When the Stars Gossip: Episodes 3-4
by DaebakGrits
Lest we overlook that outer area isn’t a playground for vacationers on secret missions to fertilize eggs in zero gravity, our story places our commander and gynecologist in severe peril when a spacewalk goes awry — risking not solely their lives however their budding good friend/relation-ship as effectively.
EPISODES 3-4
After the profitable mouse surgical procedure, Ryong — like every main man who’s felt he wasn’t constructed for love till he discovered “the one” — hides out in his sleep pod to course of his feelings. Fortunately, he has the decency to really feel responsible about Go-eun, who’s ready impatiently for him to return to Earth. However, like a number of Beanies, the velocity with which Ryong appears to be falling for Eve — coupled with the truth that each he and Eve are concerned with different folks again on Earth — doesn’t sit proper with me.
That being mentioned, I’m going to belief the method. It’s already been established that Ryong didn’t love Go-eun previous to his little area journey, which permits for somewhat leniency — as long as he doesn’t cross a line and act on these feelings. I personally like his flawed characterization, and it form of amuses me that, after assuming he couldn’t really feel love, he (presumably) discovered his match in freaking outer area. (With the present state of relationship apps, in some way this is without doubt one of the drama’s extra plausible plot factors.)
However, should you’re involved about how Go-eun goes to honest after Ryong works out his emotions for Eve, then concern not, as a result of I believe our writers are additionally setting the stage for her and Kang-soo to change into an merchandise once more. In final week’s episodes, we noticed Go-eun’s administrative assistant pointedly inform her that she may have ignored Kang-soo’s telephone name, and the truth that she didn’t suggests she would possibly really feel one thing greater than indifference for her ex-boyfriend. And if the ol’ adage that the alternative of affection isn’t hate (as a result of hate suggests lingering emotions), then this week’s episodes reveal that she undoubtedly has a number of passionate anger left over for Kang-soo.
It seems that Kang-soo’s earlier request that Eve carry him a stack of lottery tickets was part of his bigger, well-thought-out plan to distract the remainder of the area station’s crew so he may sneak off and incriminate Min-jung’s eggs together with her late husband’s sperm. Again on Earth, Min-jung and Go-eun are furious that Chairman Choi and Kang-soo moved ahead with their scheme with out their consent, and after Kang-soo has inseminated seven of the ten obtainable eggs, Go-eun calls Kang-soo to offer him a chunk of her thoughts. Right here’s the place the aforementioned “passionate anger” comes into play, as we witness a aspect of her character that we’ve but to see her show round Ryong. And given the moony expression Kang-soo wears whereas she rips him a brand new asshole, this can be a Go-eun that Kang-soo isn’t solely aware of however clearly loves.
The issue with making Kang-soo be Go-eun’s finish sport is that Kang-soo goes to wish a large redemption arc. Even when the occasions main as much as Go-eun’s ectopic being pregnant aren’t as nefarious as we had been initially led to imagine, he nonetheless conspired with Chairman Choi to go towards Go-eun and Min-jung’s needs. I really like buff Oh Jung-se as a lot as the following hot-blooded fangirl, however a person who blatantly ignores and circumvents a lady’s reproductive decisions? Nicely, that’s a mighty robust character flaw to beat. However, as I mentioned earlier than, I’m going to belief the method (and Oh Jung-se)… for now.
Our plot picks up with the announcement that Kang-soo and Eve can be performing a spacewalk to restore the photo voltaic panels that had been broken through the smaller spacecraft’s journey from Earth to the area station. Ryong is downright giddy to listen to that Kang-soo can be part of this mission, as he each half-heartedly needs his competitor lifeless and sees the scheduled spacewalk as his seven-hour window of alternative to steal again the eggs. Nevertheless, he’s much less gleeful when he realizes that Eve can be becoming a member of Kang-soo. In actual fact, each ominous phrase she mentioned to him pre-space launch in regards to the risks of a spacewalk — specifically the very graphic manner she described the best way he’d die if he received a gap in his area go well with — comes again to him. It’s so harmful, actually, that earlier than astronauts full a spacewalk, they normally write a will.
Earlier than her spacewalk, Eve writes her personal will (howdy, foreshadowing), utilizing the duty as a method to check out her finger dexterity whereas sporting her gloves, and he or she provides it to Ryong with directions to learn it throughout her spacewalk. Earlier he’d requested her if they may seize a drink once they’re again on Earth a 12 months from now, and he or she mentioned the reply to his query is in her will. She needn’t fear about him studying it prematurely, although, as a result of Ryong is distracted by his personal — doubtlessly lethal — scheme to interrupt into the locked cryogenic freezer to steal Min-jung’s eggs.
Now, I’m not even going to faux to know the working mechanics of the area station or query the plausibility of Ryong’s plan, however an important bit is that he plans on utilizing one of many area station’s treadmills to overpower an already-strained system and trigger a piece of the area station to catch on fireplace — thus triggering the hearth alarm and unlocking the cryogenic freezer. In case you thought deliberately beginning a hearth in area was dumb, effectively that’s solely the start of Ryong’s foolishness. You see, zero gravity’s results on the human physique make extreme train lethal, and the cardio required to start out a hearth on board the area station may actually kill Ryong. However, as he tells an oblivious-to-his-plan Min-jung, he’s going to “get these eggs again, even when it kills” him.
Whereas Ryong’s egg heist goes largely in line with plan (Mina and Seung-joon virtually catch him within the act after they arrive to place out the hearth and save their analysis), the identical can’t be mentioned for Eve and Kang-soo’s spacewalk. A sequence of unlucky occasions begins when Kang-soo will get a gap in his go well with and has to return to the area station, leaving Eve to finish the repairs to the photo voltaic panels herself. She’s practically executed together with her portion of the repairs when a chunk of wire slips from her software belt. She reaches out to seize it — as a result of even a small little bit of floating particles may cause injury — and loses her grip on the area station. Though her tether retains her in shut proximity to the station, she’s jerked round like a yo-yo till she grabs onto one of many broken photo voltaic panels, however the panel cuts a gap in her glove. Not like Kang-soo, although, she’s not capable of shortly return to the area station as a result of one finish of her tether is damaged and the opposite she can’t attain. She’s caught, and her vitals are dropping dangerously.
The suspensefulness of Eve’s spacewalk is juxtaposed with the calm introspection of her will, which Ryong reads after efficiently finishing his heist. Eve’s father was an American astronaut who died attempting to avoid wasting a colleague throughout a spacewalk, and in his personal will he careworn the significance of appreciating even the smallest type of life as a result of they’re all miracles — a perspective that jogs my memory of real-life area vacationer William Shatner’s reflections after his journey to area.
Eve should contemplate Ryong to be a kind of insignificant lives as a result of her will is definitely a “set of requests” for Ryong that reads like a canine proprietor’s handbook for his or her pet sitter. Besides, along with asking Ryong to control her mice and Public and (a pregnant!) Indecency, she tells him methods to preserve himself alive in area. He’s within the means of finishing quantity 4 on her listing (add gochujang to tuna and eat), when Eve’s vitals drop and an alarm begins blaring by means of the area station, alerting him to the truth that she’s in peril. So what does he do? Ryong, the dumbass area cowboy, fully ignores quantity six in Eve’s will (keep put and do nothing) and goes out into area to rescue her — decompression and correct area apparel be damned.
Y’all, I’m scuffling with the writers’ resolution to have Ryong threat his life for Eve so quickly within the story. Positive, it’s already been established that Ryong has a little bit of a hero advanced, however he’s additionally egocentric and flawed. Given the circumstances, it’s extra plausible that his sense of self-preservation and an absence of expertise/coaching would tamper his hero advanced — particularly since he and Eve haven’t developed a deep emotional connection that will believably supersede survival instincts or logic. However as an alternative of creating their relationship previous to having him rescue Eve additional into our story, when it might be extra emotionally impactful (for us and the characters), I suppose the writers have determined to have our characters develop emotions as a result of they went by means of one thing traumatic collectively.
And certain sufficient, after Ryong and Eve make it again onto the area station safely and undergo decompression and hyperbaric therapies, Eve wakes up excited about Ryong. Oh, she’s so pissed at him for not following her orders to remain on the rattling ship that she slaps him throughout the face. However she can also’t get him off her thoughts, which simply pisses her off extra — for a number of causes. One among which being the truth that he has a fiancée who simply held a press convention to publicly announce their engagement — and wave a metaphorical center finger at her father. Though she says she loves Ryong, I’m undecided how deeply her emotions for him developed past her preliminary curiosity in utilizing him to spite her father, who’s — unequivocally — this villain of this drama.
Simply whenever you thought Chairman Choi couldn’t get anymore diabolical, his controlling nature reaches a brand new degree. The stress of attempting to have a profitable IVF remedy — and all of the area opera-level drama that went together with it — lastly received to Min-jung and he or she collapsed at work. When Chairman Choi comes to go to her within the hospital, he’s enthusiastic about Kang-soo’s success with the egg inseminations and boasts about how effectively he’s going to care for his future grandchild. Downside is Min-jung is aware of the pedestal he guarantees to place the kid on is known as a jail, and as an alternative of neatly holding her future plans to herself, she lets her frustration get the higher of her. She tells Chairman Choi that she is not going to let him increase her baby. After the child is born, she plans on elevating it on her personal, as her husband — who hated dwelling underneath his father’s thumb — would have needed.
Chairman Choi is angered by her phrases, however he additionally is aware of it’s not inside her potential to defy him — cash, energy, and all that. As an alternative, he has the audacity to inform her to give up her job as a result of “what’s so nice about being a rattling physician.” (Excuse me.) And when it’s clear she has no intention of quitting her job, Chairman Choi orders the hospital director to fireplace her. (We get it, writers, he symbolizes all that’s improper with the patriarchy, however are you able to make him rather less punchable in order that I’m much less prone to rage-destroy my tv display screen?)
Again in area, Eve is giving Ryong the chilly shoulder, and he doesn’t prefer it. In actual fact, I’d argue he’s extra upset by her disapproval than his personal near-death expertise — however both manner Santiago and Seung-joon are there to cheer him up with smuggled liquor and comforting phrases. They admire Ryong for his heroics, and like Ryong, they’re confused as to why Eve punished him. In spite of everything, he saved her life and, as proven by the presence of the booze on board, everybody breaks the foundations somewhat bit. And with that Ryong formally turns into a member of their wolf pack, and I’m in love with this new bromance. I’m going to wish these three to have their very own area journey ASAP.
After having his fill of alcohol, a drunk and further lonely Ryong systematically visits every of the astronauts. He vows to a sleeping Santiago that he’ll repair his crooked sperm so he can have youngsters, and he tells Mina that she ought to preserve the successful lottery ticket that she discovered belonging to Kang-soo as a result of he already has more cash than he is aware of what to do with. Then, after clinging to Seung-joon and inspiring him to do effectively along with his Alzheimer’s analysis, he seeks out Eve. Though she’s been listening to his actions exterior her pod, she acts displeased to see him — however she’s legitimately displeased when she realizes he’s been ingesting. She questions him in regards to the supply of the alcohol, however as an alternative of snitching on his new associates, he switches the topic and asks whether it is okay for him to love her. (Cue: intense staring and roll credit.)
Total, I used to be much less invested in these episodes than I used to be the premiere week, and I believe it’s largely as a consequence of the truth that the allure and humor of the primary two episodes was largely sacrificed for the inclusion of a high-stakes, life-or-death state of affairs that, as I discussed earlier than, ought to have been saved for a later in our story. What little humor we got both fell flat (the entire aspect plot with Mina and her discovered lottery ticket) or occurred late in Episode 4 (drunk wolf pack) after I used to be already emotionally exhausted by the area rescue and Chairman Choi’s insufferableness. I nonetheless discover this present satisfying, but it surely undoubtedly shines brighter when it’s giving area slice-of-life and leaning extra into the absurd.
Though these episodes didn’t shine as brightly as their predecessors, they nonetheless had a number of issues going for them (exterior my new favourite bromance trio, in fact). For starters, there was extra interplay with Ryong’s mothers, JI HWA-JA (Jeon Soo-kyung), JANG MI-HWA (Choi Jung-won), and JUNG NA-MI (Jung Younger-joo), and final week I used to be form of fearful that this iconic trio of veteran actresses can be underutilized since they’re on Earth and faraway from many of the plot’s motion. That’s the place Ryong’s greatest Earth good friend JEON YI-MAN (Im Sung-jae) comes into play. He’s form of a liaison between Ryong and the folks on Earth, and he’s an everyday on the restaurant Ryong’s moms run. And — omo! — is Mi-hwa appropriate in considering Yi-man has a crush on her? Or is she complicated politeness with attraction as a result of she likes the thought of receiving a youthful man’s consideration?
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