SPOILER ALERT!! This is a REWATCH podcast and there are spoilers in every episode for the entire series. Pease make sure you’ve finished your first watch before joining us.

Beep and CC dive deep into episode three of Netflix kdrama worldwide hit Hometown Cha Cha Cha (starring Shin Min-a and Kim Seon-ho).

“No one but you knows how painful it is.” Past losses lurk just under the surface as Hye-jin and Chief Hong take a road trip and help Gam-ri. Hye-jin begins to lay down her spikes but the twist is that there are two hedgehogs in this story.

Streaming Banshees
Podcast Transcript

Podcast Episode 5

Episode title: Toothaches & Hedgehogs

Date: February 23, 2022

Show: Hometown Cha Cha Cha Ep 3

Beep: Hello and welcome back to Streaming Banshees, your TV book club on the internet. I am Beep and you can find me on Twitter @beepsplain. I am joined as always by the lovely CC.

CC: Hey guys, you can find me at @acapitalchick.

Beep: So today's podcast is about Hometown Cha Cha Cha episode three. Just a reminder. We are a rewatch podcast. So we will spoil things from the entire series because we're making connections to the beautiful writing. Please, please, please make sure you've seen the entire series before you listen, and then come back and play with us.

Beep: We'd love to hear from you. As for Streaming Banshees, you can find us on our website at streamingbanshees.com or on Twitter @TVBanshees. Subscribe on our website so you'll never miss an update and you can also find articles there from some super smart people about different shows.

So what we notice in this particular episode is more layers than I ever would have expected on original watch. I cried on rewatch. I cried, I'm not going to lie even this morning when I read through to refresh on our outline for the podcast, I teared up again in such a beautiful way.

BIt's just this amazing story of interconnected people. And I just love Gam-ri so much as the kind of stand in grandmother for everybody or so it appeared early on. That's just kind of who she was in the town, but to see the depth of the relationships that have been built between obviously her and Du-sik and then her and Hye-jin and then the three of them together. And then she dies and I can't.

CC: I know. I know. But I mean, the thing is that once, you know, everyone's personal struggles or what I think is such a lovely metaphor – writer Shin Ha-eun is so brilliant in how she is able to take dental terminology throughout this show and turn it into wisdom about life. But the toothache metaphor: that nobody, but you knows how painful something is when we rewatch this episode, we now know every character's inner struggle. So when we watch them sort of holding things back or fumbling towards connection, getting it wrong, reaching out again, now that we know everyone's history, it's just so poignant.

Beep: Even her, because she's the one that makes the comment later. Sometimes our pain is so very private and that's physical pain. That's mental pain, it's emotional pain.  I don't ever want to hear anyone talk about a toothpick again.

CC: I know. I know, because as you're watching the toothache metaphor is, kind of is this like lovely, practical everyday way to think about the larger theme that we've been talking about, that you never know what's going on with someone

Beep: Especially when you can't see it.

CC: Right. It's an inner pain and the word ache is so perfect for it, right?

None of these characters—we're not seeing any of them in the midst of right after a trauma right? For some of them, you know, whether it's Hye-jin and her mother or Chief Hong and the loss of his entire biological family, or what happened to him in Seoul, you know, these are losses that happened many years ago, or with, you know, with, in the case of Haw-jung and her son Yi-jun, the divorce is about three years old, right.

And with Gam-ri and her family being too busy for her, whether it's her son and Seoul, or her granddaughter in college in the United States that, you know, this is an ongoing thing of life being busy. So all of it describing all of these inner pains as ache is such perfect language –it's so evocative of kind of that steady pain, that's always there.

Beep: Yeah, we're not looking at acute incidents at this point. It's this has become chronic.

CC: Right, right. And there may be times as we see with several characters in this episode, the way sort of a back pain, or, you know, a physical ache can act up, you know, maybe like on a rainy day, there are things that can make it worse on some days or other days, but it's always there

Beep: Mhm.

CC: Especially now that you know, I think this episode, for example, was when Hye-jin did a really good job of sort of hinting to us and giving us in limited flashbacks, why she was sometimes reacting, you know, sometimes a little harshly in some situations. But therewatch of not only why she's putting clothes on as armor or why she reacts the way she does to a maternal figure, not taking care of her physical health and why Chief Hong is so empathetic in noting all of these small moments to basically arrive at the conclusion when it comes to Hye-jin. “No, you're not okay.” It comes from his own experience with loss and the empathy that’s given him.

So yeah, this episode is really an exercise in sort of all of these scenes are steeped in this toothache metaphor. And now that we know the ache, they're just really emotional to watch. Like I thought we were just driving over a bridge, talking about eating pasta versus crab ramen on a boat!  And it's a lot deeper than that.

The other theory that this episode introduces is the hedgehog theory. And what I love is that it is the twist in this show is it seems at the beginning of the story, that Hye-jin is the obvious hedgehog and the theory is espoused to her by Bo-ra and Chief Hong compares her explicitly to a hedgehog at the end of the episode.

And the, you know, the first half of this series, we definitely are watching Hye-jin lay her spikes down, not only with Chief Hong, but with other members of the community, for example, specifically in this episode, Gam-ri. But the twist is Chief Hong is also a hedgehog. It's just what they are uncomfortable with.

So with Hye-jin it's letting people in letting them cross the line, but once she does, it's like she's emotionally all in. And withChief Hong, he is an active member of his community. Hye-jin and Gam-ri will agree on he is nosy and he is always sticking his nose in other people's business. But when it comes to his business, his spikes are like as sharp as they can get.

Beep: Yeah, he's very much not going to share anything about himself. Until he's truly forced to, because there's something that becomes more important to him than holding onto those secrets in that pain, which is her and the future that he could allow himself to have.

CC: Yeah. And with, you know, with that, just picking up on what you said about future, there is a quote that really hit me on rewatch which I think is a theme that is woven throughout the show in different ways. There's no future for those who don't know their history. There are some very sort of like straightforward ways that that theme later unfolds in the episode with the videotape of Gam-ri's television show, but the same is true for Chief Hong and Hye-jin. They cannot get over this hurdle of planning their future together until Chief Hong, both individually and in his relationship, opens up about his past. And we are watching him, even though we didn't really realize it on first watch, grappling with his history and how he emotionally feels about it and how it psychologically impacted him.

But we are like, sort of mid-stream in his journey of dealing with his history.

The other thing that's really beautiful, that kind of ties all of this together. Whether it's these two hedgehogs laying their spikes down, opening up and facing your history. All of it is sort of the beginning of these characters. They all have. These private personal losses when it comes to biological family from Gam-ri to Chief, Hong to Hye-jin.

And what we are watching is either people articulating out loud what someone means to them – their found family. So for example, Chief Hong to Gam-ri sort of beginning this conversation of they are each other's found son slash grandson slash mother slash grandmother. but also with Hye-jin and sort of the hole she feels in her life for a maternal figure and the beautiful meal and talk on the front step with Gam-ri.

CC: It's all sort of the beginning of this building, a new found family, which, you know, at the end of this series is the beautiful one that we see celebrating them, getting married.

Beep: And this is the first time in this episode that we see Hye-jin open up to anybody. So for it to be that grandmother figure, you know, the thing that she's missing to me for that to be the person she goes directly to is extremely simple.

CC: Yeah, it's just so rich on rewatch and I can't wait to dig into all the layers. In episode three, it begins with this beautiful sort of romanticist montage that is narrated as the sounds of Gongjin. And what I love about this montage is the other episodes have opened with sort of beautiful visuals of the landscape.

And this one does too – the ocean and boats on the ocean and the beach and the waves. But then it, but then it connects place and people, and the sounds of Gongjin are the characters of the village going about their everyday lives. So whether it's Oh Yoon playing guitar or Nam-sook operating the register of restaurant or Eun-chul with the police siren, everybody going about their day and sort of the show finding this rhythm, almost music to people going about their everyday lives, which I think is such a beautiful example of how overall the show finds such beauty and meaning in everyday stories.

Beep: Yeah, essentially a soundtrack that the world itself creates.

CC: Yeah. Which is, you know, I mean, not that the show doesn't have a beautiful, you know, evocative soundtrack, but, but like so much, so much of TV is about like big dramatic moments and sort of beautiful score that goes along with it, right? Like heightened, you know, art. So often at least what we see like on TV is about these heightened realities or heightened moments.

And this is just sort of settling the audience into finding music, rhythm, beauty in everyday life, not just in place of Gongjin, but the people of Gongjin, which Beep you often say Gongjin is almost a character in and of itself.

Beep: Oh, a hundred percent. Yeah. The people  –it's an organism. I mean, the community itself is, is as much made up of individuals as it is a whole. And I love the way that the show always starts by almost bringing us into that and anchoring us into the visuals. Like you said, the sounds, it's almost like we're brought into being a part of the village.

CC: I think when audiences were watching this show and you would see people talking about, I just want to go back to Gongjin that it felt like an escape part of that of course, is also so many of us are sort of, you know, have been at home during the pandemic and not able to go places, but this is also a show that really takes the time to root a story in a place.

And it's montage is maybe, you know, are just 45 seconds on the screen, but it's almost like as the audience, you're kind of like, okay, I'm back here and you settle in and then you start to take in the story.

Beep: It's a very comforting, like welcome home type of feeling.

CC: Yeah. Yeah. All right. Talk to me about the final sound that we come to is, this is the sound of Ms. Yoon Hye-jin from Seoul getting a package and it's not just one package. Talk to me about this montage.

Beep: I think what's interesting here is almost that this doesn't belong to the current landscape. I mean, I'm sure people get packages. Don't misunderstand, obviously, especially with the stores and the. You know, like the grocery store and stuff, or the convenience store, whatever you like to call it, but this being for an individual and obviously just being, you know, what looks like a bit of splurging seems so out of character for the soundtrack we just heard.

CC: Yes. And it makes the point of saying Miss Yoon, Hye-jin from Seoul.

Beep: An outsider.

CC: Yeah. Who's bringing things, you know, as Chief Hong says, dude, you're like this, stuff's like from all over the world, like, what are you ordering? You know?

And this montage operates on so many different levels. So the first one is the. Very funny. Just continuing their kind of bickering back and forth, I mean, it is like, they're insulting each other's faces. And first of all, as an audience member it's just like, all right. Even when you guys aren't dressed up to go into the city, you're both very attractive people. So the fact that they're like insulting each other's faces and like criticizing each other, she calls him a fashion terrorist, which is so funny because I think it real life, like all of those plaid shirts and that whole aesthetic is basically like moving a lot of merchandise in the real world, but the way Chief Hong dresses is very much a part of his character and constructing that character.

Beep: And see, I love his response to that though, was like, do you not understand functionality? Like zippers. And I'm like, dude, I got you. Like I'm so on his side, in that argument.

CC: Oh yeah. He's as excited about his little zippered compartments as I am about pockets in a dress.

Beep: For sure.

CC: Absolutely. But it's also just like, you can't tell me that under the surface that like, no matter how annoyed he is, how many packages he has to bring that he has to bring to her door, that he isn't a little excited when he does and how annoyed, you know, the way throughout this episode is like acting annoyed, but then is kind of disappointed when he walks away and doesn't continue the back and forth.

Beep: Well, and he makes the comment she asked, you know, kind of like, where's the regular guy and that's another put off, you know, like I'm insulting you because I don't want you to be here, but he's like, oh, it's me right now. This wasn't said, but I'm, I want to read into it to think that he liked told the guy to take the night off because we know he's not above it.

CC: Well, so since there is, so there's that really fun. You know, as we talked about it, and it's funny because we talked about sort of the magnets theory, which we then we couldn't remember during our last podcast, what movie it comes from, but it actually comes from 1990s cinematic masterpiece, The Cutting Edge.

Beep: I cannot believe I did not remember that. It is literally one of my favorite movies.

CC: But that's, you know, that is a movie about, you know two ice skating partners who hate each other at the beginning because they're opposites. And so the female character, Moira Kelly in that movie is basically describes them when she's a little bit drunk, which she has in common with Hye-jin  –she talks about her feelings.

when she's had a little bit too much in this case, tequila that, that there is this opposites attract and the magnets are bouncing off of each other. And that's what magnets do when you're playing with them. But then when something happens that finally flips them, boom, the magnets come together. And so we've got sort of the first stages of The Cutting Edge magnets bouncing off of each other, but they are definitely there's like this kinetic activity happening and I wasn't a science major, but there's this activity happening, right?

The magnets are bouncing off of each other and that's what's so fun to watch sort of in these early like bickering scenes, whether it's insulting the way each other's faces look or slapping his hand or the car, they're just so annoyed at each other. But it's because there's so much sort of bubbling uncomfortably under the surface.

Beep: Honestly, and I truly mean this in the best way. I just don't know any other word to use from the get-go. These two in their interactions are exhausting. When you look at it from outside, you're just like literally how dumb are the two of you?

CC: Yeah, I sometimes see people describe it as like idiots falling in love, like, because the audience knows. And that's part of the fun of the story. The audience knows what's going on.

Beep: Exactly. Zero self-awareness.

CC: Yeah. Yeah. But then there is the layer that always was, you know, is we start to see in this episode when she goes back to the wedding, but now that we know all of Hye-jin's experiences, when she didn't have a lot of income and was made fun of for how she dressed, when she says that these clothes are quote, armor, I’ll wear into a battlefield,

Beep: At first, that just sounds like she's being such a girl boss, but when you put it back, just like you said, I mean it's kind of devastating in its own, right.

CC: Right. That this entire montage, this entire exercise of finding the perfect outfit to wear to this wedding,we could always understand on the surface, right? Any, any reunion, whether it's like a school reunion or a wedding, when you're going to see friends from an earlier stage of life, I think for most people can sometimes be this time where you are, you, you look at your life from the outside and you wonder how other, how it's going to stack up against other people.

Because that's what these events, whether it's like the wedding of a classmate or like a class reunion, that's what, that's what it's like for better and worse. So, but she has just professionally, particularly at seeing friends who were professional school, that's what everyone's comparing notes on.

So she has just taken this rather unorthodox step of, in her words, going to the boondocks and opening this clinic. And now she has to go back to the city and face all of those friends and are, you know, as expected, extremely condescending about it. So part of the close, even, even without knowing her backstory are about putting on that armor to basically be like, no, my choices are valid, but then when you know that. That this, these societal expectations and the way she feels about herself and her own self-worth it goes so deep in terms of what, the clothes that she puts on her body and how she looks and this wearing clothes as armor began with those pair of high heels that cut her, you know, that cut her feet back in college.

Beep: And she's also questioning her own worth. Her clinic is doing well. However, these are her dental colleagues. So, you know that every one of them is already aware of the professional meltdown that occurred. And so now it's like, she's, she actually is already questioning what she's gotten herself into partially because she's already judging it.

So she knows they're going to, so she's prepared not only from their perspective, but also what she's concerned about herself as far as, oh my gosh, did I make a bad decision?

CC: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Beep: This is just a waystation for her in her mind.

CC: Well, right. Which she keeps saying out loud to them, to Chief Hong, part of Hye-jin's journey is sort of casting off the societal expectations that are really manifested in this episode, when she's sitting at the wedding around the table with her friends, that she's ultimately going to arrive at a place that she will make clear is not just about Chief Hong.

It's about how does she find value and her self-worth and satisfaction in her profession in a village, helping people as part of a community rather than accepting a prestigious professorship in Seoul. 

Beep: Yeah. I would say this story for her is as much about finding home as it is about finding.

CC: Yes. Yeah. And home is in, in, you know, what makes this such a great feminist story is it's as much about her you know, found family and her personal relationships as it is finding her professional home. You know, because each episode until we get to the end, many of these early episodes are, are the series of vignettes where Hye-jin is professionally helping and supporting members of her community as a dentist.

Beep: Right. 

CC: Yeah. So, all right, so that, that leads to, well, I think it's kind of a road trip from hell if it's Hye-jin's POV.

Beep: Oh gosh. I was so frustrated on her behalf.

CC: But everyone else is having a great time. They're eating food that they're listening to music. Chief Hong is so diabolical in how he does all of this on purpose because he knows that if he shows up with these three adorable grannies and asks her right in front of them, there is no way that she can say no.

Beep: Yeah. Yeah. This is like emotional extortion.

CC: Well, and I love, I mean, I think that little where she puts up her hand, like no, and he high fives her.

Beep: Oh, stop. That is hilarious. He's acting so naive and just so, oh, he's like, all right, we are going, let's go everybody!

CC: Well she's so, I mean, it's such a great metaphor for the way that she's like, don't cross the line, puts her hand up and he's just like, okay, high five. Let's go. Like, so, you know, there are a lot of, again, this show is like so detailed all of the times that she slaps his hand away from the car. He's not allowed to drive it.

He's not even allowed to close the trunk or touch the air conditioning later on. When they go on a date to Seoul, she's like, oh, but see, now you're my boyfriend. So now you can drive my car.  Even how she engages with other people about the things that she owns. It lets us know so much about her emotional state.

So on the, on the one sort of first watch level, there's a lot of really great details here that kind of fit with sort of these overall romanticism themes that we've been talking about sort of since the beginning of this podcast, which is Hye-jin is in a rush and she's trying to get to the city on time. And Chief Hong is like, slow down, enjoy the food, look at the views, listen to music. And it's all about slowing down and enjoying things instead of rushing to get to the next place or the next event.

Beep: Right. Life is not just point a and point B,

CC: Right. Exactly. 

Beep: Especially on this road trip, because there were 47 stops!

CC: Right? But then there are all of these layers on rewatch, which were only hinted at, and we're actually quite the subject of speculation as to what he was doing in Seoul. But the first layer is Eun-Chul later in the episode, says that Chief Hong has been going to Seoul a lot lately.

And now we know, even though the building on first watch had several options. So we didn't quite know which office he was going to. We now know if we put all these pieces together that he's been going to Seoul on a regular basis to see a psychiatrist. Nobody knows about it. Nobody knows why he's going.

It's just something that he's doing privately. And it's so poignant that he has this cheerful demeanor and is thinking about getting the grandmothers to the city as well. He's thinking about others and yet he is back in the passenger seat of a car on his way to the city where his life fell apart and having to go into a therapy session with the psychiatrist to face all of that. 

Beep: So when I first saw the building, this is what I went through, you know, cause even in English they give us an idea of a few things that are shown there at first you think, oh my gosh, maybe he's sick. And he's, he's holding that back, which is like, which would have actually gone with this episode.

If we didn't know more about it later, like, you know, keeping yourself healthy sort of thing. The other thing I thought on a, on a funnier end of the spectrum, if this show was a little more, just like tongue in cheek was that there was a dentist there. And I wondered if he just said like preexisting appointments and specifically like the magically would not have gone to her as a patient because he wouldn't want her that close to.

CC: I did notice that at a dental clinic.

Beep: So in my, in my little headcanon initially, I was like, oh, he might be sick. And I was like, oh, let's dismiss that. I'm like, he's going to the dentist. So that was a fun way to look at it. What I do love about this is not only, and they haven't shown it yet, but not only is this man in therapy obviously has, you know, gotten medications as well, which is not for everyone, but if he needed it fantastic.

I love that he's taking that assistance. That's being offered to him, but he's doing it right now in a bubble. He has this therapist and I'm assuming that he's been going for quite some time.

CC: Yeah, yeah. To the point that his, that, you know, given what we now know about Chief Hong, not only in his preferences of the village life versus the big city but also everything that's Seoul emotionally brings up for him that when you Eun-chol says he's been going to Seoul a lot, you know, it seemed like this throwaway line, but on rewatch, it is a clue to the audience that he has been going to see the psychiatrist for quite some time.

CC: And later on there's an epilogue where the psychiatrist, you know, it's clear that he's been going to him for a while because the psychiatrist is like, you know, you're doing a lot better. I think we can scale back the medication. Are you ready to face this in your therapy? So it's clear that we're kind of coming midstream into Chief Hong's mental health journey with therapy.

Beep: And see, that's what I really like about it, especially when they go back and show that he's been doing this one, I bet that there's not a psychiatrist therapist, whatever profession we want to call them in Gongjin, it's such a small place. They didn't even have a dentist. I highly doubt they have mental health

CC: Yeah, at same with an obstetrician. Right. So yeah.

Beep: And also for him to go specifically back to the place where this started is monumental. But as I mentioned before, everything he's been doing to this point is in a bubble. It's just him and this person that while I'm sure they've developed some sort of bond doesn't really have any impact on his day-to-day life.

So he's doing what a lot of us are able to do. He's opening up to a stranger, but there comes a point in therapy where there's only so much you can do in the office. You then have to learn to implement those things. Not only for yourself, but among the people that you're with. And that's the place where we're seeing him, which is not a place that we see in a lot of shows.

I mean, we don't see therapy in a lot of shows anyway, but especially we see them, you know, a lot of times saying like, okay, I know, I know I need to get help. And it starts at the beginning.

So it's really cool to see him essentially, in this transition point of, okay, you've gotten as far as you can go on your own now, are you ready to integrate what you've learned into your life and allow this community that you've built around you to carry some of your burdens off.

CC: Yes. Yeah, because, you know, there's, I love that part of it because you're right. To the extent of when we see characters on television in a mental health crisis, we often see them at a far more dramatic, psychological breaking point. And then it's about care that the characters who are in relationships in their lives, like there's a different version of the show, for example, where he's having a breakdown and it has to be the female character like Hye-jin islike, no, you need help. 

And then he goes to see someone like that is the far more to the extent that we see it on TV. It's a far more common story that we see. And Chief Hong is unique and I think actually groundbreaking when it comes in particular to being a male character, he did that on his own. And there's so much stigma, no matter where you're from I think particularly for men and, and our story is normalizing that, right? So here's a man. We get a glimpse when he wakes up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat of what he has been dealing with, but he hasn't opened it up to anybody about it, but he's somebody who on his own decided I need help and has regularly been going to get it.

And now that we know the depth of his mental health journey, that he is coming back from a point where he was in fact suicidal. Perhaps that's why he realized I can't do this by myself. But when it comes to his community, he's not opening up to anybody else.

Beep, you're right. That like we were skipping over that part of a mental health journey that we so often see on TV and, and you know, which for example, what the next show we're going to talk about is, is the main focus of the story and Ted Lasso, right? Coach lasso, opening up and getting comfortable with talking to a stranger about those kinds of inner most hurts.

But this is a different kind of mental health story. This is about once he's done that work on his own, then what happens?.

Beep: Yeah. Well, what we normally see on television and movies and media is we see the breakdown. And whatShin Ha-eun has chosen to focus on here. And I think it was amazing that she had the foresight to keep it away from the audience. Just the same way that it was kept away from the characters that she's not taking like the third person omniscient view here. She's, it's a little bit at a time because I think we would have seen him differently and not necessarily in a bad way, but the way he's framed would have changed. So what we normally see is the breakdown and what we get to see, that's a little bit more unique in this case is we're going to get to see the breakthrough.

CC: Yes. And the way we get to know people in real life is we are watching him function in the community in his everyday life, not knowing everything he's dealing with. He's in the car, eating food, singing with the ladies. He's having a great

Beep: The only one who's not having a good time in that car is Hye-jin.

CC:The grandmas are like my three kids in the back of the car with the food everywhere. And I was like, oh, I've been there Hye-jin. 

Beep: Right. And nobody has to go to the bathroom at the same time. And you're all just like you stop. And you're like, you're you sure you don't have to go? And they don't have to go. But then 15 minutes later, it's like, I can't hold it.

CC: Yeah. But what is so poignant and meaningful and has such sort of real-world thought provoking application is because of the way Shin Ha-eun, constructs the story:  we watch Chief Hong in his everyday life, helping other people, quote, unquote, being nosy, crossing the line, enjoying himself and all the ways that he does. We have entered the story midstream in his mental health journey. It just makes it even more thought-provoking to then apply that to real life and think about all of the things that we don't know that people are personally struggling with. And it's why this episode is such a gut punch to rewatch.

Beep: Yep. For everybody

CC: Yeah. And so just segue to the first gut punch… On first watch the near accident on the highway. Hye-jin is basically just like Mad Max. It's like, I'm going after this guy and I'm going to give him a piece of my mind. On first watch is kind of this hilarious, like, oh my god, she is crazy running this guy down.

And then when the guy insults her, it is the grandmother. Who's always the most concerned about propriety. That then goes off.

Beep: Oh, my gosh. She was hilarious.

CC:  And she’s the one who's always the most worried about like, oh, are you holding hands in public? Right. She's the most concerned about propriety, but she's going to let some off-color words rip when a guy is misogynistic to oh, to a woman

Beep: Hey, road rage is a real thing too.

CC: Right? So, so there's this whole comedic layer to that scene. Then you rewatch it. And when you rewatch that entire series of events, knowing, first of all, we know, we know a whole lot less about Hye-jin, but Hye-jin has been in a car accident. She has chronic neck pain from it. So that gives us a little bit of a clue as to why she is so pissed off about somebody driving recklessly.

But the Chief Hong of at all, if anyone listening has not gone back and rewatch this scene, go back and watch it and focus on Kim Seon-ho’s face. Because Chief Hong is back in the passenger seat. There was almost an accident. Hye-jin is screaming things at this reckless driver saying things like don't drive so recklessly or you're bound to cause an accident, don't cause harm to others. Chief Hong's face is sober and thoughtful and he's kind of looking off in the other direction. And it's so subtle that we kind of never really would've caught it on first watch. But once we know everything that must be going through that man's head as the survivor of a tragic car accident who watched his friend die in front of him. It's really, it is really hard emotionally to watch.

Beep: I mean all the stuff that not only has he already internalized in his own guilt, but then this makes it look like other people would judge him too, because that's the lens that he's looking through his skewed lens. This must feel like being read the riot act.

CC: Well and don't cause harm to others. It's now the overriding kind of guilt mantra that he lives with. As we talked about in the last pod, you know, he lives in a perpetual state of atonement, right. He views all of those series of that cataclysmic series of events in Seoul, all of the things he did or didn't do and it's about causing harm and about trying to make up for harm.

So you have the fact that, I mean, who knows in terms of PTSD, everything that, that harrowing car chase and her screaming, those things, and he's back in the passenger seat of a car brought up for him, but then on top of that, right, there's that whole layer of don't cause harm to others. Just anybody listening, if you haven't gone back, you have to go back and rewatch that scene and just watch Kim Seon Ho's face because you know, it just  is just a lot.

It’s so curious how much information the actors had at what point knowing sort of what the end of the story was, or if it's just the director giving them the direction, but there's so many layers to that scene that seemed purely comedic on first watch, 

Beep: Okay, but also let's address. And maybe let's just do it in a way for, for a moment as if it were a simple romantic gesture. Talk to me about mom arming.

CC: Ah, the mom arm. Oh, it kills me. It kills me! It killed me on first watch because it was a hint at not only maybe what she's feeling, but also just the kind of person Hye-jin is that it's her instinct to protect.

Beep: That is an automatic reaction. You cannot plan that.

CC: It's just your mom arming your heart just goes out as a reaction. Right. And then his reaction to it is so like, oh my he's internally screaming. Like, oh my god, she just mom armed him. Like, what does that mean? And the thing that is so lovely about the way that later on when he's asleep and she lowers the chair, he lowers his seat.

Chief Hong is someone who has been alone for so long that later on as Hye-jin puts it, it's like, you almost don't know how sad it is to be alone when you're sick.
And now he has someone. Putting her arm out to protect him. For anybody. But then if you think about the fact that this man has been through a tragic car accident, if you want to just add that feels grenade and throw that into it on top of at first watch it was such a subtle, like, okay, we're, we're slowly building this climb to them. But the fact that she does it and his reaction to it. I was freaking out the first time, but now it just makes me emotional because the way that they so often express their feelings for one another before they are even able to put it into words is through these acts of care.

Beep: Right. And you have this moment in, in most cases, he works to keep people out. He doesn't allow anyone to support him or protect him. And when you have this split second moment where nobody can actually make a conscious choice, she has protected him. He has been protected. And I think there's a certain kind of, maybe I liked that going on in there, you know, like, oh, maybe, maybe this isn't so bad.

CC: Right. Yeah. And I, you know, and I also love the gender role reversal there. It's a woman protecting a man, or sort of in the opposite direction when the grandmothers are peppering Hye-jin about her past history. And she says, I lost my mother again, watch Chief Hong’s face and he doesn't any time she talks about her past history.

And he will say at the end, you know, there's a lot of things that I didn't know about you. He notes it all. I lost my mother. I was young, so I almost don't remember it. And then what she doesn't know is that she has a man sitting next to her in the car who has lost both his parents and his grandfather. And so that's why what you were talking about the last time, Beep, the way that loss can engender empathy: he doesn't miss a beat. He doesn't miss it in the car and he doesn't miss it when they're out on the sidewalk later on in Seoul. 

Beep: But he doesn’t address it, which is interesting. He doesn't let her know, you know, Hey, I clocked you doing that. Like, he's just taking it all in and trying to figure out what he's going to do with that information.

CC: Absolutely. In fact, sometimes in ways where he will give her emotional cover. So he will note it and they will show us later on that when she is looking at the wedding party leaving, she's focusing on a mother and a daughter, but he will give her cover and say, oh, what is it like, you wish you were getting married too.

So he will not only register it, he internalizes it. He kind of is putting all of this information away in his head and maybe it changes what he thinks about her. But he doesn't push. Cause it's the last thing he would probably want anybody to do to him.

Beep: Right. And I'm sure that one, well, they're not in a place for this yet, per se, but he doesn't necessarily want to bring it up and question her about it because he's not in a place where he could talk about himself. 

CC: So that brings us to Hye-jin sitting at a table with all of her friends from dental school. As somebody who practiced law in DC and is dreading things like going to law school reunions where people all of the conversations are about bragging about how hard you worked, whether you made partner, how much money you're making, oh, how busy you are, this scene and the chatter at the table is so excruciatingly real.

CC: It makes my skin crawl.

Beep: Absolutely. And initially I just think, oh, these people are the worst. And then I think to myself, this is what every single conversation is like with either new people or people you haven't seen in a long time that you're not actually that close to. And then it just makes me really uncomfortable.

CC: Yeah. It's terrible in such a real way. Like the bragging about working on the weekends as if that's something to brag about.

Beep: Right. That's horrific to me.

CC: As opposed to the opposite end of the lifestyle that Chief Hong will then push back towards two of these women at the golf club to be like, nah, I just decided not to live my life that way. You know, I got a surfboard and the person I love and I work when I want. It’s just the most extreme version of this materialistic capitalistic, big city, chasing income, the high powered job status. It's all of it just rolled into one conversation and Hye-jin is absolutely like – she's defending herself, but she's, but if you notice it's not where she will be. This is a signpost in her character journey.

It's not like she's pushing back being like, yeah, I actually don't want to work all weekend. What she's saying is, well, actually I'm gonna earn a lot more money than you guys because my loans and everything else I'm paying for my overhead is far less. And I don't have to compete with anyone and my waiting room is filled with clients.

So, you know, it's not like she is defending Gongjin on its merits. She is defending her life choice. As of right now, still measuring herself against the same metrics of success,

Beep: Oh, she's 100% still speaking their language.

CC: Yeah, absolutely.

Beep: Because that's where she is in so many ways, you know, like we mentioned, she just keeps saying in, in one way or another, like this is temporary and yet she's defending to them, look how good of a temporary situation I made.

CC: Yeah. What I love too is the show plays with all of these like sort of different versions of a classic Cinderella story. They tease her for being late. And they're basically like, you know, in school where you're always called Cinderella because you were so punctual or like leaving early right before midnight.

There's obviously that part of the Cinderella story, but we now know that Hye-jin is also like Cinderella, the poor one who didn't have any clothes at university. And then you've got the way this episode ends that Chief Hong will save her shoe and return it to her. And that shoe was something that she paid for herself, which is a twist on the original Cinderella story. That was her symbol of better days to come. And so there's all of this like Cinderella deconstructing or parallels to the original fairy tale that is a thread throughout this episode.

But obviously throughout the series, because the big feminist twist is Cinderella is going to buy the prince of pair of shoes at the end of the show to propose. 

Beep: They're such equals, I know this is just kind of a random place to insert this, but I just love that the story always paints them as equals and paints them all the way up to, you know, the lead up to them, getting together, breaking up, upstate, whatever it is. They're always individuals first, which I just love you don't see that very often in TV either. Oftentimes one or the other specifically will exist for the sake of the romance.

CC: Yeah. And sometimes, you know, I mean, typically for decades, that's been the woman, right? As the love interest, but sometimes that can go the other way. And you kind of over-correct. They are both fully realized characters that each have their own character journey. And this wedding scene, as we said, is a big.
moment for the audience to register in on what Hye-jin currently values and how she measures success in her life. But you know, they're such equals and even in how, as we'll get into it, even as to how they come to a resolution with Gam-ri, they both have an equal part to play in it. 

Beep, talk to me about Hye-jin in episode three,alone, watching a woman say goodbye to her mother at a wedding. The obvious sadness and loneliness she feels watching it, Chief Hong, watching her from a distance and noting it and knowing what it's about based on what she said in the car and how this series ends with them taking their wedding photos in the midst of their found family.

Beep: I cannot imagine, no matter how tumultuous in many ways a mother daughter relationship could be. I can't imagine having not had my mother from childhood and the idea, especially in her, in Hye-jin's vision of success, which obviously here she's been talking a lot about professionally. There's also an expectation in any cultures I'd say it's probably pretty universal of marriage and of starting a family. And for her to look upon someone who's kind of being blessed with those things and to know, or to assume that she will never have that is  just so gut wrenching.

CC: Yeah. I mean, I think no matter what to have your mother there on your wedding day. Yeah. I mean to have your mother there on any big life event, graduation, wedding day, right? Like there's, there's a letter that Shin Ha-eun wrote in the script book, which are letters that Hye-jin and Chief Hong write to one another that are sort of like, I guess we can consider them as part of canon because they were written by the writer of the show, but they're in the script book. The letter she writes to Chief Hong is the night after they have confessed to one another and are together. And she talks about like her graduation day. And thinking that it wasn't, you know, I thought it'd be a big deal about whether my mother or not would be there, but all of these other life events that will always in some way be measured or defined by this absence. 

And what her father later on says is I just want her to have, you know, when she gets married, I want her to have a family. And, you know, he's saying it in sort of this very black and white literal way that because Chief Hong is an orphan, right? That she's not quote unquote marrying into a family, right? Like there's no one obviously to call mother and father   if she were to be with him. But what is so beautiful is this scene of the two of them standing apart. She's looking at this mother and daughter, he's looking at her. And the way the series is going to end is the two of them surrounded by their found family of Gongjin celebrating their wedding.

It's just a beautiful parallel. And this is sort of one, this is like this is where we're at. And then the bookend is that's where we're going to end up.

Beep: What's what I would say is sad about that especially the way her father has spoken to it was that he is her family. And for every opportunity that he's had, he hasn't really seized on that. And for him to kind of put it outside of himself and outside of her saying, you know, I hope she marries into, I hope she gets a family. That 's kind of sad. It's kind of hard to know just because it wasn't what you anticipated for her. You kind of robbed her of that a little bit too.

CC: Yeah. Cause he is, you know, he's loving, he clearly loves his daughter, but he is emotionally distant and you get the sense that it's actually the stepmother who pushed them, you know? Right. Is the outsider. Who's like, okay, I'm going to send them side dishes.

Beep: Yes. Which calls back actually to what you were just saying about so many parallels and flips of the Cinderella story, the step-mom is amazing.

CC: That's true. Yeah. The step mom is fantastic. You're right!

Beep: Cause that's part of that story too. Right? The mother passes away. So she stuck with the stepmother

CC: Yeah, absolutely. That's such a good point. They subvert Cinderella. They play with Cinderella in so many great ways. Absolutely. So I mean, what we should move to, the scene of when they're riding over the bridge, but really quickly, one of the things that I love that, that this show points out is it doesn't matter if it's the village or the big city, people are always going to gossip.

Beep: Oh yes.

CC: So they're surreptitiously taking photos and are going to send it to the class chat later.

Beep: Yeah. The only difference between. Like country and city used to be that in a small area, it would spread much faster, but now we have technology. 

CC: Yeah. So there's Gongjin group chat, which Mi-seon is a part of, and there's classmates group chat in Seoul. And the purpose of both of them is to just talk about everybody else.

Beep: Yeah.

CC: So if we can move to, this is another scene that seems like it was one thing on first watch. And then on rewatch is a total gut punch. So Chief Hong loses his phone as he is, want to do throughout this series. But this time, unlike later on, when Hye-jin wants to get ahold of him, she's now stuck with him on this ride home. And the first time I watched this, this ride home, where they are comparing wine on the Han River versus a rice wine on a boat in Gongjin or pasta or snow crab ramen, all of those sort of, if we want to bring it back to throw Chief Hong's “Gongjin is my Rome” like “Concord is my Rome.”

He's waxing romantically about the country life and Hye-jin is pointedly pointing out everything that she is sad that she's leaving behind going back, quote unquote to the boondocks. So it seemed like this really kind of like checking in on these are our two opposites and these are their two current life views clashing. Now it serves there's a lot of other levels to it. Again, the show is so detailed that it will remember what Hye-jin was talking about in terms of what she will miss when she was leaving the city. And in episode 10, when she is back in Seoul and drinking wine by the Han River, all of a sudden the river will seem narrower than she remembered. And instead of complaining about having to drive back to the boondocks, she will be clamoring to leave Seoul and drive home to Gongjin. So there's this sort of like, this is a scene that we can remember and sort of think back to on Hye-jin's character journey

Beep: Yeah. And I love that because I feel like what she comes to the realization of in episode 10 is it's not about the status. Cause a lot of that is what this is that she's speaking about. Oh, I wish I was, you know, over in this place, drinking wine on the river or whatever, it's part of what she's engrossed in right now is just her worldview in general.

And I feel like she comes to realize that a place is not just a place. One can be elevated by the people who are there.

CC: Yes. And also in a way that to tie it to some of their back and forth in this episode, she's in a rush, right? And he's like, enjoy the food, enjoy the view the way the shoe depicts Hye-jin's change in her point of view, how she has been changed by her experiences and Gongjin has literally changed her perspective when looking at the natural landscape or in what food she or drink, she enjoys, right? She's at this fancy restaurant in episode 10, eating lobster, and she's remembering eating snow crab with Chief Hong, right?

So the way they express how her point of view has changed. And there's even a line in this episode, the Chief Hong says to her people don't change easily. Well Hye-jin does and she goes through quite a journey. And the language of the show kind of begins with the seemingly comic road trip where she didn't have time to do any of those things or when she's leaving the city. And she's just thinking about the pasta you can eat up in the skyscraper. And all of a sudden it's going to be her yearning for home and for him. And it is going to be expressed in the food she misses or the way the natural landscape looks to her.

Beep: It absolutely reminds me of some Ani DiFranco lyrics from like way back where she says what matters more is the person that I bring, not just going to the same restaurant and eating the same thing.

CC: Mm. Yeah. I mean, that's, you know, if we're going to use it in the language of Gam-ri when she's looking back on her life. It's those meals that she shared and the people they were with and the beautiful places that she saw, and that's, you know, really this show’s thread of its theory about what life is really about. It's not about what the people at the table at the wedding were talking about.

Beep: No. And also what love is really about and not just romantic, literally all kinds of relationships.

CC: Yeah. Okay. So there's that whole side of how that scene is just such a wonderful setup marker for where Hye-jin is in her character journey. Then there's the Chief Hong of it all. And the director and the editing are so intentional when you compare this scene and put it side by side with the flashbacks we get in episode 15 to another time Chief Hong was on a bridge over the Han River. And it's very subtle, right? The song that's playing is kind of a little bit ethereal sounding, it's a little bit more contemplative. The shot is behind the car, on the bridge. On the right-hand side, you have the guard rail, very noticeably in a way that almost, I don't know, may have seen kind of like a throwaway shot to just establishing that they're on a bridge, but is now when you take into account episode 15, quite intentional because because there was a time in the past where Chief Hong was sitting in a hospital gown right behind that guardrail and Hye-jin was driving past him.

It just gives me chills, goosebumps, you name it. Then you sort of watch his face. And then as they're talking about the skyscrapers, Chief Hong says that the skyscrapers are suffocating. “I can't wait to go back to Gongjin.”

Beep: I can't think of a better word, truly that details the panic that he must be experiencing right now. He's keeping a pretty straight face, but my guess is there's an extremely elevated heart rate. He's having to be very deliberate about his breath. He's having a physical reaction that he cannot control, even though, obviously he's, he's trying to make it look like he's not having it, but it's just one more indication of those things that are not on the surface, the secret pain in which he's experiencing right in front of somebody.

CC: Right. And, and it also gives so much depth to what we thought was just, this is who Chief Hong is. He loves the country life, but he's on a bridge. It's hard to tell if it's the exact bridge but I don't think it really matters. He’s on a bridge over the river where he almost ended his own life.

And what he has always said is that Gongjin saved him. And so when Hye-jin is extolling the glamorous city, he constantly has his touch point is Gongjin. I would rather be on the boat. You know, I would rather be there doing that, that anywhere, but then, I mean, meeting then here,

Beep: Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Now we know it's not just, Hey, I'd rather be in Gongjin than anywhere else. It's like, no, get me as far away as possible. Not only distance wise, but lifestyle wise, get me away from here.

CC: Right. Get me to the place to save my life.

Beep: Right. And I was thinking about that ride itself and it's brutal. It's brutal when you understand what he's gone through.

I don't deign to assign people with disorders, but I'd say it's pretty clear that given the level of trauma that he is. That he has PTSD or some version of it. Let's just say, you know, whatever he's, he's dealing with trauma and that can manifest itself in ways that you do not expect and ways that you don't want to accept.

It's I just, I mean, it's back to the suffocating thing. I can't, well, unfortunately I can imagine what he's going through physically watching it this morning. Now that I knew about it, I got the same thing. It made me so apprehensive. My chest just tightened because there are different kinds of trauma, right?

Just like we were talking about there's different kinds of pain. There are acute incidents where something major happens and then there are the chronic incidents where something is happening and building up over time and just keeps poking at you. And he's had both, he already had so much trauma as a child, losing his parents, losing his grandfather, later on, you know, the things that he feels like he's done the guilt that were ongoing, losing his brother, essentially being blamed by his brother's wife.

I mean, there's so many things in his case, especially that are huge and were huge among themselves. And I know what that is. Like. It is a real true human thing to have that much trouble. And tie it to a place. So where that happened, I literally have a city that I cannot go to in my life because of something that was so traumatic, I guess, in a way, maybe it's good that some of it got left there, but I cannot go to that place.

Now. I assume if I absolutely had to, for some reason it may be possible, but I'm never going to choose to go there. I think what I would call respect for him and the fact that he's powering through that seemingly quite often, based on, you know, choles response earlier that he's been going there a lot.

So he is facing not only his internal fears, but his external fears, things that happened to him physically. He's putting himself through that let's assume weekly because he cares enough about taking care of himself in a way that I don't even think he realizes.

CC: Yeah 

Beep: I was thinking about this morning, when I look at his guilt, when you know that he's going by there and it's super traumatic because you know, he was ready to commit suicide, but we now know why he was already committed. It was because of what he has taken on as the pain that he caused something that it's his fault, the security guard, his brother, he internalized all these things.

As you know, if it were not for me, they would not have happened. And I think what's really interesting after an incident like that is the pain is always there. It's just like you were saying earlier, that ache is such a beautiful word for that. It is always there after you have an experience like that, it may not, it may be a small hum instead of a loud scream, but it's there.

When I thought about this this morning, having gone through something like this, when that initial pain, when it hasn't died down yet, it is constant. You are thinking about it constantly.

It's almost like in certain situations, you don't even know how you're accomplishing anything else because that is at the forefront of your mind. And there's this weird increase in guilt that happens because the only time you can identify. That you've stopped thinking about it as much is when you do think about it and you realize that you weren't thinking about it.

CC: Yeah. Like it's the same as if you've been missing, someone who died and then you realize you went a certain amount of time and you did not think of them. 

Beep: Didn't think about it at all. And that's a relief in the healing process, but is terrifying from a guilt perspective. If you have this regret, because what that means is your mind is allowing you, or almost forcing you to start moving on, whether you want to.

CC: Yeah. And, and just to pick up on the PTSD, you know, and, and we're using of course that term loosely. So Chief Hong coping still with the aftereffects of the trauma that he went through. He has a nightmare after this trip where he wakes up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat and, and has to take the prescription.

And that shot of him alone in the kitchen, in the middle of the night is so painful and solitary. But then what I think is interesting is the car ride home after they've sort of gotten over the bridge. The first instance, we've seen a lot of Chief Hong being sleepless, the first instance where he falls asleep for hours because it's dark later and he has slept through several traffic jams asHye-jin has noted.

But the first time we have seen him been able to sleep at ease is next to Hye-jin. And next to being sort of her second act of just kind of, you know, I don't just instinctually. She's not really thinking about it. She doesn't even think he's watching when she lowers the seat and kind of smiles at him, you know, being asleep in the passenger seat of the car.

And he does see it out of the corner of his eye. You know, the fact that he thinks back and remembers that as significant when he's making the candle, the fact that he's able to fall asleep and rest for hours, despite, you know, the car coming to a standstill, probably in traffic multiple times is sort of the first hint that he finds a solace and comfort by her side while he has been struggling with alone.

Beep: And may I also point out it's in a car that is huge. We see him not being able to sleep in his own bed now to go to a car, which is symbolic of these things that have happened. I remember I was in a car accident when I was 16 and I truly thought when that happened, I would never drive again. I was terrified.

It was awful. And you do you move on, you know, from, from anything that wasn't so much emotional as it was just was truly terrifying,

CC: Yeah, yeah.

Beep: But he is sleeping in a car.

CC: Yeah.

Beep: You know, that he's so traumatized by, and if that's not an indication that whether he intends to or not, he feels safe in some way, then I don't know what is.

CC: Yeah. That's a good point. Oh, the details! It's crazy. Ah all right. Before we make ourselves cry, but with Gam-ri and Chief Hong, I just want to point out a few things that this episode just in passing, because we'll end up talking about it in future episodes, but Shin Ha-eun is juggling a lot of balls in this episode.

So there's all these layers that we talked about, but she's also setting a lot up in terms of other characters. So there are a lot of love stories. Both family friendship and romantic in Hometown Cha Cha Cha. And one of them is the delightful romance between Mi-seon and Eun-chul. And they're first scene of truly meeting one another is so them in how she's like, oh wow, you look pretty hot in a uniform, but also I'm going to say in front of somebody else, how terrified you were in the dentist's office. And I'm just gonna say that all out loud and just put all of that out there. And he's like, so adorably embarrassed and at a loss for words, because of her. And you're just like, yep, that's them. 

Beep: Well, he was their first patient. But he came in plain clothes. So now she
she's like, hello officer.

CC: And there's, there's other really subtle sort of the story of Haw-jung and Young-guk’s divorce and their son and the way he is so stoic and acting so grown up. Yi-jun observes his parents bickering in front of him at his birthday celebration, and the way he's like, you know, we really don't have to do this in the future.

Now when you think of the way he finally lets out his emotions and crying at the end, when they get back together.That's a scene where, you know, you kind of clocked as he was looking at them. That he is mature and registering what's going on with his parents. But we had no idea sort of like how we could only imagine sort of how deep that hurt went, but also just the way that these two ex-spouses both talk to one another, which is harshly, but also he misses her cucumber kimchi. She packs it for him. And it's an act of care, even when her words are harsh and Chief Hong later on kind of clocks it and is kind of smirking like, oh, you too. So Shin Ha-eun is doing this even with the secondary characters. Setting up so much in terms of not only this other love triangle, which like our primary love triangle is going to subvert many expectations in a great way. But also these other love stories. So there's a lot of other setup going on kind of in these like scenes with secondary characters.

Beep: Yeah. And when you're looking at the family dynamic, it's so devastating to see that. Yes, even though when I was six, I was bothered I'm clearly nine now. So it's fine. A nine-year-old shouldn't be the one taking the temperature of the room, trying to keep things under control, saying that we don't have to do this because he's trying to essentially protect the adults in the room. That is really sad.

CC: Yeah. But unfortunately that is often the case of divorce. You often get a front row seat to how flawed your parents are. And sometimes kids are the ones that have to act like the adults. So yeah, it's painful. It was painful on first watch, but it's even more painful now that we know how much he was holding in 

Beep: Yes. 

CC: Just like our Chief Hong, you know, if our, Yi-jun is our tiny Chief Hong and Bo-ra is our tiny Hye-jin. You have those parallels. 

Beep: And you know, they're going to get together in their thirties.

CC: In the Hometown Cha Cha Cha cinematic universe. 

Beep talk to me about Chief Hong jumping on a scooter with Gam-ri.

Beep: Okay. Logistically, I was super concerned about this, what I saw at this time. And I don't know why I didn't think about it before, but I was like, before I noticed the way it came up, I was like, oh my god does that thing of like more wheels or something because she is not going to be able to balance the two of them.

CC: He's a very tall man!

Beep: And it's very difficult to do that on a scooter. Like even more so than a motorcycle. When she first pulled up, I was like, wow. She's like pretty flexible to even, you know, hold herself up. And now he's getting like, you don't understand how concerned I was about this till I saw there were two back wheels. And then I was like, okay, I'm all right.

CC: Oh, it's so adorable. It's just agh! Like her little helmet, you know, like you've got she's 80 and you've got this 35 year old man jumping on the back of the scooter and putting his arms around her to hold on. Like, it's just like, it's so adorable. It's like, I can't handle it!

Beep: And making such a show out of how he holds onto her. Cause she's like, make sure it's tighter when like, literally it's not going to fall because, you know, I did realize there were more wheels, but she plays with them and then he so dramatically like holds on even tighter. It's just, it's so sweet.

CC: It's the best. All right, so we're going to put on our big girl pants, we're going to dig into all of the ways that this episode in particular really sets up Gam-ri's letter at the end of the series that these two are family. They are mother and son, grandmother, and grandson. And one of the very subtle ways is that when Chief Hong is walking out, the way he has been paid is with a piece of halibut and they're joking around, oh, you're just trying to get me to cook for you. But this is a man who walks out and when he gets a piece of fish, he thinks I want to share it with Gam-ri. 

Beep: Mhm.

CC: Whereas Gam-ri drove all the way to Seoul to bring her son, her specialty, the marinated crab. Not only did he not have time to even share a meal with her when she drove all the way there, he hasn't even eaten it since.

Beep: He didn't need it later. 

CC: And so even again, just bringing back to community, sharing food, how we express love is really important in this. When and how people share food with one another even to let us know sort of what's going on with Chief Hong and Hye-jin's romantic relationship. So it's really so poignant now, knowing how these two feel about one another to watch them share these meals and joke around and tease one another. Because that's like, that's family: sharing food.

Beep: And ribbing each other. 

CC: Yeah. And, but then, always the layer that Chief Hong is an orphan and he doesn't have any, any biological family. Even grandparents, he has no one.

And there is kind of this thread in his emotional reaction, which he will allude to later throughout this episode of his emotion about why won't she accept this money for me, you know, is a, cause I'm not her actual son.  That is sort of, if you think about it, this episode and the scenes, when he reads Gam-ri's letter and processes that are almost like these two indirect bookends of a conversation they're having with one another. Because in this episode, Du-sik is letting Gam-ri know that he thinks of her as family. You know, the fact that he is so worried about her, the fact that he comes running when she needs porridge. Even when she pours water in his face, he goes to extreme lengths to pay for try and cajole Hye-jin to do it secretly, call her son anything to carry her literally on his back while she is hitting him to the dental office.

All of it is because he loves her and it's all kind of indirect, you know, like when he says, why won't you accept my money? It's all indirect. And she's never going to really say it to his face either. It's going to come in a letter after she's gone. So it's kind of this, there's no doubt about the way the two of them feel about one another, but there's also this kind of bittersweet indirect way that they let each other know without truly ever saying it out loud to each other's face, which is frankly more like life, right?

Like, you know, there's some more trite television shows where we would have had that conversation face to face, but instead it's sort of these subtle indirect ways. 

Beep: Well, and then there's a version where you have the subtle indirect ways and then it's never mentioned again.

CC:  Yeah.   I mean, there's a lot of comedy too. When she douses him with water, it is hilarious. Like, you know, I mean, it's just, and then he's like hiding behind the wall and try to finish his thought. And she's just like throwing more water out over the wall.

Like there's   nothing funnier than an 80 year old woman dumping water on a 35 year old, very tall, handsome man's face. And he's like running away, scared from her. So there's a lot of comedy to it. 

But  when he comes back and he says, you accept money for I'm your son, but why not from me? From his end, it's like this sadness or insecurity or misinterpretation. She's not going to accept the money from him because she needs to go on her own journey that she's worth it after sacrificing most of her life for others, but he interprets it because he's not her biological family. Maybe that's what it's about.

And he's going to voice that later when he mourns her in the finale. I always thought that that's why and then he's going to break open when she answers him. 

When he in kind of a beautiful way that, you know, we'll talk about how Chief Hong and Hye-jin internalize the wisdom that they share with one another and kind of think about it and mull over it. There's this beautiful kind of circle of Hye-jin talking about losing her mother and that parents, you know, being a good parent is taking care of yourself. You know, making sure you're around when Chief Hong voices that to Gam-ri, it's indirectly saying, because I view you as my parent.

Beep: And I need you around.

CC: and I need you around and, and the camera lingers on Gam-ri's face.

And the though she hears those words after the, after the audience has been let in on the pain of How her biological son doesn't have time to eat with her, but it's Chief Hong who's sitting and eating with her. How her, how her son is like, money's tight, I think you should just get the dentures. where it's Chief Hong, who is the one who's like, take my money, please do it, calling her son.

And she kind of it's this moment where you see her absorb, oh, that's how he feels about me.

Beep: Yeah, he is expressing to her in a way that she realizes this is like you would take from your son because you feel like, and he in theoretic, you feel like it is his duty, or it is kind of a thought process that it is the duty to take care of, of your elderly family. But Chief Hong is doing it out of pleasure.

Essentially. I want to take care of you because you mean that much to me.

CC: Right out of love. And, that is the scene where he tells her indirectly, you are my family and she's going to answer him. And I believe the editing even cuts back to her in this moment, when you have the voiceover of Gam-ri's letter in the finale she's going to answer him After she's gone and say, you are my son and you are my grandson. And they're, even sort of extends this beautiful circle further because at Gam-ri's funeral, this son that we have only heard about or heard his voice on the phone, because he's distant, right? When he finally comes back to Gongjin, it will be after his mother is gone and he will be struggling with that guilt.

You know, why couldn't I have made the time while she's, while she was here. And Chief Hong is the one who's going to sit with him on that step and give him the benefit of his very hard-earned wisdom about guilt and sit with son as he sort of processes his guilt over not making time for her. So you've got sort of this conversation across many episodes between a found mother and son, grandmother, and grandson, but you also have all of these, like concentric circles of wisdom,

Beep: Yes. Yeah. And the way that they connect to the main story, I feel like they always connect not only secondary characters, but in this case kind of a tertiary character. I mean, her son's really not much of a character except to serve a purpose in contrast, but for them to bring him back later and show that side of it is kind of genius.

CC: Yeah. And so I wanted to move to the talk at night by the water between Chief Hong and Hye-jin. He was understandably from his perspective, a bit taken aback at how Hye-jin could have been so kind of harsh

Beep: She was extremely brash. 

CC: Yeah when speaking to Gam-ri, which seemed like not knowing anything, that it kind of came out of nowhere and she was just being like a bit much.

Yeah, so she was very. terse and basically like, okay, if it's not a matter that you don't have the money, because we know Hye-jin from the very beginning of this story, the whole reason why she's in Gongjin is because she's worried about some of the elderly spending something, spending money on care, they don't need.

Right. We know that. but as soon as Gam-ri is basically like, no, it's not that I own a lot of land. And I held my house is that I'm not going to spend that money. It triggers that ache in Hye-jin about her own mother and she just shuts down and it's like, okay, well then this, this is over.

We're done. And Chief Hong is like, what the hell?

Beep: Yeah. Understandably. So in this, with the amount of knowledge that he has, I mean, she was coming across pretty harsh.

CC: Yeah. So we have, now this is the first time that they sit under this lighthouse. And this lighthouse is a place that we see Chief Hong a lot alone when he needs to think. But it's also where the two of them have some very important moments in their relationship. Obviously it's where they're going to first say their feelings out loud.

It's also where Chief Hong is going to answer why Gam-ri means so much to him. It's the first kind of heart to heart because they're both bearing a little bit of themselves. Certainly Hye-jin, she's not coming flat out and saying it, but he knows what she's talking about. And she's articulating a lot of things out loud that I don't know if she would with other people.

It's just kind of the first time that she's indirectly opening up about why she was so terse in the office. And Chief Hong has enough information to know from the car ride that it's about her mother. But she asks him, why are you doing this? You know, like you're not, you're not, you're not her guardian. So like, what's your deal? He's like a dog with a bone about this, you know? And I think it's really interesting how this show plays with this idea, this relationship between selflessness and selfishness and almost that almost carrying selflessness to the point that you don't take care of yourself when people are depending on you, Hye-jin actually calls that selfishness.

Beep: Sure. Yeah, it's a negative feedback loop. 

CC: Yeah. Which is so real. Like I, you know, I can't tell you how many, for example, I have three kids and mothers that I talked to, where we are up to date on all of our kids' pediatric appointments and all of that, but we've forgotten or haven't had the time to make our own physical checkup, you know? So that is, and that's a very mundane everyday example. And so I think that's really, that's a really interesting, you know, that there should be a limit, but taking care of yourself is not selfish.

Beep: No, it is absolutely not.

CC: And what I think is interesting here is Hye-jin when she says, do you know what it means to be a good parent?

It is staying healthy for a long time. She is letting Chief Hong in just a little bit more on what her quote-unquote to what her ache is, right? Her mother's absence. And later, while he's still sitting there, he's going to think back to when the narrative is going to let us know that he knew what she was looking at at that wedding that he knew it wasn't about, oh, she just wishes she was getting married. No, what she was looking at was like a mother caressing a daughter's. And that's when he, he's almost emotional when he is like, no, you're not okay. 
And that's because he's not okay either.

Beep: It's  sad to see how she, I mean, she's got a bit of like projection here, obviously, and it's sad to see how much she's viewing this almost through a child's eyes, because that's how she processed her mother's death, you know, when she was younger. And I think a lot of that, she hasn't, she holds onto a lot of anger, not specifically at her mother, but at the situation.

And the one thing that she sees or that she assumes her mother could have helped was to stay. That's all she needed to do for me to have a mother, you know? And it's interesting how she grows through this as well.

CC: Yeah. And you know, it's something that I don't think we end the story with like a complete picture, but there is, there is some, there is something to Hye-jin's perception from her childhood that perhaps there will, and you don't know if it's like, that's just what a child was thinking or perhaps it was because, you know, obviously her family was financially strapped just based on her experience going to college. So there's a perception on her part that, you know, I don't think we, as the audience ever really have sort of like that full objective narrative to check it against, but that there was perhaps something more her mother could have done medically to take care of herself, but because of cost chose not to.

Beep: And that seems to be hinted at, in this episode, perhaps, but only in shots. So there's not, there's not that textual confirmation, but it does kind of show when there's, you know, an over a, sorry, a voiceover or whatever, or just transitioning between scenes that it appears that may have been her mother's issue, that she, she could have gotten more help if they had the money.

And so now there's a selfishness is taking place here because. Wait, you, you do have the money and you're still not doing this, then I can't do anything for you. 
You’re making bad decisions.

CC: Yeah.   And it's triggering, you know, all of her internal pain. Now, what I think is interesting is that obviously we have talked a lot of, sort of the subtler interior journey in this episode that Chief Hong. But this hedgehog theory with respect to Hye-jin, Bo-ra goes to see her.  And listen, Hye-jin may be sort of the prickly hedgehog outsider, but not all adults let a seven or eight year old come over and hang out to visit the hedgehog that they're taking care of.

Beep: Absolutely not. No.

CC: Kids know instinctually. Who's who's a jerk and who's not. 

Beep: And dogs. 

CC: Yeah, absolutely dogs and kids. Right. They know. So Bo-ra articulates the hedgehog theory of Hometown Cha Cha Cha, which is, and I love this Shin Ha-eun takes something that is like this. She can take things that are so ordinary and everyday, and then make them transform them into something that is this profound wisdom about life. That people are like, people can be like hedgehogs too. And what Bo-ra says is, you know, once you form a bond with them, hedgehogs will lay their spikes down and let you pet them, you know?

But the message there is they have to trust you first, then the, then they let you in. And so Hye-jin's first reaction to this whole situation with Gam-ri is to kind of, I don't know, it's kind of like the it's not quite lashing out, but she just kind of shuts down and then she's just basically like, okay, well then I'm not going to deal with this again because I've already been here with people who don't think that they should take care of themselves. Right. So then she starts to make this connection that is rooted in empathy. The episode began with Hye-jin missing her mother Gam-ri is this maternal figure in the town and pain, like in her, in her pain about her mother, this is the situation with Gam-ri triggers that,

Beep: Especially seeing the mother send off her daughter after her wedding.

CC: Right. So this is already something where, you know, if you're going to talk about like a toothache or like a physical ache, it's already a little bit more painful. Then she goes into, you know, the visit with Gam-ri and Gam-ri is just sort of being like, no, it's not that I don't have the money. It's not, I'm not going to spend it.

She storms away from Chief Hong. And then she remembers as a little girl buying her mother's favorite food and her mother being sick, throwing up in the bathroom, unable to eat it. And when she is sitting in the restaurant with Mi-seon eating squid, she's literally trying to imagine being Gam-ri chewing it. And it's like she's literally trying to, in empathy, put herself, she was in the car, saw the Gam-ri, couldn't eat the snack that the grandmothers brought. She knows what she's thinking about. So if my teeth hurt, you know, my teeth are fine. This is actually hard to chew, right? Like she's physically trying to put herself in the shoes.

Beep: I love the level though, of denial that she's attempting to stay in because she keeps asking me. So I'm like, oh no, this is really hard, right? Like as if it's not cooked properly, it's not normally like this, this, this can't be the way that squid always is. She's trying so hard to stay in her thought process while at the same time, you know, she's every bite she's just going. I am so wrong.

CC: Yeah. And she's like imagining what it's like for this poor woman that can't eat her favorite food. So she keeps thinking about all of the things that Chief Hong has said to her. Right. Even if she disagrees with Chief Hong in the moment, Hye-jin usually continues to mull over what he has said as he does. They are having the disagreement on the lighthouse and she's not willing to sort of do things sort of surreptitiously and let him pay for it and not tell Gam-ri. So they haven't come to a solution, but they both walk away from that conversation thinking about what the other one said. And despite her complaints about Chief Hong being nosy and crossing the line, I don't know many dentists that come to visit their patients at night at their home to try and convince them to have a treatment.

 And so Hye-jin for somebody who complains about crossing the line a lot, she part of her character journey is that part of being in a community means sometimes you're going to be nosy and you're going to go over and try again.

Beep: Yeah. And I think what really stuck out to me is that as Hye-jin is going outside, she says, you know, I came to have a talk, but we just had dinner, which means she didn't bring it up the whole time. And she was just sitting there enjoying the company of a maternal figure, which is kind of.

CC: Oh, it's so beautiful. Like if you contrast how alone and sad she was standing in the city, looking at that mother and daughter, and that going back to quote unquote, the boondocks that she didn't want to go back to. She is now sitting in this grandmother's home across from her, from a table, eating a home cooked meal. Hye-jin’s lonely life in the apartment involved a lot of takeout. Remember, like, it's just this there's that shot of the two of them in profile eating. And it's just, it's so simple. And again, it's people connecting through like sharing a meal and it's filling a void for both of them because Gam-ri’s family doesn't have time to eat with her. And Hye-jin, doesn't have a mother.

Beep: And what struck me though, as the only thing that was kind of sad in that moment was because, all that was shown in this scene was of course Gam-ri bragging on Chief Hong and how she was in a TV show. And it was because he was able to read Chinese that, you know, she found out about her father that is the bulk of the conversation. But when she initially gives Hye-jin the food, she specifically points out how soft. And it made me a little sad because obviously if is constantly having to eat what she's cooking, that means she's having had to alter what she even makes.

CC: Yeah. I have to soak it and broth and it's the moisture, right? She's living even the meals she cooks around this chronic pain in her mouth, which all of the characters are doing, whether it's a physical or emotional ache. Right.

Beep: Yes, right now they're paying every one of their pain is at a level where it is greatly affecting their lives.

CC: Exactly. What I love about that line from the car. You can't know your future until you know, your history is that it ties so beautifully with. The video of the recorded show because she never knew, Gam-ri never knew what that document said about her father until the genius little boy do chic was able to read it for her because he knew how to read Chinese characters. He knew how to read Chinese at a very young age. And so that, that is like so elegant in that it picks up thematically with what Gam-ri was saying. Gam-ri wasn't actually like, it came off a little bit like a lecture by Hye-jin, but it actually comes from personal experience. Like, I didn't even know my own family's history until this little boy read it for me.

But then also it's hinting at all of the history that Hye-jin doesn't know about Chief Hong. This is her first glimpse at this. She seeing him literally in the past, right. That television program is from two years ago at Gam-ri's house. And it's giving her a glimpse of all of the things that she doesn't know about him and all of the things that he can do.

Beep: Right. He becomes a bit more intriguing. It’s kind of like it's adding to the certifications, like now, now the kid reads Chinese too.  Like my goodness. What, what is his deal?

CC: Yeah. And it also gives Hye-jin some idea of, you know, she was like, why are you doing this? Well now she understands truly, you know, Gam-ri has been in his life since he was a child. 

The conversation that they have outside on the front step, where Hye-jin talks about, you know, she is connecting with Gam-ri about her physical pain, of having an ache in your mouth that nobody can see with her emotional pain about her mother. And she's like your favorite thing to eat a squid. And my mother's favorite thing to eat was the sausage. And she's connecting with her through their different but mutual pain. And then she offers just to bring back what we were talking about in the last podcast about, you know, kind of different definitions of philanthropy or good acts Hye-jin offers Gam-ri her time. She's like you have to pay for the materials, but when it comes to the actual dental work, Hye-jins going to do that for free and

Beep: Also not common. House visits, free care.

CC: No, which we, you know, the only person, the only one in the only person in this show up until this point, who knows that Hye-jin is this generous, a person is Mi-seon.

CC: When Mi-seon is making fun of her for giving to charity, –and charitable organizations that is emotionally distant, right? Even when she's lost her job, she's still keeping up with her monthly charitable donations. Now, Hye-jin is doing what only Mi-seon knew was always inside of her, it is now manifesting in doing things.

This is the first time she's going to do something for somebody that she knows in her community. And it's going to go on and on and on for many people, right?

Beep: It's also spot on for this to occur in the same episode, that was all about how much money she makes or how much money everyone makes and the bragging over the status and the materials and everything.

CC: Totally, dentists that are worried about making lots of money. Just they can move back to Seoul. Don't give away free dental care.

Beep: No. 

CC: So what I love is that the two future, most important women and Chief Hong's life sit there and agree. Yes, he is very nosy.

Beep: In, and at least the English translation Gam-ri for says like her sentences. He is precious, but also very nosy. And Hye-jin says, I agree with you there. And I like to think unbeknownst to her, she's agreeing to the whole thing.

CC: Yeah. So then just to tie it up, I think Chief Hong was already realizing that there's a lot about Hye-jin, that he doesn't know, but man, if you wanted to kick off some feelings and Chief Hong, it would be to go to extraordinary lengths to make sure that his beloved Gam-ri got the care that she needed.

And so his face and the way he is lost in thought when he is at Gam-ri's side, helping her recover with the porridge and realizes that it was Hye-jin who made this all happen. And Gam-ri says she is like ice on the outside, but inside there is a good heart. And he's just so distracted. She's like, dude, are you gonna get the porridge out or not?

Like, he's just like thinking through I really got to grapple with what I'm noticing and the little she's letting me in on and what, what I see like on the surface. Which is what he has been doing since episode one. But to hear it from as trusted and wise, the sources, Gam-ri, and see what Hye-jin made happen, that he on his own couldn't write and getting

Beep: She's confirming the thoughts that he has had. And that's almost a bad thing because he. He was hoping the, the more he kept watching that she might prove him wrong. And Gam-ri's like, no, she's kind of amazing. She just, she must've been through a lot. 

CC: Hmm. 

Beep:Like, no, I thought that too. I'm not ready for this.

CC: Damn it. Now I'm going to add that to the feelings I'm trying to put in a box? What I also love about that line she's like ice on the outside is that is imagery that the director's going to play with at the end of this episode. And the end of the next episode, at the end of this episode, it's the popsicle melting.

And at the end of the next episode, it's the ice cube and the ice bucket shifting and melting. It's just one of the closing shots. So it's sort of, they're playing with all of these, whether it's like a headshot with spikes or ice melting, that is where we're at in Hye-jin's character journey. This tough exterior seemingly stand offish.
What is underneath is a person with a really, really big heart. She just lost her mother, because of the way she was treated in university, because of her sort of distant relationship with her father. 

Why I love Hye-jin is clear that she has always had all of this love inside of her and nowhere to put it,

Beep: Yeah. That's that amazing quote about grief. Grief is just love with no worries.

CC: Yeah, from Wandavision.

Beep: And that's what it is. I mean, she obviously loved her mother. She loves her father and she has nowhere to put that he won't accept it and her mother's gone.

CC: Yeah, which is why she's  completely bonkers when she and Chief Hong finally admit that they love each other. She's like, oh my god. I get to like, show someone that I love them? Like all the time? I'm going to make lists, like, what are all the things we're going to do? 

All right. So the ice melting brings us to this scene at the end of the episode where the lights go out. The end of this episode is where I personally went from. wow, I'm really liking the show to, oh, no now I'm obsessed. And it's really for two reasons.

I think this show excels at these quiet moments. It’;s almost like a play – it's just two characters talking. It's just the two of them in a room quietly having a conversation. So that relies completely on acting and the writing. And it always feels natural almost like we're being led in on an intimate moment of two real people talking, if that makes sense.

I mean this whole episode, actually, between what Hye-jin does for Gam-ri and what Chief Hong does both for Gam-ri and for Hye-jin going above and beyond and being kind and doing things for other people. For me, it's one of the reasons why I love these two lead characters so much. They are the antithesis of the antihero. They're selfless and going above and beyond doing things for other people. So

Beep: It's funny though, that they don't want anyone to know. So what I think makes this, like one of these, you know, the conversation after the lights go out so special is that we do get to see the thoughts of both parties that the other is not privy to. So when we're seeing the conversation, we're able to interpret it differently than the ones having it, which I love that.

CC: We're always let in on this the way the show plays with point of view and when it gives us information, even throughout this episode, right. It gives us piecemeal all of the things that Chief Hong noticed usually after the scene has already occurred. 

Beep: Right. So it let us make our own judgments about what was happening. And then it allowed us to see it from a different perspective. When we saw what he was actually thinking,

CC: And then we were like, oh, maybe we're wrong. 

Beep: I love a good old, maybe we were wrong.

CC: Yeah. Right. So, if we piece together everything that we know and kind of go through this, do you want to have some ice cream with me scene? Chief Hong is, was night fishing. Like again, Henry David Thoreau who literally would fish at midnight and then write poetically about it. He is night fishing on those rocks. And then he, what we'll see is hilariously thought that there was like a leg in the water.
It's like at first you think it's like a horror scene. And then he's like, oh my god, no, it's her freaking shoe. Like what were the chances? Right? Like the way this show plays with fate and the elements, right? The ocean has literally brought back Cinderella's shoe. 

And what, what we don't know is that he has spent days after knowing what he, what she did for Gam-ri. He has spent days researching on the internet, how to restore a wet shoe. I just –Beep I freaking lost my mind at the end of this episode.

Beep: It's just, like you said, just a second ago that we always see the scene before we see what was behind it. So he's just like, go check the fuse box and he found it and then she's like, oh, it was just in the street or whatever, not sense that he blows it off as when really it's been his project for days.

CC: That's the thing, the thing that drives me that makes me like, want to throw a pillow joyfully, is that when he walks in and it's a blackout. So  there's already, as soon as they opened the door and there's like a blackout and her hair's wet, there's like this sexual tension moment at the door, like, oh, oh, it's you?

Beep: There's a, there's an electricity that we're not getting out of the power lines.

CC: But then the thing that's hilarious is he's like, oh, you don't have any candles. And then he's like, okay,  he whips out a candle that he made from scratch. She's like, well, what else, what else do you have in that bag? Oh, I don't know your shoe that he restored from the ocean. And like when on YouTube watch tutorial stuff, that was newspaper dried with a hairdryer on cool. It was like multi day DIY project. That's what else he has in the backpack! So that when you rewatch it, you're like, oh my god, he's like literally the best boyfriend without being a boyfriend in the world right now.

Then they sit down. And, you know, I love sort of this, this end of this episode, but throughout they kind of play with this metaphor or imagery of Chief Hong bringing light into Hye-jin's life. He gives her a candle at the end of the episode, the lights obviously go on when she puts both, when Cinderella has both her shoes on, but also at the end of episode nine, where both suitors are headed toward her to confess she's focused on the street light.

The streetlamp that's been fixed because of him. So it's sort of like this imagery the show builds and builds and builds and kind of like weaves throughout. 

But they sit down and he had no idea that she took the headshot again and he's like, oh my god, what is that? And again, things that he didn't know, right? Hye-jin is the kind of person that takes in two kids in the village and takes care of their hedgehog. Again, not something most adults would do. And then we are let in on two things that are pretty important. The first one he says out loud, you know, you and the hedgehog are both very similar.

“You're both spiky.” And I love the way that they pick up that thread from a Bo-ra. And clearly Chief Hong has been thinking a lot about what he knows and doesn't know about Hye-jin, but the great irony of course is so are you sir!

Beep: Yeah,  this is the epitome of takes one to know one.

CC: Right? Like the whole second half of this show is going to be, Hye-jin navigates all of your spikes about not wanting to talk about your past. But then he says hinting towards that. And again, we'll be picked up on talking to both of the children who own the hedgehog is when she says, you know, I was surprised you didn't take the hedgehog in. “I don't take in anything that's alive.”

Beep: Mhm That's hard early on. I know even, you know, back in episode one, they told, 'cause she said, why don't you ask Chief Hong and take it? And they said, he already said no, which was, you know, that's surprising for his character. And then you get here saying I don't take anything that's alive. And you're kind of, you know, really still don't don't know what's going on.

It made me a little bit uncomfortable because I was concerned about his, status with animals. I was like, wait a minute, you don't like animals. Like I was, I was a little concerned there. So I do like to be able to go back and understand, oh, it's more of an emotional connection that you don't want to have versus you trying to tell me you don't like

CC: Well, yeah, because what he says when he says later is because I don't like to say goodbye,

Beep: Yeah, it's so simple and so complicated.

CC: And so devastating because Beep when in his life has loved someone and not lost them?

Beep: No, I mean, there is no case whatsoever except for Gam-ri. And the only reason he didn't lose her was because he lost everything else. He was done with her essentially. I mean, not in a mean way, but just, you know, I've moved on and I forgot kind of where it came from.

CC: Yeah. And you know, I think his emotional reluctance to embrace what he's feeling leading up to episode 10 when he finally gives in. but then later on too, he never quite, you know, we never questioned how he feels about Hye-jin. So even when he's pulling back it’s about articulating a future or opening up about his past.

He still out loud saying you're the love of my life.  Which is why this show is so special to me is because you can explore obstacles in relationships without cracking the foundation. 

Beep: Right. And people are multifaceted. So you can have both,

CC: Yeah, but there's this, there is this tinge of sadness later on. Even when he says, I love you out loud, because love has always gone hand in hand with death.

Beep: It's terrifying.

CC: And you know, there's so many layers too, right? There's always this even more simple than that, right. Even in this scene, she's like, I'm going back to Seoul and he's like, right, you're gonna make all your money. You're gonna go back to Seoul. And, and it's this thread that goes through, I'm leaving, I'm here for a short time. This is about making money. I'm always heading back. They have a very awkward conversation where she's trying to talk about the future. And he's like, right because I guess you still want to move back. And you know there was probably a much more dramatic version of this show where perhaps Hye-jin's life would have been at risk, but instead it's much more mundane. Is she going to leave him? Then she decides to stay.

And he just is like, oh my god, I'm not going to lose someone. So it's one line, “I don't take things in that are alive.” But if we're going to talk about signposts for where characters arcs, that's where Chief Hong is:  he is trying to keep her out, even while he is finding it on a day to day basis it’s very hard to do that.

Beep: Right, right. Because she's actually going to be the first thing that he takes in that's alive for a very long, or, you know, a very long time.

CC: Yeah. Even letting her stay at his house. Right. Like, you know, I mean, he's going to, he's going to take her in literally into his home many like three times and figuratively into his life. Yeah. 

Beep: Sometimes by choice, sometimes not so much.

CC: Yeah. Sometimes just passing out drunk, but yeah. The other thing that I love is that if the last episode was all about Hye-jin making a heartfelt apology, his apology is completely unsolicited in a straightforward way. And is simple and complete. I'm sorry, I've been harsh. I didn't know much about you. I misjudged you – flat out like this man, as we will see, as it goes on, knows how to apologize.

Beep: Well, and it's also personal, not that he gets personal, but it's personal and sense of, you know, when she had to apologize, it was this whole ordeal here, like you said, she's not asking for it though. She knows that he's been, you know, kind of judging her or treating her in such a way. He takes the initiative to just stand up and say I was wrong. And, you know, essentially I intend to do better in the future and he had no stake and no reason to necessarily do that.

CC: But you know  just like she was so worked up and bothered about what he thought about the way she talked to Gam-ri, he needs to say this to her, right? Like they both think about what the other one thinks about each other and they need to deal with it, even if they're not really dealing with sort of the central thing that's going on, which is there's a lot of sexual tension in this eating popsicles at night scene. There's popsicles melting.

Beep: Yeah. Outside of the romance aspect, they actually are very mature with each other. But you know, because that's thrown in there a little bit, they have their moments of middle school, level emotionality.

CC: Yeah, idiots and love, but yeah, there's like, I love the way that this director is able to take very simple things, like a popsicle in a hand, and someone reaching over. You've got that, like, you know, it's one of the foundations of building romantic tension is hands touching. 

Beep: In this case, highly unnecessary. Because they played with it with the receipt, like, Ooh, we're going to do this. Give me your hand at this time. Unnecessary, unsolicited frigging adorable.

CC: Yeah. And, and taking care, she's dripping popsicle all over the pillow and he's looking out for her. And I love the way the director always puts us in Hye-jin's point of view, the way the camera has a closeup on her eyes, when it comes to these moments of physical intimacy, the director always has us very squarely in her point of view, like when his hands are on her face, when his hand is on her forehead, when his hand touches this, like the director is focusing on the woman and her reaction to it, which is really like refreshing.

Can you please break down for me this epic move of leaving the shoe?

Beep: I mean, ah, I'm like looking and being like, when did he do that? She's immediately just like he tells her to check the fuse box, but then obviously he goes to the, uh, closet. I had it. I mean, there's some, this is, what's kind of great about it. Okay. First of all, it's beautiful. It's super romantic. We find out later what he did with it.

I mean, it's all just, you know, swooning. But what I think is kind of cool about it is not only did he dismiss it, like I said earlier, like, Ooh, it was just in the street. He also didn't make a thing out of giving it. He allowed it to just be what it was he wasn't looking for, you know, some sort of massive praise or I'm sure she would freak out and accidentally hug him.

Like, there's another version of that, you know, that takes it too far and goes, not too far per se, but it's just very awkward and, and kind of puts them in a different position, but it wasn't about him getting credit for it. It was about him finding something that he knew that she loved and returning it to her without reward,

CC: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we've talked before about how it's also keeping his distance, but what he did was in addition to everything he did. To restore the shoe. He then basically creates this magical moment. He hides it as a surprise, and then he leaves and then tells her to go look for it. And then he's riding his bicycle away and he's just like, yeah, I've found it in the street.  So he's not going to take credit. And yet the way the director then just goes for it is Cinderella has her shoe on it, lights up, her face is lit up, smiling. His face is lit up smiling as he drives it bicycle.

Chief Hong is doing kind of that nervous thing, touching his throat like, oh god feelings. Like, I mean, it's just basically this series of kind and thoughtful acts that creates magic in the everyday world. And the lights just happened to come on at that moment. Again, for a show that is so grounded in reality and everyday lives of people, it is through the cinematography showing us how transformative kind acts can be – that they can bring magic into your everyday life. And really what happened was a guy saw the shoe restored it and returned it to her. It was kindness.  But kindness can be transformative and magical.

Beep: Oh, absolutely. I mean, there's no version of a scene like this where, you know, the lights were out that they don't come back on at the conclusion of it, but there are so many ways for it to be done. And this was muted in such a way it was all the more, maybe.

CC: Yeah. And it's also sort of just picking up a, we were saying before, like whether it is the candle or the streetlamp or Hye-jin mom arming putting the seat down, all of the things that these two people big and small are going to do for one another, it is looking out for one another and taking care of one another.

That is what literally brings light back into these very two very lonely people who have these very deep aches that brings light back into their life

Beep: Yeah, the world is on dim right now. 

CC: Yeah. I mean, he wakes up in the darkness, right. In a nightmare. His nightmares often are playing with sort of dark and light. So the director plays with sort of dark and light as sort of symbols for like, what are, what are dark times both in pain and loss in our lives. And when connecting with others brings light into our lives. 

Beep: And how those things exist simultaneously.

CC: Yeah. Ah, good stuff. All right. So that closes out episode three. Next time we're going to have Emma B and if you are listening and you have seen some fantastic edits, not only for Hometown Cha Cha Cha. There was one edit that went really viral, like overnight, of Chief Hong.

Emma B is sort of the extraordinary fangirl video editor. She loves this show and she's going to be joining us for, for episode four and the drunken night to remember

Beep: Until then. we hope that you too can lay down your spikes. We'll see you soon.