#rewatch project

Spoilers to ep 5

Originally I was hesitant to rewatch Healer because… surely it couldn’t have been that good. It’s probably gonna be dated, it probably won’t hold up. Well - it is dated but it DEFINITELY holds up.Is the show a little silly at moments having Healer break into his targets home while EVERYONE is still there? Having him parkour over rooftops to catch up to running vehicles? Yes. I don’t care. I am having So. Much. Fun.

The super-hero secret identity trope is a solid fav and just LOOK at how cute and bumbling my puppy is. I love Chang Wook’s character work when he switches from his Healer character to his Bongsu character and how both are different than JeongHu just himself in his lair.

I love that there isn’t an instant attraction between our leads. It gives us somewhere for this story to go. Healer is here to unravel a mystery about himself and slowly over time will get sucked into his affection for her. He was a little taken aback by her fighting him when he stole her backpack but as he starts to fall for her reframes that as a character trait that is particularly attractive to him.

This show is laying the foundation for WHY he is going to fall for her. He is impressed with her courage and fight - despite her fear. His little smile at the end of episode 5 after he’s orchestrated their getaway and she, none the wiser, swoops in to ‘save’ him. It’s so telling what Ajummah says to his master in ep 6: he’s never left anyone, he’s always the one left. No one has ever fought for him and here, Youngshin fights for him again and again despite her own terror and trauma.

Overall the show does such a good job with its arcs. It establishes JeongHu as someone who is completely disconnected from the rest of humanity. He isn’t malicious, he just doesn’t see himself as part of it. He lives because… he isn’t dead. He watches humanity like they were one of his nature documentaries. He relates to Youngshin first as a doomed panther from one of those documentaries because that’s the closest frame of reference he has. So this is a story of him, slowly, returning to humanity. Moments like him eating a typical Korean breakfast are important because they show the beginning of that process.

Only thing I haven't decided is which show to start with, and since I'm open to either, I'll let you guys decide:

Because right now, now that I watched Saikai and Ketsui again after knowing the events of Bokura no Mirai, I understand couple of her scenes so much better!

More under the cut, because I might start rambling quite a bit.

The Fandomentals Game of Thrones rewatch project: The Wars to Come, is getting started. Kylie and Julia, along with many contributors, will go back through Seasons 1-4 to see where the greatness began.

Spoilers thru episode 6

Earlier, when you should have fled, you ran to her.

This is everything. This is the core of this show. This is why it works. The thesis statement summing this all up. He absolutely should be walking away from all of this. He is a fugative, he has a goal to escape to a deserted island. His current course of action is contrary to his goals, his safety and his well-being ….

But he’s going to stick it out anyway. And yeah he’s still holding on a bit to the fiction that it’s to unravel the mystery of his father and thus himself but really we all know why it is… its because of this small smile he can’t help but have when ‘saved’ by the woman he can’t seem to get away from

there’s still last part of Bokura no Mirai left.

I’m seeing whole lot more now!

I have kicked off my project to re-watch older dramas this year starting off with the voted-on choice of Healer. I plan to post my thoughts at some regular-ish interval as I go through the show, and I do not intend to stream it all in one go but rather take a handful of episodes a week. I also am going to work to be spoiler free outside the episodes being discussed should anyone want to join me/ start any of the shows I’m covering. (If I do have spoilery thoughts I’ll place them below a cut)

So! Healer! I am pretty sure I originally watched this shortly after it finished airing so I did binge it the first time through — because I became obsessed with it. This is the only time I have rewatched it so I’m scared/eager to see if it holds up.

Right off the bat the intro music hit me with all the nostalgia feels. I had to pause to compose myself.

Our first shots are an introduction to the titular character: Healer (Ji Changwook looking so young!) and this show… knows its audience.

Healer is athletic, cocky, a little bit sexist and incredibly competent, though he lacks a bit when it comes to interior design sense. He works for-hire taking on jobs requiring a certain… discretion and requiring a certain ‘skill-set’. His primary co-worker a hacker who takes on their jobs and handles any pesky security systems they run into and I must say I’ve so missed seeing Kim Mikyung (though thats probably on me for not watching many dramas lately).

Our lead cast is rounded out by Park Minyoung who I have struggled to enjoy for a long time, now as it has started to feel like she’s been pigeon-holed as ‘plucky’ and it is just so. grating. to me. (honestly part of the reason I’d not been wanting to re-watch this, I dis-enjoy her so much in anything I’ve tried to watch the last few years) but here she is charming and scrappy, if a little shady as a scummy celebrity tabloid journalist scamming people to try to get a celebrity scandal headline.

Our final cast member is Yoo Ji Tae as a righteous, free-wheeling Journalist with no problem speaking truth to power and A Tragic Past. He is our key to the past, in a series of flashbacks that I remember really enjoying my first time watching this. I like having a chance to glimpse at Korea’s rendering of its past history.

Enough time is spent on these flashbacks to give the sense that whatever happened then and to this scrappy troupe of subversives is going to impact now and our current heroes. Of course, things wouldn’t be right if we didn’t have a good Birth Secret along with some Familial Tension tied to this past.

Overall the first two episodes do a good job of establishing our characters, making them interesting, giving just enough questions with the right stakes to make us want to know the answers. Everyone has a well established starting point and a direction/ wants. It’s been long enough that I don’t remember all the twists and turns so I’m eager to engage with them again.