I wanted to write up my thoughts after the final episodes of the show before I let it go for good - after thinking about it so much over the past three weeks, it's difficult to stop!
First of all, Do Hoe has become one of my favorite characters in the genre. I love how honest the show is about him, and how honest he is with himself, and with Ju Yeong, about what kind of person he is: with very little sense of self-worth on his own, intensely self-conscious and ashamed of himself, clinging to external markers of value and desperate for approval - which occasionally makes him very unpleasant. And this does not feel melodramatic, or gratuitous in any way, but recognizable and mundane. I was very impressed with how the show handled DH acknowledging of this: "everyone liked me," "I want to be a good person, but I don't know how," his attachment to conventional success. It feels like a very perceptive characterization of a certain type of person on the part of Hwang Da Seul, but also like natural dialogue for the character to speak, really confronting themselves. I also appreciate that DH doesn't magically change once he and JY properly enter into a relationship: all this stuff is still important to him! He realizes that it might be foolish to attach so much significance to arbitrary social expectations, but he can't let go of it. I just found it all so compelling - and to me, it made DH's acts of love, and courage, and selflessness, that much more moving. I feel like the show both let DH be genuinely off-putting and held him, as a character, with great tenderness (with JY as a personification of that tenderness, maybe). I'm really amazed by that balance.
I also like how the show situated DH's personal struggles in the context of what I take to be a cutthroat Korean work culture - showing, for example, that even after DH got out of his hometown, he struggled juggling classes and work necessary to make rent. It's not just the abuse, but also the lack of financial support, lack of connections, putting him on a downward spiral. "I got off on the wrong foot" - it's very simple, but also tragic. Having a bad start in life is all it takes to become a pariah. & as DH says, in part it was this social pressure, the failure to make something of himself, that kept him away from JY (a failure that he felt more keenly because of the way he grew up).
I loved the scene in the coffee shop, when DH realized that JY knew, but JY refused to catch him on the lie, even if DH wanted to be found out. I don't think that JY intuited the scope of DH's lies before the end of episode 6. I think that the journey for both of them was to acknowledge how much damage has been done - DH because he has been actively running away from it and JY because he can only recognize it through DH - the more he learns about DH's current situation, the more he realizes how much their lives were derailed by the violence both of them suffered. I like that it's a messy, non-linear process: that what happened to them made them who they are, and they need to actively unmake themselves, their current lives, to start afresh. It's not enough to just reunite.
And of course I loved the scene in the taekwondo gym, too. It reminded me of the Handmaiden (when Sook-Hee destroys the library and cuts off the head of the snake) - the breaking of the beating stick especially. DH looking into the mirror - facing his father's reflection - destroying the reflection. This is difficult to put into words, but I feel that on some level, that act of destruction redeemed DH's previous impulse to kill his father - because it wasn't about violence, as much as erasing his father's presence from his life. He could recognize that he was never like his father. (& I liked the soundtrack in that scene too - the ambient noise that vaguely made me think of drowning under water - the past as a flood).
Speaking of DH's father - I think that what made the difference in his relationship with JY, is that when JY came back, it was as an adult (somebody who didn't need disciplining) rather than as a child (to be disciplined). He accepted JY's behavior, and, I think, respected him (but would probably tell him to hurt children if he did see JY taking over the gym!). As for JY, he definitely came back to hear about DH, and then to look after his father for DH - like looking after the gym, to make sure DH wouldn't have regrets. If his father was left alone, it was possible that he would've died a much worse death. And I don't think that the show about too idealistic, or too nice about any of that - realizing that a person who was a tyrant while they were young has become pathetic and weak. I did overestimate how important the gym itself would be to JY - the show reasserted the importance of JY's dreams in a much smaller way, and made the gym - together with the cross - something that JY learned to throw away once he found a place where he truly belonged.
Smaller things: I loved how many meals DH & JY shared in these last two episodes; I was thinking after episodes 5&6 (& the horrible, awkward meals they had there!), that I missed them cooking and eating well together. I also loved that the show didn't forget that they have a sense of humor, particularly DH. It would be so easy to make him a one-note dark brooding character.
Overall, I felt that it was a very complete story. Watching the last episode, I thought that JY's line: "one thing I know is that minors can't do anything by themselves," was the show's thesis. Part of the trauma was violence within a family, part of it was neglect by the society, but it was also the powerlessness (even the fact that they didn't have private space to make out in peace, always waiting for the father to call). From a craft perspective, I can imagine it as a feature movie that begins with the funeral and doesn't show us the past except as flashbacks - but I obviously don't mind having seen that, and it very is effective - to begin with a school romance, and see it get completely derailed by the forces beyond the characters' power... I thought that this was an excellent show, and I hope Hwang Da Seul will have more opportunities to write her own scripts. This feels like a fulfilment of many interests that were evident in her previous work, so I wonder if she will say with these issues, or change direction - either way, I am very excited to see whatever she makes next.
And a side-note on music: I got Mitski's "When Memories Snow" on shuffle the other day, which is just too perfect...
