Though I’m glad I got readers of this blog to take a closer look at Park Jin’s kitchen stories and relate them to the plot, I feel obligated to continue writing about them.

Note: this is my interpretation and it’s just one of many. You are free to come up with your own take on his food metaphors so do not wait for mine. Just dig in. The Open Threads are there.

Episode 3: The noodles

PJ: Noodles and celebrations go hand-in-hand. You fool. Had you had a proper wedding, I would’ve served this dish to everyone in Songrim.
Uk: (warily slurps the noodles) No. You better not serve this dish to anyone. If you serve this on your wedding day with Maidservant Kim, I will be angry.
PJ: I heard from her. Did you think marrying her off to me would help you die in peace? Your bride doesn’t seem to know about this. Haven’t you told her yet?
Uk: She lacks her divine powers as of now. She needs to regain her memory to do that. I already confirmed it.

It’s a good thing that he doesn’t know that Yeong had visions of her assassin days when she accidentally touched Naksu’s sword.

PJ: Then it won’t happen anytime soon. Eat up.
Uk: These noodles will be the death of me.

My comments:

a. The Hong sisters definitely have a way with words. It’s quite unfortunate that I don’t speak Korean.

Instead of Uk simply saying, “Eww. This tastes horrible!” he grumbles that the noodles taste so bad, it’s like he’s dying when he eats them. He can taste death.

b. But there’s another subtext here. Noodles are traditionally served at weddings as well as funerals and ancestral rites. Read more about it here: https://folkency.nfm.go.kr

c. I think Park Jin intentionally serves Uk noodles to open up a conversation on MuDeok. Park Jin plans to pivot the topic from noodles served at the wedding to noodles made by MuDeok/Naksu.

PJ: Is that so? I followed the recipe used in the kitchen. Apparently, MuDeok used to enjoy making those noodles.
Uk: (freezes)

PJ: I avoided mentioning her name all this time because I did not want to hurt you. However, I think it failed instead.

He meant that he has refrained from discussing MuDeok with Uk out of enormous consideration for his feelings and sympathy for his loss. However, in hindsight, his self-imposed silence on anything related to MuDeok’s life and death actually hurt Uk in the long run. His self-censorship did Uk a disservice.

Uk: (puts chopsticks down)
PJ: You did not visit the cliff where she met her demise, did you? Then why did you raise that stone tower in the mountain? Were you not mourning her death? Were you praying she would come back? (pause) Sangho was the one who witnessed her getting petrified and saw her fall into Lake Gyeongcheondaeho. Let him recount the incident, see for yourself, and then mourn for her. And if you still want to die after that, come back here. I will make you another dish.
Uk: (gulps down food)

My comments:

a. In Park Jin’s opinion, Uk is delaying the grieving process. Uk wants to “see no evil, hear no evil, and speak no evil.” He doesn’t want to visit MuDeok’s death site. He doesn’t want to listen to her death account. He doesn’t want to talk about her.

All he did for her was to build a stone tower. But even that stone tower is questionable. He didn’t use it for mourning but for praying for her to come back.

b. It’s clear that Uk hasn’t let go of Naksu and is still hoping that she returns to him. That’s the primary reason he avoids visiting the cliff and hearing about her last moments alive. He thinks that if he can stave off this discussion of her death until a future time, he can continue to pretend that Naksu isn’t dead yet. He can continue with his delusions that she’s alive somewhere on her way back to him.

c. In other words, he doesn’t want closure because closure is…well… final.

d. But Park Jin wants him to move on with life. And he encourages him to accept MuDeok’s death and to mourn for her because these are necessary steps in the process of grieving.

Obviously, Park Jin approves of Cho Yeong.

He tells Uk that if he still wants to die after mourning, then he can drop by at his place. He’ll gladly cook Uk the same noodle dish. Because Uk claims that the noodles will cause the death of him, Park Jin personally assures him that the noodles will give him a taste of death (in the literal sense) should he still feel like ending his life in the future.

e. That’s the end of Park Jin’s straight talk.

I think if Naksu had been alive, she would have approved of Park Jin’s advice. Remember in Season 1, Episode 4 when Uk was told that his father wasn’t Jang Gang? He fell into a despair too until Naksu straightened him out and brought him to Danhyanggok.

f. I’m getting ahead of myself, but I don’t want to return to this morbid subject of death.

In Episode 4, when Uk was drunk, he told Yeong that “I could not cry. I felt like I was really abandoning you there.”

What does that mean?

Well, if you have time, I want you to read my interpretation of Master Seo’s “Words of the Heart.” Link: Alchemy-of-souls-ep-10-on-the-love-letter-part-2/

What I wrote back then is still salient now; it applies and relates to Uk’s current state of mind. I’ll only make a few additions.

Uk can’t cry for two reasons:

One, if he starts crying, then there’s no stopping his tears.

Two, if he cries, then he’s mourning for Naksu.  To mourn her signifies his acceptance of her death. Sure, for most people, Park Jin included, this is a healthy sign of progress. But as it stands in Episode 4, Uk is greatly conflicted about her mourning her death.

On one hand, he knows he can’t continue to hold on to a dead Naksu. He must let her go. He has a new wife, Cho Yeong, who’s smitten with him. It’s about time for him to accept the finality of death.

But on the other hand, he’s afraid that when he lets go of his dead Naksu, he’s abandoning her for good. The idea of abandoning her troubles him so much because he already failed once to uphold his promise to protect her, take care of her, and miss her. She died, right?

Now, he’s about to do it all over.

That’s Uk’s grand dilemma.

I guess noodles are a good symbol for him. These long and thin strips may be associated with long life and cherished memories, but you have to wonder whether having a long life and cherished memories can be sheer torture to those who no longer think they deserve happiness and have lost all will to go on.