Live Blogging the Heirs Finale

Guys, this is it.  For all of its ups and downs, Heirs was a fun community experience.  Even when it was a complete train wreck in the middle, at least we all got to laugh at the train wreck together!  Because we live blogged the Heirs premiere, we thought we would round out some of our thoughts on the final episode in the same way.  Here we go!

00.10
V: This show has turned me into Pavlov’s dog. I hear the Young Do theme song, and I’m already clutching my heart at the computer screen. CURSE YOU AND YOUR CHARISMA FOREVER, KIM WOO BIN!

I can’t help but wish, though, that they had just consummated this bromance with one last round of “Love Is the Moment.”

6.05
C: Did Young Do’s dad just make a joke? What? It’s a little late for father/son camaraderie don’t you think?

V: Yeah, waaaay too little too late. You can’t just give people strokes or send them to jail in the last episode to make us feel sad!

C: But I did feel sad though. When Tan’s dad reached out to fake little Tan….FEELS

V: Me too. Stroke + small child flashbacks? I can’t resist. But I still felt manipulated the whole time.

C: Agreed. Those writers are pulling every trick in the tear generator book.

8.10
C: Aww, Young Do is trying to make his peace with the world! Now he’s bad-boy-turned-sad-boy-turned-rad-boy, but still kind of just sad-boy, FOREVER.

9.11
V: LSKJDFFSKHLJFSJLSDFJKLFSDJKL I’m never ever going to recover from Young Do-itis.


C: Me either. They better do him right by the end of this! I FORGIVE YOU YOUNG DO! (and please marry me).

9.50
V: It wouldn’t be Heirs without some unintelligible English, would it?

C: Funny how it’s all coming full circle, even the engrish.

V: Does this mean we might get a closing cameo from Tan’s surfer drug addict thief friend?

C: PLEASE dear drama gods, YES!

11.40
C:  NO YOUNG DO! Don’t do it! They better not make him commit suicide. THIS IS NONSENSE!!!

Also, poor little rich kids. Boooo hoooo. Go cry me a river that I know you’re just going to make your servant clean up.

V: Yeah, yeah, we get it. Everyone is sad except for Eun Sang.

C: What? She’s sad for like 19 of the 20 episodes. I thought she only knew how to make one face.

V: Is that why she’s text message rubbing it in that she’s the only non-sad one now? Oh, wait, she’s STILL making her cry face.

18.40
C: It’s making me nervous that Young Do is traipsing all around trying to make amends. He better not die! And if he’s not going to die, then is this just the writer’s evil plot to make us fall even more in love with him so it sucks that much more when he NEVER wins?

V: I can’t even talk about him anymore because it hurts my heart too much. I’m just going to listen to his theme song on repeat instead.

C: That will do you no good. Nothing good ever comes from listening to K-drama theme songs on repeat. Trust me, I did it with Master’s Sun and it wrecked me, like a wrecking ball, that’s how it came in.

V: Well, the writer will just have to take responsibility for any Miley Cyrus happenings around here, then. She’s the one who wrote a male lead with the personality of a potato and matched him against this guy!

C: Yes that was so shortsighted, or genius. Not sure which, but I’m in love so I don’t even care! Young Do *V*! (*V*= the emoticon for FIGHTING!)

21:43

V: The chairwoman is wearing a Snuggie to an important meeting. Hey, at least she dressed it up with her best neck bow, right?

C: I wonder if I can pick one up at Walgreen’s. My mother would love to have one to watch her K-dramas in.

V: I don’t know, Coco. This one appears to be her most formal snuggy. It might be too fancy for casual Kdrama viewing.

C: Are you saying my mom is not classy? You know what happens when people diss each other’s mothers. We’ve just witnessed 20 episodes of it!

V: Don’t hit me with the chair, Coco! I take it all back!

C: Ok, 4 year feud averted.

V: I’m just glad I won’t be forced to rock angry Elvis hair for the foreseeable future.

C: Yes, and I am glad that I won’t have to wear 20 different ugly sweaters. Wait, why do you get to be Young Do?

V: Because Kim Tan is always the one getting his feelings hurt over “your momma” jokes.

C: Ah, ok. Fair enough.

26.00
C:  Not the DOUBLE single tear! One single tear rolling down two people’s cheeks at the same time?!? This is getting real!

V: Seriously, people, you’re killing me here! I’m thinking of starting a coffee table book entitled The Many Sad Faces of Young Do. Any takers? And it’s a TRIPLE single tear if you count the one slowly rolling down my cheek.

C: Oh no, then that makes it a QUADRUPLE single tear for my little tear running down my little cheek too!

V: It’s really hard to gaze pensively into the distance and watch the show at the same time.

C: That’s true, but this is Young Do we’re talking about, so if anyone deserves quadruple single tears, it’s him.

29:55
V: FINALLY, a Rachel and Hyo Shin scene! I have been waiting for ANYTHING that doesn’t have to do with stupid boring people and their stupid boring companies.

C: Yes! As much as I hate Rachel, I do want to see her happy. It’s only kind of her fault she’s such a heartless rich girl. Tan did her wrong, there’s no denying that!

I'd say she got the better consolation prize.

42.36
V: I feel like I should be more sad about Won’s breakup. Too bad I can’t even remember this girl’s name. I’ve just been calling her Whazzerface Orphan Lady.

C: Yeah, their relationship never felt particularly real and gripping to me. But I am sad for Won. Did he learn nothing about reckless love from Tan?

V: Well, lest we forget, everything is always all about Tan. If Won had done the same thing, they would have lost that vote (52% to 44% is close!). We can’t have poor little Tanny losing all his stuff, can we?

C: True. Someone has to take one for the team, and apparently Won chose to bear the weight of the power and greed crown!

V: One advantage of this show ending is that we never have to hear anything more about crowns or weight ever, ever again.

45.42
V: Has Young Do been carrying that bandaid around in every pair of pants since he got it? Or has he just never changed his pants? Gross.

C: I knew all the men in this show were strangely stalkerish and obsessive, but that does take the cake.

50.30 
C: WTF? Nothing changed? Another shot of Tan and Young Do long walking past each other without looking up? WAE? What was the point of Young Do’s character if he ends up with NOTHING? No girl, no best friend, no company! *throwing table over*

V: Maybe he can go for the new chicken delivery girl?

C: I thought that was what was about to happen and got really angry for a second. Like, that is not an ok cop out last minute.

V: You’re a party pooper. At least Young Do wouldn’t be forever alone, but let’s face it, we all knew this was coming from the first time he showed up. That’s why they started him out SO evil.

C: But every other male lead starts out evil and gets the girl. Just look at Jun Pyo!

V: Or, dare I say it, Kim Tan? Oh wait, he starts out kind of nice and goes downhill from there.

C: How dare you?! You’re right. He’s kind of a controlling and violent maniac.

V: Remember how in Episode 19 he said that he loves to be obsessive? Because I do.

54:27
C:  KISS, KISS, KISS! And I mean a real one now! I just really need for a normal, lovely, kiss where no one looks like they’re in pain or being forced to happen.

54.39
V: I LITERALLY LOLd at that ridiculous (and slightly creepy) lip bump.

C: That was NOT a real kiss! That was a freeze frame so that Park Shin Hye doesn’t have to ever learn how to kiss on screen.

V: At least PSH was smiling! Also, are they getting married? Also also why are they living in Tan’s childhood bedroom ten years down the line?

56. 35
V: I can just imagine the writer saying, “You know what we all need here? A recap of EVERY TIME Kim Tan and Eun Sang cried at each other!” You know, in case we forgot.

C: No, I’m pretty sure that was the abridged version. A whole recap would take 10 of the 20 hours.

V: But, you know, eighteen, and pain and stuff. So that makes it okay.

C: Oh to be young! Young Do! Our favorite part of this whole experience.

V: And Bo Na/Chan Young! (Why couldn't we cut half of the boring company stuff for more of them in the finale?)

C: YES!

The Gift that Keeps on Giving: White Christmas Korean Drama Review

White Christmas crossed my drama radar several months ago, but at the time, I wasn't in the mood for anything really dark (I blame Breaking Bad).  Eventually, the combination of a few disappointing romcoms and the promise of more Kim Woo Bin convinced me to give this miniseries (8 episodes) a chance.

As it turns out, it was just what I needed to cleanse my kdrama palate.  White Christmas is anything but a traditional kdrama.  It isn't romantic.  It isn't funny.  It isn't melodramatic, either.  It's bleak, terrifying, heartbreaking, and disturbing all at once.  It's also fascinating and beautiful in its own dark way.

Overview

I'm going to keep my overview short because this is one drama that probably works best when you know little about it.  The basic plot is this: A handful of students at an elite, isolated high school all receive a mysterious note before Christmas and decide to stay behind with one teacher.  A terrible snowstorm cuts them off from the outside world, and bad things start to happen to them one by one.

If that sounds like the premise to an Agatha Christie novel, it kind of is.  The whole idea of a hodgepodge group of people trapped with one anonymous crazy person isn't exactly new, but, fortunately, that's not the focus of the drama.  The "whodunit" quickly takes a back seat to a much more interesting psychological study that spans the remainder of the series.  

There are two things that make this series work far more effectively than a lot of similar stories.  The first is the production itself.  Everything works together, from the claustrophobic setting of the all-glass school to the use of music (I will never hear this song again without thinking of Kim Woo Bin) to the cuts between characters and scenes.  It would have been easy to film this thing almost entirely zoomed in on people's faces (Les Miserables, I'm looking at you), but they resisted that temptation for a more measured approach that kept the story grounded in reality.

Anyone else feel like they were watching hamsters in a cage every time they ran back and forth?

The second thing that made this series work so well was the cast.  This drama possibly had the best cast I have seen on any kdrama--ever.  I don't say that lightly.  It was a cast of mostly teenagers, but each and every character (okay, with one exception) was layered and complex.  Even the villain of the series had interesting moments of depth that steered clear of caricature.  While I didn't like all of the characters, I grew to understand them.  The cast members were phenomenal at portraying characters who were so human that you hurt for them.  I wasn't worried so much about what the villain might do to them (though that threat was constantly present) so much as what they might do to each other.

I remember reading somewhere (Dramabeans, maybe?) that the director purposely chose young actors who were similar heights for the various roles.  Visually, it was an interesting trick.  There were some scenes where I really couldn't tell who was who, and yet, even though each student was so similar on the outside, they were all completely different on the inside.

Of course, every drama has its faults, and the faults here mostly stemmed from the plot structure.  Time after time, I thought "Why don't you just do X?  Problem solved!"  The last episode had some especially egregious plot holes that had me rolling my eyes. (Also, who on earth gave Kim Yohan his psychology license?)  The short answer here is that the characters never did any of those things because if they had, the conflict would have been gone.  Without that conflict, there was no impetus for the psychological study.  In a series that's much more about people than plot, I'm willing to let holes slide as a matter of narrative necessity.

Overall, I can't say that I would recommend White Christmas offhand to just anyone.  When I say that it's dark, I mean dark.  But if you're willing to brave a bleak drama to see some phenomenal acting, including Kim Woo Bin and Sung Joon in early roles, curl up under some warm blankets, stuff yourself with chocolate, and give this one a try.  It's well worth it.

And now the spoiler club for those who saw this drama and want to discuss the ending...

In the end, the drama seems to claim that the kids did, in fact, become monsters.  We know for a fact that the doctor feels this way--his dying words of "I won" and self-satisfied smile left no question of where he stood on the matter.  Combine that with Park Mu Yeol's chilling face as he lies to the detective (possibly the most upsetting moment of the whole thing for me) as well as the doctor's foreshadowing claim that once Park Mu Yeol turned, his monster would be much worse than anyone else's, and you have a pretty grim view of humanity on your hands. I think, however, that there's more to the story.

First of all, I think the central question of "Are monsters born, or are they made?" is inherently flawed.  How, exactly, are we distinguishing the categories of monster/not monster?  When you piece together the doctor's statements throughout the show, he seems to see it as a clear distinction.  One minute, you're not a monster, but once you flip that switch and do something monstrous, you can never go back to being "non-monster" again.  In his world, once the kids agree to take a life, they are monsters.  At one point in the series, he even points out that it should make no difference whose life it is.  A life is still a life.

But why does the psychotic serial killer get to make the rules?  That seems a little foolhardy, doesn't it?  I agree that the youths made a disturbing (and possibly "monstrous") choice, but that wasn't the only choice they made.  Yang Gang Mo chose to jeopardize his own safety to help the hostages.  Lee Jae Kyu used his power in the "game" to save the others while sacrificing his own life.  Even Mu Yeol overcame his hatred of Chi Hoon to help him.  It's overly simplistic to assume that life is some balancing sheet of "monster" choices versus "non-monster" choices, but to assume--as the doctor does--that one moment flips an irreversible switch undermines the complexity of the show.  

Instead, I see this drama not as a discussion of the monstrous, but rather as a study in understanding others.  Just like the doctor yearns to categorize the boys (and girl) into easy categories of monster or not to ease his own demons, the boys similarly categorize one another at the outset.  As the series progresses, they learn that their easy labels--while initially reassuring--were actually isolating them all.  By the end, the labels are gone, and so is the isolation.

So which image dominates the ending?  Is it Park My Yeol's cold gaze as the doctor whispers "I won"? Or is it the group walking into the light--together?

Where to watch White Christmas

It's a major travesty, but White Christmas isn't currently available on Viki OR Dramafever OR Netflix OR Hulu.  I had to do some digging to find it, but you can watch it here:

Gooddrama

I ended up streaming it because I don't trust random downloads, but even in somewhat grainy quality, it was still worth it.

Other opinions on White Christmas

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