The thread is open for spoilers, discussions, and analyses.
This looks interesting but I’m not starting any drama till I finish reviewing the ones I’ve had on my plate: Bossam (which ended already. Aargh! I’m behind), My Roommate is a Gumiho (which I’m doing occasional rewatches with @agdr03, @Janey, @GB, and @Fern), and Hospital Playlist 2.
But feel free to dissect this show like we always do here on the blog.
I’m already falling in love with the visuals of this drama from Episode 1 alone.
Gifs from kateknowsdramas’ tumblr
Nice close-up. She has cat’s eyes, and that single teardrop reminded me of a jailhouse tattoo. (Never heard of a jailhouse tattoo? Just google it. A teardrop tattoo under the eye signified that the tattoo-ed person lost a family member to homicide.)
Interesting cat. Cats are often used to forebode evil because of their stealthy movements.
Love the lines here. If you notice the camera wasn’t skewed here (i.e., this isn’t a Dutch angle/tilt shot) but you sense disorientation and mental confusion because of all the lines criss-crossing each other: a few vertical lines but mostly oblique or slanted lines. And you know this is a momentous occasion because all three major characters meet at this nexus — which is conveniently underground. (Underground = their back stories and inter-connections are under the surface.)
I say brilliant cinematography!
This is obviously a ripple metaphor. A single drop = causing ripples. Ripple metaphors are equivalent of the “butterfly effect.” But the interesting point about this camera shot is the silver/metal disk (I don’t know what it is) at the bottom of the water that doesn’t move with the ripples.
Interesting head. In horror movies, the defenseless back of the head is begging for a bullet or an axe through it.
I like this actor. I associate him with film noir, or movies that are sinister, fatalistic, and cynical….just like this kdrama.
Enjoy the show!
Yay! A thread for YAMS. Thanks @pkml3. I like Kim Dong Wook, since “The Guest”.
Yup, we noticed the very good camera work/cinematography in this show immediately with Ep 1.
From the beginning we are given the backstory, with narration. There is indeed so much going on below the surface. Off the top of my head, I noticed lots of footsteps. The sound of foot falls long before anyone is onscreen. Walking uphill/up slopes, climbing the stairs. The black cat and it’s shadow. The close ups of characters where although they are together, only 1 person is shown as at any one time… I guess that means they are not on the same page, and not meant to be together. The music is sometimes pensive and sparing. The light, sounds and the fairy tales retold are ominous. Frequent mention of death and suffering, poverty and abuse. There’s a great build up of tension.
Ironically the black cat is a sign of hope for the FL, a sign that there will be justice. The other repeated motif/objects are tangerines and mother, the sight and sound of water dripping, throwing out the garbage/putting out the dishes.
We are given a glimpse of a watcher. Someone watches the interview with the ML, Dr Ju Young Do on TV. We wonder who he is. Is it Dr Do himself or someone else with a solid wooden table and a small key among strewn books.
There’s a childhood meeting between stalker and DJ and the repeated act of stroking her hair.
The saving from the horror is the calm voice of Kim Dong Wook who narrates. That keeps the tone from going overboard into horror. We are assured that the protagonists mostly survive to tell the tale.
In the present, it is brighter with a veneer of normalcy, but even here, the foreboding from the past continues with the FL, Kang Da Jeong who is sensitive if her family is being analysed, and her stalker who might be menacing.
The meeting between DJ and Ju is funny. The group meal is immediately very informative. We get to know so much about DJ, but Ju remains a mystery. I like though that the second he hears that the other guy is a stalker, he comes forward to place himself between the stalker and DJ, to protect her.
We get a glimpse of Dr Ju’s past with his attention seeking ex-wife who needs therapy. Show sketches her character with a clever scene where she seems to pull out the tongue of her adversary.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1si5WrhApQobBWZ2xedL6dwOD7uihKD8H/view?usp=sharing
There are 4 deaths in Ep 1. Already the questions arise about who died and why. There is a body that lands on a car (we get to know who it is in Ep 2), there’s a likely dead parent (we can guess why), and Dr Ju is looking up police records on the killing of someone in 2018, and someone is killed in the building where the leads live/work. And there is an 18-year old possible murder as well and a killer on the loose.
Another thought provoking and ‘uneasy’ show, by TVN.
This made me curious @PM3. Looks like @GB already started with it.
The first 15 mins were pretty compelling. The intro animation were bright and cute, belying the dark undertones of this drama. And childhood backstory is a sad one with fairy tales as literal allegory. The camera work is really good- found out the director did TKEM. Not an easy watch though as I feel like I have to pay attention to every scene, my senses feel “assaulted” in a way, just like the FL a when she met the ML psychiatrist who psychoanalized her at first meeting. The title seems misleading but hopeful?
This is same time slot as DAYS and may need the deep analysis and group therapy sessions from Darlings, lovelies and agapimenes of BoD. Let me see if I get through the first ep then will read @GB’s notes.
@packmule3, I’ve been staying up late and dipped into this one. I am a fan of the FL from The Other Miss Oh and Dr. Romantic where she was pairedvwith our guy Yoo Yeon-seok, a best couple and kiss. She has a wonderful, interesting face. She is not cookie cutter pretty and has an every woman feel. Her backstop here is harrowing.I like the premise of damaged people and I’m
interested to learn our psychiatrists story. We know he’s divorced from the famous actress. And our stalker dude is downright creepy in a well dressed way. I’ll be watching just because the set up is tempting.
So many K Dramas so little time. @packmule3, I admire your will power!
Hello!
I have started it as well and I was draw in by Mr. Kim Dong Wook, that I haven’t encountered before! His voice and his stance is everything in this one.
Here my favorite one: https://drive.google.com/file/d/19iPCixnCy_L1wadpYE7j7AEEClWfDWvI/view?usp=sharing
I agree with @GB and her analysis. It is kinda dark, but at the same time, it’s endearing. It has to do with trauma and I really like it because of the narration. The usage of cinematography gives a claustrophobic feeling, but at the same time, this darkness if combined with the main title, means that after darkness, the light always comes.
There is also a Oracle that is being given to the FL and I will trascribe it for those who want to read it in another comment!
Yey! Thank you for the thread for YAMS @pm3 💖💖💖 looking forward to your reviews. Me too i’m engulfed with its cinematography and the ost gives me the chills and it’s also addictive. Also the actors are all good. I also noticed the way they shot here, dajung is like talking to nobody.
https://ibb.co/wzfhx2F
https://ibb.co/4VmX2Hh
They intentionally cut/not showed the “stalker” because he is being shady af. I wonder if he’s really a psychopath or a suicidal?
Hello lovelies!
I have started this show last Monday and since then I’ve been on the lookout for a new thread for YAMS to come up. Thank You @Packmule! I loved the DAYS thread and I hope you don’t mind me joining here again.
I was initially confused with the title, I was expecting it to be something light or Melo but the plot says thriller and healing. And after watching the 2 episodes it does make a little sense.
I agree that the visuals are very compelling. The lighting, the blocking, the shots seem like a catch-all to the overall context of the story.
@GB I notice the raw sounds too, the wind moving the plastic, the water drip, the footfalls. Watching the show is like watching a movie with no dialogue..it’s captivating.
I like Dr.Ju as well. I personally think his smile is already a “healing” in itself. 😁 He interpreted Da Jeong thru:
legless bird- scared of settling down, fear of relationships that requires emotional commitment.
trash magnet- escaping miserable memories by recreating them, meeting and attracting bad men in life.
Black cat- sa symbol of hope, meeting a black cat instead of a prince is like meeting a hero or a promising partner.
Red foxtail plant- symbol of beauty, unknowingly and knowingly Da Jeong is beautiful.
And judging by the way she grabbed him by the collar, it seems that he hits the nail right in the head! Like he said prior to interpreting her, “Telling the truth is a form of attack.”
Both are wounded souls but their interactions are so funny! I find it interesting though that while the black cat is always associated with bad omen, for DJ, it’s her symbol of hope.
The stalker was the boy who patted her head when they’re still kids right? but why was he looking for her and why is he shadowing her? Or does he even exist at all?
I feel that there is a mysterious occurrence that happened in her past/childhood?an important piece in the missing puzzle.
Curious to see how the ” healing” part will play out. So far, I ‘m so intrigued, it’s darkish and heavy but done in a nice way.
Just finished Ep. 2. Gosh YAMS is sooooo gooooodddd… Directing, cinematography, the bgm, the suspense in the slomo and the pausing, the casts and script. Ok I just hope the writer pd duo keep the momentum high. My new crack for the month of July!
@GB, Young Do received the heart of the cop that died in a murder case in 2018. He is still looking through the files to catch the killer. it seems like someone tipped off that Chae Jun is the killer. 011sn was right that he is suicidal. Now I understand why they put up the rating at Netflix as suicide. I really like that in each of Young Do’s consultation, they did not show the face of his patients and guardians, implying the ethic in his work, the confidentiality of patient’s information. This also was stated by Chae Jun when he visited Young Do on the pretext of his patient. So Chae Jun is the boy Dajung met when she was young. My question, does he has a twin??? A sociopath twin? It does not make sense to kill himself after giving her the music box and expose himself. Was she holding a suicide note? And why would he sneaks into her phone, knows her pwd? Is this a case of multiple personality, so when the weaker ones awake, he is trying to stop the dominant one by killing himself? Can’t wait for monday!
Thanks @Miracle. Yes, I did catch that part about the heart of the dead policeman now beating in the chest of Young Do. There’s something so poignant about him continually going back to read that file, as if connecting with the donor of his heart.
Yup Chae Jun seems to be the same person Da Jeong met who picked up the book and stroked her head. It was a creepily familiar action for a stranger to take,… as if she was his pet. He did it again as an adult and shocked DJ. He’s also likely the same person washing blood stained clothes in the guy’s toilet. Dr Ju says he had the same way of looking at him, unwavering, unembarrassed.
At that time as a young student of the “Hankuk Premedical University” Young Do was there with a whole bunch of other students, who seemed to be all from the same school. However the boy washing clothes was only in his underwear, so we do not know if he was from the school or not. But if he was Chae Jun, then likely not.
Interesting idea about twins or a brother or multiple personalities. We have not had a show with multiple personalities for some time now. I only recall last seeing such a show in Kill Me, Heal Me in 2015. It’s about time this theme cropped up again.
Hello ladies! It’s the first time I add to a discussion that isn’t HP. I am waiting until there are about 8 episodes until I start watching. I adore Seo Hyunjin, so I am really looking forward to watching the show. I was really surprised to see that it seems quite heavy. The poster I saw several months ago made it seem like a romantic comedy. I hope it’s a good show.
I finished ep2 and have so many questions – why suicide for that stalker guy when he was making progress with FL? He actually looks different when he is with FL vs when he did consult as patient. I had to rewatch some scenes to convince myself it is the same guy.
having the ML as a bf (or husband) and being psycho analyzed all the time – maybe I don’t want that. Hahaha! Even the get-to-know questions in normal conversation will seem intrusive if asked by him.
I just want to know more about the show and the characters, can’t wait for next week. looks like our DAYS will turn to YAMS. Count me in!
Oh, I like this! I started three dramas today (Nevertheless, My Roommate is a Gumiho, and this one!), and for some reason I seem to only be in the mood to watch this. I like it so far.
I like the tone of this drama, and the first episode is already very compelling. I didn’t expect that the dead person from the first scene would actually be the stalker. Though his character died so early in the story it seems like he’ll be leaving a lot of mysteries for our leads to unload.
I haven’t seen any drama of this ML, but after this one I’m now tempted to watch Find Me in Your Memory. I guess I enjoyed his performance that much! Haha. Seo Hyunjn is amazing as usual.
And just to add, the poster for this drama is very misleading lol
Miracle23 i didn’t think about chaejun having a twin brother who is a sociopath! Or a multiple personalities like kill me heal me just like what GB mentioned. I am so excited to see how will they show this. @Lei, i love what you said that watching this show is like watching a movie with no dialogue, it’s truly captivating. The visuals, the slow-mo, the tone of the voice of the actors is already acting, (It’s like i’m listening to an audiobook) the micro expressions of dajung, the score, the monologues, they also showed here a real psychopath/sociopath. They can manipulate their emotions and can hide it very well. And kudos also to casting director, the teen version of chaejun looks similar to adult chaejun. Gosh YAMS is sooo good!!! I can’t wait for next ep. I’ve never been so excited for mondays 💛
This is a drama that has serious undertones. The plot is e ry engaging and the themes are deep.it is like so many K Dramas-you think it will be a light weight story and then it hits you with all sorts of psychological, metaphysical implications. Then you get hooked and start to ponder about all that you’ve seen. It’s c also the sort of drama that makes you pay attention to the cinematography, the incidental music, everything. It is a drama that makes me happy for streaming for rewatches, freeze frames and other manipulation. BOD posts bring me back 5o rewatch, especially where I missed things.
Great to see you all here @OAL (Old American Lady), @011 (011sn), @jin (jinyangie), @Janey, @whykay (whykay91), @Lei, @Miracle and of course @Cleo.
I didn’t intend to get sucked into another show after the great happy drowning in DAYS, (I needed to come out for air!!! And I still don’t think I’ve enough breath!) but, yes, this show is the kind that sucks me in and deeper in than ever. It’s kind of scary to have to think, research and imagine the horrors that lie underneath the ‘fake-news’ sweet and innocent poster. I feel one needs a lot of energy to once again notice all the meticulous details, clues, etc.
However it’s a comfort to know I’m not alone. We’ll all watch and figure it out together. That’s what makes this place so great!! 😄 😉 😝
I’m so excited about this one. I loved this actress in Another Miss Oh and I think this is the one that will fill the void left from Bossam.
The music box scene convinced me to keep watching, so I am on board too!
The filming location of the suicide scene seems to be the same as in the opening scene (and also the final showdown) of L.U.C.A.
This show is so rich, so many thoughts came to me … pardon the spam!!!
Episodes 1 and 2 Ad Hoc Notes
Like DJ faced with the sociopath, CJ, I find this show disconcerting. The sociopath is out to disconcert continually. Always a little intrusive, stepping into one’s personal space, insistent, persistent, manipulating the situation and the ‘victim’. The show is doing some of that manipulating with us.
I like this show for giving us information on how to interpret behaviour, for the tips on psycho-analysing ourselves, or understanding a little more, the kinds of mental illnesses there are.
I looked up Korsakoff’s Syndrome after Dr Ju mentions it to the mother of his patient.
This show is great for us who want to see a sociopath in action and then think if any of our friends are like that LOL.
The Mystery Man
There is a known watcher, CJ who stalks DJ, and an unknown watcher who is watching them both together, as well as Dr Ju. We do not know whether he is observing our protagonists because of CJ, or DJ or Ju or all three.
In episode 1 – Dr Ju appears on TV and there is a man watching the show. We get a glimpse of his nice solid wood desk, on which is a small key and books strewn about, and a card in a plastic holder. The man behind the desk is in a white coat like a doctor. He touches a white mouse and pauses the monitor. We see a glass of water and items reflected indistinctly in it.
We see this glass of water again in episode 2. The mystery man receives photos of CJ with DJ, including one of the outside of 99 building and the sign: ‘Ju Young Do Psychiatry Clinic’. He looks at the photo of CJ and DJ who holds the yellow paper rose.
So we have a murder mystery of past and current murders, a mystery of who CJ is and who the mystery man is, and still more mystery about DJ’s mum (did she kill the dad?) and Ju’s backstory.
The Uphill Path
I noted before the many scenes of slopes or slants and of people and the cat walking upwards. We hear footsteps and we see DJ or Ju climbing the stairs from time to time.
The uphill task or battle is confirmed by the fortune teller/shaman (FT). The FT ignores Cheol Do who booked the appointment with her, and instead insists of telling DJ’s fortune.
FT : ” Everyone around you walks on easy paths but every path you face is uphill, isn’t it? You climb with all your might lest you slip, and when you finally see … a ladder someone drags you down. It could be your parents or a guy you’re seeing.
Endure a bit more pain.”
DJ : “There’s more pain?”
FT : “My sweet child.” (this sounds somewhat patronising.)
DJ protests that she’s a little too old to be called a child, but the FT bulldozers on.
FT : “Listen carefully. There’s something glistening in front of you, and darkness below your feet. And there’s a sharp sword in the wind.”
(At this stage I can’t guess what she’s referring to except that with CJ in her vicinity, DJ is going to have a hard time.)
Cheol Do and DJ complain about the fortune teller not being any good. Cheol Do says that Dr Ju would have been better, since he had analysed DJ and got everything about her right. Ju disconcerts DJ also, but not in a bad way. He does not do it to control her. It’s more that she cannot bear her past and her family to be analysed openly.
From her interactions with CJ, it appears that DJ is her own worst enemy. She says too much that she need not say.
When she admonishes CJ for grabbing her hand when she was at work she says : “Did you expect me to be surprised and happy? Did you expect me to giggle in front of everyone, shout out, ‘Yes, he’s my man,’ and kiss you?”
(She wipes her phone with the tissue as she speaks, looking down at her phone. She actually wishes to erase the awkwardness.)
CJ immediately uses her words against her, challenging her.
CJ : “Is that what you usually imagine?”
(She realises that she’s been put in a more awkward position than before. A gentleman would not do that. She seems to miss the red flag.)
DJ : “No, it’s not.”
CJ slyly : “I didn’t know you liked that.”
She gives too much information about herself away, playing into the hands of CJ, who uses the information to manipulate her, to get her attention, to challenge her, or to get a reaction.
It’s no wonder the path is more uphill than it needs to be.
The Head Stroking
We find that CJ had met DJ when they were children (7 or 8 years of age) when some church people came by to give books away. CJ had already paid DJ special attention at that time and stroked her head. She didn’t like it as a child and she still does not like it as an adult.
And surprisingly we see the head stroke again where Ju is at the police station looking up the 18 years’ ago records. Det Ko strokes Ju’s head as if he were a kid and he protests, telling Ko not to do that.
The head stroke I feel is a sign of being patronised. The stroker is the one in power, the one who’s senior or who believes he can take liberties with the other party. The one being stroked is the ‘pet’, the one who’s owned, or the subservient one who is expected to be grateful to receive the attention. There is a power game at play.
This is the case with CJ who behaves as if he’s entitled to step past the boundaries with DJ. In the case of Det Ko, he probably really regards Ju as a close comrade, and present owner of the heart that used to belong to his colleague.
Ju and Ahn Ga Yeong
Ju’s ex-wife Ahn Ga Yeong offers us more intell on Ju and is a parallel case with DJ. She has a youngster head over heels in love with her, while DJ has CJ stalking her.
GY tells Ju that the age gap is 9 years (actually its 10 years, but she subtracted 1 year out of embarrassment).
DJ : “Well, in any case, he’s an adult.”
GY : He’s not gone into the military yet.
DJ : “Oh dear.” (I love his ‘Oh dear’s … they always mean so much).
GY : “Should I not date him?”
DJ : “Why not? Because of what I just said?”
GY : “Excuse me. Hello? Don’t you know me? Have you forgotten? I’m like a ticking time bomb. (That’s what she wants to believe.) If he finds out what I’m like, he’ll run for his life. He’ll push me away. I’ll be too old and frail to get back up. (She’s the one concerned about age) It’s ridiculous that I still want to pursue this. I must be crazy.”
DJ : “It’s been well over a decade since you truly liked someone, right?”
GY : “Hello? We got married six years ago, and I actually liked you. And you married me because I was suicidal.” (She thinks he married her out of pity.)
DJ : “That’s not true.” (He does not say that he ever liked her when he married her.)
GY : “Is that why we slept in separate rooms? Is that why whenever I came to you feeling horny, you’d flee to the study and lock the door?”
(He does not respond to these questions.)
DJ : “I don’t think you’re intimidated by the fact that he’s young and famous. You’re just looking for reasons not to fall in love since you’re scared of getting hurt.”
GY : “Is that why you’re not dating anyone either? Because you’re afraid?”
We cut to GY going to her car so we never see if Ju replied.
(More is said by his omission than by any admission).
In DJ’s case however, although she admits to being afraid to be hurt, it does not stop her. In fact she dates a lot. It’s the lack of interest in CJ that stops her, as it should.
We hear in her conversation with her mum, who seems more like her girlfriend than a mum …
Mum : “How’s it going with the tangerine guy?”
DJ : “Nothing’s going on.”
Mum : “Why? Does he not look handsome anymore? Does he have nasty drinking habits?” (These are the attributes of loser Dad, and so of uppermost concern in Mum’s mind.)
DJ : “Guenyang (it’s not that) I’m neither head over heels for him nor do I see the need to date anyone.”
This should safely have been left at that, except for the Interfering Friend(s). Another point of similarity with Ga Yeong, after she unwisely dates CJ, DJ like GY, goes to Ju for advice. (More below.)
The Interfering Friend(s) and Manipulation
I do not like the kind of friend that Eun Ha seems to be. With Eun Ha, DJ is put down, she’s told what she should be doing, told that she’s dumb and given some hard truths, such as: her judgment is usually wrong. Eun Ha even punishes her by hitting her hand when she wants to take a drink. DJ’s personality seems to invite this kind of mistreatment.
I feel it was because of Eun Ha’s (and the rest of the café’s) disapproval over CJ appearing miserable, that DJ decided to date CJ. I believe that CJ deliberately manipulated Eun Ha and company into believing him to be a great guy, and that he was miserable due to DJ. He’d got them to feel sorry for him, so that they’d pressurise DJ to date him. It’s likely that he also knew that DJ’s brother worked as a bartender at that pub where he sat moping, so that DJ’s brother would call her.
I missed the part (if it was shown) where CJ had somehow told DJ his so-called dream of tangerines in a warm place on a snowy day. This too, feels like a made up story to manipulate DJ into remembering him as the tangerine guy, whose dream resonated with hers, and so that she’d not reject his advances out of hand.
I felt that it was deliberate, the way CJ approached DJ repeatedly so that she expected to see him at the bus stop, and would feel his absence when he stopped turning up. Like a sociopath indeed, he played a psychological game (another manipulation) to make her miss him.
His lack of concern for others is shown by his throwing away things by placing them in a stranger’s hoodie. This should have been a red flag for DJ, but it seems she cannot interpret what she is seeing.
Nevertheless, Eun Ha’s disapproval, the sudden appearance of first snow on her skylight, her missing CJ’s presence at the bus stop, her memories of a childhood where she wished to be the child of her neighbour who brought home tangerines for his children, and the phone call from her brother telling her that the tangerine guy was in the bar, conspired to make her indecisive and yet to force herself to make a decision in a hurry.
Her questions to her brother:
DJ : “When did he arrive?”
Brother : “About 30 minutes ago.”
DJ : “How long will he be there? No don’t tell me.
Is he alone? No don’t tell me.
Then I’ll go.
Who is he with? No don’t tell me. Tell me. No don’t. You better not tell me.
Who is he with?”
She asked if he was alone and who he was with 3 times. That is the question that she really wanted answered … she wanted to know if she was too late. She decided to meet CJ and to date him (exactly as he’d manipulated her into doing), not because she liked him, but just because she wanted to be there before he met someone else, and for all the reasons above.
She doesn’t see that her reasons are the ‘wrong’ ones.
Synchronicity and Lack Thereof
DJ and Ju seem to have a strange habit of saying about the same thing or the opposite thing at the same time. (Good verbal choreography!) It gets embarrassing so they are reduced to silence and sign language!! LOL.
This is the sign that these two, although so different in temperament and in their views, will eventually see eye-to-eye.
In the scene where Ju holds down the tarp for DJ, she says to him : “Can you hold it more firmly? It’s very unstable.” (He’s the one who will ground her when she’s blown by the winds of life and is unstable). Although they are at loggerheads over his analysing her, they succeed in putting up the tarp together.
He also entrusts her with the tangerine plant, which she is afraid she might kill. They have a level of synchronicity, and we know that they are the endgame couple.
They can have relatively meaningful conversations, but those can still lead to misunderstanding each other.
DJ asks about CJ : “Why did you tell me not to date him?”
Instead of giving an answer, Ju asks : “When you met him, did you ever find anything odd about him? Something that got on your nerves.”
She sits to think, but does not say anything.
Ju continues : “You can learn more about someone when they’re naked than when they’re wearing something.” (He remembers the boy in his underwear in the washroom.) “The absence itself tell you what’s important.” (Also what Ju omits saying is important.)
DJ sits and looks a little puzzled.” Do you find it odd that I’m not bothered by anything about him?” (She has a blind spot to CJ’s pushiness and manipulations.) “Is that why you told me not to see him?”
Ju : “I want to tell you in detail, but I’m still looking into it.”
DJ : “Gosh, I’ve gotten much more curious than I already was. … Why do you not want me to date him?” (She comes to the obvious but wrong conclusion.)
DJ : “Do you like me?”
Ju : “Sorry? … Why do you suddenly …Why do you think so?
DJ : “That’s most plausible.” (It’s DJ’s turn to analyse Ju LOL.) “You suddenly tell me not to date him but won’t tell me why.” (He laughs and turns away.) “Look at you right now. You’re so flustered.”
He says his usual : “Oh dear.”
Ju : “That’s not it.”
DJ : “You’re looking away.” (DJ still trying to analyse Ju).
Ju : “This is a normal reaction. Those who are lying look you in the eye to see if you believe them. I even wrote a book about it. ”
DJ : “Well then never mind. Thanks for your help.”
Ju : “I’ve been meaning to tell you this. This tarp should be fixed to the ground. Keep it here, and you’ll find it in Busan if a typhoon hits. A legless bird. ” (He demonstrates by flapping his hands.) “And a poleless tarp.”
(The poles and tarp go hand-in-hand, possibly the way DJ and Ju are supposed to. We recall that Ju had said, a legless bird would mean DJ did not really want to settle down, but he was the one who held down the tarp and pointed out how it could fly away. He’d be the bird’s legs. LOL)
The Prima Donna Girlfriend and the Over-indulgent Boyfriend
I normally gloss over extras such as the bf and gf whom Eun Ha did not want to serve. We can understand why. It was pretty awful watching gf behaving spoilt rotten, while bf treated her like a child to be appeased.
After the movie date, DJ and CJ are at a restaurant. Again we see only one or other of them in the frame. They are still not on the same page.
He stares at her disconcertingly as she drinks her water.
DJ : “Why? … Never seen someone drinking?”
CJ : “I’ve never seen someone with such pretty lips drinking.”
She grimaces at the cheesiness. He just laughs off her disgust.
CJ : “I feel quite dispirited since you hated the movie.”
DJ : “I hated the movie, but I enjoyed watching it with you.”
She sees an old music box. They open up the box which has a picture on the inside of the lid.
CJ : “Do you like music boxes? Should we go get one?
(This is not too different from the indulgent bf and spoilt gf. The over-kill in attention is similar and to an extent, CJ treats DJ like a child, but the motivation is likely different. CJ wants to have control over DJ, while the bf probably just wants to pamper his girl. The great difference too is that the gf likes the attention, but DJ doesn’t like CJ’s close scrutiny or intrusion into her life/space.)
Camerawork – The Single Person Shots
These are my guesses as to interpretation.
Show makes no bones about using lots of single person shots, uncentred in frames, when they are speaking to another person. Not having both on the screen at the same time when they are speaking to each other probably indicates that they are not on the same page. When the person is never centred on the screen, I feel that it shows a an imbalance. The relationship is one-sided or there is misunderstanding, or the relationship is wrong.
When DJ spoke to CJ to suggest that they date, this changed for a while. They are standing outside a building. They are both in the same frame but skewed to the right.
When CJ smiles and agrees to getting cats, they are finally more or less centred in one frame. But the camera view zooms out suddenly to show them small against a barren-looking bare wall, and positioned once again lopsidedly on the right. They are framed by leafless trees, and the light nearest them is reddish. Might this be an indication of danger and imbalance, in a relationship that starts off inhospitably?
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NKiH9A9zA9YAzD2oUhYgtHGLqeRFy9U6/view?usp=sharing
The single person shots are also used for when DJ and Ju speak to each other. They too have difficulty in communication. In their discussion about CJ and why DJ should not date him (the CJ project), the camera moves from where the pillar divided them,
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ayqXX08Qr6uewTR5M2M9sQTIo71gi0ub/view?usp=sharing
and https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-5W7POiSPDHYDAk3_ATKW9927ytSsHWE/view?usp=sharing
… to where they both end up in the same frame. They had come to some agreement, Ju had offered to listen to her anytime she wanted to talk, and she had accepted the offer. Also they they are both interested in the CJ project.
They are position to the right, at the bottom of the slope, but now with nothing dividing them. They are more in tune with each other, but still have a long way to climb.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1BFHjJH2YMNLwCdk-9g_DbB9ATX4vZCbl/view?usp=sharing
Great Miscen Scene
The tongue pull shot. We hear the altercation between Ahn Ga Yeong and Oh Mi Kyung (Ju’s staff) and we see what GY would like to do to shut Mi Kyung up. It’s a toss-up between strangling her with her scarf or pulling out her tongue, LOL. GY adds lightness to a dark theme.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1si5WrhApQobBWZ2xedL6dwOD7uihKD8H/view?usp=sharing
The painting in the centre. This is the view from the door after DJ looked in and saw that CJ was meddling with her cell phone. At first we see the back of DJ standing in the centre, staring at CJ. After she leaves, we see that the white indistinct painting is in the centre of the frame, while CJ, looking small, appears to be in a cell (the glass wall in front of him and partition beside him look like bars) by himself to the left. More than ever, he’s not the centre of her life, and he should be put into his own compartment, to be kept separate from her. The truth of what is really happening is as unclear as the painting.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1K61W04vhUr70cj0KVtTCie4l3fSOixGO/view?usp=sharing
The hearts. When DJ alighted from the bus, she anticipated seeing CJ waiting for her. We see in the background, 2 hearts that might represent her expectations. She smiles until the man waiting there turns around. Her disappointment/surprise is palpable.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1bU_zmGBrCC1gCdeihqyP85cH8FbImWGK/view?usp=sharing
Hi @birdie007 and @Snow Flower! Good to see you here.
@Snow Flower, I was just thinking that the vibes of this show remind me of PBIO and the music you composed for that show. And walla! Here you are! I hope this show inspires you to compose more music.
I agree that the round skylight roof building with the unfinished walls reminded me of L.U.C.A. I thought L.U.C.A.’s building was bigger though.
The music in that music box was delightful. Unfortunately it is now associated with something upsetting from the past and probably will be associated with CJ’s suicide.
@pkml3, one of my many posts did not pop up here. It’s called Camerawork – The Single Person Shots. I put in several links to screenshots, so maybe that’s why it’s not being posted. Please see if you can find it. Thanks!
👌 I already approved it.
Many thanks @pkml3!! You’re super efficient! Here are cookies of appreciation! 🍪 🍪 🍪 🍪 🍪
The Glistening Dazzling Something
The Fortune Teller tells DJ : “Listen carefully. There’s something glistening in front of you, and darkness below your feet. And there’s a sharp sword in the wind.”
In Mum’s voiceover she speaks not of something glistening but dazzling : “In life there are some things you can’t say no to despite your better judgment.” (Mum looks at a photo of Dad in grad garb.) “They are dazzling, bright and make you so happy that you’d do anything if you could have them.”
The light we see though is of a naked bulb alight, hanging with the cobwebs from the ceiling. The warning is clear. CJ is like the glistening thing, with darkness below the surface. DJ should have continued to exercise her better judgment, but she got involved with CJ instead. If DJ had stuck with CJ, she’d end up like Mum, a bare bulb among cobwebs.
In episode 1, DJ decides to move into 99 Building. She tells Eun Ha : “I like that it’s a new building. I’m going to start afresh with a clean slate. You know I got mixed up with some weirdos.” The building is a new glistening something to her.
However the building ends up having a murder committed in it on the 3rd floor, so although new, it was not ‘clean’. It becomes a building with a ‘past,’ like Da Jeong.
DJ has an unrealistic assessment of her own emotional maturity and judgment. She gets herself hurt in her relationships, and this, repeatedly. She herself is not able to start off clean and fresh until she confronts and slays her demons.
Dr Ju assesses her and puts it this way : “After recreating the exact same misery you underwent, you try to overcome it this time around. You’re trying to escape your miserable memories. If your life was miserable because of an alcoholic, you date another alcoholic, so you can help him quit drinking. But it doesn’t work. Why? You can recreate your misery, but you’ve never learnt how to overcome it. Then what’s the memory you want to escape so badly that causes repetition compulsion?”
We might guess what that memory is, but we are not yet told.
The Fiction and Reality Parallels
This show really bothers to do more than tell a tale.
In episode 1, my heart bled to see literature books having their pages torn out to feed the furnace. This job is carried out by Mum when child DJ comes with her own book to ask about the tales she read. What wonderful irony.
The Little Mermaid
Young DJ asks : “The Mermaid turned into bubbles. What does that mean?” “a princess who has the world at her feet falls for some guy she barely knows. So she ditches her family and goes away. but after going through so much hardship, she ends up …”
(We gather that this is the story of Mum’s married life. I’m guessing that Mum is a literature grad, and the books she is destroying are hers. Her life is as torn up as the books.)
“She ends up dying.” So Da Jeong goes back to the church worker and asks for another book.
We later hear Mum’s voiceover: “Turning into bubbles means that she chooses to dissipate after her arduous attempt to make things better. Nothing in life comes free.” Mum chooses to run away with the kids.
The Happy Prince
“The bird really digs out the prince’s left eyeball and gives it to a beggar.” (Mum relates the tale while sticking eyes onto teddy bears.) The next day, it digs out the other eyeball and gives it to another beggar. And the bird lies on the cold ground with its belly exposed and dies.”
Not at all a happy tale. We imagine that the eyes of those teddy bears will also be easily lost.
Snow White
(Mum is busy peeling fruit [apple?] or vegetable as she relates the tale.) “She’s just so happy to receive the apple and eats it right away. So she dies. But the dwarfs weep because they don’t want her to die.”
The Fairy and the Woodcutter
(This tale is related most appropriately while Mum washes the clothes.)
“A stupid fairy takes off her clothes and scrubs her body in another town. And some thief steals her clothes and cuts a deal with her.”
The Black Cat
(We cannot see what Mum is doing but it’s likely she’s peeling hard boiled eggs.)
“An alcoholic jerk kills his wife. He puts her body in the wall and covers it up with cement. So no one knows about it. But a black cat that was also put in the wall with her body meows when the police come. So the jerk gets arrested.”
This is the only story that makes Da Jeong smile. It was the most reassuring. And she is fed a hard boiled egg at the end of the narration, so the reality made the fiction doubly favourable.
Ju’s narration concering DJ : “Like any other young and delicate being, the child had dreams and looked for things to depend on. The difference was that she didn’t want to be a princess, but dreamed of being her neighbour’s daughter.”
“And she wasn’t waiting for Prince Charming to rescue her, but for a black cat who would meow for her in the scariest moment of her life.” Dr Ju would likely be her black cat.
@Snow Flower, the location is also similar to the one in last episode of Undercover. 😅
@Growing Beautifully, This was a favorite part of this drama. K Dramas seem to incline to the literary. We see poetry, literature references, lots of libraries and book stores. These references add so much to our heroine’s backstop and mind set. Her mother’s warped interpretations bring her sad childhood into focus. What I want to know, given her fraught beginnings, is how she became professionally successful and able to live reasonably well. She is not your classic damsel in distress.
There is also, for want of a better word, a weird quality to this drama. The angled shots, the people who don’t appear to be what they seem, and even some of the beautiful clothing that the men wear-the coats are spectacular. They really know how to mind bend in this drama.
Dear @GB, may i know what is the drama DAYS? hehe and thank you for your wonderful dissertation and recap about YAMS. I enjoyed reading it. 💖 happy to know the ladies at HP are also watching YAMS, @miracle23, @parker and i are also teleparty-ing it and we also love this show and looking forward for mondays to watch it.
About DJ’s dad, at first we thought that he was the guy at the photo who graduated, and the one who took her beautiful photo holding books. But it looks like they are different? The one who called DJ’s mom his white donkey and called himself “Chan” is her first love but didn’t marry. And DJ’s dad was not killed by her mom but only left by them. The blood on mom’s hand was because of the broken glass? So i think (and i’m not sure of this hehe) that mom’s first love “Chan” is the one who watches CJ and DJ. 😨
At first i thought the watcher is Dr.Ju, like he also has split personalities but i think Dr.Ju is really kind but we’ll see maybe this can be a plot twist hehe
About CJ being a suicidal, i don’t understand him jumping off the building and his letter “I finally found you”. If he finally found DJ, why would he kill himself? Gosh today is ep3! I can’t wait to watch this later hehe
See you ladies! 💛💛💛
@OAL and @011sn
Yes, @OAL, one of the great things about kdramas is how so many shows are linked to the literary. We get the chance to re-read, and to re-think what we thought we knew. What a dark reinterpretation Mum gave those stories! I’m also reminded of It’s OK to Not be Okay/PBIO where stories were reinterpreted in a similar way.
DJ seems relatively fine, at least professionally, despite a difficult childhood with a mum who must have tarnished many stories with her bitterness. I’m also interested to know what happened with the Dad. Was he alive and never bothered his family? How did Mum support the kids on her own?
Speaking of mind bending, that’s the sense I get. While we are analysing this Show, Show is also ‘playing’ with our minds. In the end, we’ll be psycho-analysing ourselves!!
Continually with different scenes, I pause the screen and wonder to myself, ‘what am I seeing/hearing here?’ What more is that screenshot saying to me? It can get so that one goes a little ga-ga LOL.
However weird it is, one thing is certain. This Show is beautiful to watch. Even the silhouette of the murder and the suicide were rendered artistically.
@011sn, DAYS is Doom at Your Service. It was just last week that I was crazily immersed in DAYS, and now I find that YAMS has a added pull factor, that sucks me in even further!
You’ve made a good point about the man in DJ’s Mum’s photo… is that her Dad or Mum’s first love… We never get to see dad’s face, do we? Were there family photos to compare against? All we know is that DJ’s surname is Kang, so her dad would have been of the surname, Kang.
A name like ‘Chan’ might not be a surname, but a first name like ‘Min Chan’. We really need to know the full name of Dad. You’ve got some ideas worth keeping to check back on … if there was another man in Mum’s life, is he still around, and yeah, this show really plays with our minds!! I’m also wondering if there are characters with multiple personality disorder.
Also is there only 1 sociopath or is there a psychopath as well? With Chae Jun, supposedly dead, is the murder in Building 99 closed or is there someone else who is the real killer? I just re-watched the part in Ep 2 Timestamp 1:01:00 when Chae Jun is in the car driving to his suicide. He remembers how DJ spoke about The Black Cat story, and there is an incoming call which we do not see him pick up. So there is another person in his life who calls him.
Chae Jun searching for DJ borders on obsession or some other disorder. We only know that he knew her since their childhood, at the time they got free books from the church people, as shown in the group photo. We need to know what happened after that, which caused DJ to walk around in a trance after she saw that group photo. Her expression was one of being stunned, or of horror… as if she had seen the suicide for herself, but in fact she’d been reading a letter that she held in her hand.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1MGNlaDUcjLAXgm4x-JV-C_1BlpQ7mpcX/view?usp=sharing
There’s this quality of ‘horror’ in this show, where things on the surface look ok, but hide things which are not ok, and what should be nice things for kids like fairy tales or a music box, take on ominous significance.
I don’t remember if I mentioned this already, but that misleading, sweet, romantic poster is actually not misleading after all. Our leads are shown lying down on the grass but they are positioned at the top of the poster rather than below. That already tells us that they are both not ‘grounded’ LOL. They are lying down/floating where the sky should be, and again, it looks ‘happy’ with them smiling, but they have their eyes closed (against the sun) which then has to be below them. Kinda warped?
Hello All thank you for this thread..
I just finished watching the first two episodes. So far I like this drama, not only because the cinematography, but also the possibility of the two main leads healing each other in the future. I also like how this drama using several non conversational scenes that makes us more immersed into the story.
Thank you @GB for your recap of two episodes (it feels like your recap on DAYS). I also like the “Oh Dear” from Ju. hahaa. The way of how DJ’s Mom perceived the fairy tale is almost the same as how KoMoonYoung from PBIO perceived those stories. Makes me wonder if DJ’s mom still need to heal herself from her marriage life or not.
I’m curious about this drama, especially because of DJ’s condition: Being a trash magnet. Was her decision to have a date with CJ affected by her mental issue that has not been treated. How to make her assessment capability (of a potential lover) improved in the future, because she needs to get out from this evil circle at some point.. meeting the wrong guy, get hurt, moving on, meeting another wrong guys over and over again.
And about the third person who watch them, who watch Ju’s interview, and who took the picture of CJ and DJ. I think it is possible for CJ to have a psycho twin that manipulate his own brother and report him to the police. Oh so scary.
Hope to see more of your comments after watching 3rd and 4th episodes tomorrow.
Kalimera Everyone!
My agapimeni @GB, you have been in a roll! Bravo for all those details you captured!
You wrote so many things, so I will focus on the Oracle, as I have posted on my first comment. Since you transcribed the Fortune Teller scene, I will copy your subs.
I saw that scene at least three times, while I was print screening what the FT was telling DJ.
From the very beginning I realized / deciphered that the sharp sword in the wind is Ju Young-Do.
The glistering thing that was in front of you is indeed Chae Jun, @GB.
The darkness below has to do with her subconscious.
DJ has to face whatever it haunts her in order to be free. Still, she is trying to do overcome it, but she fails every single time, because she doesn’t know how to free herself from what drags her down or weight her down, i.e. her past.
Hence the usage of the ladder in the Oracle. If you have read about Hypnosis, the Specialist uses a ladder for the patient to climb it down in order to delve into his / her subconscious.
It also is associated with that dark story by Edgar Allan Poe “The Black Cat”.
The cat has a meaming too. As you know the Ancient Egyptians worshipped it.
Also, the cat was also used in the Matrix as a glitch.
I interpret it here as another way of picturing the subconscious part of the brain is a question mark for the scientists. Something we don’t know is shady or dark.
The Fortune Teller told her what is going to happen. That’s why she was focused on DJ and not her friend.
This was a warning for the FL, but also the audience that something bad will happen and DJ has to overcome it.
From the Oracle, we know that she will overcome her, as long “the sharp sword / Ju Young-Do in the wind is with her .
I believe that fate has brought them together. They are more intertwined that we can imagine.
That case Dr. Ju is investigating, because the cop who died is his heart donor, means that this case is indeed the heart of the problem or the core case that links with the death of Chae Jun.
If that is the case, then we will have a great story to watch…
Kalimera!
I wrote something but it didn’t pop up in here. @Packmule3 can you check?
Hi @moonstar512
Actually, after DAYS, I wanted to take a break from transcribing and doing mini recaps of portions of the episodes (or whatever it is I do). But I found that it was very hard to remember what happened when and to write about the events taking place with any confidence, if I got lazy.
So, what to do?
LOL Ju’s “Oh dear”… I’ve never heard any other kdrama character say it though. Have you? I like his explanation of how he interprets the responses to his question: “How are you or how are things going for you?” (See, I can’t recall the exact words.)
Me too. I’d like more backstory about Mum. It seems she’s running a restaurant at some seaside place. She’s even still considering dating… and she still looks young at 50+++ I like how she and DJ get on. They speak on the phone to each other a lot, more like friends. I also like that DJ and her brother are good with each other. I hope so anyway, from the little we see of them in just 2 episodes.
About DJ’s mental issues and how it causes her to loop endlessly through bad romances: it would be nice if we could be shown how it could be ‘fixed’. The therapy alone would make this drama a great watch.
I feel a shudder when I think of this. At the same time, it’s a delicious shudder in that I anticipate some twist that should surprise us. Here we are all coming up with scary and surprising scenarios. It will be a pity if our anticipations are not met! LOL.
Done, @Cleopatra. Sorry about that. 😟
Kalimera @Packmule3!
It’s okay! I can totally understand!
Have a nice day ahead!
@GB i see, it’s Doom at Your Service..it’s on my watch list, reading how you loved DAYS makes me want to start it now.
About DJ’s dad, do they look the same? https://ibb.co/kxbMB9D
I also searched about the name “Baek Seok” who was mentioned by “Chan” and found out Baek Seok was the writer of the poem *Natasha, the White Donkey, and Me (1912-1963)*
This is the whole poem of it:
Natasha, the White Donkey, and Me by Baek Seok (1912-1963)
Tonight the snow falls endlessly
because I, a poor man,
love the beautiful Natasha.
I love Natasha,
the snow falls endlessly,
and I sit alone, drinking rice wine.
Drinking rice wine, I think:
the night the snow falls endlessly
I would like to ride, with Natasha, upon a white donkey
to a remote, mournful mountain village and live in a cottage.
The snow falls endlessly.
I love Natasha.
Natasha must be coming.
She has already come in quietly and tells me:
“You throw away such a thing as the world because it’s muddled,
but going to a remote mountain doesn’t mean you lose it all.”
The snow falls endlessly,
the beautiful Natasha will love me,
and somewhere the white donkey, too, will cry out,
delighted with tonight.
Cr. https://jaypsong.blog/category/baek-seok/
According to wikipedia, BaekSeok fell in love with Kim Jin-hyang, a kisaeng, and named her Jaya. In 1938, he proposed to her that they leave for Manchuria and live free there. But, she refused proposal fearing that she would stand in his way. She left for Gyeongseong alone. Then, he wrote Me, Natasha and a white donkey (나와 나타샤와 흰 당나귀). In January 1939, he returned to Gyeongseong and met Jaya again. Hhmmmm. I think DJ’s mum story arc was based here. I’m excited to know how will this turn out. 💛
“Me, Natasha and the White Donkey” is a poem about the love story of Baek seok, who was called poet of poets, and Jaya, who lived in longing for his poems and love for his life. Jaya, a courtesan, never forgets a poet she once loved passionately and she lives alone for the rest of her life, always missing him. She has lived alone, never fogetting Baek Seok whom she loved long time ago. She reminisces about him. To her who is now an old lady with gray hair, the poet suddenly appears. With her lover, Jaya travels to the sad past when they first met, loved each other and parted. After coming back from the long journey, Jaya says that she will never regret loving the poet even though their love ended sadly and she had to wait for the poet for such a long time. Just as she says so, white snow falls on her head just like in Baek Seok’s poem.
I watched first 5 minutes and I have a good one, just watch that :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d82j_Qfp_VA
I don’t explain, you will understand what is the link with the drama. 🙂
OMG CHAE JUN HAS A TWIN!!! MY HEART IS BEATING SO FAST!!
Wait i think i’m wrong..i’m sorry i just saw the clip on twt and concluded that was CJ’s twin. But who’s that?? Doppelganger? Is he DJ’s one of her imaginations?
@wenchanteur “look at me i’m eating” lmfao!
Thanks @011sn for the photo comparison and for researching the poem and the poet. Quite a touching story upon which to base the backstory of DJ’s Mum.
Looking at the grad photo and the sleeping man … it looks like the same person to me, actually. My initial impression, before I read your suggestion of a lost first love, was that Mum was sadly reminiscing that she’d been taken in by that ‘dazzling’ man, against her better judgment. She’d thought him wonderful, able to quote that *Natasha, the White Donkey, and Me” poem, and had called her his Natasha. Being a literature lover herself (that’s my guess) she was won over.
So she had married him, but found him a drunkard and abusive, and so had decided to end up like the Little Mermaid, dissipating or running away with the children.
We’ll have to watch more to see if anyone from Mum’s past is still around to add more twists. 😉
Darling @GB, Can I say this to you? “Oh dear”, GB is hooked! 😉 thanks for all your notes, they are good reads for the first 2 episodes and I always find them enlightening.
@Cleo – I also see some hopeful tone to the fortune teller’s prophecy.
@OAL and @011 – I always appreciate the literally connections in kdramas. I brush up on what I have read (and not) also and I’m
fascinated with how they are used in the story. I am reminded that Little Mermaid (non Disney version pls!) and Happy Prince were my favorite tales which were really sad but realistic tales. These lingered with me longer than the happy ever after stories. But I’m still a sucker for happy endings.
@WE – LOL, at first I was wondering what your video link was about (is this an ad?) but then, I got it. Hehehe.
Will peep in again later as I am back to work today. Happy to go into this YAMS rabbit hole with all of you.
Hi @Cleo thanks for giving us your take on the oracle.
The phrase: “And there’s a sharp sword in the wind” to an anal person like me… sounds indeterminate. I can’t tell if the FT means that ‘all these bad things will happen ‘BUT’ don’t worry you’ll have a sword to help you.’ Or whether she means that ‘on top of the bad things, you’ll also face a sharp sword in the wind, which may not help you.’ So I have difficulty interpreting it. However, your take on it sounds plausible to me, especially the ladder metaphor.
@Janey I’ll be hooked for as long as it’s possible to be hooked ie until RL comes along. LOL. The raw Ep 3 is out. It starts more grisly and less artistic. I’m no longer surprised that DJ was shocked with that letter in the music box.
@011sn you are correct. There’s a doppelganger, a twin. We are way ahead of the show LOL. I guess it was the only way to make sense of one of the leads dying so early in the show … there had to be another one of him.
So the possible killer of the Policeman Lee, Lee’s friend and colleague Det Ko, and the recipient of Lee’s heart, Ju, are tied together by that murder.
The show has to go into proving that the killer is the true killer … a possible psychopath?
So twins it is kekekeke… I am guessing the guy who died might not be JM but the real CJ. The killer is wiping out his traces. It’s too perfect a scene. And he’s making up circumstantial evidences that point to the dead JM. When he paid the homeless guy to put the suicide note, didn’t he think that the homeless guy would be captured on cctv? I think this was done on purpose to bait the police, stained the letter and see if cops would believe in an alternative reasoning or just drop it. This evil twin looks like the one who met YD in his office and the one who approached DJ despite being warned by YD. I need the motive for killing. Why would he kill all these people? Random victims or it has something to do with his past?
anyway, really loving DJ, YD and mom combo hahahah… that random questioning and the push at the beach are comic gold lol
Ep1 – 24:00 : THIS GAG !!!!! whahahahahaha. She was talking on the phone!
I saw NOTHING coming. 🙂 🙂 🙂
How do you know it’s the same director than TKEM ??
https://i.postimg.cc/9Fk3W86k/Face-To-Face.jpg
^^
The homeless guy is jeongmin. He erased his fingerprints that’s why his hands look like that. When DJ also met CJ’s doppelganger at hallway (which is JM), looks like he removed his disguise because he looks clean or dyed his hair to black.
I agree, the real CJ is the one who died. Maybe he was pushed by JM in luring him to go at the abandoned place or blackmailed him. JM made the suicide letter and made CJ as him. I am also curious what is his motive, is it about their adoption? Jealousy? Or no reason at all, he just wants to kill. The excitement that he’s getting with killing. Looks like CJ is the US citizen and JM used CJ’s info when he went to YD’s clinic.
Dear 011sn,
Kalimera from my part of the world. I wanted to write some things but I saw what you have read.
the homeless guy had a dermal disease in his hands. So, I am not that sure that he is Jeongmin. I have to check again but it looked like psoriasis.
If CJ had in his system prescribed drugs as the autopsy has shown, then he might have made him to commit suicide.
Still, both brothers have / had mental issues. Ju diagnosed CJ as a sociopath, we don’t know JM’s diagnosis yet.
For the light moments, I like the build up of the relationship of YD and DJ. Their dialogue and bickering in the car was done well.and the underlying rapport is evident. The mom accidentally pushing YD in the water was funny! And YD sleeping comfortably on their drive back while DJ was driving is testament of.trust. Oh dear, JD is in trouble – he is falling for her. 😊
Both YD and the police chief have good gut feel and doubts About the perfect crime. They should keep their radar on alert. YD should share his theories with DJ since she is involved, too. Hope to find out more about the doppelgänger soon. Why show up at the hotel she works at? There’s also something dubious about the homeless guy.
Kalimera @Cleo 💖
Haha i really feel the homeless guy is JM 😅 like in Se7en movie, the killer removed his fingerprints and surrendered because his mission is now complete.
@Janey i also loved their dialogue and bickering! Hahaha also the twins when the twin girl made a fist and let the twin boy choose, she smack the head of her twin Hahahah so funny. They’re like ikjun and shwa 🙊😂
Hey @011sn,
If someone can post stills from the homeless man it would be great. I would love a still from his hands too, because I think that he indeed has a dermal disease.
@Janey, I loved their bickering.
I also liked that Dr. Ju said that he is in trouble! “Oh Dear…” I laughed in that part!
Of course he is falling for her. Her mom foretold us about it, when she pushed him at the sea…
From what we have seen last night, I continue to believe that Dr. Ju is indeed DJ’s sword.
Also, that heart reference with Dr. Hollows key chain that DJ gave to Dr. Ju should be noted. We know that Dr. Ju had a heart transplat, something DJ doesn’t know. So, her words need to be trascribed, because she described Ju fully.
Not only DJ got under his armour, but she found his soft spot as well. That’s why he said that he is in trouble. Hence the voiceover we were hearing when he had this realization. Everything connects…
I am waiting for that Fate reference sooner or later!
@WE, yes the director is one that directed TKEM. It reminded you Lee Gon and Lee Lim’s shot?
Here is a little treat for you! Enjoy!
As per usual, in the parenthesis are my comments!
From Ko Jin-Bok and Ju Young-Do’s conversation outside the Police Station. This is after Young Do told Jin Bok that the culprit is another and not the deceased Chae Jun. They look like partners and in a way they are.
Jin Bok: Why did you wait for me?
Young Do is patting the pavement, asking Jin Bok to sit beside him, he does.
YD: You should quit smoking.
JB: You should quit nagging.
We hear the sound of the lighter.
JB: I wonder who tipped us off. Is it someone from the bereaved family?
YD: Of it could be someone who wants to bury this case by pinning it on him.
JB: That person knew Choi Jeong-min’s home address and that he frequented that building. So they might know about you and the lady on the fourth floor.
If you’re right, the real culprit of the murders is someone else. And if that real culprit was the one who tipped us off, you two might be in danger.
Therefore… I’m going to investigate this scene from square one.
Ju nods.
Dr. Hollow and Ju’s heart.
Ju: Thank you for the clothes for me.
DJ: Sure. Oh. The plant is doing well.
Ju: I can see that.
DJ: did the water leak stop?
Ju: Fortunately, yes.
(That is a lie dear Young Do! Why?)
DJ: Oh, right.
DJ takes off her pocket the Dr. Hollow’s key chain and gives it to Young Do.
He looks at her puzzled at first, but then he understands.
DJ: You know, Dr. Hollow shares his heart. A piece of his heart is enough to bring warmth to people who were shivering and to encourage people to live again when they want to die.
Ju: I like Spider-Man, though.
DJ laughs and so does he.
DJ: The soup was as warm as his heart. So were the digestive tablets, the candy, and our trip to Gangneung. Thank you for everything. Though you probably already figured it out.
Ju: And I wanted to apologize to you. If I had…warned you more properly and sooner…
DJ: He was your patient. I wouldn’t have been able to tell you if he’d been my hotel guest. You did everything…you could.
Ju: Thank you for saying that.
(They had things they wanted to say to each other. It is like they are resetting their first encounter and they are starting over, both wiser.)
DJ: Do you know what if feels like to want to drink with strangers?
Ju: You have no reason to be shy since you will never see them again. And you won’t be teased the next day no matter how drunk you are or how long you stay in the bathroom.
DJ smiles and nods at his words.
DJ: Speaking of which, you know, you and I have been through a lot lately.
Ju: Okay. Let’s do that.
DJ: how did you figure it out even before I told you?
Ju: I’ll just treat you like my neighbor. I won’t ask you if you’re okay, if you had any sleep, or if your mother threw someone else into the water again. I won’t ask you such questions. I’ll bring you misdelivered packages.
(Oh…Dear….! Young Do…you are a naughty boy! LoL )
DJ: You can break my shower head or dump unwanted plants on me. That’s fine by me.
Ju: Actually, there’s one more plant I want to dump on you.
(DJ you lied as well. That facial expression of horror! )
Ju: So, we’re good, right?
DJ smiles and gives her hand to seal the fact. They bought smile and shake their hands. We get several shots of that handshaking. From that panoramic, we know that the Director directed also TKEM (winks at @WEnchanteur)!
TVC Radio’s Voiceover:
Ju: When someone gets close to you and you feel uncomfortable around them, it might mean you’re scared that you might end up liking them.
“If she sees the real me and get to know everything about me, she’ll be disappointed and leave.”
Or… “After going through all that trouble, I’m falling for someone again.”
Radio Presenter: Gosh. I totally know what that’s like. Now when I’m about to fall for someone, I no longer feel excited. I think, “Gosh, I’m doomed. I’m in big trouble.” That comes to my mind first. Is that what happens to you, too?
Ju: I’m not sure. I don’t remember as it’s been a long time, I liked someone.
We get to see Ju in his office, he looks troubled. He takes Dr. Hollow from his pocket.
The water starts dripping from the DJ’s apartment in the bowl in YD’s office. We hear the sound. YD looks at the ceiling.
Water is associated with feelings. Hence the shot in that water drop falling into the bowl and the next shot is focused in Dr. Hollow’s heart. That is when Young Do sees the ripple the drop causes and murmurs to himself.
I’m in trouble.
Why am I telling you all this? Because this is significant!
Both of them are emotional for their reasons. Those feelings are connected to the known case. Also, they are connected as that leaking connects their apartments.
Water means that they are starting to feel things for each other too.
Young Do knowing his heart well, plus he is a Specialist, understands the mechanism first.
Also, aren’t you curious, why Dr. Ju Young Do needed a new heart?
Because he feels so much that his own “heart” was broken and beyond repair.
This man who helps others with his occupation, wanted to help all those who he couldn’t help before, he became a doctor.
First of all, himself. We have seen that he has lost his brother as a child.
Then, his mother, then he wants to help his Police Officer friend that lost his maknae from that killer.
So, this stoic man, who hides his feelings behind his sterile doctor persona, has a warm heart. DJ saw that and she told him. Although she is broken as well, she was able to see through his armour, his warmth and pain.
She did so in a different light, from their first encounter, where YD told her his clinical assessment. That’s why he is in trouble. DJ finally saw him, bear.
That’s why we get to see that voiceover.
And that’s all for now!
My dear Queen @Packmule3,
Can you check again? One of my analysis didn’t pop in here…
Done! 👍
Episode 4 is lighter with hilarious situations, LOL conversations, so many delicious misunderstandings, … a relationship that’s becoming closer.
It started with an animation also, like several other shows do nowadays (Gumiho, DAYS, etc.) Ep 1, 2 and 3 didn’t have this opening credits. They had cold opens. Those were the darker episodes.
I like the bunch of Ju’s friends, and Mum is a scary mother/MIL type LOL. I’m glad that the 2nd floor is being occupied by Ju’s vet friend. His producer friend is such a hoot! Together with Cheol Do they make a pathetic foursome who can’t date!
The twist with the doppelganger/twin is a little different from what I expected.
DJ’s Brother seems like a good kid.
Watch until the very end for an epilogue.
@Cleo here is the homeless man
https://ibb.co/4FKYXxr
And here is his hands
https://ibb.co/6J4pyjF
Thank you for the transcript, Cleo 💖 I’m going to compile that, i really love the writings of this drama. So far so good 😭
Am just getting into this drama in detail. I’m really enjoying it. I like the plot twists and coincidences. I lso like how, in transplant cases, the recipient seems to take on some characteristics if the donor. As has been said before in the comments, the esthetics of this drama are special and help to draw one in. I also have been thinking that they’re tackling the topic of foreign Korean adoptions that were something of a blot to the adoption agencies. This happened in a lot of countries for many reasons. One was out of wedlock pregnancy. Another was poverty. There was lots of disruption to families and lots of corruption. cultural and physical differences in adoptive families could problematic. We recently saw an adoptive family trying to give up a child with a disability. That was a foreign adoption. We also know what happens when twins are separated. There is cwhole question I f nature versus nurture. That is definitely an undercurrent in this drama. Thanks BODers for the great discussion.
So was the head-patting kid the one hiding under the Christmas tree, who was later seen by DJ riding in a car, presumably to be adopted? This kid was wearing a black hoodie. The other kid (in the picture) told DJ that he was not the one who patted her. He was wearing a greenish sweatshirt, I think. I have not rewatched the flashbacks, so I could be wrong.
@Old American Lady, the classic drama “I’m Sorry, I Love You” deals with the plight of orphans/abandoned adoptees with great sensitivity and compassion. The story also touches on the stigmatizing of single mothers.
Agapimenes @Cleo, thanks for the transcript. This is one of my favorite parts and it’s so good to read it.
The ML’s calm countenance and steady voice but pragmatic way of explaining things is very comforting. Like when he said that heartbreak is not a visible malady, because you do not see bleeding does not mean it is not painful. One needs to heal like when you had an accident and hurt your arm or leg. And his rationale about a mishap of stumbling in the dark because you forgot to turn on the light…
I like that she gave him the Dr Hollow toy. The writer is underlining their connection before them even realizing it. Nicely done.
I haven’t had the chance to watch the 4th episode yet so will revert back when I do. Thanks for sharing your insights.
@Janey, yes I like how DJ insisted on getting that Dr Hollow because it was a character who shared his heart and spread warmth. Such a sweet and meaningful gift.
LOL the crazy ex-wife just had to steal it so that she could tell if Ju cared for DJ or not. Sly but smart move. It’s good that show has made Ju consistently smart about matters of the psyche and heart. At least he is not blind to his own attraction towards DJ. It would have been bad if he was the clueless one LOL.
My agapimenes @Janey and @GB,
Kalimera!
@Janey, I felt it was important to write down those dialogues. As I want to trascribe another scene. Oh dear (LMAO!), I have a new addiction, trascribing scenes in k-dramaland!
@GB : Only a woman would do that. Ju is smitten with DJ, but we don’t know about her since we get to listen to his POV.
When she run to the Hospital, then I figured that YD is important to her too.
I want to write some things, so I will return…
Inside joke…
How do we know that the Director directed The King Eternal Monarch?
1. The Shots. The cut profile shot in the end of Episode 4 reminded us the rival shot with Lee Gon and Lee Lim.
2. The footsteps.
We were hearing Lee Gon’s footsteps when he was going to Tae Eul. We have Dr. Ju’s footsteps echoing in the pavement for two episodes.
3. The Lovers who are running to each other.
Lee Gon and Tae Eul run in that Bamboo Forest and there are plenty other scenes I can remember and write down, let me limited it into one.
In Episode 4 in YAMS, both Dr. Ju and DJ run towards each other and they met outside the Hospital…
Should I keep this as list ? Where are you @WEnchanteur?
Correction: Should I keep writing down these as a list?
@Cleo – for the TKEM list, although this is really from the writer land not the director – having a doppelgänger! Hahaha!
Will keep an eye on the similarities. 😉
Hello again! I have to say the following things:
– The building that was used in that suicide scene is definitely the one that we saw in L.U.C.A. @SnowFlower was right.
– I have this idea that there are more than two of them.
I believe that there are three. In the flashbacks we have seen, there was the one who patted DJ. The one that was hiding in those stairs and told her that he wasn’t the one who patted her head and another one that was hiding beneath the tree.
I have to check the Episode again in order to notice the blouses those boys were wearing and I am referring to the first and the last boy to see if they are the same or not.
I have read a book ages ago that it was called “The Third Twin” and it had to do with genetic experiments and the fetuses were planted with fertilization in vitro.
If there is a case of illegal adoptions, something big is underneath all, and maybe the dead police officer is connected with that Cult / case and that’s why he was killed.
We saw that two people were dumbfound when they saw the doppelganger on that telly / TV.
1. Someone who was at an Internet café. He might be the culprit, mostly because we only saw a shot of his brown eye.
2. The Police Officer that was eating at his mother’s restaurant.
So who was #1 ?
I also want to pinpoint that DJ calls her mother : Security Cam and YD: rear mirror.
Here is the scene I wanted to transcribe! Enjoy!
I am writing my notes in between.
The talk, after they were running towards each other…
YD was working at the hospital seeing outpatients today. Because of that misunderstanding, DJ got worried that he was hurt.
8 missed calls in YD’s cellphone from DJ. When he sees that, he starts calling her and she is not picking it up. So, he starts running deeply worried.
They meet up in the Hospital’s entrance. They talk at the same time.
YD: Why didn’t you pick up?
DJ: Why don’t you pick up your phone?
They look at each other and stop talking. I guess they saw that they were okay and they instantly calmed down. DJ walks towards YD, kinda startled.
DJ: You’re…You’re not hurt anywhere?
YD: Are you upset that I’m not hurt?
DJ: Then what am I doing here?
YD: Exactly. What are you doing here? Are you okay?
DJ: What is this? Is this a prank?
We get to see them sitting at a bench talking about the misunderstanding. Young Do is the name of a dog, not our lovely Dr. Ju. He gives DJ a soda.
Ah, they are cute together!
YD: Ah…This is why I told him not to name his dogs after people.
DJ: Well, it’s not wrong to give a dog a human name. If only Cheol-do had told me properly…
YD: Are you sleeping well? Right. We agreed not to ask these questions.
DJ: Forget it.
YD: What do you mean?
DJ: It’s too late for us to drink as strangers now. And I was the one who overreacted first. Why did I come here? (yeogi!)
Why did I blow up your phone?
(Tell us DJ why did you go over there? Can you please tell us in your own words, please? LMAO!)
YD turns and looks at her.
YD: You were worried. It’s understandable.
DJ: I’m getting better. But I don’t think I’m fully there yet. Every time I hear an ambulance, I…
YD: That’s okay. You’re still recovering.
DJ: Will I ever fully heal? I didn’t know I was this fragile like glass.
YD smiling: No, you have a bulletproof mentality.
DJ: That’s from “The Man from Nowhere.”
“This bulletproof, you son of …”
YD: Son of what? Did you just curse? A foul mouth?
(Oh, he is a tease!)
DJ: I didn’t. I reacted quickly and stopped before I said it.
YD: What’s wrong with cursing? It helps. So what if it’s just glass, not bulletproof?
You can go to a hospital if it breaks. That’s what my profession is for.
DJ: You’re right.
They are smiling at each other.
DJ: Still…I’m trying to do my best to stay strong.
YD’s voiceover:
I wanted to tell her this. “It’s okay to break down. You don’t have to fight it.
It’s okay to hold on to somebody as you get back up. And I almost slipped and told her this as well. “I hope…that I can be that somebody.”
I really like the message of this scene:
All people can break, but they can heal again as long as they take their time, seek help, while they are having someone besides them…
I love them. What a lovely couple (to be…)
Hello everyone, hope you have a good day..
@Cleo, thank you for the Oracle meanings and for transcribing. I think I’m drawn into this couple already. The way they interact with each other, the way they converse, the way they comfort each other, the way they worry about each other too. I agree with you Cleo, I think they will make a lovely couple.
I’m also curious about the guy who were freaked out when seeing Ian Chase from the internet cafe. Is he the guy who’s been watching JeongMin and DJ, who knows JeongMin address and tipped the police off. Aside from JeongMin twin brother, I think he is also become one of the suspects too. Wait.. he’s not the homeless guy who put the music box into the train station’s locker, right?
@GB, Oh please keep making the mini recap. I like to read them. 🙂
I think I rarely listen the “Oh Dear” lines from k-drama nowadays, does this lines seems vintage to you anyhow? He says this line so smooth!
I also notice that since Start Up, there are so many dramas that I watched using animation for their opening credits. Makes me wondering is it trending in that country now?
@Janey, yes the way YD talk is very comforting. This role is fit for him. I like when he explained about the heartbreak too. Easy to understand, I hope that people that watch this drama will have more awareness about mental illness too. Because where I live, not many people treat mental illness as urgently as physical illness. We need time to heal from our wound, but sometimes people around us keep pushing us to run and move on as soon as possible.
I’m trying to rewatch the scene from year 1994 when DJ got the book from the volunteers, at first I thought it’s a different day, but as I rewatched, I realize that it happened in one day.
1. The Little Mermaid – DJ’s first encounter with Jeong Min (he wore the greyish long sleeves tshirt, he patted her head and DJ blushed)
2. The Happy Prince – DJ first encounter with Jeong Min’s twin, Ian Chase (he wore Black Hoodie Jacket, he whispered to DJ that it was not him who patted her head). But the picture they were taken is happened after her encounter with Ian Chase, the one who is in the picture is Jeong Min who wore the grey longsleeves tshirt. Ian Chase was hiding behind the bush.
3. Snow White – no scene with the twin
4. The Fairy and Wood Cutter – no scene with the twin
5. The Black Cat – DJ took bell chocolates from xmas tree, but they were fallen to the ground. It was Jeong Min who wore grey long sleeves that gave her the chocolate under the tree. When she walked home, she saw a car, it was Ian Chase inside the car (who wore the black Jacket). I assume that he got adopted in that day, and maybe he went to the USA not long after.
and..
What is Ian Chase doing in the building where Jeong Min died?
@Moonstar, thank you for breaking down the scene in the past to dissect who is the boys she saw and when.
Like YD said earlier, the killer will return to the crime scene. Or perhaps he knew his twin was the one who died or maybe he has a hand in it like a talk before leaving JM to kill himself. Did we know when Ian first arrived in Korea?
Hi everyone! Thank you for the mini recaps and engaging discussions, I enjoyed reading it very much and realizing I missed so many details haha. I want to add my two cents but I’m afraid I’m not good at analyzing the scenes. Haha.
@Cleopatra, I was just thinking whether it’s possible to have another twin (or should we say, a triplet) so I was pleasantly surprised when you brought it up! And since you mentioned that there is a book called The Third Twin (I looked it up and now wanting to read it haha), we know that the writer seems to be fond of referencing books in the story. It’s interesting!
I am doubting Ian Chase to be the killer though the narrative seems to be pointing to him, but the way he reacted to DJ and how he seems to be struggling as well makes me wonder if it’s possible that there’s another twin lurking (potentially the one at the computer shop).
Anyway, I’ve been trying to Google who Dr. Hollow is but nothing relevant seems to come up. Do you guys know who he is? Or can you point me to the right direction when searching for Dr. Hollow? I have used the terms “dr. hollow marvel” “dr. hollow cartoon” and “dr. hollow comics”, but nothing useful comes up. Haha.
Kalimera!
@jinyangie,
I am glad that someone else thought that they might be more of them. The book is amazing! Ken Follett wrote it and he is a great author!
I believe that they made Dr. Hollow for the show. I looked it up as well and there is no reference about it! I even looked at Funko pop figures.
Still, we don’t know WHO patted DJ as a child. As we don’t know WHO was the one who told her that he didn’t pat her head.
@moonstar512,
I am glad you checked this out.
Still, I cannot say for sure who is who and I will stay neutral, until I have more info. If another one exists, who is identical to them, then we cannot be sure.
So, until we see how this goes, I will substain from saying more about “the Twins”.
From Ken Follett’s “The Third Twin” book, I can say that indeed one of boys could feel that something was wrong. He even felt “urges” when it was not in his character.
Ken Follett approaches the following matter: if someone who has killing urges can totally succumb to it or his enviroment can alter his genetic predisposition. I won’t say more, mostly because if you want to read it, you should! It is a brilliant thriller.
So, I think that it is plausible that Ian is feeling several things about his twin or his triplet. I think he is feeling the killer’s urges, hence that blood scene.
He also was curious enough to go to the abandoned building where the suicide took place. The look at his face while he was being confronted by Ju means that he has a mental instability. He might know it and take treatment though, since he is a doctor. Hence Ian might supressing his urges.
@miracle23 it was shown in the Hotel Information that DJ was looking up. We have to check though the dates. It was after his twin’s suicide I am pretty positive!
My dear @moonstar, I am trying to get my notes down for Ep 4 (I didn’t complete my notes for Ep 3!!!) but I did transcribe something that I thought I’d like to post later.
Thanks for checking out which twin was which during the church book giveaway event. Assuming that there were only 2 lookalike boys, then what you say makes sense. Yes the boy under the tree seemed to have grey long sleeves. I was beginning to wonder if there were 3 lookalike boys.
My thoughts about this scene: if Ian Norman Chase, was already 8 years old in 1994, he should surely remember that there’s a twin or a lookalike, and not be reacting the way he is. I agree that he might be annoyed to be mistaken for Jeong Min, however, I’d have expected him to say that yes, he might have had/did have a twin, so it’s understandable that people who met Jeong Min, keep staring at him.
If Chase was in Korea in 1994, then something must have happened to him so that he totally has no recall of the twin, or he is acting as if he does not remember.
What we see instead is his dream that suggests he feels trapped, suffocated, unable to free himself (rope of the guide buoy got wrapped around his ankle under water). And when awake, we see that he has delusions of blood pooling from under the door when he hears footsteps. He himself is a neurosurgeon, but he’s got a trauma that has not been dealt with psychologically.
From what DJ was checking of the Hotel’s guests
VIP Guest Info
Surname: Chase
First Name : Ian Norman
Nationality: USA
DOB 1986-2-21
Place of birth: LA
Check In Time: 5 Feb 2021
Check Out Time: 5 April 2021 (2 months)
Rm No. : 1101
Co. Name : St Kaiser Hospital
Title : Doctor
Medical Subject : Neurosurgeon
So a possible point of connection with Ju Young Do is through the medical profession. In the year they were in high school, (2003?) Ju was in a premedical school event. The whole bunch of students were at a bar and Ju saw a boy washing his clothes. He seemed to think that, that boy and Chae Jun were the same person. We do not know if the boy belonged to the premedical school group or not. Now we meet CJ’s lookalike and he is a doctor too, although in a different field of med.
I am considering a possibility that Ian has multiple personality disorder or schizophrenia. There was another doctor who was watching YD’s interview in the first episode. We do not know who is this guy. I am considering also that he arrived earlier than 5 Feb. 2021. I will try to check the date later.
So according to VIP guest List, these are the infos of Ian Norman Chase:
Surname: Chase
First Name & Middle Name: Ian Norman
Nationality: UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Date of Birth: Feb. 21, 1986
Place of Birth: Los Angeles, USA
Sex: M
CHECK IN TIME: Feb. 3, 2021
CHECK OUT TIME: Apr. 3, 2021 / 2 months
No. of Rooms: 1 Room(s)
Room no.: 1101
Persons: 1 adult(s)
Guest Information
Company Name: St. Kaiser Hospital
Title: Doctor
Medical Subject: Neurosurgeon
Notes:
1. Fluent in Korean
2. Can’t eat spicy food
3. Requests 10 toothbrushes everyday**
(**this is very suspicious. We also saw toothbrushes from the abandoned childcare facility that the Chief went to inspect.)
And when DJ searched him on the internet:
Ian Norman Chase
Department: Neurosurgery
Specialty: Brain Tumor, Metatistic Brain Tumor
Also, these are the “Twins”
https://ibb.co/VVr5Qrg
They’re identical, right?
This is the kid who’s hiding
https://ibb.co/rHGcYDF
Is there like a twin + a kid who looks like them because of same haircut?
I think there’s also an involvement of lending the jacket to confuse us? I also think the kid who was hiding is the one who was a victim of the cult. It was mentioned that they have a childcare facility back then (Naneum Jaeil Prayer House), they committed all sorts of crime. Locking up missing kids, adopting children illegally and abusing them.
So was “Ian Chase” is the kid who escaped the childcare facility and pretended to be Ian Chase so that he was the one who’s going to be adopted? Like what happened in the movie US. 😂
Sorry, i am getting y’all confuse hahaha
@GB sorry i didn’t see your comments 😂 so it was feb5, not feb3 hahaha mian mian…
@parker and i was talking about this and she said there’s really an involvement of twins. When YD and DJ was getting the funko pop Mr.Hollow, YD got 9 “Bad Choice” and he called it the “Twins” and gave it to DJ.
https://ibb.co/V3zK5Yc
@miracle23 i agree with Ian Chase having a multiple personality disorder and ptsd.
Random comments-I love Ken Gillette. He does great descriptions and plot twists.
I don’t think this will be so here but I keep getting an Orphan Black clone vibe. And I’m waiting for more childhood coincidences.
Also wondering how mom got family out if poverty so that her kids turned into responsible adults and she looked comfortable.
Here’s bits and pieces of transcription with my take on what’s going on in brackets.
The Human Side Mirror
Ju runs to the store with the toys and spends a long time and a lot of money to try and get another Dr Hollow to replace the one Ga Yeong filched from his table.
When DJ comes, surprised to see him with toys scattered, he pretends he likes the toys. He holds up two similar ones, ‘twins’ and plays with them LOL. However all is revealed when the storekeeper tells him that DJ had done the same thing as him. He tells her that he lost her gift and was trying to get a replacement.
They cooperate and play the dispenser game together, with DJ slotting in the coins and turning the knob while Ju opened up each capsule. When they finally getting a new Dr Hollow toy, DJ and Ju are so elated, they almost do a victory hand clasp.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1QmrvBVIPtAxiG14r00UhTz3iQ4MFPmr9/view?usp=sharing
Now more in sync than ever, we see them walking side by side in the same frame, speaking of doppelgangers, while DJ holds the twin toys.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1eCuVzIToxU6kOkMQD21PYcfDeBJM1SWi/view?usp=sharing
And they are finally in the same frame, making the climb together, steps in sync.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Q65YmGvU_wvuBPgS_wSAFvJIjiH8D0dk/view?usp=sharing
Ju : “I heard you went to the police station.”
DJ : “Are you a side mirror?” He looks at her and she quotes ” ‘Objects in mirror are closer than they appear’. Then you must know why I went there.”
“Yes.”
I was considering what it could mean when DJ called Ju a human side mirror, she was referring to the mirror on the passenger side of the car. They are convex mirrors that reflect more in a smaller space, and offering a smaller blind spot to the driver. It gives the driver more information about what’s coming from behind and to the side.
Ju had brought up her going to the police station, which was private info (much closer) which was not obvious (looked further away).
As a side mirror, Ju kept the driver safer and was close by the driver’s (DJ’s) side always.
(Information from https://science.howstuffworks.com/innovation/science-questions/why-objects-in-mirror-closer-than-they-appear2.htm)
The Human Security Camera
When DJ’s Mum calls and insists on speaking with Ju, DJ calls her the human security camera, because Mum could tell from a distance, that DJ was not alone.
Ju tells Mum she does not need to pay him for his services/help with the pizza.
Ju : “Thanks to you … I got thrown into the ocean and … even delivered pizza.” (LOL like she had done him a great favour!!)
Mum : “Right? You’re right. I did give you quite a few nice memories.” (She’s a tiny bit narcissistic, but nothing as bad as Ga Yeong.)
Ju : “That’s right. Thank you.”
Mum : “Since you’re a psychiatrist, let me ask you something.” (I hear that doctors always face this. People often try to get free consultations from them when they find out that they are doctors.)
Mum : “Today I saw this woman. She seemed to be in a lot of pain….”
DJ looks at Ju appraisingly, and thinks to herself : “A human side mirror and a human security camera are talking on the phone.”
Mum goes on : “I don’t get why she just puts up with it. No wonder she has indigestion and feels pain in her wrists. That’s a mental illness, right?”
(I believe Mum is trying to justify her leaving her abusive, drunkard husband when the kids were young. She’s asking a psychiatrist indirectly, if it would have been the sign of mental illness, for her to have stayed on in that relationship. Mum wants support that she did the sane thing by leaving her husband.)
Ju can only talk about it objectively and he makes the mistake of using medical jargon with Mum : “Her wrists must hurt due to something else. As for indigestion and insomnia, it’s a somatization disorder.”
Mum : “Did you just curse at me?”
Ju : “No, I didn’t. …It’s when you feel physical pain due to stress. It happens when you’re exasperated.”
Mum : “Why did you have to use jargon when you could use layman’s terms? Is it because you want to make use of the difficult medical terms you memorised when you were a student?”
Mum walks on right through a passing couple, who turn to look at her for her rudeness LOL. Mum is not only a camera but also a ‘bulldozer’ who flattens much of what’s in her path.
Ju : “Right. I wonder why I did that.”
DJ continues to watch Ju on the phone a little stunned : “A side mirror and a security camera are talking on the phone for a very long time.”
Mum : “It’s all for her daughter? If that’s true, it’s such a ridiculous excuse. She’s forced to watch her mum wither away like a bridal wreath.”
(Mum may be feeling bad that she didn’t stay with Dad for the children. However, she may have left because she was afraid he’d hurt the children. Also, she obviously does not want to wither away, and she seems to still be looking to date.)
DJ taps Ju on the shoulder and mimes for him to cut the call short with Mum.
Mum : “That’s just downright ludicrous. I refuse to live like that. Look at Da Jeong. You can tell, right? Both she and I are beautiful and confident.”
(Regardless of how she feels, Mum is in denial that she wants affirmation, and points out how her decision has worked out well. Although she’s a security camera when speaking with DJ on the phone, she’s not much good in figuring out Mr Hong who gives her presents, or the meaning of her friend’s insomnia and indigestion.
Both Mum and DJ have not ironed out the pain in their lives that keeps them from forming good relationships. Mum is not aware of the psychological impact of what she did, although to her she did it for the best.)
Ju to Mum while looking at DJ : “You’re right. I completely agree with you.
When DJ is able to end her call with Mum, she says to herself : “The security camera is turned off.” (Which is probably a relief, she shakes her head a little.) She sees Ju drive off. “And the side mirror has left.”
I dipped my toe into this show last night and made it through 1.5 episode before I turned it off to sleep. It’s not a show I want to watch drowsy because I want to notice EVERYTHING. It’s so pretty and I’m reminded why I enjoy watching this actress so much. I really have nothing new to add here but I’m thankful for your discussion. You ladies (and gentlemen?) never fail to impress me.
•I knew I was going to adore this show when the dr put the detective’s hand on his heart. I felt a knot in my throat
•of course the crazy person is associated with the Christians 😒
•I’m excited to see how the dr becomes her black cat. He impressed me with his “assault of truth” especially the foxtail interpretation
•the mother is beautiful and the actress seems familiar. Need to look her up. What happened when she got off the bus with her children?!
•dr ju-was he a sickly kid? When did he develop heart problems? Why was his marriage so dysfunctional? Did they ever have sexual relations????
Yup to everybody who’s thinking of multiple personality disorder and a third twin/triplet. It seems possible.
The thing is that we, the viewers, are thrown by the fact that CJ seems to be a victim. We are led to believe that someone is watching and taking photos of him, then possibly manipulating him, drugging him etc into taking his own life.
And then, the doppelganger, whom we would think might be pinning all the murders on CJ, also looks like he’s a victim of some kind, or at least, someone with mental health issues as well.
What a reversal in twists it might be, if CJ was really the mastermind who set everything in motion to take place after his death, to implicate the living twin or triplet.
The coincidences are stark … might a lot of it have been engineered? The death of CJ had to take place before Chase appeared on the scene. CJ appeared to have been at the scene of the 2020 murder in 99 Building. And yet, Det Ko and Ju both felt that he had been set up.
This means that there is another person who could look like CJ or who manipulated CJ. He is someone who knows the details of the 3 murders. If he was the boy who was washing blood off his clothes and if this boy was the man who looked like CJ who visited Ju’s office (Ju says they had the same look in their eyes when they stared unblinkingly at him), then he might not be CJ or Chase, but a 3rd lookalike.
If that man who visited Ju’s office was Chase, then he’d have had to come into Korea earlier, and he might have been visiting as a different personality (Jeong Min?). We recall that a man in a white coat, like a doctor, was watching Ju on TV and receiving the photos of CJ and DJ. He must have paid someone to take those photos.
This someone could have been the man in the Internet Café who was shocked to see the doppelganger, Chase, in the news.
Something struck me about what Chase said to DJ outside the bar. He recognised her from the hotel and asked to speak with her.
Chase : “We met at the hotel, right?”
DJ : “Yes.”
Chase : “If you work there, you must know who I am.”
DJ : “Yes, I do.”
Chase : “What’s your name?”
DJ : “Kang Da Jeong.”
Chase : “Do you also know a man who looks exactly like me?”
DJ :”Choi Jeong Min. Do you know him?”
Chase gets angry with DJ : “What makes you think you can ask me such a question? Are you a bereaved family member? Do you want my apology since I look like him? I don’t care what happened to you. It has nothing to do with me anyway. So you’d better not be curious about me. Never again.”
He walks up to her : “Don’t look at me like that ever again.”
(It’s strange that he mentions a bereaved family member. It’s as if she does not have a right to know about him, but he implies that he does have the right to question her, because he could be a bereaved family member. He could know that he lost his brother, Choi Jeong Min, whom he is denying in public.
He also says he does not care what happened to DJ, which implies that he knows something happened to her in relation to CJ.
He doesn’t want her being curious about him or looking at him in fear.)
When we next see someone who looks like Chase, he’s in the building where CJ/Jeong Min had killed himself. This suggests that there is more of a connection between him and the dead man than he wants to admit.
What is evident is that Chase himself is not mentally well. In Ju’s diagnosis of CJ, he had written: “No blink. Mask of sanity. Antisocial personality disorder.” He had called him a sociopath.
Chase also seems to hardly blink, but he does not exhibit antisocial personality disorder. He hears particular footsteps that may not actually be real. We see that when he stopped in his run, he removed his ear buds and without the loud music, he heard footsteps. The pedestrians walking a short distance from him, were not making those kinds of sounds. He could be having auditory hallucinations.
We saw that in the hotel room, when he heard footsteps, he imagined blood coming in from under the door. So he’s suffering visual hallucinations as well.
Summary: so those are the possibilities my sleepy brain slowly came up with.
1) CJ has been set up to take the fall for the real murderer, who could look exactly like him.
2) Or CJ himself in his own personality or as a separate personality set it up.
3) If he coincided his death with the arrival of Chase to Korea, it means he knew of the connection between them.
He set it up so that DJ would be gaslighted into thinking that CJ was head over heels in love with her. One or both of the doppelgangers had been searching for DJ in particular, to establish a relationship with her, only to traumatise her. It could have been because as a child, she’d rejected the overtures of friendship from one of them.
4) The other possibility is that Chase has the multiple personality disorder. He would have had to have been in Korea early enough to engineer the surveillance of CJ and his suicide.
5) He committed the murders, when he was in the personality of Jeong Min.
6) The 3rd possibility is that there is an unknown party (the killer) who knows about the doppelgangers. He could be one of the triplets (if they are triplets) or someone else entirely.
The Opening Credits
I guess the only reason we bother with the opening credits is because we sometimes find Easter Eggs there. I did a few screenshots that spoke to me or confirmed what we’ve seen so far about some of the characters.
The first part shows us DJ and Ju as strangers in separate boxes. In their respective apartments, they look as if they are shaken in the same way in their building. They share similar experiences living together.
We see Seo Hyun Jin’s name as the black cat artwork, the legless bird painting and the foxtail plant make their appearance in her apartment, while Ju looks in.
His thoughts about what he’s observed burst into coloured shapes as we see Kim Dong Wook’s name. He’s the observer and the one who analyses what he sees.
His thoughts and the legless bird are combined and a pink/red pencil line starts linking them with the black cat artwork. Yoon Bak/Park’s (Chae Jun) name appears. However there’s a more menacing looking black cat that also appears next to the first painting. So there are 2 kinds of black cats. One who might bring help and one which is a bad omen.
The pink line turns red so it’s more like a red string (of fate: what else!) now that links up with the foxtail flowering plant. We see one flower magnified that looks particularly prickly, and the name there is Nam Gyuri, who is our Ahn Ga Yeong, the narcissist.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1CU8KbZ46-aI19kHQCFOxxOR1pMTKF_06/view?usp=sharing
We now see a red pencil held in Ju’s hand. He draws the lines and loops, making the connections.
He draws loops around DJ implying that she’s been tied down. The names there are the Park Siblings played by Kim Ye Won and Han Min. DJ doesn’t like the attempt to control her. She stamps her feet and breaks free to climb the stairs.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/18nxUVUxGQrYXpH7PeA5IJ82nEG7M5JFJ/view?usp=sharing
It’s true that I felt Eun Ha in particular was too bossy over DJ, and that DJ is rightly making her own climb towards healing and a good relationship. The red line is no more.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-foje5FuyRabT9LSK8xxSWW8ED6Vx3T1/view?usp=sharing
The names that appear on her climb are her Mum acted by Oh Hyung Kyung and Det Ko acted by Lee Hae Young. They both may hinder or help her, and she goes up on her own without recourse to fate.
The animation ends with DJ and Ju on the roof, looking at each other in the pink falling snow. The title in Korean has a little red heart added to it. No interpretation needed!
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1QvO8WscqKrVbTvlCf_mV0_qiUwnWh4Ze/view?usp=sharing
Twins
There are a few siblings in this show. We know of the Park brother and sister, DJ and Tae Jung, Ju did have a brother once, and then we are teased by the likelihood of mentally sick twins.
To double confirm that we’re watching twins (or triplet doppelgangers), we not only see Dr Chase who appears after Chae Jun (who is or isn’t Choi Jeong Min) dies, we are given also a view of the identical toys (Bad Choice!) from the toy dispensing machine. Thanks to !011sn for the screenshot. So it’s okay to be siblings but a bad choice to be twins? Especially twins who are both not mentally sound or who have personality disorders?
I believe someone else brought this up already. If there was a twin who was a sociopath, which twin was it?
More intriguing,… I’m wondering if Ju’s brother who died is older than him or the same age… Looking at the photo of his brother and comparing it with Ju when he was young, I felt that they also looked alike, as if they were twins.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rszuNqw6NRi3t0uWa3Tsqbw052JZpYf1/view?usp=sharing
Ju by receiving the heart of Lee Jeong Beom, (as @OAL rightly reminds us) may also have some shared traits with him. Det Ko seems to find Ju just as lovable. LJB and Ju don’t look alike, but perhaps share twin sentiments regarding the investigation.
Show also gives us DJ and Ju doing so much that mirrors each other, for eg. trying to get the cheap Dr Hollow toy at the same vending machine, but spending big bucks on it. We see them saying the same words at the same time, making the same decisions or using the same arguments as in who should drive. DJ has a prodigious memory for copying what Ju says and uses the same arguments against him.
And in the scene where Ju crosses the overhead bridge-corridor to look for DJ at the Majin Hospital, we see his reflection like he is with a twin.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1e0yn0XnMGrbP4h91Xjtr76fHgyJri_ju/view?usp=sharing
Twins aside, like @Cleo who mentioned it, I like the scene of Ju running across the bridge in search of DJ. DJ went across to Majin Hospital for him and he crossed to meet her. There is mutual giving and taking between these two, better than the Park siblings!
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1j_M0jbHsdZcvvmkNc1sSE7iTT_uyw97y/view?usp=sharing
Hi @birdie007, you ask the same questions we are asking. LOL not least the one about why Ju married Ga Yeong. She seems to believe he felt sorry for her and married her because she was suicidal. He protested that this was not so, but he never could say why he married her.
So we and all his friends still wonder about Ju and Ga Yeong. 😉
I’m finally here, and have watched all the YAMS episodes that have been released so far. I’m hooked. Despite the high body count through Episode 6, there’s enough banter between characters and funny side characters to keep the show from being relentlessly dark. (The junior hotel concierge who swears in English is hilarious!)
The director of this show not only did TK:EM, but also Search: WWW, and Mr. Sunshine (per AsianWiki). I haven’t seen Search: WWW, but I thought the other two were visually stunning. I’m looking forward to seeing what Jung Ji Hyun will show us with this story. So far, I’m favorably impressed. Even the building they chose for the exterior scenes of the characters’ home/offices adds to the story: it is all odd, unsettling angles and exposed staircases.
I went back to watch the first few minutes of ep. 1, because that sets the tone for the story. We are shown the shocked faces of both Dr. Ju and Da Jeong. They will be the characters central to this story. We see a sudden death, with focus on a mewing black cat at the site of the death. [We later learn about the Edgar Allan Poe short story The Black Cat, in which the mewing of the cat leads to the discovery of a murderer.] I believe we are being given a sign that the death we witnessed was a murder, not a suicide, and the murderer will be caught. As for the victim? We hear Da Jeong’s voiceover that he never existed. The man we see falling to his death is not the man he presented himself to be; the man DJ thought she knew was a fabrication. So these will be the main elements of our story: those two characters, the mystery behind the man who died, and the mystery of his killer.
As has been noted, tangerines are everywhere in this show. We see them, and people mention them. Even DJ’s stalker–who we think is the man that falls to his death–is nicknamed Mr. Tangerine. I don’t know if I have time to go back and log every sight or mention of tangerines in six episodes, but maybe if we divide the episodes we can create such a record. Anyone want to help? Other recurring images in this show are water (especially falling water), black cats, and smoke. Maybe we should log these too. Any others?
When DJ keeps coming back to her mother for help understanding the books she’s been given by the church folks, we see her mom doing chores, and piecework to earn money. We learn a lot about the mother’s frame of mind from how she describes the books to her daughter. She’s pessimistic. When she explains The Little Mermaid, the mom is ripping pages out of books to light the cooking fire. When DJ asks about The Happy Prince, her mom is assembling teddy bears, putting in their eyeballs. [In this story the prince’s eyes are plucked out.] When DJ asks about Snow White, her mom is peeling a big basket of garlic. [I’ve seen in other dramas that people earn money doing this. Mom says the dwarfs weep when Snow White is poisoned.] When DJ asks about The Fairy and the Woodcutter, her mom is scrubbing laundry by hand. [In the story, the fairy gets herself in a difficult situation by taking off her clothing to wash her body.] When she explains the story The Black Cat, the mom is peeling a hardboiled egg. [Perhaps the egg the shopkeeper earlier gave her for free.]
I think this presentation of DJ’s childhood home environment is done slyly. There’s pathos in seeing how hard DJ’s mom has to work with such limited resources, but there’s subtle humor in how her activities are linked to the stories she describes. This blending of drama and humor is setting the tone for the whole show.
The illustration we see of the black cat in DJ’s book shows the cat with one eye missing. The show’s opening credits animation has a black cat with an x for one eye. I think these two images correlate.
There are other scenes early in episode 1 I believe signal the direction of this show. It is December 2020. DJ is going to visit the building where she will sign a contract for her flat. At the bus stop, she goes one direction, then the opposite direction, several times. She’s lost, indecisive. But when she speaks with her friend on the phone, she claims to be Kang GPS. Is this misrepresentation lying or self delusion? Later, when DJ and her friend have a conversation on the roof of 99 Building, we again see a dichotomy of views:
Friend (Eun Ha): …How can you get lost…?
DJ: I didn’t get lost.
”’
EH: You’d win a gold in collecting trash [weirdos].
DJ: Don’t exaggerate.
EH lists off four of DJ’s toxic boyfriends. DJ nods at the mention of each one.
DJ: That was a long time ago.
EH: That was this year.
DJ: I think only good things will happen here. You know my hunches are right.
EH: No, your hunches are usually wrong.
…
EH: Hey, cover yourself. Today’s rainwater is dirty.
DJ [exposing herself to the rain]: It’s the smell of a new start!
The message here is that perspective and mindset affect interpretation. We, and the characters of this show, are embarking on a mystery, trying to interpret clues. What perspective, what mindset will lead to the truth?
Hi @Welmaris, we are commenting on Ep 5 and 6 at https://bitchesoverdramas.com/2021/07/19/you-are-my-spring-eps-5-6-open-thread/ as well.
A major theme is perception and misconception. There’s the perception of the ones who think they are mentally sound and those who are considered unsound. There are many misconceptions made by DJ, GY, even Eun Ha about the situations they are in, the people they meet, and about themselves. Eun Ha’s broken romance is also misconceived by others, while she tries to deny her convictions that she’s been wrong and to revamp her own perceptions. She needs DJ to tell her 500 times that she did nothing wrong.
We also have no clarity in our perception of who we are seeing with Dr Chase. We do not even know if his name is Jeong Min, or if it is the name he passed on to his brother. We are not sure if he is merely suffering PTSD or worse, or whether he’s a sociopath or a psychopath or neither. Ep 6 was interesting because it shed light on Chase who was also a victim, or at least that’s what his dreams and memories seem to tell him.
I’d love for Dr Ju to comment on all the characters we meet in this show and give us a guide as to how to perceive them, the way he guided DJ in interpreting the drawings of Aiden.
On perspective, we see GY’s perspective that her presence in Patrick’s life will blight him but he will not accept this. Seong Won’s perspective that Ju has women falling at his feet, while the other friends say he flirts. It’s likely none of them are accurate.
We watch from the perspective of armchair ‘wannabe-psychologists’ as the characters muddle along from their own perspectives and possibly lead us wrong or right.
Only in Episode 1, I believe, did we have Ju narrating concerning DJ. Subsequently what we perceive may be unreliable, as if we have an unreliable narrator laying out the story for us. This is especially the case where the murders/deaths are concerned. Yes, Chae Jun was likely murdered too, in that he was made to take his own life. He had been watched and photographed as well. We wonder if his own brother has been ‘stalking’ him remotely, or if there’s someone else. The perspective of the police is that CJ was a scapegoat and not the murderer. Which leave us with Chase and the unknown man who recognised him.
There is also doubt about whether DJ’s dad and Hong Se Geun really did die. Again our perspective will change with different ‘facts’ that crop up.
It’s a real pleasure to watch this which is intriguing without causing frustration, and so beautifully shot and relayed.
@GB, I’ll head over to the other thread. I just thought I’d comment about the first episodes here, but it makes more sense to comment when I can include the additional information we gain in eps. 5 & 6.
I wish @Packmule3 was along with us for this ride. I think she’d like this show in all its beautiful complexity.
YAMS Ep. 1 Motifs: The Music Box
— The background music heard during this show’s opening scenes is from the music box we later encounter. It starts while Ju is walking in the unfinished circular building, then continues when we see DJ on a street and hear her voiceover, “When I ran over, he wasn’t there. He…was nowhere.” (We don’t yet know who the “he” is that she is talking about.)
— After a body has fallen and we get a closeup of a black cat’s eyes, the screen goes to black. We hear DJ’s voiceover continue: “He was never there…to begin with.” We hear in the background the clicking of the music box mechanism folding the assembly into the box. [Spoiler: We later see that on the back of the assembly base a photo was taped. It was taken at the church the day DJ got her book and encountered the twins.]
— Immediately after the tangerine conversation between DJ & Stalker over drinks, we see DJ sitting on her rooftop terrace. She’s projecting an old black & white movie onto the wall. The scene we see from the movie is a woman starting an LP on a record player (a music box, of sorts).
My notes: A music box, and the music it plays, are usually considered beautiful, but as they are presented here, they imply ill fortune. The juxtaposition of good and bad makes the music menacing. The character most tied to the music box is Stalker/Chae Jun, followed by DJ. When we see an old phonograph being used in a scene where we only see DJ, it brings Stalker into the picture; we aren’t only hearing about him during DJ’s phone conversation with her mother.
YAMS Ep. 1 Motifs: Water
— There is water dripping in the unfinished circular building, and we see through it a parked car as if we’re looking through a curtain.
— Fish tank in DJ’s home in 1994: When the father fights with DJ’s mother, the fish tank is broken and water spreads over the floor of the room. A goldfish flops on the floor, gasping.
— December 2020: It is raining when DJ gets off the bus and goes to see the building where she’ll get her new flat. DJ thinks the rain is nice. Despite her friend’s warning that the rain is dirty, DJ holds aside her umbrella, exposing herself to it. Arms spread wide and head uplifted, she says, “It’s the smell of a new start!”
— During a stormy night, with lightning, thunder, and heavy rain, a murder takes place in 99 Building, which is still under construction. It’s the building to which DJ will move.
— Security camera footage of 99 Building shows the murderer climbing stairs in the rain.
— Someone is watching Dr. Ju’s analysis of the murderer on a laptop, seated at a big wooden table strewn with books, an old key, and an ID card. The mystery man (his gender judged by his hand) is wearing a white coat, like a doctor. The camera does a closeup of a half-full (half-empty?) glass of water on the desk, in which the reflection of the man is distorted.
— Flashback from 5 years before December 2020: DJ almost carries her drunk boyfriend into his apartment. He senses she’s sick of him and wonders why she dates him. DJ doesn’t answer, but gets him a glass of water, saying, “Drink some water. I’ll call you in the morning.” She leaves. The camera focuses on the cup, made of glass, filled halfway. While DJ is standing outside the apartment door, from inside the apartment there’s a loud sound, like the crash of a thrown glass breaking. That sound causes DJ to remember her parents’ violent fight in December 1994.
— After DJ partially dries her hair and leaves her flat, water drips from her showerhead. The water then drips into Ju’s office below through his light fixture. Ju’s staff sets a small pot to catch the drips, saying they’ll get a bigger one. Ju reports the water leak to Cheol-do (male fraternal twin). DJ isn’t aware of the water leak because she’s gone to the convenience store with her laptop to sit and work. Ju goes to the convenience store to find DJ, but sees Stalker talking with her, so waits at a nearby table. When DJ leaves Stalker in a huff (he grabbed and looked at her laptop without permission), Ju sees it as a signal to interrupt Stalker.
Ju: There’s a water leak…I thought you guys were done talking.
DJ: We are. (Stalker, who’d followed her, looks disappointed.) What about the water leak?
Ju: Let me go up and check on it. (We see a closeup of Stalker’s profile as he listens, tight lipped.)
DJ: Now?
Ju: Is it too late?
— Next day DJ & Ju are in DJ’s bathroom, looking at her shower. The showerhead is no longer dripping.
DJ: Let’s just call a plumber.
Ju: The leak might be caused by a pool of water. Let me turn on the water.
DJ: Be gentle, I cranked up the water pressure.
(Ju pulls the valve handle & loses control of the handheld shower because of the high waterflow. A slapstick fight to stop the water ensues. Ju stomps on the showerhead with his foot to block the water, breaking the showerhead.)
Ju: (while trying to pat himself dry) I’ll buy you the same one. I don’t see any water trapped here. I don’t get why it’s leaking. I should have called a plumber. Can I check your washing machine just in case? Maybe another time.
— Ju returns downstairs to his clinic. A man wearing a black cap is checking in at the front desk. We overhear the male staffer saying, “If you don’t have a passport too, you won’t get the health insurance benefits. Is that okay?” As Ju walks into his office after changing into dry clothing and his doctor’s coat, we see that water is still dripping into a larger pot set on his desk. The mystery patient is waiting for Ju.
MP: You see patients at night, too. You work at a university hospital as well. (He’s done his homework on Ju.)
Ju: Please sit.
MP: Do I have to?
[drip sound]
Ju: No. Suit yourself. You’re a US citizen. You’ve seen a psychiatrist before, right? People there see shinks—
MP: No. I suddenly got upset today.
[drip sound]
Ju: Why?
MP: I think you’re surveilling me.
[drip sound]
JU: Have you ever felt you were being watched before?
MP: You must think I’m really here as your patient.
[drip sound]
(Ju sighs, gets up from his chair, walks around his desk and stands in front of the mystery patient.)
Ju: If you’re not here as my patient…
(Mystery patient’s face comes into focus. He looks like Stalker.)
MP: Then what?
Ju: It’s the other way around. You walked into my sight. [drip sound] Just like now. [drip sound]
MP: (Presses his booted foot down on Ju’s foot.) Why did you put your foot under mine? Is that what you mean? [drip sound] (MP steps back, removing his foot from Ju’s.) I’m here as a patient. (He pulls out a lighter and expertly flicks it open and spins it with one hand.) That way, whatever I say, you have to keep your mouth shut. (He lights the lighter with another one-handed flick, then shuts it with a clack.) To keep your license.
Ju: Great. (Turning his back on the mystery patient and walking to his desk.) Then did you come to my clinic—
MP: Do you like Ms. Kang?
[drip sound] (Ju turns to look at MP.) [drip sound]
MP: Because I do.
[drip sound] (MP smiles) [drip sound]
(The camera does closeups of Mystery Patient’s chart. His name is Chae Jun. He is American. [Remember: He did not supply proof, such as a passport.] Ju’s notes: no blink; mask of sanity; *antisocial personality disorder.)
— The night that Ju goes to the police station to read the reports on the 99 Building murder in 2020, seeming to suspect Stalker/ChaeJun, he later visits DJ, bringing the tangerine plants and asking her to take care of them for him. During their conversation he asks her to not see him (Stalker). When Ju leaves the 4th floor and walks down the stairs, he sees Stalker’s car parked on the street by 99 Building. After hesitating, he goes into his office. Then there’s a closeup of water dripping into a metal pot, ripples spreading in the water covering the bottom of the pot, which itself has a pattern of concentric circles. The ripples and the pot’s circles do not line up.
— As Ju studies the 99 Building murder victim’s report in his office we hear water dripping into the pot on his desk.
(View of Ju from behind, only his head visible above his chair back.) [drip sound]
(Profile view of Ju) [drip sound] (View of Ju from in front of his desk)
(Closeup views of the victim report. Back to view from behind Ju’s chair.) [drip sound]
(View of Ju from slightly to his right.) [drip sound]
(Ju quickly flips through the pages of the report, stops at police photos of the body splayed on the floor.) [drip sound]
(Tight closeup of Ju’s face. His eyes open wide.) [drip sound, louder than previous]
— As Ju, in his office, becomes convinced CJ is the 99 Building murderer, he remembers something he saw when younger. He’d entered a public toilet to find a young man, clad only in his underwear, washing bloodied clothes in the sink. During this flashback we see a closeup of water dripping from one of the sink’s plumbing lines, and we hear it dripping.
My notes: This show is using water, by sight and sound, to add tension to the plot. Drips mark words other characters don’t want to hear (like water torture?) or words and actions that harbor menace. Water is also used to represent dichotomies. To Eun Ha rain is dirty; to DJ rain represents a new beginning. Twice we see glasses of water half full/half empty in relation to people. Is the person watching the video of Dr. Ju good or bad? Is the relationship DJ is in with her drunkard boyfriend good or bad? Is she, or isn’t she committed to that relationship? Water is present when there’s violence: the body dropping onto a car, the parents’ fight, during the commission of the 99 Building murder. The sound of drips, like ghosts of the rain that fell the night of the 99 Building murder, punctuate the murderer’s return to the crime scene, and Ju’s discovery of the murder’s identity.
YAMS Ep. 1 Motifs: Black Cat
— Immediately after a body drops on a car parked in the center of the circular building, a black cat runs in front of the car, meowing. We see blood streaming down smashed car glass, then there’s a tight closeup of the black cat’s eyes.
— December 1994, Seoul: A black cat, meowing, is in narrow outdoor passageway. It is snowing. Dr. Ju provides the voiceover (which is interesting, because this isn’t his backstory, but DJ’s): “Their story had already begun a long time ago in this town that seemed peaceful.”
— DJ is given the book The Black Cat after returning other books whose stories she didn’t like. Her mom’s interpretation of The Black Cat: “An alcoholic jerk kills his wife. He puts her body in the wall and covers it up with cement. So no one knows about it. But a black cat that was also put in the wall with her body meows when the police come. So the jerk gets arrested.” Dr. Ju’s voiceover: “The child read The Black Cat over and over again. Because out of all the stories she could find in her world, it was the most reassuring.”
— While DJ’s father is fighting with her mom, and DJ has locked herself and her brother into the other room, the shadow of a cat walking along a wall is cast against the door DJ locked and her mother is protecting from the dad. The shadow is angled, so the cat looks like it is walking uphill.
— DJ takes her little brother into the closet to hide during the fight. She also brings her book The Black Cat.
— As DJ’s mom cleans up after the fight, her father sleeps, and we see DJ and her brother asleep while huddled in the closet, we hear Ju’s voiceover: “Like any other young and delicate being, the child had dreams and looked for things to depend on. The difference was that she didn’t want to be a princess, but dreamed of being her neighbor’s daughter. And she wasn’t waiting for Prince Charming to rescue her, but for a black cat who would meow for her in the scariest moment of her life.” We see DJ’s book open to the illustration of a one-eyed black cat.
— In DJ’s flat, she has a poster prominently displayed of THE BLACK CAT AND OTHER HORROR STORIES. Dr. Ju sees it. When he’s asked during the jjamppong meal to judge DJ’s personality based on her possessions, he says, “Then, what’s the memory you want to escape so badly that causes repetition compulsion? The black cat. You put the poster up in a place more visible to others than yourself. It means that the person you are looking for or want is someone like a black cat. In Poe’s story, the cat comes back to life even when it’s killed, and helps catch the killer by meowing even after getting buried. Your decision to hang a poster other people find creepy tells me that you identify with the victim at a very high degree. When you were young, I think someone in your family…” (DJ stops him by angrily grabbing him by the coat lapel.)
My notes: We are clearly told the meaning of the black cat. The Black Cat resonates with DJ because she sees in it the uncovering of evil, and the promise of justice.
YAMS Ep. 1 Motifs: Tangerines
— December 1994, Seoul. DJ and her little brother are hanging socks on a potted tree, hoping Santa Claus will visit them this Christmas. (He didn’t the year before.) From the color and shape of the leaves, and the color and shape of the twigs, it looks like it could be a tangerine tree, but no fruit is visible.
— December 1994, Seoul. DJ’s mother picks up two tangerines at the market. She puts them back when told their price. Mom: “They don’t look good. I’ll only take the soy sauce.” Ju voiceover: “Here’s the child’s mother. Everyone in the neighborhood knew what she was going through.”
— December 1994, Seoul. While DJ hears her parents fighting, she also hears a neighbor announce to his family, “I bought tangerines, kids!”
— December 1994, Seoul. As a result of her parents’ violent fight, the potted tree is knocked over.
— There’s a bowl of tangerines on DJ’s desk in her flat. We see it when Ju comes in to get tissues for the rooftop jjamppong meal, during which he sizes up DJ’s personality based on items he sees in her flat. Ju does not comment on the tangerines.
— Stalker meets DJ at her bus stop for the first time. He makes a fuss about her hurt finger (bandaged) and uses it as an excuse to ask her to eat.
DJ: Has anyone called you trash?
S: Do you hate the thought of eating with me that much?
DJ: Alcohol, drugs, lying, cheating, perverted behaviors, ghosting, and assault. Have you done any of these?
S: Do you finally have questions for me? (He doesn’t answer, he diverts the conversation. Stalker sighs, looking around.) I can’t tell you here.
(They move to a bar for drinks. I think it is the same place DJ’s younger brother works, and I think he serves them, because he knows DJ’s usual drink.)
S: When I first saw you at the hotel…”She’s the one.” I could sense it.
DJ: If you heard bells or something—
S: Sometimes I see my childhood memories in my dreams. It was snowing a lot. There were tangerines at home, so I was watching TV while eating them. It was really ordinary. But I guess it was the happiest day of my life. When I first saw you, that scene flashed through my head. And…in that room, you were…by my side. You were smiling. You can…take your time. (He’s described what was also her childhood version of a good storybook ending. Is this coincidence? Has he somehow gotten info from DJ’s friend who encourages DJ to date him? That is a possibility since he frequents the coffee shop where Eun Ha works.)
— DJ is sitting on her rooftop terrace and on the phone with her mom. (This scene is immediately after tangerine conversation between DJ & Stalker.) On the side table next to DJ, there are tangerine peels.
Mom: Did you tell Mr. Hong? (Spoiler: Hong is the last name of the person in charge of Nanum Jeil Church in 1994.) You like tangerines.
DJ: What are you talking about? What about him?
Mom: He bought tangerines. (Mom is sitting in her restaurant. Tangerine peels are on the table in front of her.) Tangerines. Poems. I don’t like those presents.
DJ: Mom, you like handbags.
Mom: He should have brought tangerines in a handbag. A plastic bag? How dare he? So what if they’re sweet and pretty? They’re just fruit. Why did he think of me when he saw tangerines? (With her free hand, Mom is arranging the tangerine peels on the table in front of her into the outline of a heart.)
DJ: Is using tangerines to confess your feelings a trend?
Mom: Did someone get some for you? What does he do? He’s not ugly, right?
DJ: I don’t know him that well, yet, but he said what I like to hear. (But we didn’t see him answer her question, “Alcohol, drugs, lying, cheating, perverted behaviors, ghosting, and assault. Have you done any of these?”) Something about eating tangerines in a warm room while watching TV on a snowy day. (The camera does a close-up of a half-eaten tangerine on the table beside DJ.)
— (scene immediately following tangerine phone conversation between DJ & Mom]. A gift is delivered to Dr. Ju’s clinic: a blackboard easel above a crate which contains four potted tangerine tree seedlings. The ribbon on the gift reads, “Congratulations on your relocation. From Ahn Ga-Yeong.” (We learn she’s his ex-wife. She visits the clinic and behaves insultingly, threateningly toward Ju’s female staff member, who later demonstrates that she considers GY equivalent to an evil spirit.
Male staffer: (pointing to gift) Ms. Oh told me to throw this out.
Ju: But the plant is still alive.
Oh: You think so?
Male staffer: She says the plant is cursed.
Ju: But it was a present.
Oh: If this stays, I go. End of story.
— After drying her hair with a hairdryer and blasting her music loud enough to disturb Ju downstairs, DJ thoughtfully picks up one of tangerines from the bowl on her desk, looks at it and sighs, puts it back, dons her jacket and grabs her laptop, then leaves her flat.
— Ju brings AGY’s gift to DJ, asking her to take care of the tangerine plants for him. DJ declines, because of her history of killing plants despite her diligent care. Ju frustrates DJ by profiling her character some more, relating how she cares for plants to how she dates (“Defense mechanisms just come out without you even realizing it.”), and as she asks him to stop, he says one more thing: “Don’t see him” (Stalker). The camera pulls back, and the tangerine plants are between the two of them. DJ says she wasn’t going to see him, which is a relief to Ju.
Ju: Alright, then. (pats the easel)
DJ: Take your plant.
Ju: (walking away) No need to thank me.
DJ: You must be crazy.
Ju: I’ll come by from time to time.
DJ: Come where? Who said you could do that?
Ju: Thanks. (almost out the door)
DJ: I really might end up killing it.
Ju: Have a good night, Ms. Kang.
([DJ lets out a breath of exasperation, and lightly kicks the crate holding the tangerine plants.]
My notes: Tangerines are sweet and pretty. Tangerines are for confessions. Tangerines go with warm rooms on snowy nights. Tangerines can comfort. One person can connect with another by giving tangerines. But tangerines can also be: sustenance that is out of reach, difficult to sustain, a wall between people.
YAMS Ep. 1 Motifs: Smoke
— In DJ’s childhood home, we see wisps of smoke rising in front of a bundle of hardback books: textbooks on literature. When DJ asks about The Little Mermaid, her mom is tearing pages out of these books to light her cooking fire. Mom’s voiceover: “Turning into bubbles means…that she chooses to dissipate after her arduous attempt to make things better. Nothing comes free in life.” A photo drops out of a book she’s tearing up (entitled Little Love Twinkles in My Heart). Wisps of smoke pass in front of her face as she picks up and looks at the photo. It is of her, younger, smiling. We see a flashback of a man taking the photo. The mom turns the photo over. On the back is written, “To my Natasha, Mi-Ran. From Chan. The pages that are burning in the fire are from the poem “Natasha, the White Donkey, and Me” by Baek Seok. Mom picks up another fallen photo. This one is of the man whom we’d seen take the first photo. In it he’s celebrating his graduation with cap, gown, and flowers, and diploma. The fire strengthens: smoke and ash fly in the room. Mom’s voiceover: “In life, there are some things you can’t say no to despite your better judgement. They are dazzling, bright, and make you so happy that you’d do anything if you could have them. When those things bewitch you, you willingly give yourself up to them.”
— After we see the mom and her children escape from the house in the night, the scene changes to the interior of a long-distance bus. Wisps of smoke rise between seats; a passenger is probably smoking. In a row further forward, Mom sits with her sleeping children.
— Grand Hyatt hotel. Discussion of concierge team about incoming VVIP group and drama shoot.
DJ: You all read the notice about the drama shoot, right?
All: Yes.
DJ: Please cooperate, but if you see them smoking, don’t let it slide. Tell them to put it out and report it right away…Jeong-bin, this is your first time. Don’t just rely on the fire alarms. The previous crew disassembled them just to smoke.”
— After asking DJ to not see him (Stalker), then noticing Stalker’s car parked on the street by 99 Building, Ju goes into his office. The camera does a closeup of a stick of incense, in a holder, alight on his desk. Smoke is rising. The camera view changes to a perspective behind the seated Dr. Ju. We see his head, slightly bowed, above the back of his chair. His office is darkened, but the incense smoke is clearly seen to his left, rising and curling. The camera perspective changes twice more, to a profile view with Ju’s head propped on his hand, then to a view through his shelves directly facing his desk, wisps of incense smoke now rising to the viewers’ right. We see five quick closeups of papers Ju is studying: victim’s details from the 99 Building murder. The camera returns to the view from behind Ju, smoke rising to his—and our—left again. A rapid series of closeups shows Ju and the papers he’s looking at, then settles on a view from directly in front of him. A little smoke is seen seeping into the camera frame to his left, our right. One more quick closeup of the papers: we see photos of the body splayed on the floor. Then a tight closeup of Ju’s face: his eyes open wide. The camera view—our view–becomes his view from his desk, smoke prominently twisting in our sight.
My notes: Smoke and ash are common metaphors for impermanence, destruction, something difficult to confine. There’s an adage, “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.” The presence of smoke can indicate peril. Smoke can provide warning, and peril increases when someone disables that function. Smoke and mirrors is another metaphor for confusion, misrepresentation, obscured truth. Smoke can also appear ghostly.
Additional note on motifs in Episode 1: When Ju is in his office studying the 99 Building murder victim’s details, the scene prominently uses two motifs: water and smoke. Without relying on flashbacks, sight and sound are used to portray Ju’s thoughts, conscious and subconscious.
I think that’s masterful storytelling!
@Welmaris, about old movies that DJ projected. She was definitely being stalked, at least by Chae Jun. He knew about her liking for old movies and she was surprised that he knew this about her. He must have been watching her from a floor high up enough so that he could see what she projected on her wall. Creepy.
I know this is off topic p, but I’m curious to know how DJ came to be so relative,y normal. I hope we get a flashback showing how she can m evto be the responsible adult we see. Her hotel job certainly comes with distinct complications.
Of course, I also want to know about Dr. Ju’s heart transplant-the donor, his health before, his reluctance to have phys I ca, relations with women-the whole shebang.
I locpve this couple. We have part of DJ’s backstop I ry and know a little about Dr. Ju, but I want more.
Normal is just a setting on your washing machine. We all have areas in our lives in which we struggle, The difference between what we’d consider normal and abnormal is intensity, duration, and ability to function within society. DL’s weakness is repeatedly connecting with men who cause her physical, emotional, or financial harm; she’s drawn to them because she subconsciously wants to fix them. This falls into the duration part of abnormal: DL is caught in a cycle she can’t seem to break.
@OAL, my theory as to why DL and her little brother grew into adults that appear relatively functional in society is because their mom got them out of their abusive environment when they were young. I don’t think the mom killed the dad. That would’ve been, as she said, stabbing herself in the foot because she, the prime suspect, would have been caught and jailed, and the children–for whose safety she risked her life–would’ve ended up wards of the government or treated as burdens by some relative. We saw what a hard worker the mom was, not only doing her household chores, but earning a little money on the side doing piecework like making teddy bears and peeling garlic. And I believe her education–even if she didn’t reach graduation like her husband did–gave her the tools to solve problems life threw her. In my personal experience, studying the humanities didn’t so much train me what to think, but how to think: how to formulate relevant questions, how to research precedent and search for answers, how to communicate effectively, etc. The mom ended up living in a seaside community and running a pizza franchise because she was frugal and resourceful, reaching her goal of providing for herself and her children one step at a time. I would think by watching her example her children would absorb a lot of high-quality life lessons.
@Welmaris, I agree with your assessment of the word normal. It is a poor choice of words. I think DJ and her brother ha v e been able to get educated, support themse, ves, especially, live independently. dJ has a very responsible job that requires her to exercise good judgment. Although her relationshipswith men are not good for her, she is not unlike other women whose choice of men are poor. Although she did not ,Ike Dr. Ju ana,Ana, her(not very professional on his part), it interests me to see that she’s ultimate l y attracted to a psychiatrist, a mental hea,health, professional.
I can’t give her mother a pass. I spent a large part of my career being a designated reporter of child abuse. DJ’s mom was cruel to her kids. Dj had very little of her own. The fact that mom destroyed her books and misrepresented the stories, no matter what the motivatio, with no real expressionkf affection to her daughter caneasilybdvjewed as abuse. She can also be viewed in a better light compared to her physically abusive husband, but nevertheless she is not without fault. As a cesugnatedcreporter, we were c required to report suspicion of abuse. I definite,y would have reported both parents.
As DJ and herbrother both appeared to have a good relationship with their mom, I still wou,d ,Ike to know what happened after they escaped the Dad to change the dynamic. I do hope we get more flashbacks for all of our , leads to show how they overcame some of their personal traumas. I am already heavily invested in these characters.
There is so much to like about this drama inc,using the camera work, PA c ING and the sly n humor(Dr. Ju’s ex is a hoot). Looking forward to watching this with comments from the glorious contributors of BOD.