Waverlyroot

Thanks for that possibility. How intriguing that would be. I'm all in!

Yoo Shin's mother and brother drowned while they were on an outgoing together.

Hope to see you then! With well-moisturized neck and lips :)

Like its literary forebears and the movie Parasite, this movie is about class resentment and alienation. Hae Mi becomes a target because she is cut off from her family. The only person who cares about her is Jong Soo - and he comes into her life only after she booked the trip to Nairobi. I think she spent her savings on this epic trip rather than paying down her credit card debt - the nominal reason why her family won't see her anymore - because she intuited that being debt-free would not give her life the meaning she might find at the birthplace of humankind, where the horizons are infinite.

Jong Soo struggles as a "writer" - a profession mocked by his father's lawyer. He also bears the burden of being the son of a violent drunk, a single parent. Jong Soo has to practically beg the one farmer to sign his petition, acknowledging that his father is an outcast in Paju. (I don't think it's a coincidence that Paju is so close to North Korea). His long-lost mother is hounded by debt collectors for $5,000.

Ben, on the other hand, doesn't have a job nor any responsibilities. No doubt, HIS father bought an apartment in Gangnam in the 70s/80s, setting him on a different path than Jong Soo's family. Ben enjoys the lifestyle but not the satisfaction of having done anything substantive with his life. His cosmopolitan friends do not find it noteworthy that he has a new girlfriend every couple of months or so. The friends think of themselves as worldly sophisticates, but their understanding of other societies is shallow and racist. The Gangnam cafe and Ben's apartment are beautiful but antiseptic and soulless, empty of life.

Hae-Mi's transformation from the bubblegum barker to the soulful seeker of her Great Hunger was stunning. As other reviewers have said, her dance against the sunset is the most haunting scene in my recent memory. I had to weep for my youth and the hunger that kept me going. As Korea rises up the OECD ranks and inequality becomes more entrenched, the hunger that drives poor folks like Jong Soo and Hae MI will continue to collide with the fat cats like Ben who have no hunger and therefore no humanity.

Good to see you here! I love that we can enjoy soapy dramas like Love, Marriage and Divorce, and also brooding masterpieces like Burning.

Wait a minute ... Kim Ji Won (Tanya) also played Rachel in The Heirs??? What a trajectory!

Oh, yes. I did watch that and it too was devastating. All that suffering unleashed on each other

Check out the actor in Once Again too! Don't be deterred by the number of episodes - time will fly.

Forgot that!
Do you suppose that power will corrupt Tanya and Eunseom and their love for each other the way that Taelha and Tagon are now mortal enemies?

I don't have HBO nor the time to plow through all 70+ episodes of GOT. How does Arthdal compare?

Yes, it's been a treat seeing a who's who ensemble of Korean actors with an international cast mirroring the polyglot tribes. The care and consistency with which the different jok (tribes) are delineated - language, architecture, clothing and rituals - is awesome.

I love the Neanthals - hope to see their return under Nunbyeol in Season 2!

If SPY's wedding was not a dream, don't you think she got her reward? Yoo Shin lives with a squabbling harem while SPY marries into money and cut abs. Oooh.

Thanks for providing my daily laugh. There is also Ben & Jerry's Chubby Hubby :)

That's an understatement. She is very loving and giving. I wonder how that will change if the professor does kill himself.

What did you think of the gratuitous ab scenes? We barely see him throughout the season and suddenly he takes up 25% of this episode!

Even with a guaranteed S3, the writer could have closed some loops and made this season a complete arc on its own. I don't think it was good form to throw curveballs in the last two minutes.

Nevertheless, we'll see at least 75% of the disgusted fans who are swearing off this "dumpster fire" (I don't think it's a dumpster fire). They say they won't be wasting any more brain cells, but we all want to know what happened to the baby and to BHR.

Yes, had to read up more on the writer. Interesting that she has her own publishing company and is such a health nut.

Fortunately, that's for the husband to decide, nobody else. I don't know that we ever "earn" forgiveness. It's a gift not a transaction.

Thank you! It has been fun processing this drama with so many people. Whatever the plotting, the writer succeeded in making us care about the characters.

As you put it so well, people do cheat in real life without suffering karma, and it's worth exploring some of back stories. If watching this drama reminded spouses to pay more attention to their partner and treat him/her with more affection and communicate more clearly, then it will have done a service!

Likewise! I see a dry spell ahead. What else is popular right now? Devil Judge?