REVIEW: My Liberation Notes
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Re-watch value: 0 out of 5 stars
SYNOPSIS
*From MyDramaList*
Set in Sanpo Village where more people leave than remain, the three Yeom siblings, Chang Hee, Mi Jung, and Ki Jung, wish to escape from a life rife with uncertainty.
A mysterious man, Mr. Goo, moves into their neighborhood. He is a drunkard with the look of someone with many burdens and secrets. His cautious personality and preference for keeping to himself make him the subject of gossip. Mi Jung, the youngest and most timid Yeom sibling, decides to approach him.
RAMBLING
*beware of spoilers*
Writer Park Hae-Young of My Mister (and Another Miss Oh) delivers another masterfully written K-drama that isn’t for everybody. If you’re looking for a light drama full of comforting tropes, then this is not for you. This was a character study; this was existential crises; it was deeply melancholy and probing.
I’ve tried to gather my thoughts as best I can, but in a general sense, I’ll say that this drama was unsettling to me, in a good way. I don’t think I go about my life as a happy, smiling person all the time, but I do feel content, satisfied, and above all, supported. Writer Park, just like My Mister, crafted a family of characters struggling with all three. It was very difficult for me to disentangle myself from my own admittedly very easy life to empathize, or otherwise feel intensely, these characters’ attitudes toward life. The dialogue is layered, and the entire show feels like you’re eating a 5-course meal, albeit one that has very small portions.
Much of the show seemed to revolve around transportation, and in that respect, it felt like it should be called Buses, Trains, and Automobiles. So much silent contemplation happens when they are commuting to and from Seoul, which is 3 hours every single day. My mom used to travel into Miami for work for 20 years, and it was the same commute time. She found it draining, frustrating, and stressful to the point where she just couldn’t deal with it anymore. My parents now live away from South Florida, and she drives 25 minutes to work. I think the show took a marked turn with not only the time jump but also the siblings’ move to Seoul. They removed this life-sucking commute that was essentially debilitating them and messing with their mental health.
To go hand-in-hand with the commuter theme, is it too cliché to say it’s not about the destination and all about the journey?
The bottom line is this: don’t do life alone. Find your tribe, and be honest with yourself. What are you trying to liberate yourself from?
The Mom
It’s hard to just launch into a deep dive, so I’ll expound on the Yeom mother first. I found her character quite frustrating because she so obviously fostered this culture of eggshell walking around her husband, the father. So much was said with just a look. Most of hers were of her peeking nervously at her husband, carefully watching his facial expressions, and quietly telling her children to stop whatever it is they were doing. She wasn’t supportive but actually abrasive… and consistent. I think it was her consistency—consistently feeding her husband and children three meals a day, consistently helping her crabby husband with his exhausting jobs, consistently being a homemaker—that was taken for granted.
She early on gave the thesis of the show: “Fate is nothing more than a person’s outlook on life.” A hefty statement that calls into question the raging and desperation of her three children. Everyone has problems; yours are nothing unique, but it’s all about your outlook on life that affects how you overcome these struggles.
Episodes 13–14 were probably the more affecting episodes, as it introduces a new emotion: Grief. After some undisclosed amount of time has passed, Mr. Gu ends up back at the family house, and a random woman asks him who he is. She confirms that it’s indeed the old man’s house, and as Mi-Jeong’s father steps out of the shadows, you realize more time has passed than you ever wanted. The old man has clearly had a stroke, and where is his wife, Mi-jeong’s mother? He explains that she tragically died, not long after Mr. Gu absconded back to Seoul. She died as she lived, making rice, yet another meal for her workaholic husband. Burned out and unappreciated. The home that once housed so many family members, three grown children, now sits empty, as the kids have all moved to Seoul. Their mother’s loss took a toll on the family, and the passage of time makes for a grim reality.
I loved how the showrunners didn’t shy away from showing this family dealing with the loss. While her character didn’t seem that important, without her there, the house is lifeless, a huge hole now in their lives. You’re shocked by how essential she actually was. It felt so realistic, especially when you lose someone suddenly. I once lost a wonderful family friend who was the matriarch of her family, and it wasn’t until after she was gone that we all realized how she was the glue that held that family together. Same case here. The lack of communication, however, was nothing short of shocking to me, but it played right into the whole “When did we ever rely on our family?” line.
Each sibling has a unique grief response. I think I loved older sis Gi-Jeong’s response the most. She was always so open with her emotions, to the point where pretty much everyone thought she was just a drama queen, but the way she broke down while hanging up her mother’s clean shirt to dry… I’ve been there. I’ve tried to stay busy after a loss but found myself breaking down unable to move on without succumbing to the agony. There are some seasons where you need to work through the heartache and give yourself space to adjust to the hole, which never truly goes away.
Older Bro, Chang-Hee (Played by Kim Min Ki)
I initially did not like this character or his storyline. The brother’s obsession with his romantic relationships and buying a car, him resenting living outside of Seoul—I didn’t care. He seemed more like a petulant child, a talkative kid who loves to hear himself speak.
I perked up a bit when he voices his dislike about how there’s little choice in who your friends are when living in the country. He swears he wouldn’t be friends with this group if he were from Seoul. And I completely agree with that sentiment. When you’re young, you have proximity friends, simply because they are physically the closest to you, but as you grow up, you age out of these friends and realize that you probably wouldn’t have been friends with them if you had a choice back then.
I did feel for him when that primo Seoul bodega came on the market, and his dad refused to invest in it, only for his arch nemesis to swoop in and steal the spot, dirty style! I could not understand the father’s logic: turn down an obviously profitable business? All he had to do was sell some or all of his land; his farming business was backbreaking, the custom cabinet business was thankless, and the family were not living in the lap of luxury! They were still struggling financially. I read the dad refusing the bodega business as a pride thing. And what’s worse than your own father having zero confidence in you and then shutting down a real opportunity to move away from a town where there isn’t much keeping you all there?
I loved bro Chang-Hee’s quote: “Life is a series of embarrassments anyway.” Absolutely true. It was intriguing how he handles borrowing Mr. Gu’s Rolls Royce. He finds contentment in the Rolls car, without having to be a braggart. He doesn’t show off the car to those around him, instead he keeps it largely to himself. He says he feels “gentle” when driving the car; it soothes and relaxes him. I think it maybe had something to do with having his own space. He’s always in other people’s domains—at home, on the train, at work—but the Rolls was a kind of sanctum, and he didn’t need to share it with anyone. Loved it. Find your space, people.
He quits his job! “I can’t force myself to live for something I don’t really desire.” My heart went out to him when the parents find out, and the father especially starts hounding him about what his plan is. They criticize him as it is, but instead of being softer about him quitting, they push him. He begs, and I’m paraphrasing, “Can’t you say that I’ve done a good job? Rest awhile?” As someone who was furloughed during the pandemic and then finally laid off, I was so glad that my parents didn’t have this negative response. They actually did say that this is a great opportunity to take a break. Living without a goal. It’s troubling to me that he had no rent, no debt, no wife, no kids, yet they still pressured him about his job. Everyone needs time to reset and regroup after working for a prolonged period of time. The parents didn’t understand at all his burnout, although the mother was burned out herself!
I think after this the writing for his character was too confusing and disjointed, so I had to piece together what happened. So he started his own business trying to sell sweet potato ovens to businesses, and it tanked or never got off the ground? So he spent the next couple years living as a miser, paying off the debt? His relationship with the battered lady friend Hyeon-A? What was that? They weren’t good for one another or he made it sound like she was bored with him because he wasn’t toxic? Idk idk
The reason his business failed was kinda morbid. He felt compelled to visit the dying guy (Hyeon-A’s boyfriend?) in the hospital. It was his day to die. And just as he ushered his grandparents and mother into the afterlife, he stuck by the guy, saying all the most difficult comforting things that people find impossible to say to a dying loved one. Chang-Hee feels it was a worthy thing to lose a business over. Cut to, he thinks he’s going to an art seminar, but fate has taken him where he needs to go. It’s a funeral director class, and while he initially gets up to leave, he feels he’s in the right place, smiling as he realizes the kismet. It is his calling. Not a bad way to wrap up his character, although I think they really fumbled the bag between episodes 14–15.
Complaint: Hyeon-A
I did not like the lady childhood friend Hyeon-A with the string of bad, abusive boyfriends. Her story seemed shoehorned in there, especially when it came to the (ex?)boyfriend dying of cancer. It’s unclear what the hell happened there. Was he the same abusive boyfriend who tore up her apartment? He seems to just want her around, care for her, but isn’t focused on romance in particular. That relationship, especially when you add in Chang-Hee also forging a friendship with him, is so bizarre! The guy seems to know that she loves Chang-Hee, and although Chang-Hee values her more than she values herself, he’s not romancing her in any way. It’s just not a satisfying or particularly well written love triangle, if you can even call it that. Hyeon-A’s waiting for him to die, and he’s encouraging Chang-Hee and her to get together. It’s weird. Plus, Chang-Hee proposes to her as they watch his own mother’s ashes being prepared? How morbid is that? Plus, the timing was all funky? Hated it.
Older Sis, Gi-Jeong (Played by Lee El)
I’m not sure, but this may be the most vulnerable character Lee El has played. (She was the goddess in red in Goblin, if you recall.) Gi-Jeong is ill content with her love life, still single at nearly 40. She envies the crickets who so desperately chirp for a mate so they aren’t lonely during winter. Even the crickets understand loneliness. She would rather have lived during the Joseon era where her choice of husband would not be hers, and she’d accept a mate with a glad albeit resigned heart. She’d rather have somebody than nobody because being so picky landed her in perpetual singledom. I think her story and personality is heartbreaking, mostly because no one likes to talk about older unmarried women. They say “What’s wrong with them that they’re not married?” and Gi-Jeong subscribes to this ideology as well. A man can be single all his life and he’s labeled a hero among men, but a woman being single all her life and she’s labeled damaged goods.
It’s interesting her being jealous of all the other girls in the office because her boss dated everyone but her. She looks down on them for knowing he’s a player and still dating him, but she wants to be part of the club. She’s troubled with the fact that she is unwanted, and that is a terrible blow for anyone.
I loved her conversation with her friend saying she wants anyone to call her and for them to talk about anything. When the friend says they talk all the time, she responds that she hasn’t yet said what she wants to say. Profound. Although she says she wants to have sex, she really just wants to talk with a man. She craves intimacy. <3
The “pick-up girl” story of the historical romance—the woman picking up her lover’s severed head? It’s a litmus test. I have no idea why any dude (who insists on her telling this story) gets scared off dating her. In fact, it even made her brother and the town blokes unnerved as well, since they took the story to mean that she wants them dead or they’re in danger of being beheaded. The story was in no way about the beheaded lover! There’s an essay here about how every man saw right past the DEVOTION in the woman picking up the head and instead saw their own doom, which was somehow tied to her.
(Side note: WTF was that sequence where the robot man picks her up and takes her to wash up??)
I will say that I absolutely had a conniption when I saw Lee Ki-Woo playing the hottie single dad Tae-Hun! I hadn’t seen him since Just Between Lovers, but I honestly just remember him as the second male lead (SML) in Flower Boy Ramen Shop from 2011! I’ve never felt older than right now. SMLs from a decade ago are playing fathers now.
Tae-Hun says this beautiful thing about apologies: “Apologizing used to be such an awesome thing to do. Right? It used to be an act of bravery that took self-reflection and was excruciatingly painful. I don’t know when it turned into such a cowardly thing that’s forced upon you. You never really see those brave, touching apologies anymore. It makes me quite sad.” We should all strive to give and receive the most sincere apologies devoid of coercion.
Gi-Jeong’s confession was painful to watch. You want her to succeed so badly! And then the plot to fake amnesia! Pretty hysterical. But the octopus dinner—OMG. The tension from Tae-Hun’s older sister and Tae-Hun trying to vouch for Gi-Jeong… The look on Gi-Jeong’s face, stunned, her trying not to break down, Tae-Hun denying that he’s seeing anyone, the sheer embarrassment and Gi-Jeong’s weary look of despair on the train home. Empathy has hit maximum levels.
For all her dramatics, Gi-Jeong is one sincere b*tch. Her colleagues tell her to play hard to get; since Tae-Hun made her wait, she should make him wait, eye for an eye. And she says, but isn’t that a bad thing? To intentionally cause anxiety for the other person, why keep score and withhold love? Shouldn’t you love to the fullest and give everything you have to give instead of doling it out in smaller portions? Lovely sentiment.
Their first date is something. Tae-Hun desperately finds a parking space and ditches the car, running back to the restaurant. He sits down all out of breath and launches into getting another cold beer, trying to rush back into the date, but she tells him to just wait, slow down, and catch his breath. I love that. Just slow down, there’s no rush, he can relax. He even says, “Now I can relax and have a proper beer,” even shutting off his phone. He gives her his full attention. I love that instead of being taken aback by her head-shaving thesis (i.e., shaving her head would help her let go of all these things: finding a man, the pressure to look pretty and younger, etc.) he tells her not to shave her head. That he’ll be her “anyone” whom she vowed to love this winter. HELP <3
I did notice that they kept playing OST from other romance K-dramas when these two were on dates! So subtle but effective! “So Tender” by Say Sue Me (from Nevertheless) and “La La La” by Rachael Yamagata (from Something in the Rain).
Gi-Jeong has a close friend who talks about living on her own after losing her husband of 7 years, and it’s a gorgeous piece of writing:
“Now that I’m on my own, I feel sorry for pitying my friends who weren’t married and living alone before. I realized I was arrogant. Even if you live alone, it’s fine, you can be perfectly happy. You can eat whatever you want, whenever you want to, and sleep whenever you want. Eating and sleeping… I had no idea that doing these simple things however I want was such a joy. Even if I don’t clean for a week, things stay where I left them.”
I think so many people can relate to Gi-Jeong when it comes to her fielding animosity from Tae-Hun’s older sister and his own daughter. Despite knowing better, she feels intimidated and inferior. Sometimes you can’t help how you feel, and when others know your insecurities, it takes more effort to shield your heart than it does to break it.
She chops her hair off! Desperate for some control over her life and angry at her own fragility, she takes a pair of scissors to her one prized possession. I thought she’d actually go so far as to shave it, as she had stated multiple times throughout the show, but she just went for a blunt bob. Real cute, but even more cathartic. My only qualm would be that women, in general, drastically changing their hairstyle as an emotional response to some stressor is now a stereotype. That being said, she was battling with her hair and its meaning to her throughout the show, so it’s not like it came out of nowhere.
Love isn’t so cut and dry. Tae-Hun ends up expressing regret that she heard his deeply personal liberation note about feeling weak because it made her pity him. Gi-Jeong combats this, saying that she feels pity and love all at once, and why is that a bad thing? She feels stuck in the relationship; breaking up seems unbearable, but it’s suffocating to be together. She feels like just another problematic female in his life. I genuinely thought she’d go full Yumi’s Cells and the pair would break up… But she cuts the tension by saying that she’ll just be a man instead, one less woman, that’s why she cut her hair.
I do love the moment Tae-Hun drunkenly appears outside her balcony at night with egg bread and a busted rose. He’s very cute and smiley, something we haven’t seen ever. He’s brightly loving her, and she ruminates on this man who gave her a headless rose and delivers egg bread every three days in the winter because she once said she liked it. It might not be perfect, but a rose is still a rose without its head. And calling back to her “pick-up girl” story, she cherishes the rose with no stem—her lover’s severed head. Devotion.
Mi-Jeong
It’s quite difficult for me to wrap my head around Mi-Jeong (and by extension her Mr. Gu). The first thing she said that made me stop and think was this: “I want all of us to live happily with not so much as a crease on our hearts.” As a deeply unhappy person who longed to be happy, it struck a chord with me. I felt such pity when she pretends to be a woman who is loved so that work and life is simply bearable.
But as an introvert myself who often likes to retreat away from people, I sympathize with her on a deep level. “I’m exhausted. I don’t know when it all started to go wrong, but I’m exhausted. Every relationship feels like work. Every moment that I’m awake feels like work. Nothing ever happens. No one ever likes me.”
One of the weird things about this show is Mi-Jeong’s company’s obsession with their employees joining a social club and the constant pressure for them to do so even if it was not a mandate. Is this a comment on the work culture in Korea? Is this an indictment on workplaces demanding loyalty from their employees?
Rules of the Liberation Club:
1. I will not pretend to be happy.
2. I will not pretend to be unhappy.
3. I will be honest.
A safe space. This club was a secure, private place to voice your deepest insecurities and worries, the things that keep you up at night. It wasn’t a place of judgment, and in creating such comforting club dynamics, it was a refuge from societal pressures and what each member desperately needed. As I said at the beginning of this review, don’t do life alone. Find your tribe, and be honest with yourself.
“It feels like I’m stuck, but I don’t know how to get out. That’s probably why I hope everything ends all at once. I’m not unhappy, but I’m not happy either. I wouldn’t care if the world ended now. Everyone is on their way to the graves, so why is everyone so happy and excited? Sometimes I think that people who are damaged are much more honest than those who live their lives happily.”
The rules of the club and Mi-Jeong’s stance on happiness reminded me of one of my favorite Paramore songs “Fake Happy”:
I love making you believe
What you get is what you see
But I'm so fake happy
I feel so fake happy
And I bet everybody here
Is just as insincere
We're all so fake happy
And I know fake happy
If I smile with my teeth
Bet you believe me
If I smile with my teeth
I think I believe me
Oh please don't ask me how I've been
Don't make me play pretend
Oh no, oh what's the use?
Oh please, I bet everybody here is fake happy too
(Even Mr. Gu says “Does anyone live without pretending?”)
“So worship me”—the line heard ’round the world. It is seriously a head-scratching translation for “choo-ahng” that is still mystifying me. “Love isn’t enough,” she says. Jesus. What does worshiping a person even look like? I had such trouble understanding the meaning, and I found Noona’s Noonchi’s explanation so helpful. She said, “Based on the K-Drama, it’s being translated to mean reverence, whereas in all honesty, I prefer the words cherish, adoration, devotion, admiration.”
In a sense, I feel like Mi-Jeong achieved the intimacy that her sister Gi-Jeong was also craving (citing talking with a man being a major objective), as she ends up having a deep and lasting connection with Mr. Gu. To be honest, I had a lot of mixed feelings about their romance because it’s not traditional in any sense.
Their romance was played out in small chivalrous moments: he drives her to the train station instead of driving past her, he gets her a bottle of water, he carries a heavy lunch bag, he waits for her to come home, etc. It reminded me a lot of Jung-Hwan’s love for Duk-Sun in Reply 1988. Being attentive to her every need was a huge part of him “worshiping” her.
I have to give special commendation to the absolutely dreamy, sexy looks Son Sukku was serving up as Mr. Gu. A part of him falling for her and “worshiping” was certainly his adoration of her without her even knowing. I thought back to an iconic Juan Luis Guerra song “La Bilirubina”:
Me sube la bilirrubina
(Bilirubin rockets inside me)
Cuando te miro y no me miras
(when I look at you and you don't look at me)
As much as I loved the dialogue with the other storylines, Mi-Jeong and Mr. Gu had the most rich dialogue between them. Their conversations throughout were beautiful and melancholy. Mi-Jeong never judged Mr. Gu for being an alcoholic, and I found that fascinating. I don’t think I would ever offer or buy soju to a person struggling with alcoholism, but she did. She accepted him as he was. Mr. Gu, on the other hand, made it known that he disapproved of the way she handled her thieving ex-boyfriend. I can’t say I disagree with Mr. Gu’s take at all, but with the way they structured their relationship, it wasn’t giving what it was supposed to.
Just after her mother’s death, older sis Gi-Jeong figures out why Mi-Jeong has no money, slaps her upside the head, and calls her a fool. “Why wouldn’t she tell her family?” she probes. Bro Chang-Hee says he would’ve done the same thing and kept it a secret. When could they ever rely on each other, support each other? The concept of an unsupportive family is finally brought to a head. With the camera panning to their father’s face as they continue talking, to me it seems to be an indictment on the father. His indifference toward his children, the evident lack of affection, the silent treatment at the dinner table, it all boiled down to his kids feeling distant from each other, unable to seek help at home for their issues.
Mi-Jeong frustrated me when it came to her bottling her emotions to the point where you were bamboozled that she didn’t have any. But that wasn’t the case, as she was an incredibly emotional character, deeply discontent and lonely especially. I think she just had an amazing poker face and valued her privacy, and I do mean privacy of thought. While I have a horrendous poker face, I do value the privacy of my thoughts, and some days I realize I haven’t spoken to another soul for hours, but in my mind, it’s loud with my own thoughts.
Hyeon-A at some point says, “Mi-jeong is someone who can’t cry unless she plucks up the courage.” I couldn’t put that thought down. It takes courage to outwardly express your emotions, as it means taking ownership of them and sharing yourself with others. I found it so revealing when the market lady tells her mother, on the day she died, that she saw Mi-Jeong crying her eyes out. She was flustered by this, and the same happened with older bro Chang-Hee when he is told as well. Mi-Jeong only shows the most extreme emotions, like rage and anguish, when it’s overwhelming, and her family knew this, which is why it seemed so scary to them to hear that she was bawling in public. This segues into my last point I have about her…
Yo, the asshat manager who used her name as an alias for his work mistress? But Mi-Jeong knew who it was the whole time?! They were giggling and playing footsies at her mother’s funeral. Disgusting. But I love how she just looks at that bitch when she asks all coy if Mi-Jeong knows who the manager is having an affair with! OMG, and the way that bitch’s face changed… So stern and vengeful, as if Mi-Jeong telling the truth was offensive to HER, insinuating that Mi-Jeong can’t treat her that way because she owes her! She thought she was a saint for being friends with Mi-Jeong, doing Mi-Jeong the favor; she pitied her the whole time, so she kept score. I have to marvel at this striking reveal and the terrible reality of (some) catty female relationships.
The way Mi-Jeong dropped her bag to hit her! Damn! With the way Mi-Jeong looked later that night shows it was a nasty street fight. And of course, with those two having seniority and permanent positions within the company, the company took their side and fired Mi-Jeong. So many things you can glean from this: workplace politics, undervalued creatives within a business, upper management ignoring the harassment of its workers—the list goes on.
Noticeably, all her work friends were female before this whole drama, but in her new workplace after the time jump, her friends group is smaller and exclusively men.
“There’s this part in my liberation note. Yeom Mi-jeong’s life is divided into two parts: before and after she met Mr. Gu. I must be crazy. I feel so lovable. There’s nothing but love in my heart. I can’t feel anything but love.”
A huge part of healing isn’t cutting yourself off from negative emotions but being able to feel all emotions. Healing and self-liberation isn’t all linear progress; it’s not even becoming the best version of yourself. Instead it’s accepting every part of yourself. This is the place where Mi-Jeong lands in the finale episode. She wanted to feel loved, and Mr. Gu played a huge part in that, but ultimately, she wanted to love herself and feel worthy of love. By the end, she was able to love all parts of herself, the darkness and pessimism included. And that’s enough to make anyone feel “loveable.”
Mr. Gu
Did I understand Mr. Gu the majority of the time? No. Did he intrigue me? Yes. Mr. Gu looked and felt numb and disassociated; even doing the dishes is too much for him. The show inserted this bizarre storyline about what contributed to his isolation: Mr. Gu drunkenly explains that he once told his suicidal girlfriend to jump off a cliff using a very bad analogy for getting therapy. And instead she actually jumped off a cliff?? What? It was super hard to follow. But I think our writer did better utilizing the reformed gangster backstory. Lovely bad boy derivative trope.
I will say that the room full of soju bottles shocked me. I wasn’t expecting that. But I fully supported Mr. Gu when he became irate that the boys tried to clean up the soju bottles for him. You can’t solve someone else’s problem for them, just like you can’t help someone who doesn’t want to be helped. In this case, it was a little bit of that AND the feelings of shame and pride that these buffoons now knew what he was hiding. Every one of us has a room full of soju bottles.
Mi-Jeong shocks Mr. Gu back into living basically when she demands that he worship her. His cross necklace starts to go away once he starts “worshipping” as well. I haven’t figured out the significance of that.
But this man actually looked up the definition of “choo-ahng” LOL. I mean, Mr. Gu was low-key funny. In Episode 4, he jumps across train tracks(?) to get Mi-Jeong’s hat and does the Tom Cruise run OMG the shots of him airborne were hysterical to me.
The minute Mr. Gu asked for Mi-Jeong’s phone number from her dad, I gasped. And the moment he texted her that he got some money, is there anything she’d like to eat. OMG, elation. And as I said earlier, the way he looked at her sometimes… <3
Let’s talk about Episode 13. The editing on this episode was so brutal. At first you think you’re watching a flashback sequence of what Mr. Gu’s life was like before. A glance at some potatoes makes Mr. Gu think of Yeom Mi-Jeong and you suddenly realize that this sad, high-stress life of his is the present day.
Intercuts of Mi-jeong at work, vying for a permanent position by winning the design contest, seeing her vile manager getting messages from his work mistress whose name is suspiciously the same as hers. And at the end of a good day, she only wishes to see Mr. Gu. Her voiceover says, “He’s coming. He has come.”—making me think their timelines are off by a just few hours within the same day, since the cinematography was so drastically different. You hope Mr. Gu will meet her at the train station… but he doesn’t. The editor and writer have tricked us into experiencing a bigger time jump than originally anticipated. And I will be pressing charges.
But they finally meet again. Mr. Gu refers to both of them as “uri”—us—and she stops him there, asking if there is an “us” or if they are just two separate ones. Powerful.
She tells him she lives each day by gathering up happiness in 5- to 7-second chunks until she has 5 minutes of happiness. Holding the door open for a child, waking up and realizing it’s a Saturday, etc. It’s a sad but beautiful thought. He later brings up the happiness chunks with his boss, saying that basically he can never reach even 5 minutes of happiness in one day. He lives as just one, a solo act (possibly referring back to Mi-Jeong asking if they are just two ones).
Mr. Gu: Was I an ass hole?
Mi-Jeong: No, because you finally called me.
Mr. Gu: So I was an ass hole until yesterday?
This small moment nearly brought me to tears. He looked quietly devastated.
“I really hate people. I hate seeing them moving around in front of me. I’m scared. But remember this one thing. Even if I end up becoming the ass hole to end all ass holes later on, remember I really liked you. Yeon Mi-Jeong! Just know this. I liked you for real.” <3
He recruits her to be his therapist and listen to his issues. It’s an interesting way for him to be vulnerable with her and actually let her into his life. I love how they are spooning on the warm floor beside the heater, his hand cups hers as she lays on his arm, and he breathes that after 10 sessions, if he has nothing more to say, they’ll break it off. If not, they’ll go for 10 more sessions. And you get the sense that he’ll always have something to say to her, that despite hating all people, he loves her. The heater is such a warm focal point; it’s like she’s brought just a little bit of warmth to his cold life, making him feel more alive. It also feels like they’re sitting by the fire as he tells her campfire stories.
The convo Mi-Jeong has with him in his apartment as part of their therapy sessions was so good. How he finds that he can’t stay sober because ghosts of his past haunt him in his waking hours, so he finds it easier to stay drunk, as it calms him. She, on the other hand, has succumbed to hate, blaming everyone else who ever hurt her instead of painfully looking inward at what she did wrong. The bastard that stole 6 million won from her—she’s afraid he’ll actually pay her back. She wants him to owe her, so she can spitefully remind him that he’s a terrible person at every important happy function in his life. She’s hanging on to all this hate; it fuels her. She says she never went into her relationship with Gu with the intention to hate or judge him. She would support him unconditionally, and even though he broke up with her, she still wished him well, wished that he never so much as caught a cold or had a hangover. I love when he says, “Come to think of it, I never did catch a cold.” <3
After a terrible day ending in an all-out brawl and the theft of millions of won, Mr. Gu wakes up stone-cold sober. He calls the culprit and tells him he’s now one of the people he sees every morning, a blight on his days, someone he curses…. But he’d nevertheless welcome him back with open arms. Doing just what Mi-Jeong said to do: a kind of forgiving, turn-the-other-cheek decision. He takes out millions of won of his own personal stash, presumably to replace the stolen amount, just as Mi-Jeong did in paying off her ex-boyfriend’s debt. He sees a shy little girl in an elevator, playing hide-and-seek with him. 7 seconds of joy, he thinks. He buys some liquor at the drugstore and accidentally drops a 500 won coin into the gutter. But as he moves closer to pick it up, it’s perfectly balanced on a single grate—it never fell in. He picks up the small miracle and in the same motion puts down the alcohol. A gesture of sobriety. Will he ever pick up the bottle again? Only time will tell.
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Why is the rewatch value at 0? I can’t say I’d revisit this again because it’s so emotionally poignant yet simultaneously… boring? I’m not sure I would want to subject myself to this again in the same way I probably can’t watch My Mister again. But is it one of the greater K-dramas I’ve watched? No doubt in my mind. I highly recommend it.
Did you see My Liberation Notes? Tell me your thoughts in the comments below!
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