Joo Won 주원 [Current Drama 2024 - The Midnight Studio/ 야한(夜限) 사진관]

[kittyna]

And...it's done  I've finally finished watching Alice. I've been thinking for a while now about how to wrap up this series of analyses (I hesitate to call them reviews, because they really aren't), so here's what you guys can expect:

 

1. My take on Episode 16 (along the usual lines)

2. A summary of what I thought were the main strengths and weaknesses of the drama (meaning, yes, you guys will finally get an actual review)

3. My thoughts on my first experience watching and writing about a drama while it's still airing (yep: I've watched K-dramas for 5 years now, and this is my first time doing it in "real time")

 

Long post ahead, people - so sit back and enjoy the ride!  

 

1. Thoughts on Episode 16 (i.e. the finale)

 

Spoiler

While the actual details were a surprise, I think that I wasn't the only viewer who already knew how the first half of the episode would play out: Jin Gyeom goes back to 2010 in one last ditch attempt to stop the Teacher and save his mother, and this time - in true drama fashion - he succeeds and brings about a reset. That ending, more or less, was to be expected, as all the groundwork was already laid out in Episode 15.

 

Personally, I loved the contrast that was shown between Jin Gyeom and the Teacher, and it seems to go even deeper than what I already discussed in previous posts. I was floored by the Teacher's claim that it was his mother's fault that he became what he was - not because I was surprised by his logic, but because I wasn't. I still remember asking the same question back in Episode 14: i.e., how could it be right for a mother choose to keep her pregnancy when she knew that doing so would fate her child to become a murderer? And while I did realize come Episode 15 that the answer lay in what the child chose to do with his life - that he could still proactively choose to do what's right despite the odds stacked against him - it was still really freaky hearing my own thoughts echoed back to me by the drama's villain, of all things.

 

With that said, the one major thing that did catch me off guard, despite knowing already that it was coming, was Park Sun Young's suicide. On the one hand, I understand that she did it in a last-ditch attempt to save Jin Gyeom (regardless of which version we're talking about), as well as a final admission of guilt for setting the whole cycle into motion. However, since the end result is still ultimately her death, and neither "our" Jin Gyeom nor the Teacher shift from their positions because of it - rather, her suicide seems to reinforce their respective views - I found myself wondering where the writers were trying to go with this development.

 

Given that, then, I love that "our" Jin Gyeom stayed true to his principles and didn't waver from his goal: killing the Teacher (i.e. his darker, future self) and triggering the reset.

 

And now, at last, I come to the question that seems to be haunting everyone who's watched this finale: why 2010??? As some of you guys have already pointed out, there are two key logical points for the reset: either all the way back to 1992 (i.e. with mini-Tae Yi and her dad and none of this Book of Prophecy stuff), OR forward to 2050 (i.e. a point just before the creation of time travel and "Alice"). And yet, instead, we end up right in the middle of the action, in 2010.

 

Why? If this is a true reset and elimination of time travel and time travelers, it doesn't make sense for the clock to start here. Nor, to be honest, would it make sense for Jin Gyeom and his mother to still be around in our universe at all. So, what's going on?

 

Your interpretation may differ from mine, but here's my interpretation: we're not really dealing with a reset. We're dealing with a restart - and, more importantly, a restart of Jin Gyeom's own choosing. Why doesn't he die at the same time as the Teacher? I think that, as the last person with control over time, he's granted the chance to choose the point from which time restarts. And, given that choice, he goes with the moment that he's always wanted to do over again if he could: his mother's birthday in 2010, when his teenage self was finally starting to learn to appreciate and care for her in a way he hadn't during his childhood.

 

And the stuff we see in 2020? I like to think that this is the 2020 we would have gotten if Park Sun Young hadn't been murdered all along: that the young Jin Gyeom we see in this episode (i.e. "our" Jin Gyeom as a teenager) was able to take a whole different path in his life. "Our" Jin Gyeom thinks he'll become a detective, but with no murder to solve, he has no need to - instead, he's become an architect with a passion for renovating old hanok in such a way that they could meet 21st century living standards while maintaining their historic touch. 

 

Does it sound crazy? Maybe. And I'll admit that there's one big hiccup with this interpretation: that in this version of 2020, Go Hyung Seok and Park Jin Gyeom have never met, and that doesn't work with Jin Gyeom's chosen reset point. But that's what I've thought of for now: that "our" Jin Gyeom and Tae Yi were allowed to pick up their lives as students in 2010, taking their separate paths in life until meeting (presumably for the first time) in 2020.

 

Yet Tae Yi still remembers Jin Gyeom, and it appears that, despite a slight delay, he remembers her, too. And that's because I think that the parallel universe theory still holds true: destroying time travel didn't destroy these universes, just the conduit between them.

 

And so I like to think, in some world beyond the one we see in the finale, it is 2050 right now, and that there, we'll find two young lovers named Yoo Min Hyuk and Yoon Tae Yi. Maybe she's still a physicist; maybe he's...well, I don't know what he is. But what I do know is that right now, they've just discovered that they're expecting their first child  

 

2. Thoughts on the Drama as a Whole

 

Generally speaking, I enjoyed watching Alice. Is it one of my top favourites? Probably not. My favourite JW dramas, for the time being, are still Good Doctor, Nae Il's Cantabile, and Yong Pal. But that being said, I did find it an enjoyable watch overall, and I can see why JW wanted to go with this script over all the others in that massive pile of 50.

 

So what did I like?

• Gorgeous visuals. And no, I don't mean the cast (although that's true as well)  What I mean is that even before the story really got started, I was already drawn in by the cinematography, set designs, costume designs, visual/special effects, etc. of Alice. The production crew really worked hard to make this feel like a world I could immerse myself into, and I really loved that.
• Great versatility and acting from our leads. Generally speaking, I've never had reason to be disappointed by JW and Kim Hee Sun's acting before, and I can definitely say that that still holds true here. I went into Alice expecting a great deal of range from KHS, since I knew she was playing two characters (technically the same person, yes, but in such different circumstances that they really did feel like two distinct personalities throughout). However, I wasn't expecting to see JW play multiple versions of himself either, and that allowed him to broaden his emotional range in a way that I couldn't have anticipated. I know an actual win is being a bit greedy, but I hope we'll get at least one credible Daesang nomination come year's end (unlike the "let's just nominate everybody" mess that was 2017's SBS Drama Awards).
• A compelling second lead. Prior to Alice, I only saw Kwak Si Yang once: as the antagonist in Chicago Typewriter. And that role...well, it wasn't much to write home about, as far as I was concerned - in both the past and present timelines in that drama, his character was written pretty one-dimensionally, in my opinion. But damn, was I impressed by his showing here as Yoo Min Hyuk! I think he really came into his own as a strong emotional/character actor here, so I hope that his performance in Alice will give him a first lead role in the future  
• Awesome veteran actors. You know the ones: Kim Sang Ho (Go Hyung Seok) and Choi Won Young (Seok Oh Won). One gave us an adorable Ahjussi that we all loved - and the other gave us a villain that we all loved to hate  So kudos.
• Some interesting life lessons. Usually, I don't go into an action/fantasy/sci-fi drama expecting any real bits of wisdom; I'm mostly just in it to be entertained. So I wasn't expecting all the little lessons about life, death, memory, grief, guilt, etc. that we got all along the way. For me, personally, the biggest one is one that Yoo Min Hyuk said (in Episode 14, if I recall correctly), and that we saw being reinforced in the final episodes: you can't change the past, but you can make up for it. No one's doomed by their circumstances or their past mistakes to become a monster; at any point in our lives, we can choose to hit that reset button and start doing the right thing instead.

These aren't all the things I liked (for instance, I like to think that Jin Gyeom can count as K-drama representation for asexual characters and purely platonic relationships everywhere), but you get the idea.

 

So...what about things that I thought could have been done better?

• Genre whiplash. Sometimes, I felt like Alice wasn't quite sure what sort of story it wanted to be. There was the overarching Sci-fi and Mystery element, of course, but other than that, I felt like there were very clear breaks in the show where the overall tone would switch drastically and I was left struggling to figure out, say, what on earth the psychological horror of Episodes 13-14 had to do with the family-based tragic story in Episode 11. Fusion/crossover stories aren't bad in and of themselves (Yong Pal, for example, is one instance where a mid-drama switch in genre worked for me), but I would have liked for there to be some sort of transition between subplots instead of just getting thrown in headfirst with cliffhangers serving as the key clue as to what's coming.
• Much ado about nothing. From a mystery/crime-solving standpoint, there were a ton of loose ends in the story. Mostly, the problem was with the clues: rather than building up into a solid case, clues in Alice seem to just lead one step ahead before just dropping out of the story altogether. Some examples include the drones (which prompted Jin Gyeom, Tae Yi, and Do Yeon to start investigating but bore little relevance afterwards), the time cards (which all but disappeared after Episode 8), the knife (which I was really curious about re: its origins and significance since it appears in the actual Book of Prophecy, but only served to point Jin Gyeom to Seok Oh Won's hideout), etc. If this were a live shoot drama, that sort of looseness to key symbols and objects would be okay; but I was expecting a tighter weave overall from a pre-produced show.
• Underutilized/one-dimensional side characters. I know, realistically, that a 16-episode drama won't have the time to really delve into all the characters and their stories - and that's okay. However, given how much was done with our three main leads, I think that having some sort of depth or multidimesionality to the various supporting characters would have helped balance the story out a bit. For instance, I didn't like that the drama just made Oh Si Young the jealous rejected lover whose entire motivation behind her actions is an attempt to lash out at Min Hyuk and some version of Tae Yi. The fact that she was friends with MH and TY prior to the events of the drama could have made her a satisfyingly multifaceted character, but we didn't get that and wound up with (for me) one of the most annoying clichés out there for female characters. On the flip side, that same one-dimesionality seems to persist among the good supporting characters, too: Tae Yi's family, Kim Dong Ho (although he does get better eventually), etc.

And...that's generally it for where I saw the biggest flaws in the drama - mostly in terms of the writing. But again, as a general whole, I didn't dislike this drama at any point; I just think these were instances where things could have potentially been awesome, but they ended up just sort of ordinary or bland.

 

And finally, last but not least:

 

3. What was it like watching in "real time"?

 

Long story short: I...don't think I'll be doing this on the regular. Probably just for JW's dramas, and only because I do find myself feeling so eager to watch that I don't want to wait for the full version. However, compared to waiting until the entire drama is finished and only deciding whether to watch after already seeing some of the feedback on it...doing it like this is really stressful. I didn't anticipate just how nervous I'd get waiting for and reading viewers' comments on this forum, or YouTube, or Instagram - especially when, in the middle of the drama, people started dropping it because of a possible love line between Jin Gyeom and Tae Yi.

 

I've never experienced that feeling before of watching a drama and being afraid to say whether I liked it or whether I thought it was good or bad: because if I thought it was good, there was always the chance that it could go south at the end; and if I thought it was bad, there was always the chance it would improve and redeem itself. And it's a good thing that JW's currently stepping away from dramaland to do Ghost, because I don't know when I'll next be ready to take on such a project again. Honestly, guys, I don't know how you do it, so kudos. 

[kireeti2]

57 minutes ago, kittyna said:

Underutilized/one-dimensional side characters

Yeah, I totally agree with this one. Lot of good side characters were not utilized properly, like, except for the TY(2020) adopted mother, not other family members has been used in the plot directly or indirectly. Even detectives were not used properly expect for filling in few comedic scenes.

1 hour ago, kittyna said:

Great versatility and acting from our leads

I guess this is the problem with Alice, too much reliance on main leads, it's like, writers expected that main leads are going make the drama watchable without the help of the other characters. Yes, writers can rely on leads but not much so that they have to ditch the other fine supporting characters. Alice, would have been 10 times better had the writers gave more role for the supporting characters to play, like, take KDY for instance, even though she is close to main character, her role was not give much of screen time but eventually was able to garner lot of fans, sometimes giving more screen time to supporting characters will eventually make the drama watchable, that's what I have seen as common thing in the high rating K-dramas.

[kittyna]

@kireeti2 I think that, for me, my own experience now as a fanfic writer with a long series (almost) completed has given me a way to look into Alice's writing that I didn't have the last time I did this sort of drama review/analysis (which was for My Sassy Girl, I think). I won't say my own writing and character/narrative plotting are perfect, by any means, but I better appreciate now the need for installments/episodes to be tightly woven together. Not all motifs or characters need to be tightly woven in - there is such a thing as "extras", both in fiction and in our real lives - but anything that is painted as significant had better actually be significant.

 

Spoiler

For instance, in Seolleim in Salzburg, you will find that I repeat pieces of music or side characters a lot. Not always (I do have some characters, for instance, who only just show up in a single installment), but generally, I try to plan out my plots several installments in advance. By having a sense of direction as to where the story will go as a whole, I can start foreshadowing or laying groundwork in a way that's relevant earlier on. And I was expecting Alice to have that same tightness to it.

 

[kireeti2]

2 hours ago, kittyna said:

I won't say my own writing and character/narrative plotting are perfect, by any means, but I better appreciate now the need for installments/episodes to be tightly woven together. Not all motifs or characters need to be tightly woven in - there is such a thing as "extras", both in fiction and in our real lives - but anything that is painted as significant had better actually be significant.

Does this mean that you are working on "Alice" Fan- Fiction?   Since the drama ended in vague manner, I won't say it is open ended, like, we can see PJG was able to recall who TY(2020) was and they union signifies that "Son was finally able to meet his Mom" and it felt more or less like a happy ending.

[kittyna]

6 hours ago, kireeti2 said:

Does this mean that you are working on "Alice" Fan- Fiction?   Since the drama ended in vague manner, I won't say it is open ended, like, we can see PJG was able to recall who TY(2020) was and they union signifies that "Son was finally able to meet his Mom" and it felt more or less like a happy ending.

 

I'm nowhere near that point - nor was that what I was hinting at in my comment - but I would like to someday. It's harder to figure out what I could flesh out further (which is what I usually do with fics), but the idea to write something has been there from the start.  

 

Generally, I'd say that my fics take on three main directions: prequel/backstory, sequel (e.g. Seolleim in Salzburg), or alternate perspective (i.e. looking at actual drama events from another character's POV). Which direction I'd take with Alice, though, is still hard to say.

 

Behind the scenes photos from JW's manager

 

“Alice” Main Cast Chooses Most Memorable Scenes From The Drama

 

Kim Hee Sun, Joo Won, And More Share Final Remarks To Bid Farewell To “Alice”

 

Young Jin Gyeom's backpack

 

Episode 16 making film:

 

 

By the way, I know it was a blooper (mistimed reaction), but I actually loved the take where Jin Gyeom walks away while Do Yeon's still talking and she ends up chasing after him. It's actually in line enough with their teenage selves that I kinda wish they kept that.

[nina_mitrokhina 5misnina]

Cannot understand and accept three points in the last episode:

1. If Jin Gyeom lived a happy life with his mother, graduated from university and became an architect, then how could this independent person "remember" the life experience of Jin Gyeom as a police officer ?!

2. Why wasn't Jin Gyeom surprised when he met Professor Tae Yi that she looked like his mother ?!

3. In terms of DNA, Professor Tae Yi remains Jin Gyooma's biological mother. Then how can incest be allowed between these two characters ?!

It seems that the writers went to the violation of common sense and logic for the sake of the notorious "happy ending".

[kittyna]

1 hour ago, nina_mitrokhina 5misnina said:

1. If Jin Gyeom lived a happy life with his mother, graduated from university and became an architect, then how could this independent person "remember" the life experience of Jin Gyeom as a police officer ?!

2. Why wasn't Jin Gyeom surprised when he met Professor Tae Yi that she looked like his mother ?!

3. In terms of DNA, Professor Tae Yi remains Jin Gyooma's biological mother. Then how can incest be allowed between these two characters ?!

 

My best guess right now is that if we assume parallel universes still exist, then quantum entanglement (i.e. the idea that Yoo Min Hyuk brought up about people being able to subconsciously feel the memories/personalities of their parallel selves) might exist as well.

 

I'm not entirely sure how it works for Tae Yi (since we just see her life resuming in 2020 with no memory of the alternate version of her life that she apparently lived), but for Jin Gyeom, I think there must still be some blurring between the new version of him (the teenager that grew up) and the original Jin Gyeom. Because it's not a perfect reset, the original Jin Gyeom and the new Jin Gyeom did briefly inhabit the same space (that house on that night in 2010), and so it can be expected that quantum entanglement still applies. If that's the case, the original Jin Gyeom's memories were probably hidden somewhere in the new Jin Gyeom's subconscious, but it would take some sort of trigger (i.e. seeing Tae Yi for the "first" time) to bring them up to the surface.

 

I will confess to also being surprised that Jin Gyeom didn't appear to recognize Tae Yi at first. He does do a double take after their conversation, as though he's wondering where he's seen this girl before, but it does appear to be separate from any memories of his mother. It's possible that Park Sun Young is still alive in this version of 2020, meaning that Jin Gyeom doesn't feel the same urgent need to find her again...but if anyone has any other ideas, please let me know  

 

Finally, as for the relationship between Jin Gyeom and Tae Yi after the drama's ending, I still can't see it being a romantic one. If they had no memories of their original selves, then it would be possible in the way that it plays out in Oedipus (i.e. the son marries his mother because they literally have no idea they're related); however, since they do remember, I don't think it's going to happen. So this is actually the least of my worries re: Alice's ending.

 

1 hour ago, nina_mitrokhina 5misnina said:

It seems that the writers went to the violation of common sense and logic for the sake of the notorious "happy ending".

 

If it were up to me, I think I'd be happy with the drama ending after Jin Gyeom and Tae Yi first run into each other again - when, after realizing that Jin Gyeom doesn't recognize her, Tae Yi finally starts to think that it might be better for him this way. I loved that bit about her just being happy that he's happy, because I think that's what love (romantic or otherwise) should ultimately be about.

 

And if the story really had to continue past that point so that Tae Yi could also be happy? As fine as I am with the actual ending, if it were entirely up to me and my writer's imagination, I'd have the second meeting play out differently. K-dramas often have some sort of concept of a "new beginning" in their finales; and rather than a reunion based on subconscious memory, that's the approach I would go for.

 

So, rather than Jin Gyeom starting to remember Tae Yi, I would have written him as someone who doesn't remember, but who ends up meeting Tae Yi again in a different context. Maybe she ends up buying the old house and commissions him to renovate it or something, I dunno. And then they officially introduce (or, in Tae Yi's case, reintroduce) themselves, and a new working relationship or friendship could start.

 

lol - I dunno, guys. It feels sort of sacrilegious to start thinking of an entire alternate ending so soon after the drama's own finale, but..should I?  

[nina_mitrokhina 5misnina]

The trouble with many open endings is that they are most often used by writers when they are confused and do not understand how to end the series. Therefore, the viewer has to come up with his own version, then illogical endings give rise to "crazy" ideas (for example, incest). In my opinion, it was necessary to perform a complete reboot of the two worlds, and then Tae Yi and Mi Hyuk were supposed to meet in 2050 and give birth to baby Jin Gyeom. Or end up as you suggested, Professor Tae Yi made sure Jin Gyeom was doing well and happy.

[kittyna]

By the way, looking back at my comments so far, I think my opinion on Alice's ending might be rather hard to figure out. So, I'll just put it like this: I do like the ending as it is, in its original form. Even though I did say that I'd do it differently if I were the writer, the fact is: I'm NOT the writer, and that comment should NOT be taken as my trashing the actual writers' hard work. Apologies for any confusion so far.

 

Spoiler

By the way, for anyone who's interested: time-travel and parallel universe storylines are notoriously hard to write. Just take a look at all the different possible paths of logic and causality have cropped up over the years:

 

 

This is not the sort of thing I'd ever be able to plot out on my own, and after watching this video, I do have to commend Alice's writers for their attempt - regardless of whether we as viewers find it successful.

 

It's just that for me, rather than frustrating, open endings are the perfect fuel for imagination, curiosity, and extrapolation. So even with enjoying the finale as-is, it's still a fun exercise for me to try to piece together the little snippets of post-reset life that we see, or to imagine possible alternative ways that Tae Yi and Jin Gyeom could meet again. And, of course, it's definitely fun to imagine what's going on at the same time in the parallel universe where it's 2050 and we have Yoo Min Hyuk, that version of Yoon Tae Yi, and a future baby Jin Gyeom.

[kireeti2]

15 hours ago, kittyna said:

So, rather than Jin Gyeom starting to remember Tae Yi, I would have written him as someone who doesn't remember, but who ends up meeting Tae Yi again in a different context. Maybe she ends up buying the old house and commissions him to renovate it or something, I dunno. And then they officially introduce (or, in Tae Yi's case, reintroduce) themselves, and a new working relationship or friendship could start.

Lol! And you were saying you are not thinking about writing Alice fan fiction anytime soon. This one looks like a nice introduction scene for Alice fan fiction.

15 hours ago, kittyna said:

If it were up to me, I think I'd be happy with the drama ending after Jin Gyeom and Tae Yi first run into each other again - when, after realizing that Jin Gyeom doesn't recognize her, Tae Yi finally starts to think that it might be better for him this way. I loved that bit about her just being happy that he's happy, because I think that's what love (romantic or otherwise) should ultimately be about.

Yeah, the scene where PJG did not recognize TY(2020) almost felt like an "Alzheimer's" K-drama story, for instance "Remember" K-drama.

15 hours ago, kittyna said:

I will confess to also being surprised that Jin Gyeom didn't appear to recognize Tae Yi at first

Well, I was not surprised by it, because PJG as detective is different than PJG as an architecture. So, for instance PJG as a detective was obsessed with finding his mom's killer and it was the only thing in his mind. So, he was able to recognize TY(2020) as soon as he saw her, even though she has different style when compared to PSY. But PJG as a architecture has a different life altogether, like, he has normal life style apart from the dreams he was able to draw inspiration for his work. So, like you mentioned Quantum entanglement had to do with messing up the memories of new PJG, just like TY(2020), she was able to recall all the memories from her past in phased manner, after interacting with MH.I think it is the same case with PJG

17 hours ago, nina_mitrokhina 5misnina said:

3. In terms of DNA, Professor Tae Yi remains Jin Gyooma's biological mother. Then how can incest be allowed between these two characters ?!

Well, the feeling was not mutual and TY(2020) was just confused(it was brief)  and did not have the all the available details like we do to figure out that PJG is her son. It's not something new in Time travel genre where this kind of confusion happens between the people who are related by blood. At the end she was able to come to terms that she is PJG's mom and tried to protect him like his mom and not someone who has love interest on him. And before dying in episode 15, her last wish was that PJG should lead a normal life.

 

[kireeti2]

9 hours ago, kittyna said:

It's just that for me, rather than frustrating, open endings

I don't see it as open ended at all. Like, they were few loose ends, but we can sort of explain it with "RESET", which is not perfect, but that's the best explanation writers have come up with, since time travel is really a complex genre and even the "Avengers Endgame" has so many plot holes when compared with Alice. So, if we compare with other time travel drama Alice had logical ending of them all. In the end we can see that PJG was able to recall who TY(2020) was and finally met her again. I have only one complaint about the ending, I was hoping that the writers would pair KDY with new PJG, at least they should have met each other because of the mutual friends. I know she met him as a Journalist, but she had no feelings towards him, because the school accident was also undone due to the reset.

[kittyna]

5 hours ago, kireeti2 said:

I don't see it as open ended at all. Like, they were few loose ends, but we can sort of explain it with "RESET", which is not perfect, but that's the best explanation writers have come up with, since time travel is really a complex genre and even the "Avengers Endgame" has some many plot holes when compared with Alice.

 

Um...isn't that what I was trying to say all along? In my opinion, if we reset to a time after Jin Gyeom was already born but before his mother died, then he could still live a life in our timeline that's completely unimpacted by time travel. I just see that reset as going back to 2010.

 

Also, re: open endings - you can't quote the first half of my sentence as my take when there's a second half qualifying it  I think the ending is open, but only insofar as most K-dramas have open endings: an ending that hints at a new beginning for the characters and that allows for their stories to continue. Which is why I'm not bothered by the openness, but see it as an opportunity to interpret, imagine, etc. on my own.

 

6 hours ago, kireeti2 said:

Lol! And you were saying you are not thinking about writing Alice fan fiction anytime soon. This one looks like a nice introduction scene for Alice fan fiction.

 

Maybe. We'll have to see. I had another idea developing from the early episodes and just needed to watch all the way to the end to see if it would still work. And since it does....

 

Right now, priority is in wrapping up Seolleim in Salzburg, though. But I will confess that Alice's finale (and this whole Jin Gyeom as architect idea - which surprised me at first, but I actually love it) led me down a Pinterest rabbit hole looking at similarly renovated hanok  

 

6 hours ago, kireeti2 said:

Well, I was not surprised by it, because PJG as detective is different than PJG as an architecture. So, for instance PJG as a detective was obsessed with finding his mom's killer and it was the only thing in his mind. So, he was able to recognize TY(2020) as soon as he saw her, even though she has different style when compared to PSY. But PJG as a architecture has a different life altogether, like, he has normal life style apart from the dreams he was able to draw inspiration for his work.

 

Exactly my thought. Even if she did resemble his mother, it'd be the sort of thing that would come to him as an afterthought (i.e. that double take we see afterwards). But since I personally speculate that Park Sun Young might actually still be alive in this version of 2020, I figured it wouldn't be much more than a passing thought - the same way any of us might see a stranger on the street, think they vaguely resemble someone we currently know, then dismiss the thought.

 

6 hours ago, kireeti2 said:

Well, the feeling was not mutual and TY(2020) was just confused(it was brief)  and did not have the all the available details like we do to figure out that PJG is her son. It's not something new in Time travel genre where this kind of confusion happens between the people who are related by blood. At the end she was able to come to terms that she is PJG's mom and tried to protect him like his mom and not someone who has love interest on him. And before dying in episode 15, her last wish was that PJG should lead a normal life.

 

Same. Nor do I think any romance is possible with the new 2020 either - because even if Jin Gyeom's memory of his parallel self is really fuzzy right now, Tae Yi's memories are clearer.

 

I just realized, after rewatching the ending a few times, that it's actually a really intriguing reversal of Episode 1/2: where Tae Yi is the one who's obsessively searching for Jin Gyeom and who now claims to know him from somewhere, and he's like, "Uh...what?" It's resolved by the subconscious memories floating up in his mind afterwards, but if he does recognize her now, he'd also recognize that it's because of her connection to his mother....Point is: romance is still highly unlikely, in my opinion.

 

5 hours ago, kireeti2 said:

I have only one complaint about the ending, I was hoping that the writers would pair KDY with new PJG, at least they should have met each other because of the mutual friends. I know she met him as a Journalist, but she had no feelings towards him, because the school accident was also undone due to the reset.

 

For me, there are a few things that I'm still trying to figure out about Jin Gyeom's new life, given my own theory that this is a continuation of the 2010 reset.

 

1. why Go Hyung Seok doesn't remember him or his case from 2010

2. his current relationship with Kim Do Yeon - whether they're still friends, and if so, why DY didn't say so to Tae Yi

3. his feelings/memories about that house - the current owner says she lived there for seven years (i.e. since 2013), but did Jin Gyeom live there before then?

 

Personally, rather than plot holes, most of these can be explained by normal lapses in human memory (e.g. Jin Gyeom's case now just one in a gazillion Captain Go's dealt with over the past ten years, and not a particularly memorable one at that), or characters keeping things to themselves rather than blurting them out (e.g. DY not saying she knows JG to TY because they literally just met, so why should she? Or JG just answering vaguely about his drawing of the house to his client, because it's just a tangent in their discussion about hers).

 

Basically, for me, I like to take what the writers actually present to me in a drama, and then use my own imagination to try to piece them together and flesh them out in a way that I could then write about them in the future  

[kittyna]

And we have our supporting cast behind-the-scenes video now - yay! 

 

 

Oh my God - baby Jin Gyeom's so cute!!!

[kireeti2]

25 minutes ago, kittyna said:

1. why Go Hyung Seok doesn't remember him or his case from 2010

2. his current relationship with Kim Do Yeon - whether they're still friends, and if so, why DY didn't say so to Tae Yi

3. his feelings/memories about that house - the current owner says she lived there for seven years (i.e. since 2013), but did Jin Gyeom live there before then?

I think the new PJG is like TY(2020) in the beginning episode, like, how TY(2020) was oblivious to her past and new PJG is also oblivious to that.

I think the school suicide case was undone and that's why Detective Go doesn't remember it or the present Detective Go is not from future like the one who died by the hands of Professor Seok Won. And even if the suicide case happened, perhaps Kim Do Yeon did not accuse PJG, since it was the main reason which KDY got school to PJG. And maybe Detective Go's captain handled the case so, he doesn't know that PJG exist. And coming to the house, I think he does remember the house, since it often comes in his dream and he was able to find the exact address and meet TY(2020) in the end. So, my guess is PSY and PJG might have left the house for the sake of PJG's education.

32 minutes ago, kittyna said:

Also, re: open endings - you can't quote the first half of my sentence as my take when there's a second half qualifying it

Point noted, I will be careful with it in the future posts

[kireeti2]

51 minutes ago, kittyna said:

Oh my God - baby Jin Gyeom's so cute!!!

And the way baby PJG was not able to win Rock-Paper-Scissors with Kim Hee-Seon despite her help was too cute to watch, and also the way Joo won was eating at the team dinner brought back few memories of 1 day and 2 nights

[kittyna]

1 hour ago, kireeti2 said:

I think the school suicide case was undone and that's why Detective Go doesn't remember it or the present Detective Go is not from future like the one who died by the hands of Professor Seok Won. And even if the suicide case happened, perhaps Kim Do Yeon did not accuse PJG, since it was the main reason which KDY got school to PJG. And maybe Detective Go's captain handled the case so, he doesn't know that PJG exist. And coming to the house, I think he does remember the house, since it often comes in his dream and he was able to find the exact address and meet TY(2020) in the end. So, my guess is PSY and PJG might have left the house for the sake of PJG's education.

 

That's an interesting take - and here's mine (or what I have of it so far):

 

Spoiler

The suicide still happened (unfortunately, Jin Gyeom's reset didn't have much impact on those who weren't affected by the existence of time travelers), and someone (maybe Do Yeon, maybe another student) still saw Jin Gyeom on the rooftop. However, it was ruled as a suicide really early on. Whether it happened in the same way as the first time around (i.e. with Park Sun Young finding an eyewitness) or another means, though, I'm not sure. Either way, it ends up just being a tiny blip in Captain Go's life (hence why he doesn't recall it ten years later), and the only thing Jin Gyeom learns from it is to better appreciate his mother.

 

Sun Young's birthday plays out the same way we see in the numerous snippets from Episode 16: Do Yeon coaching Jin Gyeom on making seaweed soup, buying a cake, etc. and Jin Gyeom finally able to celebrate as he wanted and deciding to join Sun Young in going out for drinks. The murder doesn't happen, so when DY and JG go to apply for university, she still ends up going into journalism/literature/something writing-related, and he goes into engineering/architecture/etc. (Might as well put the math skills he inherited from his mom to good use.) DY and JG end up going to different universities and gradually fall out of touch in that way most of us do with our high school friends.

 

At some point in the ten years since graduating from high school, Jin Gyeom and his mother move out of the old house. I still haven't decided on the actual reason for the move, though: maybe it's to move closer to wherever JG has university (as you said), or maybe JG eventually makes enough money for them to move into an apartment building (which is what many Koreans aspire to as the middle-class ideal). It's even crossed my mind that JG might end up spending some time abroad: I noticed that the name of the firm he works for (Maison du Temps) is in French, and the whole concept of reworking historical architecture to meet 21st century needs is quite prevalent in Europe.

 

Either way, I think he and DY went their separate ways after high school, but have now met again because of her report. The scene cuts after Tae Yi hears what JG said about spaces holding memory, so we don't get the rest of the conversation; it's still possible that, if prompted further, DY would say something about knowing JG growing up.  

 

And this is why I like playing around with endings like this: because different people can fill in the gaps in different ways, and that fosters creativity and imagination  

 

39 minutes ago, kireeti2 said:

And the way baby PJG was not able to win Rock-Paper-Scissors with Kim Hee-Seon despite her help was too cute to watch

 

I think he was just too little (about two years old, I think)  At that age, kids think that the point of Rock-Paper-Scissors is to imitate what their partner does rather than beat them  You can see that that's what he's doing in the clip, and it's adorable.

 

[EDIT]

 

By the way, there's one detail from the first half of Episode 16 that I didn't comment on before, but that I thought was really brilliant. When "our" Jin Gyeom goes back in time to 2010 again, he checks his arm when he first tracks down his mother and starts to follow her. I actually love that they included that touch.  

[kireeti2]

3 hours ago, kittyna said:

I think he was just too little (about two years old, I think)  At that age, kids think that the point of Rock-Paper-Scissors is to imitate what their partner does rather than beat them  You can see that that's what he's doing in the clip, and it's adorable.

Yeah, even before playing the game baby PJG was imitating what Kim Hee Seon was doing, they both are adorable, I think KHS enjoyed her time with him, since she has only daughter and no son, and must had brought back few memories with her daughter, when her daughter was around the age of baby PJG

3 hours ago, kittyna said:

At some point in the ten years since graduating from high school, Jin Gyeom and his mother move out of the old house

Or maybe, they settled in abroad. This could be a possibility too,that is, PSY knew that PJG had done a reset in which a version of PJG ceased to exist, so, she was feeling guilty that because of her a part of PJG version was erased along with MH and she decided to move out of the house as soon as she was able to find a new place .

 

EDIT

 

Spoiler

So, this is not related to Joo won's drama, but while I was going through your blog, I stumbled up on the "Evidence Room" article under Memorizing History. So, I was also surprised by the choice of the color, which is white, and white color mostly symbolizes peace and tranquility in most of the cultures. I must confess when first I read the only the heading "Evidence Room" without the context, I thought it was some kind of activity place in Seoul where tourist go to solve puzzle, but I was shocked to know that it is evidence room for Holocaust. Maybe it is because of the choice of the color which made it look like an room which as no serious historical event or for that matter a room which has evidence about one of the most heinous crime committed against a community. But, has I begin my virtual tour of the evidence room (which is not as good as watching in person), I started to understand why they choose the white color. Like, colors are often used by artists to express their view or message, in the case of Evidence Room, I think the creators of this project aim was to make the visitors think about the Holocaust rather than just enjoy it like an art and also it is like an response to the Holocaust deniers that there is no grey area or middle ground when it comes to the atrocities committed by Nazis. For instance, the statement of Trump on Charlottesville incident, like, he said they were "Very fine people on both the sides" which is a middle ground often taken by people who always defended or denied atrocities committed on vulnerable communities around the world.

 

[kittyna]

2 hours ago, kireeti2 said:

Yeah, even before playing the game baby PJG was imitating what Kim Hee Seon was doing, they both are adorable, I think KHS enjoyed her time with him, since she has only daughter and no son, and must had brought back few memories with her daughter, when her daughter was around the age of baby PJG

 

Probably, yeah - I can also imagine Park Sun Young (the actual character) doing something similar with her son at that age. He probably would have responded, too, since his alexithymia wasn't really detectable until he started school and people started noticing that he wasn't like the other kids.

 

2 hours ago, kireeti2 said:

This could be a possibility too,that is, PSY knew that PJG had done a reset in which a version of PJG ceased to exist, so, she was feeling guilty that because of her a part of PJG version was erased along with MH and she decided to move out of the house as soon as she was able to find a new place .

 

Good point here as well. I hadn't thought about that, but I can see where you're going with it. I don't think Min Hyuk was erased, though - just relegated to his own parallel universe.

 

Speaking of Yoo Min Hyuk, though...dude, really??? If SBS really did do that, I'd laugh so hard 

 

Some more set pics

 

And just dropping this here for those who can't get enough of the OST:

 

 

 

Spoiler

@kireeti2 - I did see your comment about the Evidence Room, but there isn't really much more to add beyond what I wrote in the original blog post. lol - I haven't posted there in years, though; I do think about starting it back up again periodically, but then real life gets busy and nothing comes of it.

 

[kireeti2]

9 hours ago, kittyna said:

I don't think Min Hyuk was erased

No, I think everyone from Alice including MH got erased, just like PJG from 2020, like, the only reason why PSY was not erased because the reset happened after she died and same goes with Detective Go, I think the present Detective Go is from the present and not from the future. The only people who are aware of time travel are PSY and TY(2020), so I think PJG is the only person in the present universe and there is no parallel to PJG like the old version.

[kittyna]

8 hours ago, kireeti2 said:

No, I think everyone from Alice including MH got erased, just like PJG from 2020

 

Well, that actually explains why you didn't think the ending was as vague or open as many other viewers I've seen, as what happened to Min Hyuk is one of the biggest questions people say was left unanswered.

 

Personally, I do think the parallel universes still exist, and here's why. It took me a while to realize that "Alice" wasn't actually in the 2050 parallel universe (where the time travelers came from), but was a base placed in our universe that could lead to it. And Oh Si Young says it explicitly: that the clients who pass through "Alice" think they're going back in time to see their past loved ones, but the staff know that what they're really seeing is their parallel selves and families in a universe where it is still 2020. I noticed during the reset that the entire complex got sucked up through the wormhole - which, I assume, meant that they wound up somewhere. So, in my opinion, "Alice" as the conduit between these two universes doesn't exist anymore, but both parallel universes (the one where it's 2050 and ours, which Jin Gyeom reset to 2010) still do.

 

Spoiler

Actually, it crossed my mind randomly once that the 2050 parallel universe is ours - because clearly, the COVID-19 pandemic doesn't exist in the 2020 we see in the drama, so we're dealing with an alternate reality by default  

 

As for where Min Hyuk is in all of this, there are two main logical possibilities, neither of which will satisfy most fans, I'll admit:

1. He doesn't exist anymore after the reset, because the reset affects just our universe and not the parallel one, meaning that he died while "stuck in the past" as some might say.

2. He was brought back to life after the reset, but back in his original 2050 universe. However, that leaves the question of the 2050 version of Tae Yi: if she's with Min Hyuk, then she can't be Jin Gyeom's mother and vice-versa. So it all depends on whether you think that Park Sun Young is still Jin Gyeom's mother after the reset; if she is, we end up with a sad, lonely Min Hyuk. Which, I'll confess, probably no-one wants right now.  

 

Which is why some fans (myself included) have cast aside logic for a second and decided to imagine the possibility that a 2050 version of Tae Yi also exists alongside Min Hyuk. How it would come about is beyond me, but it's the closure and happy ending for him that I want, even if I know it's technically impossible  

 

8 hours ago, kireeti2 said:

the only reason why PSY was not erased because the reset happened after she died and same goes with Detective Go, I think the present Detective Go is from the present and not from the future.

 

For me, I think everyone who has a parallel version of themselves basically ends up with each version relegated back to their original sides. So the Detective Go we see after the reset is the original one who died in Episode 11. He survived the criminal's attack, somehow, and has made it all the way to 2020 without ever meeting Jin Gyeom - or (if he has) not in any significant way.