THE SHORT VERDICT:

A drama that showed promise in its interesting premise and pretty visuals, but didn’t live up to its full potential, in my opinion.

I felt that Show suffered from pacing issues and a misguided management of information, which negatively affected the watch experience.

However, the secondary characters and relationships kept me engaged and Show does stick the landing reasonably well, which helps.

Not bad, but not a must-see, by any means.

THE LONG VERDICT:

Today I happened to watch a YouTube short of a lady who’d had an idea for a recipe and enthusiastically tried it out to bring her (in her words) “fever dream” into reality.

By the time she was done, her dish looked really good, but sadly, she was underwhelmed by the taste.

It had been better in her imagination than it was in reality – and that, my friends, is essentially how I feel about this show. 😅

I love the idea of it, and it even looks pretty to boot, but unfortunately, there’s just something in the watch experience that ultimately leaves me a little hollow and underwhelmed. 🥲

To be clear, I did enjoy this one solidly for 5 episodes; it was only at around Show’s halfway mark that things started getting shaky for me.

A NOTE ON THIS REVIEW

This review is my retrospective of watching the show.

If you’d like to experience the drama alongside me, episode by episode, you might enjoy checking out my episode notes on Patreon here. They capture my unfolding reactions as the story develops – it’ll feel like we watched this show together. 🥰

If memberships aren’t your thing, individual episode note sets are available for purchase too. ❤️

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.

Generally, I found the OST pleasant and suitably applied, though I can’t say that any single song actually managed to get under my skin.

If I had to pick a favorite, it would be Track 6, You are my Color, because I enjoyed the breeziness of the chorus in particular.

Here it is on its own as well, in case you’re prefer to listen to it on repeat. Just right-click the video and select “Loop.”

MANAGING EXPECTATIONS / THE VIEWING LENS

Here are a few things that I think might be useful to keep in mind, if you want to maximize your chances of enjoying your watch:

1. Think stylized drama world

A lot of things in this show, from the architecture of our story world, to the way events unfold, to the way people are interconnected, feel carefully constructed rather than organically grown.

Knowing to expect that helps.

2. Episode 1 is confusing on purpose

I thought it would be helpful to state upfront that episode 1 is designed to be confusing on purpose.

If you haven’t yet checked out this show, I’d suggest withholding judgment until you’re done watching both episodes 1 and 2, because a lot of the questions that you might have in response to episode 1, get cleared up in episode 2.

3. Think slow burn

This is designed to be a healing romance, and it is fully slow burn, ie, both the healing AND the romance are slow burn.

Having your patience dialed up would likely help.

STUFF I LIKED

The early twist

Like I mentioned up top, episode 1 is pretty confusing, and then Show answers a lot of those questions in episode 2, via a twist which I thought was pretty great.

Your mileage may certainly vary, but I personally found the reveal to be effective and grabby – and I found myself feeling very engaged with this show, at episode 2.

I unpack that a little bit in this next spoiler section, but if you haven’t yet watched the show, I do think it’s best to go without being spoiled, for what it’s worth.

[SPOILER ALERT]

E1-2. I have to confess that I spent a lot of time after completing my watch of episode 1, wrestling with what I believed to be the facts that Show had just served up, because no matter how I squinted, the “facts” just didn’t add up.

Basically, I couldn’t reconcile the idea that Ha Ran (Lee Sung Kyung) could be actively grieving her late boyfriend, and the fact that she has zero ability to recognize our male lead Chan (Chae Jong Hyeop), when he’s right in front of her – because for the entirety of episode 1, I’d believed Chan to be the same “Chan” to whom we see Ha Ran sending all those happy messages.

It’s only in episode 2 that we are shown the truth: that Ha Ran had been dating Chan’s roommate Hyeok Chan (Kwon Do Hyung), who’d in turn relied on Chan to not only respond to Ha Ran’s messages, but even choose a birthday gift for her.

With that reveal, suddenly, everything clicked into place for me.

No wonder Ha Ran has no memory of Chan; she’s literally meeting him for the first time.

But he’s known her for a long time, AND he’s loved her for a long time as well – just from afar.

No wonder she was in mourning even though we could see that Chan was alive.

No wonder Chan had had that moment of hesitation before opening the door to the lab. It hadn’t been because he knew something was wrong and that there’d be an explosion; it was because he was conflicted by his own growing feelings for Ha Ran, and his sense of duty towards Hyeok Chan, her true boyfriend.

Oof. Once I understood the dynamic of what was going on, my heart immediately went out to Chan.

I couldn’t help it.

Not only is he having to deal with the residual trauma of the explosion, which has also left him with physical scars, he’s also dealing with a lot of guilt towards his deceased friend, for having harbored feelings for said friend’s girlfriend.

And on top of all that, Show reveals that Chan is all alone in the world, and doesn’t have any family.

That beat, where he tells the therapist, while puzzling over the “I love you” video message from Ha Ran which is the last thing he recalls, that there’s no one in the world who would send him a message like that, really tugged at my heartstrings.

This is why, even though both our leads have wounds that need healing, my heart is currently aching more for Chan.

Perhaps that might shift as we go, as Show reveals more of Ha Ran’s backstory and perspective – which I’m sure it will.

[END SPOILER]

Show is pretty to look at

Aside from the fact that Chan in the present timeline looks like he’s been styled by a fashion terrorist 😂, I thought that Show was beautifully filmed.

I found myself quietly admiring the prettiness of this story world, even while I was puzzling over the apparent mismatch in psychology, in episode 1. 😁

Like this screenshot above; it looks simple, and yet, you can see that it’s a shot that’s been thoughtfully and carefully composed, yes?

The secondary arcs

In a surprise turn of events, I found myself gravitating more towards our secondary arcs than the primary OTP arc, by the time I hit the midpoint of my watch.

I found these a little more immediate and grounded to me, versus the OTP arc, which I eventually struggled with (more on that later).

Tellingly, I reached a point in my watch where I’d look forward to the secondary characters and their stories getting focus and screen time.

That’s.. definitely not how I’d envisioned my watch shaking out, when I’d first started. 😅

STUFF THAT WAS OK

Show’s handling of its themes

At around the episode 3-4 mark, I remember saying, “Show demonstrates that it does have a vision, and a plan to achieve it.”

I’m here to clarify that this worked for me in principle – to a point.

In this next spoiler section, I broadly cover what Show’s chosen themes are and how these are brought out in our story, and I also touch on why it stopped working for me, by Show’s late stretch.

[SPOILER ALERT]

The thematic bundle

Ha Ran and Chan

E1-2. I fully expect that our exploration will be around grief and healing, but more specifically, I expect that we will zoom in on survivor’s guilt, as well as the idea of emotional substitution.

Because what Chan has experienced from his point of view, is borrowed intimacy. He feels like he knows Ha Ran well, but that’s not something that he’d been able to experience as himself. Rather, he’d always been standing in for Hyeok Chan.

Now, the question is whether Chan will be able to translate that borrowed intimacy into something more authentic – where he doesn’t have to hide behind a false identity, but can simply be himself.

And conversely, the question from Ha Ran’s point of view, would likely be whether she’s falling for Chan himself – or for the echoes of Hyeok Chan that she sees in him.

Our secondary arcs

E3-4. Show is circling around the ideas of what we remember, what we misremember, what we preserve, what we are afraid to lose again, and whether memory anchors us or traps us.

Our secondary arcs echo and refract these themes in pretty meaningful ways, I feel.

Tae Seok (Kwon Hyuk) observing Ha Young from afar and getting to know more about her through observation, is quite similar to the way Chan had observed Ha Ran from afar, and learned about her – and cared for her – from that distance.

The way Tae Seok intervenes quite aggressively when he learns that her blind date is basically a playboy who strings along a whole collection of women, but then remains stoic and vague even when Ha Young questions him about it, is an echo of Chan’s desire to protect Ha Ran too.

We see Yu Gyeom lying to Ha Dam (Oh Ye Ju) – but it’s not malicious. Rather, it’s secrecy that’s meant to be protective, particularly when it comes to CEO Gran’s (Lee Mi Sook) dementia symptoms.

In a way, this echoes the way Chan’s keeping secrets from Ha Ran too.

As for CEO Gran’s dementia reveal, I feel sorry that she has to deal with this, but at the same time, I see Show’s point here: that sometimes memories can’t always be trusted.

Where CEO Gran’s memory is dissolving and becoming unreliable, Chan’s memory is fractured and also unreliable.

I found this to be a pretty poignant echo.

E6-7. One thing that stood out to me these episodes, is the way Ha Dam gets all upset about feeling left out whenever her sisters talk about their parents – and Ha Yeong’s  (Han Ji Hyeon) solution to that, is to talk even more about their parents with Ha Dam, so that Ha Dam will gain the memories that she never had.

I found this an interesting contrast, that where CEO Gran is losing memories, our story also has Ha Dam gaining memories, albeit vicariously.

Why it stopped working for me

E8-9. On the one hand, I can clearly see what Show is trying to do — and I do think there’s a lot of intention behind how everything is being put together, particularly in the way it explores its chosen theme of memory and the role that it plays.

But on the other hand… I also found myself having to put in more effort than I’d like, to stay engaged with these episodes.

I think part of it comes down to how everything feels just a little too… neatly constructed.

There’s a lot of symbolism, a lot of parallels, a lot of thematic tying-together across the different storylines — and while I can appreciate the craft behind that, it quite often tips over, for me, into feeling rather on-the-nose.

To the point where, instead of feeling like I’m watching people simply living their lives, I’m more aware of how each character seems to embody a particular archetype representing their assigned angle of the same theme.

Once that happens, I do find it quite a bit harder to buy that these characters are real people, or fully sink into their stories.

[END SPOILER]

STUFF I DIDN’T LIKE SO MUCH

Uneven emotional calibration

What I mean is, there are times when the emotions shown by our characters don’t feel consistently “tuned” to the story.

To my eyes, there was times when the acting and tone landed well and felt believable, but at other times, the emotional intensity felt off to me, like it was either too bright, too muted, or just not quite matching what the moment seemed to call for.

Because of that inconsistency, I found it that much harder to fully sink into the characters’ emotional journeys, even when the story itself was clearly aiming for something affecting.

Here’s a pretty major example, to show you what I mean.

[SPOILER ALERT]

When we first meet Ha Ran, she’s this uber peppy person and to my eyes, she seemed overly bright.

I then assumed that perhaps she was overcompensating for a lack in her long-distance relationship with her boyfriend Hyeok Chan.

However, later in our story, we’re told that while she’d felt disconnected from Hyeok Chan earlier, it was during the month that she was texting Chan, that she felt a whole new sense of connection.

This means that her cheerful peppiness was supposed to have been real.

That mismatch was rather jarring to me, and added to my challenges of engaging deeply with this OTP.

[END SPOILER]

When Show stretches logic too much

As a longtime resident in Dramaland, I’m used to being asked to suspend disbelief in favor of nudging our story forward.

However, I do take issue when a drama takes it too far – and I do feel that Show takes it too far with this specific example in from episodes 6-7.

I’ll talk about the specifics in this next spoiler section.

[SPOILER ALERT]

E6-7. I get what writer-nim was going for, but I really found the execution quite problematic.

Essentially, writer-nim wanted to remove Chan from Ha Ran’s orbit as fully as possible, to allow Ha Ran to see how important he is to her.

This meant that we not only needed a reason for Chan to leave, but also, we needed a reason for him to be uncontactable for the duration of his absence.

Of course, writer-nim could have opted to put Chan in another accident, and honestly, that would have made more narrative sense in terms of him being uncontactable, but given how much Chan has already suffered by this point, I am actually relieved that writer-nim chooses a path that does not require physical or emotional pain for Chan.

However, the logic is extremely weak for the path that writer-nim does choose.

Sure, a change in management might require for Chan’s team to be recalled to the US, but in such a hurry, where they have to leap on the next flight out of Korea, where Chan doesn’t even have time to go back to the cafe to pick up his things?

That’s a stretch.

I can buy a message failing to send because the network’s glitchy, but given that it looks like Chan spends at least several weeks back in the US, it’s a stretch that he’s unable to charge his phone.

We do get that scene of him moving to plug his phone in to charge, but gets called away to an urgent meeting before he’s able to do so – but surely that momentum can’t be sustained for several weeks?

Surely there would be an opportunity for him to just plug the phone in and get some charge into it?

Also, can’t lie; I find it hard to believe that all this urgency goes on in the office, over a webtoon. I admittedly don’t know much at all about how webtoons are made, but this very corporate setting with people moving with such urgency, feels like a stretch to me.

And then what about email, right?

Since Chan and Ha Ran know each other through work, they’d have each other’s email addresses for sure. It’s one of the most fundamental pieces of information you’d find on someone’s business card, after all.

So even if Chan’s phone was somehow dead for several weeks, it makes no sense to me that no one at Nana Atelier, including Ha Ran, thinks to email Chan.

I know that we’re being asked to suspend disbelief in favor of our story, but this is A LOT of disbelief to suspend, and the bigger the chunk I’m being asked to just ignore, the more I find myself side-eyeing the show.

It literally feels like writer-nim couldn’t come up with a good reason to make Chan uncontactable for several weeks (short of putting him in another coma), and then someone said, “Well, let’s just make it a work emergency, then?” – and this is writer-nim forcing a square peg into a round hole.

Sure, it’s not the worst writing ever, but it sure isn’t good, y’know? 👀

And so, while everyone in Korea is sinking into a funk over missing Chan – where even Genius the dog gets in on the moping – I can’t help thinking that this is all very silly and exaggerated.

But I get the IDEA that writer-nim’s going for, that with Chan suddenly gone, everyone feels his absence very keenly – particularly Ha Ran.

[END SPOILER]

The way Show withholds information

For about half or so of my watch, I was content to give Show the benefit of the doubt in terms of when and how it would give us the full truth behind the Big Accident.

However, my patience really started to grow thin by Show’s later stretch.

Past a certain point, it felt like Show was actively making up excuses in order to keep the truth from us a little longer.

I did not think this was the best use of our limited screen time, to be honest.

By the time Show finally reveals the truth in our finale episode, there’s hardly any time to allow our characters to process the truth and respond to it.

SPOTLIGHT ON CHARACTERS / RELATIONSHIPS

Ha Ran & Chan

Because the dynamics between our OTP shaped my watch experience more than either character in isolation, I’m opting to discuss both characters in the context of this loveline.

As you’d likely have picked up on by now, this OTP loveline didn’t grab me so much, in the overall scheme of things.

For the most part, though, I did like the concept around their connection, as you’ll see in this spoiler section.

It’s just that everything came together to make this relationship less viscerally grabby than I typically prefer in my central lovelines.

I feel that this was due to several different factors — like the writing, directing, actor delivery &/or OTP chemistry — that (in my experience anyway) shifted in and out of play, ie, not all of these were working at the same time.

Basically, my brain appreciates the meaning written into their connection, but my heart is over here, feeling like it’s been left a little empty. 😅

[SPOILER ALERT]

E3-4. Given what we learn about Chan, both in the opening minutes of episode 3, and the further context that Gran (Kang Ae Sim) supplies in episode 4, my heart can’t help but go out to him.

It’s clear to see that Chan has a deep desire for love and connection.

At the top of episode 3, Chan’s clearly been estranged from his father for a long time, and given what Gran says later on, we now know that even his early childhood with Dad (Jung Hae Kyun) had been difficult and traumatic, with Dad being prone to violence, and forcing Chan to give up art, which he loved.

And yet, we see that as he tentatively reconnects with Dad after running into him, he’s still hoping to please, and desiring to gain Dad’s acceptance – we see it in the way he nervously boils water to make Dad some tea; we also see it in his tentative, shifty body language, as he pulls out a chair for Dad.

It’s utterly heart-shattering, the way Dad blows a gasket and starts trashing Chan’s precious drawings and art supplies, and practically the entire room, the moment he sees that little box of art stuff.

Yes, we later learn that Dad’s got a lot of pain that he traces back to Chan’s mom’s love for art, but that doesn’t make it ok.

From Chan’s point of view, I can imagine that this feels like being completely rejected and condemned by his own father, to the point where he likely sees his existence as worthless – which is probably why he steps on that ledge soon afterwards, seriously ready to put an end to everything.

The fact that Ha Ran’s messages not only save him from death in that moment, but continue to brighten up his days afterwards, already makes for a strong case for why Chan is grateful to Ha Ran.

Add on the fact that it had been the memory of her voice, cheerily saying, “I love you, Chan,” that had pulled him out of his coma post-accident, and it becomes easy to understand why Chan would feel so strongly in the present, about helping Ha Ran move beyond her pain.

He basically receives it as a moral obligation to save her back, because she’s saved him from death, not once, but twice. 🥲

However, his good intentions don’t magically make Ha Ran’s walls poof away, and it’s actually quite sad – though perfectly understandable – when Ha Ran shuts down Chan’s efforts to connect, and then even starts actively trying to avoid him.

The way Ha Ran keeps almost running into Chan anyway, and then having to hurriedly change course to try to hide herself from his sight, is rather heavy-handed on Show’s part, not gonna lie, but I found it easy enough to shrug this off as a Dramaland quirk.

Happily, this doesn’t go on for too long in terms of overall screen time, and importantly, when Ha Ran blurts out her true feelings about feeling trapped because she can’t even go to her favorite cafe because of him, this helps Chan to understand where she’s coming from, and calibrate his actions accordingly.

It’s a hard lesson for Chan to learn, that just because he is keen to help Ha Ran to heal, doesn’t necessarily means that she’s ready or willing.

I find it so.. poignantly generous of Chan, to volunteer to move out of the cafe, even though it’s the opposite of what he really wants, all for the sake of helping Ha Ran feel more comfortable. 🥲

Thankfully, Ha Ran’s also a decent person at heart, and when she realizes that Chan’s presence is actually helping Mr. Park (Kang Suk Woo) and keeping him comfortable and safe, and that he’s not just friendly to her, but to everyone else as well, she starts to have second thoughts.

Importantly, by the time she experiences that trigger at the palace, she’s already mentally adjusted her impression Chan enough, to be able to open up about how she’d thought she’d heard her mother’s voice calling her name, and how she’d cried in response.

Not only that, she tells Chan about the accident which had taken her parents from her, and how, against all logic, she’d felt happy for the split second that she’d thought she’d heard Mom’s voice calling out to her.

That’s huge for Ha Ran, and I think it’s so meaningful that Chan’s actually able to understand the sentiment, given his own experience of hearing her voice.

He doesn’t tell her why he’s able to understand how she feels, but there’s just something about the way he says that he gets it, that gets through to Ha Ran.

I can only imagine that that sense of solidarity must be so precious, for someone like Ha Ran, who’s spent literal years cooped up in her own head, unable to articulate her pain to someone else. 🥹

This unlocks the breakthrough moment that we get, when Ha Ran apologizes to Chan for how she’d lashed out at him when he’d just been trying to be nice, and then goes on to open up about how she wants to change but finds it difficult and scary.

She’s being really vulnerable here with Chan, and I’d like to believe that it’s because she senses that kindred spirit quality about him. 🥲

I also appreciate that Chan clarifies, later on, exactly what he’d like to do for Ha Ran, ie, he doesn’t just want to be a friend; he wants to help her walk out that winter in which she feels trapped.

I love that in the end, Chan doesn’t push Ha Ran to agree to his proposal. In the end, it’s Ha Ran who broaches the subject and asks him if his proposal is still valid.

Aw. She’s taking active steps towards her own healing, and I do like that very much. 🥰

In episode 4, Chan grapples with the possibility that there are still gaps in his memory that haven’t been filled yet, that likely have to do with the circumstances of the explosion itself, it’s interesting to see that now, it’s Ha Ran who’s being more forthcoming and proactive, in nurturing the friendship they’ve agreed to.

Certainly, I am touched by Chan’s response to the doctor, whom we see advising him to avoid Ha Ran, in order to protect himself from potentially painful and therefore destabilizing memories.

Instead of taking the doctor’s advice, Chan makes the decision to put Ha Ran’s healing first, even if it might cost him.

Even though we know that Chan is motivated by gratitude towards Ha Ran, I still find his decision selfless and touching. 🥲

As for Ha Ran, I really liked that moment when she jumps in on Chan cleaning the window with the hose.

For anyone else, this might be a small thing, but this kind of playfulness from Ha Ran, who’s known to keep her distance from people in general? That’s huge. 🥹

Honestly, the way Chan reacts in that subsequent scene, where he sees Ha Ran look despondent when she hears that couple mention the Jamsugyo Bridge, tells me that he’s drawing from personal experience of reclaiming places and rewriting memories.

I think that most people in that situation would back off and perhaps try to distract Ha Ran from the thoughts that had dampened her spirits.

Instead, Chan takes her to Jamsugyo Bridge, but makes it a fun experience – so that she now has happier memories of the place.

That’s meaningful and powerful, I feel. 🥲

And then later, after that near-accident while Chan had been driving, I really like the tone of the conversation they have, when Ha Ran seeks him out at the cafe.

He’s clear and gentle as he apologizes for scaring her, and also, explains how sudden honking sounds can destabilize him.

And she is empathetic and encouraging, as she correctly guesses that it’s because of his left ear not being able to hear, even before he says anything, and also, tells him that he’s helped her a lot, just during this “free trial” period.

Her parting shot, that she doesn’t like a fake friendship where everything’s nice and all about having fun – and that being able to tell each other when things are not ok, is what real friendship is about.

Ahhh. Isn’t that another really big step for Ha Ran?

She’s now no longer afraid of connecting with Chan, and is even expressing that she’s interested in a real connection. That’s such great progress, honestly.

The way they then list the thing that they’ve learned about each other is cute, and the way Ha Ran volunteers that random factoid about hating oysters – just so that Chan can learn one more thing about her – is cute too. 🥰

Chan does look a little troubled when she asks him to tell her one of his secrets next time, even though she says that it can be a small secret, and I take that to mean that Chan really does desire to be completely honest with her – but isn’t sure if it’s a good idea.

Chan isn’t telling Ha Ran the truth about the pen, or about how Hyeok Chan had left him to answer Ha Ran’s messages, and my gut says that he’s withholding the truth in order to protect her.

Later, I’m really heartened to see Ha Ran surprise Chan by showing up to join him on his drive to Gyeongju – so that she can take over the wheel.

Aw. That is a very thoughtful and considerate gesture, and it really is heartwarming to see Ha Ran show vulnerability in this way.

The more she sees evidence of Chan’s pain, like in his scars, or in Gran’s stories later on, the more she seems to want to protect him, like with the way she ties her own scarf around his neck, to keep him from catching cold from the rain.

For someone who’s been so afraid to care for others, for fear of losing them, this is another big step, to my eyes.

And honestly, I was very pleasantly surprised that, at the end of episode 4, Ha Ran comes right out and tells Chan that she’d overheard him telling Gran that Ha Ran is someone that he shouldn’t like, and asks him what he means.

Despite the growth and progress we’ve seen from Ha Ran these episodes, I’d still pegged her as someone who would more likely avoid the issue rather than confront it, so the fact that she doesn’t, kind of blows me away.

I do think that Chan deserves credit here, because if she did not feel safe with him, she would absolutely not try to broach the subject like this.

And the way Chan eventually responds also surprises me, because instead of answering her directly, he goes off on a tangent – which also seems genuinely important to him:

“Then.. Is it ok for me to like you?”

Oooh. This does leave us dangling on the cusp of some romantic narrative possibilities that I hadn’t expected this early in our story.

E5. If you were to ask me who’s more emotionally vulnerable in these episodes, between Ha Ran and Chan, I wouldn’t be able to offer a simple answer.

If we’re talking about who’s being more emotionally open in this episode, it’s definitely Ha Ran, and I’m quite surprised by this development, mostly because where we’d started, Ha Ran had been the more reserved and reticent one – by far.

And yet, in these episodes, we see her opening up quite a bit to Chan. I’ll come back to this in a short bit.

If we’re talking about who’s more likely to get hurt, then it’s definitely Chan, as he navigates unexpected recovered memories, and the implications that they carry.

In fact, it’s Ha Ran whom we see consistently leaning in and trying to establish a closer bond with Chan, and it’s Chan whom we see being evasive, though not for malicious reasons.

For Chan, it basically boils down to his fear of telling Ha Ran the truth, and as his understanding of the truth evolves this episode, that fear evolves too.

When Ha Ran asks him about why he’d told Gran that Ha Ran is someone whom he can’t like, the truth for him at this point, is that he’d known her from a distance, as Hyeok Chan’s roommate, and had been called upon to act in Hyeok Chan’s place, more than a little bit.

My read is that he withholds the truth from her because he wants to protect her memory of Hyeok Chan, and doesn’t want her to feel hurt by the truth – that on quite a few occasions, when she’d thought that she’d been interacting with Hyeok Chan, she hadn’t been interacting with him, but Chan instead.

Even though you could say that Chan is actively backing away from the truth whenever Ha Ran leans in towards it in this episode, I don’t find myself holding it against him because it’s clear to see that even as his understanding of the truth evolves, Chan’s only interest here, is to protect Ha Ran.

I’m guessing that some viewers might take issue with this, most likely because they feel that Ha Ran has a right to know, and while I don’t disagree with that, I can see that from Chan’s point of view, Ha Ran is more vulnerable than the average person, given the grief and trauma she’s been living in, ever since Hyeok Chan’s death.

I think it’s reasonable (and thoughtful) of Chan to tread carefully when it comes to Ha Ran’s mental and emotional wellbeing, with that as context.

In the meantime, I appreciate that Ha Ran’s steadily opening up to Chan, even to the point of sharing some specifics about how her parents had died on the day of the first snow, and that’s why she dislikes the first snow now.

The way she talks about it is almost absent-minded, in the moment, and my read of it is that this is evidence of how safe she feels in Chan’s company, that she would allow her private pain to be expressed like this, without restriction.

For the record, I don’t think that Ha Ran’s sharing her pain in order to pressure Chan to open up about his past.

In this particular scene, for example, she talks about the first snow and how that reminds her of her parents, in a wistful, sad sort of way, like she’s lost in thought.

It’s only afterwards, that she asks Chan about what he’d said before about hearing a familiar voice, like she’s changing beats in their conversation.

To my eyes, this reads as Ha Ran simply being in a reflective mood, and feeling safe enough to ask Chan about what he’d meant – in a similar scope of conversation, if that makes sense?

Plus, to go back to what Ha Ran had articulated to Chan earlier, during that conversation at the café when he’d apologized for scaring her, that she’s not just interested in the nice, happy things, I’d say that the way she consistently tries to lean into the truth in this episode, is really her way of strengthening a genuine connection with Chan.

There are several times in this episode that Ha Ran tries to lean in and Chan either makes an excuse, changes the subject, or gives an answer that is vague, and I do credit Ha Ran for continuing to lean in with Chan, instead of retreating into her shell.

I mean, given where we’d started with Ha Ran, that would have been a perfectly understandable reaction, yes? Instead, she remains steady and open with Chan, as she tries to understand him better, and I do think that that says a lot, all on its own, about how safe Ha Ran feels with Chan. 🥲

Plus, she trusts him.

When Chan lets slip that phrase about “neon aliens,” Ha Ran picks up on it – but then decides that she must have told him and then forgotten about it.

And later, during that scene where they take shelter in the hut, when Chan says that he’d like to keep his past a secret, Ha Ran immediately apologizes for being rude and thoughtless.

I appreciate that she respects his boundaries when he articulates his preference, and then later on, at the beach, she even thanks him for asking to be friends, saying that she must feel quite close to him, to be able to tell him things that she’s not okay with.

The thing that really seals it for me, in terms of Ha Ran’s true attitude towards Chan, is the way she pretends that she’d called “even” the next morning, so that Chan doesn’t have to tell her his secret.

Instead, she tells him, with that same gentle openness, that she’s decided that there’s no need to dig into his scars in order to know him better; that they’re already pretty close, without her knowing his secret.

That is.. a very accommodating, unconditional sort of acceptance, and I like that very much. 🥲

On Chan’s part, I feel like I can see a sad sort of relief in his eyes, as he smiles and extends his hand for a high five, saying that he’s learned from her, that not digging up old wounds is also a way of protecting their happiness.

I wanted to say a couple of things here, and the first is, I really think Chae Jong Hyeop’s doing a great job, particularly in these episodes; Chan consistently looks a little wistful and sad even though he’s mostly cheerful and animated, and I just think that’s really hard to do.

Additionally, it’s dawning on me, as I revisit the episode for these notes, that Chan’s not just referring to not digging up his own old wounds – he’s also now thinking about Ha Ran’s old wounds.

And, he’s taking her cue, of not digging into his old wounds (and the relief he feels from that), to be a reframing of his decision not to dig into her old wounds.

Before this, he’d struggled with whether his decision to withhold information from her counted as lying, and had leaned towards it being a lie.

Here, though, I feel like his own relief at Ha Ran’s framing, informs him of how he’s protecting her happiness in the same way she’s protecting his.

While I would agree that there’s value in processing the past, I do also agree with Chan’s recommendation to Ha Ran, to stop looking for vapor trails that tie you to the past, but seek instead, iridescent clouds that point to excitement for the future.

In fact, the camera that he gives Ha Ran, along with the homework assignment, to take a photo each day of something that brings her joy, is very much aligned with moving away from the past, to focus on the present (that brings joy) and the future (because she won’t be able to see the photos until she gets them developed).

I do love that Ha Ran finds it easy to do the homework that Chan gives her, meaning to say, she is able to find joy in life, now that Chan has pointed her to it.

Honestly, I loved the montage of scenes where we get to see Ha Ran texting Chan, and Chan responding, because this felt pivotal to me.

In the past, Chan had interacted with her on borrowed intimacy; he’d enjoyed her messages and responded to them, but he couldn’t reveal his identity as he did so.

But now, he’s receiving her messages and responding, as himself, and that feels like a huge milestone for him, like he’s rewriting a memory of the shadows, with memories in the light. 🥲

In the wake of Chan’s sudden departure for the US, we see Ha Ran flip through the photos that she’d developed, only to see that Chan had taken photos on the camera first.

With the photos of herself laughing and smiling, Ha Ran gets to see herself through Chan’s eyes, and I believe it’s an illuminating experience, like, “Look at me.. I’m.. happy.” 🥲

And then, there’s that photo of Chan.

With this, Ha Ran most likely realizes that this happy version of herself was only possible because of Chan.

Yet, at the same time, I’m sure she can’t help but feel his absence very acutely, because now he’s not there anymore – and she can’t help but remember his words to her, that she should keep enjoying her life, even when he’s not there.

I feel that Ha Ran’s leaked tears in this moment, is in response to the idea that she will have to find her own joy, without Chan beside her.

I do believe that this will force a reckoning on Ha Ran’s part, where she’ll have to figure out exactly what he means to her.

In the meantime, though, I can’t help feeling a sliver of joy for Chan, because again, this photo of himself, in her hands, is yet another indication that he now has a place in her life – legitimately, as himself.

And that’s meaningful indeed. 🥹

E6-7. We see that Ha Ran tries to bury herself in work to distract herself from missing Chan, but that doesn’t really work – which is why she opts to take that day off, to see if checking off Chan’s bucket list might help.

And I do think that her findings are very telling: that everything that she’d done with Chan had been fun – but going through the list on her own had instead been dull and boring.

That brings home the conclusion very clearly; that it’s Chan’s presence that makes the difference, for Ha Ran. 🥲

And so, when Chan finally shows up to keep their dinner appointment, I can see why Ha Ran would react with such strong emotion, to the point of hugging him.

Importantly, this is after Chan initiates a high-five to show that he’s happy to see her. This means that Ha Ran overrides that high-five and upgrades the contact to a full-on hug.

I do feel that this is a key turning point for our would-be OTP.

Up to this point, Chan has been the one to initiate contact, and Ha Ran’s been the one to meet him at the level he pitches – or fall short of it. Like when he’d asked for them to be friends, and she’d declined.

However, now, we see her actually upgrading the kind of contact between them, beyond the level of the high-five, and then, going into episode 7, she’s the one nudging them towards closeness, and not the other way around.

I thought it was a bit of a stretch that Ha Ran would actually fall asleep right there in the restaurant, but I get the point, that she’s been sleeping very poorly, and with Chan now literally in front of her, she’s finally and truly relaxed.

After this, we see Ha Ran really leaning into her new proactive stance, with the way she follows Chan to the airport despite the snow, and then tells him that she’d had a lot of regrets after he’d left, and now, she wants to be really nice to him.

This is a direct flip of Chan’s initial question, if he could be really nice to her, and I think, seals the role reversal that I’d mentioned earlier.

Where before, Chan had consistently been the one initiating closeness with Ha Ran, now, she’s taking on that role instead.

There are two elements that strike me about this scene:

1, Chan walks away from his luggage towards Ha Ran, which, to my eyes, reads like him leaving his (emotional) baggage behind in order to be with Ha Ran, but

2, As he does so, he says, “This is bad” (the original dialogue 큰일 났다 (keun-il nat-da) translates literally as “big trouble has happened”) – which confirms for us that as far as Chan is concerned, it is still a very problematic thing for him to be close to Ha Ran.

And, as Show reminds us in episode 7, that has to do with two main things:

1, Chan’s secret borrowed intimacy in the past, compounded with his recent recollection that Hyeok Chan had been cheating on Ha Ran, and

2, Chan’s own emotional trauma around rejection by his father, and how that has shaped his sense of self.

That tension forms much of the emotional backbone in episode 7.

For much of episode 7, our OTP stays in that undefined limbo state where they are not officially dating, but they are definitely more than just friends, and at the same time, we have “ghosts” from Chan’s past showing up to remind him that liking Ha Ran comes with complications that he cannot ignore.

Typically, this in-between stage in a relationship tends to be both confusing and tantalizing (like, we hugged and held hands – but yet we’re not a couple?) but in this case, this is made even more confusing because of Chan’s reservations.

I think that’s why this in-between stage is written to last for the entire episode, whereas I think in most other dramas this lead-up to the minting of the OTP relationship would be a lot shorter.

However, I have to admit that even though I understood the intent behind it, I still found the watch experience to be rather uneven, ie, I found it rather slow-going and effortful. 😅

But I guess that basically mirrors Chan’s experience – kinda like he’s wading through molasses, because he feels stuck?

The thing that stands out to me in the scene where he confides in Genius, is how he wonders whether it would be ok to play dumb and be greedy, just until he leaves.

Immediately, my brain is homing in on the phrase “just until he leaves” – because doesn’t that mean that whatever he’s allowing to form between himself and Ha Ran is temporary, at least in his mind?

Even though his feelings for Ha Ran are sincere and deep, I do think that this is Chan’s way of rationalizing his decision to push all those pieces of troublesome context aside to be close to Ha Ran – by telling himself that it’s just until he leaves.

Essentially, this is less about the sincerity of his feelings for Ha Ran, and more about how much happiness he is allowing himself, and using what logic.

I believe this is why Chan looks so burdened when CEO Gran asks him to lunch and proceeds to ask him about how much he knows about Ha Ran’s past, and then thank him for allowing her to see Ha Ran crying and laughing again.

In Chan’s mind, he’s only allowing himself to be close to Ha Ran for a season, until he leaves, and I believe this is the reason he tells CEO Gran that he might not be as good of a person for Ha Ran as she believes.

And then of course, there’s the way Show re-introduces Chan’s father into the picture, with him showing up at the art gallery like that.

From Dad’s behavioral cues, it seems to me that Dad’s no longer as antagonistic towards Chan as he’d once was, but from Chan’s visceral reaction to Dad’s presence, it’s clear that the wounds are still very raw.

That’s why Chan instinctively recoils so strongly when Dad reaches to touch his arm, which is what causes that crash and shattering of glass.

This is clearly Chan’s biggest, deepest wound, and with Dad’s presence inadvertently poking him where it hurts the most, I can see why Chan would feel so tender and defeated.

I really like the mended pottery analogy that Ha Ran brings up, where she says that the lines where its brokenness had been sealed, gives it a new kind of beauty.

Ha Ran likens her own experience to this, where all her painful memories have been painted over with new ones by Chan, thus allowing her to smile again.

She talks about the possibility of Chan allowing the same process with his father, and when Chan instinctively replies that it’s impossible, I find it very fitting that she then reminds him that she’d thought it impossible at first too, when he’d first approached and wanted to help her to come out of her winter.

With all these thoughts and feelings laid out like this, and with Chan’s pain still in full view, our OTP’s first kiss feels both tender and poignant, and I do think that this is likely going to be one of Show’s big themes, where there can be beauty, in spite of the pain. 🥲

E8-9. Structurally speaking, it does feel like we’ve shifted into a new phase of the narrative.

Where episodes 6–7 were about Chan and Ha Ran choosing each other, episodes 8–9 feel very much like the beginning of the fallout from that choice.

We open episode 8 with our OTP in a newly-defined relationship space, and I did enjoy the softness of those early beats — the small gestures, the quiet happiness, the sense that they are now, tentatively, a couple.

There’s something very gentle about the way they settle into each other’s orbit.

I like the way Chan doesn’t try to hide their new relationship, even when Ha Ran instinctively pulls her hand away from his, when they run into Man Jae.

Instead of shrinking back from their newly minted status because of any embarrassment or awkwardness, he leans into it by taking Ha Ran’s hand again, and there’s something nicely assuring about that.

I also appreciate the way he brings it up to Man Jae later, as a way of setting the record straight, if you will – it makes me feel that he wants to be honest with Man Jae, and it also makes me feel that he wants to own the fact that he and Ha Ran are now romantically involved.

That said, even as this “happy present” is being established, it feels fragile.

Very soon, Show begins to remind us — quite insistently — that the past is not something that can simply be left behind.

We see this most clearly with the pen.

On the surface, it’s a sweet gesture — Chan giving Ha Ran a new pen, reframing it as something unburdened by the past.

But soon enough, the original pen reappears (as I knew in my gut that it would), and that illusion basically collapses.

It feels quite pointed to me, that we now have two identical pens — one tied to truth, and one tied to Chan’s attempt to rewrite that truth.

This definitely feels like Show is telling us that you can try to replace the past, but you can’t erase it.

That tension — between wanting to move forward, and the inevitability of the past catching up — really forms the backbone of these episodes.

And then there’s also the thing with Ha Ran, where she learns from Hyeok Chan’s sister that he’d had surgery.

That’s something that she hadn’t known about, and she only learns about this now, 7 whole years after his passing.

That definitely feels like the past (and the truth) catching up, where even Hyeok Chan’s absence can’t stop it.

This idea is reflected even more clearly in Chan’s arc.

Even as he tries to lean into his relationship with Ha Ran, his body quite literally begins to betray him.

The hearing loss, the fragmented memories, the physical distress — all of it feels like an externalization of the pressure he’s under, holding onto a truth that’s getting harder and harder to contain.

While the psychiatrist’s explanation does feel a bit on-the-nose, I do think the underlying idea lands: that suppressing the truth comes at a cost.

At the same time, I found it interesting that Ha Ran, too, becomes a kind of participant in this fragile equilibrium.

When she questions Chan about the pens, she ultimately accepts his explanation — even though, to us, it’s clear that something doesn’t quite add up.

And so, in a way, their relationship at this point feels like it’s built on a shared, unspoken agreement… to not look too closely at the inconvenient details.

[END SPOILER]

Lee Mi Sook as CEO Gran / Nana

I enjoyed Lee Mi Sook’s outing as the blonde Chief Fashionista of the fashion house, who’s also a gruff but caring grandmother to her three granddaughters.

[SPOILER ALERT]

I found her struggle with her dementia symptoms to be very poignant.

Essentially, Nana’s sense of self is tied to her memories, and in losing her memories, she feels that she is losing herself, which is a very scary thing indeed.

This felt like a definitively losing battle, which absolutely increased the sense of pathos I felt around her arc.

Her reconnection with Man Jae, while sweet, also felt doomed, for this reason.

I’m a big fan of second chances, so when Show eventually gives Nana a new lease of life via a different, treatable diagnosis, I liked that very much.

What a blessing it is, that Nana gets to continue to do what she loves, and make a different choice in terms of her connection with Man Jae, while appreciating everything all the more acutely, because she already knows what it feels like, to almost lose it all. 🥲

[END SPOILER]

Ha Yeong and Tae Seok

I like the contrast between bubbly Ha Young and stoic Tae Seok, and from very early on, I felt that they’d make a cute couple.

Unfortunately, I do feel that this loveline is handled somewhat unevenly.

Sometimes, we get really cute moments focused on their connection, but at other times (mostly in our final stretch), this loveline seems a little bit neglected, in the overall scheme of things.

In this next spoiler section, I unpack the main highlights of this couple.

[SPOILER ALERT]

E5. I found it pretty cute, the way Ha Yeong is becoming more hyper-aware of Tae Seok, to the point that she’s unable to be her usual garrulous self, and clams up instead. 🤭

And then I love how she gets all hot and bothered when he does his stoic, heroic thing, by stopping the elevator doors from closing on her with his bare hand. 😁

It’s also very cute how she gets all thrilled at the memory that Tae Seok had removed the green onions from her tteokbokki – only to deflate, when she realizes that he’s nice to her entire family, heh.

I did love that beat where Tae Seok offers her that pieces of sweet-and-sour candy, only for us to see in flashback, that she had actually offered that same candy, when he’d been waiting for his first meeting with CEO Gran, and had calmed his nerves.

That is very sweet and very cute, that this was the real moment when Tae Seok had been drawn to Ha Yeong – and what we’re seeing, is how he’s continued to appreciate her from afar, all these years.

Awww.. Now I dearly want Tae Seok to come out of the shadows too, so that he can like Ha Yeong without feeling like he has to hide. 🥲

E6-7. It’s becoming clear that Tae Seok’s carrying a very heavy burden of guilt, and that that guilt has to do with Ha Yeong’s parents’ deaths.

That would explain a lot around why Tae Seok goes out of his way to take care of Ha Yeong’s family, and also, why he might harbor feelings for her but not act on them.

E8-9. Ha Yeong’s endearingly brave in owning her feelings and confessing said feelings to Tae Seok, even though, as we see from her little leaked mortified expressions, that she isn’t as breezy or blithe about it as she lets on.

And then, he’s perplexingly curt and abrupt in rejecting her feelings.

I mean. Telling his friend over the phone that there’s a zero percent chance that he and Ha Yeong would date, and counting that as responding to her, is terrible form, in my opinion. Ugh.

If this were real life, I’d tell Ha Yeong to drop Tae Seok like a hot potato, because he either doesn’t seem to know (or doesn’t seem to care) that he’s brutally hurting her feelings with his actions. 😒

However, this is Dramaland, so I’m giving Tae Seok another chance.

Plus, it’s true that his actions speak louder than his (terribly cold) words.

The fact that the reason he’s there to save Ha Yeong from the falling shelf, is because he only leaves the office after she leaves, never mind if she works till dawn, does mollify me quite a bit.

And, given the context that we finally get in episode 9, that Tae Seok is ridden with guilt because he is convinced that it was his inability to drive Ha Yeong’s parents that day, that had led to their deaths, I can imagine why he feels that he should be completely disqualified to receive Ha Yeong’s feelings.

Which means that in his mind, he’s punishing himself rather than hurting her.

It’s messed up – but it’s understandable.

In terms of our central theme, here we have Tae Seok unable to move into the future that he wants, because he’s imprisoned by the past.

[END SPOILER]

Ha Dam and Yoo Gyeom

I found our maknae couple to be an adorable pair of puppies, and I loved how devoted they are to each other.

Even though they are the youngest OTP in our story, I often found their simple steadfastness towards each other more mature and grounded than our other couples.

[SPOILER ALERT]

This couple does get destabilized when Yu Gyeom finds himself lying to Ha Dam as a result of promising CEO Gran that he won’t divulge her secret. Plus they even separate for a while, because of this.

Through it all, though, I really appreciate how their feelings for each other never waver, even when they’re in the midst of a “break-up.”

It’s true that the way they poke at each other during their period of estrangement leans petty and childish, but I rationalize that many couples do that, regardless of their age. 😁

One of my favorite things about Ha Dam’s arc, is how she eventually finds the emotional connection to her mom that she’d been searching for, by finding “Mom’s scent” in the arms of Yoo Gyeom’s mom.

I thought it was very heartwarming and wholesome, the way Yoo Gyeom’s parents relate to Ha Dam as if she’s their own daughter finally coming home, rather than someone they’re meeting for the first time.

The way they keep referring to her as “Our Ha Dam,” and the way they treat her with such warmth and familiarity, is just lovely to witness, and I’m so glad for Ha Dam, that that parent-shaped hole in her heart, can now be soothed and comforted by these new parental figures in her life. 🥲

It’s also cutely wholesome how Ha Dam and Yoo Gyeom’s reconciliation is brought about by none other than his parents. How many young couples are able to say that, yes? 😁

Later, I found it sweet how each of them actively puts the other person first, with Ha Dam ready to give up on her exams in order to stay with Yoo Gyeom during his surgery at the hospital, and Yoo Gyeom insisting that she take the exam, for his sake.

I’m glad that his Yoo Gyeom’s surgery goes smoothly, and I like the idea of Ha Dam now putting her smarts towards his rehabilitation. 🥰

[END SPOILER]

SPOTLIGHT ON THE PENULTIMATE EPISODES [SPOILERS]

E10-11. I have to admit that despite my best intentions, my engagement with this show continues to feel… quite uneven, my friends. 😅

With these two episodes in particular, that unevenness feels more pronounced than ever.

Because on the one hand, there are stretches here that genuinely work for me — where I feel grounded in the characters, where the emotions land, where I can just sit in the story and go along for the ride.

But on the other hand… there’s our OTP. 👀

And at this point, the gap between how I’m responding to the secondary arcs and how I’m responding to Chan and Ha Ran feels wider than ever. 😅

Let me start with what is working, because I do think that matters.

Across both episodes, I found myself consistently more engaged with the side stories — and not just in a casual way, but in a way where I felt like I was watching people, rather than characters carrying a theme.

With Nana, for instance, your mileage may vary, but I personally really liked the turn that her storyline takes.

After everything that had been set up — the looming loss of self, the sense that she was preparing to quietly disappear — I found it genuinely moving that she’s been given a second chance.

And more than that, that this time, she chooses differently. Where once she chose her career and left Man Jae behind, this time, she chooses him.

That idea of being given another chance at life, and making a different choice with the benefit of hindsight… that really resonates with me. 🥲

And the way she and Man Jae are portrayed continues to feel warm and grounded — there’s a sincerity to their connection that makes their scenes easy for me to believe in.

On that note, in these episodes, I found it quite wholesome, the way she still addresses him as “Oppa,” after all that’s happened, and after all these years. 🥲

Similarly, Tae Seok’s arc really worked for me too.

The way his guilt finally surfaces in a way that he can no longer contain — that felt earned.

We’re talking about 13 years of carrying the belief that he could have prevented Ha Ran’s parents’ deaths. That’s a really, really long time to live with that kind of guilt.

And so when Nana’s condition comes to light, and he once again feels like he should have noticed, should have done more… I can understand why that breaks something open in him.

I thought Kwon Hyuk did a really strong job of conveying that sense of being completely stricken — like the guilt isn’t just something he thinks about, but something that has taken root in his entire being. 💔

I also really appreciated the way Ha Yeong meets him there.

She doesn’t make it about herself, even though she has every reason to feel hurt by his distance.

Instead, she offers him grace.

She tells him clearly that no one in her family blames him, and in doing so, she gives him a way to start putting that burden down.

I loved this moment, because of the kindness and compassion that we see Ha Yeong extending to Tae Seok.

That’s beautiful. 🥲

As for Ha Dam and Yoo Gyeom, I continue to find their relationship sweetly comforting.

I like that Ha Dam recognizes everything Yoo Gyeom has done for Nana, and instead of reacting with frustration that he’d kept the truth from her, she leads with gratitude.

And on Yoo Gyeom’s side, I can understand why he struggles to tell her about his condition.

It’s not just about him hiding something from her — it’s more that he himself hasn’t fully come to terms with what it means, and likely doesn’t dare to give voice to his deepest fears.

His dream, their shared future, everything that he’s been working towards… it all suddenly feels uncertain — and that terrifies him.

I appreciate so much that when she finds him breaking down, he doesn’t try to hide it, and finally lets her in.

Even though there continues to be visible fear, I can also see that there’s a deep sense of relief in telling the truth, and having Ha Dam walk in that truth with him.

We don’t know yet what will become of Yoo Gyeom’s condition and his baseball dreams, but I like the idea that whatever comes next, they’re facing it together. 🥲

Which brings me back to Chan and Ha Ran, because the contrast is… quite stark. 😅

One of the things that’s really crystallizing for me in these episodes is that I never fully bought into their happiness.

Even in their softer, “happy” moments — like the birthday scene — there’s something about the tone of their interactions that feels… performative, to my eyes.

It’s like they’re playing the part of a happy couple, rather than simply being one, if that makes sense?

And sometimes, it even feels like they both know that something isn’t quite right, but are choosing to stay on the surface anyway.

So when everything falls apart, I find that I don’t actually feel the loss in the way that the show seems to want me to, because, to my eyes, that happiness never felt fully real to begin with.

The confrontation in episode 11 really brings this into focus.

On paper, it’s a major emotional peak: the truth comes out, Ha Ran lashes out, everything unravels.

And I can see what both actors are doing. I can see the intention, I can see the emotion.

However, for me, the scene itself doesn’t come together as a shared emotional experience.

To my eyes, it feels instead like two singers performing a duet… where each one is waiting for their turn to come in.

They deliver their lines, one after the other, but it doesn’t quite feel like they’re in the same moment together, reacting and shifting in real time, if you know what I mean.

And because of that, the scene doesn’t land for me with the emotional weight that it’s clearly aiming for.

At the same time, I do think the writing is actively working against them.

By this point, it feels like the show has gone to great lengths to delay the truth — to the extent that it starts to feel less like organic storytelling, and more like the narrative is being deliberately controlled to keep things from moving forward.

We’ve seen this in multiple ways over the course of our story:

• Near-confessions that never quite happen;

• Ha Ran shutting things down at key moments;

• Conversations that almost get somewhere, but don’t;

• And importantly, Soo Jin (Lee Ju Yeon) withholding crucial information.

Soo Jin, in particular, really stands out to me as a problem.

Because the way she’s written feels less like a coherent character, and more like a device for controlling when information is revealed.

Chan approaches her, clearly confused, clearly trying to understand what happened — and she responds with this sustained hostility, while refusing to actually tell him the truth.

That creates a very strange dynamic.

If she wants him to feel guilty for what he did, then… why not tell him? He doesn’t remember. He’s already confused and distressed. Telling him would actually land that guilt in a meaningful way.

But she doesn’t.

So then the question becomes — is she trying to protect him? If that’s the case, then why the hostility? Why the coldness, the sharpness, the refusal to engage with him in any kind of compassionate way?

And then there’s the question of her own position in all of this.

If she had been involved with Hyeok Chan — potentially as a girlfriend on the side — then where exactly is this self-righteousness coming from?

Why is she framing Chan as the one who’d had designs on Ha Ran, when her own position in that dynamic is, at best, morally complicated?

All of this makes her behavior feel less like it’s coming from a clear emotional truth, and more like the show needs her to withhold, and to be antagonistic, for as long as possible.

And because that withholding stretches on for so long, it stops building tension and starts creating frustration, at least from where I’m sitting.

Especially when she eventually does reveal key information — like confirming that Chan hit Hyeok Chan and may have caused the fire — and I’m left thinking, “This could have come earlier, and it could have actually deepened the story instead of stalling it.”

This sense of manufactured delay shows up in other ways too.

Chan’s physical condition, for instance. On its own, it makes sense — stress, trauma, neurological issues.

However, the way it’s used here, repeatedly, at precisely the moments where the story might otherwise move forward… starts to feel very on-the-nose.

His ears ring, his vision blurs, he gets destabilized — and it almost! always! happens at exactly the moment when Something Important is about to happen.

So instead of feeling like a condition he’s living with, it starts to feel like something the narrative deploys on cue.

And after a while, can’t lie, I found this all very predictable.

The tablet moment really crystallizes this for me.

Chan finally writes down the truth — his truth, in full — and tries to give it to Ha Ran. She refuses. Which, fair enough.

But then the tablet gets destroyed almost immediately, by literally getting run over by a vehicle, no less. 🤪

And at that point, it just feels like one obstruction too many, y’know?

Instead of building tension, it feels to me like the show is straining to keep the truth from surfacing.

That same sense carries into that late-night sequence where Chan goes looking for Ha Ran.

There’s something inherently compelling about that setup — him knowing where she would go, and seeking her out when she’s at her lowest. That could have been a moment for some kind of shift towards restoration &/or reconciliation.

But instead, Show stacks everything against that potential shift: the flash of memory hits; Chan’s physical collapse; the revelation that he may have caused the explosion.

..And we end up with them crying within yards of each other, but unable to reach one another.

It’s all very heightened and melodramatic, and I can see how it’s meant to land as intense.

But for me, I have to confess that it feels heavy-handed, like Show is So Determined to maintain emotional intensity that it doesn’t allow the story — or the characters — any room to breathe.

And then there’s the symbolism.

In this case, I’m thinking about the plant.

I mean… I get it. 😅 I get what it represents, I see the parallel, I understand the intent.

However, by this point, after so many layers of thematic reinforcement, it feels almost comically on-the-nose — to the point where I actually found myself laughing a little?

Because it feels like the show is underlining its own message in bold — LOOKIE, DEAD PLANT 🌱 — just in case we hadn’t caught it. 😝

The same goes for the final voiceover.

The winter-to-spring metaphor is very much in line with the show’s language, and I can see exactly what it’s trying to do.

But again, my reaction is — I get it. By this point, it feels to me less like a meaningful reflection and more like a restatement. 😅

And more importantly, it feels like time that could have been spent actually moving the story forward.

Because honestly, that’s really where I am now.

I’m less interested in being told (again and again!) what it all means, and more interested in seeing how the show is going to resolve everything it has set up.

With just one episode left, there’s still so much on the table that needs to be resolved:

• Chan’s role in the explosion;

• His deteriorating condition;

• Ha Ran’s emotional fallout;

• The full truth of the past;

• And each of our secondary arcs.

I genuinely don’t know how Show plans to bring all of that to a satisfying conclusion in the time that remains, or if it’s even possible at this point, to wrap up everything in a coherent manner.

All that said, I’m still here.

Partly out of curiosity, partly because there are elements — particularly in the side arcs — that I continue to enjoy.

But I do find myself watching with a more cautious, slightly detached heart at this point (and yes, a little bit of morbid fascination too, can’t lie 😅).

Let’s see how Show chooses to land this.

THOUGHTS ON THE ENDING [SPOILERS]

E12. I am.. pleasantly surprised, my friends.

With how underwhelmed I’d been feeling about Show in its second half, I’d expected to feel just as indifferent towards this finale episode – so color me VERY surprised to find myself enjoying this finale quite a bit more than I’d expected to.

Truth be told, I do think that part of the reason for my enjoyment, is that by this point, Show is no longer actively trying to withhold the truth from us. 😏

With the information restriction finally lifted, it feels like a relief for our characters to finally get the whole truth and not just the partial truth, even if the writing around all this leans rather convenient.

Mainly, I’m thinking of the way Soo Jin’s suddenly so forthcoming with information that she’d been actively withholding up to this point, as well as the way Show suddenly leans into the idea of Hyeok Chan being a cheater who’d been on the verge of breaking up with Ha Ran.

I know Show gives Soo Jin’s change of heart a narrative reason, ie, now that she understands how much Chan’s suffering, she feels guilty for lying to him, but it still makes her character feel whiplashy and all over the place, in my experience.

Like I said earlier, it makes no sense that she would have such a self-righteous attitude with Chan, particularly now that we have confirmation that she’d been Hyeok Chan’s extra girlfriend on the side.

For the record, I also think it makes very little sense that Hyeok Chan would be idiotic enough to play with his lighter / try to light a cigarette in a lab full of flammable chemicals. 🙄

To me, this feels like a very tropey move: make the ex-boyfriend awful / dispensable so that it’s cleaner and easier to push the new love interest – never mind that Ha Ran’s spent 7 whole years of her life mourning his death.

But like I said, we get the truth, and forward movement in terms of Ha Ran’s understanding of everything, and that relief definitely made my watch experience of this finale lighter and more enjoyable.

Finally, we get to witness Ha Ran digesting and reacting to the truth, instead of being shielded from it, and that feels like an important step forward.

Part of the truth is delivered via Soo Jin’s confession and part of it is via Chan’s own drawings, when Ha Ran gets the broken tablet fixed after a nudge from Chan’s grandmother about not giving up in order to find your miracle.

It’s only months later, though, via a clue on Instagram, of an artist who signs off with an iridescent cloud, that Ha Ran finally manages to track Chan down.

I thought the pen-roll was a nice callback to when they’d first run into each other at the office.

And honestly, I feel that it’s Chan’s face, so drawn and full of sadness, that makes the scene for me.

Prior to this, everything is told to us via voiceover and flashback, and it’s his emotion in this moment, that grounds everything for me. 🥲

I will say, though, that the entire sequence where Chan’s memories come flooding back, and then we cut to him waking up in the hospital, post-surgery, was pretty choppy and disorienting.

I’d like to think that Show was trying to mirror Chan’s disorientation for us, but I have a sneaking suspicion that it’s more due to its efforts to squeeze so much into a single finale episode. 😅

Yes, it’s convenient that the shrapnel had shifted sufficiently in Chan’s head, that surgery became possible, but I’m fine to roll with it, because I’d rather Chan be free from it than not.

And then we finally get the love confession that Chan’s been holding back all this time, finally given voice, now that his memory – and their relationship – has been restored.

We also get important forward movement on our secondary arcs, and I enjoyed this nicely, which isn’t a surprise, since these side characters and relationships had been propping up this show for me, during the stretches where I’d found the main OTP arc less than satisfying.

I really like that when Yoo Gyeom finds himself discouraged and on the verge of giving up his sports career, it’s Ha Dam who encourages him to keep trying – not because there’s any guarantee that he’ll recover fully, but because she doesn’t want him to have regrets later in life.

That’s such a grounded outlook, and I find myself admiring Ha Dam for having that depth of maturity in her, at such a young age.

It feels fitting that where we end our story, our maknae couple is doing well, with Ha Dam accepted into medical school, and Yoo Gyeom playing in the minor leagues.

I’m also pleased that Nana and Man Jae decide to get married.

I just really love the idea that Nana gets a second lease of life, and is able to make new choices now, so that she can make up for the regrets that she’d had.

And I do love the idea that Man Jae’s love for her has endured so long, until they found each other again, and that they now get to make a new life together.

It’s the happy ending I didn’t think we’d get, given Nana’s dementia symptoms, and I am grateful for unexpected second chances like this. 🥲

As for Ha Yeong and Tae Seok, it takes an emergency snow blizzard rescue, but I’m glad that Tae Seok finally comes clean with his feelings, and asks, in his serious-dorky way, if it’s alright for someone like him to like Ha Yeong.

Aw. I nodded approvingly right alongside Ha Yeong. 😁

But then, I felt quite surprised, that months later, even after we see him grasping her hand at Nana and Man Jae’s wedding, he’s still keeping an odd, formal distance from Ha Yeong.

I feel like writer-nim forgot to give their relationship some progress during the time skip or something. 😅

Still, it’s nice to see him finally let go of his sense of decorum enough, to be able to address Ha Yeong by name, and in banmal, no less.

I guess our Tae Seok is a bit of a turtle by nature? I’m glad that Ha Yeong’s patience with him pays off. 🥲

Finally, we also get a proposal for our OTP, with Chan first drawing himself popping the question, before getting on one knee for real.

As they seal this promise with contented happy kisses, we get one last flashback and voiceover, where we see that, back in the day, Ha Ran had once expressed worry that winter would come into her life.

And Chan writes a reply that he doesn’t send, but which we now get to hear:

“I hope that while you’re going through winter, a warm spring breeze blows by eventually and ends the painful season before it gets too long. And I hope that whatever season you’re going through, they’re all radiant.”

It’s a sentiment that’s kind, and a soundbite that’s just poetic enough, that it gives me an uplifted sense of closure to my watch experience.

That’s not bad, all things considered. 🥲

THE FINAL VERDICT:

Starts interesting and ends reasonably well; pity about the contrived, uneven middle.

FINAL GRADE: B

TRAILER:

MV:

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