If episode 1 reeled me in, episode 2 confirmed my enslavement. I haven't felt something so intense, so capable of striking me straight into the solar plexus for a long time (I feel drained after each episode). I feel deeply for both Maru and Eun Gi (but especially Maru - I am unhealthily overinvested in him already. I worry what shape I will be in by the end). The rest of them? Nuke them from orbit!
It really reminds me of A Love to Kill, with its self-destructive revenge, damaged and almost destroyed protagonists. Which is worrisome because we know how ALTK ended.
I just like the opening shot.
The way he almost collapses there, in the plane, brought down by his encounter with Jae Hee, realizing that any hope, however farfetched, is over. Brought face to face with the fact that he threw away his life for nothing.
Am I the only one who finds his friend so annoying I want to push mute every time he opens his mouth? Also, ffs, stop robbing it in for him!
Maru remembering Jae Hee and himself in happier days. The thing that struck me the most was that even back then he was the ultimate caretaker by nature (probably had to - he seems to be the one who took care of his sister, their parents are not around). It makes his reflexive sacrifice for Jae Hee fall into context. And the fact that he will seek revenge, that he's transformed into user and/or avenger from this selfless caretaker. It's a tragedy.
We all know the premise of NG is that he will seek revenge on Jae Hee. So what really shocked me here is that after it all, he still just planned to forget her and have her be happy. Oh, Maru!
Choco is immature, self-absorbed and kinda a bitch (the way she throws into Maru's face that he left her when she was sick to go help Jae Hee and so it's his fault she is that sick now - wtf, lady, he is supporting you! And the way Maru just shatters because of these words!). But she is also the only thing Maru has that ties him to the world of the living (I didn't need the friend to tell us that). Which, once again, worryingly reminds me of ALTK, when the one thing that kept Bong Gu going was his emotional debt to that burned girl and when she released him, that was it. Hello double suicide.
He is in his own personal hell and I desperately want him and Eun Gi to fix each other, to make it better, to enable them to live, even if temporarily, not just to exist.
Jae Hee stopped by with money and Maru's face. Because that signifies that what he did for her is a debt that can be paid off with money (despite her words to him when he took the fall), that his love and loyalty and his very life can be purchased with money, that he is a thing to her.
Symbolic, isn't it?
Yup, you gave your soul to a weak, selfish bitch.
Maru and Eun Gi are very much alike despite the class difference, and that just gets confirmed by us finding out she once took a fall for an ex too (on a much smaller crime and when she had the cushion of money to help but still). Oh.
He comes to return the money and it kills me that his hand shakes when he thinks of pressing the button and then he does not - just slides the money and leaves. He really does not expect anything, he is so beaten down.
Surprise! Because Eun Gi asked her where the money went, Jae Hee lied and to cover it, se lodged a complaint with the police that she gave money to Maru due to blackmail. Oh God, I want you to die, woman! I want you to go to jail forever and emerge poor and alone and unloved by everyone, because that is what monsters deserve. (Can I tell I am a little invested?) And here is Maru, trying to calm his sister, quiet and polite with the officers, not even angry, just asking their permission to borrow an umbrella. It's the beaten-down meekness that gets me worst of all.
I love how Eun Gi is distorted here, just like her soul is twisted by everything around her.
This scene! My favorite in the episode. Jae Hee takes a breath (or dozen) and says that he blackmailed her (because she will always, always put herself first). And you see some small final spark of hope, of humanity, die in Maru's eyes. And scarily, I am cheering, I want her destroyed!
Jae Hee gets the money back. Oh God, I viscerally viscerally want to claw my computer when she's on screen.
What a horrifying, brutal, emotionally and physically abusive scene. Eun Gi is as broken and as brutalized as Maru is, even if they express it differently - Maru internalizing and Eun Gi lashing out.
Every scene between Jae Hee and Eun Gi bristles. Jae Hee is terrifying.
How our three leads spend the night, quite a contrast.
He comes home only to discover his sister got sick from the rain and is in the hospital.
And this is the moment he decides to get vengeance - SJK is insanely good and you can see the precise moment in his eyes. And it kills me that even with everything, even with the frame-up, he was willing to let it go. It was the harm to his sister, the sister he abandoned to protect Jae Hee, that finally snaps something in him.
Ooooh, time skip, I imagine! What a great first(ish) meeting, and one he clearly planned (well, not her having an accident and almost falling off a cliff, but the bike race, certainly).
I am not sure how my sanity is going to hold through the end, but I am willing to find out!