Alice (2020) What was it in the end?

The post consists of spoilers from the entire series. Read at your own risk. :D

Now perhaps that I'm in a calmer state of mind, it's a good time to take stock my feelings about this show.

First of all I should say that despite the nonsensical ending that we got it wasn't a terrible show. It was, at the end of the day, however, a waste of a fascinating concept and a stellar cast. The end result was ambitious mediocrity leading to more questions than answers. Looking back, the first six episodes were really good television... not just good sci-fi. In the early days I had high hopes for it as it seemed like the production team was determined to get it right with its high production values, intriguing storyline and terrific cast of characters. The set-up was genuinely good.

I should have cottoned on to the fact that something was a bit fishy in Denmark when the show's claims that it was dealing with parallel universes turned out to be a mischaracterization. Tae-yi's initial movements suggested that she'd created an alternate timeline. But then the presence of Alice and time travel tourism pointed to a causal loop in operation. However when Jin-gyeom comes face to face with Professor Tae-yi, his mother's doppelganger and their relationship develops ambiguously with romantic overtones... we're told she's not really his mother because we're dealing with parallel universes here. She's just someone who happened to look exactly like his mother from another world with the same birthday, Yoon Tae-yi the creator of time travel. Not long afterwards, Jin-gyeom gets his first taste of time travelling, heading straight for the year that mother died. Despite foreknowledge, he is helpless to stop it. This scenario is later repeated in varying forms which points to time looping. 

Okay let's for argument's sake that we concede that the show is playfully deploying different time travel devices satirically throughout the drama's run. Can't be any harm in that surely? Well, that depends. Are we dealing with an episodic drama with multiple storylines (like Star Trek or Stargate) or one single complete arc. If the show is what I believed it to be then no, it doesn't work... it's inherently problematic. Doing a time travel smorgasbord not only means that there can be no clarity about the actual relationship dynamics. Picking and choosing tropes like taking items off the local convenience store will inevitably see a clash of logic and rule breaking. These tropes don't mesh well together. For example if Professor Tae-yi is from an alternate timeline that Mother Tae-yi created she might be said to be a different person. But it doesn't explain how or why the Alice crew are operating if that's the case. Why are they in that timeline, not in the one that Min-hyuk and Tae-yi came from originally? Are there different Alices in different timelines? This also has implications for the so-called "romance". If we're dealing with a causal loop then Professor Tae-yi is merely Mother Tae-yi's younger self then as the show doles out the rom com cliches when they play house the relationship between Prof Tae-yi and Jin-gyeom has incestutous overtones. If however, they are all operating on a different timeline, the professor might be a different self. Whether that makes a romantic relationship more "acceptable" between them, is up for debate. What compounds the unclarity is the fact that there are people who are travelling back and changing the past in the early days who haven't created new timelines... at least not that we can see. Future selves go back to the past and change the past but they're unaffected seemingly. Hence the show doesn't grapple (like Train does) with the logical complexity of any time travel trope.

There are other reverberations resulting from Jin-gyeom's growing bond with Prof Tae-yi. Even if she's a different soul or self, the oedipal ramifications can't be so easily dismissed. His "attraction" to her is that she looks like mother. So when he plays house with her... and unbeknownst to her as well... he is reenacting his regrets concerning his mother sort of like playing with a doll when you can't have the baby. To the writer's credit, that very point is highlighted later on when she sees a photo of mother. But that is not exactly the best foundation for any romantic relationship. To be liked for you might be not who you actually are. I've said this in an earlier post so I'm sounding like a broken record. I have little doubt that they went for t the alternate timeline approach so that they could have this kind of dynamic between the top billed actors without the ick... except that they never... it seemed to me... resolved the optics of the situation to the satisfaction of most viewers. 

For me personally what went wrong was two-fold. Firstly, the focus on message over messaging. It feels now that despite my early hopes, that they weren't' careful about the time travel side of things. Despite the use of scientific jargon, the show glossed over the implications of using language like parallel universe rather than alternate timeline. For me those are two entirely different mechanisms at play. Then we had Jin-gyeom trying to stop his mother from being murdered which look a bit like causal looping or time looping (Groundhog Day). That was very confusing. And then finally the introduction of Old Jin-gyeom which was intriguing, arbitrary and possibly quite nonsensical. It seemed to be a kind of a deus ex machina to explain the Teacher death cult but his presence at the 11th hour throws up even more questions while sidestepping any answers. For a powerful figure he seemed rather impotent in the end. Their showdown was a non-event. I was led to believe that Jin-gyeom was a one-time only phenomenon because of what Tae-yi did in 1992 so if Old JG was a much more powerful experienced version of young Jin-gyeom, why didn't he act sooner rather  than wait till his younger self become more attuned with his abilities. If there's no grandfather paradox, why not kill off JG or take control of him before he became a cop? If he had to be introduced, it should have been much earlier.

Secondly the need to put Jin-gyeom and Tae-yi front and centre of the storyline railroaded the storyline. I understand that they are the top billed actors but did they have to be in a relationship with romantic overtones? But Hospital Playlist proved that you can have a hugely popular loveline between a main character and a supporting one with a large ensemble cast. In fact many were very supportive of a JG and Do-yeon outcome. Most of us were labouring under the impression that this show was about the ensemble cast. Now, it could be that was always the story they wanted to tell. Mother and son. A woman who looked like mother. The pair are drawn to each other. Perhaps it even bodes romance for them. So why bother with the crime, thriller aspect at the start, setting a particular tone for the rest of the show. Why introduce a cast of characters who barely get used in the second half of the show when they have skill sets that aren't utilized properly to solve the mysteries. To be honest, I didn't find their relationship particularly compelling. It was fraught with too much baggage from the start. My preference would have been to focus on the history of Alice and the crime aspect of the show. It's not to say that Joo-won or Kim Hee-sun aren't great actors because they are but I thought that Kim Hee-sun particularly was badly served once the time travelling started. After a while, her entire arc felt repetitive and she was doing what I thought other people should be doing instead. This is where I think, the writer's inexperience shows.

If there was one thing that the show got right from start to finish, it was the stuff about families.  I just wish it had stuck to the importance of families and kept things tidy in that regard in order to focus more on the crime-time travelling aspects. I loved JG's surrogate families more than TY's family because they were so much better developed and incorporated. It's lamentable how underutilized Do-yeon, Detective Kim and Min-hyuk became in the second half. It's my biggest disappoint with the show and in the hands of a more seasoned writer, I think this would have been better handled. 

What I wrote elsewhere about the ending...

I don't have any objections to happy endings but this is ridiculous. This wasn't a happy ending... this was the show forcibly reminding us who the leads of the drama are at the cost of storytelling. Park Jin-gyeom... someone who apparently shouldn't have existed and with memories of Yoon Tae-yi... is now an architect in 2020 doing restorations of historic homes because apparently he just fell from the sky and inserted himself into the populace behaving like a well-adjusted human being. Where does he come from? Who are his parents? What's he doing in 2020? Why does he have memories of TY? Are they gunning for a second season? If they are, you can be sure, I won't be signing up for it. 

 

So what is the show saying... that this Park Jin-gyeom who fell from the sky and this Prof Yoon Tae-yi have a completely clean slate and they can find their happily-ever-after in each other? There's nothing icky right... except there is. Because he has memories of her. She has memories of him too. He's not a completely different guy. Unless he's suffering quantum entanglement issues too. But he shouldn't right... because the door's been closed on time travel and everything's has been reset. No wonder everybody's confused. It flies in the face of the show's own claims about what's going on.

 

So why was Tae-yi running around the place like a headless chicken demanding to know where Detective Park Jin-gyeom was. That was utterly silly. Shouldn't she have twigged by the time she got to the police station that a reset had occurred? You know, the reset that she and Mother Tae-yi talked about two three episodes ago. Kim Hee-sun is a great actress but I've shaken my head at the things they've made her do as Prof Yoon Tae-yi. They obviously wanted to give her a bigger role when the actual story didn't warrant it. They had a great ensemble cast... and they wasted the talent pool. 

 

It's not hard to see why they wanted Tae-yi to retain her memories prior to the reset... because oh no... we can't have her trying to get time travel up and running again. But the problem with that is the show never tells us what the agency behind everything is. She was very dead the last time we looked. Did God or the universe give her that kind of insight? If the show was going for an esoteric answer then it should have said so much earlier. Rather than have Seok O-won muttering something about the mysteries of the universe. Sheesh... what a cop out. 

 

I keep wondering what went wrong with the show. The bottom line for me is that they went for the message without taking care of the messaging. They consistently broke their own rules. Out of the mouth of one person they talk about alternate universes, then from another it's parallel dimensions... if that wasn't confusing enough... we have Groundhog Day on steroids with no sense of who's who. "You can't stop my death. Mea culpa." Okay lady... we got it the third time. And then when the two JGs squabble over mother's love, she turns the weapon on herself. Why did she run from the drone in the first place?

 

The last episode didn't really tell us anything particularly insightful that we didn't already work out five episodes ago. Time travel is bad. It is corrupting. The past can't be fixed (or shouldn't). Hold on to your memories and move on. Live in the present. Mother's love is the greatest. But the themes shouldn't come at the expense of fundamental things like consistent storytelling.

Can I in all honesty say that the actors saved it for me? I don't know. They all did a good job with what they were given. Joo-won is always a trooper but there was something in the way his arc panned out that dampened my enthusiasm even for the different Jin-gyeoms that made their appearance. Same with Kim Hee-sun. Towards the end it seemed like they were just doing things called for by the script. And don't get me started on what happened to Do-yeon.

If there was any character that I really rooted for all throughout, it would be Min-hyuk. It could have been Kwak Si-yang or it could be the way he was written... or both but he was a character with genuine complexity despite having comparatively little screen time. towards the end. He was not just a presence but someone who had a story that rose above the cliche and stereotype. 

Again, I stress it wasn't the worst K drama ever and I am fully aware that time travel is always a tough nut to crack. But it seems to me that focused simplicity is always best in these instances. The disappointment comes from the fact that there was so much potential unfulfilled. After a while it started to feel like there were two or three dramas trying to find its voice in the cacophony.

Doctor Prisoner (2019) A Review

Na I-jae (Namgoong Min) formerly an emergency specialist and surgeon at Taekang Hospital was falsely accused of  medical malpractice and served out a three-year prison sentence where he cultivated key relationships and began hatching a revenge scheme against those who put him there. Or so it seems. But as the story unfolds, it is not entirely certain that revenge is all he’s after. The “good” doctor apparently has bigger fish to fry. Using his medical skills, mental acuity and a knack for thinking on his feet, Na I-jae sets his sights on being the medical director of one of the largest penitentiaries in Seoul. Why? According to the premise of this drama, the person who runs the medical facility in the prison wields the greatest power. That person has the authority to control the traffic of prisoners in and out of the penitentiary by exploiting his medical expertise. Not long after his release the ethically flexible I-jae uses his seemingly encyclopaedic knowledge of medical conditions to enable well-connected inmates to appeal for stays of execution to take advantage of this particular loop hole in the judicial system. Our introduction to how Na I-jae works comes from his interaction with O Jung-hee a wealthy businesswoman who allegedly took out a contract on her ex-husband’s mistress. She escapes a prolonged prison stay when Na I-jae manufactures an illness which provides her with a stay of execution. This lady is happy but completely unaware that this is merely the start to a longwinded transactional relationship between them.

 Early on Na I-jae targets the second son of the Taekang conglomerate, Lee Jae-hwan (Park Eun-seok) who figures in the doctor’s past. The youngster is a no-good wastrel whose drug habit makes him an easy prey for his older half brother. As he heads towards prison, he falls into the clutches of the soon-to-be medical director of Western Seoul penitentiary. This marks the beginings of the crafty doctor’s grand plan to deal with corruption between colluding forces in medicine and Big Business.

 

Na I-jae’s primary adversaries are the former medical director of Western Seoul Prison, Sun Min-sik (Kim Byung-chul)  and the ambitious scion of Taekang Group, Lee Jae-jun (Choi Won-young). All three actors of course are well-regarded veterans of the screen and they are seem to play up the villainous side of their respective characters with no lack of enjoyment. The main trio are pros in the way they negotiate, transact and play off one against the other with inhuman energy and resolve. Most of the show’s best moments involve these men bluffing like seasoned card sharps in a poker game.

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Alice (2020) Quantum Entanglements

After my initial disappointment with Episode 13, it occurred to me that a rewatch of the two most recent episodes was needed while jotting down important details along the way. It turned out to be a beneficial exercise and I came away from it with more understanding of all the moving parts. I also did a bit of reading on quantum entanglement as far as a non-science person like myself is capable of getting my head around it. It was an often cited concept in the crime show Numb3rs by the drama's resident physicist to wax philosophical about the mysteries of human relationships.

Here quantum entanglement serves both as a sci-fi explanation for what's going on with Tae-yi and Jin-gyeom with regards to doppelgangers but also as a larger metaphor for the connection between souls across distance. We also saw examples of this in Tae-yi's final audio message to Min-hyuk, as well as Do-yeon's ability to sense things in relationship with Jin-gyeom and connect with him.

I’ve gradually come to conclusion that the biggest obstacle to clarity has been the fact that Mother Tae-yi is a self-styled enigmatic figure and an unreliable source of information. All the time she was running around for her son's sake, spouting cryptic comments, she was a woman with a mission. I should have guessed pretty much from the start that she was all about Jin-gyeom as was clearly shown in Episode 1. She gave up everything for him… including the man she purportedly loved so that her son could live with some degree of normality. The second mistake I made was trying to make sense of the time travel mumbo jumbo without giving more consideration to the traditions and mythological roots that the show was derivative of. Sure there were the obvious nods to Lewis Carroll’s Alice but I should have twigged a lot sooner that the Book of the Prophecy takes its tonal cues from the book of Revelation in the Bible. After mulling over the last page especially of the snake-like creature coiling itself around the Alice figure it finally struck me that the idea was drawn, in all likelihood, from Revelation chapter 12.

She was pregnant and was crying out in birth pains and the agony of giving birth. And another sign appeared in heaven: behold a great red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns and on his heads seven diadems… And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth so that when she bore her child he might devour it. She gave birth to a male child, one who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron, but her child was caught up to God and to his throne…

And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world… (Revelation 12: 2-9)

Tae-yi who birthed Jin-gyeom is possibly the key to making sense of all of this. She is portrayed as the quintessential Mother archetype in the Jungian schema. She protects her child at all costs, nurtures him and clings to the hope that despite the prophetic utterances of doom, he can transcend his birth defect and defy whatever destiny awaits him in the ominous future. As far as I’m to understand her, the reset has never been an option for her because it means that all the effort she gave to bringing JG into the world and raising him would be rendered meaningless. All the memories gone. He, they would be rubbed out of existence. Her maternal instincts revolted against that. As Do-yeon notes succinctly, “she lived for [Jin-gyeom]”. Moreover, both mother and son are figures from the future. Neither should have existed in the past. Mother and son are/were living, breathing paradoxes around family and friends. I would go so far as to say that their presence in the past upset a certain time-space balance as seen in the chaos that has resulted in the worst case scenario of doppelgängers killing doppelgängers, for instance to keep time travel going. I wonder too if that's why Mother Tae-yi has to die because some things have to happen for balance to be restored and she would only be a hindrance.

In a blog post that I read on the Mother archetype, the writer notes that evil symbols of the Mother include witches, dragons, graves among others. The dragon could also be a substitute for serpents or any entwining creature. (Purrington 2020) It leads me to wonder if the writer of Alice isn’t pointing to Mother Tae-yi who started it all, who couldn’t stop it because of her attachment to her child is the one who (as symbolised in the picture by the serpentine creature) is inadvertently destroying the time fabric. That’s why she has to die. That’s why despite everything that JG does to save her life ultimately fails. So far. The ensuing chaos that we’ve been privy to since the start of the drama was caused by her both directly and indirectly. Of course the exploits of the Alice group have exacerbated this fiasco. Whether it’s opening the way for time travel, whether it’s causing rifts in the space-time continuum or the possible merging of timelines. Or just staying behind in 1992 to have her son.

The mysterious hooded figure is a curious beast. What we do know is that he has a biological and psychic connection to Jin-gyeom (an extreme negatively charged quantum entanglement) causing the latter to act as if he’s suffered a psychotic break, descending into schizophrenia and even dissociative personality disorder. It's also a clever way of framing mental health issues in line with time travel. The implication from the DNA test is that he is Jin-gyeom’s doppelgänger. Whoever he is, he is styled as a grim reaper or at least a harbinger of death who has the ability to time hop and mete out his brand of justice. He carries a sword which doubles up as an executioner’s weapon. He may or may not be the creation of Mother Tae-yi, the god-like figure that rules over time and becomes the destroyer described in that final page. What fascinates me though is that while Jin-gyeom was busy trying to kill Detective Kim, the voice of Do-yeon shrieking his name jerked him out of his stupor, causing him to stop in his tracks. This in all probability is Do-yeon’s role. To restrain and to pull him back from being swallowed up by the abyss. She is someone who has a special bond with him. My guess is that she is someone who can prevent him from succumbing to the darkness that threatens to overwhelm him. 

My mind turned to the “evil twin” trope as Jin-gyeom was threatening to throttle his other self before the grim reaper character showed up and proceeded to stab him with a small sword. This took me to consider Zoroastrian dualism — good vs evil in an almighty cosmic battle cutting across time and space. According to the Wikipedia entry I read, the Zurvanite branch of Zoroastrianism simplified that worldview by stating that co-eternal twins born of “zurvan” or time, represent this dualistic dynamic. Zurvanism’s doctrinal underpinnings came from its interpretation of free will. Good and evil are choices made by mortals. This indicates to me that Jin-gyeom will have to play out the contest between good and evil as he fends off the voices in his head to act against his true self as well as deal with the Teacher cult who co-opt him for their cause. The evil twin motif isn’t just about Jin-gyeom. It seems to be a common thread as we see future and past selves battle it out in different ways at different times.

“Only the present matters… the people around you” that was Ahjussi Ko Hyeon-seok’s final words to JG. But JG seems adamant about not taking Ahjussi’s advice. This is why he keeps popping up in 2010 and making a muck of things. He can’t let go of the past. Two times he travels back there but for one reason or another she dies at the same time on the same day. He is his mother’s son undoubtedly. Neither are able to let go of the other despite knowing the dangers that are hand. Furthermore, Jin-gyeom’s fixation with his mother’s murder has resulted in him brushing off the people right in front of him. Like Do-yeon, like Detective Kim and even Min-hyuk. Sure, it’s important to find the culprit and get some resolution and closure from that. But in the meantime life has to be lived with the people within one’s circle.

Undoubtedly this is ultimately a celebration of mother’s love in the extreme. It is extreme because she should have gone for the reset a long time ago perhaps especially because she had an inkling of what’s to come. It’s a double-edged sword. The love of mother transcends all else and she was quite possibly hoping that if she did her best to bring up Jin-gyeom well she could change the future and his fate. That could well still happen although things are so chaotic that I’m more inclined to think that only a reset could stop all the madness and confusion. I could be wrong but the show seems to be pointing to an inevitable zero sum game. Mitigating the effects of time travel won't be enough.

I’m actually quite keen to see what happens with the reset. Would it necessarily be a world without Park Jin-gyeom? He might not be Park Jin-gyeom as we know him but he might be Yoo Jin-gyeom growing up, living his life in the future with his doting mum and dad. Assuming of course that Tae-yi and Min-hyuk would meet somehow even without the Alice connection.

There is an increasing sense that things are not what they should be. Things are topsy turvy somewhat like it is in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. That was patently clear especially in that poignant audio message from the past that finally reached Min-hyuk. Which was absolutely the highlight of episode 14 for me. The regret that the two people separated by time and pace were feeling were palpable. The thoughts going through their minds were so beautifully encapsulated in that brief moment of quantum entanglement. They should have been together, they should have done this together. She didn’t have to raise that child on her own. He should have been there for her and their son. They could have fought this battle together as a family. The grief and loss felt by Min-hyuk was wonderfully portrayed by Kwak Si-yang.

The difference between Min-hyuk (and perhaps this accounts for his popularity) and Jin-gyeom seems largely to be a matter of acceptance. Min-hyuk has witnessed first hand and quickly come to the realisation that the past isn’t something to be meddled with regardless of how painful certain events are. I’m sure there are things he’d like to have changed. He has the power to do it. But he realises he can’t just go back in time and “fix” things without ripple effects on unwitting bystanders. Ultimately, there is something selfish about going back to the past and changing it for one’s benefit without having to take responsibility for the consequences of doing so. In all honesty no mere mortal can. For me Min-hyuk is someone who understands his own part in this, the mistakes he made in this entire scenario understands the nub of the problem and comes to the right conclusion on his own. As someone who was part of the system which caused it. He also acknowledges that there's something inherently corrupting about time travel. That kind of absolute power corrupts absolutely. No mere mortal can wield it without losing him/herself in it. At this point between Min-hyuk and Jin-gyeom, it’s obvious who the father is... who is the adult in the room.

My favourite exchange in Lewis Carroll’s Alice is the one between Alice and the Cheshire-Cat. 

“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”

“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat.

“I don’t much care where — “ said Alice.

“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat.

“— so long as I get somewhere,” Alice added as an explanation.

“Oh, you’re sure to do that,” said the Cat, “if you only walk long enough.”

The destination does matter in determining the route taken. Does Jin-gyeom want to catch the person who killed his mother? Or does he want to stop her from dying? It seems to me perhaps he might not be allowed to do both. He can no longer grope around in the dark aimlessly lurching from crisis to crisis. It isn't just that his soul is at stake but lives everywhere.

According to the drama time travel is unnatural and not how life should be lived as seen in the way it splits up families and causes confusion in relationship dynamics. The past isn't a tourist destination or a psychodrama to be reenacted. What it is, is lived experience to inform the traveller of how the present and the future can be better lived out. Death, grief and loss are part of the stark realities of life but life has to go on for the ones who remain. Those who remain have people under their noses who need them, who rely on them to move on. Those who are gone will not be forgotten but any regrets about the departed should be a reminder that the same mistakes don't have to repeated and lead to a heavier burden of more regrets by ignoring those right in front of us.

Hot Stove League (2020) A Review

On the surface this winner of the prestigious 2020 BaekSang Arts Award for Best Drama might not appear to have much popular appeal. Beyond the baseball backdrop, however, is a profoundly human story that covers a whole gamut of life experiences in and out of sports. The drama has a tremendous amount to offer in terms of storytelling, performances and strong production values even for someone like me who knows next to nothing about the game. It’s the kind of story that grabs you from the start with its universal themes about perseverance, camaraderie, teamwork and loss. Of course it doesn’t hurt that spearheading the narrative is a master strategist. On an immediate level it is a baseball story as one navigates through the industry jargon, the rules of the sport and be utterly bamboozled while the experts crunch the statistics. But if that was all it was I certainly wouldn’t have binged watched it in two days. On another level baseball is the vehicle through which experiences of ordinary folk are played out as they wrestle through a myriad of challenges and decisions that are familiar with anyone from different walks of life. It is certainly no accident that the team spotlighted here is called Dreams.

“Hot Stove League” refers to the off-season period in which the professional teams work behind the scenes in preparation for the next season. For a baseball ignoramus and a non-follower of spectator sports like myself, it’s a fascinating glimpse at the complexity of managing professional sports. The delightful Namgoong Min is the outsider here, the newly appointed General Manager of Dreams which has been placed at the bottom of the league table for the past 4 years. Baek Seung-su, a newcomer to baseball, is selected by the acting owner (O Jung-se) for his ability (and reputation) to revive sports teams only to see them dissolved after taking them to a championship win. The parent company Jaesong Group desperately wants to disband Dreams after incurring serious losses and failing to sell it off after several attempts. Seung-su’s primary adversary is the acting owner, nephew of the chairman of Jaesong, Kwon Kyung-min. A good proportion of the drama sees the two facing off in a battle of wits. One wants to build something from what’s left of the Dreams but the other wants to dismantle the entire structure.

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Alice (2020) For which I tear my hair out in frustration and take a deep breath

This show fascinates and frustrates me on so many levels. Despite my eagerness to get back to it after the Chuseok break and revelling in the highs in these recent episodes (11 and 12), there are aspects of it that leave me shaking my head going "Why?" As an ahjumma who might or might not be entering pre-menopause I certainly can't afford to lose any more hair. But my need to know how it all plays out means that I will be persevering right to the end... bitter or sweet or both. At this point there's really no sense in abandoning ship when the finale is in sight.

12 episodes on, Jin-gyeom's relationship... out of all the relationships he has with everyone in the drama... with present day Tae-yi is, in my opinion, the least interesting. Taboo teasing aside. While I grudgingly accept that he has to have a relationship with her... or even the nature of his relationship with her, the time spent on it seems disproportionate in its execution. When I consider how clever the show is capable of being with regards to time travel and doppelgangers, it's dismal that this supposedly key relationship sucks the oxygen from the room. It's so blah because they're nervously treading a tightrope that could see their ratings plummet altogether. From the looks of things it's already begun to happen.

*Spoilers Ahead*

For the most part Alice has the makings of a good drama and when it behaves like a  twisted mind boggling sci-fi thriller, it's at the top of its game. But all the overemphasis on Jin-gyeom's ambiguous relationship with 2020 Tae-yi is tedious. Whichever way you look at it. Part of the problem it seems to me is that she's a patchy character written more to serve a function in the script that sees her dashing here, there, everywhere quite uselessly and often putting herself in harm's way. It doesn't help that she is written as a doppelganger, living under the shadow of the "prototype" which is all the more ironic in light of what she says about herself when she confronts the fact that she's Jin-gyeom's mother's parallel self. It strikes her (and us) that she's a mannequin whose importance to the likes of Jin-gyeom and Min-hyuk is imbued by their relationship with the Tae-yi that they have memories of. That acknowledgement /realisation was perhaps the best thing about her so far. Frankly it should never have taken her this long to get there. Sometimes... in my more cynical moments... I toy with the idea that the show doesn't quite know what to do with her except as someone for Jin-gyeom to rescue and angst over. In contrast,  Jin-gyeom's scenes with his beloved Ahjussi roll much better and feel so much more natural. 

It's almost tragic how underutilized second tier/ supporting characters are by comparison. Especially when most of them are potentially more interesting. The juggling act especially in the middle act is lamentable. There's no disputing the need for an ensemble cast for a show like this and I've even defended Do-yeon's characterization elsewhere. But it's increasingly apparent that she's becoming more of a prop that they trot out now and again to remind us that she exists. Where's the feisty journalist? What's the point of giving Tae-yi an adoptive sister who does so little to further the storyline? Jin-gyeom's colleagues? Yeah, what about them? Why is Tae-yi playing detective instead of them? And Min-hyuk... dear Min-hyuk... what a waste of the eye candy and the soothing sonorous vocals. Yes, I'm biased because I'm finding him to be a more interesting character than the leads right now. Rather than putting so much focus on Jin-gyeom's need to use 2020 Tae-yi as a vicarious conduit for living with mother, I'd personally rather have seen Do-yeon and the team members better integrated into the bigger picture. There's so little teamwork. Increasingly they're relegated to the place of comic relief and scenery. I am justifiably concerned... especially with only 4 episodes left in the can.

I don't want to be too unkind. Perhaps I'm jumping the gun. True, the world's not about to end. But it's certainly making a great case for 12 episodes being the new default standard for time travel thrillers. 

Ko Hyeon-seok's (Ahjussi) arc sadly came to an end in the most recent episode. To its credit the show gave him a lovely send off which not only saw some new facts regarding Alice Inc. come to light but also demonstrated Jin-gyeom's growth as a man in his ability to transcend his alexithymia to a much higher degree. Ko Hyeon-seok, while he understandably threw his lot in with the pro-time travelling monomaniacs, was a genuinely kind-hearted, grieving soul. He and others kept Jin-gyeom on the straight and narrow after his mother's death. They are instruments by which he discovers... attains his humanity, grounding him in the importance of relationships... of family. Moreover, Jin-gyeom's acknowledgement of Hyeon-seok's part in his journey as a father-figure he needed at the most crucial moment was deeply moving. I grieve with those who lost him and one gets a growing sense that the trade-offs to time travel are ridiculously high.

Now that Hyeon-seok is out of the picture one can only hope that Min-hyuk can step into that vacated role in some fashion. He can't be what Hyeon-seok was to Jin-gyeom because of timing and circumstances. The need this time will be different. He will, however, be a comrade-in-arms in line with his skill set and out of sheer necessity in the battle that is to come. Whether Jin-gyeom wants Min-hyuk's help or not, he will have it but more importantly, he will need it. Min-hyuk is a warrior in the way Hyeon-seok could never be. Plus he's man who has some chance of dealing with the "invasion from the future".  Now that he's catching on with regards to the ugly side of time travel, he will throw all his resources into doing what he had failed to do previously.

Hyeo-seok's final words to Jin-gyeom come from a man who has travelled back in time and reaped some benefits in doing so. One might even say that he did some good while he lingered on in place of his other self. What he said about taking hold of the present and not having regrets about it is significant in light of that. If the parallel universe thesis applies here it does suggest that even if you have the ability to go back in time and relive moments with your loved ones, it isn't exactly the same. The person from the parallel universe is not a carbon copy of the person you loved. That's the crux of Min-hyuk's comment to 2020 Tae-yi. The parallel universe might be a pleasant way to play out one's fantasies or unfulfilled desires but it's not a place you can necessarily call home. In part because the time traveller has a knowledge of a future that hasn't yet occurred. By going back to the past the time traveller from the future automatically changes the past because of experiences and memories of occurrences that the past is still ignorant about. It's a double-edged sword. Wrongs can be righted but there is still the law of unintended consequences lurking in the background.

According to my perspective, it's in effect a gigantic psychoanalytic laboratory that is doomed for failure if the goal is to change the past to mitigate the effects of suffering. It can't be assumed that change is necessarily for the better (whatever "better" means)... or that the net benefits outweigh the negative trade-offs. 

The moral underpinnings are clear. Time travellers of the future seem drunk with power, amoral and have very little qualms killing their past selves if it means furthering their goals. That point is made loudly and with little doubt. They blithely ignore the moral ramifications because... let's face it... the lure of holding on to that kind of power is irresistible for certain types of individuals. Especially if they zealously believe in harnessing that power for good. Furthermore, we don't fully comprehend the Teacher's agenda. Or even future Tae-yi's thinking on the necessity of shutting it all down. But it's not hard to see at least from an outsider's perspective some of the dangers despite whatever short-term benefits it might lead to. Regardless of what pearls of wisdom are contained in the last page of the Book of Prophecy, irregardless of the benefits, there's something about going back and forth in time that feels ominous.

My own feeling is that even the time travelling enthusiasts don't know everything about how time travel works. I've had this feeling for a while especially because of the Book of Prophecy. Ki Cheol-am's almost dismissive comment about paradoxes seems to highlight that. Of course I don't discount that this could be a writing and conception flaw. Because no matter how people go on and on about the multiverse thesis here, they all seem to conveniently return to the prime line where our Park Jin-gyeom is at the centre of it all with no explanation (so far) of how that works. I can only speculate that the Book of the Prophecy is the reason why the Alice facility was built in 2020 and is the flashpoint for all occurrences.

Since now that we know that the Alice project and Teacher crowd intersect via Ki Cheol-am, the writing is on the wall writ large. One wonders how deep the rot goes within the legitimate face of time travel. The illegitimate death cult run by the Teacher sees itself as the ultimate gatekeepers ensuring that continuation of time travel. What about the lad that is called The Broker? Where does he fit into the overall scheme of things?

I have said on other occasions that time travel has to end at some point because of the inherent danger of the technology falling into the wrong hands or the fact that such power appears to be in the hands of an unknown mysterious oligarchy called "Headquarters". There's another reason which I've already alluded to. Fixing the past is a pipedream if all that's happening is the creation of an alternate timeline. It may have some therapeutic benefit as a type of psychodrama. However, the fixation with the past renders the actor immobile. The second-guessing, the hypothetical "if only I had..." ensures that the individual remains static. I return to Hyeon-seok's dying words. The present and the people around are what's important. Th lesson for Jin-gyeom is this: Life is to be lived to its fullest in the here and the now. We are meant to move on from events -- tragic or otherwise and grow. Happiness is not forever. Painful moments are inevitable. They can make us or break us. That's the choice to be made. To accept the past and to move on from it strengthened and wiser to in readiness for the present and the future.

From the bottom of my heart I really want this show to do well. Indeed I do. Science fiction done well is always delight. But there's a niggling fear that it's suffering from the usual problems of ambitious productions comprising of ensemble casts. It's all in the juggling act.

Stranger Season 2 (2020) *Non-Spoiler Review*

With the benefit of hindsight, there is a lot to like in this second season. The writer took an entirely different approach and it's not hard to understand why. However, with the burden of expectation of a second season to navigate (a kind of "sequelitis"), it did cause some degree of discontent at least among international fans. I personally thought the set-up took a world and an age to get going although it wasn't without some justification seeing what came later. Perhaps domestic audiences were in a better position to appreciate what the writer was doing because of the socio-political issues that were raised initially. In its defence the approach taken was innovative in terms of the way the 3 disparate cases introduced at the start became interconnected because of the various players involved. Politics gave those cases seeming undue prominence but as it turns out, the three cases -- the Tongyeong drownings, the Segok station suicide and former prosecutor, Park Gwang-su's death -- brought to light systemic problems of corruption within the criminal justice system stemming from individuals flouting the law . The downside to all of this, as a myriad of new characters were trotted out  in dribs and drabs, is that it placed the onus largely on the viewer to try and weigh the relative importance of a myriad of supporting characters while tracking their appearances throughout the series in relationship to their specific cases. Even as someone who watches a lot of detective/ police procedurals, I often found  myself needing to watch every episode at least twice to navigate my head around this large ensemble of vested interests while wondering where they fit into the bigger story. This consequently slowed the show's progress in the first half. Moreover,  in the attempt of trying to be mysterious for its own sake and ramp up the hype, there seemed to be a lot of window dressing in the early days.

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Flower of Evil (2020) Final Reflections *Spoilers*

The best part of this show was probably in the first half when Lee Joon-gi's character, Do Hyun-so was playing cat and mouse chess with everyone including Moon Chae-won's Ji-won. It was both edge of the seat stuff and Hitchcock-like. Even if he wasn't actually guilty of much by way of crime, he did perpetuate a degree of deception against his own family. Because of that, the resolution that we got, made some measure of sense. Not in terms of plausibility... all of that went out of the window in the final act with the heavy makjang emphasis... but in terms of his journey as a man who was sinned against much more than he sinned. Whatever his natural propensities were, they were muted by his relationship to Ji-won, the girl who pursued him and married him. Her belief in him and the fundamental good in him was what, according to the show, saved him mind, body and soul. Love... so the saying goes... conquers all. To avoid an outright happily-ever-after (which is what they were really aiming at here), they compromised and gave us the amnesia trope on a platter -- a symbolic cleansing and reset.

While that might be aimed to give viewers the warm fuzzies, it's the safe option for the show to take. Ji-won stood by her man even when he "forgot her" and it paid dividends. More than that she proved to the world that there was sufficient good in him to transcend genetics and all the odds stacked against him in terms of upbringing and societal marginalization. Amnesia also meant that Do Hyun-so would do his sackcloth and ashes routine, self-reflecting and a bit of self-flagellation on top of all that.

Before her departure Hae-su offers a pep talk. They can't spend all their time wondering around the wilderness second-guessing themselves. Life has to be lived and there are people around who care. Don't look a gift horse in the mouth. More importantly, they shouldn't live under the shadow of their father's dark legacy.

Clearly at the heart of this, is a drama about marriage and family. I think the final arc is proof of that. It is also why the show doesn't much rise above its early claims to be a serious police procedural. It's a contest of nature vs nurture on some level but the show doesn't go deep into anything because ultimately it's a family drama with the window dressing of psychothriller, crime show. It is first and foremost a love story. That's the double-edged sword. Contrary to the title, the show wasn't going the whole hog to turn Do Hyun-so into the image of his father.

Hyun-so taking on Hee-saeng's identity while the latter was in a coma was highly symbolic on hindsight. The latter was the apprentice Do Min-seok had groomed. While Hee-saeng had the bloodlust, he didn't have the mental acuity of his mentor. He survived under the veneer of respectability which his wealthy upper middle class professional parents gave. It seems that they knew very early on what his tendencies were but were hapless in nipping the matter in the bud. As Hyun-soo's alter ego and nemesis the question inevitably arises. So is it nature or nurture? The Baeks were quick to blame Do Min-seok's diabolical influence to diminish their own culpability. The school incident when he dropped the brick on someone from the roof was at the very least a hint of an ASPD nature. But ASPD doesn't have to be a death sentence. Or be followed by murderous behaviours. 

It is suggestive that Baek Man-woo even in his interactions with Hyun-so in the early days demonstrates malevolent tendencies. Hiding his comatosed son in a secret room behind the closet to maintain his professional standing seems to me highly dubious. Doing deals with Hyun-so to take on Hee-saeng's identity shows a pattern of behaviour. Advising Hyun-so to bump off obstacles along the way without batting an eyelash is indicative. While he doesn't go around killing random victims, he is not above engaging in morally questionable acts. The elephant in this room is the question of whether Do Min-seok was really the primary insidious influence on Hee-saeng's life because his birth father had serious character flaws which he could have picked up on growing up in that household.

Sadly the exploration of evil within families though a fascinating topic doesn't really get much of a probe beyond the usual platitudes. This also I think compromised the quality of the detective work towards the end... the silliness... all in service of the inevitable but needless melodramatic climax. Even though on first appearances the show looked like it was breaking the mould, it turned out more like a revenge story culminating in a big showdown between antihero and villain. This villain is not so terrifying as he is sheltered by wealth.

The part about Ji-won that was interesting is her much touted evidence-based approach to life. To some it seems initially to be something of a weakness to be exploited but as the story progresses, it becomes the quality (arguably an asset) that keeps their marriage together. Hyun-so saw himself as an imposter who acted in ways that would be socially acceptable as a husband and father but what Ji-won saw was beyond the social niceties. Effectively it wasn't all an act. There was a lot more to Hyun-so than even he himself realised or claimed to be Until his sister observed that he had changed, he was unaware that he was more than a programmed automaton... the absolute husband as it were. There's a certain charm to Hyun-so's honesty and Ji-won's faith in what was evident in his expressions of affection to her and Eun-ha. His claims and her own experiences were in contest and in the end, it was her experience that overruled everything. I think his do or die attempts to protect what he had as Baek Hee-saeng was partial proof to her that he was being driven more than just cold calculation in maintaining appearances. 

As far as the acting is concerned, it's a veteran cast with little to criticize. Lee Joon-gi was terrific as one would expect and Moon Chae-won did very well with an emotional rollercoaster journey. I was delighted to see Kim Ji-hoon playing against type and it seemed that he did it with no small amount of relish. While I was entertained for the most part and was even moved by certain interactions, I don't think it's a show I would revisit any time soon. 

Stranger Season 2 (2020) Final Episodes: Crime and Punishment

The more I mull over the ending the more I appreciate its intentions and achievements. It tried to take a different approach from its predecessor... maybe a bit too hard... but it was still a good watch overall. The Hanjo connection is still something of an anti-climax but I'm willing to let it pass because I've come to the conclusion after ruminating over the finale that the writer doesn't do "realistic" crime or political dramas in as much as she spins fables about the state of moral decay in social structures. It was the same with the first season. The contestability of Lee Chang-jun as a martyr for the cause was the shock factor to ensure that the conversation would continue for a time.

The biggest tragedy that's emerged from the entire corruption fiasco is not that men and women in high places committed offences and acted irresponsibly as public officials. It's not even the fact that they tried to get away with it and almost did. There's scarcely anything surprising about all that. Or even that they threatened Si-mok and Yeo-jin with an outcome that forbode doom and gloom for all eternity. What was truly tragic was that most of the perpetrators maintained an unrepentant disposition right to the bitter end. The production team gleefully slugged viewers over the head with a heavy dose of realism -- although I doubt that anyone was expecting a Disney ending in any shape or form.

I keep returning to the drama's references to Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment which would have provided a suitable subtitle for the drama. In the original, Raskolnikov, who killed the repulsive pawnshop owner and played out the justifications for doing so in his own mind fell prey to his own conscience despite his stated nihilistic commitments. The former law student considered himself an amoral being, the rules didn't apply to her, and he would be the arbiter of what's right or wrong. How wrong would it be for him to rid the world of someone so obviously abhorrent. He would be doing the world a favour. Of course human beings aren't amoral creatures and Dostoevsky, a man with deep spiritual concerns understood that only too well. Objectively a man like Raskolnikov wasn't an amoral creature especially if he felt outraged over the doings of unpleasant human beings. The spiritual side of Raskolnikov as represented by his conscience was always at play because fundamentally he believed in some kind of universal justice and held to a moral compass. He wasn't indifferent to the pawnshop owner or to his own sister's plight. What he in effect tried to do is displace the Christian God in his mind and put himself in that place of judge, jury and executioner. It was abominable pride. He played out original sin as understood by Christians from the Genesis account of the Fall of humanity. Raskolnikov put a price tag on a fellow human being which the Christian Dostoevsky would have believed was someone made in the image of God. 

Woo Tae-ha turned out to be a far more cynical beast than I had imagined. His corruption and eventual exposure was obviously not the work of a single day. I always hoped that there was something less Machiavellian beneath that head of hair but sadly he was nothing more than a caricature of the unconscionable slick political operator. He was perceptibly sociopathic in his glibness. Threatening to destroy someone's career to save his seemed like just another day in the office. The language he used was indicative of a strategy that's part of the arsenal he carries around as a matter of habit: none too subtle bullying and emotional manipulation. 

While it might be going too far to say that Woo Tae-ha is cut from entirely the same cloth as Raskolnikov, there are striking similarities. Woo's conscience (whatever's left of it) was at work the entire time as Si-mok and Yeo-jin were digging around for clues to Seo Dong-jae's disappearance. He got nervous, he panicked unnecessarily. He blustered about guiltily and drew attention to himself. He even tried to shut down the investigation. But more importantly he made everything about him. His final exchange with Choi Bit speaks to this: he thought they were a team and he felt betrayed by her actions.

The danger of someone like Woo Tae-ha isn't so much that he's a closet bully or master manipulator but that he puts himself above the law. Multiple steps of rationalization led to one compromising event after another. To be fair, he's not the only one. The accumulation of self-justification over time is damaging for the community. Not only does the system become corrupted and justice becomes a nice, abstract notion, but people get hurt. Some even die as a consequence. 

This was also the case of Kim Hu-jeong, the 20-year-old lad behind the Tongyeong drownings. On some level he is set-up to be a sympathetic victim of long-term, incessant bullying. Our sense of justice is appealed to on that front. However, that is called into question when he makes himself judge, jury and executioner of his bullies.  Contrary to what he thinks, he didn't get caught because Seo Dong-jae got nosey. He got caught in part because his guilt affected his conscience. To cover up his original offence, he hit Dong-jae over the head with a brick and then tried to hide his crime in his closet. Then when he heard about the fake evidence and fake letter, his guilty conscience saw him reacting once again by cleaning his flat with bleach and took a man, barely alive, out into the forest and dumped him there. The bleaching of his "lair" was symbolic of his wanting to cleanse himself of the crime which shows perhaps that his conscience was needling him. If he really believed that he had the right to kill those other boys, why would he even bother cleaning up? Essentially the point of his arc was that he had committed a crime and was trying to get away with it. We can quibble over the plausibility of that event till the cows come home but what the writer really wants to highlight is the human capacity to rationalize a way into a crime despite the megaphone of the conscience in one's soul.

Sergeant Baek and his men at the Segok station found justification to engage in bribery. It started off with the best of intentions. They rationalized it in the name of saving a life. The sergeant got to his limit and stopped. But the others didn't and it seemed that he didn't try hard enough to stop them either. Then comes along Song Gi-hyeon who is a principled cop and he, in their mind, is a cat among the pigeons. The workplace culture becomes such that he is the troublemaker not them. He finds out about the bribery and they make his life hell so that he ends up taking his own life. Out of the whole mob, only two came to some understanding of their culpability in the chain reaction that followed.

This is why Kang Won-chul's resignation was so important. He recognized his culpability in the chain of events that followed a single decision. He allowed his conscience to guide him and he left the prosecutor's office with his integrity more or less intact even if it doesn't erase what had happened. The most important part of why he resigned is that he saw a progression to what he did in the Tongyeong drownings. I'm not saying he should take responsibility for everything that occurred there but a man who can still second-guess himself for the part he played in an event, can find his way out of the pit he's dug himself into. Certainly he made a deal with the devil... Hanjo... but by walking away from the prosecutor's office, he is free from further manipulation. At the very least he values his freedom over being someone else's puppet for the sake of short-term wealth or gain like O Ju-seon for instance.

Kang Won-chul's quick exchange with Lee Yeon-jae was one of the finale (or even the entire series)'s highlights. Of course individuals can and do make a difference. That's what leadership is supposed to be about. Steering the ship in the right course is a start. I'm not sure if she grasps the point that's made but she doesn't have to be her father's daughter or her husband's wife. She can be a leader of a corporation shaped and styled without having to default to "business tactics as usual". Kang Won-chul's comments sting because she knows deep down that there's some truth to what he says about her role in her husband's demise. 

The rule of law is one of the most fundamental principles of civilized free societies. Not because it's a blanket guarantee against crime or anarchy from occurring but because, I think, it also protects us from a kind of insular hubris as exemplified by Raskolnikov and Woo Tae-ha et. al. No one is above the law or should be if justice ultimately has to be served.

Although initially painful, it's right (on hindsight) that Yeo-jin stick to her guns and continue with the Intelligence Bureau at the main office despite actively experiencing ostracization. It's not only another instance of the importance of individuals making a difference by standing up to the status quo, but the discomfort she creates here is necessary for some long-term realignment of the workplace culture to some more in line with the ideals of the organization. The fact that she is branded a traitor rather than a hero is predictable considering the systemic corruption at the higher levels already trickling downwards. Her colleagues see themselves as mere cogs in the machinery, not living breathing organisms that can affect changes in the health of the body. In their mind, it's not that individuals can't make a difference but that they shouldn't even try. They should fall in line with what the leadership does and not question their actions because apparently because they are infallible gods. They've learnt to play the game a certain way and can't abide by the fact that someone would come along and tell them that the rules were being broken the entire time. Yeo-jin is being punished via ostracization for the crime of upholding the ideals of the organization... and don't we feel the injustice of it all.

Those that swim against the tide to get the truth heard are laudable in their courage because they pay a very high price for it so that others can have a voice. They're seldom popular for doing so they lose friends and even family for taking a stand. It's easy to speak truth to power when it's prevailing orthodoxy and no one in the mainstream disagrees with you but much much harder when no one cares to hear it. Still the show offers her and the rest of us who barrack for her a glimmer of hope in the presence of the new director. He might be a much needed fresh wind to blow in change that's sorely needed for the organization.

What Seo Dong-jae represents for me here is the value of all human life flawed and unvirtuous as they are. We don't have to like him because he sometimes plays fast and loose with the truth. We don't have to like the bullies to acknowledge that their lives meant something if not to us but to their families. It's easy to dehumanize someone deeply unlikeable to the point that murder becomes a natural next step. Which is what we see in Crime and Punishment. Murder affects the perpetrator quite differently, it seems to me compared to other crimes. 

Yeo-jin's visit to Yoon Se-won signals something hugely significant in light of all the nasty stuff that's gone on. To ultimately break the cycle of vengeance and resentment, forgiveness is absolutely key. Park Kyung-won might not be entirely sure of why he's sending packages to the man who murdered his father but I think it's really about forgiveness because that's what his soul seems to be craving. 

In keeping with its title the show makes a strong case for "strangers"... outliers in a system made more complex by political chicanery. These "strangers" or outsiders are men and women who remain true to the ideals of the institutions that they are meant to protect from untoward influence no matter the cost. They are few and far between but they are necessary. They are needed to keep the inhouse hustlers from crossing the invisible line. They may be feared or disliked but they are absolutely needed to ensure that the entire superstructure doesn't collapse into a heap. It certainly helps some of us sleep a little better at night that they are people like Si-mok and Yeo-jin about, few as they might be.