The thread is open. Last two episodes! Thank you, @nrllee, @GB, and @Fern for continuing with this drama all the way to the end.
gifs from kateknowsdramas’ tumblr
Enjoy the show.
11 Comments On “Summer Strike: Eps 11 & 12”
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The thread is open. Last two episodes! Thank you, @nrllee, @GB, and @Fern for continuing with this drama all the way to the end.
gifs from kateknowsdramas’ tumblr
Enjoy the show.
Comments are closed.
Thanks and you’re welcome @pkml3. Pity you couldn’t come along with us as much as before.
After these last episodes, we might try to categorise this show as something like slice-of-life tragi-comedy or whatever. The tone has been uncertain on the whole. I guess we’ll be seeing DB saving the day in Angok, just as he’d saved the a*s* of the professor in Seoul. We hope to be able to count on many characters getting their ‘healing’.
🙄 🤔 😐 😬 😕 😝
Ep11
YR visits disabled man (GH) in prison to ask him why he killed Halmoni. He throws a fit yelling, “Grandma is hurt. Run away! Grandma I’m sorry! You’re in danger! Run away!” YR looks shocked as police drag him away. It doesn’t sound like he did it.
YR at bus terminal. Has a ticket to Seoul but decides not to leave.
DB running to billiard hall in Angok. He tries to walk up the stairs but pauses as memories of his sister and mother’s death come flooding back. He is overwhelmed and can’t go further. Turns around and heads outside. Sees YR walking towards him and runs to embrace her. This is as good as it gets for us ladies 😂😂😂. The backpack and the dog get in the way.
https://i.ibb.co/QcKTCKs/08-D2-C738-AF3-A-48-E5-9462-1-C220-A8-DF865.jpg
Bom cleaning the house. Thinks about Halmoni. JaeHoon comes to visit. Pledges to change so that he understands her more. She tells him to forget changing for her sake because she likes him just as he is. Aww…
DB takes YR back to his place. He sets her up to stay and announces he will sleep at the library. They do the whole “I’ll go, you stay” exchange for a bit and finally come to a compromise.
Bom’s father buys pizza home for HaNuel (brother) and Bom. Bom still hasn’t quite mended the bridge with her father. But at least they aren’t fighting anymore.
YR can’t sleep thinking about what GH said in the prison. She finds DB sitting outside because he couldn’t sleep either. She is wondering how someone with bad eyesight like GH could kill Halmoni and write stuff on the wall (in the last ep we heard GH’s mother say he lost his glasses or something and he’s got very bad eyesight without them). DB says they should revisit the crime scene tomorrow.
Next day. YR and DB outside the billiard hall. YR knows how hard it is for DB to go inside. DB walks upstairs and sees the writing on the wall. “Die. Leave this place.” “Trash”. “Ghost, leave this place”. “Die. Whore.” DB wells up as he remembers finding his mother dead all those years ago. He breaks down and weeps. YR grabs his hand to console him. She tries to get him to leave but he refuses. He composes himself as he surveys the crime scene. He notes that the writing on the wall is too well written for someone like GH with bad eyesight (and didn’t have his glasses). He thinks there’s a copycat who wanted to hurt YR but pin the blame on GH. YR wonders if there’s more than 1 perpetrator because when she visited GH in prison, he needed 2 policemen to hold him down.
Realtor walks in and interrupts them. He tells YR that he ended up buying the building and YR can’t rent there anymore.
JY returns to Angok. But not before telling Professor off for using DB.
DB and YR visit GH’s parents. They tell them GH lost his glasses a few days before the murder. And they haven’t had a chance to replace them. They reveal that they knew GH spraying the walls before but didn’t tell anyone about it. YR asked about anyone who could hold a grudge against him. Parents say he stayed home all the time and just drew. Mom says GH doesn’t even know words like “whore” or “prostitute” so it couldn’t be him. The pair go to GH’s room to see his artwork. “Run away SunAh, K, L” is what he’s written. Parents say he’s been writing that since he was a child. YR takes a pic of the writing.
At the police station. YR, DB and GH’s dad is there sitting with GH. Dad puts new glasses on GH. GH looks across the room, sees a policeman interrogating a group of youths and hurriedly lowers his gaze again. DB notices and turns to look at the group. YR takes out her phone to show GH the writing and asks what it means. He refuses. DB tries his luck. GH looks at DB and then cups his hands over his mouth in terror. Dad tries to convince him to speak up but he refuses and hides in dad’s embrace. The group of youths are led away and walk past their table. DB notices how they point to GH and laugh as they walk out.
DB and YR at his house running through the events of the day. YR says the first thing GH wrote on the rollup door was, “run away, I’ll kill you”. The second was “kill SunAh. Did you see?” DB writes it all down on a piece of paper. Including “run away SunAh, K, L”. YR informs DB that GH’s mom told her GH had a crush on DB’s sister when he was young and he only started to write this after her death. And that GH thinks YR is like SunAh, which is why he writes “Run away” to her. DB has a breakthrough moment. See pic
https://i.ibb.co/PWnm4TG/38-B024-BB-2-C26-48-AD-AB66-8-B4282-F4-FC7-A.jpg
DB remembers the youth at the police station who were wearing their school uniform. The badge had 2 hills. Just like what GH drew.
https://i.ibb.co/vc56G5v/851-C4-F0-E-1857-4264-8580-2-B7-DB5-AF9290.jpg
JY returns to Angok and sits down with SungMin and Joon to eat with them. She admits to missing Angok and wants to live here. SM is called away.
At the billiard hall. Someone has spray painted the roller doors again. GH’s mom shows SM and says it can’t possibly be GH because he’s in prison. Police are there too. She demands they release her son. The 2 hills feature again. I see numbers? YR shows up as well walking the dog.
https://i.ibb.co/HDbWf0w/5456-EEAE-C268-44-AF-8-D1-A-6-BDC2-D5-B6014.jpg
They watch the CCTV footage but can’t see the face of the perpetrator. YR hangs back to help SM clean the writing off the doors. And asks SM a question.
Bom’s male friend DH is in trouble. His old gang mates have caught up with him and are asking for trouble. HaNuel (Bom’s brother) sees the scuffle and rings Bom. Bom leaves a date with JH to run to rescue DH who is getting beat up. JH tries to stop Bom from going. Tells her he’s going back to the US. They fight. Bom leaves.
DH fighting with bullies. Flashback shows Bom being bullied and she hits the bully with a brick. DH takes the blame on her behalf. Police show up. He is arrested as Bom watches. Back to present. Bom watches as DH is arrested again. She weeps.
Realtor and policeman see a hooded figure spray painting roller doors again and give chase. Realtor stops to read what he’s written. “I know you killed her”. So the realtor did it? 😯🤔. He tries to catch up with policeman. Realtor corners a hooded man. Wait there’s 2 of them? Policeman chases another hooded figure into the billiard hall… what’s the bet it’s our dynamic duo who run? 😂. Hooded figure drops the hood, turns round…it’s YR…with Realtor. Policeman confronts other hooded figure in the billiard hall and it’s DB. DB fills in the blanks of GH’s squiggles and it’s Kwak MooChul the Policeman. “You killed my noona didn’t you?” DB accuses. But he looks so young?? 🤔. How?? I guess we will get the full story in the next ep.
Ep12 is in a Google doc. Too tired to pen my final thoughts. I shall put my comments about how I feel about the wrap up in another post. Suffice to say I felt this was dragged out way too long? It felt like they could’ve summed it up more succinctly. I didn’t need half an ep to tell me how she now felt “happy”. The last half hour felt like a overly long and drawn out epilogue. My mind needs to take a break now before coming back to my final analysis.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1W5r6pbKkVdsLhDeC4r9jrXVhIMizGDNaUWdTXRvnnuw/
Thanks for the detailed recap @nrllee. I just watched both episodes and you’ve got them down. Just one note… when YR found Bom in the billiard hall, it looked like she had been trying to commit suicide. She had been burning a briquette of coal (or some other substance) with the windows closed, to poison the air while she slept.
Probably it was fortunate that the hall was so large, there was still a lot of breathable air in there. I wonder if she’d been there since the previous day.
Well, it did turn out more slice-of-life than any other genre (if this can even be called a genre). In a couple of sentences, this was about an average Joe/Jill (and an even brilliant one) who gives up the rat race to live an average life, in a quiet place, content with enough. That seems to be one message: be happy by being contented with enough.
@GB Thanks for picking up that Bom was planning to commit suicide. I missed that. I agree about the message. This drama was just very unevenly paced. The sudden death of Halmoni and then that very LONG epilogue in Ep12. I don’t know how I really feel about it. It was just very strange to have DB’s father wrongly accused and sitting in prison for 20years and to have Realtor and Officer Kwak be the “serial killers”. Everyone seemed to just decide to move on so quickly after those revelations. It just felt oddly off kilter with those tranquil voiceovers and how life is now peachy for everyone left behind. What grade would you give this drama?
Heh @nrllee, I moved my grade to the bottom of this post. I thought it would end off my comments better than start them off.
What show should have spent time doing was developing more on the Kwak family saga instead of ‘throwing’ them at us in the last minute, like a deus ex machina to give everyone relief that the fear was over, so as to wind everything up. It felt like Writer-nim was hedging her bets… like thinking maybe the killer could be X or Y but if all else fails, we fall back on Kwak.
Anyway, I feel a bit vindicated that from the previews I guessed it would take the return of DB to get things solved. I’m glad that at least he knew where his father was and reconciled with him up to a point.
I felt that there was mirroring of how DB saw his father run out of the hall (or thought it was his father) and how YR only saw Geun Ho run out. Based on that alone, a person could be indicted for murder! So it was good that this time round, DB was at hand to clear GH of the crime.
In the typical feel good ending that kdramas are known for (and it’s expected of them!!! Especially for healing dramas), it’s nice that Jae Hoon returned and better that Geun Ho finally gets out and is accepted/assimilated into the community. I felt it was too cruel keeping him locked up when he was like a child, wanting to play.
What his parents were so scared of that they kept him home bound, was it ever clearly spelled out? Was it because he kept writing about Sun Ah and his parents did not want him to be linked to her death?
It’s shocking that only now his parents have found a school for him.
Anyway, we find at the end that although YR really only spent the summer in Angok, as per her name, all 4 seasons were present when Autumn came along. It felt like a year had passed in a season, with at times nothing much and at times a lot happening over time, like real life.
As for a grade I might give this show … an indeterminate grade for a show of uncertain genre, and uneven tone and pace, LOL. How about not as bad as 5 and not as good as 7 out of 10? 😂 Maybe a 6.5? 😇
@GB I concur about the grade. It had good moments. I felt like it didn’t need the whole subplot about the murders. Just having DB’s mom take her own life would be sufficient trauma for DB to kick things off. Who looked after him when his dad was incarcerated? JY didn’t look that much older than he was. Moot point. I feel like it would’ve been better served without the murders. Halmoni could’ve died from a heart attack and the rest of the story could’ve just played out without the complicated murder subplot which detracted from the message of the drama. YR’s journey of self discovery did not need the murders. With the murders in the backdrop and the fall out (DB’s father being wrongly accused), it just felt very discordent that she’s suddenly back to journaling about idyllic Angok living. So I am not dissatisfied but neither am I satisfied. I am ambivalent. 😂
Dear ambivalent @nrllee, I agree about the murders. Totally unnecessary. Even after all that, YR admits that she still does not know how she should live her life, so the murders and solving them did not contribute much to her growth. At best I’ll admit that her running practice has paid off and she really ran very well/very fast like a man (or maybe that was a stunt double?).
So join me on the fence 😂 🤣
Thank you both for continuing to watch this show and for discussing it here. I dropped it after the second (or third?) time that the FL got drunk–I can’t remember which episode that was, but it was pretty early.
It’s too bad they had to add murder to the plot. I was really hoping this show was going to be more like “Once Upon a Small Town” (which I found soothing and charming) because of the small town aspect–and the fact that the ML worked in a library!
@BethB yes. It really didn’t need the murders at all. It began as a story of FL trying to figure out her life. The whole murder plot really added nothing to her epiphany. Writer could’ve used less a less dramatic scenario to make the whole drama flow better. The library was definitely a major draw card. I was rather disappointed it didn’t play as significant a role as I anticipated. More book references would’ve been good. FL read a lot of books. What were they? How did they help shape her convictions in the end? And why did ML remind her of The Old Man and the Sea? She never explained that and we’re left guessing.
Annyeong 🐇
I like the DB and YR ship… i don’t think we even got a kiss. Bom and JH, the teenagers got one. what? i do like how they got close – it’s like slow and sure… from their jogging-capades, to their movie and dinner date, talking on the phone, and their library sleepover… their getaway, their video project.
i didn’t like the murder mystery either. but i love the dog 🙂 and i love how the murder (then and now) has been solved. DB’s dad was working in a church? not prison? so sad how in both cases, there was mistaken identity or wrongful accusations. how DB and YR planned that whole catch the murderers like working under cover was really brave of them. so mad about who the murderers were.
so happy for YR. i love the whole winter (dog), spring (bom) and summer (YR) names for them. who is autumn? just a season. oh well. haha.
i love the title of this show. and what it means to slow down and just be happy and content. i’m glad she’s like a sister to Bom and that they’re living together now. funny how she doesn’t even get her own room. but i love how playful they are like sleeping over with a friend. So sad about the grandma. 🙁