The final open thread is here!
1. Gif credit: irwhailen’s tumblr
This is for @agdr03. (ref. the corndog)
l
2. Gif credit: moonlightsdream’s tumblr
Let’s enjoy the finale!
47 Comments On “Do Do Sol Sol La La Sol: Eps 15 & 16 Open Thread”
Comments are closed.
Oh my corndog! 😆 Oh it’s Jun’s corndog.🤦🏻♀️ 😂
Let’s finish this series off and it looks like we will have a good time jump so looking forward to it. 🤞🏻😉
Thank you! 🍫
WOW, are they really throwing Leukemia into this at this stage of the series?!!
Sigh @JohnL IKR. Plus Jun’s plan to act like a jerk to help Rara get over him, and then his 180º turn later while still not telling her the truth shows his immaturity. He’s a scared 19 yo. I thought LJW nailed the nuances this episode.
And that teaser for the finale! I am assuming (and hoping) they are trolling us again.
Off topic: just wanted to wish all who celebrate it a very happy Thanksgiving.
Dear show,
If your idea of a happy ending is Jun dying but everyone is left with warm memories of him, then you are not my friend.😃
Please stop trolling us and give us a real happy ending! 🙏 And Jun and Rara meeting again in their next life does not count as a happy ending!😃
Ep 15 bring back the the ‘twinkles’ again for me just like ep 1 – 13
Although I still hate the way Jun break up with rara in ep 14, surprisingly I’m not that annoyed with the leukimia part, because the writer already give hints from his nosebleeds before😄
And I think it was blessings in disguise for him. Because of it, his parents won’t opposed to his love for rara and it’s kind of of redemption too for his parents. This ep i’m touched with their love and determination to save jun. And I still believe he will survive it.
And I like how this drama revealing Jun as dodosollalasol
John_L! I facepalmed so hard I nearly gave myself a black eye.
Leukemia. Sheez.
I don’t want to hear that the OTP (“One True Pair”) of the show is Rara and her piano.
Even if the director is just trolling us, by the time this whole leukemia thing gets resolved, we won’t have a lot of time left for the couple scenes, and Jun’s aging up.
Too many filler scenes in this drama, and too many side characters. Like Dr. Cha’s wife. What’s her point?
I thought that the show tried to copy “When the Camellia Blooms” with its mystery plot, neighborly setting, nosy ahjummas. down-on-her-luck heroine, and besotted guy. But Camellia’s story was tight. There wasn’t any excess trimmings.
I agree with your comment Jun. He still keeps running away.
This is my first time commenting on this site i really just kinda stalked it before i liked reading the analysis on hospital playlist and all the comments form the regular people.
the fact the leukemia is brought up i do agree is believable in a way but i think it could have been better if it was brought sooner if this was trolling it seems like the writer is ramping up the trolling again and again just for the preview to seem like one but isn’t. i don’t know though, they’ve been using the pieces of music as foreshadowing and Man-Bok’s past with his wife.
Man-Bok’s wife fell ill and died so he was left alone, his son is a bad son honestly not even waiting for his father to wake up before saying to sell the buildings but June as always there so Jim now being sick and not wanting Rara to see him sick.
This episode makes me think of a scene in “I Am Not a Robot” where the main boy tells the girl about how if his appearance changes not to be scared. I think Jun is scared of how he’ll look when ill.
Jun’s mother tells him he can see Rara when he’s better and they need to focus on his health even with that he doubles back and runs to the cafe, i think it’s obvious for a second he’d wanted to tell her about him being sick but different.
also side not the way Jun was looking at the small glass before going to his bag i thought he was gonna pull out the teacup, was that just me?
Welcome to the blog, eunoxx.
That tea cup is the reason I’m holding on to hope that the writer isn’t going to kill Jun tomorrow. He already explained everything to Rara except for the teacup that he pilfered because he didn’t want Rara to marry anyone else but him.
@anis yes you have a point there, the illness helped reveal the softer, kinder side to his parents. And it was nice how the whole ddsslls story was played out, and tied up in the end, with that first meeting and last meeting at that cafe.
@packmule I am still assuming doc is going to get back with his ex heh. I wonder if they are going to give a happy ending to the Rara’s ex though?
So many of the teasers were just meant to troll us, so I doubt they are going to kill Jun off. 😅 I hope the time away in treatment gives us a fully healed, more mature Jun. At least we see he’s had some closure for his trauma wrt Jihun’s death, and is able to find a good friend in SK. After that rollercoaster ride of heartbreak, they need to give us that wedding! After all, they have Joyful weddings just waiting to plan it all out for them. 😏
If it doesn’t end with Rara and Jun happy ending then I’m seriously going to throw some hands. I mean, whyyyyyy just why did they give Jun leukimia in episode 15
In kdrama world, leukemia is treatable so long as there is a family member/ others who is suitable donor. Don’t worry. 🙂 Unless it’s cancer stage three or 4 that is no longer curable… that is a different story.
Sigh. Just finished the finale, and the ending was disappointing. I really wanted to like this show, and I was hoping for a good wrap up. The 2 leads were really good, I loved the side stories (director was such a highlight of the show), the warmth of the Eunpo tribe, how they thoughtfully weaved in all the classical pieces. I thought the balance between heartbreak and happy was well done, and the story arc for DDSSLLS was nicely done.
But Jun’s noble idiocy and not wanting to let Rara know he was sick, then his sudden death (will not say more in case of spoilers) and reasons behind it, and the final, rather rushed closing scenes spoilt it for me. I think the writer got carried away with the trolling and wanting to give a twist to every.single.thing. She tried to fit too many tricks into her hat, and it became ridiculous. Sigh. If she had kept it simpler she could have tied things up nicely, and given us more of the Jun+Rara/young grandpa+sunja moments that we all loved. In the end, the dead body was really a lame plot device!
Oh well. I did enjoy Ep 1-13, and Ep 15. Thank you @packmule and everyone here for being around for this rather nutty roller coaster ride. I’ll never look at a corndog, melted choc or Mozart’s Ah vous dirai-je Maman the same way again! And I will miss Mimi and her fabulous wardrobe. I think one good thing about this show is how it has rekindled my love for classical music. I’ve compiled a Spotify playlist of all the pieces in the show here, in case any of you are interested: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3lXxAqlaK4EhhSFOVGXZW8?si=H2xyQob1Rr-uHdRl33CG7A
Ooof!
Thanks for the heads-up, JT7. Thanks for watching it for the team.
This is going on my Did-Not-Finish (DNF) pile then. 😒
Thanks for compiling all the music! Is the original piece, the “homecoming” music, released already?
Ep 16. Disappointing final
I’ll pretend this drama end at ep 13
Agreed @JT7. Ep 1-13 I enjoyed, but him dying & resurrecting and a rushed ending was not palatable. And SERIOUSLY, are you really going to send your mom to lie that you died to your girlfriend?!!
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.
Oh @packmule please do watch the last episode! I think it has it’s redeeming moments and they did tie up some parts nicely. Director banging on the piano is just too funny, Jaemin’s story ends nicely, and the final duet was really good, especially since they rewrote a whole new variation on Twinkle. But do it after Thanksgiving heh, and brace yourself for the sloppy ending!
The homecoming piece has been released, and it was up on Spotify but I think it was taken down later (it’s in my playlist but recently I find I cannot play it in Spotify). You can still find it on youtube though, it’s called Twenty Fingers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUDuzj7H_0U
I will watch the finale later today. Here are my next piano projects:
1. Transcribe 20 Fingers from DDSSLLS.
2. Compose a piece inspired by Zombie Detective. Already have a title and a couple of ideas, so stay tuned!
Happy Thanksgiving!
OOoh, definitely looking forward to your composition, @Snow_Flower!
What kind of sloppy ending 🙄🙄🙄
They could have done anything but what they did for the past 3 episodes, especially 16. I’m so disappointed, we didn’t even get many cute Jun and Rara moments for the last 2 episodes just lots of tears and pining for each other😪 The scenes were also quite confusing and disjointed in 15 😕
I don’t understand why Jun’s mum lied to Rara, what was the point, did Jun tell her to? The series could have been wrapped up in a much better way!
One of the worst endings I’ve seen in a k-drama so far. (The episode is sad but OK until the last five minutes, which is what ruined it for me). Where’s the Joyful Weddings wedding I waited for? It would have made more sense and might have been more satisfying if Jun has actually died. It was cruel for him to break up with Ra Ra when he first discovered he was sick and even more cruel to not communicate with her for five flipping years while she thought he was dead just so he could fully recover out of her sight.
The only explanation for the visit from Mom after the Xmas party was if he was in a coma that no one thought he would recover from. I don’t think she actually said he was dead, but spoke of him in the past tense…
I guess the whole purpose of the stalker in the plot was to set up their first meeting in the coffee shop since he stole her wallet?
This was one of my favorite shows this year until the illness (and Jun’s noble exit) was introduced into the plot…
Episode 17 was unrealistically cruel. Given the drawn out pathos of the last half, I would have been happier if the last few minutes turned out to be a dream or hallucination. It reminded me of Dr John, the end of which I also disliked. ‘I didn’t want you to see me until I was completely better, so I’ll act like I’m dead.’ This went one better and involved his mother in the lie.
—So patronising to RaRa and his friends and so tragic for Mr Kim.
Ahem. Having said that, @packmule3, Jun did grow up well. 😈.
I would say that the last episode was unevenly weighted with too many repeat views of the past and not nearly enough Jun + RaRa moving forward which is what we all signed up for.
Episode 16, not 17. Sorry. I must be dehydrated.
So, I watched the finale. Sigh. At least Jun is alive and well. But what if Rara met someone else and got married? It was so out of character for Jun not to let Rara know what was going on.
Looking forward to Lee Jae Wook’s next project. I want to see him as a long haired tragic swordsman in a historical drama.😃
I went to take a look at the type of leukemia that Jun was diagnosed with and it’s Acute Myeloid Leukemia. It’s not a nice one to get. Prognosis is not great.
Wikipedia
“The five-year survival rate is about 35% in people under 60 years old and 10% in people over 60 years old.”
So chances are the noble idiocy trope played out where he decided to just let RaRa live her life without him in case he didn’t make it through. Most doctors use 5years in remission as a guide to tell the patient that they are “cured”. That’s because most cancers if they do recur, happens in that 5 year window. So if you haven’t suffered a relapse in 5years after treatment, then the oncologist is likely to pronounce that you are “cured”. So I guess that’s why the 5 years absence plays out in the story? But yeah, you gotta question why he thought RaRa was better off thinking he was dead 🙄 in the meantime.
Thank you, @JT7, for compiling the list of classical pieces heard on DDSSLLS. I am a musician, and sometimes I realize that I take music for granted. It was nice for the drama to show how music can change people and bring joy to their lives. Even though the show was not perfect, I will remember it for the music and LJW. And the ahjummas.
Another drama about music and healing that I enjoyed is 30 but 17 (Still 17). The main heroine was a violinist, and the ending was handled much better than in DDSSLLS.
This drama was disapointing. At the end, Jun always lied to Rara : his age, the fact he was Dodo[…], the fact he had a girlfriend, his sickness, his death…
I don’t think I have the same notion of love relationship than the writter.
✅ Great point, Sayaris! I have little in common with this writer’s notion of love as presented in this drama.
If I take away the heart-fluttering moments (well, all kdramas have them) and my fondness for the actor LJW, and simply rate the drama on its message about romance, I must warn viewers of so many red flags.
Like, did the writer really expect us to believe that Jun could just come back in 5 years, and everything would reset? Rara grew up, too, in that same time period. Did both of them have an arrested development and leap through time without any growth or change in mindset and personality?
It’s not only the lying, it’s also the RUNNING AWAY. He always runs away when there’s a problem. Darn it. Even that church scene when he burst in, grabbed her wrist and ran away with the bride. He ran away from his parents because he was rebelling and he was suffering from post-traumatic stress. Now, he ran away again from Rara and the Eunpo people because he was sick and he was suffering from some noble idiocy. Ugh.
@packmule3 we got our time skip, but the death announcement 🙄 why couldn’t Jun just be “aboard studying” until they meet again? Or just share the information that his ill.
So heartbreaking for Rara and how does Jun know Rara would wait for him? 😒 after x amount of years she may have finally let him go and after x amount of time she might of met someone else.
I had the same thought as @Sayaris when Jun reappeared. I could only think that he had really become a smooth liar. And I didn’t think it was a lie that was beneficial for RaRa. Compare his explanation to Dosan’s emotional apologies. What does that bode for their future together?
He was such an ‘ideal boyfriend’ contender. ☹️ No longer.
I can only ask whether concealing major illness might be culturally acceptable elsewhere and that I’m judging by western standards?
lol. We definitely had our time skip but it was the wrong excuse for a time skip. I wanted the time skip to show us that he’d mature, but instead, he came back and we’re scratching heads asking “Why???? Why did you do that?”
Agree. What if Rara left the place, moved on, found a new life and fell in love again, and had a family with this new person? What would he do then? Runaway with her again? Jun was counting on Rara to remain single and pine for him for the rest of her life. Grrrr… Selfish, self-important kid.
We liked the idea of the time jump so he could grow up. But this one? My lasting impression of him isn’t good. What a waste of a good character, writer.
I agree with you, Fern. When Rara was punching him, I had a vision of him falling off the cliff.
And what does that say about him? He thought it was okay to conceal a life-threatening illness from her? Part of the marital vow is pledging to be there for each other “in sickness and in health.” Didn’t he trust her to be there for him in sickness?? Did he think that she could only handle the good times, and not the bad times? He didn’t think much of her and her love for him then.
I wouldn’t marry him knowing that he would hide something like that from me.
I don’t get this writer’s mentality. Nope.
I googled “why is the ending to DDSSLLS so weird” earlier today to see if the writer had tried to explain her reasoning behind the last minute plot twist. I didn’t find anything from her but did see someone theorize that the only way the last episode makes sense (that Jun isn’t cruel and immature) is if Ra Ra is just seeing his ghost, thinking about him as she plays the piece. It would be sad if she hasn’t moved on in five years and is still longing for him, but not as awful as him returning after playing dead for five years. That’s how I’m going to interpret it so I won’t hate it so much.
Since leukemia was always going to be part of the storyline from the start (the nosebleeds), the writer could have plotted it better instead of rushing through it in the last two episodes. Oh well. I may give up on live watching k-dramas and wait to make sure the next one doesn’t have such a strange and disappointing ending.
I especially disliked that Jun wrote a letter to Mr Kim who received it just after awakening from a coma. He told Mr Kim to keep his illness a secret from RaRa. It seemed an awful burden to place on an old man and friend. This seemed to go contrary to all of Jun’s precocious wisdom and actions in the early episodes.Mr Kim’s tears at the Christmas recital were hard to watch.
I like the idea @BethB wrote that perhaps we should take it as a dream, but it didn’t seem to be open to interpretation unless I missed something. Something classic like – she sees Jun after she has laid her head on the piano and then looks up, she hits her head, she gets very drunk or is shown having the conversation with him while wearing pjs. 😊 @packmule3, do you have an alternative ending?
@packmule3, yes absolutely about his perception of the depth of RaRa’s love. Would she herself rather not be there to personally support him with her presence and music regardless of the outcome? Same with all of his other Eunpo friends. I think they would have preferred the truth and been able to help him any way they could.
Here is an alternate ending:
Scratch the illness. Jun tells Rara that he promised his parents to finish his studies (in exchange for purchasing the building). He goes to school, hopefully studying what he wants, and she goes to graduate school. When she is finished with grad school, she moves back to Eunpo and reopens Lala Land. She waits for him until he is done with school. He moves to Eunpo and they marry. The wedding is planned by SEung Gi and Ha Yeong.
Sigh I’m still trying to wrap my head around THAT ending. I don’t think Jun was expecting Rara to wait for him though, if so, he would have kept her teacup. It felt like the writer ran out of time after having a field day with all the twists, and just tacked on his return to make it a “happy” ending. Also I get the impression that this drama had to keep a strict time limit of 1 hour per episode? They def could have saved time to explain it all, if they had ditched some of the lame plot devices (dead body, well dressed man etc), and also reduced on the number of flashbacks to explicitly show how the scenes are parallels. C’mon your audience is savvy enough to draw the parallels without needing you to keep rehashing the past scenes!
I was wondering if the writer initially intended for Jun to be on his deathbed when mum rushed down to meet Rara, and she carries out his wishes while thinking that he was going to die any minute. But he manages to take a turn for the better. As @nrllee mentioned about the prognosis and the 5 yr window, Jun and his parents may have decided that it would have been better to just leave things as they are, to avoid giving the folks in Eunpo false hope, only to have him die later and make them have to grieve a second time. I wished they had given Jun time to explain himself, just as he was able to do when it came to explaining the story arc of him being DDSSLLS. Instead they gave him one pathetic line to do so, and it felt really out of character. If he had faked his death it means that Grandpa died while grieving Jun’s passing which is terrible. Also, wouldn’t Jun have understood the burden he placed on SK, having to mourn the loss of a good friend?
Speaking of DDSSLLS, I was also thinking that it would have been so much more dramatic, and meaningful, if the writer had opted to reveal DDSSLLS’s identity right at the very end of the show, instead of doing it in Ep 15. This was the main thread that tied everything together after all. If the writer had felt that the leukaemia, the noble idiocy, and the 5 year separation were necessary to the plot, then leaving the reveal right to the very end would have provided Jun and Rara that connection with each other (and means for emotional support) during that time of separation, just like how Rara confided in DDSSLLS when she broke up with Jun, and that also allowed Jun to understand and let Rara go when she did so.
Even if Jun parallels Grandpa and breaks up with Rara thinking she would be better off not being bogged down by him because he might die anytime, and heads off overseas for treatment, he could have used the DDSSLLS ID to encourage Rara. And perhaps, with the security of anonymity, he might be encouraged to share about his illness with her, and she is given a chance to give back and support him through it, and he gets to learn that its ok to be honest and lean on others for a change.
And imagine the finale after 5 years: Jun’s finally recovered, Rara has moved on, they arrange to meet at the DDSSLLS cafe. Rara sends him the duet she’s written because she wants to thank him for all his support. She turns up early, sees the name of the cafe and finally realizes that DDSSLLS is Jun, sits at the piano to play (I was so sad they didn’t use that gorgeous red piano at all in the show!!!), and a minute later someone sits next to her and joins in the duet… and its Jun! He’s recovered! He’s DDSSLLS! Confetti! And the whole Eunpo tribe pour in because of course, they all wanted to see who DDSSLLS was. And they finish that duet. It’s a full circle, with their first and final meetings in the very same place. We started with Mozart’s original Twinkle, and we end with their version. Wouldn’t this have been so much better than Rara bawling her eyes out and hitting what she thinks is Jun’s ghost???
Ooops I think I just wrote a whole fanfic here. Sorry. Ok I’m done rambling!
@Snow_Flower, your suggested ending is the ending that makes the most sense to me. That’s how I would envision the ending, too. But perhaps this writer didn’t want to take this most commonsensical route because it would have been an admission that she did wrong in pushing an underage kid as a hero in her romance. You see, the sole reason Jun and Rara would be separating in your suggested ending was education. They were going on hiatus to pursue higher education.
Now, the writer didn’t want that. Instead she used a sickness — leukemia of all things! — as the wedge. To me, leukemia as a plot point to move the story ahead is insulting to the viewers’ collective intelligence. It’s lame. Sure, we were given hints from the beginning with his nosebleeds. But it’s lame, NOT because it wasn’t foreshadowed, but because it didn’t resolve our primary issue with Jun’s character: his lack of maturity and/or his development into maturity.
I guess if we were merely watching the show for “feels,” then the show ended satisfactorily enough. Jun came back alive to sit at her side and watch the beautiful night scene.
But since we were watching the show and judging whether Jun and Rara’s relationship was something feasible or viable in real life, we knew then that the ending was crappy. The writer was advocating a romance that in reality would be so dysfunctional. To me, that’s the reason our minds are rejecting the ending. We were frowning and thinking, “How could Jun do something like that? That’s not acceptable!”
So, in the end, Jun and Rara did meet up five years later — just like what we wanted. But the reason for the five year absence raised more controversy about Jun’s maturity and thought process, instead of allaying our doubts.
@JT7 and @snowflower loved the alternative ending you have written!
Definitely more coherent than what we have watched.
Thought I wasted 16 hours of my life watching ddsslls but you made it all good with your ending.
I second @Anna Tan’s comment about @Snow Flower’s and@JT7’s better endings.
Thank you all.
It’s such a pity that the loveliness of the rest of the script was marred by such a rushed and illogical ending. Dysfunctional, as @packmule said.
Twenty Fingers played by me:
The ending was crap! I went through 15.5 hours to be lied to in the last 30 minutes. Both Jun and RaRa should have gotten higher education degrees as this topic was threaded here and there; they should have spent 5 years growing emotionally, intellectually, and physically. They should have come to a point in both their lives where the timing is better to be together. Jun showing up alive and healthy was 180 degrees. How is it okay to tell your adoptive family that you died and have them grieve for 5 years, (and Senior Kim died believing Jun died!,) only to find out you’re alive? What psycho behavior is that? No sense at all! Yes, I agree, some side plots were time fillers and made no sense! Who was the dead body that they fished out?
Thanks for all the music analysis!
@Snow Flower, thank you for the lovely music. 👍🏼❤️👍🏼❤️👍🏼
Bravo @snowflower! That was so lovely!
Whoa! 👏 When👏 did 👏 @Snow Flower 👏do 👏that?? 👏
I was waiting to add it to your JT7 thread.
Thank you, @Snow Flower. That was very lovely — and kind of you to do it for us.
I transcribed the piece by ear (don’t have any magical score generating software), so I am not sure if it is 100% accurate, but it sounds close enough. Thank you for listening!