I have a lot to comment about in these two episodes.  This will be long, I’m sorry. 🙂

1. Angel Dan is losing his angel wings

It finally dawned on me that Angel Dan has been behaving less of an angel and more like a human. It began with his misquoting the bible. When he woke up after his alcoholic blackout, he realized that he did a lot of stupid things. He blamed alcohol as the “cause of all evil.”

Nope. Had there been a spot test, he’d have failed Bible 101. The love of money is the root of all evil.

Previously, he only knew the “theoretical” aspect of love. In Episode 5, he described love to Yeonseo. “It makes your heart flutter. You keep on laughing. And you feel jumpy because you’re so happy.” In reality, he failed to recognize that his body’s malfunctions were a sign of him awakening to a new emotion.

He asked the Head Angel, “Doesn’t your blood pressure rise when you hear someone saying awful things? And don’t you feel all ticklish when you feel like you’ve gotten a little closer to someone?”

I think “ticklish” here meant “flustered” or “tingly”. He was beginning to feel sensations he hadn’t known before, as an angel.

But the better sign of his slow transformation to human was his empathy for YeonSeo. Previously, as an angel, he viewed world as black and white. Now, he’s beginning to understand the world from her point of view. Despite being unfairly ejected from her house and grossly accused of being a spy, he still felt pity that she’d missed the simple experience of being loved. His Head Angel wondered why he was dining at a convenience store. He replied that he wanted to observe love from that vantage point.

He saw these:

He mused, “Lee YeonSeo probably has never been like that, right?”

But one thing I find funny about Angel Dan is that during the day, he would be in touch with his angelic nature. Like here, happy-go-lucky.

Or here, chirpy when he helped her learn to walk again.

But when nighttime falls, he becomes more human…strangely enough.

Like this time, when he danced with her for the first time. He was drunk, and he was maudlin. lol.

Or this time, when he felt regret for the first time here and kissed her.

He accused YeonSeo of getting mood swings at sunset. He didn’t know it yet but he, too, is affected by nighttime. There’s nothing like the darkness of the night to bring home the fact that he’s lonely, too. That’s the part of the human condition because we’re individuals.

Do you get it? We’re born alone and we die alone. It’s been said that people are the only creatures that are self-aware of their loneliness.  Thus, people are always longing for connection with others. For bonding. For relationships. For community. For family. For love.

He’s grown susceptible to these feelings like pity, regrets, melancholy, loneliness, because he’s becoming human.

2. The butler

She’s an interesting character.

Butler: Let’s not be like this. Let’s bring Mr. Dan back. Ok?
YS: Should I explain it again from the beginning? He deceived me.
Butler: He just left something out. He wasn’t purposefully lying. Didn’t you say he answered you honestly? If he wanted to hide something, he would’ve lied to the end. Everything in this world seems suspicious to you, don’t they? How do you even bring yourself to trust me?

lol. Yes, this Butler is suspicious. She’s like YeonSeo’s guardian angel or the earthly counterpart of the Dan’s Head Angel.

YS: Because you’re not sweet to me at all.

She means that the Butler isn’t a sycophant. She doesn’t flatter her to gain advantage.

Butler: Look at this. What kind of spy eats this much chocolate?

Another thing that Dan and Lucifer…errr…Kwangwoo have in common: they’re chocoholics. If I was to make a guess here, KW likes hand-made, dark chocolate while Dan likes the mass-produced, Lotte brand, milk chocolate.

Butler: Like a child, he only waited for his birthday.
YS: That was probably the deadline to kill me by.

lol. The irony!! That’s his deadline (literally, DEAD). He has to accomplish his mission by then or he dies, disappears into nothingness. I guess, it can also be considered his deadline to “kill” her dead emotionally. If she’s fallen in love with him (and not Kangwoo), he needs to say his farewell and return to heaven. Their happily-ever-after will come AFTER he passes this deadline. July 11. Or 7-11. lol.

Butler: Look at this! He researched you so thoroughly. What’s this? “Love?” “Dating?” “Feelings?” “Heart?” Oh my word! Could it be…? (laughs) Nah. It couldn’t be.

She’s using reverse psychology here. She’s insinuating that it isn’t possible the Dan fell in love with her, of all people.

YS: What?
Butler: Love…at first sight. He approached you carefully. To taste the same air as you, if only for a moment. He wanted to cherish that moment –
YS: Nonsense. He was sent from above, that’s what he said himself.

YeonSeo took “from above” to mean from the “higher-ups” or the senior people in the Fantasia company. She didn’t realize that Dan was talking about the truly higher-up or the Supreme Authority up in the heavens.

Butler: Yeah! From heaven. He could have been sent by fate.

lol. The butler and the Head Angel also talked about love being sent by fate. The butler is suggesting that Dan is her fate. On the other hand, the Head Angel told Dan, “The bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. You should first look for her rib. Human call that fate,” then he opened the gates (not the pearly gates, if you noticed, lol) for KangWoo.

YS: Do you hate living here that much?
Butler: Didn’t you say he hugged you? A person who looked over this contract so thoroughly, ignored the condition about physical contact.
YS: That was because of the shattered glass.
Butler: “I just want to stay by her side,” is what he must have been thinking. “Just as her secretary. As a physical guardian.”

hahaha. I think this Butler is thinking of Kevin Costner from “The Bodyguard” (1992).

Butler: But people’s feelings can’t be controlled so easily.
YS: Butler— (she throws all the folders in the box and shoves it to her) Take all that to him.
Butler: Since he said he’d been kicked out and has nowhere to go, where and what could he be doing? (YS stops and looks pensive) He must have felt so hurt, being dragged to the police station. (she stops again)

YS remembered Dan shouting, “I was always sincere! I’ve never even lied to you,” and her throwing his hanky back at his face while saying his act had been quite refreshing, at the very least.

Butler: (heaving sighs) She didn’t fall for it.

3. The handkerchief

This is for people who haven’t seen Swan Lake.

 

The feather on the hanky is one of the reasons that, as soon as I finished watching the second hour of this kdrama, I tweeted @lovebangwon that kdrama was loosely based on Swan Lake.

I don’t know how Angel Dan ended up with the feather-embroidered hanky. As a matter of fact, we don’t know how he ended up as an angel.

**Remind me to talk of the rain next time. 🙂

4. KangWoo’s Dead Girl

In Episode 8, KangWoo tried to convince YeonSeo to dance ballet again. She threw money on the ground as payment for saving her that night. KW said she was worth more than that.

KW: Your worth in my eyes is more than a dozen billions, it’s more than trillions. Can you give me that much? Then I’ll give up.
YS: Why, thank you for thinking so highly of me! But what can I do? The Lee YeonSeo that you remember is dead.

His face!

YS: (continuing) Just look at me. (taps her pointing stick) There’s no such thing as a ballerina with three legs.

This scene was noteworthy me because of the two references to the dead. First, YeonSeo probably didn’t realize it yet, but there was a double meaning when she said, “The Lee YeonSeo that you remember is dead.” The real girl in KangWoo’s life was already dead but YeonSeo was going to be instrumental in bringing her (or her memory) back to life.

Second, I say we should take a second look at those shoes.

And her other shoes:

While learning to walk with Angel Dan.

And this pair, when she was going to the press conference:

See? YeonSeo didn’t wear gym shoes. Except for her running shoes which she used for her walks, she wore pretty flats during the day. It was this mysterious girl (YeonSeo’s alter-ego) who died in his arms who wore sneakers.

To me, YeonSeo was clearly NOT in his mind when he beseeched her to dance again in Episode 5. It was probably a slip of the tongue when he mentioned the shoes. He said, “I like you. Because I like you, I’m going crazy. You shouldn’t be just walking on land in your gym shoes. You should be prancing on the clouds and running in celestial paradise. But you are just standing still. Ballet…let’s do it again together.”

That was HIS Dead Girl he was talking about.

The viewers first caught a glimpse of this mysterious Dead Girl in Episode 4. He walked in his house and greeted this larger-than-life image or painting. “I’m back,” he said.

His conversations with his dead girlfriend were also interesting. From Episode 6, after he reflected on YeonSeo’s rejecting his offer, he talked to the Dead Girl.

KW: She doesn’t want to. She flatly rejected me.

He opened a music box with a wooden ballerina inside it.

KW: What can I do to restart Lee Yeon Seo’s heart?

He nudged the wooden ballerina to make it move. Then he turned on the video to watch the Dead Girl.

DG: You can do it! Who said the world is full of dance?
KW (and the Dead Girl together): You, my dear.

Pwahahaha. I thought he was saying a name, “Mathilde.” lol. Kang DongGun can’t pronounce his R’s well.

If I was going to relate KangWoo’s Dead Girl to his ballet of choice, “Giselle,” I’d say that KangWoo was haunted by his “Wilis” or his inner ghosts, specifically his guilt and obsessions. The Dead Girl was his probably Giselle, the one whose love for him (even from the grave) called him to become a better person. You could say that the Dead Girl was his conscience.

It’s easy to confuse “Giselle” and “Swan Lake”.  These are some of my old notes:

a. storywise: in “Swan Lake,” Odette is the Swan Queen and her bevy of swans is her friends who were cursed along with her.

In “Giselle,” the “Wilis” are virgin girls who died of a broken heart. They’re femme fatales. For Giselle to join their ranks, she must kill her unfaithful Prince.

b. style and costume: “Swan Lake” is classical ballet. Dancers are more formal in execution. Focus on technique, footwork. The dancers wear pancake tutus.

“Giselle” is a romantic ballet. Dancers are more willowy and lyrical. The dancers wear tulle, knee-length tutus.

c. *Lessons on love: “Swan Lake”: to love is to choose one. Don’t be deceived by false appearances.

Giselle: Fated to fall in love with an illusion, but still love him enough to save him.

For me, the shift from Classical ballet to Romantic is major one. But this is kdrama so anything is possible, even regaining one technical skills to pre-accident performance level, in less than three months.

In Episode 8, after KangWoo had dinner with Nina, he returned home to listen to the video. He remembered Lee YeonSeo saying, “But what can I do? The Lee Yeon Seo you remembered is already dead and gone.”

Dead Girl: Are you going to keep lecturing me? I know better than anyone in the world how much of a hot mess I am.
KW: Sometimes you need to push yourself so you can go farther.
DG: When you’re going through difficulties, what you really need is the sweetness of chocolate rather than a harsh whiplash. Okay?

She meant that you get better results with nice methods (i.e., chocolate) rather than unkind methods (i.e., whips). And it seemed like KangWoo changed tactics. I’m guessing here that he contacted Angel Dan to arrange that Lantern Festival meeting.

For me, Dan is like the Prince in Swan Lake who fell for bad guy Rothbart. Naively, he’s fallen for KangWoo’s deception and turned over YeonSeo to him.

5. Nina’s observation of Yeonseo

Like a true fangirl, Nina was describing YeonSeo to KangWoo. I think Nina’s a sensitive soul. She’s got that “bleeding heart” which is easily moved to tears and thus, easily abused, too, by others.

Nina: She would often scold the junior dancers. She said, we are all people who were given a talent from the heavens. To do it properly so that all those who want or ever wanted the positions we hold are not shamed. It was also something our childhood ballet teacher was fond of saying.
KW: She learned well from the start.

I don’t know who their childhood ballet teacher was. Maybe Kangwoo’s dead girlfriend? Ha!

To me, YeonSeo’s comeback is linked to her ability to believe in something — or somebody — again. She doesn’t perform just for her sake alone. I like the idea that it was Angel Dan who made her to dance again, NOT simply for romantic reasons, but to prove her right. Her talent DOES come the “heavens” and the “heavens” shall help her regain what she’s lost.

6. Dan’s three wishes

YeonSeo took a tumble on the ground and a young girl teased them about kissing.

Dan: Kissing. Kissing. Kiss—

At first, I thought that he was trying to remember what a kiss meant. But he already kissed her on the bridge in Episode 2. That time, he super-imposed his lips on hers. So he couldn’t be trying to jog his memory what a kiss was.  I’m not sure what he was trying to express here.

Dan: It’s not that…
YS: (pushing him) Hurry and go. Stop thinking out loud embarrassingly.
Dan: I have a wish.
YS: Already?

Flashback to their time in the park. He said he didn’t need money to incentive to go back and work for her.

Dan: Instead, I have a condition. Grant me wishes. Just three of them. The wishes that I ask for you to do – you must do them no matter what.

Hmmm… This may sound funny now. But my sixth sense tells me that he’ll use this wish for some “noble idiocy” in the end, such as asking her to let him go. For her sake, for her happiness, she must forget him.

I dislike this wish-fulfillment trope because nothing good comes out of it.

YS: Are you going to ask for my fortune or my life? Is that it?
Dan: Hey! Who do you think I am? They’ll be good wishes for you. No matter what. (whining) Are you going to grant them, or not?

End of flashback.

Dan: Yes, first wish.
YS: If it’s weird, I’m going to kill you.
Dan: We’re going to be late. Let’s hurry.
YS: To where?
Dan: To make a wish?
YS: Your first wish is to go make a wish?
Dan: Yeah.

For me, the interesting bit here is that the idea of a kiss remained in YeonSeo’s head. Although she knew that his first wish was already fulfilled when she agreed to attend the lantern ceremony, she thought that he might have actually wanted a kiss from her. Ha!

When she thanked him for helping her, and when he sounded pensive, she thought that he was asking for a kiss as a reward.

Dan: I guess you don’t really need me anymore now.
YS: So it seems.
Dan: So this is how it’s going to be. The better and happier you get, the less I’ll have to do. Hey, noisy gong! Walk all you want now. Dance away and curb that temper of yours, too.

At this point, he sounded wistful. He was becoming obsolete and unnecessary.

YS: Is that one of your wishes? (To dance and control her temper)
Dan: Of course not! I’ve only two left. I’ve to use them wisely.
YS: I think I know what it is.

lol. This is called projection. SHE was thinking of the kiss, not Dan.

Dan: How would you know that?
YS: Close your eyes.
Dan: What for?
YS: Your wish. I’m going to grant it for you. Do it before I change my mind. Hurry up.
Dan: I’m pretty sure you’re on the wrong track though. There’s no way you could know.
Dan: (hurrying her up) Well… what are you do—
YS: That’s not – I was going for a reward on the cheek! Why did you turn your head?

And he kissed her.

To me, the location of their first physical kiss was interesting. Dan couldn’t have been more public with that kiss than in an amphitheater. The word “amphi” means “on both sides” and here, Kangwoo was able to see both sides of the action: Dan kissing YS and YS accepting that kiss.

But this is where I think the writing isn’t that clear (or perhaps the acting isn’t clear).

Dan already “kissed” her in spirit back in Episode 2. Back then, he whispered, “You foolish person. A human dies if she doesn’t breathe.” He spoke and acted as if he was personally concerned about her.  However, during the Lantern Festival, Dan seemed ready to give her up to KangWoo.

So, I don’t get this kiss. Was he letting her go to KangWoo or not? When did he realize that he love her? Or was this another one of his impulsive acts? He couldn’t blame alcohol for this one, however.

7. The Lantern Festival

This was the pre-arranged accidental meeting between YS and KW. Personally, I dislike the idea that Angel Dan went behind YeonSeo to arrange this meeting. His loyalty should have been to YeonSeo.

And if I were YeonSeo, I would have been pissed off with Dan. Who was he to decide my “fated” love match? He was no better than a matchmaker at a sogaeting. Was I just a box to be checked off on his list of missions? 

I blame Dan’s naivety. He thought he had a sure thing just because he had KW’s promise to act with the “lady’s happiness” in mind.

But remember what I said in the beginning?

The primary difference between the two angels, Dan and Kang-Woo, is the nature of their love. KW’s version is the inward, self-centered, ego-focused love. That’s why he admires YeonSeo, and looks down on Nina who’s always pitying somebody else.

Dan is his opposite. His version of love is outward-looking. He wants her to love another person. He wants to be thoughtful of others, to thank God (despite her pain) for her gifts, to be something more than a noisy gong.

Because of their opposing understanding of love, their views on happiness also differ. For KW, happiness is an abstract concept. If the Dead Girl was his lover, then yes, I would say that happiness is abstract, indeed because HIS happiness is dead.

As for Dan, happiness is a very real concept and it’s very much alive because happiness meant other people. Dan desires YS’s happiness even when it meant sacrifice on his part.

To me, that’s what this scene is all about.

We’re looking at the scene from the vantage point of Angel Dan. He watched the two, YeonSeo and Kangwoo, standing at the edge of the water. They were ready to launch their “wishes” in the lantern ceremony.

In the background were rocks reflected on the water. Light was shining on the rocks so they look distorted in the distance.

The solid rocks represented Dan who really cared for YeonSeo, while KW was only the mirror-image of the rocks on the water. KW needed YS for his murky plans.

If you were paying attention, too, this director likes to tilt the camera when shooting YeonSeo with Kangwoo. This is called a “Dutch Angle” in cinematography. It’s to give the feeling that something is off-kilter or off-balanced in the world.

In fact, scroll through my screenshots of Kangwoo in this post and you’ll notice that when Kangwoo is all by himself, the shots are also tilted, canted. Interesting, right?

To continue…

Although YeonSeo waited for Dan to come to her side, he gave up his spot for KW. He was happy for her and wished her happiness. He prayed, “Please let her find a sincere love. Let the fated match be better than an angel.”

As KW and DS launched their paper lanterns from the shore, Dan thought that he too was launching the love affair of the two individuals.

He was unaware that YeonSeo already sensed something fishy about KangWoo’s “friend” story. YeonSeo wasn’t falling in love with KW.

KW: Please know that the life that you’re giving up on, it may be a dream that you’ve desperately wished for.
YS: By any chance, was the friend you came to meet…

I think YeonSeo will probably figure out faster than Dan the paper lantern was symbolic, too. To Kangwoo, she’s a paper lantern. Her body is an empty vessel to carry and fulfill the wishes of his Dead Girl.

Okay, I’ve to end this now because I’ve to prepare for work. I’ve a few more things to write about but I’ll just post some other time about them. I must remember to talk about the rain….