I'm Jessica and this is the Teba Ki Rambo's podcast where a
couple of friends review Korean dramas and we're back.
We're back for another K drama review.
We are going to be reviewing It's OK to Not Be OK.
And for this episode, I am joined by Melissa and Noelise
Way from the African Soulmates podcast.
How are you guys? Hi, Jess.
Thanks so much for having us. I feel like this this meeting
has been years in the making. We're really excited to be here
with you today. I am so thrilled.
Yeah, and we're viewing such a controversial but great drama,
so really excited about this conversation.
Yeah, I'm really thrilled to have you guys here.
It's it's like you said, a long time coming.
We've been really friendly on the socials for years.
I've been a fan of you guys for years and been listening for
years. And I know that you guys have
covered It's OK to not be OK, but it's been about four years
since your episode came out. And even though I have listened,
I don't sadly remember the episode.
And in talking with you guys, it seems like you guys also are a
little rusty on the details of what you guys said in that
episode. So maybe this was a little bit
needed to refresh all of our memories.
If you guys can just tell the audience in case they don't
listen to your podcast, maybe what you guys have been watching
lately and what you guys have been enjoying.
Sure. Well, I've just been watching
Undercover high school, I think it's called, and it's honestly,
it's been, it's been such a trip because I took a bit of a hiatus
from K dramas over the holidays because I just needed, I don't
know, creative rest. And so it's been a fun way to
sort of ease back into it. And yeah, rewatching it's OK to
not be OK in preparation for this.
So that was also a an interesting trip down memory
lane for sure. Yeah, Mel.
I actually haven't been watching Korean dramas lately.
I just watched It's OK Not to Be OK just to kind of remember what
that was about. But I'm just really in my
Chinese drama era to be. Girl.
Well, what seed drama are you watching lately?
I'm watching Ski into Love and the first snow because they're
on Netflix, easy to watch. And I'm just like, I don't know,
they're just a little bit lighter right now than what's
going on with K dramas. But I know that there's so many
shows that are waiting for me like the potato, the Potato Lab
and Undercover High School. And I'm just like and my list,
when I'm ready to give get back into K drama, I'm going to get
on top of that. Yeah, yeah.
I'm also watching The First Frost on Netflix.
I'm about halfway through and the podcast schedule has kind of
overhauled my personal watching schedule and I'm really upset
that the show has ended. And now I'm kind of getting the
edits and I'm getting the reactions from people and I'm
like, no, I have to be pure. I have to be non spoiled on the
show, even though it's what what plot was that?
I mean, there's nothing really there to spoil, but I'm like, I
don't want to see them together yet.
I know that it's coming. So yeah, I am enjoying C dramas
as well. I've been loving C dramas for
years. So we are going to get into it's
OK to not be OK. And there is a lot to unpack on
this show. So bear with us as we kind of
weave our way through this. And we will be talking a little
bit about the the Kim SU Kyon scandal that literally just
broke this week. So I don't think that, I guess
it goes without saying that we are trying to be as diplomatic
as possible in our approach to this.
So as we come to that part of the show, again, bear that in
mind. Korea has really strict
defamation laws, the most strictest in the world.
So as this thing is developing, we're not going to say that that
much, but we are available in the social medias for you guys
to DM us to message us and talk at length about this stuff.
OK, so without further ado, here's some housekeeping.
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All right, so I'm going to go ahead and read the My Drama List
synopsis for It's OK to Not Be OK, and we're going to get into
it. We're going to get into it, so
here we go. Moon Kante is a community health
worker at a psychiatric ward who was blessed with everything,
including a great body, smarts, ability to sympathize with
others, patient's ability to react quickly, stamina, and
more. Meanwhile, Komunyong is a
popular writer of children's lit who, due to suffering from any
social personality disorder, seems extremely selfish,
arrogant, and rude. Moon Kangte denies love and
Komunyong doesn't know it. The two defy fate and fall in
love, finding their souls and identities in the process.
So, this show aired in June to August 2020.
For those keeping track at home, that is pure pandemic.
That is the summer of pandemic and it is 16 episodes long.
It is directed by Pakshinu and he's directed things like the
Killing Vote, Love Struck in the City encounter, Don't Dare to
Dream, Hide, Jackal, Me, Angel Eyes, Queen of Ambition, and
most recently, of course, when the stars gossip from 2025, he
also has another drama coming out, Miji's Soul.
This also coming out this year. Have you guys experienced some
Pakshinu dramas before? No, actually I haven't.
I was listening to to your list and I'm like, I tried to watch
this new Lehman Ho one that struggled when it came up.
Yeah, it was, I don't know, it was a bit slow for me.
So I'm actually quite shocked because yeah, I don't know if he
has sort of like a theme through his dramas, but they all seem
quite, quite different. No Lee's way.
I haven't watched any of these, but I know I did try Lovestruck
in the city. But a lot of our listeners, a
lot of the African soul mates, I mean, it was people had such
mixed opinions about it and so I was like, you know what, this
one can wait. It's still on my list, but who
knows what I will eventually get to it.
Yeah, I've watched a few of these.
Angel Eyes in 2014 I believe, was about this blind girl and
she fell in love with a a boy and then it was like a second
chance romance. But now her she had like an eye
transplant or something like that.
And now she can see, but she doesn't recognize the boy that
she fell in love with because now she can see.
It was so little. I don't think I finished
watching it, you know. And then I've heard of
Encounter, heard of Lovestruck in the city.
Very mixed bag on those two. And then when the stars gossip
has been universally panned this year.
Yeah, yeah. Not a.
Not a, not a one. 100 Good luck. Track record for this director,
but yeah. So the show though was written
by Toe Young and she has only written three things.
Two of those things are Jugglers from 20/17/2018 and Mr. Plankton
from last year, 2024. And as soon as I saw Mr.
Plankton, I was like, oh, that makes a lot of sense.
Yes, yeah. Yes, yeah.
I loved Mr. Plankton. I love Mr. Plankton.
And so it totally makes sense to me that it's the same writer
because yes, right. Support.
Mel, you also watched Mr. Plankton.
Yeah, sorry. I love Mr. Plankton and you
know, like these deep male characters that are just going
through emotional turmoil. Seems to be her bag.
And she's I, I and you know, Mr. Plankton came, was it in
Christmas or like November at a time when it was also a little
bit dry and it was such a good show for that period of time.
So yeah, no, she is great. Obviously quality, not quantity,
going for her. Yeah, exactly.
I haven't watched Strugglers, but I did watch Mr. Plankton
from last year, and I thought it was really, really smart.
I've really enjoyed it. It was very nuanced and had a
lot of depth to it. And there was something about it
where it was asking a lot of questions but not providing too
many answers. It was trying to let the
audience come to these conclusions themselves, right?
It's trying to like pose these questions for the audience, even
though you can tell the writer has a point of view, right?
I just think she's very smart in the that approach and she seems
to do some research and I like it.
I think it's, it's kind of AI don't know how she makes a
living if she's only doing 3 dramas, like done 3 dramas and
you know, the last 10 years. But I appreciate the last two of
them if that makes any sense, and the show.
So the cast, I'm going to read 3 cast members and I'm going to go
basically in backwards order if that makes any sense and leave
Kim SU Kyun for last. OU Cheng SE, he plays Moon Sante
and he's got like 55 movies and 37 dramas to his name.
He is a veteran actor. He is the get of this show.
When they announced his casting for our Moon Sante, that was the
that was the big deal, right? He's been in things like, I
mean, there's so many things you throw a rock.
He's been in this in the show I miss You from 2013, Missing 9,
which was not a great shit. That was one of the worst shows
I've ever seen. Touch Your Heart from 2019 When
the Cameelia Blooms from 2019, which we've covered on the show.
There's an episode on it, Hot Stove League, which we will be
covering on the show this season, The Good Detective, GD
Son, Little Women, which we've covered, Revenant, which we've
covered, Sweet Home 2, Deaths Game, which I reviewed over on
TN Soju podcast, So many Queen of Tears.
He had a cameo in it. He's Sweet Home 3, Mr. Plankton.
So he worked with the writer again.
He was also in When the Stars Gossip earlier this year.
So he's worked with the director again.
You can see he has he likes working with these people, so
he's worked with them again. And he should be on your screens
right now and When Life Gives You Tangerines, which is
currently airing for us at the time of recording on Netflix.
So oh Jiang SE, what do you guys think of this guy?
Personally, he stays paid. I always have a job and I love
it for him, I really do. And I've just seen like his
range. He has such range.
I remember when I noticed I watch Touch Your Heart and then
watch It's OK to not be OK. And then later we reviewed Touch
Your Heart and we went back and I was like, normally this is
like the same actor. How is he the same?
He is? He is so good.
I have never watched him in a drama where I felt like I I
didn't appreciate his contribution to the show.
So I'm a I'm a, I'm a big fan of his.
Yeah, yeah. I would echo that.
I think he is such a versatile actor.
And I mean, clearly, you know, has done so many dramas and
movies in his career. I'm just curious, has he played
a lead in in any of these or is he?
I feel like he always has an important character, but again,
not knowing a lot of these movies, has he been, you know,
the leading, the leading character, like the male lead?
To your knowledge I don't recall like any of the ones that I've
said. He was not the male lead, but he
is a Co lead, if that makes any sense.
Yeah, which Co lead supporting these are sort of
interchangeable, at least in the West, especially for award
season, because there's always category fraud in awards where
you put a Co lead, someone who has a lot of screen times, who's
carrying a lot of weight in a sporting category with somebody
who's like in there for 7 minutes.
He does a lot like he's he, we'll do a cameo role, he'll do
a bit part and then he'll do something where he's in every
single episode and he's alongside younger, very popular
actors like this show. I think that he's well regarded
in the industry and his name holds a lot of weight to the
Korean audience and I'm not sure if they're if he has LED maybe
in movies although. Maybe.
I also can't say for sure, but. I mean, in any case, yeah, in
any case, right. Like whether it's 2 minutes or
every single episode, he really just comes with that gravitas
and leaves an impression. So exactly that's off to him.
Yeah, so he plays off of Soyaji who was the female lead.
She plays Ko Munyong and she's got 8 movies to her name and a
few TV shows like Mood in School from 2016, Huadong where she
plays Princess SU Myung, Save Me from 2017, Lawless Lawyer and
Eve from 2022. What do you guys think of
Soyaji? That's my girl.
That's your girl. That's my girl.
I love Soyaji. And I mean, I say this as
someone who's only watched her in Eve and it's OK to not be OK,
but I think, I don't know, she just, whatever stoic kind of
character she plays, she does it so well.
She she just has a presence when she comes on screen.
And I think she acts a lot with her face in a way that not a lot
of, well, not a lot, but like, I don't see a lot of people doing
really well. You know, she can just come and
she's super icy, but there's like there are layers, there's
some depth there that she can convey.
And yeah. And I mean fashionista.
Yeah, yes, fashionista. Yeah.
The wardrobe in this show is famous, and for good reason.
It is really unique, It's colorful, it's vibrant and it
looks amazing on her. She's the the clothes they put
on her are stunning. It looks couture and I think
this show is stands out among the K dramas because it is so
her wardrobe is so whimsical. It looks like runway fashion,
right? And it totally informs her
character. Soyaji is not without scandal,
as we may or may not know. A few years ago, she was accused
of forcing her ex-boyfriend Jung Hyun into not having any
physical interaction with his Co star in the 2018 drama Time.
I don't know if you guys had heard of this weird drama.
She was like semi cancelled for this.
It was like really bizarre. I I mean, yeah, you're like
shaking your head. And then there's just been
rumors circulating that she's difficult to work with and that
she's mean to the staff. And I don't, I don't, I don't
really put stock in such things, especially like mean to the
staff and like stuff like that, like that's.
Yeah, yeah. It's giving Meghan Markle.
I was just like, we don't really like.
Meghan Markle. The most?
Controversial like royal OK. In terms of like she's mean to
the stuff, she's a hard worker or she's like she's really
domineering and it's like, I don't know.
I, I feel like some of the controversies are why are we all
up in this business? Honestly, just just focus on the
actress and what they bringing to the dramas.
Obviously stuff that is terrible that people need to know about
and people need to be accountable, but nothing about
the Soya G drama put me off her as an actress.
And I agree with Nodi, I think she's a really good actress.
She's one of the few that I feel takes takes me to a deeper level
in the way that she represents the character.
She has a lot of depth in her acting so I'm really glad that
she's now without Scandal, but I know some listeners may have
thought she's she deserved the cancelling but I personally I'm
happy to see her back. Lily's way.
I mean, I was just going to say women in general are held to a
much higher standard. And someone could just be an
assertive person who sets very clear boundaries and calls out
BS, you know, very freely, very easily.
And that can be taken and spun into some narrative about, oh,
she's so difficult to work with. Oh, she's mean, She's this.
And I'm like, you know what? OK, we all have our opinions
about that, but is it worth canceling someone over?
Again, these are people. I don't know these people from a
slice of bread. So yes, it could be that she
really is like that. But when everyone is getting so
worked up, you know, like you're whipping people up into a frenzy
over rumors of how she behaved on set.
I'm just kind of like, we take it with a grain of salt.
Exactly, exactly. I couldn't have said it better.
She really blew me away and saved me, which is an OCN drama
from 2017 about her family getting sucked into a cult.
And that was a very triggering drama for me.
And I came out on the other side thinking she's phenomenal.
And I don't recommend that drama lightly it you have to go into
it knowing that it's very disturbing.
So it's an ocean drama that should tell you a lot.
But the scandal with her doesn't feel to me that I wouldn't call
that a scandal. You know what I'm saying?
I'm just like, OK, some text messages got out and it looks a
little. But to semi blacklisted, like
she doesn't have that many shows.
Yeah, right. Like if you look at her for
omography, I'm like, she's not been working that often.
Yeah. I'm just going to leave that out
there. So we're finally at Kim SU Hyun.
He plays Moon Kante, the male lead, and he's done 4 movies, a
few TV shows including Dream High from 2011, The Moon,
Embracing the Sun, My Love from the Star, the Producers, One
Ordinary Day, Queen of Tears from last year, which did
gangbusters. Everybody and their mom was
watching Queen of Tears. It was the number one show
everywhere. We have reviews on Dream High,
My Love from the Star, and of course he did a cameo in Crash
Landing on Youth. And of course there is an
episode on on Chloe Kim SU Hyun. We have a taker for what's aged
the worst about this show. We have to as quickly and as
definitely as we can, unpack the scandal.
So when I resolved to cover it's OK to not be OK, and I tapped
you guys to guess on this, I had no earthly idea that all this
would surface. I see you guys kind of like
chuckling. Here's what went down, Kim said
on is a child actor who is most famous for being in the amazing
movie The Man from Nowhere with Moenbin.
She'd grown up into a young woman and was booking acting
gigs like the K drama Bloodhounds before she got
busted for a DUI. She hit an electricity pole and
knocked out power to a bunch of buildings.
She lost everything because of this scandal, dropped from
projects and endorsements, even though she apologized profusely,
paid the fines and compensated the stores that were damaged due
to the malicious online harassment, including these
Youtubers, these cyber Lucas who make their money off of false
information and salacious gossip.
She sadly committed suicide earlier this year.
February 2025. Now the emerging story has Kim
Sukhyon at the center of this. There were already dating rumors
between Kim Seron and Kim SU Hyun stemming from her posting
this intimate photo of them to her Instagram last year.
While Queen of Tears was airing, their faces were touching side
by side. The Korean netizens went wild.
They were angry with her because how dare she try to take him
down with her because she was still in the midst of her
cancellation. But now, according to The Korea
Times, this controversy reignited when YouTube channel
Hover Lab, better known as Carocedo Institute, featured Kim
Seron's aunt who claimed the actress had a six year
relationship with Kim SU Hyun starting at age 15, and accused
his agency of financial misconduct and lack of support
after her 2022 DUI scandal. The allegations, especially
about the underage relationship, have sparked intense scrutiny,
with resurfaced photos and videos adding to the debate
pause. There are now many photos
circulating of Kim SU Hyon kissing Kim Saton on the cheek.
There's a screenshot of a text message Kim Saton sent to her
cousin fully detailing the six year relationship.
There's a screenshot of a text message Kim Saton sent to Kim
Saton about paying back the penalties from the drama
Bloodhounds in the amount of like 700 million, one of which
is about $500,000 because his agency allegedly demanded she
pay it all back. They sent her a legal notice
threatening her with escalating legal action and she could not
pay this back in a lump sum immediately as she was
struggling financially. One video is of him doing an
interview alongside actress Kim Yu Jong, who is also 12 years
younger than him, where he says she's matured and maybe he'll
meet her as a partner one day. And another video is of a 2013
interview he did where he says when he's 41 he wants to marry a
21 year old, which is gross. It gives credence to him maybe
seeking out a younger girl, perhaps 112 years his junior and
only 15. Just mounting evidence.
Some of it just circumstantial like the ones that I've
mentioned. Back to the Times article.
Public interest grew not just from the YouTube channel, but
from the family's involvement, lending credibility to the
claims. Gold medallist firmly deny the
accusations, calling them clearly fabricated and wholly
unacceptable, and vowed strong legal action against the
malicious falsehoods. Then dispatch entered the chat
with receipts confirming the six year relationship and more.
We were originally going to get a follow up statement in a week
from gold medalist, that's Kim SU Hyun's agency, the one he
himself started with his cousin. But we ended up getting one just
a couple of days ago. Kim SU Hyun is now admitting to
having a relationship with Kim Seton, but he says it was from
summer 2019 to fall 2020 when she was firmly legal an adult.
They're saying Kim SU Hyun is suffering mentally due to the
accusation that he's to blame for her suicide.
And the list goes on for refuting the evidence and claims
based on various technicalities. Here's what we know for sure.
Korean Youtubers are notorious for telling lies and spreading
malicious gossip. The media can be bought.
Dispatch can be silenced. Fans are generally more
forgiving and biased toward handsome male celebrities and
female celebrities, often defending problematic
individuals. Kim Sodon committed suicide on
Kim SU Hyun's birthday. Kim SU Hyun did not attend her
funeral despite her being signed to his agency.
They did 100% date and they do 100% have a 12 year age gap.
If they dated when he says they dated that would make him 31 and
her 19. Here's what I know personally.
The whole thing stinks to high heaven.
And whether or not any charges have been filed, whether or not
anyone has been found guilty in a civil or criminal case, Kim SU
Kyong has been deemed guilty in the court of public opinion and
that's the only one that counts nowadays.
One party, the presumed victim, cannot speak for herself
anymore. I'm not here to sensationalize
what is and has already been sensationalized and what is
already a tragedy. To me, the worst has already
happened, Kim said on took her own life.
So whatever outrage you feel, whatever happens now, she won't
receive help. Justice is going to come too
late. Lots of people spoke to me in my
DMS. There was a lot of confusion, a
lot of anger. And I understand.
This is a beloved actor, someone we've all allowed into our homes
and lives through the magic of television.
This is someone we've all fallen head over heels for and some
drama or another. It feels like Kim SU Hyun has
betrayed the public's trust. We're upset that he not only did
something morally wrong, it's that he allegedly is a
paedophile. He's a predator, he groomed a
child. It's abhorrent.
It's echoing really sad stories that we've heard before and this
list is non exhaustive. So we've got R Kelly and
Aaliyah, Beyoncé and Jay-Z, Demi Lovato and Wilmer Valderrama,
Kylie Jenner and Tyga Steven Tyler of Aerosmith, who openly
admitted in his memoir to having sex with a 16 year old.
He was 26 at the time, and her parents apparently fell in love
with him and signed over guardianship to him so he could
take her on tour. His band has a themed ride at
Disney World. Aaron Taylor Johnson and his now
wife who have a 24 year age gap. Milo Ventimiglia and Hayden
Panettiere. They announced they were dating
when she was barely 18 and he was 29.
Johnny Depp and Winona Ryder. He described it as love, his
first sight. She was 17 and he was 26.
Joel Madden and Hillary frickin Duff.
She was 16 and he was in his mid 20s.
Paul Walker at the time of his death he was dating a 23 year
old. They had met and started dating
when she was 16. My least favorite one Céline
Dion because I love Celine Céline Dion and her freaking old
bag of a manager, Renee. He was 38, married when he met
12 year old Celine and they she was the other woman.
They didn't start dating quotation marks until she was
19. This isn't to normalize this
behavior. This is to say that our society
today is a lot louder about calling out this shit nowadays
than it has ever been. And a lot of victims in these
cases will often swear up and down that they're not victims.
They were not groomed. It's always been and always will
be morally repugnant, but here's what I want to leave you with.
I want to encourage everyone to really wrestle with how you view
celebrities, actors, K pop idols, whoever.
Because if you see them on your screen in any capacity, they're
working. Those variety shows that are you
believe it. They're so good at letting you
see their true personality. They're working.
It's a job. Nobody, and I mean nobody, is
perfect. And yes, the Korean moral
perfection standard for their celebrities is wrong.
It can never be achieved. But hear me on this.
I guarantee you that every single celebrity has done
something, has said something, even believed something that
would effectively end their career if it got out.
We tend to think other people live similar lives to us.
This is not true. The sooner you believe everyone,
even your favorite actor, is a freak behind closed doors, the
better you will be to weather these inevitable scandals.
You'll be disappointed, but not surprised.
Here's something else I know. Art in any form, whether it's
films, television, music, books, drawing, painting, all of it is
important. It gives us comfort in times of
need. It helps us make meaning of our
lives, teaches us new things, brightens our days.
It entertains us. And a great show or a great
performance will always be great.
Two things can be true at the same time.
A problematic individual can make the most moving art.
How you view these stories and characters going forward is up
to you. If you like them, still great.
If you need some time away, that's fine.
That's fine too. If you want to boycott because
you feel disgusted, fine. Now I saw a ton of people
chewing up commenters on TikTok who we're talking about.
Separate the art from the artist.
Do not fucking do that. That's childish to insult and
bully someone for wanting to compartmentalize.
So please stop with this virtue signaling and moral superiority.
In this episode, we will try to unpack and review this show from
as unbiased a perspective we can muster, and this sort of feels
like reviewing The Cosby Show the week the Bill Cosby scandal
hit. This is a little difficult, but
we're going to do our best. My question to you guys is, do
you feel the legacy of the show has been tainted?
Thank you for, you know, just for, for sharing a bit of a
recap of what's been going on. And just, you know, obviously,
as you said, this is a it's delicate and controversial.
It's unfolding as we speak. And so just to echo something
you said at the beginning of the show, I am happy to tussle with
anyone in our DMS to really get into it.
And I will say something that I always grapple with is how to
separate the art from the artist.
And I think for me, it may be too soon to say if the legacy of
the show has been tainted. I think I personally did pause,
as you know, as I mentioned, I was, I started re watching so I
could come here. You know, I was excited as you
said, who who would have known this would happen?
And I really paused because I was like, I can't, I'm just
having in the in the last week or so.
I was just like, I don't know. I don't know that I can watch
this and fully give it the I don't know.
Yeah, my, I had a distorted kind of experience for the remaining
episodes that I still had to watch.
But then Mama didn't raise no quitter.
I was like, I'm trying to show up to Jess's podcast because,
again, we've been wanting to come and connect with you over a
show like this. And so it's like, OK, can I, for
the purposes of this episode, do that?
I think there's a lot that can be said about the the
characters, which is what I would love to focus on.
And we'll do our best. I think it's too soon to say
whether or not the the legacy of the show will be tainted.
But I can say that when I first watched it, that experience was
it was a very pure experience, Right.
And now it's it's different. But I am trying to keep an open
mind for for our review here. Yeah.
Oh, something, just something
you said that I wanted to double click on was just about, you
know, we don't know these people.
We don't have personal relationships.
And I think something I always joke about with with Mel and
some other friends is sometimes when I am excited about an
artist, I'm like, you know what? Stay embarrassed.
You'll find out why later. You know what I mean?
Because literally anything can happen.
And it's like, you know what? Fair.
Yeah, not fair, but they're human.
Things happen, and you just deal with your disappointment.
And. Yeah.
And move on. Like, I don't know how to say
it. Like it sucks, let's move on.
Yeah, and I cannot underline Double Click Echo enough that
the age of glorifying and idolizing celebrities is gone.
Like that was when we were in our early teens and we had our
posters of Backstreet Boys, and we only got that.
We only got to know about them in our monthly People magazine
subscription. But now with all the technology
that exists and everything that comes out about celebrities,
that is actually normal. People are great, people are
gross sometimes. Like then.
Now we just have access to that information just at our
fingertips. Every day You go on Twitter and
you find out that your fave is actually really terrible.
And for me, I would just encourage us to have a healthy
relationship with celebrity and make sure that we are aware that
they are portraying characters. They are portraying a certain
lifestyle that should appeal to us, but that is not necessarily
what's real. And I think when these sort of
scandals come out, it's you don't get sucked into this and,
you know, think your world has fallen apart because they are
just, they are just humans. And, you know, they will be
accountable to who they are accountable to.
But yeah. And whether that has changed the
way the legacy of it's OK to not be OK for me personally, it has.
The way I viewed it after this information came out is a bit
different than what I did the first time.
I think I, I was a little more unfortunately, like, oh, I'm so
sad. I'm so disappointed by this
actor, but not in a way that would make me cancel it or not
watch it or not recommend it or just be, you know, writing in
the blogs about it. It's just like, oh, this is what
I know about this. This actor is not great.
Moving on. Like the key headline is moving
on and just hoping that the powers that be in the circle of
celebrity deal with it. But it's not for me to be
sending out any hate tweets or, you know, being all caught up
about it. Sorry that was all jumbled up,
but I hope the message came out that let's stop glorifying
celebrities honestly. Yep, I agree.
I agree completely. The next question that I have is
how did you like this show? And I don't know if you want to
split it up between before Scandal and after Scandal or if
you just want to kind of give your overall like, is it a good
show to you or not? I really I think I enjoyed this
show because it had so many themes that felt when I first
watched it. This was one of my earlier
dramas. I'm so new, relatively new when
I think about you both. I'm relatively new to K dramas
and I think when I watched it, I was the themes of family
healing, Oh my gosh. And you know just the cast.
There's so many things. I think I really, I appreciate
it, appreciate it so much about this drama and how there are
some really light moments coupled with obviously the
heavier parts where it's like these people are walking bags of
trauma and we need to get to a point where we understand what's
going on. And, you know, yeah, just sort
of how are they navigating through life while carrying so
much baggage, if that makes sense.
So I think. Just overall, I think it's it's
such a powerful, I experienced it as a really powerful story
about family relationships, trauma, healing and yeah.
Yeah, yeah, no. I I think that it's such a great
drama. When I watched it, I truly
enjoyed it and I think retrospectively it feels like
such a good drama because they've been few that have left
an impact after. It's OK to not be OK.
Like very few dramas from that time period that I look back and
I really can remember most of the story, can remember the
characters and it just had so many levels of depth to it.
And I, I particularly remember feeling like Soyaji's character
Munyang was a little bit different to what we were used
to. She was, she almost portrayed
the male stereotype of what K dramas represent.
She was the one who was cold. She was the one who seemed like
she was not emotionally available.
And I remember that being that dynamic being very interesting
to me and just how the three of them had great chemistry
together. Yeah, I enjoyed the drama very
much. Yeah, for me, I also really
enjoyed the drama and I actually have a time capsule blog review
up on the blog that I revisited a couple couple weeks ago.
I like reread it and I was like, Oh my God, like this is perfect
because I know exactly what I thought.
And I actually at the beginning was like kind of trying to
downplay how much I loved it. And then I was like, anyway, I
really love the show. Sorry about it.
Like, and I think I ended up giving it like 4 stars out of
five. What really resonated with me
was a lot of the novelty of it, right?
There's a lot of cool puzzle pieces, a lot of novelty puzzle
pieces. There's the humor and lightness
and openness throughout the show that's really reminiscent of
just like a typical K drama. And then there's a lot of
whimsical and fairy tale in it. And the aesthetics are very
gothic. It's almost like gothic light.
And if you've never seen any Tim Burton or Guillermo del Toro,
then the stop motion animation style in the premiere episode is
going to really wow you. And these types of elements, her
wardrobe, all of these things are really novel.
These are new, right? You might not have seen these in
other K dramas. And the really big emphasis
throughout the show on mental health, healing and working
through mental illness is a big step in the right direction for
Korean society and for K dramas. It's not quite was not quite as
prevalent five years ago in K dramas.
There had been some K dramas that dealt with mental health
and mental illness, but not like we see today like every other K
drama might have something to do with somebody struggling and
they'll put a lot of jargon in there that is psychoanalyzing
these characters in some way, shape or fashion.
Mental health jargon is really big nowadays, more so than even
five years ago when this thing aired.
And so even I, I just said stuff like triggering, like
triggering. We're we're saying that now, but
that's therapy. Language is really normalized
now. And K dramas like this are kind
of breaking new ground in Korea. And the portrayal of an autistic
character like old Jung Sei's character Sante was amazing,
right? Like you've not seen something
like that in AK drama. You might have seen it every so
often, but you know, now you have extraordinary Attorney Wu.
You have the the kid from Moved to Heaven.
You have a lot of different representation now than you had
before, even even before this show.
So you have a veteran actor, Ojiang SE, playing this brother,
older brother Ahyung, who's got ASD.
He's got autism. It comes out during the
pandemic, maybe people being confined, being away from
family, isolated, confronting their mortality in ways we'd
never reckon with before. I feel like it made the
sentimental parts of the show really hit right, because the
sentimentality of cage dramas is something very unique to it.
We don't have such sentimental shows in the West, right?
Everything is kind of at arm's length.
Yeah, just just as you said that I remembered how when we watched
this and reviewed it, there's, I remember talking about how after
every episode we would just sort of be in each other's DMS just
trying to like just unpacking everything.
And one of the things that we talked about was how, you know,
it was really because we were watching it with our third
podcast member, Nomsa. I think we were watching it.
We might have watched it after meal.
I can't tell. I can't remember.
But we were watching it together.
And so there was just that this drama, really, it just brought
us together. And it's like we're on this
journey together with these characters.
And yeah, I I was living in another country, you know,
isolating by myself. And so really, K dramas were
such a. Unifying.
Yeah, yeah. I was just like, Oh my, like
this makes me feel connected to other people.
That's when I started watching K dramas.
And so, yeah, it's, it feels really special because of that,
that sentimentality that you are that you are talking about.
Yeah, yeah. I had someone message me and
say, you know, good luck on the episode because of everything
going on. And I'm just pissed off because
it's OK to not be OK. It's such an important drama for
autistic representation. It's the best autistic character
I've seen, which reflects my own experience of it.
And it's so annoying to me that because of Kim, meaning Kim SU
Hyun, it'll get cancelled as a drama.
And I wondered how you guys felt about the autistic
representation And Ochung says performance.
I thought that it was a great representation, but I remember
when we were recording this episode as well as it like
slowly comes back to me, we also struggled just the same way we
struggled struggled with Extraordinary Attorney Wu
around. It was great and it felt like it
was really good representation, but we're not autistic and it
would be. We were always saying it would
be great to hear what the autistic community thinks about
that representation and if they felt that it was genuine and it
was true and if it was something that they could get behind as
just objectively speaking, it felt like he did a really good
job of that. But I would never confidently be
the the opinion holder of that. Yeah, that's definitely where we
landed. But sorry, just to veer us off a
little bit back to the unifying nature of it's OK to not be OK.
I also thought that every element of the show was so
intentional from the soundtrack, which was so good.
That was tea is unassailable. It's amazing.
So good. And also the fairy tales.
I remember trying to buy those fairy tale books and how they
was so well weaved into the stories of the three main
characters and it really felt like the writers was so
intentional about everything that they were representing in
every single episode. I also loved that there was the
overarching story of the the three leads, but almost every
other episode there was also like a smaller story about a
mental health patients and, and what they were going through.
And that never took away from the broader story.
It always added and you always you had these guest stars come
and be the patients and and it was also interesting going into
that and talking about those specific characters, like the
one that stands out the most was the son of the politician who
kept an. Early episode, Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, who kept on flashing people and just how his story
was so sad as it unraveled and how Munyang responded to his
story. First you're like, oh, she's
cold and she's manipulative. And then you kind of realize
that she relates to him and she wants to help him, even though
she may not be, you know, representing that in the best
way. I really, I really love those
stories. So I really digress from your
question. Yes, but just really.
No it's fine. I'm actually going to recenter
us now because I'm looking through the questions that I got
from social media and someone asked a really interesting
question that I'm not even sure how to answer.
Someone asked. This might be a hot take, but
I'd love to get your opinion on whether or not it's time for K
dramas to take a big step toward disability inclusion on screen.
O Jiang SE was fantastic as Moon Sante, and we saw a great
performance in Extraordinary Attorney Wu as well.
But could it be time for Korea to work on their inclusion
efforts with actors of various abilities?
Slash disabilities? Question Mark.
Yes, yes, yes. And I think this is this is
actually, this was part of our discussion in our review in 2021
where we said, you know, great that.
And sometimes part of the evolution or movement towards
true representation could start with a really well respected
actor doing a really great job of that.
And then we say, OK, but let's actually look at people who
actually have these lived experiences and have them play
these these characters because then then the acting is just
about it's, it's about the acting, but I'm not also acting
out the disability or whatever the case may be.
So yeah, definitely. I totally understand.
I understand where you're coming from in the West.
It's, and I said this on the Extraordinary Attorney Wu
episode that we did, it's fallen out of fashion for Hollywood
stars to play people with disabilities.
You had so many people coming up and getting awards for playing
someone with a disability. You had like Leonardo DiCaprio
and What's eating Gilbert Grape. You had Sean Penn and I am Sam,
Tom Hanks and Forrest Gump. The list goes on.
And then all of a sudden, like in the late 90s, early 2000s, we
were like, you know what? Maybe this isn't a good idea and
we kind of woke up to it not being such a great idea.
Maybe it's kind of playing a caricature, a real life
disability and struggle, and you're not including these
people in the work, right? I would say Korea is going to be
really slow on this. Personally, I think this is a
very conservative society, as we well know, and they quite
appreciate beautiful people. And not to say that the West
doesn't, that Hollywood doesn't, but, you know, I was surprised
they even had an actress with Downs playing the sister with
Down syndrome in our Blues. And I was like, that's amazing.
I was like floored that they even had that.
So, but to have them cast someone with ASD in a drama,
which is very demanding, if you think of the demands, memorizing
lines, Start, Stop when I tell you that's very taxing.
You know, on someone with autism.
I think it's gonna be very difficult for Korea to be like,
yeah, let's do it, let alone other disabilities.
Yeah, when I think about K dramas, I think a lot about the
CWI don't know if you guys watched a lot of The CW shows,
but I always used to be like. Girl, you're talking to the
right person. If you are not, you know, the
stereotypical standard of beauty, you will not be hired on
The CW. And that's how I feel about
Korean dramas. And it also, I thought about
that as well when referencing only when you're saying, oh,
John, say, has he ever been a male lead?
Maybe because he doesn't really fit into that Kim Soo Hoon type
of beauty that I don't know the TV show producers think the
audiences want to see. And connecting that back to
disabilities and to what Jess was saying is that there's just
a love for beauty that if you don't fit into that, and I say
beauty in exclamation marks because we all know that it is
quotation mark because we all know that beauty is defined
differently. But I definitely think agree,
just that it might. It might take a while, but I
hope it doesn't. I hope they surprise us.
We talked about Soyaji's character and people had a lot
to say and things that I hadn't even thought of.
I don't know if you guys want to guess at what people were upset
about her character about or if you just want me to read the
comments. What that she was a go getter,
she said. That's my man, my man, my man,
or. That she was harassing him.
Yes, that's exactly it. So that she was sexually
harassing him for about half the show.
Someone DM Ed me and said if her character was a male lead,
feminists of the world would be outraged.
But she somehow seems to be revered and loved.
And again, flawed characters are fine as long as the redemption
arc is good. But I didn't have the patience
for it and a lot of her behaviors put me off.
This person dropped the show. Another person said that they
loved the female lead. She's a bit of an anti hero.
She's very unapologetically extra and direct.
I like that. I like soft female leads, but I
love strong female leads. I think she has a lot of
character development. It does not take from her being
very morally Gray, but I think her being jealous is very on
brand with how Korea usually portrays toxic women.
At the end of the day, I just like her because she could not
care less about anyone else but them.
Even in the beginning when she grabs by the hair of the guy who
yells at the brother, it's very right even though not in the
right way. I think when we understand how
she was raised, we can understand why she is how she is
and still a good person even though a bit inside.
So anyway, Long story short, people were screaming sexual
harassment, calling sexual harassment on Soya G's Moon
Young. What say you to those
accusations? Yes, and how many male leads
have we seen do this? Like I I think the second
comment you read probably captures or reflects more of my
stance on so AGI think she is. She is a complex character.
She's problematic in many ways, but also I'm like, yeah, we're
used to. We're not used to seeing like, I
don't know how. To I I triggered you, I didn't
I. I'm triggered and you know what?
I support all women's rights and wrongs.
And so yes, I hear all this. But again, I think she's
especially at that time for me, it was like, OK, this is a
different kind of the female character that we're seeing on
screen. She's so problematic in so many
ways, but she's also she's she's multi dimensional.
There's so many layers to it. Yes, we can talk about how she's
out here grabbing people's hair or you know, she's undressing
Gante with her eyes or whatever, all those things.
Yes, yes, yes. And I think it's a yes and for
me. OK.
I mean, I did find her a bit annoying, but not for the sexual
harassment accusations. I was like, oh, OK.
Yeah, I I I didn't, I thought she was a great character.
Would she be my friend? I don't know.
You know, I am, I am one of those people that, you know,
when you say someone is really great on the inside, well, they
can be great on the outside too. Oh, so that's that's how I felt.
What's holding them back from being great on the?
Outside, Yeah. What's holding them back from
being kind and, you know, nice on the outside?
Like why do I have to dig deep? You know what?
I feel that. I feel that.
As a character, I thought that she was great, just a little bit
annoying. The sexual harassment claims, I
do think she took it far, but I think that was all part of the
character. Also similar to what that second
statement said, that she's a flawed character that you know,
finds redemption in the end. And I don't know if I can
articulate this well, but I always find it, it's difficult
when the critique on the show is that this character shouldn't be
doing this sort of thing. But then it's a representation
of what characters or people are like in real life.
And this is, you're supposed to critique that, right?
But I know some shows are cancelled because they, like, we
shouldn't be seeing that on TV. But if that's something that
happens in real life in some of these instances, we should be
able to critique that and not necessarily say we shouldn't see
it at all. And I thought that this was I,
I, I don't know if you guys understand.
What kind of like PC police? Yeah, this was just a different
representation of of a female character.
And I know when I read some of the controversies around that,
they're like, they should cancel the show.
Like she's sexually harassing him.
And I was like, no, let's talk about how this character is a
little bit messed up. Rather than this cancel, it's
cancelled. Right, right.
Let's open a dialogue here. And I think that's what the show
and the writer wanted, right? That's what they wanted to say.
They wanted to show us the growth and the healing journey
for not just her, but every character, right?
Because no character ends the same way that they started the
show. That's a sign of great writing,
right? Yeah, Like, these are things
that you would expect MU Yong to do, right?
Like, her character has been written to be this problematic
person. Like, and again, life has handed
her all types of lemons. And so it's like, OK, here's how
she shows up. Here's how she protects herself
and whatever, right? We can dig into her psyche.
And it's like, as you both have said, this is what is leading.
This is what is setting us up for that character development.
So plus one TU vote. Yeah, she's Moon Young is
severe, she's insulting, she's intimidating, but she's so
fashionable. She's covered in couture and
she's a creature of impulse, but she's also just very lovable.
Like I said, she's out here yanking hair off of people who
stood in line for her own book signing, but she's making kids
cry. She's pushing unethical critics
down the stairs for demeaning her, exploiting her for sex.
She's pulling the wings off of butterflies and flashbacks.
She's bellowing back at deer that block her car.
She is doing a lot of weird, funky, funny things.
And she's going about doing sort of like, a lot of like,
righteous indignation in the wrong way.
You know what I'm saying? Like, yeah, that guy's a Dick.
Actually, these several guys are douchebags and she's handling
it, but in the wrong way, You know what I'm saying?
Like her methods, she can be prosecuted for these things.
Probably not the best, cleanest method to handle this, but you
know, I'm not necessarily mad at her for doing it right, for
pushing someone down the stairs and for pulling, yanking
someone's hair back when they physically assaulted Sante, for
having a, you know, sort of an episode, an autistic episode in
the line of her book signings. So Mel, you mentioned the fairy
tales. Each episode is a different
fairy tale or story with a moral lesson imparted to the
characters and the viewer. She represents a very cynical
viewpoint that there's actually a very dark lesson to learn from
these fairy tales instead of a light, bright, simple one that
might affirm life and love. And gradually the K drama of it
all is that she kind of pivots and she realizes what is love
and what is the light part of the fairy tale that she's been
missing, Like she's been missing the forest for the trees.
And a lot of these fairy tales that she has been teaching these
people throughout the show. I liked it.
It's her recontextualizing all these fairy tales, these these,
you know, parables basically in her own life.
Her this is one that I liked the call back to it, but not
necessarily the first time it happened was when she screams I
love you at him early on in the show.
She's like aggressively screaming I love you at him just
to get his attention because she knows he's fundamentally love
starved and affection deprived. It's a very early episode antic
and it's super iconic, but it's manipulative, right?
Like you can see that it's super manipulative.
She stalked him all the way to this hospital, in the seat at
the seaside hospital. And to me, that's all part of
her mental illness. She has antisocial personality
disorder. And I would say the one thing
that I don't like about the shows, they don't go into this
diagnosis. They don't flesh out like, what
is this look like on her necessarily?
What is antisocial personality disorder?
Does she need more treatment? Does she need more therapy?
Is this like, does she not really have it at the end of the
day? Was it just sort of conditioning
and training and abuse from her mother, like all this stuff?
So that would be my complaint about it.
And I think that goes into the portrayal of mental health and
mental illness in the show, which is upon this rewatch, I
was like, this is good but not great.
And five years ago, I was like, this is really great and, you
know, step in the right direction.
And today, watching it, I'm like, it's good.
Definitely good. I also thought that although the
mental health aspect of the show was great to see, it almost felt
like it was being used as a device, yes to push block
forward rather than exploration of what those mental health
challenges mean for these different characters.
Yes. It was just taking us to the
next step. The show walks a weird line of
being gimmicky and being sincere.
And I think I felt that a lot more this time around because
like just to keep it a buck, these the healthcare errors of
practice are like endless, right?
Like the doctor ditches his patient when he sees Munyong
coming towards them because he fired her from the lit classes.
The doc allows her to do these lit classes despite knowing
she's a loose cannon and very volatile.
There's like several people that escape from the hospital and I
get that they have like this open door policy, but that's
ridiculous. Director O again, just
triggering patients for fun. Like he's I don't understand
that. And then employees just watching
these massive breakdowns, massive meltouts happen.
No attempts at intervening. They just like let it happen for
the plot, right? Like it for for us as viewers,
we know it's for entertainment, but like I'm like this is not
like over and over again, these infractions kind of build up and
it makes me a little bit annoyed nowadays.
I don't know if you guys felt that way.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Plus one to what you both shared.
I think one of my critiques when I rewatched it was actually some
of these characters, some of the patients at the hospital, either
I was like, we either need to go into a little more depth for
some of them, have few of them that we're focusing on or else
just keep them use that use that time to maybe, you know, just to
your point, focus on Coleman Young and her her own, you know,
like anti personality. I'm saying it wrong, right, But
like, you know, anti social personality, antisocial
personality. Yes, that's it.
Thank you. Because it's almost like, yeah,
there's there's all this it's not noise, but these other
little things happening here and there, as Mel said, to drive the
plot forward. But we're we're just kind of
glossing over and it's like, could we not spend a little bit
more time, maybe have a little bit more in depth for one or two
of them, but not like every, yeah.
I don't know, a couple of like stray notes that I just want to
throw in here before we continue.
There's Subway product placement, which I was like,
wow. I think Quiznos has like taken
the place of Subway because recently in a recent drama,
there was a Quiznos product placement and I was like, oh
man, it's nice to see. It was actually nice to see
Subway it from 2020. And Speaking of Komunyong,
Soyaji does not know how to smoke a cigarette, has no clue
whatsoever what to do with a cigarette.
I don't know if you guys are like sticklers for certain
things, but people that don't know how to smoke a cigarette in
a movie or ATV show, I'm like, that takes me straight the fuck
out. Like I'm like, what is she's
like holding it weird And I'm like girl, like get some.
There has to be a smoker on set with you just like have them
coach you for like half an hour because this is ridiculous.
She's holding these like luxurious looking cigarettes the
most awkward way. So I had a problem with her and
they never showed her smoking either.
She's like, she has never smoked a cigarette in her life.
It looks like just from just from how she was portraying this
smoker, I'm like, no, she's not. She's not a smoker.
Sorry to say, I'm going to have to go back.
I'm going to have to go back. And because I'm like, wait.
But can I add a stray note that I'm like, I keep thinking about,
yeah. How unlikable was Jury as a
character? Do you guys remember?
And she, she has gone on to be like such a great actress in all
these shows. And we, that was my first
introduction to her, and I shouldn't know.
And she's gonna be good because I really disliked her character.
I was just like, for half the show I was like, what even What
is her beef? I don't get it.
And then they showed the flashback and I was still like,
gosh, you suck. It was, I don't know.
I had like very little sympathy for her.
So I'm glad you mentioned it because she was like a web
blanket a little bit, even though her relationship with the
manager was getting real cute by the end of the show.
Yeah. Yeah.
I wanted to shake her half the time, like girl, stand up girl.
Said exactly, exactly. Oh my gosh.
She also she lures Kante and Sante to the seaside town.
Also, she's like, I have like an empty room.
You don't have to worry about where you're going to live and
they're you can get double pay at the hospital because you're
certified and whatever. I'm like, girl, you're trapping
this man to go live in this trauma town from when he was a
child. Anyway, thanks.
Thanks for bringing up that character.
I actually had no notes on her, but that was I was just
spitballing. So going back up to some of the
questions that people had, some people and some people are now
calling into question Kim SU Kyun's performance and they're
saying that I honestly thought the female lead and the autistic
brother were standout performances and the male lead
was just blah. How do you feel about these
people? Now?
I'm not sure if this person felt this way always, but I haven't
seen this online that people are like, oh, Kim SU Kyun never
could act, could he, blah blah, blah.
Like, and we'll just keep it to the context of it's OK to not be
OK. What?
What would you say to those claims?
I would say not the revisionist history of getting I'm getting.
That's what I'm saying. I'm kidding.
I actually I actually did see a
review online somewhere, but this is from like back in 20.
I think it was a 2021 blog where someone did say Kante is sort of
a one note character. And so that that was in 2020,
2020-2021, whatever it was. So I mean, I think there are
probably people out there who from the get go were like, but I
think it was but by design because he does have my
experience of him is that, you know, he is supposed to be this
character who's trying to keep it together.
He's just like, let's keep it even keeled because he
shouldn't. He didn't want to show too much
emotion that might be misinterpreted by by Sante, You
know, whatever it was, right. And so it's like there may be
little moments. There are just some subtle
moments where it's like, OK, you're seeing a little bit more
of what it is he's trying to keep suppressed.
But I don't know, maybe I'm just, maybe it's just me, but I
think it was part of the the character.
Yeah, I mean, please don't take away going to his tears away
from him. Like they didn't affect us.
Like the whole moments where I was tearing up with him.
I think it's exactly what you're saying.
No, he represented the character well and you could feel he.
I remember saying this in our first review is that he had an
underlying sadness to him that I thought Kim SU Hyun really did
well. Like in every scene you felt
like this is someone who is carrying a lot.
He is his shoulders are bred like every he is burdened.
He is going through it and he's just trying to keep it calm,
just trying to get through the day, just trying to, you know,
make sure that his brother is OK.
And I think, yeah, I, I mean, we may have his our issues with him
now, but I thought that he did did well in that.
And that's what made all three characters so great.
They all brought the A game to to the show.
Yeah, that's my perspective. If I can just add to that.
Yeah. Sure.
So Coleman Young calls him the. Is it like the pin and the
grenade or whatever? Like yeah, safety pin or
something. Yeah.
And and yeah, I think performances don't have to be
big and loud for them to be impactful, right?
It's like Munyang and Sante are the way they are because those
are the characters. And and yeah, Kante is like that
balancing element, although he is his own grenade, clearly,
but. Yeah, I agree.
I would say something that I resonated with in 2020 and
something that continues to really resonate with me is the
fact that Kante is a caregiver. He's a full time caregiver and
he's had no support for his entire life.
And that's not something people like to talk about is that
caregivers need care. That's a very unique struggle.
And unfortunately, like I have been in the position where I
have cared for family members and seeing other family members
full time caregive for others. And I completely understood why
he was the way that he was and why he was so suppressed, right?
He wasn't repressed, he was suppressed.
He did it to himself, right? He was constantly choking back
emotions and suppressing happiness and, you know, making
decisions that he thought would benefit his brother.
This is the type of character and this is the type of story
that no one likes to admit happens on a day-to-day.
And if you look around, this happens way more often in real
life, which is why I think the drama is also so special.
Is that it? It's basically the emancipation
of a caregiver. How do you let go of a family
member who maybe is a little more self-sufficient than you
thought? And I thought it was beautiful.
I thought it was very effective. We can get into a little bit
more that journey and that character in spoilers, but I
don't think that Kim Sukiyong performance was lacking in any
way, shape or form. OK, so I'm actually going to go
through some fun facts, some accolades for the show, a little
bit of development notes, and then we are going to give our
score out of five soldier bottles and then we're just
going to get into spoilers. I feel like we talked a lot, but
we haven't talked about the twists in the show.
I had a question come through about the twist in the show, how
we felt about it. So we will get into that in the
spoiler section. So fun facts the viewership
slash popularity. According to Nielsen Korea, the
series recorded an average nationwide TV viewership rating
of 5.4%. It was the most popular show of
2020 in the romance genre on Netflix in South Korea.
It was the most popular K drama series on Netflix in many
countries such as Taiwan, and the most enduring Korean drama
in Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand.
So Asia just ate it up. It was in the top ten list in
Netflix for more than 100 days there, and the series was also
the most popular K drama of 2020 on Netflix in Australia, Hong
Kong, India, Japan and South Africa.
It made the New York Times list of Best International Shows of
2020 and at the 57th Pick Song Awards it received 8 nominations
with two wins for Best Supporting Actor and Best
Technical Achievement for Costume Design.
It received a nomination at the 49th International Emmy Awards
in the Best TV Movie or Miniseries category as well.
So in development, I think you guys mentioned the writer and
how she was so good at portraying a lot of this stuff
and how we really resonated with Mr. Plankton as well.
Who most recent work Toe Young based the drama on her
relationship with a man who had a personality disorder.
She developed Moonsang Tay's character by listening to the
stories of people with autistic brothers and referred to the
books recommended by the CEO of Bear Better, a social enterprise
where people with developmental disabilities work.
Fashion director Cho Sang Kyung managed costumes, while fashion
designer Kim Minju designed some of Komo Young's dresses so she
was dressed in couture. Kim SU Hyun considered It's OK
to not Be OK to be his comeback drama following his obligatory
military enlistment, and at the press conference for the drama,
he said that he joined the project after being drawn to its
title and Moon Kang Te's character.
When asked about his character at the press conference, All
Jung Sei commented that autism isn't an illness but something
you're born with. If you think about Korea and the
way that they're kind of behind, yeah, makes a lot of sense.
So Mel, you mentioned the books. The five children's story books
that appeared in the drama were written by the screenwriter Cho
Young and illustrated by concept artist Cham San.
They were published in Korean in the summer of 2020, same summer
that this aired. And according to Kyobo Book
Center and Yes, 24, all five books were listed in the top 20
best selling books of the month. We talked about sexually
inappropriate scenes. Guess what got flagged for
sexually inappropriate scenes? The series was criticized on
social media, and the Korea Communication Standards
Commission received over 50 formal complaints, largely for a
scene in which Moon Young overtly stares and touches
Khante's body as he gets stressed.
In another scene, a male character who suffers from manic
depression and exhibitionism reveals parts of his body with
his genitals being covered by a drawing of an elephant.
Some viewers defended these scenes as ways of expressing the
characters personalities. On August 26th, 2020, the
broadcast censorship body issued a legal sanction to the
television series for sexually inappropriate scenes in episode
3, judging it to be against the broadcast celebration
regulations, and cited Article 27 on duties of integrity and
Article 30 on gender equality. The subcommission gave the
reasoning, even considering the fact that they were meant to
exaggeratedly express a character's personality.
The scenes in question show how insensitive the drama's
producers are to gender equality in broadcasting content that may
be little a certain gender and hold the possibility to justify
sexual harassment and molestation.
OK. Well, that's a bitch, but.
You guys were like, Oh, no. OK, gender equality.
OK. I was like, oh, Oh no, not
gender equality, because a man's got his.
Shirt off, Listen, men's rights and whatnot.
Oh no, not a man with an elephant covering his genitals.
That's degrading to the man. Oh my gosh.
Oh. Yes, yes.
Well, OK, here's my thing. OK, I just want to make a very
quick comment. The part about the the character
who reveals parts, who flashes people, essentially.
Yeah, like. I I agree with the people who
are defending the scene, right? Because they're like, this is
the character, right? He has this mental illness and
this is how he's acting out. And so it's almost like if this
were happening in real life, you would pish posh and do whatever.
But it's yeah, it is what it is. Anyway you.
See if they penalize this one, which is it makes it difficult
for other shows to air. It makes it difficult for the
broadcast station or the broadcaster to get other
licenses and things. It's it's a pretty heavy slap on
the wrist. Other shows are not going to do
this. You understand where I'm coming
from. Like this is also going to make
other shows play it safer. Yeah, yeah.
They basically said we need to find them before.
This sets a precedent. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
So think about it from a lot of different angles.
How many soju bottles would you give?
It's OK to not be OK. Five being the best, the most.
I would give it 4 soju bottles and I think this might be higher
than what I gave it in our review because as I said
retrospectively, I think it's gotten better with age besides
all the drama surrounding the scandal.
But it is such and I I recommend this to people when they ask me
if they're entering the K drama world well based on their
preferences. But it's usually one that comes
to the top of the list. And like, you should try this.
It's got good acting, a good story.
The short stories are great. I mean, we did critique the
stuff about the mental health for sure.
But I think overall it's it's a it's a banger for me.
I loved it. And I hope to see.
So yeah, G Moore in the coming years, honestly.
Yeah, me too. Mal, you actually had a high
rating in our episode. But but my, yeah, my rating is a
four. We can't do partials, right.
I can't say. You can do, yeah, you can do
halves, I think. I can I just.
Like halves, Yeah. OK, OK.
I would give it channeling. OK.
I would give it a four and a half out of five soju bottles.
I think just the drama is it's, it's just, it's giving, it's
giving. It's always been giving.
I think that the characters are so rich.
They're they're complex. And yeah, the only points I
would take away are four things we've already talked about.
But this is a really, I think, a well done drama.
For sure. OK, I am going to come in and
give it one. I'm just kidding.
I'm not going to get one. I did after all this.
I'm like 1 Sodu bottle. Yeah, I'm going to give it.
I think I'm going to give it the same thing that I gave it last
time. I think I gave like 3.99 out of
five. I'm just going to round it up to
four. I don't know what I was on in
2020 thinking. I think I was getting cute with
it and like 3.999. Yeah, I'm just going to give it
four out of five's Hoju bottles because it's quite good.
And the complaints that I had last time, I don't even know
what they were, but I have complaints now and I can get it.
I already said some, but I can get into like my biggest one now
in the spoiler section. And like that also factors in
the Kim Sukian of it all as well.
And I feel like that is maybe half a star because while I was
re watching it, I did have to take a break.
I did have to, you know, collect myself and get through a couple
of episodes where I was like, like wincing a little bit.
But I feel like the characters are so strong, are so vivid, and
the storytelling is pretty great that I just got sucked in again
after a few days and after, you know, taking a minute.
But to collect myself and doing other things and like going out
inside and touching some grass, I was like, OK, I'm back in.
Like I'm locked in again. I really enjoy the show.
I would still recommend it. It's still excellent.
So 4 out of five Hoju bottles. I think we all, you know,
wrestled with it in different ways and it still came out
high-ranking high for us. So that's great.
We are going to get into the spoiler section right after
this. Excuse me?
I can't, you know, I am. Oh, sorry.
Swear. Discussing shit?
What? All right, we're on the other
side of spoilers. We are going to spoil.
It's OK to not be OK. It is a 5 year old show and if
you haven't watched it, we encourage you to go watch it and
then come back later. Come back and continue listening
to this episode. We did give a few things away,
but nothing that wasn't necessarily an episode 1.
So I think you had something you wanted to revise.
Noli, did you want to revise your score at this point in
time? Yes, yes, I did.
I wanted to revise it down because I remembered.
Actually it's because of something you said just in your
rating, which is just remembering my experience of
rewatching it the second time around.
I couldn't rewatch it to the end.
And so I will just bring it down to a four.
And I also remember there was some wild things and I was like
wait, wait what how did we get here kind of thing.
And yeah, because I didn't finish rewatching, maybe, maybe
y'all can help me understand that little the plot twist, the
whole thing with Kobe Young's mother.
Girl, so let's talk about it. So there was somebody reached
out. That was the question that I got
that someone was like you guys need to talk about this thing
that happened since the last few episodes.
So this person said I only watched this last year and I
ended up watching it twice the second time forcing my husband
to watch it with me. It is a 10 out of 10K drama for
me. I love the arc with all three
leads. Some of my questions what do you
think about the mystery nurse slash mom plot twist?
I cannot tell you anything about the motivations of that mom.
I was so confused. I was so confused by her and
that she just first she she was like plotting this for 12 years
with the dad as a patient and then she flipped in the last
moments because she wanted Munyang to be hers.
Guys I am completely lost with that one.
And you know what normally bring it down 3.5.
I get it. So half a star for Kim SU Hyun
and the mental health and half a star for this fucking wild plot
twist in this show. And that's where I'm at with
four-star four. I'm not sorry.
Force hold you bottles out of five.
Because I'll tell you, five years ago when I watched this, I
thought it came out of left field, but I just kind of like
took it. I was just like, OK, fine.
And that was my approach in the blog review that I did this time
around. I was like reading the tea
leaves on it. I was picking up all the clues.
I was like, OK, they're setting a lot of things into motion in
the early episodes with there's a ghost haunting the hospital,
people are hearing My Darling Clementine being hummed in the
halls, and someone is is choking out the dad in the middle of the
night and causing his seizures. And a lot of different things
are happening that are supposedly clues.
I appreciated the mystery, the enigma of the mom when it was
just this spirit, this sort of ghost, this presence that was
oppressing Moon Young and sort of heavy over her life, right?
And I liked the mystery that she could be alive.
We don't know where she is. Her body is missing.
We don't know if she could be around, could come back into her
life. When it was revealed that it was
Nurse Park, I was like, get the fuck out.
Like, honestly, I hated it. I hated it.
I wanted to flip a table.
Even though apparently this was a theory that people had back in
the day when they when people were watching it ongoing, they
had the theory that Nurse Park was the mom.
Yeah, I remember. I called it like episode like 3
or something. Normally remember I was like
Nurse Dad, She's shady, something's gonna come up with
her. But that does not mean that I
appreciated how it came. Up exactly the execution.
It's the execution, right? I was.
Like what? And you know, they connected all
the dots with the butterfly, the brother's mom.
And, and then she said she just, she just blew up on us.
And it's like I was fast forwarding a little bit.
No, Lisa, do you want to, like, weigh in on the mom on the
twist? I mean, I just remember again,
like, it did feel rewatching it, I didn't get to the point where,
you know, she's revealed. But rewatching it, I was
watching that character. Yeah, because I was just like,
OK, what? What did I miss the first time
around? It's not overt.
I will say it's not, not yeah. It's not there are many things
because all along I was just like, wow, like, you know, this
nurse, what a she's so good at her job.
Look at her go you and, you know, rewatching it, I'm like,
OK, there were some moments. So I'm just like, she's staring
a little too long at this person or whatever it was, right?
But even then, I was just like, what a wild, wild, wild, wild,
wild it. Still feels like it came out of
left field. Yeah, it did feel like I was
just like, wow, that's kind of contrived in a sense.
And then, as always, whenever you have, we met as kids, Yeah.
And then for there to now be this added layer of childhood,
can you know? Yeah.
Yeah, yeah. Oh.
My gosh, guys, remember the scene where Gangte is with
Munyang and then she's like a child and normally remember we
had the conversation even back then we were like, that's what
we had seen. Like they tried.
Oh, wait, are you talking about the flowers, the flower scene
when he gives her flowers and then he kind of envisions her as
a child? Yeah.
You know, he finally gave her flowers.
Yeah. That's not hitting like it used
to. Definitely.
Not, not quite not. Quite not quite hitting the
same. I agree completely.
I almost did a video. I was because I I was like,
maybe I'll do like a little quick, you know, shitty little
TikTok on this. And then I was like, I'm not
going to you know what? I'm choosing peace today.
And I was like, no, we're just going to move on and keep
playing this show. I agree completely.
That was what, like midway through the show, maybe.
Yeah, around midway through the show.
And I agree. I, I had to pause and take a
minute. I was like, because what, what
transpired before that was so sweet, was so pure.
He finally goes and gets her flowers.
He's like, I got you something that I, you know, never got to
give you before because she trampled on the flowers that he
came to give her before as a child and scared him off.
He ran off and he gives her the flowers.
She's like, oh, my God, they're so beautiful.
And he's like, you're beautiful. It's like, very.
It's like, you know, it's so saccharine.
And he goes in and he just kisses her and he just starts
giggling. And he's so giddy and smiley and
she's smiling. It's just such a great moment
between them. It's so almost innocent, like
childlike between them. And then they go with like, cut
to it is adult Kim Sukhyon envisioning her as a child with
the flowers. And I'm like, Yep, Nope.
I'm tapping out. I'm tapping.
Oh, no, Seth didn't age well. Didn't age well at all.
But, you know, circling back to the mom, OK, the plot twist for
the reveal of Nurse Park and everything happens in episode
13. We see Nurse Park driving off,
smiling maniacally. She's alive.
She's wearing her bespoke butterfly brooch again that she
stole from the mansion, and she's got her red nails on the
red lipstick, and she's just vandalized Sante's painting with
the butterfly, which is the fugliest butterfly I've ever
seen. Like, I was like, she couldn't
have drawn it better. Anyway, I'm like nitpicking the
shit out of this bitch. Anyway, so that is when everyone
is reeling. Moon Young finally realizes that
not only is her mother alive and that her mother is Nurse Park,
their mother murdered their mother back in the day and
caused all of this heartache and all of this whole spiral to
happen in their lives. How did you feel about maybe
Moon Young feeling responsible and at fault for what her mother
did? Did that feel true to her
character, or was her even feeling bad a reflection of how
much growth she'd had? Because I almost feel like,
well, I mean, I don't know. I don't know.
Because I wonder if episode 1 Munyang would have been like,
OK, sounds like a personal problem to me, right.
Whereas here for her to even be feeling bad is is it because she
now has this this connection, this affection for these
brothers. And so, you know, she their pain
is her pain, Ish. And so, yeah, I don't know.
I mean, I don't know, hadn't thought about it.
It's. Like I think it's definitely a
character growth thing where she now had more empathy and she was
now in in love, right? And this is a pain that her love
was feeling, and she felt the weight of that.
And I thought, yeah, I thought it made sense for her to to feel
that way at that stage. I mean, they drew it out a
little bit, but definitely I felt that it would it would make
sense for her to be at that point and that at that stage of
the story. I think it was completely
unbelievable and warranted that she would feel that way.
And if you haven't been watching K dramas for a long time, there
is a huge like sins of the father thing in Korea, right?
So they place a lot of blame on children.
And there is this whole bloodlines concept in Korea
where you don't really know someone unless they you know who
their family is, what they do and where they come from.
Our mother is a psycho and a murderer.
The fact that she's like, leave, I'm going to hurt you eventually
stems from that. It stems from not the fact that
she's been, you know, nurtured by them the last several months,
healed throughout the show. It's that she could turn out
like her mom, right? That's her blood.
It's really heartbreaking to see her think that way.
And it's really sad, but also gratifying to see that contest
stays by her. He want, he's like, you know
what? No, I've made my decision.
You know, I've wrestled with this and I love you.
We're going to stick together and I'm going to work through
this alongside of you because I love you.
The alternative is you're not in my life, and that's more
painful. So I found that extremely
powerful, extremely moving in the argument of nature versus
nurture. Korea's definitely on the nature
side. If some, if you're the daughter
or son of a of a killer, you're definitely going to turn out to
be a killer, right? Like for sure, that's what Korea
thinks. So what's interesting about the
show is that the mom also nurtured her to be a psycho, to
have these antisocial personality disorder tendencies,
which is why I think maybe the writer didn't want to make
anything black and white regarding her diagnosis.
Because it seems like by the end of the show, she's well on her
way to being cured, right? She's, she's showing so much
emotion, so much promise. She's understanding herself a
lot better and she's integrating better within, you know, this
found family and this, this new family that she's forged.
She's a lot less volatile. I wonder if she even had any
social personality disorder, truly, or if it was nurtured in
her by her psycho mother. If that was something that her
mother was like, I'm going to nurture also train her to be
just like me, something that isn't, again, like that's just
something open to her interpretation.
Although I'm not sure it should be in the context of like good
mental illness representation and mental health
representation. It's kind of just like very
vague. Does she or does she not have
antisocial personality disorder? But the goofiness of the mom in
the last couple of episodes, I couldn't get behind that.
Yeah, couldn't get behind that. She came back and she was like,
oh, I want my daughter. She's not acting right.
I want her to become more like how she used to be.
She kidnaps on drugs. Sante Kante rushes to the
mansion. It's a face off.
It is so cartoonish. It just cheapened a lot of the
show to me. I didn't like the ultimatum also
that she gave him. Yeah.
When she's going like this, like with her arms wide open, she's
like, or you just kill me. And then when she realizes that
you've killed me for revenge, you've killed her mother for
revenge, then she'll go back to how she used to be.
I was like, what the fuck are we doing here?
I was like. Like, no way, just we're, we're
always talking about how K dramas, like when it comes to
the ending, it's always such a, it's a, it's a shaky road to the
end because the plot can get derailed so easily, you know,
and it's almost like I'm all, we're always laughing stuff
like, OK, is it now that they're feeling the pressure?
Like the drama is doing really well and it's like, we want
there to be a really spectacular ending.
And sometimes it's like, are we trying to do too much?
To to wrap it up. They did too much.
Yeah, yeah. And it's like sometimes, you
know, simple, simple is OK, right.
I think to your point where it was like, OK, we could keep it.
I don't know how they would have resolved her mother that whole
thing in a simpler or like at least a way that's more like,
OK, yeah, love that. That makes sense.
But I'm not the writer here. So right, like I'm not going to
do her job, but like, honestly, well, what did I just watch?
What did I just watch? The whole the entire
confrontation was so cringy. And the I think from Jiang Yung
Nam, who is playing the resurrected mom over the top.
And it's not necessarily her fault.
Like that's how the writer intended that to be. 100% Yeah.
Even the ham fisted that Sunday clocks are over the head with a
freaking fairy tale book. There's so many scenes, Oh my
gosh. Oh God, it was too.
So here's a fist. Here's Ham.
Like it was literally so Ham fisted.
I like the fact that he saved the day.
I don't like how he saved it. It was just.
It's like you had the right idea.
Right, that's what the hell. That's what I'm saying anyway.
So there's a lot of really great moments in the finale though,
post all of this nonsense that I teared up at, like the tree
planting scene where they like plant the tree in honor of their
mom and they put the new family photo on there.
Sante is saying you weren't born to take care of me, that's not
why mom gave birth to you. And it's just a very full circle
moment for the brothers. It's completely needed.
Appealing moment between them. Very beautiful.
What was also beautiful, something we haven't touched on
specifically is the relationship between Sante and Munyang and
how she just treated him just really just like another person.
And the way they relationship evolved is as siblings.
And him feeding her in the last few episodes when she felt
guilty about her her mom killing their mom.
It was such a sweet relationship and it was so pure.
I love that I I just wanted to let those dynamics those two did
did so well. Yeah.
Now, thank you for bringing that up, because I was just thinking
how for Sante, it seems one of his gripes, if we can call it
that, is that all he wanted to do was to be seen and treated as
the Big Brother right by by Kante, right.
And it's like he wasn't. He knew he wasn't getting that.
He knew that Kante was essentially walking on egg
shells around him and never really being honest about how he
may have been feeling. Whereas with Munyang, Munyang
from the get go was like, that's my dog.
Like the fact that they were able to fight and, you know,
have their little spats, but like it was such a a genuine and
yeah, a really authentic connection and relationship.
And yeah, I love that. That then opened up a way for
the brothers to also, you know, find a way to each other.
Or back to each other? Yeah, you got that call back in
the episode 15 of him desperately screaming at her.
I love you because she's pushing him away.
And like, no, I don't want to be with you because it's it, you
know, I love when they circle back on things like that.
Were there other big moments that you guys really appreciated
in the show? I mean, I always love me a good
kiss. Well, they're this show has so
many like good kisses, right? Even the last episode between 15
and 16, there's them. I think they make out on the
desk right in the. Mansion.
The castle, which is like. I remember being very proud of
them and being like this is what we wanted, mature kissing that
everybody short kissing, everybody's involved.
Everybody kisses. Yeah, exactly.
But. Yeah.
I was going to say a scene that I really loved.
I mean, it's earlier in the drama is when when she first
has, it's not her first nightmare, but she has that
nightmare and. Oh yeah.
Essentially, he like, you know, he, he comes to the room and
just calms her down. And I, I don't know, it was just
such a a heart warming scene because it's we're seeing
Munyang's vulnerability after we've seen her in her badass
element and just, you know, like nobody can touch me.
Nothing can touch me. But like just seeing her in that
super vulnerable moment. And he bears witness to that.
That was a a powerful scene for me.
Yeah. I think it really just showed
their chemistry, unconnectedness.
Yeah, I agree. I agree completely.
She's screaming and sobbing for him to get out while
simultaneously clinging on to him for dear life, and he reads
her correctly that she doesn't want him to leave, actually, and
he just hugs her to his chest and says I won't leave, I won't
leave, don't worry, I won't leave.
I loved it, sue me, I'm buying it.
I'm eating it up. It's great.
That's a great scene. There's so many actually in in
the first few episodes that are so iconic.
Like I vividly remember her making the kid cry in the
restaurant and stealing the knife and like trying to kill
the escaped patient who was trying to commit suicide with
his daughter, him blocking the knife and then she stabs Kante.
Wild. Just like wild stuff in the 1st
episode. Yeah.
The flashback scene. All the flashback scenes are
really cool because the little girl that plays her is so
beautiful and so haunting. I'm not sure if I've seen her in
some other stuff since then, but yeah, when you finally get the
full flashback of her saving him, it's really great.
And I think that's a little bit of the argument for she's
probably not, doesn't have antisocial personality disorder
because she's like ripping petals to figure out if she's
going to save him. She's like, I'll save him, I
won't save him, I'll save him, won't save him.
And on the last pedal, it's she will not save him.
And we know she does. She does it anyway.
Yeah, yeah. So she's, you know, she's a good
person. She does it anyway, even as a
child. And thinking of flashbacks, one
of the scenes that I really loved was when we we flashback
to Sante and Kante with their mother.
I think they were sleeping well. They're they're actually just a
few different moments where Kante is remembering it as the
mom focusing exclusively on Sante and he's just kind of
like, you know, feeling just cast aside.
But when they show, I guess the other perspective, it's like she
she was always also looking out for him.
Like when they're walking, I think she's carrying an umbrella
and she turns back and like calls him when they're sleeping,
he thinks. So she has her back to him and
she's kind of hugging Sante and he's just there feeling unloved
and whatever. But you know, she like she turns
around and I don't know, it's just it's such a there's so much
love that he wasn't seeing that his mom is really just.
I agree, yeah. Yeah, what did you think about
Chase Sue? The little psychic, the friends,
the pizza pizzeria owner. I don't think I had that many
thoughts about him to be honest. I honestly thought if this was a
western show he would be in a full on one sided love with
Kante right? Like this would be a gay
character and he would be moving around because he loves it.
Like he's romantically in love with him.
But I guess because it's platonic and they're just
friends it almost makes even less sense.
Like why is this guy putting his life on hold?
Exactly. Moving around with that, like
what did you guys think? What?
Same exactly. I'm like, I love my friends, but
am I going to just yeah, like what?
What am I doing in my life? Like what?
What is motivating me in life? What do I want in life?
And it's just not coming across so much for Jason.
He's just like, I want to be. I'm the third brother and I'm
like, OK. No one else.
Cody was the 3rd brother. That was the saddest.
That was the saddest part about Jason character Jason Jury, the
publisher. All those characters, just like
they were all created to just plop up the three main
characters, regardless of how pitiful their own lives were.
In episode 3, she says what is a fairy tale?
A fairy tale is a cruel fantasy that illustrates the brutality
and violence of this world in a paradoxical manner.
Wow. She said glass half empty.
Literally glass half empty. Something that I did love about
her is that she is very sexually forward and she says multiple
times like, do you want to sleep with me?
Yes, I'm horny, I admit that. And she's constantly trying to
jump his bones and I don't know, that really worked for me.
Did you guys feel the same way or did you feel like it was
overkill? No, I loved it.
She was. She represents what we always
see in those CEO's, those K drama CEO's.
And I was, I was here for it. I was like, Munya.
Express yourself, girl. Get that man naked.
And I think, I think it's also how, and she says a couple of
times she's like, when I see what I like, I must get it.
So she's just very, she's, she's just all about it.
And I'm like, I, I love to see a sex positive character that's
you know, and she's not shying away from it.
This is, this is who she is and just how she rolls.
And I know a lot of people were probably clutching their pearls
like, what in the Yeah. I have no doubt.
It was great. Yeah, in episode 3, there's a
scene where the flasher escapes and she helps him escape and go
to the father's political rally. And it's this whole thing where
he admits on the stage that he's been seeking his father's
attention because he was abused and scorned since he wasn't as
smart as his siblings who did well in school and went to SNU,
and he gradually became mentally ill In the black sheep of the
family, the male lead, Kante imagines that he's in his place.
He's taking the place of the flasher, evading security and
laughing and making a scene and dancing on stage and being free,
freely admitting that he has a problem and freely admitting
that he's not OK and letting loose and unafraid of
consequences or of looking different or wrong.
And this, this OST song is playing in the background that's
saying Hallelujah over and over again, which to me implies that
this whole thing, there's something about this is holy.
And at the end of this, he turns to Moon Young and says, should I
just have fun with you? I love how that kind of bears
out in the rest of the show, how he gradually just unburdens
himself and does let loose and has fun with her and definitely
loosens up, right. He's just so uptight, so
suppressed, and nothing about him is happy, right?
Even his brother, you know, Sante sees him smiling in his
sleep and he's like, I've never seen him happy, right?
He's like shocked. He has to go to the poster full
of emotions and he's like, I have to identify this emotion
because he's never seen Kante happy.
Yeah. My goodness, that was definitely
one of the most heartbreaking things about Kante's character.
And to see him smile at the end in the last episode, it was
just, yeah, I was so beautiful. What a what a character,
honestly. Yeah, not wanting to be a
caregiver, being actually really good at being a caregiver, and
then understanding that it's really not necessarily a burden
and letting go. And, you know, it's a delicate
balance. And Moon Young actually asked
him in one of the early episodes, why can't he take care
of her, too? And he answers, I don't want to
be someone who's needed by others anymore.
He's just tired, right? And she's chasing after him,
threatening to kill him if he leaves.
And she's being very manipulative and possessive in
this point, using Sante to get him to come to her.
She's constantly using Sante to lure him to the mansion or to
where she is. And at this point, she says, you
are mine. I let you live.
Because the whole thing at this point was that they realized the
childhood connection. I don't know.
Like, I understand why people dropped it if they didn't like
the manipulation tactics from her.
But I also understand that she saw through him and he saw
through her. Yeah, she saw what he needed and
he saw what she needed. Yeah, she calls him a hypocrite,
like, right off the bat, right? And it's like you're out here
with this facade, but I see you. I see you.
But what do you think of the moment that she cuts her hair?
I don't remember that what happens in that scene.
Yeah, so she cuts her hair. It was one of those things where
her mom was like, you should never cut your hair.
Kind of unpacking mom trauma. She cuts her hair finally, kind
of trying to cut off this connection and this, this
trauma, all this baggage that she has with her mom.
And she does like a hack job. It looks horrible.
And Kante fixes her hair and does this Bob for her.
It looks amazing. Apparently he's also a
hairdresser. Well, from cutting his brother's
hair, right? Because nobody Sante didn't.
We didn't want people touching his thing.
So it's like, OK. Apparently.
He's he's really talented at this because he's his brother's.
Barber, sure, sure, sure, sure. From being a Barber to one
person to cutting like an entire like style.
All right, anyway. I mean, I think I, I like, I
like the symbolism of, you know, like just that untethering from
her, her mom or the, the lore of her mother, right?
Just that, yeah, I think it's always, not always.
But I like when you have that really powerful moment or it's
like, OK, this means something to the character.
And for us looking in, you're like, OK, I can see how this
this could free you or unburden you or untether you from the
source of your your pain and trauma.
And yeah. I agree and in the same episode
so you have her untethering. I like that word they use.
So you have her untethering from her mom, cutting her hair and
trying to disassociate from her. And you have Kante actually
getting closer to his mom in this episode because he gets
drunk and he's wondering if his mom feels badly or sorry for how
she treated him. And he suggests to Sante back at
the mansion that they go eat Chambon at the restaurant that
he loves to eat at. And Sante unlocks this flashback
memory saying that they only ate there so often because their mom
knew that was his favorite. That was Kante's favorite to
eat. And it sends him like spiraling.
He's sobbing into Sang Pei's back in the middle of the night
and I'm just like Oh my God. This is interesting to see how
their dynamics with their moms play out and how they address
it. Each character addresses it
differently in the show. That scene is one of those that
for me shows Kim Sokkun's talent because it's such a, it's such a
quiet moment. You see it and and I'm just
like, look at that, look at that.
So that that was acting, good acting.
It is acting. The other showcase that has
stuck with me, and I remember this scene vividly is in episode
9. And I don't know if you remember
this scene. It's when they do, like a
sleepaway thing. We just talked about this scene
where he gives her flowers and they kiss for the first time.
It's kind of like a pop kiss. But they end up back at the
hospital. And Kante lied to his brother,
to Sante about where he was overnight.
Sante was worried sick. He was waiting up for him.
And that's when Sante overnight draws that picture of them in
the camper. And that foreshadows like the
end of the show. But Sante has a breakdown in the
hospital. He reveals that he remembers
Kante wishing him dead and almost letting him die.
This scene is an emotional touch point for me personally for the
entire show because despite me remembering like little things
here and there and scenes here and there and iconic things, the
safety pin and the butterfly method of her hugging and stuff.
No no no. This scene of Sante throwing
water at him and calling him fake and Kante trying to
apologize can't get the words out.
Sante has completely locked him up because he's touched on what
he is most ashamed of, what he's feels most guilty of.
And he repeats, oh, I wish Young would just die.
You said that Kant is breaking down in tears.
Sante is a mess, crying, screaming.
He wants his young dead through every corner of the hospital,
and Kante is literally just on the floor.
That was powerful. I remember that scene now and
like if you cannot say Kim SU Hyun didn't act his socks off
for that drama. If you watch that scene, wow, so
emotional jazz. And you know, just following on
that, Kante is busy saying I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
And then later when they're back at the apartment, the roof
apartment, Jerry's mom's place, and Kante comes back and Sante
goes into his little zip up closet.
And you know, so Kante is trying to apologize and Sante makes him
say what it is he's apologizing for, right?
He says, what are you sorry for? And I think that's that's such
an important moment for them both because there are many
times that Kante has said, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, you know,
usually to cover up some lie or whatever it is.
But in this moment, because it's it's really just that source of
their pain. It's like, no, you need to
actually say out loud what it is you're sorry for.
And he then I think that also frees or unburdens Kante to some
degree because he's like. I'm sorry for leaving you or
running away. I'm sorry for saying I wish you
would die. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I wish,
I'm sorry, I said. I wish I had a normal brother
and and and. Yeah, all of it. 10 out of 10.
So powerful. So I think I liked Munyong's
sentiment when she says it's ridiculous.
Are all parents automatically forgiven for the bad things they
did before they die? And I think that's pretty
accurate because on people's deathbeds, they want
forgiveness. They want to bury the hatchet.
And she's like, fuck all that. We're not going to do that.
Yeah, it's like just that redemption, the redemption arc,
right? And it's like, you haven't
actually. For what?
Earned it. Yeah.
Yeah, exactly. So interesting, Interesting
thoughts. I think that we've been here
long enough and we've litigated a lot of the show.
I don't know if you guys had anything you guys wanted to add.
I really enjoyed this trip down memory lane and I think it just
we and I ended up having so much more to say than I thought
coming in. So just credit to you for
setting us up for, for this, this conversation.
And yeah, I mean, I, I now am curious.
I want to go back and see Ko Munyong's smoking scenes.
I want to go back and see what what happened with the dad at
the end since I didn't get to do to wrap that up.
But yeah, so many things that I'm like, huh, OK, I'm thinking
a little differently about that, so.
Yeah, like there's a lot of K drama isms in it that I do, and
I don't mind like the deer interrupting them every time
they like want to have an intimate moment.
Kim SU Kyon having his shirt off in the 1st 12 minutes of the
show. So there's some things.
So thank you guys for coming on here.
Thank you guys for for taking the time out and doing this deep
dive with me. Before we get out of here, where
can we find you guys online? We are on Instagram at Africans
Soulmates, on X at Afrosoulmates and then for the podcast itself
you can find us on Google Podcast, Spotify and Apple.
And we love the DMS, that's where you find us the most.
So if you get on our Instagram, we love getting into the Kiki of
all the dramas that everyone. And I love the Insta takeovers.
They do Instagram takeovers every now and then and it's so
much fun. And that's it.
I'm Jessica and this has been the Tiba K Rambles podcast.
Thank you, Jess.