 as Ha-neul, Ji-min’s boyfriend

• Mega-Hot Preppy Princess from At a Distance, Spring is Green as Young, our third female lead

• Mega-Hot Action Girl from At a Distance, Spring is Green as Yang-hee, the rich freshman girl

4A. So, we’ve got a mini-reunion with our mega-hot girls from Spring is Green, of course, but you might also remember that Mega-Hot Action Girl was in Hierarchy, as was Roh Jeong-eui, so mini-reunion there, as well.

4B. The cast also spends a day in the “Mural Village” where Ji-young and Hoo-shin went on their select-a-train-ticket date on Heart Signal 4. Which was very exciting for me, ‘cus I loved that show. 

5. The story starts with an “I’m late for school and have to run to the bus!” cliche for the main character, so I was obviously immediately taken with this show. Minus the part where she didn’t have an oversized piece of toast hanging from her mouth as she ran. But maybe that’s more a Japanese thing than a Korean thing, so…I let it slide. 

6. Speaking of wonderful cliches: the male leads and, separately of course, the female leads all end up being roommates! And, of course, the three boys and the three girls just so happen to be love interests for each other! How convenient! (And, again, wonderful. I love that stuff.)

7. When it comes to the sage writing adage of “showing, not telling,” this show very chooses to tell rather than show—even when it does a really good job of showing. Like, we’ll arrive at a story beat where someone sees something or does something or a look flashes across his face, and it’s 100% obvious what he’s thinking or what that moment signifies for the story…but then it gets explicitly stated, ruining the moment. Well, not ruining it, but making English majors like me frown, which is almost as bad.

8. Absolutely nothing is done with this, but there’s a fun NisiOisiN-style bit of wordplay with…wait, you probably don’t know who that is. Um, okay: Nisio Isin (styled as NisiOisiN to emphasize the palindromic nature of his name) is a very prolific Japanese author who is known for offbeat stories that always contain at least some element of a play on language, whether it’s grammatical, a dissection of the elements that go into written Japanese, or just elaborate puns. He’s a self-indulgent writer, to be sure, seemingly writing somewhat exclusively to satisfy himself rather than wanting to tell a particular story, but I am such a fan of his use of words—literally of his ability to craft sentences and paragraphs. The stories themselves can be great or kind of forgettable, but I think he’s a virtuoso with the components of language. 

8A. …which was a long preamble to let you know that we get this fun bit of NisiOisiN-style wordplay with the names of two of the characters: Ma Joo-ah and Hwang Bo Young. In the case of the former, Joo-ah claims people always mistake the second syllable in her first name to be the casual suffix to a first name and, as such, assume her name is “Ma-joo.” In the latter, the character’s first name is “Young,” but everyone assumes her name is “Bo-young” because a two-syllable last name is so uncommon. What comes of either of these details? Nothing. Like, we get a little bit of “It’s nice to meet you, Bo-young” when Young first introduces herself, but everyone immediately adjusts. There’s no running gag with people getting it wrong, nor is there ever anything thematic that’s drawn from it (that I can tell as an American audience member, at least). And, outside of Joo-ah citing that people mis-hear her name, I don’t think it ever comes up. So…I dunno why either of these name details are in the show, and I have no idea if there was ever supposed to be some kind of connection to be drawn from it. But I still thought it was clever.

9. On the other hand, we get a ton of red/blue symbolism that is ABSOLUTELY meant to be there, with Ro-sa (rosa being “red”) and her series-long attempt to lure Ha-neul (“sky” and therefore blue) away from his girlfriend—and her good friend—Ji-min. It’s not the most consistently reinforced visual theme, but they both frequently wear their assigned colors. But the most significant use of the actual color-coding is probably the moment Ro-sa discovers that this boy she likes is not just already dating someone but dating Ji-min: she’s in a red jacket, he’s in a blue jacket, and Ji-min walks up to them wearing a pink top and a light blue skirt (because she is tied to both). Of course, Ro-sa and Ha-neul actually have a lot in common and the dichotomy aspect of all this is between Ji-min and both Ro-sa and Ha-neul, but…whatever. It was still good. 

9A. In a fun twist on this, though, the next morning has Ro-sa in blue and Ha-neul in pink—which, at least in English, is a wonderful visual pun that should set off bells in Ji-min’s head: because a “pink sky” in the morning is a warning to sailors that conditions will be rough.

9B. As a bonus, the “roommate blind date” scene where the boys and girls find out they all already know each other has Joo-ah in dark pink and Min-ho in blue. As if we didn’t already know these two were supposed to get together. 

10. One of my favorite things about the series was the fansub: whoever subbed the show took the time to footnote any puns and references that wouldn’t be obvious to English speakers. Good job! (Also: things like oppa and noona were never translated as characters’ names. Also also: any spoken English was always subtitled, as well. Take note, Netflix. That’s how you do it!)

11. Joo-ah’s love interest for most of the show is a support character named Joon, and I wasn’t keen on the guy from the jump—but, once Joo-ah sets about trying to get info on him that she can use to seem more like his kind of girl, we get this gem that proves I was right to be wary of him: his top female celebrity (in terms of looks) is Suzy. Meh. 

11A. …again, I have no real problem with Suzy. I’m just never sure why everyone is so gaga about her rather than anyone else. (I mean, I was, too, when I saw 19-year-old her in My Love from the Star, but th-that’s different!)

11B. That said, it was fun to see Joo-ah kind of roll her eyes and sigh that Joon was “basic.” Joo-ah was a good time. It’s too bad the actress got hit with one of those “high school bully!” scandals. I assume we’ll never see her again.

11C. Actually, speaking of that: this show made it to international audiences waaaaaaaay before it was released in South Korea, and I’m pretty sure it was because of the actress’s scandal. Which sucks. Like, strategically, I mean—for the actress playing Ro-sa (and maybe Yang-hee, too), who I would think would get a bump from this.

12. If you want a masterclass on how to backlight cliche romantic moments, this is the series for you. They absolutely nail it—every time. 

13. So many of the in-universe character interactions are so intensely awkward that I started hitting dating show-levels of having to pause and hide behind pillows. It was great. Particularly since I was so starved for dating shows, at the time.

14. STOP THE PRESSES—there’s a Transit Love spinoff series that started airing this week?! GASP! It’s returning participants! AND AND AND NA-EON AND JI-YEON FROM SEASON TWO ARE IN IT?! Oh my God, I take it all back: this is the best week ever. 

14A. SHUT UP—Yi-soo from Heart Signal 4 is going to be doing reaction videos to it because she’s now besties with Ji-yeon and wants to root on her friend?! I…am so happy…

15. I really liked the idea that the inciting incident for a lot of what happens in the series is the anonymous love confession post on the school’s message board…but I thought it was handled extremely poorly as a plot element. It rarely comes up, and it almost never spurs anyone to action in a way that truly influences how things play out. The mystery of who it could be also doesn’t play as much of a role in the story as you’d think. And the eventual reveal of the who/what/why of it all is…not so much unsatisfying as it was pointless—because, again, the posts are so infrequent and so generally irrelevant that you could probably have removed it from the story and gotten pretty much everything to play out the same way. Given that the identity of the poster is unknown but that he or she gives a potential list of who the confession could be for, there are so many ways it could have upped the dramatic tension of everyone in our main cast as they tried to navigate the changing elements of their relationships. And it just doesn’t. (Almost certainly because of who was behind it and what he or she was hoping to accomplish. But that’s something the show could have worked around.) To say nothing of how I’m not even sure the anonymous posts were only able to come from a single user—but let’s not get too lost in the weeds. 

16. Ji-min and Ha-neul are barely characters, and most of their characteristics are centered around being sickeningly sweet to each other. Which I would have more of a problem with if it didn’t mean we get a near-constant smile on Roh Jeong-eui’s face. And you know how I feel about her smile. 

17. …that said, Ji-min is maybe the worst-written character on the show, despite it being obvious to me that she had a lot of potential depth to her. Yes, she always smiling and positive, very much the idol of the campus, but I had assumed a lot of her demeanor was meant to be a facade and that anxiety, self-doubt, and an undeniable suspicion that her best friend was trying to steal her boyfriend would lead to a deeper story for her. That’s not the case. Which really sucked. 

18. Joo-ah, Min-ho, and (in particular) Ro-sa, on the other hand, are all handled very well. Whereas Young and…uh, the third boy roommate barely exist in the story, even if they’re around a fair amount throughout—though they definitely get something to do towards the end. 

19. Our main cast is all in the same photography class, and their assignments seem almost intentionally designed to amplify the romcom plot, including a “go outside and take pictures of a classmate” project that may as well have come with the promise of bonus points if you hooked up afterward. Well, it all plays out as you would expect it—but I call absolute bull**** on no one trying to take Yang-hee’s picture. 

20. Wait—Little Hanna says there’s going to be a second season of Possessed Love! Man, this really is a total turnaround to a lousy week! 

21. Later in the series, Ji-min says she wants to run for president of the cheerleading team, and one of her ideas is that the girls would be able to wear pants instead of skirts. Which is where she lost my vote. 

21A. In fairness, when we see her as president of the cheerleading team in the show’s coda, she’s the only girl in pants. Which is okay, I guess. 

21B. Now, as an aside, you once recommended Cheer Up! to me, and after seeing the cheerleader outfits in this series, you can bet I am bumping that show up the ol’ watch list. They’re absolutely ridiculous, and I love them.

21C. Holy crap—Gyuri from fromis_9 is in it?! Awesome! Oh, and the lead guy is that actor I like who isn’t very good but I really like him anyway! Oh, bump that up a couple more places, thank you.

22. The little girl version of Joo-ah they cast was really good. At being very much like older Joo-ah, at least. (Not that she needed to do much else.)

23. In an attempt to impress her crush, Joo-ah suddenly learns everything possible about baseball, which is his favorite sport. She sits next to him to watch a game on TV, and she celebrates a player stealing second by loudly proclaiming, “That’s immediate scoring position!”—which is about as tryhard noob as she could possibly have sounded in that moment. Her crush, though, finds this impressive. Inexplicably. Like, okay, sure, he might be impressed that she actually knows being on second puts the runner in scoring position, which proves that she actually knows something about baseball (and isn’t faking it for his sake (even though she totally is faking it for his sake, just with a lot of effort put into studying how to do it)). But it was such a clunky way for her to say it that it should have tipped him off to her being a phony immediately. And it didn’t. I mean, he doesn’t have to be the world’s greatest detective to catch that what she said sounded weird and unnatural. 

23A. That said, he thought Endgame was the best MCU film, so he’s clearly an idiot. 

24. When Ji-min tries to win points with Ha-neul by having him teach her to play a video game with him, I immediately assumed they’d be playing League of Legends. And I was wrong: they were playing PUBG (that is, the battle royale game PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds). 

25. Speaking of video games, though: Ro-sa (who is, of course, a gamer (which, let’s be honest, is just one of the feathers in her #bestgirl cap)) makes a move to steal Ha-neul’s heart by getting him a new video game that he’s desperate to get but can’t quite spend money on. And I was shocked to see that it was…well, it was the legally distinct made-up version of The Last of Us 2. As you can see:

Also, it’s hard to see in the image above, but the circled sections are the names of the developers: The Last of Us is made by Naughty Dog, and the made-up game is developed by Amicable Cat. (In case the reference wasn’t quite clear enough.) Which made me laugh. Because it’s funny to see how much effort they put into making the reference. And because The Last of Us 2 was absolute dog****. 

26. Speaking of Ro-sa (and, really, we should always be speaking of Ro-sa): one of the most pivotal scenes in the Ro-sa/Ha-neul/Ji-min storyline comes in Episode 5, when a drunken Ha-neul mistakes Ro-sa for Ji-min and gives her an intimate hug-from-behind, which essentially turns out to be step one of three rapid-succession incidents that leads to Ji-min breaking up with Ha-neul. I mention it because the moment in question was set up really, really well, with Ro-sa making a very deliberate effort to wear the same perfume as Ji-min and dressing very, very similar to her, as well. In fact, I noted down how even I was having issues distinguishing them from one another in the scene because of how they were dressed and, significantly, because Ro-sa had just put her hair up in a ponytail very much like Ji-min—which is when I realized that Ro-sa was planning to fool drunk Ha-neul into mistaking her for Ji-min and probably try to leverage that into him dating her. Which I was very excited to see. 

26A. Of course, that’s not really what happened at all, with Ro-sa being taken by surprise when Ha-neul hugged her. I mean, it works out for her because seeing him hug her sends Ji-min into a spiral that ends with their breakup, which is exactly what Ro-sa’s been hoping for, but it quickly becomes apparent that, apart from her plan to smell like Ji-min, everything was just a coincidence. She’d had no plan beyond hoping to subconsciously make him associate her with the romantic feelings he has for his girlfriend by smelling like her. It’s a really garbled sequence, when you look back on it, because there’s no reason for her to have deliberately tried to smell like Ji-min except that the plot needed her to smell like Ji-min so Ha-neul wouldn’t think it wasn’t Ji-min he was hugging from behind. And this was the only way they could think to do that. She didn’t accidentally grab the wrong bottle to spray on or ask Ji-min if she could try out a little of the perfume to see if she liked it—no, she deliberately tracked down what kind Ji-min used, purchased it for herself, and then specifically used it on the night our cast was all set to spend the night playing drinking games. Clothes? Hair? Getting Ha-neul so drunk that he’d be easy to manipulate into thinking she was his girlfriend? Happenstance. Sigh.

27. As much as I love cliches, I have to admit the “let’s loudly gossip to each other in the bathroom about the person we don’t know is in one of the stalls because why would we be at all wary that someone might overhear what we have to say” thing is one that I really roll my eyes at. It’s probably 100% realistic, but I still think it’s dumb.

28. There’s a surprising amount of hugging in this show. Which is great, because I’ve long wondered why people so frequently don’t give casual hugs in K-dramas (like, whether it was a TV thing or generally considered impolite to hug or something like that). And we get all kinds of hugs, from celebratory to encouraging to comforting. But what surprised me is that, when Ji-min returns to her dorm upset that she’s broken up with Ha-neul, Young is the one who jumps up and hugs her. Joo-ah hugs her, as well, but Young was on her like lightning. The stoic, detached girl. I…don’t know why that was the case. I mean, I can come up with reasons why it might logically be her instead of Joo-ah, but the show never gave me anything about her character that would immediately make me say, “Ah, of course.”

29. I was 1000% on the Min-ho x Joo-ah train, but even I think his kissing her in the gym after she found out the boy she thought she was dating had been lying to her about already having a girlfriend was not a cool move. I mean, she was super-vulnerable, dude. Strongly hint that you’re in love with her—absolutely. But kissing her? Oof. 

29A. …not that it works out of him, in the short-term, because she rejects him outright. But she doesn’t ever think he crossed a line by kissing her in such a weak moment. And…I mean, it’s not a huge deal, but it bothered me a little on a narrative level. As I said, I really liked how their romance story played out (especially as we get to the end of the show), so this seemed like a pretty clear mistake in an otherwise well done romance plot. 

30. The college message board is called “SeoRab,” and it took me until Episode 10 to realize that anytime someone would post something to it, it would make a cartoony little “SeoRab!” sound. And, of course, it was Ro-sa making a lengthy anonymous hate post about Ji-min when I first heard the little “SeoRab!” pop up. Hilarious. 

31. It did not escape my notice that the neatfreak third member of the boys’ dorm room wants Min-ho to introduce him to this “noona” he keeps getting calls from (which, in this case, is literally Min-ho’s older sister), and he ultimately ends up with Young, who is older than he is, and whom he always calls noona. 

32. In a twist I have never noticed before, all the younger people are giving the older people permission to speak casually with them. Is…is that how that works? I thought the older ones were the ones who would give the younger ones permission to speak casually? Am I wrong?

(32A. Future-Daryl here, seonbae: in at least two subsequent things I’ve been watching, the younger people are the ones letting the older ones know it’s okay to speak casually. I…am very confused. Was this always the case? Am I speaking from ignorance?)

33. When Min-ho takes Joo-ah out to do all her favorite things to cheer her up, their first stop is a movie. A scary movie, in fact. A scary movie starring none other than COACH CHOI, in fact: 

And I, as the world’s greatest detective, tracked down exactly what film this is: it’s called Metamorphosis. I have no idea what it’s about, but I’ve downloaded it and will tell you all about it, eventually, I’m sure. 

34. The next part of the cheer-up night is a visit to karaoke, and it’s an absolutely beautiful scene. They sing a duet of this lovely song (“Something’s Wrong” by Kwon Jin-ah)—but it’s only a duet to us, not in-universe: Min-ho “doesn’t sing ballads,” they assure us, and so Joo-ah’s singing this pining love song on her own…until the perspective shifts to Min-ho, who is singing along with her on the inside. It’s terrific. A totally different kind of scene from the entire rest of the series, but it totally works. And they’re both excellent singers. That there seems to be no official release of their duet is criminal. 

35. Whoa—I only just noticed this, looking back to find the Coach Choi picture: so, Joo-ah’s big revelation that Min-ho’s been in love with her for forever comes when she realizes that his strange answer to the ideal type question, “Someone who looks good in yellow,” is his way of saying that she is his ideal type (because she’s never returned his yellow hoodie that she borrowed from him because she thinks it looks better on her). But there’s a biiiiig scene earlier in the show when Joo-ah ditches her date with her crush to rush out and find Min-ho because it’s raining and the rain makes him very sad (...just roll with it)...and the umbrella she’s using to keep them dry when she finds him is yellow! Oh, well done, prop department!

36. The biggest swing-and-miss of the series is the Ji-min/Ha-neul story, which starts weakly with them not having any real depth to them as characters, meanders into a breakup that should have been the entire point of their arcs (essentially that they were both suppressing important parts of themselves for the sake of the relationship rather than accepting that they just didn’t match well enough), and then resolves itself based on almost nothing so they can decide to get back together. It’s sloppy and poorly planned and boring as hell—in no small part because, again, they aren’t really characters (and, as I mentioned earlier, in Ji-min’s case, she in particular seems to have been deliberately diverted away from any character complexity). 

36A. Like, there’s this whole thing where, if you look closely, Ji-min’s a little bit controlling and Ha-neul’s a little too acquiescent to Ji-min (showing potential disinterest on his part and a desperation on her part). And then there’s the actual breakup, which she only did to test his response, waiting to see if he would run after her to get her to reconsider, which is a totally dick move, and—uh, whatever, that’s not what we’re here to discuss.

36B. No, the thing I want to mention is the Mr. Spicy arc. That is, in the immediate aftermath of her breakup with Ha-neul, Ji-min finds herself in a whirlwind romantic something-or-other with a dude from the photography class who she runs into at a spicy noodle place near the school. Now, I had a personal problem with her taking up with this boy so quickly on the heels of the breakup, but we’re not going to get into that—apart from how Mr. Spicy sucks and I don’t like him (though I’m sure the show wants us to think he’s bold and charming). Instead, I’m really, really unsure why they bothered to get as far into that whole thing as they did—because they were absolutely dating, like, Ji-min had properly moved on to a new boyfriend (and this dude was, of course, totally smitten with her (and who wouldn’t be?)), but the show I think wants us to see it more as she’s just looking for a bit of a crutch and isn’t as serious about the whole thing as Mr. Spicy is. But that’s not what comes across on screen with how she’s acting or how her friends treat the situation. Because he’s ultimately going to be s*** outta luck with his feelings, ‘cus the plot’s just biding time until it can contrive a way for Ji-min to realize that Ha-neul sniveling after her every day is actually really sweet and what she really wants in her life. And the way they do it is just…not fair to him. He deserved better—narratively and in-universe. Like, I hated him and every second he was on screen, but Ji-min essentially treats him as a plaything, whether she meant to or not, and we’re expected to both feel bad for this guy and see nothing wrong with Ji-min going back to Ha-neul. Sorry, no, can’t do that. She kinda sucks, show, and you either need to fess up to it or not have her suck in the first place. I mean, Ha-neul’s no great shakes, trust me, but Ji-min kinda comes off as one of the big jerks of the series—and we’ve got two genuine villains in the series. 

36C. Um…my point being there was no reason for them to go so hard on the Mr. Spicy portion of the story. Because it backfires. And the whole Ji-min/Ha-neul storyline was bad enough already. 

36D. …apart from anything involving Ro-sa, of course, who was a delight for literally every moment she was on screen. 

37. Also, for the record: I quite liked Min-ho. I know I already said he and Joo-ah were well done, and that I liked their romance storyline, but I also found him quite likeable apart from that. Not that the actor (who is an idol? I think?) had much to do, but he still came across as very…normal. And, as such, very relatable, which made the pathos of his situation seem that much easier to connect with. So, y’know, just to give the guy a little shine. (Plus, his English was really good! Which is always impressive.)

38. But let’s take a moment to talk about the real star of the show: Ro-sa. And, at the same time, try to figure out why she wasn’t the main character. 

38A. I mean, we both know she wasn’t the main character because she was the villain of the season—and that’s not even up for debate, either, because she goes headlong into her villain arc in Episode 2. Like, she’s 100% a scheming, lying, manipulative b**** from the moment she discovers that Ha-neul not only has a girlfriend but is dating Ji-min, the girl from Ro-sa’s past she seemed to always lose out to. There’s no spinning what she was up to as anything but villainy. It’s awesome and I love her, but…she’s definitely the bad guy.

38B. I just mean to say she gets A LOT of characterization—not just overall, but in the first couple of episodes. Like, a suspiciously large amount of characterization for someone who is not meant to be a main character. In fact, I’m pretty sure we get more for her than we do for either Joo-ah or Min-ho, early on. (Not in terms of screen time, but in terms of character content.) She’s probably got the most emotionally complex storyline of the bunch—and definitely the most interesting one, even if only by a hair or two over the main duo’s romance. Her villainy is slick but easy to grasp, with each manipulation or hidden dagger deployed in the most believable way possible, helping her fly under the radar of those around her but also be obvious enough for the audience to appreciate (regardless of whether they hated her or loved her…okay, maybe I’m the only one who loved her, but the point stands!). And she gives far and away the best performance of the series. 

3C. But poor…what’s this actress’s na—oh, wow, okay: Hwang Bo-reum-byeol. That is…a long name. Uh, anyway—much like Ro-sa herself, poor Hwang Bo-reum-byeol is this very pretty girl, but she’s constantly standing next to Roh Jeong-eui. I’m sure she didn’t start to secretly harbor a vendetta against Roh Jeong-eui, but…I mean, I’d feel kind of down about myself. Not fair, I tell ya.

3D. And don’t think it’s lost on me that this is the second time in a row that I’ve watched a show because of Roh Jeong-eui only to find myself completely on-side with her antagonist romantic rival. My notes about Ro-sa vs. Ji-min are incredibly similar to those I had about He-ra vs. Jae-i (in Hierarchy). Interestingly, Roh Jeong-eui’s characters are polar opposites—but something they absolutely have in common is that they were both flat and written without depth to them. Now, whether she exacerbated those writing problems by playing both characters as a single emotion, I dunno, but I can say for a fact that she’d have been adding complexity that didn’t seem to be in the script

3E. But, yeah, Ro-sa was great and my favorite and I love her. And, as a final point, here are some quick notes about her that didn’t quite fit elsewhere but I still want to include in this letter (because she’s great and my favorite and I love her):

• Ro-sa’s eventual Gossip Girl-style campaign to ruin Ji-min is sort of a mirror to the whole “Dear.M” anonymous love confession. I have my suspicions that this was accidental, but I’m going to give them credit for it anyway.

• As soon as she finds out that Ji-min dumped Ha-neul, Ro-sa loses all of her cool and just starts bouncing giddily in the seat next to him. He looks absolutely miserable and depressed, and she’s just got the biggest smile on her face, eagerly looking over at him as though he’s obviously about to ask her out. For all her careful machinations, she just jumps straight to wanting to reap the rewards of her victory. Hilarious. 

• I was really upset that Ro-sa’s undoing was obviously going to be the hot mic from the student documentary of the campaign to be president of the cheerleading team between her and Ji-min. I thought that was a cheap way to wrap up her villain story, just this accidental confession that exposes her for all the world to see. But…no, it actually doesn’t ever come into play. Ha-neul rejects Ro-sa, and she loses the cheerleading campaign to Ji-min, but the very obvious camera zoom to show that she was still mic-ed up when she has her cackling villain argument with Ji-min doesn’t set any of that up. At all. And…good? I mean, I’m glad they didn’t go that route, but also…why focus in on the mic if they weren’t going to do anything about it?

• I’m still shocked that, all things being equal, Ro-sa just sort of gets away with her villainy. She’s off the cheer team, and she’s got no relationship with either Ji-min or Ha-neul (not that she wanted anything to do with Ji-min anyway), but that’s about it. She’s not even really exposed within the cheer team. It’s kind of weird. But also, I guess, kind of a sign of just how significant a character she ended up being, since Joon, the other big villain, was far less malicious and got absolutely hammered for his actions. I dunno. I’m not sure how I feel about it—and I say that as someone who was #TeamRosa. 

39. And finally: every time a new day starts, we get a little title card letting us know the day of the week and what time it is—and what stuck out to me is that “Wednesday” is abbreviated as “WEN.” I don’t know why they think that’s the abbreviation for “Wednesday,” but…it succeeded in making me think of Wen, an old coworker of mine who left in 2012. She was great. We used to chat about TV and stuff. I miss her.

40. N-Not more than I miss you, of course, seonbae. 

And that’s Dear.M, Erin. I’m going to assume you weren’t much interested in seeing it yourself, but I hope my inane rambling gave you enough of an idea of what it was like. 

Unless you did watch it. Which maybe you did. I dunno. As I have said before, you are still very much a mystery. I mean, to me you are a being made of magic and starlight, so I don’t know how you could be anything but a mystery, but…all the same, I wish I could return even a fraction of the sage guidance you seemed to so effortlessly give. But, alas, if I cannot even guide myself without inevitable disaster, how could I help you?

(...that’s me reminding myself that I’m not special. To avoid another lousy week. Remember? From the beginning of the letter?)

(Not that I don’t think you’re made of magic and starlight. That part’s true. The rest of it was the reminding me part.)

Anyway. Time to eat dinner and get myself ready for an early bedtime—so I can once again get up super-early for Single’s Inferno 4. Like a totally normal person. 

More soon. (And you’re definitely gonna wanna see what that more is. That I know!)

—Daryl