This post contains possible giveaways and spoilers for the Korean TV series, Stranger, and also talks about the Netflix series, YOU. Going forward, I’ll drop in a word of alert prior to instances of the aforementioned. However, I might also add that you can read them all the same, as the spoilers aren’t very specifically telling or obvious. But the choice, sweet readers, is definitely yours. Happy Reading!
I feel so overwhelmed suddenly that in spite of a rush of thoughts and feelings, I cannot contain it. I cannot settle down and collect the thoughts. it’s just like how when a biscuit crumb dipped in water or tea disintegrates and takes time to settle. I am exactly like it.
I know this overwhelming feeling. I recognise it. I know it when it happens and what causes it. I feel it most terribly as I am nearing a good-of-the-heart movie or show. Always. I have noticed that I feel a rush of anxiety, coupled with a deep sadness of the heart, for no definite reason, or for that matter any reason that I know of. When I am closing in on the climax of a very close film or a show, I suddenly feel it so hard to sit still. I feel excruciatingly anxious, a shallow feeling that in a moment everything is going to come to a stop and that will be it. I don’t understand why it happens but it always has happened. My heart flutters, I sense my bones gurgle, like as if I have to run after something or someone, to catch them, hold them, keep them before my eyes. At some instances, I feel like I am drowning or unable to breathe, as if I am going to die by the time the closing credits have rolled by. it’s always so intense and I have always wondered why that happened or if others felt it too. Is it really the film/show that I am watching or is it representative of a more deeper sentiment.
It makes me think and ask, is it because I fear the ending? Is it because I am afraid of what next? Or is it my fear of embracing the new? I don’t know. I just know that, I feel gutted when a good film or show is ending, and I abhor that feeling. It makes me sad and it drowns me.
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My mind is a scrambled egg right now.
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It is here that I start to talk about YOU. It’s all about my feelings-post-watching, nothing about any particular, specific scenes or moments in the series. If you ask me, I’d say you can proceed to read.
Hey you (that’s my lame attempt at hinting – or emphasizing – that I am occupied at the moment with the Netflix series. Well, we’ll get there). But in all seriousness, hi. Hello. What have you been doing to fill your days. In the last one week & two, I have read two books (three, if a graphic novel counts), read a dozen academic papers to write assignments that was boring, and some that were just fine. And during breaks, I watched two episodes a night of a Korean TV series, Stranger. And then, YOU. I finished watching the latter just a day back. Frankly, YOU successfully bore me this time around. It was not so much the story, or anything else, but the characters. Every single one of them this season bored me, and got on my nerves. I loved the character of Joe in the previous seasons for the ways his mind worked, and because he is so unrelatable. But Joe hasn’t changed at all, what he has become instead is, only more predictable. You know the drill, once your character becomes predictable, half the thrill is lost in that revelation. What about the classic Joe narrating voice, oh, it burned my ears! And the classic “there you are” Joe smile, what a fucking torture to the sight. Then there was Love with her astoundingly irritable talking-through-the-teeth, and her trying-too-hard charade. It was just too pitiful to watch. It seemed like Joe and Love were both competing for the who-sucked-more award. In my opinion, it was a very predictable and an obvious tie. I thought I would finally like someone that Joe wouldn’t violate, when I first saw Marianne. She was ravishing. Then it happened. I started to get wearisome of Marianne too, what with that tone of her voice. Sherry, Cary, ‘people I don’t remember the names of’, and Theo, oh gosh, the amount of times I wanted to slap that annoying kid. With the exception of Dante, I cared about, and liked none of them. YOU absolutely and terribly failed for me, this season. I wonder also if I didn’t enjoy it quite as much because I was just walking out of the good company of a stellar TV show.
Here on out until the very end of this post, I begin to talk in length about Stranger. Other than one particular mention of a “Dream” scene in the series (which I’ll put a caution for) it’s all feelings-post-watching, too.
Stranger was the best thing that happened to me these past few weeks. It provided me entertainment, gave me pure joy and delight, made me cry and allowed moments of heart-felt laughing too. It started up an old worn-down machine of a system of mine. The entire cast of Stranger gradually became & felt like a family. I don’t think I have ever liked a character onscreen as much as I like lieutenant Han Yeo-Jin (played by Bae Doona). She is smart, driven, bad-ass, a good runner, can fight, but most important of all, she is sensible, sensitive, has a good fucking heart, is understanding, has a conscience, is kind and also hot. I liked her also mostly because of how she was around, with, and treated Hwang Si-Mok. Han Yeo-Jin felt most like home to me, she was the one keeping me so knitted to all the rest of the characters, and she also kept me grounded (however that applies to when watching a series).
Ms Han is someone you want to be around with, can be comfortable with, can absolutely trust, and as for me, I badly wanted us to be together. Whatever Han felt, I found myself not very removed from it. My heart genuinely broke in moments when Ms Han had even a slightly emotional episode, I cried with her, wanted to hold her so much, and also wanted so much to be with her and be loved by her. I could go on about it, naming every single moment where I really liked and was moved by Ms Han but you, and I, don’t want that. She was the only person who didn’t treat or behaved around Si-Mok as if he was strange. I just want to keep going on …
Unlike YOU, I had a soft spot, or sometimes a change of heart, even for characters I didn’t (initially) like. Seo Dong-Jae was top among such characters. I liked him gradually for the very reason that I couldn’t stand him initially. Dong-Jae is someone who tries really, really hard. He wants to be chosen, appreciated, and desires to be everybody’s favorite and wants badly to be in the good books of everyone. But that’s practically impossible and that is what becomes one of his constant fight too. He tries so hard, that in pursuit of the same, he becomes extremely pitiable and comical, which eventually makes us like him alright. There was one scene in the entire series that cracked me up like a mad man, that one scene I almost broke my replay button for, that brought tears and gave me a stomach ache from laughing so hard. It was a scene with Seo Dong-Jae. Something only typical to him. We realise that someone like him isn’t going to harm, or is capable of hurting anyone. He is in a fight of his own and isn’t actually as bad as he seems.
But that could be rightfully said for everyone else in the series, too. Every single one of them did what they did because of a reason known and understood by them. Whether they were good or bad, or, right or wrong. That’s where Yeo-Jin and Si-Mok comes into play. They are the only ones who fights against the wrong, and the corrupt justice system. They are the only ones who has reasons but will only choose the hard ones, the right one, even when it means choosing to go against people they care about or respect. Si-Mok is driven by and through a single mindset of doing right, in that, he doesn’t technically care or is bothered about people’s emotions (because of his medical condition) against what needs to be done, and is right. But Ms Han recognises and feels emotions, she feels an attachment to people around her, which means it is fairly harder for her.
This is where your girl mentions the “dream” scene.
There is one particular scene about a dream Si-Mok has, in the final episode, where he sees his colleagues from the Western Prosecution Office, Mr. Lee, Ms. Young, Mr. Kim, Mr. Yoon, and Dong-Jae. The dead people (Lee, Young) walk away together with Mr. Yoon following behind. Mr. Kim (who is alive) walks away in the opposite direction, leaving Si-Mok and Dong-Jae behind. When Si-Mok tell Ms. Han about the dream, she feels it is an omen, an implication of something that might happen. She doesn’t say it aloud, but you know it. In the next scene Ms. Han visits Mr. Yoon in the prison and in her beautiful, kind Han Yeo-Jin style, tells Mr. Yoon that he is thought about, is regarded, and is remembered. She leaves him a reason to want to not give up yet, a reason to want to hold on a little more. It is my favorite scene(s). Because and for Ms. Han, but also for the additional dream scene, its connotation & meaning. I am a massive dream person, I believe in the notion that dreams bears answers and are omens. So, when I saw Si-Mok’s dream, I immediately knew what it could be suggesting, according to my understanding of interpreting dreams. I just felt really emotional to think that Ms. Han and I were on the same page, yet again.
The way Stranger ends, is also one of my favorite endings. It is a solid, beautifully made series. One that I would love to watch a second time.
Between, putting this together and sending it off to you, I have finished reading another book and is reading a new one. If you’re guessing, I have started to think about my next writing task/project, you know me.
Agampee!