Forget-me-not Wolves

It’s from the writer of Individualist Ms. Ji Young.

A bunch of misfit teen girls learning to be human.

Some adults learning to be human, too.

Very genuine and realistic portrayal of teens, both for the good and the bad.

It’s a coming of age story but with themes that still resonate with you even if you’re long past high school.

Very flawed female lead who nonetheless proves to be way worth the trouble.

Female friendships.

Female friendships that get messy for reasons that have 0% to do with boys.

You know, the story could be percieved as a fantasy take on mental illness really - Hyun Bin hears and sees things that are not there to anyone else and is driven by those “hallucinations” to extremes. Remember PSH seeing him throwing ninja stars in the shop? Only to her it looks like he does a repetitive nonsense motion with an empty hand? Or when he tells his secretary to book him a train ticket instead of a plane because he can’t get off a plane and so who knows what he would do - it’s such an achingly familiar workaround technique, where you live every day with limitations “normal” people do not have and have to learn and think about work arounds.

And his slow freak out as his sedatives wear off and full awareness returns and he can feel that growing feeling of panic over something that is not real for anyone else - it’s like a fantasy metaphor for a panic attack. I found it pretty awful that he would rather be sedated and unconscious than face that never-ending duel with the opponent bent on his death that only he can see. It’s especially terrible because he’s been shown so sharp, so in control - and to voluntarily cede all of it out of sheer, all-consuming, almost animal fear - it’s horrifying. And of course the fact that he feels guilt for killing rival (he did not know death in game = death in rl but still, he wanted revenge and look what it got him) and now he has to face the man he killed, the man he feels guilty for killing, with the wounds still on him, over and over and over and over again, like some sort of Banquo’s ghost, only seeking his death.

You can see all of that quiet horror in the sequence after PSH leaves for the party - his staring at her empty seat, because he viscerally associates her with safety, his desperate seeking for medicine and then alcohol but neither is available (he is going to end up an alcoholic if he makes it through - because mixing drugs and booze is not a good idea) and then as his mind wakes more and more, his getting more and more terrified, looking at her empty seat with such desperation and then hiding in the closed shower stall, sitting on the floor - it reminded me a little of It’s OK It’s Love, though obviously that was a very different drama.

The thing that strikes me is that even in the middle of all that terror, he thought of sending birthday flowers to PSH. Ahhhh.

The situation is long-term unsustainable of course - if he doesn’t die in the game, he’s gonna drink himself to death or od on pills or just lose his mind. It’s a truly horrible prognosis here.

I do definitely ship the leads now. In some ways, it’s a very “she is his angel of mercy” set up which is very Victorian but that I adore every little bit of. She is wired to take care of people, due to her family and history, and even more so because she feels obliged for that extravagant to her purchase of her hotel. There is attraction there too (and why not, he is a good-looking, well put together man, at the start) but a lot of it is I think she needs to be needed. in RL, I would tell her to stay the hell away, but in fiction, I nearly melted on the floor when he asked her to stay in his semi-delirium, utterly childlike.

And I melted when he covered her with a blanket.

If you think about it, she’s the only one who stayed by his side, everyone else left.

Also, even though the hotel purchase is now worthless (because that is not a game he is going to make money on; best case scenario he doesn’t die from it), it was worth every penny because it brought her into his orbit and so saved his life and possibly his sanity.

Anyway, this drama is awesome and I need more.

It’s official, I really don’t care about any romance, even though little hints are quite cute. I am here for Hyun Bin’s storyline of his world slowly dissolving into a hellish nightmare as reality and game begin to merge with more and more terrifying results. I can see why Park Shin Hye fans are less than pleased - her role is really nothing to write home about - it’s very much a Hyun Bin show all the way. But I came here for the writer and so far, she is not disappointing me at all. 

As I was discussing with @theseasasleep , this doesn’t really feel much like a kdrama. I can imagine it being a Spanish show or a Turkish one, more so than a typical kdrama. That may or may not work for other people, but it truly works for me. This is the first time in a while that my brain is running amok with theories and guesses watching a kdrama. (Hmmmm - since W?)

But to get the romancy things out of the way first :) The future OTP has more interactions in ep 4 than before and they are quite cute but also she is being unintentionally let more into his world than most people are (as when he takes her as a translator and she witnesses her ex lose it at him.) Then there was this cute scene where he picked up the phone she was looking him up on. Haha. 

Or this. They don’t have scorching chemistry (Park Shin Hye is not the lady to go for if you want to fantasize about your OTP banging against a wall after their on-screen interactions) but what is there is quite nice and serves the story. It’s a little bit of lightheartedness and tenderness in a story that is quickly veering into pure horror territory elsewhere. 

Because in the main story, the rival Hyun Bin killed in the game (and who died in real life as a result) comes back as a game character and keeps trying to kill him. Imagine - you feel guilty about causing someone’s death (and try to desperately believe that’s a coincidence, that you killing him in the game is not tied to his RL death) and then a version of him - still in that same suit, still with blood, keeps coming and coming after you like a vengeful ghost. 

So many interesting things here - like I think if you play for longer than a certain time/above a certain level, the game becomes too absorbed in you and wounds/death in the game mean the same in real world. It’s too integrated. And also, the game will absorb your avatar and it will be another fodder for the characters - trapped there forever, your body and soul dead in every correct sense, only a certain soulless zombie likeness left. (And you can tell the game is going off-plan in part because it’s supposed to be set in 1492 but even though rival is now a character, he is wearing a suit and looks modern - the game did not transform him into a 1492 character, it just took what he was when playing the game and shoved it in.)

And maybe people dying in the game for real and then becoming game avatars only wouldn’t be truly terrifying (because now Hyun Bin knows/suspects, the solution is just to never ever play the game again, and have rival - who actually appears an OK enough guy in RL - be the sole victim that we know of, together with the developer.) Except the game now starts on its own for Hyun Bin. You can tell he knows something is wrong when he hears thunder - what it means, clearly, is that this is the signal for the game world to start whether you want to or not and you cannot escape, and you have to battle God knows what (in this case the avatar of a real life person you killed in the game and thus in real world, a person who once was a friend and then an enemy) and if you lose, you get hurt or die for real. Talk about hell world. You are trapped in a bloody (literally) nightmare forever and the only way to end it is to die. Yikes. It’s pretty clear by now that this is likely what happened to the developer - he got hurt or killed in game and that translated to real life. It was clever to have him be on the run and for the viewers to think it’s rival hunting him (which in retrospect makes no sense - even before we knew rival was OK enough, he was just trying to buy the game; what would be the point in killing the developer?) while it’s the game run amok and he was killed either by game characters or real people now trapped as game avatars. 

And we end on PSH’s horrified face as Hyun Bin plummets down six flights of stairs thrown by a character who should have no powers in real world but has managed to make him bleed for real and has now shoved him off the balcony. Remember how fun and bloodless in any real sense it was in ep 1 when Hyun Bin was fighting the assassin? Well, this is the opposite of that. The realistic game is suddenly too real. A little Sword Art Online, if you will.

The preview promises us this: I kind of love that in his delirium he is confusing her game avatar and her real self. The possibilities are delicious. (Clearly her avatar in the game is because her brother based the character design on her; thankfully she’s never played the game.)

But the most terrifying shot in the preview is Hyun Bin, recuperating and barely mobile in the hospital and hearing thunder and knowing the game is about to drag him in, and utterly helpless to stop it even though, severely hurt, he will be toast ASAP. (His characters have no luck with precipitation; first Secret Garden, now this.)

The concept of fake and real worlds meshing is something this writer is clearly fascinated with (see W, now this, even Queen In Hyun’s Man meshed two disparate worlds even if neither one was fake) but every time it’s something different. I can’t wait to watch more.

And to watch Hyun Bin’s character fall apart because I am that type of person.

This scene! Where he resigns himself to death, both because he has realized he killed the Rival (because game makes the game deaths real) and because he has reached the end of his endurance and cannot get away any more (Hyun Bin is so good portraying someone at the edge of his sanity and at the end of his rope) and then she appears like a savior - the intensity of it took my breath away and I officially ship it now.

But now let’s talk all the good plotty stuff - this ep confirms something I believed which is that you don’t need the lenses - the game is wired into your brain now and there is no way to escape (otherwise it would be too easy an out.) Hyun Bin’s face as the horrific realization slowly dawns that he had no lenses but he can be drawn in and hunted at any point anyway. Wow.

And the thing is - in addition to possibly being looked at as the murder suspect in Rival’s death (which btw - if there are no signs of homicide, as they said, why are they even looking into it), those around him are going to start believing he is losing his mind - they already think he possibly plummeted six flights of stairs as a suicide attempt and now he crawled out of his hospital room with a shattered leg in the rain. Not to mention if he fights someone who cannot be seen. Hyun Bin himself is not sure where the game is doing that or he is simply going insane - for all he knows he has late onset schizophrenia and those are hallucinations.

Also it’s good to learn an “obstacle” such as a closed door or a real person can prevent the homicidal avatars but the game seems to be evolving so how long will that be enough? (Also, the sheer terror I felt when that random patient opened the door - yikes)

And yes, the brother on the train - his body on the platform glitching - I’d think it means he died and turned into an avatar but then where is the real corpse, the way rival’s was there? Hmmmm.