When I reviewed Episode 1, I talked about the moon here, and I said it symbolized “yearning.” Now, I’m going to expand on to it because I finished Episode 4.

I said that Won looked up at the moon and he yearned to meet JiSoo. Seowoo looked up at the moon, and she thought of Won’s yearning for Jisoo and she, too, yearned for that kind of devotion.

In Episode 2, she had a conversation with Mr. Dawn.

SW: I wonder, how on earth did he endure it for ten years? I’m so curious.
HW: Don’t you think it’s possible if it’s precious? If it’s someone who is like the essence of one’s life, I think it’s possible. Some people live because a single word captured their heart.
SW: (thinking about what he said and agreeing) One word…I do feel like if I hear just THAT one word, I can live well. Holding onto it for about three years. A word that nobody would say to me. “Stay with me.”

And I like that way she avoided his eyes.

She wanted someone to long for her company, for her presence, so much that he’d hold onto her. She wanted to be essential to that person.

Yearning for the moon is like a one-sided love. Both she and Ha won were longing to grasp something that appeared unattainable like the moon. Their unrequited love looked hopeless.

Now, a few notes on the visual imagery.

First, the moon, Ha Won’s moon.

You know in Korean dramas, the sun often symbolizes the king or the male, and the moon is the queen or the female. So when I saw the crescent moon here, I thought of an incomplete woman in his life. She’s incomplete for two possible reasons:

one, because she represents Jisoo. Her important in his life is about to disappear. She’s like a waning moon.

two, because she represents Seewoo. She hasn’t yet fully reappeared in his life, like a waxing moon. Waxing is another term for growing.

Next, Jisoo’s moon.

I thought her moon is a half moon…like the letter “D” made by that Mysterious Patient in Episode 4. I thought a half moon was appropriate for Seowoo because she’s only looking at a one-sided love. She’s missing her lover. For her, it’s only HALF a love affair.

Then, notice the trees in both screenshots? The bare branches of the trees remind me of long fingers. They’re trying to reach for the moon and grasp it.

And that is what the Mystery Woman was doing here. She was asked to draw a house, and instead she drew a half moon. The doctor and Ha Won were talking about the name of the program.

Doctor: By the way, what is this program called?
HW: D Program.
Doctor: D as in “A, B, C, D”?
HW: (pointing at the video playing on the screen) Over there.
Doctor: Aah, that? That’s not “D.” When I asked her to draw a house, she drew a moon, a half moon.

That makes sense. Her house isn’t a full house because her daughter died. It’s incomplete. It’s a half moon because the other half is now gone.

Doctor: (continuing) She’s totally fine, always smiling. Her problems? She never talks about them. The reason why she came here was also because of your counselling tool. Her daughter’s will.

Interesting, right? When I heard this, I thought of JiSoo and wondered whether this mystery ahjumma had a connection to her.

Here’s the translation from Kissasian.

“She came here because she heard about us from your consultation system. Her daughter’s final wish.”

Something about the doctor’s remark puzzled HW so he listened to the videotape.

He heard the patient and doctor talking. The patient sounded normal, talking about mundane things, “If a woman gets older than 50 years old, pomegranate is good. Pomegranate is the best food supplement for menopause. If it’s hard to eat, it’s also good to blend with beet, carrots or apples together.”

But when the doctor left her momentarily, her cool façade broke down. She glanced at her drawing. and she appeared to control her emotions. She reached out, clenched her hand, then reached out again.

HW watched her repeat this grasping motion.

And that’s why I said early that the leafless tree branches looked like hands reaching across the sky to grasp the moon.

The mysterious lady here was doing it here. Her daughter was dead, and she could only grasp at thin air.

Later in Episode 4, we see another “reach for the moon” scene.

He was going to the pedestrian overpass, and tracing the footstep of Jisoo. He didn’t notice that SeoWoo was following him.

His “moon” was gone, but SeoWoo still had her moon. From the sidewalk, she was looking up at her moon, standing on the footbridge and taking a photograph.

The director filmed her from many different angles so we wouldn’t miss this.

I thought that it was fitting that his moon was gone because back in Episode 2, when Jisoo stood him up, he vowed then to stop waiting for her.

Moon all gone!

However, although I know that moment moved so many of you (right, @agdr03?), I prefer this scene from Episode 2. Seowoo was on the phone with JiSoo and she was running to get Han Won from the cafe.  She heard the crash of tree branch on JiSoo’s hut, and she knew JiSoo was dead. In the end, a single leaf didn’t fall lightly on Jisoo’s shoulder.

I thought it was odd for the director to suddenly switch from Seowoo running in the street and shoot her from above.

Then I saw that she was standing in between two manholes. A small one and a big one with a yellow circle around it.

Do you know what this screenshot reminded me off?

A solar eclipse.

Because we’re nerdy bitches, it’s an annular solar eclipse. It’s the one with a yellow ring because the moon blocks out almost the entire face of the sun, except for its perimeter.

That’s what SeoWoo looked like to me. She appeared to be the moon blocking almost all of the sun, leaving only a yellow ring, and she had become the new moon.

So there you go. I already talked about thunder, and sunset vs sunrise/dawn and now moon. To me, through all these “metaphors” comparing JiSoo and SeoWoo, the writer is showing us that Jisoo was only the precursor to the real love of Woo’s life.