This will be brief because I still have to watch Episode 6. Just a handful of notables:

1. The hands

I told you that hands were significant, didn’t I? In this episode, the writer tells us more about this hand metaphor.

Chulsan: Did she say anything about you?
Dosan: My hands. Just my hands nothing else.
Youngsan: Dolsan, when humans switched from all fours (meaning from crawling on hands and feet to walking on two feet) to two limbs, their brains started to grow. Why? The other two limbs had nothing to do, so they became hands. (gives him a sticky note) The use of hands led to the development of the human brain and toolmaking, thus establishing cultures and histories.
Dosan: What’s your point?
Chulsan: Jeez, a fellow engineering major should understand him. He’s trying to say that it’s not “just” your hands. The hands are everything. Isn’t that what you mean?
Youngsan: That’s right.

The sticky note said, “Man is most intelligent because he has hands.”

The director then juxtaposed the images of Dosan and Dalmi contemplating their hands. I think there are two ways to interpret this. On one hand, (lol) both Dosan and Dalmi viewed their empty hands as a sign that they were nobodies.

Dalmi:

Dosan:

But on another hand, I find it very interesting that they derived almost contrasting emotions from being the “chosen one.” Did you see that?

For Dalmi, she didn’t care whether Dosan was a hotshot or not. She was just happy that he chose her and not her Unnie, InJae. She knew she was a nobody, so she wondered why he bothered to hold her hand instead of InJae’s. However, the fact that he hand-picked her to be his CEO made her ambitious.

In her own words to her Grandma, “I keep getting more ambitious. I started this because I wanted to win against InJae because of Dad. Now, I’m getting really ambitious.”

She meant that she wanted to be better than her unnie, not anymore for her father’s sake, but for her own sake.

As for Dosan, he was relieved that he no longer had to pretend to be a hotshot. However, after the initial happiness that she accepted to be his CEO, he still seemed apprehensive. He didn’t look elated; he looked anxious. He was a nobody who partnered up with someone who too good for him.

He told them, “I know that she’s too good for me, but I keep wanting more. I keep getting more desperate.” To me, he wasn’t merely worried that he couldn’t measure up to her. He was bothered that he was overreaching.

Like Dalmi, he was ambitious.

However, there’s a difference between his motivation and Dalmi’s ambition. Dalmi’s ambition was to prove to her sister and mother that she (and by extension, her father) weren’t losers. Although Dosan gave her the means to prove her sister wrong by picking her as his CEO, Dosan himself didn’t actually figure in her equation. Her goal was to prove herself to her family, not to Dosan. She was confident that she already had Dosan on her side…because of the letters.

Meanwhile, Dosan was also becoming ambitious for Dalmi. But he was ambitious to prove his self-worth to her. She became a very big part of HIS equation. Of course, his friends were his motivation, too,

but she sparked this desperation.

And according to his parents, he was never like this before. .

His father described his unworldly attitude to Alex, “He prefers to lose. That’s why his nickname is Living Buddha….He has no interest in materialistic things or becoming famous.” He was only greedy for food.

This was excellent visual by the cinematographer.

If success in life was like a marathon, he began well ahead of everybody.

But he allowed people to pass him by. He was happy to be in the middle of the pack. He was unbothered by the rat race. That’s why he was called, “Living Buddha.” He was a direct opposite of “Good Boy.”

But his mother predicted, “Dosan is as smart as Steve Jobs or Bill Gates, but he lacks ambition. That’s why he’s in this mess now. The moment he becomes ambitious, it’ll be game over.”

And that’s what the broken pen signaled to Alex.

Alex came home looking for Dosan because he had the false impression that he was this crass, uninhibited, materialistic punk. Remember this?

So he was very surprised by the parents’ honest and contradictory assessment of their son.

2. The pen as a symbol of ambition

To me, pen has many implications in this episode but I’ll narrow it down to three.

First, ambition. Alex recognized the broken pen as an awakening of Dosan’s ambition to succeed.

He witnessed Dosan’s failure in the try-outs. Dosan’s program failed to detect that a text created by InJae’s program was a forgery. His program was designed with the ambitious goal of protecting systems like banks, security and medical documentation from forged signatures and counterfeit documents. But InJae’s program was able to penetrate his “shield” like a “spear.”

In frustration, Dosan broke his pen, and Alex who witnessed this, smiled.

He picked this broken pen up afterwards and saw this as THE sign that Dosan that he was breaking out of his world.

That’s the reason he chose SamSan Tech at the evaluation. He said he’d thoroughly checked Dosan’s algorithm and when he considered the amount of time given to design the program (less than 48 hours), he was amazed. He saw something special in Dosan, and he wanted to be the mentor with whom Dosan would take his first steps.

I guess, we don’t have to be rocket scientists or computer scientists to see the future conflict here. JP would consider Dalmi his protégé while Alex would like to take Dosan under his wing.

It struck me as odd that JP didn’t give Dalmi heads-up that Samsan Tech advanced to the next round. He was there at the meeting so he would have known about the final decision. And she was the CEO so she could have been told, too, about the final decision.

His excuse here sounded lame. It would have been better if he had improvised and talked about Samsan’s advancement to the next round.

3. The pen as contrast between JP and Dosan

The pen can also be seen as a comparison between JP and Dosan. There’s a difference in the way these two men used the pen.

It wasn’t just a writing implement, you know…. lol.

Dalmi was out in the hallway, feeling nervous about her presentation. JP happened to pass by and he helped Dalmi out. He asked her permission, “I’ll revise this a little. Is that okay?” before he started to correct her speech. He gave her some tips, based on his wide experience.

The pen here was for instruction. It underscored who the mentor and the mentee were in this relationship.

In contrast, it was Dalmi who helped Dosan out when their program hit a technical snag. Although she wasn’t a techie, she was able to give Dosan a different way of looking at the problem. She was the “mentor” in this real sense, despite being untrained in his field.

Dalmi: Guys, I think—
Chulsan: (brusquely) We’re all busy now, so save it later.
Dosan: (looking at her) Dalmi, what is it?

I have to give him brownie points here for listening to her. He wasn’t at all patronizing; he truly wanted to hear what she had to say.

Dalmi: Jane may prefer flowers, but I prefer rocks.
Everybody else: (looks at her)

This is cute. She was alluding to the Tarzan and Jane conversation she had with Dosan about “machine learning.” According to Dosan, a computer is like Tarzan who grew up on a deserted island and never saw a woman in his life. So when Jane arrived at the island, he tried to give her a rock and Jane didn’t like it. When he gave her a flower, she became happy. She didn’t like it when he gave her a snake or when he yelled. But she like it when he gave her a bunny and when he smiled. By building experiences like that, he learned how to win her heart.

Of course, we all know that the writer wasn’t just talking about Tarzan and Jane here, right? We all know that this was a foreshadowing of Dosan and Dalmi’s courtship, too.

Dalmi: Flowers are useless on a deserted island. With rocks, you can knock fruits off trees and scare of wolves. That’s why I’d prefer rocks to flowers.

Chulsan: Hey Dosan, make sure you get her a big rock, not flowers.

Dosan ignored his friend and started clicking his pen.

This was a sign that he was digesting what Dalmi told him. He was “machine learning.” Did you get it? The sound of the pen clicking was like the sound of a machine when ticking. The cogs are turning in his head.

He was assimilating her words and trying to make them fit in his frame of mind. I like this scene because he was an engineering guy, but he understood Dalmi’s poetic language. I like that he was adapting himself to Dalmi’s vivid way of describing situations…just like in her letters. This was his way of “machine learning.”

Then he got it.

Dosan: Everyone’s taste is different.

He was still clicking on the pen before he decided the course of action.

Dosan: Let’s change the network structure.

His friends protested but he explained that they had used this network structure when they were working with video data (for the facial recognition). But handwriting data had a totally different pattern, so the same network wouldn’t work.

In other words, if their program was Tarzan, they should change tactics because they weren’t going after Jane anymore.

Dosan: Let’s completely redo it and come up with a slimmer network.
Dalmi: Yes, that’s exactly what I wanted to say.

lol. She was kidding, of course. She didn’t understand software design. But Dosan just smiled at her. The guys continued to protest because of the amount of work.

Dalmi: Still we should try something new rather than being stuck with the wrong answer.
Youngsan: If it doesn’t work, we have to pack up.
Dalmi: Right.
Dosan: Let’s try it.

And the pen was shown again.

Do you get why I didn’t see the pen just as a useless prop? Whenever the director insists on making close-up shots like this, he wants us to take a closer look and think about it.

While JP used the pen to revise Dalmi’s work because he was imparting his knowledge to her, Dosan was absent-mindedly clicking the pen because he was focusing his thoughts on Dalmi’s words. He decided to revise his work based on her suggestion…because he trusted her. As Chulsan pointed out, she was only a high school graduate, but that didn’t bother Dosan because Dosan was the “Living Buddha.” He regarded Dalmi as his peer, his equal. She was his CEO, but he was the CTO, or Chief Technology Officer.

4. The pen as reminder of the fake letters

The pen also reminds me of the time Grandma and JP wrote the first letter to Dalmi. He was writing, “My name is Dosan. I want to be friends with you. That’s why I picked up a pen to write this letter.”

Grandma corrected him, “But you’re holding pencil.” She said she was only joking when he looked at her in exasperation. He started again, “That’s why I picked up a pen to write this letter,” and she insisted, “It’s a pencil.”

I find it ironic then, that fifteen years later, the project that Dalmi proposed to do was detecting forgery. She wanted a program that would distinguish forged handwriting from authentic ones. 😂 If she ever tested the software on Dosan’s handwriting and the letters she received, then she’d find out that Dosan was never her letter-writer.

Dosan designed a mousetrap for himself and JP.

5. Dosan vs Jipyung

In previous episodes, Dosan always tried to hold it in when JP belittled him. Except in rare moments, e.g., when he won CODA the competition, he rarely showed JP how he truly felt about him.

But his personality changed after he took on Dalmi as his CEO. He clearly felt burdened by his deception. Hence, Dalmi’s discovery of the truth was like a liberation for him. He didn’t have to be an avatar or puppet following JP’s bidding anymore. He could be real self with her.

JP was naturally worried that Dosan revealed the truth.

JP: How much did you tell her?
Dosan: Sorry?
JP: Tell me how much did Dalmi find out?
Dosan: Which part are you worried about? The fact that I’m not a hotshot? (releasing his hand from JP’s grasp) Or that the letters from her first love were fake?

To me, these questions sounded odd, but JP didn’t notice anything amiss. To my ears, Dosan was insinuating that JP was only concerned about himself – that is, JP was only worried that her discovery of the truth would backfire on himself, but he wasn’t concerned about the other parties involved.

JP: She knows about the letters?
Dosan: No. Not yet.
JP: Was she very disappointed that you’re not a hotshot?

Here, he asked Dosan how Dalmi felt. Dosan sounded happy to report that Dalmi didn’t mind that she got him instead of JP.

Dosan: No, it actually made her happy.
JP: It made her happy? She’s not angry?
Dosan: No.
JP: What about me? She doesn’t think I’m weird? I participated in tricking her and even led it? She must be dying to know why I did it.
Dosan: Mr. Han. She hasn’t said a word about you.
JP: Really?
Dosan: Yes. You don’t have to lend me your car or watch. You don’t need to worry –

There. He must resented that he had to borrow a car and watch from JP.

JP: (dressing up) How can I not? You and Dalmi are on the same team now. Hold this for a second. On top of that, even her sister is at Sand Box now. She’ll be devastated if her sister gets in and she doesn’t.

JP thought that he had to be the one “saving” Dalmi. But in Dosan’s mind, JP was no longer necessary. He could take it from there and help Dalmi on his own power and efforts.

Dosan: (seeing JP’s shirt) What are you doing?
JP: My question exactly. What am I doing right now? I can’t believe I have to wear this when I should be raising funds. And a hackathon mentor? Will there be many reporters? I don’t want them to take pictures of me.

lol, @nrllee!! Do you remember how I annoyed I was with his character in “100 Days, My Prince?” This actor has always looked good at looking disagreeable.

As Celine Dion would say, “It’s all coming back to me right now.”

I don’t know whether JP was just talking smack to impress Dosan that he was a “hotshot,” e.g., he had to make millions, and he had paparazzi UNLIKE Dosan. But if he only knew that he was talking to “Living Buddha,” then he would have known that Dosan wouldn’t be impressed by all this.

Dosan: You’ve done enough. I’ll take care of it.
JP: You’re scaring me. That’s the scariest thing I’ve heard. What have you been doing all this time? If I were Yongsan or Chulsan, I’d ask you to compensate for the past two years of my life.
Dosan: (sighing)
JP: What? Are you offended? Does that piss you off?

He knew that his remarks would piss Dosan off. That’s why he said them.

Dosan: (bowing his head) Yes, a little.
JP: (seeing the candies tucked in his hoodie) What’s that?
Dosan: No, that’s —
JP: You don’t get to be angry because it’s a fact. I’ll give you a chance to get angry if you get into Sand Box. Oh, my blood sugar is dropping. (About to open Dalmi’s favorite candy)
Dosan: (sees it and grabs it from him) This is mine.

JP: (shocked)
Dosan: (checks the other candies in JP’s hand) Wait, let me see.
JP: What’s with him?

Of course, we all know what this means, right? Dosan was “protective” of the candies because they were Dalmi’s favorites.

So, consider gummies as one of Tarzan’s “machine learning” words. The snacks were Dalmi’s favorite so he went Tarzan on clueless JP.

That’s it for now. I said I was keeping this short so I could watch Ep 8 and do other things.