THE SHORT VERDICT:

It is not an exaggeration to say that this show is unlike any other drama I’ve personally watched in my 14 or so years of serious drama-watching.

It’s dark, unsettling, and strangely fascinating — a watch that kept me intellectually engaged even when it wasn’t emotionally generous.

The cast does strong work across the board, with Kim Yoo Jung delivering a particularly impressive performance — easily the best I’ve seen from her so far.

Lens adjustments are critical here, and I’ll talk more about that shortly, because this is not a show that behaves like a conventional drama, nor one that rewards being watched as such.

THE LONG VERDICT:

You could basically sum up my interest in this show in two words: morbid fascination.

If you’ve been around the blog for a while, you’d probably know that this is not the kind of drama I gravitate towards, at all.

And so, when Show’s trailers started coming out, I was utterly convinced that I wouldn’t be watching this one – until so many of you were reporting that you were completely sucked into this show, that.. FOMO eventually got to me. 😁

It did take me some time to figure out how Show itself wanted to be watched, but once I got that figured out, that helped me immensely.

I’ll talk about that in a bit.

OST ALBUM: FOR YOUR LISTENING PLEASURE

Here’s the OST album in case you’d like to listen to it while you read the review.

I can’t say that any of these songs actually spoke to me or got under my skin, but I thought Show’s music was well-chosen and effective, and it did work to amplify my watch experience.

HOW I’M APPROACHING THIS REVIEW

You’ll notice that the way I approach this review is a bit different than my usual, and that’s because this show is quite different from the dramas that I usually write about.

First I’ll talk about how to manage your expectations going into this one, and what viewing lens would be most helpful.

After that, instead of talking about stuff that I liked or didn’t like, I’ll talk on a more macro level about a few key things that I think are important in this show, before I give the spotlight to selected characters and relationships, in a separate section.

Finally, I spend some time talking about my thoughts on the penultimate and finale episodes.

If you’re interested in my blow-by-blow reactions, &/or all the various Patreon members’ comments during the course of our watch, you might like to check out my episode notes on Patreon here.

MANAGING EXPECTATIONS

Here’s the key thing that I think would be helpful to keep in mind, to help you maximize your enjoyment of your watch:

Think psychological study, not makjang

This is THE key lens that I think will help you to navigate your way through Show’s very different waters.

I’d started out using a makjang-adjacent lens, but that didn’t really hold, because Show is not a makjang at heart – even if it looks like one, on first glance.

Rather, our drama world functions more like a social experiment, and I found that using this lens, while adopting the posture of a scientist-observer, worked best.

Typically, in my reviews, you’d tend to see me identifying with characters, resonating with their experiences, and rooting for their growth and success.

There is essentially none of that here, because the point of our story is not character growth.

What Show is interested in, is furthering the psychological experiment, where our characters work more as archetypes than as fully-formed people with growth journeys.

I think enjoying this show depends a lot on being willing to engage with it observationally, rather than emotionally — and on finding interest in what the show is testing, rather than in who you’re meant to root for.

THE PSYCHOLOGICAL EXPERIMENT

It was really only in the second half of my watch, that it clicked into place in my head, that our story is constructed as a social experiment, and our characters aren’t meant to function as characters in the traditional sense of the word, but as archetypes.

Meaning, Show’s always been asking the question, “What would a sociopath do, under these circumstances?” – and not, “What would this particular sociopathic character do, under these circumstances?”

This is why Show focuses on stress-testing our sociopath by causing her to encounter various other archetypes, in a variety of situations.

The entire focus, each time, is on how A Jin reacts and responds, based on her archetype hardwiring, and importantly, there is no expectation of character growth.

She stays the same at her core – and the question is, how does this core function, under all these different circumstances, and in relation to other specific archetypes.

LET’S TALK ARCHETYPES [BROAD SPOILERS]

If you would prefer to pinpoint the different archetypes yourself, feel free to skip this section.

But, in case you were wondering, here, in very broad strokes, are the various archetypes that I think are at play, in our social experiment.

To clarify, I’m approaching these archetypes as functional roles within the experiment, not clinical diagnoses.

• A Jin is the archetype of a sociopath

• Jun Seo is the archetype of someone with a savior complex

• Jae Oh is the archetype of a validation seeker

• A Jin’s father is the archetype of an overt narcissist

• Jun Seo’s mother is the archetype of a covert narcissist

• Moon Do Hyuk is the archetype of a predator

Throughout the experiment, what we see are these archetypes being pitted against each other, and I found it very interesting to see how each archetype behaved under the specific conditions set by the show.

I’ll talk more about each of them a little later.

LET’S TALK CONSISTENCY

A very key thing that I felt was important to pay attention to, during my watch, was whether Show managed to remain consistent in its chosen stance of psychological study, or whether it would tip over into melodramatic excess, for the sake of narrative flourish.

I have to admit that when I first watched episodes 7 & 8, my gut reaction was to reach for the idea that Show was forsaking the psychological study for melodrama.

It was only upon further thought and reflection, that I realized that while writer-nim might have possibly wanted some melodramatic touches to the story, the psychological study doesn’t actually break down.

I thought it would be helpful to share my thoughts on this hinge point, so I’m keeping my notes on episodes 7 & 8 intact for this review. You’ll be able to find it further down, just before I discuss Show’s penultimate episodes.

SPOTLIGHT ON SELECTED CHARACTERS / RELATIONSHIPS

In each of these sections, I’ll be exploring each character’s archetype in a broad sense, to ground the role that each one plays within the social experiment. Again, just to make sure we’re on the same page, these archetypes are functional labels and not clinical ones.

And since A Jin, Jun Seo and Jae Oh are the three main archetypes in our story, I will spend more time unpacking how they function, at various points in our story.

Kim Yoo Jung as A Jin

I have to confess that I’d had my doubts coming into this one, because I hadn’t been blown away by Kim Yoo Jung in the past roles I’d seen her in, but she does a truly impressive job of delivering A Jin.

Since A Jin doesn’t feel much emotion by design, I really like the way she comes across as having generally very shallow facial expressions.

Like, her smiles are shallow and don’t reach her eyes, and any tears we might catch glimpses of, are very subtle and fleeting.

She’s pleasant to people in general, but there’s something perfunctory running undercurrent, that I think works perfectly for this character.

Kim Yoo Jung’s interpretation of A Jin is on-point all the way to the end, and it’s safe to say that this role has caused my respect for her as an actress, to go up significantly.

A Jin — archetype of a sociopath

There are a few key things to remember about A Jin, and Show helpfully clues us in, in its opening minutes.

A Jin is emotionally muted, and therefore sees people as tools, variables, or threats.

She is survival-driven, and seeks control in order to ensure her survival. She allows attachment to people only insofar as that attachment increases control.

Like I mentioned earlier, she is not meant to represent people with ASPD. Rather, she represents what happens when survival logic replaces relational logic.

In this next spoiler section, you can see my thought process during my watch, as I observed A Jin and tried to make sense of her choices, given her archetype.

[SPOILER ALERT]

E1-2. I was thinking about the abuse that A Jin suffers as a child, with her drunk mother beating her up on a regular basis, and I found myself thinking that it’s almost a relief that A Jin has sociopathic wiring, because that blunts her ability to feel emotions – and I can only imagine how badly such an experience would scar a regular kid.

The twisted silver lining here, is that A Jin is so matter-of-fact through the whole thing, even as she asks her father if he can’t do anything to stop her mother from beating her, and that gives me a kind of twisted comfort, that she’s not as badly affected, at least emotionally, as a regular kid would be, in her position.

Yes, this show is messing with my mind; just look at this attempt at sense-making I just made. 🙈😅

And yet, this continues to be the silver lining that keeps coming to my mind, as we continue to witness some of the terrible things that happen to A Jin in these opening episodes.

Like when A Jin goes with her father to her new home, and overhears him talking with her new stepmother, and realizes that they plan to use her (it’s not stated explicitly, but I’m guessing they’re talking about child p0rn) and then abandon her at an orphanage.

I was actually relieved that A Jin has the strategic thinking and manipulativeness associated with sociopathy, in order to maneuver her way forward.

The way she takes the opportunity that presents itself to her, in the form of a sick Jun Seo seeking her out, to form a bond with him, before she starts turning him against his own mother.

I was literally slack-jawed at the way she then approaches Stepmom (Kim Yoo Mi), to negotiate that she be allowed to stay (ie, no orphanage), or she’ll tell Jun Seo the truth about his bio dad (which she’d figured out from the photo Jun Seo had shown her) – and then the way baits Stepmom into attacking her, which she ensures Jun Seo witnesses.

The thing that shocked me the most, though, has to be the way she makes that deliberate decision to throw herself out the window, taking a calculated risk that she’ll survive the fall – and this effectively snuffs out any hopes that Dad and Stepmom had had, about using her for videos.

That’s so.. eerily efficient.

E1-2. When Sung Hee (Kim Yi Kyeong) tries to take A Jin down by helping Deadbeat Dad (Bae Soo Bin) to get into the school, and even helping him to create that ruckus, calling out A Jin’s name, I didn’t feel bad for her at all, that A Jin would then simply drop that journal of Sung Hee’s, where she’s listed everyone and given them social grades, knowing that other kids would pick it up and take revenge on Sung Hee.

It’s quite impressive to me, that A Jin’s mind simply goes to dropping the journal, because she’s already connected the dots, just like that, and honestly, it’s such a clean and simple way for A Jin to ensure that Sung Hee suffers for her nastiness, yes?

Even though A Jin’s portrayed as a sociopath who doesn’t feel deep emotion, I appreciate that she still somehow finds it in her to show care for her allies, like Jun Seo and Jae Oh (Kim Young Dae and Kim Do Hoon).

Like the way she proactively tells Jae Oh that it’s ok for him to stand up for himself, even if the other person is his father.

And then, later, when Jae Oh accidentally kills his father, she tells him, in very specific terms, how he should behave during the confession and investigation, so as to minimize his sentence, because, in her words, he’d been a victim, for a long time.

It’s moments like these, that make me feel that A Jin isn’t completely without loyalty, and is protective, in her own way.

Plus, Show makes sure to demonstrate to us, that A Jin doesn’t have it easy.

Just look at the way Deadbeat Dad takes her tuition money (which Jun Seo had borrowed for her, from his grandfather), and then beats her up like she’s a lump of trash instead of a living, breathing person.

I felt so bad for A Jin, especially when she learns, after finally waking up from her coma, that she’s lost her hard-won place in university, because she’d missed the deadline to pay her tuition fees.

For someone who supposedly only feels blunted emotion, A Jin sure looks deeply affected by this, given how red and teary her eyes look, even as she poses, stone-faced, for graduation photos.

E3-4. I’d been wondering about A Jin’s pleased look, as she first set eyes on Choi Jung Ho (Kim Ji Hoon), and it’s only now, on hindsight, that I realize what was going on.

A Jin knew that she couldn’t get away with killing Deadbeat Dad with her own hands, and therefore decided that she needed someone else to do it for her, and who would do it for her, but a righteous person who couldn’t look the other way, when faced with a crime.

That’s why she looked so pleased when she saw that Choi Jung Ho was the kind of person who would drop everything to pursue a thief who’d stolen, not from him, but from someone else whom he didn’t even know.

I do believe that based on that trait alone, she chose Choi Jung Ho as Deadbeat Dad’s executioner, in a manner of speaking, because she believed that if Choi Jung Ho saw Deadbeat Dad hurting her, he would intervene in a strong and meaningful manner, much like he’d gotten personally involved in chasing down that thief in episode 2.

And that’s why she decides to get a job at his coffee shop, not so much to earn the extra money in order to keep Deadbeat Dad quiet and satisfied, but more groom Choi Jung Ho into believing strongly that A Jin was a fragile girl who was in danger and needed protection.

Notably, she doesn’t tell Jun Seo about her plans, even though I’m pretty sure that she’d already mapped out the gist of the plan, from the time she sought out a job at the coffee shop.

One of thing that I’ve learned about A Jin during these episodes, is that she’s very intelligent, and operates like an opportunist.

Meaning, I don’t think she could have predicted that there would be a spate of stalker-related crime in the city. However, she’s quick and smart enough to figure out a way to take advantage of the situation.

I half think that she’d hired the guy to stalk her, since we see her leaving a note for him at the convenience store, but then again, we do get that shot of the stalker guy getting all excited in a predatory way, when looking at A Jin’s pictures when she went viral for being pretty.

Either way, A Jin does lean into the situation, to reinforce to Choi Jung Ho, that she’s vulnerable and in danger, and therefore needs protection.

And certainly, she did not know that Choi Jung Ho had been a star batter, but once she learns of this, she is also quick to factor that tidbit into her plan for Deadbeat Dad’s elimination.

As for why A Jin tells the police that Jun Seo was her stalker when Jun Seo is anything but, I theorize that she’s teaching him a lesson for being late to save her, when the stalker had attacked her, and reinforcing her control over Jun Seo.

Perhaps it’s also a means of getting Jun Seo out of the way, while she orchestrates Deadbeat Dad’s death? She does tell him, at the holding cell, not to get involved, because he can’t win against Deadbeat Dad.

In any case, A Jin demonstrates that she’s remarkably quick and opportunistic, because when the situation presents itself, she swiftly pulls the pieces into place, so that Choi Jung Ho would rush to her home, in time to see Deadbeat Dad beating down on her, while wearing the hoodie.

It’s little wonder, really, that in the ensuing scuffle, Choi Jung Ho would reach for that bat, and use it against Deadbeat Dad – which I believe is exactly what A Jin had intended.

The thing that strikes me the most, as all of this goes down, is the way A Jin doesn’t hesitate to put herself in physical danger, in order to execute her plan.

This reminds me so much of that scene in last week’s episodes, where she didn’t hesitate to throw herself out the second floor window, in order to get what she wanted.

There was no guarantee that she would survive the fall, but she took a calculated risk, and it paid off.

It feels like she’s doing the same here; she takes a calculated risk, because she is that determined to be free of Deadbeat Dad, and it pays off.

As we see in both instances, for A Jin, she doesn’t process physical risk the same way the rest of us do; where we associate physical risk with fear, she associates it with strategy and efficiency. It’s.. fascinating.

The other thing that I found jumping out at me in the midst of all this, is what she says to Deadbeat Dad in episode 4, when he asks her to save him.

All along, because of the muted, matter-of-fact way that we’ve seen A Jin process her beatings from when she’d been a young child, I’d assumed that she didn’t register this as wrongdoing unto her, the way a regular person would.

But, in this scene, when she tells Deadbeat Dad that he will pay his debt to her with his life, it dawns on me that she had registered the offenses against her, but that had stayed as “just data” all this time, until she now has the power and agency to actually collect on that debt.

It’s all very cold and calculated, and I feel that even though we do see some emotion from A Jin, it’s muted compared to what a normal person would express in the same situation.

Another thing that I observed about A Jin, is that she wings it, a lot. At least, that’s the case, in episode 4.

There are so many things that happen in episode 4 that she couldn’t have predicted, and she uses those opportunistic smarts of her, to keep recalibrating and regrouping, as she goes.

I found that quite hypnotizing to watch, really.

When she overhears that dirty cop explaining exactly how they’re going to make her out to be the killer, never mind that Choi Jung Ho had confessed to swinging the bat at Deadbeat Dad, it’s certainly an unforeseen event to A Jin.

But instead of being flummoxed by it, she is quick to get her phone out, to record evidence, both of the conversation, and of the dirty cop receiving the bribe through his car window.

And then, when she perceives that the situation is evolving against her, with dirty cop actually finding evidence of the beanie that she’d destroyed and flushed down the toilet, she is quick and smart to request for a female officer, saying that she’s started her period, when the whole reason is really that she’s observed that the female officer doesn’t get along with dirty cop – so she knows that the female officer isn’t in cahoots with Dirty Cop.

Honestly, my brain doesn’t work that fast the way A Jin’s does, so watching her react like this, and so calmly too, is just fascinating, to me. (And yes, I will likely be using that word another thousand times, by the time I finish watching this show. 😂)

That said, I do feel that things actually start to unravel a bit, despite A Jin’s quick reactions.

First, Dirty Cop actually has that actual case of juice ready for the surprise inspection of his car, and then, Jun Seo’s confession, when he turns himself in, stating that he’s the one who’d killed Deadbeat Dad, shows up inconsistent with other details in the investigation.

It really doesn’t look good for A Jin for a while there, until CEO Seo (Kim Ji Young) of Longstar Entertainment, who had wanted to scout A Jin, gets involved.

On that note, I found it interesting and consistent with A Jin’s character, that A Jin would agree to be groomed as a star now, when she’d flatly declined, when CEO Seo had first approached her, in episode 3.

The key difference, to my eyes, is that in episode 3, CEO Seo had sold her benefits like fame and fortune, which had felt irrelevant to A Jin.

But now, CEO Seo tells A Jin that as a top star, she will not only be untouchable, she will also have powerful influence – and that is something that A Jin finds useful.

I do believe that that’s why A Jin agrees now, and the fact that CEO Seo makes all this trouble go away, lands, to my eyes, as a secondary reason, rather than a primary one.

E5-6. These episodes, I came to the conclusion that the observer scientist lens is ALSO the lens that A Jin uses a lot of the time, with which to interact with the world around her.

One of the things I concluded in earlier episodes, is that A Jin doesn’t always have it all figured out, but she is quick-thinking, smart, and unhesitating when it comes to taking advantage of an opportunity that presents itself.

I do believe that that is exactly what is going on, when she decides that it would be beneficial for her to date In Gang for a year.

Since we’ve already concluded that A Jin doesn’t feel emotions the same way we do, or approach relationships the same way either, a lot of the usual expectations that we might have, around a female lead deciding that she would like to date a particular guy, don’t apply.

Instead, I found myself observing with fascination, her logic and process, and how she responds to people as they react to her, and situations as they develop.

One the big questions that it makes sense to ask, at this point, is why In Gang, and not someone else?

She does give us one piece of the puzzle when she tells Jun Seo (and I paraphrase), that she’s struggling and miserable, and In Gang would be a good stepping stone to get what she needs.

I do believe that a big piece of this is due to the fact that he’s considered a big star, and being linked to him would give her added legitimacy, influence and power.

This would stabilize her social position, which is her priority, because, as we’ve discussed previously, she is looking for agency, control and untouchability.

At the same time, as she discerns that his psychological pattern, that he pushes back in a limited fashion when under pressure, I believe that she starts to form a hypothesis that appeals to her – that he’s easy enough to manage and manipulate according to her goals and requirements.

A lot of episode 6, is A Jin in scientist mode, hypothesis-testing In Gang, to see if he acts according to her predictions, even as she already starts to test-move things into place, to align with her overall plan.

It’s not that A Jin tests In Gang and then decides to use him; she decides he is useful, and then tests how best to deploy that usefulness – specifically, can he match what she has decided would be useful, in a one-year boyfriend?

One thing I’ve realized about A Jin, is that while she is unsentimental and manipulative, she is not malicious.

If anything, it seems to me that she only spends energy manipulating people, when they are either useful to her (as in the case of Choi Jung Ho) or threaten to destabilize her position (as in the case of Re Na, played by Lee Yeol Eum).

I do think that if Re Na had left A Jin well alone, that A Jin would not have bothered to do anything to her.

To be sure, the way A Jin retaliates looks a lot like her “getting back at” Re Na, but with the additional context that A Jin doesn’t process feelings the same way, her retaliation is more of a “regaining control and stability” move rather than an emotional revenge move.

And Re Na is definitely targeting A Jin, from the way she makes it such that A Jin has to redo that rain scene over and over again, to the way she prevents Hyang I from giving A Jin a towel to dry off, to the way she jumps on that overheard piece of information, that A Jin is linked to Jun Seo.

In order for A Jin to proceed cleanly, she needs to get Re Na out of her hair, so to speak, which is why she responds to Re Na’s attacks, even though we’ve seen that she’s very capable of just staying in observation, data-collection mode, even when under attack.

E5-6. While we see that Re Na is opportunistic, and therefore has a trait in common with A Jin, she is fundamentally different from A Jin, because where A Jin is detached and unemotional about her manipulation, Re Na is very, very emotionally driven.

That is why Re Na takes such delight in taunting A Jin, telling her that she’s going to do something to A Jin, to make herself better – it gives her an emotional high and a sense of gloating satisfaction.

The reason A Jin leans in and warns Re Na that if she keeps this up, she’d be the first to get hurt, is not at all emotional. Like I mentioned earlier, A Jin is not emotionally triggered by Re Na; she’s working to get Re Na out of her hair.

The warning is part of the process. I’m fairly certain that if Re Na had taken the warning seriously (but of course she doesn’t), A Jin would have found no reason to spend more time and effort on Re Na.

I have to confess that I was completely blindsided by Hyang I’s apparent betrayal in episode 5, where we see that Hyang I reports to Re Na, that she’s told A Jin about the building inspection.

In my worldview, it made complete sense that Hyang I would automatically loyal to A Jin rather than Re Na, since Re Na treats her like trash, while A Jin is much nicer, in comparison.

However, this plot twist (and I did gasp, for the record!) made me realize that Hyang I is not responding to A Jin’s relative kindness, because, as it stands, Re Na has more power, and therefore wields more fear.

For a hot second, I’d believed that Re Na had successfully tricked A Jin, but as it turns out, A Jin had seen through the ploy and pre-empted it by recruiting Hyang I to help her instead.

Ahh! I should have guessed!

This was a very effective twist for me, and it was actually pretty satisfying to see A Jin turn the tables on Re Na, not because I’m actually actively rooting for A Jin (I’m still in scientist mode here), but because I actively dislike Re Na. 😁

E5-6. When A Jin reverse gloats over Re Na, just like the way Re Na had previously gloated over her, I don’t think we’re meant to receive that as real gloating, since A Jin is too detached to actually find pleasure in gloating.

I feel that she’s mirroring Re Na’s words and actions, and perhaps speaking to her in a way that she’s sure to understand.

As for A Jin reconnecting with Jun Seo, I do think that this is opportunistic as well, in the sense that I don’t believe that this had been in her original plan, but since she’d run into him thanks to Re Na’s attempts at takedown, she decides that she has a use for him after all.

E5-6. A Jin does not pass up the opportunity to reinforce the imprinting on Jun Seo.

Like, when Jun Seo’s mom shows up at Jun Seo’s door the morning after she arrives at Jun Seo’s home. Clearly, she baits Mom so that Jun Seo would see.

This isn’t something A Jin would put energy into seeking out, but since the opportunity presents itself, there’s no harm in strengthening Jun Seo’s loyalty towards her, yes?

Simultaneously, this also reasserts the new boundaries that she’s set with Jun Seo’s mom – that Mom can’t touch her anymore.

The fact that A Jin can register all of this, and just.. slide into taking advantage of the presented situation, makes me marvel at how quickly her brain works.

Another thing that becomes clear to me about A Jin in these episodes, is that, while she may not feel emotions the way we do, she seems to understand the functionality of emotions very well, and she also is very capable of performing emotion – which is why she’s able to be an actress.

We see this very clearly in the arc where she moves into a test phase with In Gang.

The way she plants herself in In Gang’s grandmother’s orbit; the way she sheds tears when she looks at the meal that Gran has prepared; the way the tears sheen in her eyes, when she tells In Gang that she’s genuinely afraid for his life, because others have been saying that he’ll be dead soon.

It’s all calculated for maximum impact, and, as we see, she gets the result that she’d been looking for.

In the moment, she might look genuinely distressed, but later on, alone with Jun Seo, she smiles with satisfaction, saying that the day had gone well.

And when she remarks that this will be fun, it’s clear that this is not the same way most people would use the word “fun.” My estimation is that she’s referring more to the sense of exhilaration a scientist might feel, at accurately proving a hypothesis.

When In Gang gives her an emotional lever she can use, she harnesses it without fear – she makes contact with his ex-band member, and makes sure that the member gets to meet In Gang, to address the guilt and personal hell that In Gang’s been living with, all these years.

This is the thing that finally provokes In Gang to reach out to connect with her, which all her other efforts had failed to do. So, in that sense, another very successful step in A Jin’s experiment, if you will.

And then, we get to see that A Jin is very shrewd indeed, because when In Gang reaches out to her, he’s already emotionally in debt.

She may not have meant the meeting with his ex-member as a means to help heal his pain, but that is effectively what it does for him, and she understands this.

Now, her opportunity is to deepen the emotional debt, by making him late – so that he feels even sorrier towards her.

She’s basically making his heart as soft as possible, towards her, because this maximizes her chances of succeeding at winning him over.

[END SPOILER]

Kim Young Dae as Jun Seo

I really liked Kim Young Dae’s portrayal of Jun Seo.

Jun Seo’s a very tamped-down, restrained sort of character, and I felt that Kim Young Dae managed to give us a layered performance that allowed us to see Jun Seo’s inner silent, sad devotion to A Jin, even if he didn’t articulate it in words.

I found Jun Seo’s long-suffering devotion as fascinating as it is tragic.

Jun Seo — archetype of the savior complex

Essentially, Jun Seo feels a great deal of guilt towards A Jin, largely because of how his mother had treated her, and also because of his own survivor’s guilt, because she had been harmed in a world where he’d managed to remain safe.

Because of his guilt, he feels responsible to save A Jin – whatever that might demand.

Also because of his guilt, he accepts treatment from A Jin that he might not otherwise tolerate from others. He is not blind to the fact that A Jin uses him; he is fully aware, but accepts it because he feels that he owes it to her.

And, so great is his guilt, that his desire to save A Jin becomes his identity.

[SPOILER ALERT]

E1-2. I find myself fascinated by the connection between A Jin and Jun Seo.

When we first see them interacting at her rooftop home in the high school timeline, the casual physical intimacy, of him lying with his head on her lap, and leaning in really close, over her shoulder, to look at something, made me think that they were a couple.

Plus, there’s the way Jun Seo is so protective of A Jin, like the way he ambushes Sung Hee outside the art room and insists on walking her home, all so that she wouldn’t be able to spy on A Jin, who’s talking to the art teacher inside.

But they aren’t a couple, and I was extremely surprised to find out later, via the childhood flashbacks, that Jun Seo is actually her stepbrother.

The vibe I get from Jun Seo, is that he’s hopelessly devoted to A Jin, and would do anything in his power to help her or protect her.

Certainly, I do think that a lot of his devotion and loyalty was born of the way A Jin had taken care of him and protected him, when they were kids, though I’d say that his devotion in the high school timeline also gives off strong whiffs of romantic adoration.

I do think that Kim Young Dae portrays that suppressed adoration very well, with that default bedroom-quality that he has, in his gaze.

I don’t see Jun Seo’s feelings as being reciprocated by A Jin; she comes across as much more detached and unemotional about it, which is perfectly in line with Show telling us that she’s a sociopath who engages in instrumental relationships where she manipulates people to achieve her goals.

She allows Jun Seo access and proximity, and knows exactly when to tug at his sleeve to indicate closeness, but she’s clearly manipulating him, by telling him stuff like she’s scared, because she knows that he would do anything to protect her.

E3-4. I’ve been thinking about how he sees himself in relation to A Jin, and why he allows her to treat him the way she does, and I do think that Show gives us a couple of strong clues in these episodes.

First, there’s the way he bites out to his mom, that she’s the one who made it impossible for him to be strangers with A Jin, because she’d gone along with Deadbeat Dad’s terrible plans for A Jin, and then, when Deadbeat Dad had gone to prison, she’d thrown A Jin out on the streets in the dead of winter.

Clearly, he’s carrying a lot of guilt from that, because it had been his own mother who’d actively contributed to A Jin’s suffering.

Secondly, there’s the scene in episode 3 where he blurts out to A Jin that watching her getting beaten so many times, has left him with trauma and scars; this is why he would do everything in his power to prevent her from getting hurt again, in the present.

Additionally, he is possibly also suffering from survivor’s guilt, because of the two children in the home, he’d been the only one to have escaped that terrible treatment that A Jin had suffered. On top of that, there might also be another layer of guilt at play, where he feels ashamed for not doing anything to help A Jin earlier.

It feels like he now views it as his responsibility to watch over A Jin and protect her, because he’d been part of the machinery that had damaged her to this extent in the first place.

Of course, on top of all of that complexity, is the fact that he is in love with her, and craves her acceptance and approval, which I think contributes to his unflagging desire to be there for her, even when he knows that she is stepping into very morally gray areas.

E3-4. As for A Jin’s decision to never see Jun Seo again, I do think that she means it when she says it, most likely because she believes that Jun Seo is no longer useful to her (Jun Seo’s heartbroken tearful gaze in this scene is really great, by the way; kudos to Kim Young Dae, I love how he’s playing Jun Seo 🥲).

However, as we see from Jun Seo’s voiceover, his devotion to A Jin has not wavered in the least, despite her decision to cut him off, so I’m sure that we’ll be seeing Jun Seo show up in A Jin’s life, going forward.

E5-6. With Jun Seo, we see a yearning that seems to stem from the depths of his soul, where it feels like Jun Seo might literally be unable to live without A Jin.

His co-dependency on her goes back to a formative time in his childhood, and he feels a lot of guilt towards A Jin, for how he had failed save her from turning out the way she has, and he would do anything to protect her – even though he is fully aware of her more murderous doings.

For Jun Seo, A Jin is like.. a part of himself that he cannot bear to cut off, even though he can see that this part of himself is diseased, and that a decision not to amputate could be very costly — perhaps even fatal.

These episodes, we see that Jun Seo is drawn to A Jin like a moth to a flame; he cannot help himself, even though drawing near to her, is dangerous to himself.

That’s why, when he finds the opportunity to be in the same cafe that functions as the filming set for A Jin’s movie, he takes it.

He wants to be as near to her as possible, even if he has to be at a distance from her, and even if he has to remain unseen by her.

E5-6. While I may not have have predicted A Jin turning the tables on Re Na, it’s clear that Jun Seo knew, instinctively, without needing any kind of concrete evidence, that A Jin would not be had, just like that.

The look in his eyes tells us as much.

And so, the way he looks at her, in the carpark, is not because he’s conflicted over whether to help her; rather, it’s because he’s seeking unspoken instruction – does A Jin want him to step in, or not?

He would do whatever she indicates, and based on what he sees in her eyes, he understands that his role is to step away.

The way his gaze takes on shades on tamped-down amusement, as he asks Re Na, in the middle of her gloating, if she’s really won, confirms that in spades.

To be sure, his amusement isn’t cruelty — he’s not delighting in Re Na’s pain, but expressing confidence in A Jin, along the lines of, “You don’t understand who you’re dealing with.”

E5-6. What really hits me in the gut, is Jun Seo’s reaction, when he comes home and realizes that A Jin is there.

Jun Seo’s hesitation, then the way he homes in towards her, like.. he’s docking where he belongs, it makes his thought process and feelings unmistakably clear: he’s clocking that she’s there, which means that she now has a use for him, and it means 2 things:

#1, he has a use to her again, but also,

#2, he’s now allowed to be near her,

– and #2 is so important to him, that it overrides anything to do with #1.

He yields to the hunger and homes in – only to then be gutted when she informs him of #1: that she wants to love In Gang.

Oof. So deeply gutting, and at the same time, so tragically inevitable for Jun Seo. 💔 Really well played.

One very fascinating thing emerges about A Jin in this scene, I feel, and that is, it’s not that she doesn’t feel anything for Jun Seo, and it’s not that she can’t see Jun Seo’s pain – we do see some tears sheening in her eyes – it’s that she sees the cost, but does it anyway.

She’s not moved by emotion the way we are, and while she does leak some emotion, I believe from her long history with Jun Seo, it doesn’t define her choice.

She knows that telling him about In Gang would destroy him, but she does it anyway, not just because she will not be deterred from her plan, but also because she recognizes that Jun Seo’s attachment to her must be managed.

His attachment makes him useful, but she also needs to ensure that his attachment doesn’t hinder her plans; I believe that’s why she delivers the blow with clinical precision and zero hesitation.

The thing is, I believe that Jun Seo actually understands the reasoning and dynamics of what A Jin’s just done.

He knows that she’s putting him in a safety zone – but he’ll take it, if it means that he can be near to her.

That’s why we see that unmistakeable sadness and wistfulness in his eyes for the entirety of episode 6.

When A Jin talks and laughs with Jae Oh, Jun Seo remains as a quiet observer.

Clearly, it hurts him to see A Jin being so animated with someone else who has feelings for her, but he chooses to remain physically and emotionally in place because he understands that this is the condition under which A Jin has allowed him close to her again.

Additionally, there’s the layer which he articulates to Jae Oh; that A Jin is able to operate at a much more normal social frequency with Jae Oh, than with him.

This reinforces what we’ve heard him allude to before; that he feels guilty that A Jin was robbed of a normal childhood, and would do anything to right that wrong – even if it hurts him, in the process.

E5-6. As we close out episode 6, I am, in scientist mode, marveling at the excellent juxtaposition of the two scenes: one of A Jin finally closing the distance with In Gang, as he kisses her, and the other, of Jun Seo, beaten bloody and laying on the street, literally looking utterly destroyed, like life is literally leaking out from him.

At the same time, I find it an utterly affecting line of thought, that Jun Seo would literally die, if it meant that A Jin might live.

Is this healthy? No, absolutely not.

But is it quite arresting anyway? Yes. Very much yes.

[END SPOILER]

Kim Do Hoon as Jae Oh

Overall, I thought Kim Do Hoon did an excellent job of delivering Jae Oh as a character.

His devotion to A Jin looks and feels different from Jun Seo’s, but it is just as deep and defining for him, as a character.

The more I came to understand Jae Oh’s loyalty and dedication to A Jin, the more I felt able to detect the nuances that Kim Do Hoon was imparting, to his character. 🥲

Jae Oh – The Validation Seeker

Jae Oh’s core drive is, “Tell me I’m allowed to exist.”

A Jin did that once, when no one else would, when Jae Oh had felt utterly worthless — and she did it without asking him to be better, stronger, or different, and this is why he gloms onto her, as the authority and validator in his life.

The belief that he gains from A Jin’s validation is that he is good and worth saving.

This is why he accepts danger, ignores red flags and repeatedly puts his own body on the line, for A Jin.

[SPOILER ALERT]

E1-2. With Jae Oh, it becomes clear that his loyalty to A Jin has to do with how she’s the first person who’s expressed that she sees value in him.

And even though that value is how he’s her runner for the loan business that she’s running under the radar, he’ll take that over nothing.

Of course, I also get the sense that he’s very much in awe of A Jin, because of how strategic, smart and fearless she is, and kind of adores her, though – so far, anyway – kind of differently to how Jun Seo adores her.

It does seem that A Jin has picked up on the fact that she’s special in Jae Oh’s eyes, because look at the way she rewards him with that hug, when she gets confirmation that he hadn’t ratted on her, despite getting into trouble for his debt collection activities.

You can just tell that the hug means a lot to Jae Oh.

E5-6. These episodes, Jae Oh re-enters the narrative, and one of the first things we learn, is that he misses A Jin, and deeply.

Which means that my earlier tentative conclusion, that he didn’t necessarily have romantic feelings towards A Jin, have now been confirmed inaccurate, by this reveal.

One thing I do notice, though, is that even though both Jun Seo and Jae Oh are written to have romantic feelings for A Jin, the shades of expression differ. That adds texture and nuance to our story, which I appreciate.

With Jae Oh, his attachment is less complex and less deep, and has everything to do with how A Jin had given him a form of recognition and legitimacy at a time in his life when he’d had none.

His response to A Jin is more straightforward, and he fully believes that A Jin is, similar to him, a fundamentally normal person who’s been let down by the system.

For Jae Oh, A Jin is a ray of brightness and sunshine in his dull and dark life, where he’s shunned by his family members, for having accidentally killing his father.

E5-6. I gasped out loud, when Jae Oh engineers that crash with In Gang’s car, because,

1, I thought, “What? Did A Jin ask him to do this?”😱

and then

2, I realized that A Jin hadn’t specifically asked Jae Oh to get in a car crash for her – but he would put himself in bodily danger for her, and without hesitation.

This is absolutely something that we see repeated later on in our story as well.

[END SPOILER]

Bae Soo Bin as A Jin’s father [BROAD SPOILERS]

A Jin’s dad – the overt narcissist

Not only is Deadbeat Dad cruel, controlling, violent and selfish, he feels entitled to A Jin’s entire existence, whether it’s her body, labor or obedience.

When she doesn’t comply with his demands, his response is always rage – and through that rage, you can always see a very strong sense of entitlement.

He doesn’t think that it’s wrong of him to treat A Jin this way, even when he beats her senseless; he thinks it’s his moral right, as her father.

Kim Yoo Mi as Jun Seo’s mother [BROAD SPOILERS]

Jun Seo’s mother — the covert narcissist

Where A Jin’s father is an openly abusive narcissist, Jun Seo’s mother is, comparatively speaking, more of a covert narcissist.

She’s not physically abusive, but she is emotionally manipulative, and those manipulations are always for her own benefit – even though she is regularly plaintive about how noble she has been, and how much she has suffered, and how it’s all been for Jun Seo’s sake.

She functions as an entitled emotional parasite underneath her facade of civility.

Hwang In Youp as Heo In Gang [BROAD SPOILERS]

The reason I didn’t mention In Gang in my earlier section where I mapped out the key archetypes in our story, is because he exists primarily to be a foil for A Jin, rather than to assert a psychology of his own.

Essentially, his emotional instability is not explored for his sake; it exists so that we can see how A Jin responds when a tool becomes volatile.

This is why his suffering is real but not really explored meaningfully, his death is consequential to the plot, but not mourned as the loss of a person by the narrative; it’s because the fallout matters more than the man.

Hong Jong Hyun as Moon Do Hyuk [BROAD SPOILERS]

Do Hyuk — the predator archetype

On the surface, Do Hyuk appears to be similar to A Jin, but they are fundamentally different.

Where A Jin is driven by survival, Do Hyuk is driven by psychopathic curiosity. Where A Jin treats people as tools, he treats them as toys or puzzles.

Where A Jin seeks stability, Do Hyuk seeks novelty and amusement.

SPOTLIGHT ON EPISODES 7-8 [SPOILERS]

E7-8. I confess that these episodes had me wrestling for a bit, on what to think, and how to process everything that Show serves up at this juncture of our story.

My first instinct was to reach for the conclusion that Show’s stance as a psychological study was breaking, because, these episodes, we see A Jin displaying behaviors that we haven’t quite seen from her in earlier episodes.

As you may have picked up on, the key thing I’m looking for here, in my observing-scientist mode, is character consistency.

I’m not looking to root for A Jin as I normally would with my drama protagonists; rather, I’m here to study her as a character and attempt to understand her.

So one of the big things that troubled me, while watching these episodes, is that A Jin appeared to be less consistent, and that made me wonder if the writing was getting wobbly.

However, after chewing on this for a couple of days, I suddenly remembered, with a bit of a jolt, that regardless of her sociopathic branding, A Jin is human too.

And as a human – even a sociopathic one – she can veer away from typical behaviors, and she can make mistakes.

To be clear, when I say that, I’m not saying that I think that A Jin has feelings like regular people; Show’s established from the beginning that that is not the case, and that muted emotion is the extent of A Jin’s capability.

What I am saying, is that A Jin is not a machine; she is human and therefore capable of making mistakes.

I realize that during my watch, I’d become so accustomed to analyzing A Jin as consistently analytical and without much traceable emotion, that I’d slipped into thinking of her as more machine than human.

And therefore, in these episodes, when she did things that seemed out of character (like with Gran’s stolen notebook, which I’ll talk more about later), my instinct was to say – ah, Show is leaning into melodrama and is not quite the psychological study I’d placed it as, thus far.

Yes, it’s true that perhaps this was a spot of the writing leaning a bit convenient, but the fact remains that A Jin, being human, can make mistakes.

And similarly, perhaps it serves writer-nim’s desire to inject a bit of melodrama into our story, but it is true that A Jin, being human and not machine, can display behaviors that we haven’t seen that much of, thus far.

Just because we haven’t seen her show certain more emotional behaviors, doesn’t mean that she can’t choose to  act in that way – while still retaining her sociopathic core.

I do think that this is one of the things that we explore, in these episodes – and I had to actively adjust my lens and understanding of A Jin, along the way.

Because, I did find it a little destabilizing, to see A Jin be her usual strategic, manipulative self, while also sometimes being.. a little different.

In terms of her being the calculated A Jin whom we’d come to know, we see that a lot in the way she approaches Re Na, as well as how she deals with the reporter who threatens to make her relationship with In Gang into a scandal.

The way she takes Re Na down using Hyang I’s testimony, and the way she sidesteps the relationship scandal by promising the reporter exclusives about their relationship, is Classic A Jin.

Yes, it seems cold, the way she then dismisses Hyang I, but I didn’t blink, because this also translated to me as Classic A Jin.

She’s now concluded that Hyang I is no longer useful, and thus, it makes sense that she would therefore take steps to remove Hyang I from the playing field.

It’s not personal; it’s calculated.

As for all the scenes of her being in a happy relationship with In Gang, this is clearly calculated too. In Gang may be fully in, but we know that as far as A Jin is concerned, this relationship is a means to an end.

If she wants to achieve the end successfully, then she has to make sure the relationship is shaping up in a way that will allow it to do the job that she wants – which is to fast-track her towards greater power and influence, because having control (and therefore the ability to protect herself) has always been the goal.

And she does achieve that goal; as we see from the highlight reel that Show provides, she and In Gang become a golden couple, with the entire nation being captivated by their relationship.

It can be confusing, given the fact that Show only gives us those visuals of A Jin looking happy and radiant by In Gang’s side; it can be easy to wonder whether she might actually genuinely like In Gang now, and therefore want to continue in the relationship instead of ending it, like she’d expressed to Jun Seo.

As we see, though, from how things unfold later on, A Jin is not lingering in the relationship because she’s actually developed feelings for In Gang.

Rather, it’s more like she had no real urgency to end it, since the relationship had continued to serve her goal, even past the one-year mark.

I mean, if you’d decided to invest a chunk of your savings into a particular stock, and forecasted that you’d park those savings in that stock for a year, in order to yield the returns you’d aimed for, and if that stock had continued to yield good returns even after the one-year mark, wouldn’t you very likely opt to just keep things at the status quo for a while?

That’s essentially what I see A Jin doing, in terms of her relationship with In Gang. Once the returns clearly stop being in her favor, she’s quick and ruthless, in ending things.

Before we get to that, though, I wanted to talk about the whole situation with Gran.

Like I alluded to earlier, the point at which Gran stumbles on the stolen notebook in A Jin’s cupboard, was the point when I’d defaulted to the thought that Show was giving up on its psychological study stance, to be a melodrama – because this is exactly the kind of thing that tends to happen in heightened melodrama.

And also, I’d gotten so used to A Jin behaving like a well-timed machine, that I skipped right past the possibility that A Jin might have made the mistake of not destroying the notebook, in a moment of complacency.

To be sure, this incident was inserted by writer-nim to function very much as a plot catalyst; so much unfolds as a result of it.

However, just because writer-nim leaned on it as a plot catalyst, doesn’t mean that this inconsistency in A Jin’s behavior couldn’t also be true.

That was my point of reckoning, in these episodes.

I immediately argued in my head, that A Jin wouldn’t have done such an obviously amateur thing; that she would have either destroyed the notebook or planted it back in Gran’s apartment, once the notebook ceased having a use in her plans.

..Which is when I had to argue right back at myself, that as a human, even a sociopathic one, A Jin could make mistakes – and this was just one of them.

I thought it was very interesting how Show plays with perspective and expectation in the wake of Gran’s death, specifically in regard to how the people around A Jin react, and what they each believe about her – so much so that I forgive writer-nim the use of the plot catalyst.

I have to confess that my expectations were more aligned with Jun Seo; ie, I instinctively believed that A Jin had been the one to push Gran down the stairs, and that everything she’d said to the police, had been stuff that she’d made up, in order to create a believable cover story for herself.

Partly, this is due to the fact that we’ve already seen A Jin function in this exact same space, with the death of Deadbeat Dad. It makes sense to then assume that she would do the same thing, in removing Gran from the picture, now that Gran had become inconveniently informed about A Jin’s true motives in approaching In Gang.

The other part of the reason, is the way Show frames A Jin’s reaction, when she tells Jae Oh and Jun Seo, that she shouldn’t run away; that it would look more suspicious if she did.

Circumstantially, A Jin’s words in that situation indicate that her choice has to do with maintaining a specific kind of appearance (that’s different than the truth), rather than the fact that she has no reason to run away in the first place.

With these two pieces of context in place, I don’t think it’s unreasonable of Jun Seo (and myself! 😁) to believe that A Jin was guilty of pushing Gran down the stairs.

I mean, it’s true that Gran had showed A Jin unconditional acceptance and love, and A Jin had seemed to have an emotional reaction to it, but to my eyes, that still didn’t remove the possibility that A Jin would decide that it was still cleaner to remove Gran from the picture.

In contrast, we have Jae Oh, who refuses to believe for a second, that A Jin could be behind Gran’s death.

I don’t think that this necessarily makes Jae Oh a better person; I think that this simply reflects the reality, that his understanding of A Jin is more limited.

To his mind, she is like him – a good person at her core, who’s just deeply misunderstood. I think that that’s why he believes so fiercely in her innocence – because, in his mind, her core goodness somehow affirms his own.

I found it fascinating, that A Jin would let Jun Seo believe that she’d killed Gran, but on further thought, this is consistent with her character.

This way, she gets to test the true extent of Jun Seo’s devotion; and as always, she’s always aiming for maximum control.

If Jun Seo can prove that he is devoted to A Jin despite his belief that she’s stepped over a moral boundary that he’s specifically drawn, then A Jin has more control over him that she would have had, if he’d believed her to be innocent.

In that scenario, his devotion would be conditional; in this scenario, his devotion would be unconditional – and that’s why it’s desirable to A Jin.

Now let’s talk about A Jin’s break-up with In Gang, which ultimately results in his death.

To be clear, I don’t think that when A Jin signed up for this relationship, she’d actually intended for In Gang to die.

However, with In Gang becoming so emotionally unstable, I believe that she concluded that he was too much of a risk to keep around – and that’s why she engineered her breakup to have the biggest impact possible on him.

Yes, she doesn’t know for sure that he would end up taking his own life, but she does give her best effort towards securing an outcome that would permanently remove In Gang from her life.

Again, as cruel as this lands for us as viewers, to A Jin, this is not cruelty; it’s not personal – it’s calculated.

We do see A Jin show an unexpected burst of emotion when Jun Seo’s mom shows up to kneel and make her “apology,” and again, this doesn’t land as Classic A Jin, because Classic A Jin is typically much more measured and unruffled.

Again, I found it helpful to remind myself that A Jin is not a machine, and therefore, is entitled to deviate from her behavioral norms.

Upon deeper analysis of this scene, I realize that, despite the emotional display, A Jin is, at the heart of it, still making a calculated move.

What Jun Seo’s mom is trying to do, in making this supposed apology, is to rewrite the narrative around how she’d treated A Jin in the past – and A Jin is refusing that, with very visible contempt.

While I can’t see A Jin having emotions like a regular person, I can somehow easily believe that she’d have no problem feeling contempt.

And in this case, I believe that her emotional outburst is calculated towards drawing a firm boundary with Jun Seo’s mother; in essence, telling her that she does not get a pass for everything she’s done to A Jin, just because she’s decided to offer a half-hearted apology.

As we close out episode 8, it does feel like Show is poised to amp up the stakes, with Jun Seo gaining the release that he craves, with the confirmation that A Jin had not killed Gran, and with the introduction of a new, powerful character who seems extremely intrigued by A Jin.

SPOTLIGHT ON THE PENULTIMATE EPISODES [SPOILERS]

E9-10. Although I only found the words in these episodes, I think my gut understood that this story was never meant to be a journey of growth of a main character, but a social experiment where archetypes are stress-tested within a closed system, to see what would happen.

And A Jin, is, indeed, stress-tested, in these episodes.

The big test in episode 9, is when CEO Seo decides to turn on A Jin and destroy her, in order to assuage her own guilt towards In Gang.

Backed into a corner and without viable options visible to her, we see A Jin display emotions in a way that we haven’t typically seen: she shows extreme frustration while driving, and even screams, while doing so.

On first glance, this might appear to be A Jin breaking character, since we’ve been told that A Jin experiences emotion in a blunted, muted sort of way, due to her sociopathic wiring.

I do think, though, that this is the way her system is responding to the stress-test.

Even machines, when pushed beyond reasonable limit, start to break a bit, and leak.

I read this as A Jin breaking a bit, under extreme stress, and leaking a bit – and as a human being, even a sociopathic one, she contains emotion. It’s just that in her case, the emotion’s always been well contained and not given an outlet, because she’s just not wired that way.

The portion leading up to A Jin meeting Do Hyuk is a little unsettling, only because, at this point, A Jin is not aware of who’s behind the offered management contract, and we don’t know who Do Hyuk even is, except that he’s someone powerful who has an interest in A Jin.

It’s only later that it becomes clear, that Do Hyuk is introduced as a new variable in the social experiment – to see what a sociopath would do, when encountering a similar-but-fundamentally-different counterpart.

Because, even though Do Hyuk appears to be similar to A Jin in some ways, on further observation, it’s clear to see that there are differences.

Where they are similar, is the fact that they both wear masks of pleasantries and social graces, but these masks are clearly learned behavior that they display in order to blend in socially.

Where they are different, is that A Jin seeks control and agency in order to protect herself, ie, she feels safe when she is in control, whereas Do Hyuk seeks amusement through control and experimentation.

I’d wondered why A Jin would accept Do Hyuk’s proposal so easily, since, being a very intelligent reader of people, A Jin wouldn’t be blind to the danger that Do Hyuk represents, and it’s only on further thought and hindsight, that it’s becoming clear that A Jin was making a strategic choice, in accepting his proposal.

Essentially, “Better the danger that you know, than the danger that you don’t” – and A Jin decides that it is strategically safer for her to accept and then work to manage the risks, rather than reject him, and have to contend with unknown consequences, particularly given her extremely weakened position, after CEO Seo’s betrayal.

The thing is, it becomes clear that A Jin had underestimated Do Hyuk as an opponent.

He’s just.. very different from all the other people she’s had to manage in the past, and therefore, the usual levers that would have worked for her when dealing with other people, do not yield similar results with Do Hyuk.

Regular people would have self-interest like survival or profit on their minds, and that makes them easier to manage than Do Hyuk.

As we see more and more, Do Hyuk is not interested in any of that.

When he gives orders for his man to “take care” of Jun Seo and Jae Oh, as viewers, it’s normal for us to then think that his intent is to get rid of them, because he wants them out of the picture, because they represent troublesome wild cards from A Jin’s past.

However, when we examine the details, a very different picture emerges.

The first clue, is in the way Do Hyuk looks rather amused, as he tells his man to keep them warm, because the weather’s been cold.

The second clue, is in the way Do Hyuk does not give a follow-up order, when the explosion doesn’t kill them.

Instead, he continues to enjoy observing A Jin and listening in on her conversations.

Putting this together, it gives us a picture of Do Hyuk as an entity who tests people – sometimes cruelly – for fun.

He wasn’t looking for a specific outcome, in ordering his man to “take care” of Jun Seo and Jae Oh. He was simply curious to see what would happen.

Would they manage to survive, or would they die? Would A Jin be alerted to the incident, or would she be oblivious? If she knew about it, what would she do?

He’s curious about all of that, and whichever way the answer goes, it adds to his experiment, and thus, his slow entertainment.

And this is the crux as to why A Jin struggles to control him; he’s not responding or behaving in the way that she expects.

Stepping away from this for a bit, I also wanted to talk about Jun Seo’s decision to turn away from A Jin, because this is a very big change for Jun Seo, who’s been completely and unquestioningly loyal to A Jin, all this time.

Naturally, the first question we’d ask is, why? Why would this moment hit Jun Seo differently than other moments in the past, when A Jin had said cruel things to him too?

The difference is, this time, A Jin systematically dismantles his entire sense of self, including his very reason for living.

He’d believed that he’d chosen to stay in spite of the pain, and that his choice to stay, was protecting her. But now, he realizes that he was the reason for A Jin’s suffering, and that all his beliefs about protecting her, had been rooted in something completely false.

His entire sense of identity has been destroyed by A Jin, and the casual, matter-of-fact manner in which she informs him of all this, also tells him how inconsequential he’s always been, to her.

His decision to detach himself from A Jin is his attempt at self-preservation, I feel.

That said, leaving A Jin leaves him with no sense of self whatsoever, and Jun Seo is too depleted to actually start to create a new sense of self apart from A Jin – which is why he ends up choosing to go back to his mom’s house.

It is a place that he associates with pain, and his relationship with his mom is strained – but at least it’s something that he knows.

And so, in a way, “Better the pain that you know, than the pain that you don’t,” in Jun Seo’s case.

Last but not least, let’s talk about Sung Hee, who’s snuck herself into A Jin’s orbit as one of the hired help.

First of all, I highly doubt that Sung Hee could have snuck herself into the house without Do Hyuk allowing it in the first place.

She’s too clumsy for it, and he’s too careful and thorough with his surveillance of the house, to let something like that slip through. He very likely saw her attempt to infiltrate, and allowed it – as an experiment.

With Sung Hee as a wild card, he would get to see how A Jin responds to whatever it is that Sung Hee gets up to. As we’ve seen, this is very much in line with Do Hyuk’s modus operandi, where he observes and tests – for fun.

I can’t help but notice how, when he comes upon the scene of Sung Hee trying to stab A Jin, he just stands and watches, and does not do anything to intervene.

To me, his entire posture – his lack of surprise and his lack of intervention – confirms that he’d allowed Sung Hee into his mansion, as an experiment.

As for the way A Jin laughs, when Sung Hee’s efforts to stab her, end in Sung Hee’s own disfigurement, I read it as her laughing at the irony and absurdity of it all, rather than as a laugh that signals that she takes pleasure in Sung Hee’s injury.

At the same time, I can’t help but notice that in the final shot of A Jin’s face, as she continues to lie there, laughing, there are also tears coming out of her eyes.

We’ve seen emotions leak as a result of A Jin going through stress-testing, several times in these episodes – while she was driving, and also, in the form of those nightmares, triggered by the stopped clock – so it would be consistent to also see the tears and the laughter, appearing at the same time after a stress-test, as further leaks.

Put together, this does give me the sense that A Jin is being pushed to her limits, ie, she’s not yet at her limit, but the leaks suggest that her system is under strain.

And that makes me duly curious to see how A Jin will continue to respond to further testing – which I’m sure Do Hyuk will make sure of, in our finale episodes.

THOUGHTS ON THE ENDING [SPOILERS]

E11-12. And so the experiment ends, my friends.

The key thing I was looking for, during these finale episodes, was whether Show would continue to be true to itself as a psychological study, or whether it would veer into melodrama or even makjang territory.

Plus, I was also curious about the actual end result of the experiment, of course.

To be brutally honest, upon crossing the finish line, I had a long moment where I wasn’t sure what to think, because this finale does come across as a lot.

On further thought, however, I realized that Show does manage to stay true to its psychological study approach – with one key exception.

Let me talk about the key exception first, before we get into everything else.

In episode 11, Show introduces the idea that A Jin’s having episodes of dissociation, which cause her to black out and have no memory of entire chunks of time.

The way Show stages this, it even frames A Jin as if she has one or more alter egos at play, given that sometimes we see her being more violent, and at other times, completely charming and agreeable – and she can’t remember the actions of her other states of being.

Given that this is a story that’s basically functioning as a psychological experiment, it feels especially egregious for Show to casually introduce DID as something that our sociopathic archetype is also dealing with – and then completely drop the thread later, after the DID’s done its job of acting as narrative shorthand to inform us that A Jin continues to break under the increasing pressure of the stress test.

With another drama, I might be more forgiving, but here, this move feels particularly like a betrayal of Show’s own carefully built social laboratory.

While I disagree with the way Show casually introduces then conveniently forgets about the DID symptoms that A Jin suffers, this does effectively escalate the rate and magnitude of A Jin’s breakdown under stress.

This causes her to display panicked behavior in front of Jae Oh, who then promises to do everything he can to help her – which brings us to the way Jae Oh uses himself as bait, in order to secure leverage for A Jin, over Do Hyuk.

The way I read it, A Jin was not aware that Jae Oh was going to allow himself to very likely be killed by Do Hyuk’s men, in order to secure her that leverage.

Typically, A Jin’s always given Jae Oh the big picture of what she wants, and he then figures out the best way to give that to her, and he’s been consistent in delivering.

There’s no reason that she would operate any differently this time.

Additionally, we see her march into her bathroom in a funk, and then, when she can’t reach Jae Oh over the phone (we see that she’s already received the link to the video), she realizes that Jae Oh’s really dead, and then locks herself in the shower stall, slumped to the floor.

To my eyes, this is A Jin processing and grieving Jae Oh’s death.

It’s true that after this, we see her back in unruffled mode, using Jae Oh’s death as leverage, and I don’t interpret this as her being heartless.

Instead, I see this as A Jin, having grieved Jae Oh in her own way, choosing to honor his sacrifice. She can’t bring him back to life, and making use of his death, the way he’d intended, ensures that his death is not for nothing.

And as we see from Jae Oh’s actions, he went into this not really expecting to survive.

That’s why he went to see his little brother from afar, one last time, and says (and I paraphrase) that his brother should live the life that he never could.

Additionally, in that moment when Do Hyuk’s men are about to toss him over the edge of the building to certain death, Jae Oh’s tearful, almost transcendent expression reads to me as someone who knows that he’s going to die, accepts his fate – and even finds meaning in his death, because this is the ultimate way he can be of value and importance to A Jin.

With the leverage that Jae Oh’s given her, A Jin even manages to re-negotiate the terms of her marriage to Do Hyuk, ie, she basically threatens to release all the damning footage, if he doesn’t abide by her conditions.

Certainly, at this moment, Do Hyuk’s still in the game, but the important thing is, with this pivot, A Jin now seems to be standing on more equal footing.

The real spanner in the works stems from the phone call that Jun Seo makes, to ask her about Jae Oh’s death.

If A Jin had just explained herself, Jun Seo wouldn’t have come to the conclusion that he needed to stop A Jin, right?

However, A Jin just lets him believe everything that he’s saying about her, which Jun Seo takes as A Jin admitting culpability.

The reasons for this are twofold, I believe.

1, We’ve seen that A Jin generally does not care to explain herself when it comes to details like this.

From A Jin’s perspective, she authorized the leverage plan, knew Jae Oh would do anything for her, accepted the cost after the fact, and used the result without hesitation.

So when Jun Seo says (in effect), “You killed him,” she does not feel compelled to correct him, because to her, his accusation is not wrong in substance, only wrong in technical detail.

2, A Jin seriously under-calculates the risk Jun Seo could pose to her if he believes she ordered Jae Oh’s death.

All their lives, Jun Seo’s demonstrated a deep devotion to A Jin, even going so far as to cover up her role in her father’s death.

As far as A Jin understands, Jun Seo’s willing to cross moral boundaries for her – because he’s done it before.

There was no strong reason for A Jin to think otherwise this time.

However, the truth is, for Jun Seo, Jae Oh’s death serves as confirmation to something that he’s been trying to deny for a long time: that A Jin is just the way she is, and she will never change.

That’s why he takes it upon himself to stop her.

He morally rejects A Jin’s actions, and at the same time, his savior complex is locked in on A Jin as a person. He cannot stand by and let A Jin continue in the same way, hurting others.

That’s why I conclude that in his mind, he’s probably saving A Jin from herself.

In his mind, it’s something like “She must be stopped, and I will not exist without her – and therefore I will stop her by ending us both.”

When Jun Seo seeks her out on the street after the documentary has aired, A Jin miscalculates again.

Even though, by this point, A Jin knows that Jun Seo has betrayed her and effectively dismantled everything that she’s achieved, she doesn’t see him as a lethal threat.

I do believe that the key here, is that she still believes that she is able to manage him, and that’s why she gets in the car, despite his betrayal.

I think it’s only when Jun Seo starts talking about going to hell together, and that he’s decided to go with her to the very end, that A Jin begins to get a clue as to where Jun Seo’s going with this.

However, unlike a regular person, A Jin doesn’t seem to exhibit the same fear when faced with mortal danger.

The way she’s matter-of-factly resigned instead, at the fact that Jun Seo’s ended being her final shackle, reminds me a lot of how we’d seen her risk very real danger in jumping out of that window as a child – in an equally impassive manner.

In fact, looking back, I don’t believe we’ve ever seen A Jin fear mortal danger; she’s always been much more focused on functional survival, than a fear-of-death-driven desire to live – like when she was attacked by Sung Hee, for example.

Therefore, it seems in character to me, that she stays calm even as Jun Seo drives the car through the guard rail and into the ravine.

And then, when she finds that she survives the crash, she’s swift to cut herself loose, without lingering on Jun Seo, even for a split second, even as he lies dying, beside her.

At this moment, I feel like A Jin’s finally re-classified Jun Seo as no longer being relevant or useful to her – and that’s why she doesn’t spare him a second glance.

As A Jin stands on that slope and looks back on the wreckage of the car, displaying both laughter and tears, I see this, again, as her leaking in response to this latest stress test.

The only difference this time, is that the experiment is now complete.

We’re not told what happens next, for A Jin, and whether she goes on to make a new life for herself and how, because that was never the point of this story.

As I’ve realized over the course of my watch, Show had always positioned itself as a social experiment, and from my perspective, Show does stick the landing – not because this is a warm ending, or because it teaches us life lessons.

No, it sticks the landing by being internally consistent, thematically ruthless, and philosophically clear about what it is and isn’t doing.

Show didn’t pretend this was a redemption story. It completed the experiment.

And even though I give props to Show for its consistency, I, for one, am glad that this experiment is over.

THE FINAL VERDICT:

A dark but compelling psychological study. Not for the faint of heart.

FINAL GRADE: B++

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