Reel Tastes & Travels – a light dose of entertainment to wake you up

On first watch, I thought these episodes dragged a bit and nothing much happened, but on a second scan, I realized that there were some important story beats set up that move the narrative forward. First things first, the development of the relationship between Young-joon and Mi-so. There are several heart-tugging moments (holding hands as they walk out of the darkened arts centre, her tripping and falling against him). But equally appealing are the quieter scenes where they spend time together and open up about themselves. I’ve mentioned before about how the show hasn’t really given us any reasons to believe why they would fall for each other. But these scenes do a better job of showing how their working relationship and initial attraction towards each other is developing into stronger feelings and a deeper, more personal relationship. And this evolution is mirrored in the nature of their interactions over the 3 episodes. Whereas most of their time together in episode 4 stems from work with external circumstances (in this case, the power cut in the arts centre they are touring) forcing them together, by the end of the episode he is voluntarily seeking her out for comfort in the aftermath of the fight with his brother. Episode 5 sees him spending time with her on her home turf, a set-up as far away as possible from the usual office environment and by Episode 6, he is essentially on a date with her around town, without any prompting from work-related or personal crises. And yes, they did go on a ‘date’ of sorts earlier at the amusement park. But I would argue that that was driven more by a) his friend’s suggestions, and b) his desire to keep her from leaving. In contrast the recent interactions see him more in touch with his feelings and voluntarily seeking her out, without any ulterior motives.

You can also see the characters evolving in subtle and not-so-subtle ways. Their relationship is in that initial phase where they are still dancing around each other. They’ve moved on to more-or-less admitting their feelings to themselves, and strongly suspect their feelings are returned, but are not yet fully convinced, and hence the courtship dance. Young-joon is still rather full of himself (exhibit A: stating how he’s never had to say sorry before because of how perfect he is; Exhibit B: his inordinate pride at the smallest gestures like getting Mi-so’s coffee, seemingly reinforcing his perception of himself as the ultimate catch). But he is starting to think more of Mi-so and her comforts. More so than the bigger gestures, this is driven home by the small details – the unexpected, unasked for, and therefore, more meaningful changes such as adjusting his stride to match hers (in contrast to earlier in episode 4 where she mentions how she learnt to walk fast to keep up with him), letting her get into the lift first, and subsequently stepping back so that they are on the same level rather than her waiting behind him, or reading her favourite book on romance despite his disdain for the genre.

 

Mi-so is also standing up for herself more. There are two pivotal scenes that highlight this. The first is after she secures the author Morpheus for the launch event. She is proud of being able to get such a publicity-shy, popular name, and bewildered when Young-joon reacts with anger, and demands the cancellation of the event with no explanation. She calls off their dinner (which she was reasonably sure was going to lead to a declaration from him), unwilling to accept the injustice of his treatment and later warns him not to play with her heart. The second is when he comes to spend the day with her to mollify her after their near-kiss. He has a fancy day planned but she asserts herself and insists that he do things her way for once. There is a clear power imbalance in the relationship, at least as long as she works for him, but through these actions she is positioning herself on a more equal footing to bring balance to their personal equation. She may have to follow his orders at work, but outside that it is important that he make the effort to adapt to her as well.

The other big development is the relationship between Young-joon and his brother, Sung-yeon (aka Morpheus). We don’t get many details yet, but the relationship is very antagonistic. In an unexpected twist, Sung-yeon repeatedly tells his brother that he forgives him, although in a highly supercilious tone which rightly gets my favourite line of the episode thrown back at him in response: ‘Is this how you forgive? By always talking about it?’ Given what we’ve heard from Young-joon about his brother and friends picking on him in school, I was expecting any fault to be on Sung-yeon’s side, so I’m curious to find out what Young-joon did. However, for some reason Sung-yeon comes across as shady to me so there could be more to the story. There are no specific events or statements that support this, just more of a general feeling. If that’s intentional, then props to the actor for conveying that! The other twist was the revelation at the end of episode 6 that Sung-yeon was the kidnapped boy that Mi-so was looking for. I had expected Sung-yeon to be the second male lead and throw some obstacles in the path of our main relationship but not quite this way. I’m not sure I buy it, but I don’t see why Young-joon, of all people, would lie about it. Though interestingly, Mi-So doesn’t seem nearly as happy about reuniting with the boy when she realizes it’s Sung-yeon, compared to when she thought it was Young-joon. Perhaps a way to show that the current feelings she has developed are stronger or uninfluenced by any past sentiments related to shared childhood trauma?

On a lighter note, we also see more interplay between Ji-ah (Mi-so’s replacement) and the much raved about ‘office catch’, Gwi-nam (Mi-so’s partner in the three-legged race at the company sports day). Ji-ah is a bit of an intriguing character. At times, she seems inexperienced and inept at her job. But at times she comes across as almost devious, like the multiple times she flattered Manager Bong into doing her work for her. And she is clearly smarter than she has let on, seeing as she is the only person in the whole company who has cottoned on to the fact that Gwi-nam is wearing the same suit every day, instead of owning multiple versions of the same suit. I’d love it if she turned out to be a scheming, social climber hiding behind a mask of naivete. But considering the direction the story is going, that looks unlikely. So, I’ll settle for seeing her (clearly telegraphed) developing relationship with Gwi-nam as a more light-hearted counterpoint to the roiling, complex emotions between our lead pair.