DramAdrenaline!

BE ADVISED: Team Feels did not pull any punches this week.  We focused our attention on a few key issues, and I think it’s safe to say that some of our views may be unpopular with the internet-at-large.  That said, we believe strongly in freedom of speech, so we welcome any opinions you would like to share.  This post contains spoilers through Episode 16. Go to DDee’s page for last week’s installment.  Enjoy!

THE CONNOTATIONS OF CANOODLING

DDee: So one of my biggest frustrations with the show, if not the biggest, has been the repeated withholding of the truth from Young Shin.  And I was at the point where I would’ve settled for her finding out any damn way–telegram, messenger pigeon, smoke signals, anything–because it was casting such a dark cloud over her blossoming relationship with Jung Hoo.

Especially when things accelerated beyond all imagining with last week’s kiss. (We wrote about why we all thought that kiss was misplaced, and I don’t want to repeat myself except to say that Jung Hoo waiting until after he at least told her his real name would’ve been the right thing for him to do by her. The show prioritised his manpain over her right to know with that kiss.)

My biggest fear after the kiss, a fear that I never really seriously entertained (it is K-drama after all!), was that they would end up in bed together at the beginning of ep 15 under false pretences. And when that happened, the wind got taken out of my squee sails big time. All their post-coital cuddling, a thousand shades of cute and every OTP fangirl’s wet dream, didn’t do shit for me. I was so disappointed in him and in the show, because I think full disclosure before sex is kinda, you know, really important.

And if you think about it, there really is no valid reason for the show making him wait till after to tell her his name other than the fact that it just didn’t think she needed to know. And see, what’s so clever (and I’d argue insidious), is that it is impossible, given the set-up, to argue that her refusal to ask questions is a character flaw either, because she is the embodiment of trust and compassion, and she’d told him she’d wait until he was ready. Was he not ready? Because it seems to me his fear was and has always been, the implication of his father having murdered her father, and the impact this would have on their relationship. I didn’t need him to tell her all that, I just needed him to spit out his real name, a step I think he was ready for, and it would’ve been fine. I would’ve been fine.

And I know the exact moment he could’ve done it too. That moment when he’s helping to dry her hair with a towel, a moment so already charged that it could’ve deepened into a thrilling intensity enough to lay waste to my poor soul.

Because look what happens when he leans in to kiss her with her eyes covered (a call back to their very first kiss), she pulls the towel down to cover her mouth and looks deeply into his eyes instead, as if to say “No, I don’t want my eyes closed this time, and you don’t need to hide from me.” And he, already drowning in her eyes, could’ve just said the words. And then they could’ve kissed each other madly, and then sexy times!

Sarah: Where to start.  So many things.  First of all, as some people who follow me on Twitter may know (Heidi), I was in a pretty serious snit after Ep. 15.  I agree with DDee that the two of them sleeping together before the truth was out was pretty gutting.  I wanted to believe that they would wait until more things were settled.  Thinking back on it, I may have been a little harsh, because:

1. Both of them were in a pretty serious emotional state at the time, and when that happens your ability to reason isn’t necessarily in top form.
2. They had both been waiting so long to get to it that the temptation would be pretty difficult to overcome.
3. I think my initial reaction was motivated by this idea I had in my head that Jung Hoo should have been the one to spit it out.  And he should have, don’t get me wrong.  At the same time, I think that the dynamic of their relationship has changed Young Shin’s character.  She is a journalist.  Her job and her passion is to uncover the truth.  And yet she refuses to ask questions when it comes to Jung Hoo.  She allows him to hold the truth over her and keep her in the dark.  In one sense, their “activities” in Episode 15 take on a sinister overtone because Jung Hoo holds a position of power over Young Shin by withholding the truth of her birth and his involvement in the violation of her privacy.  At the same time, however, Young Shin is a very grounded, strong and independent woman.  And without getting too graphic, I think that she wanted to be intimate with him as much as he did with her.  While sleeping with her may have been a spiritual violation and a violation of trust, at least we can say Jung Hoo did not physically violate Young Shin.

That said, names have taken on a great deal of importance in this drama.  Seo Jung Hoo is tied to his father’s murder case because of his name, Young Shin has gone practically the whole drama without knowing her birth name, and Moon Ho will never escape the shadow of Moon Shik because they are tied together by their generational names.  In that context, the fact that Jung Hoo not only withholds his own name but does not allow Young Shin to know her birth name is a pretty serious offense.  So I’m with you on that one.

DDee: I completely agree that she wanted to be with him just as much as he did, to say anything less would be a disservice to what we know of Young Shin as a woman with her own mind. My argument was never that he coerced her into sex. My beef lies in him choosing the easier way out, of not being truly vulnerable and taking the risk right then and there to come to her as Jung Hoo. I mean, that’s what true intimacy is all about right? Because each time they had touched each other up until that moment connected them physically and emotionally to a deeper and deeper degree, but when it came down to the most intimate act of all, it just felt like empty fanservice because he risked nothing of himself. I know I’m being hard on him, but damnit Jung Hoo is so loving and so ready to be loved that it guts me that he choked.

And then Jung Hoo consults with the WORST PERSON EVER about truth-telling.

When he and Moon Ho were drinking their beers like best buds and talking about when to tell her the truth as if they had any right to even decide that for her, I was like, are you fucking kidding me? Because from where I’m sitting, she has as much stake in this as the two of you yahoos. Even more so. The men on this show, I swear to god. They say they can’t tell the women the truth because they’re afraid for their safety and their well-being, but it’s really about them being afraid of the women acting in ways they can’t predict and therefore can’t control.

So when the shoe finally dropped, I felt so relieved, but it was also too little too late. And I’m not even talking about the final reveal about her birth mother, because god this show doles out the truth to Young Shin in dribs and drabs, and it forces her to deal with wave after wave of shit in ways that are so her, but also in ways that aren’t fair to her.

And maybe it’s unfair of me to expect the show to do what I want it to and then to be disappointed when it doesn’t.

Vanessa: I’m mostly with you here – the double act of Moon-ho and Jung-hoo keeping things from Young-shin and then having those conversations about when and what to tell her was incredibly frustrating to watch. I could have bought it for any other reason apart from vague claptrap like “we can only tell them when it’s safe” or “she didn’t specifically ask so I sort of generally didn’t tell”. Like, what. WHAT. WHAATTT.

Contrivances like this, where characters don’t have conversations with each other, where they don’t talk (and with such flimsy reasoning) are truly the bane of my existence. And I must admit that the OTP interactions this week were kind of soured for me by ALL THE LIES (although things picked up considerably with all the angst in ep16).

VANESSA’S CORNER: THE MANY PHASES OF THE MOON HO

Then again – and I really, really might be giving the show too much credit here –  I wonder if Moon-ho being the Worst Truth-teller Ever might somehow factor into his tragic arc (which is all in my mind right now, but we’ll see how things turn out in the show). Because the thing with tragic characters is that they have that one fatal flaw that ultimately becomes their downfall. All our characters on Healer are nuanced beings with weaknesses and shades of light and dark, but I keep coming back to Kim Moon-ho and his cowardice (which ties into his silence, his apathy, his procrastination). He kickstarts the entire plot for us, he is complicit in the reason for Young-shin and Jung-hoo’s lives and families being broken in so many ways, he is the catalyst for the revelation of multiple truths, the bridge between generations and atoner of a great sin which he may have to pay for with his life, especially if it really is going to be too little too late at this point.

So we have Moon-ho, a man who thrives on a certain type of attention, on being seen as the epitome of righteousness and justice. As Min-jae tells us, he loves being looked up to and he loves being right, but he is never going to fight for anything to the extent that he might hurt himself or tarnish his image. It’s a flaw he recognizes in himself, and a type of self-preserving cowardice he admits to.
And then we hear about Moon-shik and his relationship with Secretary Oh, and how the former has managed to keep his hands entirely clean while the latter does all the dirty work. And honestly, it’s a chilling comparison. Two brothers, equally manipulative, equally adept at framing truths to serve their own ends – one is willing to call out and be called out on his shortcomings while the other remains wilfully unaware of anything seedy he may have done in the past 20 years. This revelation about Moon-shik is honestly intriguing to me – how much of what Secretary Oh gets up to does he really know about? How much would he have consented to? Or is he so far gone that Myung-hee is the only thing keeping him on track right now? I think we can safely say at this point that Moon-shik has done most of what he has done for Myung-hee’s sake. What happens when she completely defects from his side? I need to call up a prayer circle for that woman right now – she is being awesome and getting shit done (tapping into Moon-shik’s phone! recruiting herself into Team Healer 2.0!) but things are only going to get more dangerous for her. She needs at least one ally to back her up here, and fast (oh when will Moon-ho come clean to his beloved noona?).

Also a quick shout-out to Yoo Ji-tae’s acting this week! He’s been solid and consistent throughout, but for some reason the one sequence that got me seriously verklempt was the scene where Moon-ho is on the phone with Myung-hee. First he breaks out that hateful fake light-hearted tone, that smile he plasters on his face even when he knows nobody is watching (like he’s trying so much harder to convince himself rather than anybody else who might be in the vicinity).  And then you see his face crumbling, looking like he’s about to burst into tears if he has to keep up this false cheeriness for just one second longer? Dammit Kim Moon-ho. You weren’t supposed to give me the feels.

Sarah: I really felt for him here too (which I was a little resentful of, to be honest).  Think you’re right that his facade is beginning to crack, especially now that he is close to Young Shin.  But I think he is finally realizing how much he is betraying Myung Hee’s trust.  And I think that is breaking him because in the end everything he is doing he is secretly doing for her.  She is the only mother figure he has ever had.

CHAE YOUNG SHIN: THE REAL MVP

Vanessa: Poor Young-shin. She continues to be delightful in so many ways (how much do I love that her ability to talk shit for hours actually comes in handy when Team Healer needed to buy precious  time at the cyber crimes department). I love the way she reacts to those truths that are presented to her (albeit in “dribs and drabs” as you say, Ddee). If there’s a saving grace in this whole mess of Young-shin not being told the things she needs to hear by men who seem to think they are in a position to make decisions for her or “protect” her, it’s the way she has reacted and dealt with these revelations that feel so consistent and so true to herself as a character. The onset of panic attacks, hiding under the bed (oof!), attempting to sing to herself. Her abhorrence of violence which dictates the way she reacts to Jung-hoo’s presence in her room – she is afraid and repulsed but also so obviously conflicted about how she is reacting to this man she has come to love and trust. She is angry, she is confused, she is overwhelmed, but she holds no grudges. She deals and processes things the way she needs to, for as long as she needs to, and then she comes back (her  sheepish admittance to to Moon-ho about not having enough perseverance to stay angry at people for long, omg adorable).

Sarah: I have mixed feelings about the way that Young Shin’s revelation was handled.  I’m glad that she finally found out the truth.  And I’m overjoyed that they let her react like a human being and shut down over it.  The scene where she hid behind the curtains and hid under the bed and tried to sing her blues away killed me.

It was so her, and it was so fragile and human.  And it reminded us that Young Shin is still a little abandoned child on the inside.  And by the way, I was a big fan of the fact that Jung Hoo cared enough to take her call while he was kickin’ ass.  Priceless.

But that’s pretty much where the positives begin and end for me.  While Jung Hoo was allowed to completely shut out everything and dissolve in his own grief over the death of Teacher for a whole episode (days and days in drama time), Young Shin was given a matter of minutes.  And while this may be in keeping with the way her character has dealt with trauma in the past, I don’t think that’s the whole story here.  Young Shin has coping mechanisms like singing and dancing so she can push down her traumas rather than deal with them.  She demonstrates symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress.  And yet, when we finally get to a time when she could let loose some of that anger and sadness, she once again has to force those feelings down.  She has been betrayed, stalked and lied to by two of the most important people in her life, and she refuses to express that so that she can hold onto them.  So that they don’t leave her.  Truth be told, I can understand why she hopped down those stairs and begged Jung Hoo to come back.  When you love someone the way she loves him, it’s hard to withhold forgiveness, even when they break your heart.  After spending so much time putting his happiness before her own, she can’t let go of this impulse to make him feel better.  Even if it means playing into his cowardly denial.

HOWEVER.  And this is a big however.  The situation with Moon Ho is different.  He may be her idol, and he may be the person that knows the most about her early life.  But he does not deserve a latte.  He deserves to have everything in his office thrown at him and that stupid grin wiped off his stupid face.  That moment when she walked into his office with coffee and said she couldn’t stay mad was heartbreaking for me.  Because I know that she hasn’t processed her feelings.  She is feeling guilty for her anger and frightened to lose yet another person in her life.  And Moon Ho, instead of begging for her forgiveness just smiles and acts like the benevolent Uncle.

DDee: She needed to get mad, y’all. NEEDED IT. Why does she not get the chance?! The show gives her no time, no time at all to process what should be the most oh i dunno WTF to say anymore. Jesus. Everything she thought she knew about her past she discovers is a lie, her everything has been thrown into a tailspin, she’s been lied to by her lover, and what the hell is she doing smiling and giving coffee to the man who straight up lied to her face countless times? I admire her strength in being able to swallow that hurt, and we saw how she dealt with her anger earlier when she first finds out Bong Sook is Healer. We got to hear her tell him she was angry at him. Why not now, when the revelations are even more shocking, and the betrayal and lies cut deeper? Instead everything circles back to Jung Hoo’s pain. But dammit, what about her pain? If anyone deserves to get mad, it’s this woman right here.

So yes, it killed me when the show denied her the anger and instead let her comfort him, again, to such an extent as to completely erase his wrongdoing. Because he did do something wrong! Terribly wrong. She was right, Jung Ho wasn’t on her side. And that’s the thing with him, after everything, he chose Moon Ho, and even defends him to her face. Seriously, Jung Hoo?

Vanessa: I had to step back and take stock of those scenes again after reading your opinions, and I have to say I’m with you guys on this. I think I was initially so relieved that Young-shin was allowed to have any sort of reaction at all, and that the men were being decent enough to step out of her space without demanding immediate forgiveness and understanding, that it never registered with me that her coping mechanisms were unhealthy. Nor did I catch on to the injustice of her not being given the same time and space and permission to process her feelings outwardly.

DDee: I felt a little sad for her in many ways this week. A part of me died when she had to pretend she was looking for her crush at the police station as a distraction. Talk about undermining yourself professionally. And just the way the guys had agreed she shouldn’t be told the truth made her feel somewhat separate, maybe even a little of an outsider, from Team Healer because if you think about it, even Ahjumma knew the truth about her past. It took the shine off a little for what should’ve been fun times, especially since we haven’t seen them work together since Bong Sookie days, days I sorely miss.

THEMES AND THINGS

Vanessa: These two episodes did do a pretty solid job of weaving themes of identity, truths and trust. You have Jung-hoo introducing himself as Seo Jung-hoo for the first time in god knows how long, and yet he still questions who that person even is. Take away the Healer, take away the orphan or the vengeful son or the hundreds of disposable names and faces he has worn all these years – what remains? Who is he? And I love that Young-shin has become this anchor and catalyst for him to start questioning these things, now that he has found a reason to live, a reason to become a fully-realized person.
You have Young-shin learning her birth name and then rejecting it (for now, anyway), because everything she is right now, everything she has grown to be, and everyone who loves her knows her as Chae Young-shin, and she isn’t going be called Ji-ahn just to cater to someone else’s nostalgia for a past she can barely remember.

Sarah: I found this part especially touching because I think part of it is that she recognizes that her birth name was given to her by parents she doesn’t remember.  The name she has now is part of her unbreakable relationship with her adopted father.  For her to throw Chae Young Shin away and become Oh Ji Ahn would be to disregard everything he has given her.  And she’s not going to do that.

Vanessa: It’s so fitting that someone so whole and so strongly rooted in who she is and where she belongs should be that “anchor” for Jung-hoo.

DDee: I dunno, while I do think Young Shin is the stronger of the two certainly in terms of being sure of who she is as Chae Young Shin, I think the reveal of her birth secret tells us there’s room for her to question it as well. Which is why I’m really disappointed we don’t get to see her grapple with this because it means so much for her story. It seems to me that she has as much searching to do as Jung Hoo now that she’s discovered her mother, and I hope the show allows her to do that in the last episodes.

Vanessa: You have the arrest of the corrupt cyber crimes cop, you have Teacher’s death finally getting some airtime, and a stronger link between 1980s Pirate Radio Gang and the continuing legacy of Moon-ho, Young-shin and Jung-hoo as reporters, as messengers of the truth. The callback to how we are first introduced to Righteous Reporter Kim Moon-ho in the pilot – as a teller of stories, of marginalized narratives in a world where the “truth” depends on who has enough money and influence to make sure only their version of events is legitimized.

DDee: The thing I appreciated most about ep 15 was we got closure to Teacher’s story and gave him a send-off he deserved. It was a fitting tribute, and that moment when Young Shin told him that he had good people around him, almost felt like turning over a new page for him.

There’s also the recurring theme of truth and consequences–those who had the courage to not only pursue the truth but reveal that truth at great personal cost (the Underground Journos), those who tried and became embittered (the detectives investigating the murder), Moon Ho, someone who knows the truth but chooses to withhold it, and then those like Jung Hoo and Young Shin still desperately searching for it.

THE SINS OF THE FATHER…AGAIN

Sarah: And now we come around to the central problem in just about every Kdrama ever.  Someone killed someone else’s dad.  Or did they?  I can’t help but feel (and I am probably way off here) that this particular subplot wasn’t needed.  The only purpose that Jung Hoo’s dad’s murder case seems to serve is to drive a wedge between Jung Hoo and Young Shin.  His mother could have left him because of pressure from Elder’s people.  She could have feared for his safety.  And the whole unsolved case could have been what really happened in the car accident, because let’s face it.  That shit don’t add up.

In addition to that, the real wedge between Young Shin and Jung Hoo should be the web of lies between them as a couple.  And yet, the show shuffled that right off in favor of the “Sins of the Father” trope.  I just don’t get it.

Vanessa: See, I was starting to wonder whether there was something that didn’t quite add up in the larger plot, because everything about the 1980s generation (the car accident in particular) feels so vague, and I still have so many questions about young Kim Moon-shik and the details of his deal with the Elder. Jung-hoo’s father seems to have taken precedence over other mysteries that I found more pressing (and to be honest, more interesting). That’s not to say that the recent episodes bored me – I actually found Jung-hoo’s conversation in the cathedral with the ex-detective on his dad’s case to be pretty compelling stuff. But there was constant nagging feeling of things not being quite as cohesive, narrative-wise, as I would have liked.
You’re right in pointing out that the web of lies between our OTP should really be the biggest issue they need to deal with (all these LIES Jung-hoo), and I actually would have loved a scenario where Young-shin is clued in to the truth much earlier and gets to join the crusade against Moon-shik and help discover the truth of both their pasts.

DDee: I was so thrilled when Jung Hoo told Ahjumma back in episode 12 that whatever his father did twenty years ago has nothing to do with him, because it meant that Jung Hoo was looking to the future and was wanting one with Young Shin. Alas, K-drama laws dictate that your parents will haunt you from beyond the grave. And you know, this puts Jung Hoo fully in charge of their relationship, as in the final arc of the show will be fully dedicated to the completion of his hero arc independent of Young Shin. Which explains why the show doesn’t dwell on the revelation of her birth secret.

PARK BONG SOOK: IN MEMORIAM (OFF THE CUFF EDITION)

Our brains were truly dead at this point, so this is literally a conversation we had about why we love (and are going to miss) about Bong Sook:

DDee: He’s twitchy, so twitchy.

Vanessa: and stuttery. repeats words. also that flat, awkward laugh. Haa ha. ha.

DDee: and that great little stutter. Especially the one he did when he asked her to go drinking…k-k-ke-reum.I DIED.

Sarah: Oh God.  I love him.

Vanessa: remember when dad and cakeshop ahjussi cornered him and he turned towards the bookshelves like the BOOKS were going to save him? ah yes. bookshelf.

DDee: Personal contact! Personal contact! *Poke poke*.  That is so Bong Sookie.

Vanessa: and that dorky smile when young-shin called him SO BRAVE for calling the police to save her.

Sarah: His big-eyed, innocent face

DDee: god his FAAACE. Damn his goddamn beautiful face.

Sarah: How he used to pretend he was scared so she wouldn’t suspect

DDee: that face when he looks at her at the cafe.  When she reached out and wiped his lips…GOD.

Sarah: When he said he didn’t have any family.

DDee: …while eating his whipped cream!

Sarah: DAMMIT

Vanessa: when he walked in between young-shin and moon-ho like EIGHT THOUSAND times to stop them from touching each other (bc jung-hoo and bong-soo are equally petty bastards tbh).

Sarah: You know what I think would have been great? If JH really was Bong Sookie when he doesn’t have his super hero outfit on.

DDee: there was makeover bong sookie too

Vanessa: i firmly believe that jung-hoo and bong sookie truly became one entity in that makeover scene. nobody can fake that look of sheer horror.

Sarah: DAWWW

Vanessa: omg rooftop confession!

Sarah: Dead.

DDee: That was Bong Sook/Jung Hoo for real.

Vanessa: Rooftop confession FAAACE.  It’s top ten.

DDee: And he teased her too.  Just before laying it out there.

Vanessa: Also ALL the phone conversations they ever had (and bong sookie perpetually addressing her informally because he “forgets”).

***

So basically, we loved Bong Sookie.  And he has officially left the building.  But the truth is that the reason we are so tough on all the lead characters this week (including Moon Ho) is that we cared so deeply about them throughout the series, and we had such high expectations for them.  To see them fall short of those expectations, and to go so far afield of what we have come to love is disappointing to say the least.  That said, there is still time left for everyone to redeem themselves.  With the exception of Moon Shik.  And we’ll be coming back for more torture next week!  Tune in to DDee’s page then, and see you next time!