We know what a blooper is. A blooper is a mistake in the filming. It can range from the actor flubbing his lines to props going wrong.
“Easter bananas” was coined by WEnchanteur because of my obsession with bananas in Episode 2. The original term is “Easter egg” which means an object or image that the director has embedded in the show. The Easter egg is like an inside joke or a challenge to the viewers to pay attention. But it can also be like a clue given by the director to help us understand the theme of the show.
In case, lurkers think that we’re intentionally overlooking the obvious plotholes and bloopers, I’m listing them down here. We’re aware of them; I daresay much more than the average viewers. 🙂
However, I personally believe that these “errors” have a reason that eludes us at this moment. And discovering this reason is a process. The closest analogy I can think of is solving a jigsaw puzzle. To work on a jigsaw puzzle, you must sort out the pieces according to color and design, then create the border, and fill in the inside by matching the pieces together. Only once you’ve completed the puzzle can you see the whole picture.
This drama is like a jigsaw puzzle, too. The director and writer haven’t given us all the pieces of the kdrama. But with the several pieces they already revealed to us, we could trace the conflict, the character arcs, the themes, and the overall message. Sure, we still need explanations for the missing pieces. But that’s why we come up with these fun theories. We’re “brainstorming” because we want to see which pieces fit together, and which ones don’t.
To quote Shakespeare, “Though this be madness, yet there is method in’t.” Let’s hope that Shakespeare correct.
Episode 1
1. Seohae was “invisible” on top of the train.
2. The suitcase was sucked into the engine of the plane, and the engine burst into flames. A month after, the suitcase was found in a field in Gimpo.
3. Taesul forgot to commemorate his dearly beloved brother’s death. He was released from the hospital on August 12, 2020. Taesan died on August 12, 2010. It was his 10th year death anniversary.
4. SeoJin’s 1980 diploma in Parapsychology
link: Sisyphus: Ep 1 Seojin’s Diploma
Episode 2
1. Jaesun bought a bunch of bananas for SeoHae twice on the same day.
2. The Control Bureau want to keep their operation secret. But they arrived in black cars and lined up the street with agents in gas masks. lol. They were as discreet as a stampeding herd of buffaloes.
3. Multiple agents were shooting at Seohae and Jaesun. And all she got was a graze.
4. Seohae “fast-forwarded” to August 15.
5. Taesul got DNA from ashes. Sure, you can get DNA from the bones and teeth because these don’t burn easily. But I doubt that there’d be any of these fragments left in the cremated ashes. Crematoriums know better than to shock the survivors with the sight of tooth or bone in the ashes.
6. The date on the DNA machine said “NOV” 14, 2020.
7. Seohae and Taesul glimpsed each other across the track, then Taesul disappeared.
Episode 3
1. Taesul spotted his brother in the audience — despite a thousand lights from cellphones flashing in his eyes.
2. The guards went the wrong way!!!
Like lemmings…
3. Seohae released the magazine from the assassin’s gun but he was able to fire two more shots.
4. Taesul fainted but was awakened by Seohae yelled at him, “Yah!”
See? He didn’t need smelling salts. I was laughing at this, though.
5. Police detectives lost track of time and didn’t know how long they’d been working on the case.
6. Police was handed a stack of files of all the credible threats that Taesul received. lol. Quantum&Tech is a tech company, right? Shouldn’t these have been digitally filed?
7. There were four assassins that day at the Busan conference center. But only two body bags were shown.
8. The “chalk outline” for the bodyguard.
I’m not sure if kdrama writers know this, but if the police were to put a yellow tape, they risked contaminating the crime scene. It’s better to take photographs with reference points instead of doing these “chalk outlines.”
Moreover, if the bodyguard was injured (the report said he was critically injured, right?), who was the stupid police detective who outlined his body on the carpet, while he was bleeding to death? Seriously??
5. Seohae and Taesul slept for 72 hours at Asia Mart? They fast-forwarded again to August 18/19.
6. Seohae and Taesul hadn’t eaten in 72 hours. They couldn’t partake of the Chinese food because they were in handcuffs. Lol. Just try eating with chopsticks while in handcuffs.
Episode 4
1. Where did Seohae go after fleeing Mr. Park? She just took off and disappeared.
2. Her wrist tie came magically undone.
3. There’s a blue shirt conveniently found in the electric sedan for Hyunsik to wear.
4. The electric sedan bumped a big heavy van. lol. Physics says that the electric car should have crumpled front end, and the air bags should have deployed.
5. The clock on the wall showed that 15 minutes went by between the time the CB agents spied in on the room and barged in.
6. Shooting blindly. lol. I don’t get why the men started shooting in a smoky room while some of their men stood in front of you. Why didn’t they just form a circle and shoot each other?
7. Where did the fan come from?
8. Bottles of Coke were found in a home with a diabetic patient who had trouble controlling herself from eating ramen. Why stop at Coke? Why not leave a chocolate cake in the fridge?
9. Again, the Control Bureau didn’t want to alert the neighborhood about their covert operation, but their drones were flying through houses and strafing garden pots. lol.
10. The agents cornered Taesul’s red car, but instead of splitting up and surrounding them from two sides, they approached from one side only.
11. Seoheo’s dad’s lotto ticket: He said he was going to write in the same numbers on ten tickets because that was how his friend won the lottery. These were his lucky numbers: 2, 5, 9, 18, 23, 24. However, on one lotto ticket, he bubbled in completely different numbers.
Episode 5
1. Seohae’s diary appeared on the shore despite the fact that it was last seen floating down in the river beside her. Did Taesul rescue her diary, too?
2. Seohae’s backpack was already waiting for her on the shore.
3. Seohae was seen flicking her hair and straightening her leg before Taesul dragged her on the shore to give her CPR. (Thanks, nrllee!)
See her raised arm?
See her bent knees?
She straightened them. She wasn’t unconscious then.
4. Taesul (that cheating ex-boyfriend!) was able to get inside SeoJin’s clinic with his thumbprint.
5. Taesul found a clothing retail store open before 9:00am.
6. Taesul found a pizza place to deliver pizza before 9:00am.
7. Seojin said Seohae was malnourished. 50kg is 110 pounds. By American standards, Seohae may be considered underweight. But for Korean standards? I think she’s normal.
8. The money withdrawn from ATM — Doesn’t his ATM have a limit? Our local ATMs have a $4000 withdrawal limit a day.
Episode 6
1. Hyunsik should have used reversed psychology on them. Seohae went outside despite being warned not to go outside because a sniper was waiting for her. Taesul went snooping upstairs although he was warned not to go to the second floor. Did the two of them have an amnesia?
2. Waldo in his red-and-white striped shirt would have done a better job hiding than Taesul.
3. Was the fence latch on the outside of the fence? It should be inside the fence to bar people from getting inside the house.
4. Why was the sniper aiming for Seohae’s leg? Not her chest or her head?
5. Hyunsik teared up when he was about to shoot Seohae.
I interpreted this as the “time paradox” that the Asian Mart minion was explaining to Taesul. He said, “Their bodies and memories get mixed. And eventually, one side disappears.” Hopefully, though, Hyunsik would remember the favor that Taesul and Seohae did for him, and have a change of heart.
6. The ceramic prop. Now you don’t see it, now you do.
Episode 7
1. Different purses (thanks, Malfie, for the tip)
The party purse
The purse Jaesun returned to her
2. Different time for Jaesun. It was still August 13 for him.
Episode 8
1. Different diaries and different photos.
But okay, I’ll excuse the prop guy this time. It’s possible that, since this whole flashback happened in Seohae’s dream state, she was COMBINING images and her memories of both past and present.
This is similar to Episode 6 when Taesul dreamt of the Seohae appearing before him.
2. She was eating expired, radioactive snacks on her birthday. Yum! At least, she’ll glow in the dark.
*************
That’s it. If you have anything else to add, just tell me.
Thanks @pkml3. You’re so thorough. I missed a few and/or thought I was just being a curmudgeon if I ‘complained’ about them. There has been so much ridiculousness from the beginning, that I’m getting inured and just accepting them as fine for the show.
The one I thought was too convenient in Ep 8 was SH back in her future, able to have a clear view of guards on different buildings around the hospital, but still able to shoot a long zip line across to the hospital (where there were NO guards!) and zip across a long way without being seen.
You know me, I’ll definitely come back here with more when I see or remember them.
o(〃＾▽＾〃)o
I have something to add.
But as I was reading your article… I forgot to note it.
And then… I can’t remember it.
And it make me MAD !!!
EP 3 .6 :
The stack of files is given by EDDY. SO, of course it can’t be digital files. Because it’s … EDDY ! I don’t explain more, you know why. 😉
Add to this (but it’s not the previous thing I forgot that make me mad) :
…….
Don’t you think I didn’t spotted YOU ,
Little joker ???
So, you put also your oOWNn -easter- *bananas* into your article ?
Then, there is TWICE a number #5 & #6 about episode 3 ?
🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂
On purpose, or props mistake ? 😉 In the puzzle or out ??? 😉
whhahha ha ha ha aha. 🙂 🙂
@WEnchateur – oh my, I had to look again and indeed, @PM3 did double bananas on ep 3 #5 and 6 after the body outline. BoD folks make good auditors. 😉
Ep6 #6 – isn’t that explained by the downloader teleporter delivery service?
LOL @WEnchanteur I totally missed that!!! @pkml3 you mis-numbered the bloopers in Episode 3!!! So there should be 10 E-bananas/bloopers there!!
Actually about the 8. Chalk outline … do they outline a person who is not dead??? Though of course, if they wanted to gauge the trajectory of the bullet it might be useful.
Poor Bodyguard Bong Seon. I hope we do get to see him by the end of the series. As far as I could tell, he was still alive when they wheeled him into the hospital. Strange that Tae Sul who cares for his loyal friends didn’t visit him or ask about him in the last few episodes!!
I too get very irate when I can’t remember something simple and obvious. Most of the time I’m lost for the words that I just had in my mind, and suddenly forgot, just before I was about to type them.
(╬⓪益⓪)
@Janey, I feel that the red ceramic mug was a totally different mug. If it was not there and then there, I’d say that was a prop mistake. For one thing, the camera did not give it special focus… I can’t even find the scene with it!
The mug that broke on the floor was way, away from the desk and it had a different pattern and colour … it was not mainly red but multi-coloured.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/16yP8QWSThEYzzo389ZUeyfsNdKSDzlVh/view?usp=sharing
So I don’t think the red mug has any significance.
Thanks for the clarification @GB! This oopsies props person is making me second-guess what I thought I saw or did not see! And the director is not helping either for missing these inconsistent visual (mis)cues. It adds to the confusion of an already mind-bending storyline.
But I’ll file those under the “rule of cool” 😎. This drama is still very engaging jigsaw puzzle.
About the scene with the red cups. I already posted about it. The cup is good in both scenes.
Where I had it all wrong: that cup is not the same as the one that breaks. But we didn’t know at the time that the cup would be teleported, lol!
The red cup is just a meaningless cup in the end. Or, if the props man is sadistic: a detail to trick us into thinking it’s this cup that falls.
PM3’s detail list is already impressive, with lots of details I didn’t know existed. But there are also a lot of other incongruous details that are missing.
– Why does the guy with the radioactivity detector turn in the opposite direction of where Seo Hae was?
– How Tae Sul and Seo Hae suddenly lose sight of each other after the train passes? Where did Tae Sul go? Why is he no longer on the platform while he is waiting for his train?
– Why did the Control Bureau men wait for 10 seconds before shooting on the roof, episode 2?
– Why don’t the Control Bureau men shoot Sun’s super car?
– Etc…
There should be a general participation to rescind the full details, indicating the episode (which I forgot to do in my previous post, sorry).
Then put a rating on it according to the degree of reliability as a “piece of the puzzle”.
– PE (Propsman Error) : probably a mistake of the prop man. Example : So-Jin’s diploma.
– SD (Shot difficulty) : probably a mistake to facilitate the shooting. Example : Park Shin-Hye may be light, but she is not light enough to be easily dragged on the sand by an actor who already has a backache.
– NS (Narrative Shortcut) : Probably a narrative shortcut to explain the scene quickly without looking for absolute veracity. Or a way for the director to cheat a little to allow the scene to work. Example: the Control Bureau team does not surround the car and advances from the front, because the scene is designed to give the characters time to have a short dialogue before jumping off the bridge.
– UR (Unknow Reason): Unknown reason.
– PP (Puzzle Piece): Probably a piece of the puzzle, having a meaning. Example: Seo Hae on the roof of the train.
– OTHER: Maybe there are other categories of incongruous details. To be completed in this case.
Note: I always indicate “probably” because nothing is ever certain until the end of the drama.
Finally, repost a more complete list later.
Ep 3: why does the sniper wait 5 minutes before shooting?
Ep 3: how can you slow down a 15m fall on a vertical wall with a pistol grip?
@WEnchanteur, you are nothing if not entertaining. What a great ratings system for all the bloopers. We should keep this in our notes for all future shows where bloopers are noticeable.
~ヾ(＾∇＾)
Aaaah, forced to post again. I forgot one thing.
About Tae Sul: he finds clothes and pizza before 9am.
So, here I can give the reason because I’ve researched this for the purpose of my own story (Episode 2, I use a huge shopping mall open at night).
In Seoul, you can find stores of all kinds open at night!
I give another example of why a writer is better off making logical mistakes sometimes. My story needs the characters to get an inheritance in less than 2 years. Only, I learned much later that Korean law requires a 5 year delay for missing persons. Of course, even knowing this, I have no way to correct the script, the event is too important to be removed. Nor do I have the time to give an out-of-context explanation to the scene that pollutes the already dense dialogue with additional details. Like “the law says this, but we got a special dispensation for X reasons (which would probably be wrong too)”. The best technique is to sweep it under the rug. Especially since the vast majority of people don’t know what the actual legal deadline is.
So why are there bottles of Coca-Cola at the diabetic mother’s house? Because it’s the perfect time to set a MacGiver action scene anyway. I didn’t go and check if they were “zero” or sugar-free (aspartame additive) bottles. But why not?
It’s either a deliberate mistake by the writers because there are better things to do for the show.
Or they thought about it and it’s a sugar-free Coke.
Or it’s an involuntary mistake. It can happen very easily to forget such a logical connection. Especially for such a complicated scenario with so many parameters to keep. Same problem as in TKEM. When the script is too complex to be kept on a leash, the risk of error increases. Once the script is written, it represents 250,000 characters. The rereading is done by scene, the scriptwriter is half blind. One would have to know and remember all the details, and make the connections in a mental space, which does not have the comfort of reading the finished product in film form. Viewers have an easier time detecting mistakes than the writers themselves.
It is also possible that the scriptwriter takes an obvious fact and forgets to write it down, does not give the description or explanation.
Then, other errors are created because of the production line. Information gets lost or distorted. People are even less likely to know and understand the script as well as the writers. You ask the propsman to go get stuff, he goes get junk.
But, from what I see of the BTS of other dramas, the director knows the script very well. He needs to understand it intimately because his directing effects depend on that. It’s a pity that there is no film expert on the blog, in the directing category, to tell us more about that. I knew a Korean director, but we didn’t have time to talk much. He has since returned to Korea and we lost touch.
@WEnchanteur, my guess on the Coke is that the house is shared by the son, Jung, so the foods that are bad for his mum, might actually be his stuff. I had no issue with the Coke being there, since my family has a diabetic but we’ve got all the ‘wrong’ kinds of food here as well!!
Odds and ends
I have less time to check, compile and write a long piece, therefore I shall post little snippets that I’ll call Odds and Ends, every now and then. These may fall into the Bloopers category or they may not, however I thought they are worth a mention
Observation: The Uploader station/machine/transporter tunnel where SH was in Episode 1, has is different from the one used by Sigma in Episode 8. I’d have thought that Show would save money by using the same Uploader station, but they interestingly made it look different. The colour of the lights, the peripherals, etc had enough differences so that we can tell that SH and Sigma used different Uploaders. Both of them however ended up arriving at/near some railway tracks.
I’d expect all arrive-ees who are Downloaded to arrive in open spaces like fields where no one will see them ‘appearing’, and so that they don’t get ‘caught’ stuck in some solid object (like some of the poor deformed ones were). But train tracks are not a bad idea in that it leads them into towns, or cities where they can get supplies, etc.
Discrepancy or Confirmation of our Theory?: We in BOD have had an explanation of why when SH arrived and ran, the ICB could not actually see her or hear her (she ran making a lot of noise with that suitcase!) and that their radiation detectors seem to be pointing them in the wrong direction/in places where she had been.
However when Sigma Downladed, he was fully visible to the people on the train platform and to Tae San… unless we say, he hadn’t started running yet. After he glitched, he got up and then seemed to ‘disappear’ before being seen several steps ahead from where he’d lain.
The same thing with the guy from the future who had one arm missing when he arrived, and throttled Jung with it, when that arm materialised. He had no chance to run, and maybe that was the reason the ICB could locate him easily.
We need to see ICB catching or failing to catch other illegal Downloaders to know if their running is crucial to their not being seen or caught by ICB.
Of Interest: Episode 1 SH has the 3 red lines/scars on her left arm already. We see these 3 red scratches on her arm in Episode 8 after she fell into the ‘hole’ upon running from the hospital. This means that in one timeline, she succeeded in bringing the meds to her dad who was well enough to be with her in the Upload Station. Her wounds were still red, so it must have been very soon after her running from the hospital and found that diary, that she got a ticket to travel the Uploader.
Episode 2 – Tae San (we believe) / or someone was able to enter Tae Sul’s home, setting off the security alarm, but nobody was caught on CCTV. Only a message in red spray paint was left behind the painting that TSul normally hung upside down. So Tae San/somebody is able to NOT be caught on CCTV.
Episode 2 – Time travel in 1 direction only …
Photos in Tae San’s camera were of the current day’s events as well as of future events around Tae Sul. This tells us that there is a future Tae San who has returned to 2020 with memories and photos of the past, who is trying to change history starting with 2020 events. If this is the Tae San whom TSul thought had died, then it might be that Tae San of the future or a broker he hired, helped to fake his death some 10 years earlier, to stop TSul from searching for him.
If time travel is in 1 direction only ie only back to the past, this reasoning means that Tae San remained alive and in hiding from 2010 – 2030 or whenever in the future, deliberately hiding from his brother, waited for the Uploader to be developed and perfected, in order to Download back into 2020 to stop TSul from getting killed.
The reason that T San couldn’t have jumped into the future and then back again into 2020, is that the Uploader had not been invented yet in 2010. Also there would have been no reason for Tae San to return to the past until after Tae Sul had died. His purpose would have been to protect TSul at all costs.
Another Falling Cup and many related questionsTae Sul develops the photos and sees the wedding photo: We suddenly cut to the scene with the wedding couple, standing as if for photographs – we see just the legs of groom and the bride’s skirt. We later realise that we are watching the merged memories/dreams of SH as she sleeps in 2020 or maybe the memories of Tae San?
In SH’s dream: There is a loud report/gun shot and at the same time a cup/goblet of some kind drops to the ground and spills its contents. This falling cup which falls seemingly in the middle of nowhere, is like the mug that broke when Downloaded into Tae Sul’s home. No one is shown standing nearby. We get only the photographer’s perspective. So where did the cup come from?
We see the legs of men in suits approaching, the first of them brandishes a gun. The bride, SH, sinks to the floor bleeding from her left side, shot in the waist. The camera shifts so we can see it’s Tae Sul and Seo Hae. A man’s voice asks: “Will it be the girl or the world. You can only choose one.” (Is that Jung’s voice?) SH looks at Tae Sul and shakes her head as if to say: “No, you must not choose to save me.”
The shooter aims and fires again.
If the falling cup is a sign that something was Downloaded, what was it?
Since the photo in Tae San’s camera captured that wedding photo, where was Tae San?
Why did the camera only show us their feet/legs to begin with, in this dream? Is it because SH has an imperfect memory and is not sure who was there? But since the perspective is that of the cameraman, was this actually more Tae San’s memory, also incomplete because we do not see the shooter’s face? Was the shooter Jung?
Was this the occasion when both SH and TSul were killed and so buried together? In which case, it might have been Tae San who buried them together. And that’s why he tells SH at the party, to stay away from Tae Sul because she’ll endanger him. This seems to make sense.
Random Question: In Episode 6 Tae Sul escapes from his home after pressing the EMP button … why did Eddy come to the house that night? Seo Jin was surprised to see him arrive, and just as Tae Sul escapes. Was he perhaps concerned for TSul whom he knows was being gaslighted? Knowing that only he and Seo Jin were allowed access to Tae Sul, did he come to keep Tae Sul company? We hope that Eddy will end up as a force for good, once he grows more backbone.
Sorry, I forgot to attach the screenshots of the 2 uploaders. Episode 1’s Uploader on the left, Sigma’s Uploader from Episode 8 on the right.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Z-Jn74yJE3FlCnSPUDVrg0AMCAxRx3CF/view?usp=sharing
Props: Missing digital lock. I wasn’t sure if I’d been imagining things.
Episode 5 Timestamp 32:32 – When we first see SH and her dad leave their ‘bunker’ home, dad merely turned the wheel to lock the door. I was wondering how that would keep anyone out. Anyone could just turn the wheel in the opposite direction and open it. There didn’t seem to be any digital lock.
However in Episode 8, Timestamp 53:53 SH comes home and she uses a digital lock to get in. She enters her birthdate as the password.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1HH318eTZJcBqVCBz-U0_ojjWt-cKywHe/view?usp=sharing
🙂
You caught me, WEnchanteur!! I was being “meta” and posted an “Easter banana.”
There was a “blooper” too. but I guess, it wasn’t so obvious. I omitted the screenshots for Taesul when he fainted as they zip-lined down to the pavement. Episode 3, #4. I left a big space where the pics were supposed to go. lol.
I’ll have to add another Easter banana for Episode 2. When Seohae was about to be captured by the CB agents, she looked down at the street. There was not a single vehicle on the road. And yet, she threw herself and JaeSun off the roof and landed on top of the garbage truck.
To me, that was an Easter banana. The director was telling us that Seohae knew what already happened in the past. To our eyes, there was no dump truck. But since she was living in the future time (August 15), she saw that the dump truck was passing right at that very moment, in the past (August 13), and she jumped off.
🙂 Good eye, GB! The digital lock in Episode 8 escaped me.
I wondered about that wheel in Episode 5 because it reminded me of a bank vault. I get that banks want to guard their valuables from robbers, and valuables don’t have feet to walk out of the vault anyway. But if that bunker was SH and her dad’s home, how were they going to get out if they were locked inside?
That’s why I noticed the kitchen fence in Episode 6 when Seohae fled the Chairman’s party. The latch should have been inside the fence, not outside. But oh well…
I guess logic could be bent to make the story.
I still like the drama despite all the funny business. The fact that I’m still sticking around despite all these bloopers, Easter bananas, and possible red herrings, attests to my enjoyment of the show.
Same here @pkml3. I’m enjoying the heck out of this show. I’m sticking with it no matter how crazy the bloopers, red herrings and props may be, and how it drives us bananas!!! (Easter or otherwise. 4th week of Lent!!!)
Kalimera Everyone,
I haven’t read your comments for spoilers. I am still watching Episode 8.
What I have realized (and I think that is right) @Packmule3 et al, is that several Timelines are combining together simultaneously, that’s why there is a mess with several things.
I think this is happening because they are altering the future with every different choice they are all making… Especially the OTP and Sigma.
@Cleo Kalimera to you!
You know, your idea sounds very plausible. It could explain the discrepancies. For eg: Now you see it, now you don’t, why something is the same and yet different, stuff like that. They are either props issues, or a mixture of props issues and clues to point us in the way of what might be happening with the many loops that are taking place. If the version of ‘Time Paradox’ that Asia Mart minion explains is what’s taking place, then maybe it’s not only with the people looping back in a time where their earlier selves are still present that have the paradox, the many happenings, with their variations too are being merged in the ‘Time Paradox’. 😉
Hey my lovely @GB,
Kalispera to you! I am trying to find a logical idea and not get my brain burned up in the process.
Yes, what you wrote makes sense or else you will get lost with all those things that are happening…
Am catching up on this show. Given all of these comments, my question is-Do K Drama productions in have continuity staff? ???
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