Welcome to the Spoiler Zone, everyone!
This is for those of you who want to discuss spoilers, from a “I’ve seen the show and WOW now I’m noticing all these other details in retrospect” sort of angle.
Here’s a Spoiler Zone for you to dig as deep as you’d like, into spoiler territory, WITHOUT the need for spoiler tags or other warnings.
My only request is, PLEASE BE EXTRA MINDFUL OF WHERE YOU ARE COMMENTING. Meaning, please don’t get mixed up, and start talking spoilers in the Open Thread, which could seriously mar the watch experience for a new viewer, OR, a viewer who would really prefer to have the rewatch feel as fresh as possible.
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For the main discussion of episodes 5 & 6, which only deals with spoilers up to the point of the group watch, go here.
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Can someone pinpoint the exact episode and moment when Healer is alone outside, and Young Shin is trying to call Bong Soo to find out where he is…and he just wants to ignore her call because he doesn’t want anyone to care about him?
@the _sweetroad
Are you asking about a scene, where Healer is standing alone on a bank of some river, thinking how he used to not want people to take interest in him? I think it’s somewhere in the beginning of the episode 8.
Yes! Thanks @MariaF. I almost mentioned that scene in the open thread and then couldn’t remember if it had showed up already or not. Glad I didn’t say anything :).
That scene struck a chord with me the first time I watched the show, as it gave a window into just how comfortable he was as a loner. But Young Shin was forcing him to engage with the world (lucky for all of us!).
@the_sweetroad
how comfortable he was as a loner.
Hmmm. If you remember, he told his teacher in a later episode that he had no reason to live and that he was afraid that’d end his life the way his father did – by suicide. I wouldn’t call it being comfortable.
Good point, MariaF. I didn’t remember!
maria and sweetroad,
how comfortable he was as a loner.
hi, i have been kind of mia, some personal issues. so i am trying to catch up.
i actually think that our healer started to fall for young shin in epsd. 5, where he is contemplating on the roof, that “all humans are the same”, meaning nothing interesting or worth investing in, and so better to be by himself, but “this girl is different”, he sees her like this wild cat that he saw on tv, who was injured but did not back down when encountered a pack of hyenas, who could easily take him down, but he decided to attack first even that the advantage was on the hyenas side. he has a deep respect, admiration and even affection for this courageous animal – by comparing her to this wild cat he already feels a connection to young shin and most likely even attraction, without (probably) rationalizing it this way. but right there and then his “virgin” loner status is lost.
@merij @eda @MariaF – continuing The Great Debate of how much of Bong soo’s bumbling-stuttering act is part of Healer’s real personality. In Ep. 6, Teacher and Ahjumma are discussing Jung hoo and along with the mention of his autism, Teacher calls Jung hoo “timid”. And since we know that Teacher knows Jung hoo is not afraid and can handle himself in any physical altercation, then wouldn’t he be talking about timid in dealing with other people? Probably in social settings?
…or more likely in personal connections since he has never had any successful/reliable personal relationships?
I was wondering about that translation – maybe instead of “autistic,” “socially awkward” would have been a better term. He doesn’t strike me as autistic or on the spectrum. He seems especially attuned to social cues. YS seems more likely. I’m not trained to ID disorders – just from my experience of knowing people on the spectrum. Please correct me if I’ve said something misinformed or harmful.
@ellerbee L – My Korean is still not advanced enough to know if the translation is correct or not but I suspect is and hers why –
The Show shows us Healer making those spatial calculations instantly when he kicked the can into the bike wheel to set off a chain reaction and then again with the Construction Pump “piece of unrecyclable trash” as Young shin called him.
My daughter-in-law has her Master’s in Child Development and that’s how we discovered that my son is on the autism “spectrum”. It is a very wide spectrum from very low functioning to very high functioning. My son is very high functioning on the autism scale. I won’t bore everyone with all his shenanigans & issues but they diagnosed his with ADHD when he was in elementary school (he’s 36 now) but I think what might explain how he is – when he was in college, he scored 98% on a bio-chem test (the only one to score above 78%. No surprise to me but his classmates were like who? him? lol
My son followed in his dad’s footsteps and became a firefighter and that requires “normalcy” for lack of a better word, and he continued in school and now has his Master’s in economics and is a mortgage broker. He also hangs out with friends who have no clue. They might catch him so focused on something it looks like he’s daydreaming or zoned out but no one chalks it up to autism. That’s because of what we think of when we hear the word “autism”.
No one could ever tell my son has anything abnormal going on unless they’re in his company day in and day out which is why my daughter-in-law, after their first few years of marriage insisted on having him tested (because my son, although a beautiful person, can totally wreck a nerve!) 😆 But seriously, I know how blessed I am that I can laugh because where his focus cones in has allowed him to have a successful career and I know how some parents have had to struggle because of autism.
@beez, Bong soo’s bumbling-stuttering act is part of Healer’s real personality.
i told you i am watching empress ki now, so i suddenly see the same kind of bumbling-stuttering of the young emperor, just like healer, but exactly the same way, when he is afraid, confused, panicky, cowering behavior and acting when forced to do or act against his will, when blackmailed, or confronted with something that he does not want to be revealed. but you have to see it to believe it, and i just wonder, is this his “signature” trick, or what? i mean it does work in both situations the character is in, but still… what is your take on it?
@eda – hmmmmm. I hadn’t thought about it because the whiny, entitled prince that he starts out as in Empress Ki is so far removed from Bong soo in my mind. Yes, they’re both ‘fraidy cats 😁 but where the prince is a coward, Bong soo’s act never makes him out to be a coward in my book. But I suppose that, yes, I guess that’s part of JCW’s repertoire. I saw Empress Ki long before Healer even existed and yet, when I saw Healer, the characters did not seem similar in any way, not even the bumbling Bong soo.
@beez, Teacher calls Jung hoo “timid”.
i personally do not believe teacher meant what he said – timid. he was just kind of pissed, and called him timid just like out of annoyance, it was simply a matter of speech, that’s what i think. he knew him well enough in all kind of situations, he probably had confrontations about his behavior or consultations with his teachers, after all teacher was living with him and was his guardian, or whatever you want to call him. but he took care of him, no matter what, one thing is clear to me, you can hardly call healer timid. or when he displayed this kind of behavior, it is intentional, to confuse and mislead the opposite side or the enemy. that is in healer. on the other hand, when he displayed this kind of very timid behavior in empress ki, as the young emperor, it is completely his character’s natural reaction, unlike in healer (although the outer behavior is identical).
@eda – it sounds like you didn’t read my entire comment about Teacher calling Healer timid. I said that since obviously Teacher knows Healer isn’t afraid of any one physically then…
@beez,
i did read your comments, but i interpreted it as you do entertain the idea of “timid”.
then wouldn’t he be talking about timid in dealing with other people? Probably in social settings? that sounds to me like in certain situations healer can be timid, according to you. in my mind, he is NOT timid. point. that is what i was saying. correct me if i am wrong.
@You Guys –
Also, it’s starting to sound like Moon Sik had very possibly had a hand in Gil Han’s death as well. I.. wouldn’t put it past him, considering how dark and oily he is, and how desperately he’d loved Myung Hee from afar, for so long. quoting Kfangurl
I’ve watched this show so many times, and the first few times, I hated Moon shik as the villain (or at least a willing facilitator of the top villain, The Elder). But now, I switch up every time I watch it – hate him/sympathize with him – because I know I’m such a huge coward when it comes to physical pain that which of us could’ve withstood the beatings he received as a young man?
That’s rhetorical, for now. I’m just asking everyone to consider if you were in his shoes what you would’ve/could’ve done and then see how we all feel about him as the series starts to wrap up.
Agree with you, @beez, it would be very difficult to go through what he did as a young man. That’s probably what separates the real heroes from the everyday person – the heroes would give up their lives to protect their friends (that’s why they get posthumous medals of honor), and the everyday person protects himself/herself first (understandably). Moon Sik was in a terrible spot.
Still….so much pain and loss happened and he was involved in that. I guess he paid for that the rest of his life.
@the_sweetroad – Agreed! I can only fault him (at this moment cause I’ll probably waffle back and forth as we watch) for his smugness and now enjoying his evil power. Maybe I could forgive him if he made a decision to stop at some point. Although, would The Elder allow “his cronies” to leave?
I agree. He was very young and feared not only for his own life but Myung Hee and Moon Ho as well.
@beez, I’m just asking everyone to consider if you were in his shoes what you would’ve/could’ve done
yes beez, pain is my worst enemy in this life, so i can understand why he falsely testified at the time. but years later… he could have remedied it, he is in a high position, and he could have disclosed it, open up the whole case through the media that he is on the very top of it. you might say, but the fear of the “elder”. but once it’s in the media for public consumption, even the elder could not do much. game over- there would be investigations on top of investigations. it would have exploded. in my opinion he kept it a secret for ever because he was afraid his wife would leave him. she would not have been able to get over it and forgive and forget. that’s the bottom line. so he sold his soul to the devil for completely selfish reasons.
in epd.6, when he talks with his wife who is ready to fall asleep but questions him who he really is, he seems to understand and tells her that he had a meeting with “stupid unethical people” and questions (doubts) whether the country can be entrusted to such people. the question really is, does he consider himself unethical and even stupid in a way? or by attaining ultimate power he hopes he can control them? i think he does have internal conflicts with all these issues and what happened in the past, but does not allow himself to go there. the question is, does he experience ANY remorse? at the end, after his wife leaves him and he gets drunk by himself, we might have a glimpse of may be, just may be he does have a degree of shame, or internal torture in regards to his unforgettable betrayal.
Gosh, watching Episodes 5 and 6 today, I forgot how good this show is! Young Shin singing in the car and completely mystifying Bong Soo by it :), the quick mental calculation he does to send plants and fertilizer (? is that what it is?) flying, his overall agility, his dorky uncertainty in the face of her confidence and care for him, him waking up on the park bench and having to pretend to be a scaredy cat in front of her very intimidating “manly-men” dad and ahjussi, the fact that YS’s dad owns a cafe AND is an attorney, and the kind of sinister talk from ahjumma that she might need to replace Healer if he keeps getting distracted by a girl.
One of my favorite dynamics is how timid and intimidated Bong Soo is in front of YS’s dad. It’s so funny! And it makes the payoff so much better, when Bong Soo/ Healer shows up later and fights those thugs inside the cafe. The way YS’s dad and ahjussi look at him in that moment is priceless!
Thinking about isolation earlier….it’s interesting how that is a theme for the characters in this show. Healer is isolated (especially because everyone always leaves him 🙁 ), ahjumma is isolated because of her work but also because of her previous choice to stay on the job instead of go to her husband and son, Moon Ho is a bit emotionally isolated because he always thinks about Young Sin and the past, and Myung Hee is totally isolated (trapped) in that enormous fancy house. I would go crazy if I were her!
The only ones not too isolated are Young Sin and her father. It’s great that as Healer, Moon Ho, ahjumma, and Myung Hee start interacting with YS and dad, they become less isolated and more interconnected as a community by the end. For example, I love how ahjumma comes to the cafe to talk to YS when Healer cuts off communication with everyone.
@the_sweetroad – Great observations. But I would add Young shin to the list of the isolated because she has no friends. Or so we’re told. I’d like to think that the staff at Someday are her friends and would support her no matter what, but maybe that’s just my wanting that for her because Show made a point of saying she’s never brought any friends home (not just no boyfriends but any friends); she doesn’t even do social media!
@beez, that’s right! Thanks for the reminder. Everyone is lonely in this show, then. 🙁
Episode 5 always drags a bit for me. But the bright light is Lee Jong Soo. He’s such an earnest puppy I have to laugh whenever he offers up any commentary. The last shot of Bong Soo’s side eye as they run slo-mo out of the greenhouse to the theme song is just iconic.
With episode 6 I always have to suspend disbelief because when he runs around Seoul by running across rooftops I try to do the math and geography and it messes with my brain.
Thanks to whoever initially pointed out the connection between the yarn and Ajumma’s son. It’s so obvious now that I can’t believe that didn’t occur to me. Now I look for yarn in all of her scenes.
Yes, the knitting 🙁 . So sad. Obviously she’s still grieving and feeling guilty. It just hit me that she is isolated in her dark cave, just like Healer isolates himself in his cave. It’s great that by the end of the show they’re both coming out into the light and into the real world.
And I know, that perfect last shot of Bong Soo’s satisfied glance at Young Shin! As KFG said, if I hadn’t been hooked on the show before, that one moment would have drilled it in.
I’m so glad Jong Soo gets screen time as the show goes on. I really like that actor…he was in The Producers, too. Hopefully his career can take off a bit more.