The thread is now open for spoilers and analyses.
gifs from yesdramas’ tumblr
I’ve caught up with the drama so a commentary is already in queue.
Let’s enjoy the show.
32 Comments On “Sisyphus: Eps 13 & 14 Open Thread”
Comments are closed.
The thread is now open for spoilers and analyses.
gifs from yesdramas’ tumblr
I’ve caught up with the drama so a commentary is already in queue.
Let’s enjoy the show.
Comments are closed.
Hi in the corner!
I was able to finish episode 12, but not make any constructive comments. And here neither, because I couldn’t rewatch the episodes.
All I can say is that as usual the drama has many strong points, and also a bit more weak points on episodes 11-12. Episodes too slow with some minor inconsistencies. Although Sigma’s personality is defined and made understandable, I would have liked something more mysterious. Maybe that will come later. I have doubts about the possibility of the drama to wrap everything up in time. I fear that we will never have a confirmation of what happened during scene 2 of the drama (the train roof).
I’m looking forward to your new article.
I just watched episode 13.
Sisyphus is back to its breathless pace with good scenes throughout.
The script is mind-blowing with plot-twists from the future! 🙂
Ep 13 continues to surprise…interesting escape from the school. There’s a heartfelt reunion between TS and his trusty bodyguard. Not only did Bongseon survive the war, but so did TS’s Range Rover which SH and her dad get to ride en route to the uploader. 🙂 SH meets Sigma in the future, and we see what’s happening with the present Sigma. Eddie throws a fit about the uploader and meets SJ who finally takes him to the hospital/CB. Sigma is there with the advance team who have all become gov’t leaders and are watching his present self meeting with SH and TS on a screen. To be continued…
Just finished ep 13. My thoughts:
Sigma’s justification is wrong, but it is sad to see that the shop keeper saw what he was going to buy and didn’t offer any words of comfort. Not even try.
In this episode Sigma has all the upper hand. He has the power and resources. He knew exactly what was going to happen and managed to spy on Tae Sul. Reminded me how in ep 6 he managed to see the scene on the bridge. Not sure how many CCTVs he has installed in Tae Sul’s life in preparation for this.
I did wonder why the parcel Bongseon gave Tae Sul survived and didn’t disappear like him. My explanation to myself is that the parcel is easier to download, as Bing Bing explained in ep 7, “The accuracy rate is inversely proportional to the amount of data, so the accuracy rate drops when you transport people.”.
Eddie started seeing illusions like Tae Sul once did. I did wonder why Tae Sul used to see the illusions of Tae San when he was stressed, before he met Seo Hae. I wonder those are real illusions, or something to do with people travelled in time and space and they managed to interact with people in real life. Just a wild thought. It may not be the case.
The show hasn’t explained why Tae San is still alive when wondering in time and space, whereas when Tae Sul appeared to have a long beep in the monitor (implied his heart stopped) when he didn’t manage to return in the first round in ep 11. Given this is ep 13 now, I think we will just have to take this as it is.
I am glad they didn’t throw a kiss scene in the school, despite implied in Seo Hae’s memories in ep 8 and the preview at the end of ep 12. It wouldn’t make sense with ICB, Sigma and snippers camped outside. I think that can be counted as a plot twist :).
It also explained why people want to work for Sigma. They got to enjoy the luxurious lives post war. We see that in the future one of ICB’s agent is there. The future scenes, again look impressive and expensive to make. The mountain of skeletons in the underground is again overwhelming. It reminds us why one wants to go into a war, looking at this.
I am still waiting for Hyeong Gi and Jae Sun to turn up to give us some plot twists. Logically Hyeong Gi would have the motives to kill Seo Hae and Jae Sun to kill Tae Sul.
It looks like the Uploader has pretty much built and Tae Sul just need to put some data in. However Sigma said Eddie is the one making the uploader. So, is it Tae Sul, or Eddie the one to build it? That may explain why it is build in 2021, after Tae Sul’s death in Oct 2020. Tae Sul probably just need to give some ideas. Eddie is a scientist not just an assistant to Tae Sul after all.
Kalispera everyone!
Tomorrow I will write my thoughts on Episodes 13&14.
Still, I am kinda curious about TSul’s plan. He does know something from Episode’s 15 preview…
🤔🤔🤔
I haven’t been that excited about a Series ending before.
Sun will make Tae Sul plan fail. Tragedy. T T
Sigh. Agree. I guess Tae Sul’s plan was to ensure Sigma couldn’t make him choose between the girl and the world. Tae Sul couldn’t alter that part.
Still thinking why Tae Sul starts to flicker. He is the “original” and the dead Tae Sul ashes is the copy from the future. So if they merge does that make Tae Sul merges with the dead self so is he going to die? Bong Seon said “Do you really want to beat Sigma…even if you will die?”
In his flashback we could see how he possibly died last time. Looks like it happened in that chapel.
It is touching that Tae Sul prepared so much for Seo Hae. The show does give us some answers here and then as we wondered why the bunker was there in the earlier episodes. Nice to hear the speech from Seo Heo. They will keep trying, not give up and getting a step closer each time. This is the theory we talked about here all along. I like that positive energy from her.
I like that Tae Sul being a former playboy respects Seo Hae a lot and focus on learning how to use a gun instead.
I did wonder why Tae Sul needs to buy guns from Mr Park when he got some for Seo Hae. I interpreted that he saved all he can found in that short timeframe for her.
I noticed he got a sniper rifle too. I guess it is for someone who would use it?
If Tae Sul is successful this time, I wonder from which point on will the history be re written, back in 2001 August?
@Cleo, waiting to hear your thoughts! I haven’t been that invested in a show for more than a year (Last time was Crash Landing on You). Very excited about the ending.
Kalimera Everyone!
I will give you a little treat today. I will write some more later on.
When I watched the first episode of Sisyphus: The Myth, I noticed Han Tae Sul’s birthday. I was surprised at the suitcase scene, that I had to take it back and rewatch it again to be sure.
Since I was too occupied with L.U.C.A The Beginning those days I didn’t comment on the earlier blog threads.
So, after episode 14, my hunch came out true.
The Writer-Nim didn’t choose Han Tae Sul’s birthday in random.
He is literally paying homage to Nikola Tesla that Sigma mentioned while he was talking to Eddy aka Edison.
Nikola Tesla was a genius in the 20th century. He was a visionary, an inventor that his work modernized the power supply. He even imagined about wireless technology long before anyone else could have thought it.
Sigma says that noone remembers him, instead we all remember Edison, but that is not kinda true.
The Physics departments and scientists all around the world, know Tesla pretty well. I have read about his accomplishments when I was younger.
He was a true pioneer like our fictional character Han Tae Sul.
Why did I spot it in the first place?
Because Tesla, I, Gong Yoo and Han Tae Sul share the same birthday and I am proud of that.
You can find more about Tesla:
https://www.biography.com/inventor/nikola-tesla
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Nikola-Tesla
To know more about the man, here is an interview he gave in 1899 : https://electrical-engineering-portal.com/nikola-tesla-everything-is-the-light
Correction: long before anyone could have thought about it.
@Packmule3,
Can you erase the link about the interview. I just discovered that it is not an original interview but a translation of a play.
@WEnchanteur and @Viva,
I don’t believe that Jae-Sun will destroy the plan. Instead, he will be an asset. Why? Because he has feelings about Seo Hae. His sister described it the best for him. He will prefer to die heroically for her, than let her die.
Let’s explain more. So, far we have a paradox that didn’t happen before.
Why? Because Yeo Bong-Seon his bodyguard from the future came to his rescue in the past, after that sos message he wrote in his kindergarden’s wall.
Han Tae Sul got a present from the future that might get him killed.
Time Paradox.
When he touched his ashes of his future self, he gained access to his memories from the previous timeline that made him realize something.
I don’t think so far it is revealed what that is.
So, in his limited time, he is altering his past movements with new / strategic ones. As he said to Sigma, I am doing things my way. Something that drove Sigma crazy hence his decision to bring Jae Sun in the CB.
Sigma hasn’t lost before.
In an equation, the variables might change and in our case TSul changed the variables.
He said something to Park. I think what was said was pretty important.
Also, we haven’t seen Jung Hyeon-Gi and we don’t know what he will do exactly.
Is he under the influence of his regrets or is he going to ruin Sigma’s plan?
At the same time, Seo Hae as another Tae Eul won’t stay behind.
I didn’t expect less from her. Since day 1, the only thing that her father taught her is to fight. The only option for her is to follow her Knight in Genius Armour in the battlefield.
Until the previous timeline, everytime Tsul and SH were getting married, afterwards Sigma would kill SH and then TSul.
I think this time they will change the sequence of the events to their benefit.
How? Little decisions can change the outcome.
Like when BingBing did save her boss from his younger abusive self.
Simple things will change the outcome this time around.
Good insight on the writers’ tribute to Tesla’s birthday (10 July) Cleo! I wonder how many people can pick up this detail from the writers! How often do viewers understand or, not get the message from the writers? It makes me think the writers did put a lot of thoughts in it, so why couldn’t they see the weakness of the story at the time? I felt the writing and the execution of the ICB conflicts with our main leads is the weakest link. That could possibly divert people from the writer’s observation of human nature (put their loved ones first, regrets, grieving about the past) and the positive message (don’t give up trying and move forward) embedded in the story.
@Viva, it’s almost impossible to find. Good thing Sigma is doing an explanation of Edison and Tesla. That’s already the kind of idea that’s hard to find. When writing dialogue, it’s not the kind of thing that comes naturally, or you have to have a very good general knowledge. From there, the scriptwriter has the idea to correlate it with Tae Sul’s birth date. This is not necessarily something that is meant to be seen by the viewer.
Accumulate the impressive number of such ideas, all over the drama, and the incredible complexity of the story. The complexity of the script as well: The way the elements were dispatched rather than told in a linear fashion. (which suggests more of a past/future joint effect).
All of this is like an infernal machine almost impossible to hold in the imagination of the writer, and also becoming difficult to read, even written. With thousands of annotations everywhere. The blinding effect then occurs. The impossibility for the scriptwriter to have the distance on his work. Add to that the fact that the use of the ICB is part of the pre-writing choices. A very early stage in the development, where everything is still much more confused and abstract. The choices made are almost impossible to change afterwards. The story will rush in like a chemical reaction and impose itself.
You can try to imagine the story differently, or rewrite the script as far as the ICB is concerned, but what could you put in its place? And how would that be possible, since the situations are so intertwined? And how much work would you have to do to rewrite such a long and complicated script, with hundreds of scenes to edit, eliminate, add? For what result ? High chances of getting something worst, because before, it was the story natural flow, and now artificial modification.
It makes me think about the explanations given in the story. There is a lot of data now. For example, I was wondering if Tae San was really and completely lost in time, or if his body was somewhere, and only his time-ghost was lost? We have the answer.
On the other hand, I would like to know why the ICB lieutenant shoots Tae Sul in the head, during episode 2!
I was wondering how did sigma get his scar on the neck if seo hae was supposed to be dead in the past? She said that she was suppose to get shot in the hospital right?
@WEnchanteur, thank you very much for sharing it from the writer’s perspective. It’s the case that it’s easy for me to see in hindsight, but I wouldn’t be able to write it any better myself. 🙂 I am guessing the intention of ICB is to showcase the Seo Hae combat skills. How she is from the future and has been training for a solid 9 years in their bunker so it makes her a bit like Gal Gadot. A reason to have some action scenes. The outcome may not come out as intended but the question is how to predict viewers’ emotions/reactions.
Speaking from my viewing experience, I love the “not give up, you can do it” message of the show and the amazing cast. I am happy to overlook the IBC part and stick with the show.
For that time when ICB shot Tae Sul – was he shot dead or not? At first I wonder if it is some sort of a getting out of a dream like Inception. However, It can’t be a dream because he used that experience to locate ICB in ep 9.
I also wonder if they will explain the ending scene of ep 2. Why Tae Sul and Seo Hae saw each other before the train passed. Unless there are some sort of combining time loops.
@Robert, I think it was written in her diary that she would be crippled after getting shot, not dead. In the last loop, she might be crippled but it is possible she also came prepared and bought herself the stem cells. We don’t know how much she knew and prepared for each obstacle.
@Viva,
It’s a problem specific to dramas, because if you look at it, what is a drama really? It’s a movie, but a 16 hour movie.
– Often, movie writers write a first draft. Then they write a second version, and then they make a lot of corrections. A movie can be rewritten because it’s only 2 hours of content. And even then, it takes a lot of time.
– TV series cut into seasons are also less demanding and can leave a lot of things up in the air. Build a bible of the series, the characters. Plan situations or twists. But there is room to change things along the way. You can even include side episodes, something I don’t like, because you feel that the episode is a dead weight in the general plot.
– A drama like Sisyphus and some others have a closed structure, like a movie. Except that it’s much harder to keep or correct because of the volume of text and ideas.
My dream would be to read interviews with Korean screenwriters that I like, where they describe their working process in detail. How does the creative process work? At what point do they start writing the first line of the script? How do they come up with the fabulous plot twists? What does their story look like before they write? Is the process orderly or messy? At what point? Do they have a particular methodology?
I’ve already read an interview or two with a film writer who explained that they had to completely isolate themselves for several days. Here, they had their story. That is to say, they managed to capture the whole, the infernal machine, in their imaginary space. And of course, it is something very difficult and requires a lot of concentration. It is a gigantic abstraction that needs to be stabilized.
But the approach seems to me the right one because it is sincere. I also saw an interview with a screenwriter who wrote one line per scene almost without any additional content. A pre-cut. But I don’t see how he can get a good story that way. It seems too methodical to me.
This first creative phase is difficult because there is an uninterrupted flow of ideas. At any time of the day or night. It’s a set of assumptions about what the story could be. Some ideas to keep, some not. There is also a submergence because already, some scenes appear and even dialogues, when it is not the right time for it. There is no other solution than to write them down. In fact, there is no other solution than to write everything down. At least for someone like me who might forget an idea. Some authors certainly have a better memory. I even read in an interview a writer who said that an idea that was forgotten was not worth using. I don’t believe that!
If a good idea or powerful dialogue has been forgotten, it’s a horrible frustration in case it’s actually used. Because the idea was spontaneous and better. And rewriting it from a vague memory is not so good. The idea has to be written down. And once it is written down, it may be improved. Often even, but keeping the little spontaneous part that makes the scene better. And in the course of writing, other spontaneous ideas will come in to make it even better.
The best ideas are not necessarily the first ones to come. They come later, once there is already a support, a logic to the story. But how can you be sure when there is still so much in the story that is in the hypothesis stage? So decisions have to be made at some point. Some are irrevocable.
The writers who work as a duo must certainly have a lot of fun (like the ones who wrote Empress Ki, a real mystery as to how one can come up with such a spectacular result). There’s a ping-pong game of bouncing ideas off each other. Alone, it can be more distressing because there are many doubts. It is sometimes a real torture to make a decision. It can take weeks to make the damn decision, the time to bring more ideas. And it all becomes an indescribable mess. Totally hellish. Thousands of lines of ideas in multiple text files. Decisions have to be made, but if they are made too soon, or at the wrong time, it robs the story of this huge pool of possible ideas to use.
At some point, the strongest ideas emerge, including some major plot-twists. And the other compatible ideas will start to gravitate around that. At this point, the alchemical catalysis takes place.
It happens when there is no additional idea as strong as the best ideas already found. ***
The moment when the chemical reaction explodes. And then the story gets a very global timeline. This is a huge step. And yet, everything is still very vague. A lot of the secondary ideas are too good to be left out. So they have to fit somewhere in the chronology. You have to twist the situations to make it happen. This further determines other elements of the story, including the characters. What is not a good idea is the binding. The story needs to have a thread of connection. So scenes that serve that purpose, that haven’t been defined yet and don’t have a good idea implanted in them yet (but hopefully that will come later).
This phase is also terribly difficult and full of uncertainties. You have to create the general timeline from the key facts. All the secondary ideas will be brought back. Let’s imagine that the story has 6 important phases. One huge file per phase, divided into sub-phases. The secondary ideas have to be put in there in order (or aproximative ordered disorder lol). There is always a huge risk of error. But thanks to this structure, it is possible to disseminate cause and effect events everywhere. A scene at the beginning will have an impact at the end of the story, for example.
At this stage, the characters can be better defined (one card per character and its description from all angles, psychology, past, etc.). Unlike a character-driven story, for a plot-driven story, the character is defined after the fact. We know how they will act later in the story, so their choices must be consistent with the personality they will be given, or the changes that must take place in them. If you’re writing a story as you go along, based on the characters, the character has to be defined beforehand. I have no vision on that and on that process. These are rarely my favorite dramas.
Not having enough methodology, at this point, it is better to write. Several months have already passed without anything concrete. And what the writing brings afterwards is 10 times more than what you imagined before. You even have to revise the structure, the chronology, and many events that you took for granted. Or tell them differently, at a different time, or often in a better way, fortunately. An idea that is still in its infancy, even if it was a good idea at the beginning, can become much more powerful than expected. Unexpected and important new ideas may also emerge. The way the story is told may be less spectacular and more linear than what we see in some dramas, but it’s better to stay within the realm of what you can do well, rather than crashing into unnecessary extra difficulty when you’re barely keeping your head above water.
Here, it is too difficult to bring in a systematic treatment of the themes. It requires a higher level of mastery. But fortunately, this is provided naturally by the intuitive writing. It is almost miraculous, the hidden meanings are, after self-analysis, even better than what one could voluntarily place there. There is a psychic and hidden part at work in the process, which brings the solutions without taking into account the author. So that sometimes, when rereading, you can say to yourself, I didn’t write that. Or, how did this idea or dialogue come together in this way, when it covers so much better than what I had simply intended for the scene. Hence the general feeling at the end that I didn’t create much, and that I was mostly a slave or a writing machine to the story itself.
So, with all this complexity of implementation, you have an idea why I was quickly won over by the drama Sisyphus.
There’s all this hard-to-produce narrative setup for a complex 16-hour sci-fi story, but as a bonus, the writers managed to produce it in a scattered way. With the scenes in the future right from the start. There are a lot of situations and scenes set before, about something that will happen after in the timeline of the drama. A lot! Tons of detail. It’s like they wrote the whole script first. Then, afterwards, they redistributed the cards and rewrote everything. Actually, I don’t think they did that. It’s just that they were able to have a pretty clear vision of the whole abstract machine. And then they wrote the drama directly as we see it. With of course a large percentage of possible mistakes related to the logic of the SF concept. I think there was certainly a lot of back and forth in the writing. Scenes from the beginning corrected.
This makes me not too hard on the authors. Even the ones I don’t like as much. In some ways, it’s a profession that seems casual. Anyone can write a story. You get tons of comments from unhappy spectators, that say the script is lazy, or things like that. Maybe they know how to do better ? They should try. 😉
In reality, it’s a job like any other, requiring experience, talent and mastery. You can think of it as an engineer’s job. The engineer builds a plane. The scriptwriter builds a script. To build something, you have to study and work, for many years, and be assistant first. I probably don’t want to take the plane a passenger build, except if he’s Tae Sul. 🙂
The drama business is very competitive. Only the best get produced. Even if you don’t like what they write, it’s still the best you can get. And they have to do that quick. Korean production philosophy Pale Pale Pale (fast, fast, fast).
Of course, this does not exclude that writers already established in the system do not produce something mediocre. It also works that way, those who have achieved success and are asked to do further work may be out of inspiration.
The interesting thing about Sisyphus is that the authors are quite young in the business. So they better give their best ideas on this drama. Out of curiosity, I’m going to watch the drama they wrote before, which seems to be a makjang. As I like this style, it’s good timing.
***: I have an anecdote about this: when I was almost done writing, I remembered this again. I remembered this because the ending events were happening pretty fast, fast-paced. The reason was that the last major idea had been delivered in the story. And it was important to wrap up pretty quickly and get to the last good idea contained in of the conclusion. The next morning, I wake up, and I realize that I had left another major idea in embryo. Total astonishment. After almost 2 years I realize this! After frustration, then reflection, I also realize that I can use this idea, without trying to develop it. And thanks to that, I added a final scene, which concludes the story even better. So that’s two great ideas for the ending instead of one.
Kalimera Everyone,
Happy Easter to all those who celebrate it!
@Viva These Writer-nims are pretty good, hence the story being so good so far.
We shall see what the two last episodes will bring us. I do hope this time they will stop the loop and TSul and Seo Hae won’t die…
Wow, we are on the last week/2 eps of Sisyphus and it’s been a ride! I’ve learned so much and enjoyed the sharing of info from this community… from script writing and dissection, plot twists and theories, Easter eggs and bananas! Much appreciated.
I’m Excited to see how things will wrap up and how many loose ends will be tied.
Ad Hoc Thoughts About Sigma/Seo Won Ju/Seo Gil Bok
He is a sad case of a psychopath who was abused as a child, became a failure as a painter and who with frequent rejection had come to hate the way people looked at him. Hence his paintings of people’s eyes removed and bleeding (shudder).
Before he decided to kill everyone, he was pathetically apologising for everything, even for having not been successful like Tae Sul whom he hero-worshipped and for being born. In his pathetic and depressed state, he would have killed himself and likely died.
Several ironies:
– Gil Bok would likely have committed suicide successfully but TSul bought his self-portrait, and this saved him from hanging himself.
– TSul came to kill him but saved him instead.
– Seo Hae said at first that they had no hard feelings against Gil Bok at that time but had to kill him because of what he’d do, but she could not shoot him in cold blood, but within a few minutes, when Park came with the package, she suddenly had loads of hard feelings against Gil Bok and could shoot him.
– And there’s the paradox of how because SH and TSul did not kill Gil Bok in 2020, that it was possible for Sigma to call TSul to not only stop him from shooting, but also to get him to shield Gil Bok from Seo Hae.
Childhood Irony
– Because TSul as a child inadvertently helped Seo Won Ju against the bullies and to kill his family, Won Ju took a shine to TSul and wanted to be his friend and to play with him.
– TSul’s rejection of him caused him to want to torment him instead (another form of play for a psychopath). He starts out spreading malicious rumours about TSul online but it evolves into a continued fascination with TSul and wanting to play with him.
The Game of Non-Choices
Sigma repeatedly claims to not be responsible (like a true psychopath) for the evils that befall others, but he is the prime instigator and twister of truth. Because he has been spurned and rejected most of his life, he desires to manipulate individuals to control the choices they make, which will be injurious to them but beneficial to him. And all this while abdicating responsibility.
Examples of this:
Park tells us that Sigma tortured Tae San. Sigma says he didn’t do anything to Tae San but that Park and Agnes did. However it’s Sigma’s people who have a gun trained on the unconscious Tae San.
In Episode 14, SH disappears after TSul protects Bok Gil, and Sigma says: “Why are you taking it out on me? You made the decision. What about Seo Hae. Is she mad at you? I didn’t do anything. She left on her own accord.” However it had been Sigma’s telephone conversation pointing out that SH would disappear and Tae San would die that caused TSul’s choice.
Sigma manipulates choices so that there is only 1 and not 2 choices, like he pretends. Sigma’s voice asks more than once: “Is it the girl or the world? You can only choose one.” When people choose their own loved ones, he claims that it’s their choice and their responsibility.
He does the same with Eddy, although he makes it sweet rather than threatens him, appealing to Eddy’s desire to be one up on Tae Sul: to be top dog, and saviour of many people, instead of just TSul’s deputy.
Sigma also does it with Jae Sun, promising that he’d be saving SH’s life if he took her away from TSul. But JS received the added threat against his family. In the end JS makes the decision in Sigma’s favour, but it was a non-choice.
Sigma even instructs Hwang about SH: “Don’t drag her here. Make her come of her own accord.”
Game Changer Events
These are the events (I’m guessing) that veered off enough from the previous time loops that would make a difference.
So far the most obvious ones…
Event A
TSul’s appeal for help on the school wall that brought Bong Seon, was something never done in past time loops. BS not only saved TSul that day, but also brought him his own ashes, so that in the time paradox that ensued, TSul would have foreknowledge of the future.
The paradox: if SH had not saved TSul in 2020, BS would not have known her. Because he remembered her in 2029, he helped her go to the past before she’d saved TSul, to save him. If he hadn’t helped her and her dad, it was very unlikely they’d have made it to the uploader.
Because BS and SH met in 2029, she told BS about her grave, and he was able to obtain TSul’s ashes. If BS had remained in 2029, he’d be alive and TSul would likely have died. Because BS went back to the past in which he says he was dead, he disappeared in the time paradox.
However this paradox is incomprehensible. If BS was dead in 2020 (vegetative state, he said, instead of being truly dead), then 2029 BS should not have disappeared. But if BS was really dead, then he should not exist in 2029.
Event B
TSul makes a better bunker for SH and so they make up. He then gets to learn how to buy a gun and shoot, something totally unlike him. Case in point: when he gets the guns from Park, Park says: “You’re not Han Tae Sul, are you?” (I believe that was the only joke we got out of Episode 14!)
Event C
I’ve had this in my notes but it’s only a guess. Jung Hyeon Gi returns from the future, and may never have met SH in past time loops. Because he meets SH, he tells her to forgive him no matter what. This has an impact on her in that she speaks to him when he comes to kill her. I’m guessing that with his meeting again SH’s dad, his ex-partner, he will be slowly made aware that he had been duped by ICB. This will play a role in changing how he behaves ultimately (if we see him again).
Kalimera!
I just read this:
https://www.soompi.com/article/1462787wpp/sisyphus-the-myth-gears-up-for-final-showdown-between-park-shin-hye-and-go-yoon
Καλημέρα καλό απόγευμα (Kaliméra kaló apógevma) Good Morning / Good Afternoon @Cleo
Thanks for the link. Show is good in being consistent, in continuing the story with its side characters intact and giving them more purpose in the overall plot, unlike many other shows who drop characters once they have served their purpose.
I’m still hopeful that SH’s promise to future Jung Hyun Gi, to forgive the present Jung Hyun Gi, will work towards his growth arc. She was right when she said that he was so desperately out for her blood, because he couldn’t face taking the blame for neglecting his mother. He still foolishly wants to take revenge to ‘feel better,’ but he can’t actually forgive himself. He’s ignoring his ex-partner’s words and the fact that he only ever heard 1 side to the story of how his mother died. Not a good investigator, this guy. ( ͠° ͟ʖ ͡°)
Hey my lovely @GB!
It is almost 9 pm over here. We had light saving time last week.
You are welcome! It came on my feed and since we have discussed about Hyun Gi above, I thought that you wanted to look at it.
It is rather interesting to see what he will do. I think that he will have a change of heart somehow.
We shall see!
@Viva, you brought up points that passed through my mind as well. He must have numerous cameras trained on places that he knows TSul will be on a given day and time, just so that he can play god and ‘know everything’. However, he cannot read minds or predict with certainty, and so he gets to play an interesting game with his school mate, to see who outwits whom.
Eddy and the delusion of TSul also struck me as being very much like what TSul used to experience. I thought that had to do with the drugs that Seo Jin was giving him. In Eddy’s case, we see him meet Seo Jin only after that interlude of his delusion.
I too feel that there’s a logic failure here about TSul almost dying but TSan still alive when traveling in time, without the antidote.
I was thinking that Sigma’s tempting Eddy to become like the well known great ‘Edison,’ to be known as the one who built the uploader, while TSul (as in the case of Tesla) gets forgotten, was a very smart temptation. However it was meant to lure Eddy, and it might never have worked out to be true. The people uploaded from the future seem to know the famous HTS, but no one mentions Eddy.
@WEnchanteur, about Jae Sun. He seems to have been a consistent presence even in the previous time loops. I conclude that because ICB knew exactly where and when he’d be in that alley and came to pick him up. However, not everything about him seems to be known to the ICB. From the beginning I found it strange that Hwang was surprised that SH had made a telephone call to HTS from Jae Sun’s home. I’m not sure if they knew that JS was going to be instrumental in rescuing SH twice and didn’t stop him, or if he’s just been on and off their radar. However now he’s definitely the chosen loose cannon of ICB, who will either spoil everything or add the twist that will save TSul and SH. His sister’s advice about how he’s nothing to SH may hopefully steer him to be less foolish.
Thanks for your great deconstruction of the writing process which is very impressive. We grow in appreciation of the effort and the art, and forgive the difficult to fix parts. What we’d still like to know, of course, is the logic behind all the being seen and not being seen, the glitching and the delusions. If the writing would touch on these, I’d consider it quite perfect!
@Cleo, just getting down to reading this thread. Yes, I agree that the little decisions will change the outcome. We came up with the same changes to the time loops. With the foreknowledge of the time paradox, TSul will behave differently from before. That wedding scene should not play out again, I feel. If so, it would have to be in a different time, way after everything is settled. The other great difference is that Park is not in jail but free to add changes to the current time loop, especially now that he’s had something whispered to him by TSul.
I join you all in waiting impatiently for Wednesday and Thursday for the final episodes!
@WEnchanteur
Thank you very much for explaining the creative process of script writing. Arranging the scenes, characters building, constructing dialogues, brainstorming good ideas, making the right decisions… knowing how complex it is gives us a new level of appreciation. While acknowledging the plot holes and the real flaws, I learn to be more compassionate about it.
I came across a lot of reviews saying show ABC is trying to achieve X and Y but unfortunately fail to deliver. Maybe it would be a good question for the reviewers to answer – so how would you make X and Y happen? 🙂
@GB interesting insight about the non-choice. I always thought that it just human to care about their loved ones and it is natural for them to save their loved ones. Sigma cornered people by using this. I am sure Tae Sul and Seo Hae are going to show him that he can’t.
Thank you all for the all the sincere, high quality discussions and analysis on the story. I can’t wait but I also can wait for the final episodes as I don’t want it to end. Due to timing differences it will be Thursday and Friday mornings for me, with work during day time and I will join the discussions later!
Sorry I don’t have time to post more, especially about Sisyphus. I read your comments with interest and couldn’t say more or better.
@Viva, I have a lot of thoughts about scriptwriting as I’m reading articles about it now (well, when I have time). I can answer part of your question about X and Y. But I’m not sure what you’re really asking yet.
What viewers want to say is more of a general thing, in relation to the vision of the series. For example, the series “The Sopranos” tries to have a story like Scorcese’s “Goodfellas”, but fails completely.
The meaning in terms of scripting is more about the assembly of different ideas, and how from a later point, the story builds to that point in a retroactive way. Which I do, but many other writers don’t.
This is precisely an important difference, because the weakness of the series that fails to reach its point X or Y is that often that point did not exist (or it exists as a theme, but it’s too long to say in this brief commentary why that kind of thing fails). The story was built on a linear basis.
If in my story, point X or Y is already defined and is a really amazing scene, I’m going to make it happen. So I’m much less likely to fail, because I already have the specific idea to achieve. I base it on a plot twist that hits really hard, not on a fluffy idea like a character development, a message, a theme, or the continuation of a sequence of events already written. Often a theme or character development will accompany the idea, inevitably, but without trying to force it. What is forced is the sequence of past events to be defined, but when this is done well, the viewer is unable to detect it. And the script being an assemblage of the best and most incredible ideas, it really hits hard. Writers who define basic parameters and a simple outline in advance can’t do that. In my way of doing things, the basic parameters are regularly redefined based on the later. That’s why it’s impossible to write a single line before months of preparation. I just found two articles that talk about this, and I was immediately interested. I’m not sure some writers understand what it’s all about because you have to have done it. But I have done it dozens of times in the past because when I was young, I used to write a lot of action adventure RPG scripts that way.
I started to write a long commentary about all these things, but I can’t publish it because it’s too badly written and there are inaccuracies.
Now, I’m late on dramas, so late.
I achieved to finish The Penthouse yesterday and watch special episode. Now I have to watch River the moon and next Sisyphus episode. Dramas are a lot of work, lol!
@WEnchanteur
Yes there is a difference of” hard to avoid weaknesses” vs the inability to bring a clear message/vision out from the story. Thanks for putting me back on the right track.
On reflection, there are stories I couldn’t get the message, for example, Record of Youth and Dodosolsolalasol. After watching, I wonder what is the story for? That is very different from Sisyphus where I can see the clear message but there is some weak tension in certain parts.
Thanks for taking time to share your knowledge despite the busying viewing schedule!
Kalimera Everyone,
I am planning to watch the last two episodes tonight, if everything goes according to plan. So, I will return to the new blog thread later on!
Have a nice day!
Hi @Cleo, I look forward to reading you!
Have a great day!
Hey my lovely @GB!
Let us see how it will end…
Thank you! Yoo too!