Tomorrow: Episodes 7-8
by missvictrix
No amount of comedic relief from our reapers is enough to cover the darkness as our drama hits its midpoint. The cases keep coming in, but the wider story is slow to unfold, and I’m hungry for more backstory, and a little more sunshine.
EPISODES 7-8 WEECAP
The episodic nature of our show didn’t bother me till now — perhaps it’s because we’ve reached the halfway point and I need a little more story to pull me through the heaviness and darkness that is 87% of this drama.
Though our team’s new case in Episode 7 leads us into the case of the following episode, they’re still quite distinct and separate, and each galling in their own way. But, with some more hints (finally) as to the backstory between Ryeon and Joong-gil, I’m hoping next week we get to dig into the wider story some more. Come on, Show, don’t let me down (or drag me down, as is the case here)!
A computer virus is unleashed on Jumadeung, and in addition to throwing a spanner into their digital operations, our RM team has technical difficulties with their Red Light app. Their next case is up, but all they can decipher is the person’s place of work and birth month. Desperate to get boots on the ground, they all interview for a part-time position at the cosmetics company. Both hilarious and problematic, all three reapers wind up working for the office, and of course, spend more time following around the employees than doing any actual work. But no one seems to notice.
There are four contenders for the individual who is in danger, and the divide-and-conquer investigations of our team are full of red herrings and false starts. The moral, here, seems to be that though many people are hurting, the ones who are truly in danger and suicidal might be the person you least expect.
Ryeon’s insight and intuition lead them to finally discover their target, SHIN YE-NA (Han Hae-in), just in the nick of time. They’ve put together all the signs and signifiers about her, and we get a positively galling display of her bulimia and severe depression. It’s rough to watch, like all of these cases, but also like the others, Ye-na gets a moment of emotional (and maybe even spiritual) healing, and she’s able to free herself.
Granted, the best way to show us her recovery might not be through her gobbling up cakes and pastries from the local PPL coffee house, but I’ll take the show at its intention: this woman has been able to free herself from her past, and move beyond her trauma. I really like that the show is leaning into the idea of personal responsibility as a path for people to make changes in their lives, so we’ll just say this was successful, especially since the RM team was able to show that “the weight of their words” — not their superpowers — is what helps them save people. Onto Episode 8.
Our resident teddy bear Jun-woong is still shaken from the case (being the one to take the lead and talk to Ye-na), and he starts to dig into Ye-na’s method for suicide, eventually discovering a suicide “broker.” Much like we saw in Episode 1, this is a person who enables people’s suicidal thoughts by grouping them together and having them feed off of each other.
Jun-woong wants to nab this evil person, but Ryeon and Ryong-koo insist, quite rightly, that it breaks the reaper code. They are not meant to bring justice or interfere with the Land of Living; their sole purpose is to ensure people live out their destined days.
We know enough of Jun-woong to know that he won’t be able to sit idly by — and sure enough he gets himself into a giant mess, where not only is his safety is at risk, but he winds up in a complex moral dilemma.
Is the show dialing up the disturbing storylines, or am I getting fatigued after so many weeks? At this point, it’s hard to watch this group of unhappy people, and the psycho guy who wants to enable their suicide and watch them die to get rid of his own urges. I understand Jun-woong’s struggle to save this evil man’s life — because ack, he is the next person they must save next — but also I don’t really take any satisfaction in the punishment the man gets saddled with.
The case causes a lot of friction between the team, and Jun-woong’s greenness and huge heart is always complicating things. But, as he learns, Ryeon wasn’t unlike him when she was younger — it’s just that now, with so much life and un-life behind her, she has wisdom, too.
In the end, Jun-woong learns why it was imperative for them to save this horrible suicide broker. Indeed, despite the appearance of injustice, justice was and is still at play. The punishment this man received in the Land of the Living is arguably as bad as what he can expect in Hell.
And now for the fun part: Ryeon and Joong-gil. We catch little snippets of Joong-gil’s past this week, and we see a Joseon-era scene replay in his head: it’s one he can’t seem to forget. In fact, ten years ago he had admitted to Ryeon that he no longer sleeps because the nightmare replay keeps returning. Well, at the end of the episode we see the climax of the nightmare that he’s so afraid of: Ryeon turns up and challenges him on the seeming murder he’s just committed.
It’s a good cliffhanger moment, but it’s not enough — give me more, Show! I’m more curious for their backstory than any other part of this story, and I have a feeling we’ll soon be seeing how deep and wide their history truly is.
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Source: Buzz Pinay Daily
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