Letter #152: Vincenzo Re-Watch

Good morning, Erin.

Fate intervenes at the strangest times. 

…is a really overblown way of saying I suddenly felt like rewatching Vincenzo. Admittedly, it’s been a while since I jumped into it, so I can’t quite remember why I started—but the important thing is that I did it, that this is undoubtedly THE show you would want me to revisit, and that I don’t have nearly as many notes as I did last time!

“...which means this letter will be twice as long as the first one?” I hear you say. To which I give a wry smile, because you know me so well. But also…no, it’ll be shorter. Promise.

I mean, I haven’t started writing it, yet, but preamble-Daryl promises. With great sincerity.

So, shall we see if my #1 K-drama has lasted the test of time or if we need to become the devil that will chase it out of the top spot?

1. Well, to cut to the chase, I still f***ing love this show. It’s still hilarious, I still love the characters (some more so, actually), and it still seems like this show was designed specifically for me. We'd have to get deep into the nitty-gritty to

2. Because I already know the tenants of the plaza are basically a vigilante superhero team in waiting, I was able to pick up on the foreshadowing in their walkthrough introductions in Episode 1 (like the mom who runs the snack shop naturally taking a boxing stance when she goes to whack her idiot son on the head). Clever, show. Very clever.

3. Vincenzo stays in Apartment 606, which is a slick way to evoke the “666” idea (that he is a devil who will chase out the other devils) without sleeping us in the face with it.

4. Quite amusingly, and in what I can only think of as a throwback to late-2000s copyright uncertainty, the key social media app used by Vincenzo for one of his plans is…Outstagram. 

5. If East Asian media has taught me anything, it’s that there is nothing more romantic than an umbrella.

6. Ms. Hong figures out that Evil Intern’s shell company is “The Jason Fund” because, she tells us, his name at the office was “Jason.” Now, as you know, I have learned that it is common practice for people working at companies to adopt English-language names as a way of preventing issues created by the elements of social deference that come along with addressing people in Korean. As such, this time around, I completely understood why she was able to figure this out...apart from the fact that we never once see ANYONE refer to him as “Jason,” making this moment feel pretty darn cheat-y, if you ask me. 

7. Speaking of things that made way more sense this time around: the portion of the story where Vincenzo poses as a shaman.

8. I totally forgot that we learned Evil Intern was the real villain by the end of Episode 4! That’s so soon! Man, that speaks pretty well to the pacing of his appearances before the heroes find out that I felt it had to be much later in the series.

9. That said, I also forgot that Ms. Hong fell in love with Vincenzo at about the same point in the show, so maybe it’s less a matter of excellent pacing than it is that my memory is much, much worse than I think it is. (But, seriously, it’s kind of adorable how soon after meeting him Ms. Hong starts worrying that he’s not going to stay in Korea.)

10. Speaking of Episode 4: we hit a rare stumble in the writing when Ms. Hong figures out that Vincenzo put on a show at the jail (when speaking to the guy who drove the truck that killed her father as though he had decided to help them get the bad guys) so that the bad guys would kill him. She says that she feels horrible and that they shouldn’t kill anyone—but she says it almost casually, like the show doesn’t want to waste time dwelling on the potential existential dread (or surprise at the lack thereof) she’d feel at learning that she was, for all intents and purposes, party to murder. She doesn’t say she can’t do it again or that she’ll have to get used to the stakes, given the types of people they’re up against, just establishes the “let’s avoid killing” rule for the benefit of the plot, and then we move on to the next item on the agenda. I just think there should have been more to it. Not a whole soliloquy or anything, just a little more time to give her a more realistic response, whether it be unease or an unexpected detachment. 

11. The first time we see Zumba Snake, she’s dancing in a laundromat, leading an onlooker to turn to his buddy and joke that she must be Jun Ji-hyun. Being an expert in Korean culture, I of course know who Jun Ji-hyun is. But I don’t have a clue why he references her. 

11A. Actually, just about everything I’ve been watching lately references Jun Ji-hyun. It’s weird. 

11B. [squints at Legend of the Blue Sea files on laptop]

12. Mr. An is a gem, and I don’t know why this actor isn’t in literally everything. He’s brilliant. 

13. Similarly, Piano Girl is about 100-times funnier than I remember her being. She’s exactly as gorgeous as I remember her being, of course, and I wonder if that detail clouded my memory of just how wonderfully ridiculous her performance is. (Her “I’m a pretty zombie” moment absolutely kills me.) Every one of her scenes is just as funny as Mr. An’s, just less over-the-top. And her constant attempts to flirt with Vincenzo are incredible. 

13A. …especially when Ms. Hong makes sure to jump between them every time she sees Piano Girl try to get his attention. 

14. And, of course, Ms. Hong is still absolutely perfect. My God, I love her. With all my heart. She is so completely absurd—but she still feels quite grounded, as a character. Jeon Yeo-been is AMAZING. 

15. Actually, since I’m talking about it: Paralegal Guy is also notably funny. I mean, the whole cast is great, and the tenants are all total wackadoos, but those four are the biggest hams (in the best way): Mr. An, Ms. Hong, Piano Girl, and Paralegal Guy. 

16. I’m not always the best at appreciating the score for a show, but the music in Vincenzo is incredible, both as music and in how it is utilized (to both dramatic and comedic effect). 

17. In my first Vincenzo letter, I talked about how I didn’t mind the increasing amount of “just don’t think about it!” handwaving the show will do so that the good guys can pull off some incredibly satisfying (and/or hilarious) ploy to undercut the bad guys. And I still don’t mind it—but the fact remains that, while I think the show totally gets away with it, I probably shouldn’t. So, if someone were to deduct points from the series because it gets a little too silly or convenient at times, I would not argue against him. 

18. That said…this second watch-through made it pretty clear that one important plot point is introduced into the series in the laziest, most inorganic way: the “guillotine” file. Yes, there’s a logic to why it ends up in the story, but it’s still very much disconnected from the main elements  of the overall narrative. A convenient (and dare I say integral) weapon to be deployed against the villains, of course, but it also just sort of…appears. It’s got nothing to do with Vincenzo’s plan for the gold, nor does it stem from Babel’s list of misdeeds. Again, yes, the Chinese gangster whose gold Vincenzo hid hired hackers to steal the file, and he hid the stolen file in the gold. But all of this was independent of the other parts of the story. It just gets dropped in by a bunch of people saying, “Hey, have you ever heard of this magical sleaze dossier that exists for literally everyone ever? Man, that’d be a neat tool to find, someday.” It’s the only true stumble in the series, to my eyes. Well, to my unapologetically fanboy eyes. 

19. Actually, wait, the homeless guy who knows about the gold in the building is a bit of a toe-stub, as well, now that I’m thinking about it. But that’s it. 

20. I suppose now’s as good a time as any to give you—to your great joy, I am sure—the list of folks I was able to recognize, this time around:

• my sweet, gooey boy from Connection as the airport cop who checks Vincenzo’s passport

• Kim Tae-ri’s dad from Revenant as the limo driver who drugs and robs Vincenzo

• the scammer mom from Atypical Family as one of Ms. Hong’s father’s clients

• the dick hospital director from Bad Memory Eraser as a corrupt doctor

• the mom from Miss Night and Day as an annoyed attorney

• Other Ung from Our Beloved Summer as the sleazy bank president Vincenzo has to seduce

• the white guy farmhand from The Good Bad Mother as an American pharmaceuticals dude

• One Suit Guy from Secretary Kim as a dude on the TV show Evil Intern is watching

• Princess My Name’s dad from My Name as the head union buster thug

20A. The guy from Our Beloved Summer does a really, really good job, by the way. He’s absolutely leaning into a joke-y portrayal of his character, but it feels grounded in how completely smitten he is with Vincenzo. He never goes full-camp, which would be a hard temptation to resist, especially on a show that so strongly encourages going ham. 

20B. There are half-a-dozen restaurants and cafes that look incredibly familiar to me, presumably because I saw them on Heart Signal. 

20C. And I think this counts as a tangential point: Ms. Hong’s co-worker is known for doing impressions, and, this time, I could tell that he was doing an impression of the My Mister Guy. (Specifically, I think he was doing a chunk of dialogue from Parasite. Which still sucks, by the way. The movie, I mean, not the impression. The impression was fantastic.)

21. Speaking of the sleazy bank president/Vincenzo seduction arc:

• It’s hours into their first “date” before the sleazy bank president asks for Vincenzo’s name. 

• I’d forgotten that Paralegal Guy dresses up like a cliche spy while he and Ms. Hong surveil Vincenzo’s “date.” Hilarious.

• Vincenzo wears white, and the sleazy bank president wears black.

• When he’s waiting outside Vincenzo’s office in the rain, the sleazy bank president’s umbrella is rainbow colored. I leave it to you whether this was intentional or more of a coincidence. 

22. Killing Vincenzo’s mom is still the most obviously idiotic move the bad guys make, tantamount to knowingly killing John Wick’s dog. I genuinely can’t imagine being so arrogant as to think that would frighten him off. 

23. Speaking of Vincenzo’s mom: I know I’m a little out of step with the seemingly prevailing view of adoption in Korea (as portrayed in media, at least), but…the prosecution argues that Vincenzo’s mom gave up a child for adoption, so she clearly has the disregard for human life necessary to commit murder. Which is just…wow. 

24. And still speaking of Vincenzo’s mom…kind of: Ms. Hong is wearing a really pretty skirt in Episode 16, when she’s helping Vincenzo take his mother for her funeral portrait. (Which, during my first viewing, I’m pretty sure I didn’t know she was doing. I assume I just thought she wanted to get her picture taken.)

25. My well-trained K-drama brain now recognizes that Evil Intern calls Ms. Hong seonbae when he speaks to her. (Which, duh, of course he would. But I could hear it, this time.)

26. Similarly, I finally noticed that Ms. Hong’s first name is Yu-chan, which, once I figured that out, made me laugh. Because “Yu-chan” is what you would call a little boy named Yu in Japanese. (Essentially “little Yu.”) While the characters in Vincenzo were just showing their familiarity with him as someone they’ve dealt with before, a part of my brain kept hearing it as dismissive, like they were still calling him a childish nickname to show how unserious he was. Which is very much not what it was, but which, again, made me laugh.

27. To their credit, the subtitles do their best to mix and match the way Vincenzo’s not infrequent use of Italian is employed, giving us no translation when he will explain it in Korean a moment later and including the translation when the show itself would have translated it for the original Korean audience. But that also means the subtitles DON’T DIFFERENTIATE BETWEEN ITALIAN AND KOREAN. And I am still annoyed that this somehow isn’t a standardized practice. 

27A. Of course, the subtitles seem not to know that nearby is one word, so…what did I expect?

27B. Also, nice try with some of the attempts to use the original Italian instead of the English translation in the subtitles for the sake of keeping things clean, but…we all know merda means “s***.” 

27C. And culo means “a**.” Which is in the middle of his untranslated rant at the sky in Episode 1, but…still. I heard it. I know. 

28. Lost in a lot of the romance storyline is how Vincenzo tricked Ms. Hong into killing the guys who murdered the four ex-clients of her father who helped them burn down the Babel chemical plant. He basically tells her she just made them pass out. But, no, she killed them. And Vinenzo had no problem with that. Yikes. 

29. Relatedly: it bothered me so much that Vincenzo just drops his Zippo and drives off when he sets fire to the Babel chemical plant. Like, dude, that’s your signature Zippo! Doesn’t it mean anything to you? (Ignoring that it 100% has his fingerprints on it.) But then, in Episode 18, we see that he has a whole series of them, so…phew. Moral crisis averted. 

30 Vincenzo sets the rules clearly enough in Episode 1, where he says the mob doesn’t go after women or children. Mr. Cho, very early into the story, sells the building to the bad guys because they threaten his wife and daughter. It’s a neat way of moving the story along while setting the game board. Vincenzo is a bad guy—but the villains of the story are much worse. 

30A. Also, if you pay attention to everything that happens to him, Mr. Cho has a really rough season. 

31. It’s still incredibly satisfying to watch Vincenzo set Zumba Snake on fire.

32. I’d forgotten how satisfying it was to see the crow start eating Evil Intern before he was actually dead. Not as satisfying as seeing Zumba Snake burn to death. But, still…good. Evil deserves evil. 

33. But maybe the biggest detail I forgot—and, honestly, maybe never noticed the first time around—was that Vincenzo invites Ms. Hong to join him in Malta, when he meets her after the time jump. I don’t know how realistic it would be for her to do so, but…it’s nice that he offered. Still bittersweet, of course. But nice, nonetheless.

And that, my dear seonbae, was my spontaneous re-watch of Vincenzo, which is still my favorite K-drama. Though, I admit, there is an argument to be made that my frequent “watch a random episode” dipping into Alchemy of Souls and The Matchmaker might argue otherwise. But my official rankings list still has Vincenzo at #1, so…there you go. 

Which also concludes Phase IV of my K-drama journey—which is not only something I’m sure you forgot was a thing, but also a thing that has probably lost all meaning in my view, as well, regardless of whether or not I’ve been keeping track. Does that mean I’m going to stop marking things this way? No. Of course not. 

But it does mean I’ve got a couple of surprises in mind, as I try to give Phase V at least some semblance of direction. And what is that direction? Well, you’ll just wait and see. 

I promise you this, though: we’re starting with a banger. 

I’m sure you’re very excited. 

April is the cruelest month—for me. But I’m betting it’ll go pretty well for you.

More soon.

—Daryl