I'll Get off From Earth (2020)

Han-gyeol méritait une vraie conclusion * Une fin ouverte qui m’a laissé sur ma faim

really loved this series, its characters, its time-loop concept, and especially Han-gyeol’s development. But I am extremely frustrated by the ending.

My problem is not just that the ending is open-ended. My problem is that Han-gyeol’s character arc feels unfinished.

Throughout the entire series, we watch him make mistakes, regret his choices, struggle to be honest about his feelings, and fail to move forward. We watch him realize what he lost and how important Yeji truly was to him. The entire story seemed to be building toward one thing: the moment when he would finally change.

And just when that moment arrives, the story ends.

Yes, I am frustrated that Han-gyeol and Yeji do not officially end up together. After all that development, all those loops, all those regrets, I wanted to see Han-gyeol finally accept his feelings and build a real relationship with her.

The final scene tells us that in the 33rd loop, he will love Yeji from the very beginning. But that’s exactly what I wanted to see.

I wanted to see Han-gyeol become the one who takes the first step. I wanted to watch him pursue her. I wanted to see him put in the effort to win her heart instead of waiting for her to come to him like in the previous loops. I wanted to see the complete opposite of everything we had seen before.

We are finally shown a Han-gyeol who is ready to change, but we never actually get to see that change happen.

What frustrates me even more is that we never get the reward for all that development. We never see Han-gyeol escape the loop. We never see his life after high school. We don’t even know what kind of future he wants for himself.

Kim Ji-won received a complete conclusion. We understand her dream, her growth, her freedom, and her future. We get to see her reach her goal. But for Han-gyeol, the main character, the story stops right before the finish line.

I wanted to see the entire final loop. I wanted to see Han-gyeol and Yeji fall in love under completely different circumstances. I wanted to see their dates, their relationship, their arguments, their reconciliation, and their love grow naturally.

I also wanted to see what happens after high school. I wanted to watch them enter university, discover their goals, build their futures, and pursue their dreams. I wanted to see how their relationship evolves over time.

And honestly, I would have loved to see them years later, after university, after finally escaping the loop for good. To see them as adults, successful and happy. To see them reunite with Kim Ji-won and the other characters and show where everyone ended up in life.

To me, that would have been the true ending of the story.

That’s why this ending frustrates me so much. Because I loved this series. Because I cared about these characters. Because I wanted to see Han-gyeol succeed.

I didn’t need the story to tell me that he was finally going to love Yeji.

I needed to see it.

And that’s why it feels like this story is missing an entire final arc.

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Had So Much Potential

I'm not usually into the time loop trope, but I was so intrigued by the idea of a character reliving three years of their life 33 times - long enough to be able to periodically ignore the feeling of being trapped and suffocated within a time loop but short enough to constantly feel unfulfilled by the end of each cycle. There was so much potential for the show to explore the pros of living such a long time loop -- the ability to stay young forever, to live without consequences, to never see your family and friends grow old.

They could have explored the cons even more - the monotony and loneliness of living the same life 33 times, knowing that nothing you do will ever change the inevitable. I mean, the ML literally jumps off a building at the end of his 33rd life and he immediately begins his 34th life (happens in the first episode, so not a spoiler). That must be miserable!

The show spent more time navigating typical high school woes than they did on understanding and breaking the time loop. Every now and then the show would give us a little nibble of insight into the time loop and then ignore it for five, six episodes before the next feeding - just enough to keep us coming back. For example, halfway through the show, the ML and the SFL, who is also stuck in a time loop, begin studying quantum mechanics in hopes of uncovering the mystery behind the time loop. Ten, fifteen episodes go by before they even make a reference to studying quantum mechanics, and then the SFL suddenly drops that massive changes made during a time loop can break it! But what constitutes a massive change? The ML literally threw himself off a building in the first episode!

But then it also brings into question another compelling idea - if a massive change breaks a time loop, how massive does the change have to be so that you don't trash the life that you end up living past the three year mark? The SFL, in order to break her loop, changed schools, rebelled against her parents and fell in love - all pretty conservative changes but massive considering her personality. She had always been reserved in rebelling, so I'm sure she had tons of inner turmoil weighing the pros and cons of doing X, Y, Z action to break the loop, like running away from home or publishing her R-rated novel. It may break the time loop but then she would also be risking that whatever damage she does in this time loop becoming permanent if she breaks it.

Instead, we spent 45 episodes watching kids bully each other.

The characters were really charming and fun to watch, but with all these questions piling up in the back of my mind, I couldn't help but be disappointed by the final outcome. We are no closer to understanding the time loop than we were in episode one.

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