character-driven narratives and the mother mystery
I was thinking about why the show did not discuss what happened to Moon-young’s mom and how she survived everything. There were lots of interesting theories out there. This episode presented several opportunities to clear those up. Moon-young had every opportunity to find out: She went to her, after all.
And then I remembered the writing style of the story.
The show discusses everything from the perspective of the character. There is bias in the narration, and it was recurring theme:
1) Ko Dae-hwan had delusions, and he was drunk when everything happened, hence, his unreliable narrative.
2) Kang-tae’s story with his mom is a primary example.
3) Sang-tae thought his brother wanted to kill him. In his perspective, Kang-tae pushed him in the river.
Since the narrative of the story surrounds Moon-young, Kang-tae, and Sang-tae, the only way for us to find out exactly what happened to the mother is through one of them. Kang-tae and Sang-tae are preoccupied with the fact that this woman killed their mother. Their natural reaction wouldn’t be Why is this murderer still alive?
That leaves us with Moon-young.
For all we know, her trauma must’ve messed with her memory. (We can come up with different theories why this happened, but I don’t think it will really matter because we know that Dae-hwan is an unreliable narrator, and Moon-young’s trauma might have messed with how she remembers everything.)
But Moon-young says this:
Moon-young wasn’t focused on how or why her mother was still alive. She was more afraid of what will happen when and if she came back. True enough, when her mother came back, she wreaked havoc in their lives. Kang-tae and Sang-tae were hurt, and with her mother locked up in jail, Moon-young focused on what was important to her: her newfound family.
In short, she just wants to forget her mother. The whole essence of the dialogue gave an impression that Moon-young doesn’t really care about her mother’s motives and experiences anymore. She has caused enough pain in her life.
After all the pain that her mother has caused her, Moon-young does not want to be bothered by her past. She wants to forget it and start over.
If her mother had not kidnapped Sang-tae and took him as hostage, we’re going to be looking at a different story. After all, we did see her searching for the brooch and questioning why her mother could be alive and how the plastic surgery is so illogical. But the sequence of events starting from then on didn’t give her time or space to think things through because
1) She saw her mother trying to kill the Moon brothers
2) Her mother immediately tried to kill her.
3) And afterwards, she was too focused on how Kang-tae and Sang-tae both got hurt because of what happened.
If this were a plot-driven story, the lack of information as to how the mother could have survived is glaring. But this is a character-driven story. The sequence of events is highly dependent on the reaction of the characters involved. In this case, we have Moon-young, Kang-tae, and Sang-tae.
The reveal (aka no plot twist) might have been disappointing for those who are expecting a rather “thriller”-like plot, I find it quite satisfactory for a drama that is supposed to be character-driven. It’s just like how Sang-tae tossed her detective book in episode 15, saying he isn’t interested. Moon-young is not interested in how her mother is still alive. Once she was dealt with, she just wanted her mother out of her life. It’s similar to what she did to her dad.
Remember, Moon-young never bothered to clarify a single thing with her father. She never asked why he wanted to kill her. The same treatment she did to her dad, she applied to her mom.
She wants to close that chapter ASAP.
It’s similar to what happened to Sang-tae. Kang-tae never really told Sang-tae that the latter was the one who fell in the river. He just apologized for all the shitty things he thought of and for wishing that Sang-tae would die instead.
Why? Because for Kang-tae, it didn’t matter if Sang-tae finds out the whole truth about it.
This treatment was applied to Moon-young’s case.
If the show would make a spin-off about how Do Hui-jae or suddenly change the genre to thriller or crime, now that would be interesting.
Until the end, the show did stick to its ultimate goal as a character-driven story. It focused on Kang-tae, Moon-young, and Sang-tae’s journey together and individually, and I think in one way or another, we all appreciated the warmth in that.
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