Move to Heaven / Ep. 93

I'm Jessica and this is Taba K Rambles where a couple of friends review Korean dramas and we are back to review a slice of life K drama that really broke me to pieces. And for this episode, I am joined by my good friend Miguel. How are you, Miguel? I was all right. Yeah, we I was doing great. We were fine and then we watched Move to Heaven, which is what we'll be reviewing today.

If you're unfamiliar with my guest host today, if you want to scroll back and listen to the two Squid Game episodes, you can listen to the 2521 review Snowdrop, First Love the Glory, Alice in Borderland. Miguel has been on the tip out for you quite a bit and I basically chose this a long time ago secretly and then finally talked to you about it at the

beginning of the year. I think we were at a movie with our friends and we were chatting afterwards and you were talking about some of the media that you were consuming at the time. I think this was late 2024 or summer 2024 I think. Yeah, it was around that time. It was. Yeah. And you were just talking a little bit about how you were really resonating with some of the media, and one of them had to do with, like, grief. And you were talking a little bit about your grief journey

with your mom. Yeah, all of us strangers, Yeah. And I said, I don't know why. I thought, oh, let's just up the ante here. Let's watch Move to Heaven. I said, oh, you would love Move to Heaven. This K drama that came out a few years ago. It's really good. And put that in a back pocket. Neither of us watched it, but you know, for Season 6 of Tibock, I was like, hey, I know we got Squid Game going on. I know season 2 and three are coming out in 2025 and we got

that. But did you want to watch Move to Heaven? When you first mentioned it, I was like, you know, no, but this was at the very like, so I was looking for ways to kind of explore my grief in a kind of healthy way, which is a really difficult thing to do. You know, I think that a lot of media around grief can fall into like solipsism, despair, like just complete hopelessness. And no matter how bad it gets, I try to, you know it, it's important to have hope. It's important to have faith.

So I was really careful with what I was watching. And so when you mentioned this, I had this very split thought of like, I understand It's like I think you would love this is a very weird way to phrase that. But it's also I knew what you meant. And I'm like, OK, well, at this point, this was you got me at the point where I started watching like Dazed and confused Dogma, Like I went from really highbrow grief to just keep living, man, hippie hangout

movies and whatever. So I'm like, I'll put that in my back pocket and we'll come back to that. But when I saw the concept for Move to Heaven, even at the time, I'm like, OK, I'm not ready for this now. Whenever that was, I think it was last summer even or even early spring, it was very close. It was very close to when it all happened. I was like, this is a very interesting concept and I want to see it but I can't right now. Yeah, I mean, I didn't push it. I was like, you know?

No, no. We'll do this later, if anything. I had like a mild panic attack because I'm like, wait, I want to come through for this because I love recording. But on the other hand, it's like no girl, like we'll come back to this. Yeah, I, I really didn't talk to you about Move to Heaven until basically like a year later when I was planning season 6 and I said, damn, I really do want to rewatch Move to Heaven.

And if I'm going to rewatch it, I would love to extend the invitation first to you, Miguel, to see if you want to watch it and we can talk about it. And you said yes. So here we are. We're going to talk about here we are, damn it. So before we do, if this is your first time listening, thank you for listening. Go ahead and subscribe on your favorite podcast app or on Apple podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast and many more.

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You can check out the page on patreon.com, Tibak Pod and shout out to our patrons Janet, Curtis, Bale, Cindy, CD, Alana, Grace, Lorna, Sammy, Caitlin, Julia #1, Michelle, Tenmei, marital, Delphia, Maria, Sarah, Julia #2, Pam, Angie and Nadira. New patron. Thank you so much for being patrons. All right so we're going to talk about Move to Heaven and I'll go ahead and read the MDL synopsis and we'll get into the non spoiler section and break for

spoilers, OK? The MTL synopsis reads Han Guru is an autistic 20 year old. He works for his father's business Moved to Heaven, a company that specializes in crime scene cleanup where they also collect and arrange items left by deceased people and deliver them to the bereaved family. When Guru's father dies, Guru's guardianship passes to his uncle, ex convict to Sangu, who is a martial arts fighter in underground matches.

Per the father's will, Sangu must care for and work with Guru and Move to Heaven for three months to gain full guardianship and claimed the inheritance. Eyeing money, Sangu agrees to the conditions and moves in. The show was adapted from the nonfiction essay Things Left Behind by professional trauma cleaner Kim Sibiol. Kim Sibiol is the first person in Korea who worked to arrange articles left by the deceased.

So interesting. Very. Yeah. This show aired in its entirety on May 14th, 2021, and it is 10 episodes long. It is directed by Kim. So long. This is his first K drama directing job ever, but he's written and directed a lot of movies. Some of those were notebook from my mother, How to Steal a Dog. She came from fantastic pair of suicides, 1 Shining Day, a segment called The Treasure Island and into the Mirror.

And there's more where that came from that he also just directed and didn't write and direct like Tarantino the whole thing because he directed one segment of this film called 1 shining day in 2006. It makes me think that he's familiar with doing sort of an anthology, and that's very close to what Moved to Heaven sort of is a lot of chapters of people's stories. The writer is Yunji Young, and she's done not very much, but what she has done is very

iconic. She's only written Boys Over Flowers from 2009. Oh well, if that's all I mean. So she wrote Boys Over Flowers, She wrote Operation Proposal from 2012 and Angel Eyes from 2014. I have watched all three. I did end up dropping Operation Proposal. Operation Proposal is like a a butterfly effect show where there's this guy who really loves this girl, but she is the one that got away on her wedding day. He's kind of like, Oh my God,

I've lost her forever. And he gets the chance to go back in time and like, fix it because there's certain junctures and moments in his life where he was like, if I didn't do this or if I picked the opposite thing, I could end up with her. We could be together. And every time he goes back to time, he just mucks it up even worse. Or he or she doesn't end up with him regardless. So it was just over and over again the same thing. When I'm going back, he changes

nothing. It comes back to the present day still they're not together. It goes back in time, change something else and it's it's, it's honestly really frustrating and. It sounds really grueling. It was like it feels like the movie, right like that, like just having to go back. It's like this just keeps getting, bro, just stay where you are. Literally just let it. Just let it go. It wasn't meant to be. So that's operation proposal I never finished. I don't know how that ends.

And then Angel Eyes, which is a story of first loves. They're like two teenagers. They're in love. But once the girl is blind and then through circumstances, they they can't be together. They grow up, but she has a like an eye surgery, like an eye transplant thing. So then as an adult, she can now see, but obviously she doesn't recognize him as an adult because she's never seen him. So like that whole thing, rekindling that first love from

their youth, it's wild. It's very heart wrenching, all of it. Sounds, it sounds grueling. It sounds grilling. And it's like, oh, and for my next trick, I don't know, I'm going to film a baby kitten trying to wake up its mother that it doesn't realize is dead. Like for 10 episodes. Like, how much suffering can you take in a single lifetime? What is going on in Korea? We'll get into that with this show specifically because the amount of times I paused and I was like, bro, is this just

America in a different font? Like, what is going on over there? Like, what do you mean the hospital's closed? Where am I Like Like I was like. I know. So to round out the cast, we have Idion, who plays Toh Sangu. He's the uncle.

He's been in about 19 movies, 16 TV shows, including most recently The Art of Negotiation. He's been in Chief Detective 1958, all three Taxi Driver seasons, Where the Stars Land, one of my favorite time traveling romances, Tomorrow with You. And of course, we covered Signal from 2016 on the first season of Taebak. And as of today, I think this is still Rico's favorite K drama that he's ever watched. I could see that, yeah. You could see that. Yeah, that. Makes sense. It's pretty.

Excellent, though it's a good choice. It's a class. It is. Tang Jung Sang plays Han Guru, and he's been about 10 movies and seven TV shows. He is pretty young. When I saw he was born in 2003, I was like, ah, Dagger to the heart. He's been in shows like oh, my ghost clients, Nootopia, Racket Boys, which is a sports show that I hear is very, very good. And of course, little show crash Landing on you from 2019-2020. You're like, oh. Yeah. A couple of side characters that

I'll mention. Hong Sunghi plays Yun Namu. Her nickname in the show was Next Door. That's so funny. She's been in Navilera memorist psychopath diarrhea. I want to hear your song Just Dance. We've have covered Navilera on the podcast view if you want to scroll back and listen to that review. G Jin Lee plays Han Jung U He is

the father to gudu. He's been in about 14 movies, 28 television shows, including as far back as Jewel in the Palace from 2003, Spring Days, Dong Yi from 2010, Designated Survivor, 60 Days from 2019, DP Season 2, which we have covered on the podcast feed, Romance in the House most recently, and 9 Puzzles, which is a really, really good crime drama on Disney Plus that just I think finished airing like several days ago in 2025. So that is our main cast.

I'm going to toss it over to you and ask, what did you think of Move to Heaven? I, I loved it. Yeah. I really loved it. I thought it was, I thought it was really beautiful. Like just the concept by itself of having trauma cleaners, which I didn't want to look into it in case it was one of those things where if I Google it'll, you know, bring up spoilers immediately. So hearing that it's actually based on something pretty real was really interesting to me.

I love just the whole concept, like we're going to go in, we're going to take out everything that's the most painful and then you just deal with it on your own way. So I loved it. I think the characters were really strong. Every single one of them kind of had their own thing going for them, but it was also just gut wrenching. Like it was just really, really gut wrenching. And I don't like, I think, how

do I put this? I think they really did a good job of like the show was presented very plainly, right? I never got the impression that there was a lot of melodrama forcing you to feel bad about something and having go to his character, he has Asperger's, if I'm right with that, right. So I actually follow a few different pages on TikTok about Asperger's and kind of how they live and a day in the life kind

of stuff. And I found having his character be front and center with his condition acted as a really grounding personality to everything that was going on. He can't display the emotion that he feels. He has a very matter of fact way of approaching everything. So instead of having like Comic Relief where oh, we got to make a joke because this is getting too bleak. Just his presence and how he presents things kind of gives everything like a final line to everything.

It's a very it is what it is show. Of course, that changes as we go on. But I thought that was a really interesting concept and it was really just funds, not the right word, but it was a very it was a solid watch. This is probably one of my favorite K dramas in a while, yeah. I'm glad to hear you say that because I was really worried that it was going to hit you sideways or something because it is not it's, it's a heavy watch, right?

Like this. As much as I love slice of life, when it's done well, also when it's done well, it's going to freaking wreck you. And this is one of those shows where if you're into it, it's going to really upturn you. And it's emotionally just a beautiful story. And it's talking a lot about grief, how you handle it, how different people that are neurodivergent would handle the same event. And it's all a valid experience. Like it's there's nothing greater or lesser.

How should you look at life? How should you look at the losses that you take in your life? And I think that ultimately the show is very optimistic. About everything, yeah, that's the word. That's a word that I would use. And I feel like that's not something that's very common and there's a very life goes on approach to it. Like there's still pain and reconciling literally and figuratively with what people left behind. Just showing that death isn't

really the end. Like everything gets affected by a person's death, whether love, hate, indifference, anything, that death is going to reverberate and cut through everything and it's only a matter of time before you run into it. But it handles it with optimism, which you really don't see. Like you really don't see optimism with stuff like this or the topic of death in general. So, yeah, interesting. And I'm one of those I have a morbid fascination with trauma cleaners and crime scene

biohazard cleaners. And so before I even watched the show, I had already known about this profession, if that makes any sense. What took it to the next level? What's the K drama of it is that they go above and beyond, right? And they kind of like get at that in the show is that they're not just coming in and wiping away all traces of this person. So you don't have to deal with cleaning up all the family photos and getting rid of all these receipts.

And of course, also the nitty gritty of like there might have been a putrid body in the room that needs special care and handling to get all of the cleaning done, all of the sanitation handled. They are actively seeking out family members or people that were important to the deceased and giving closure, giving catharsis to these people, helping the deceased speak from beyond the grave.

Giving them dignity was such a huge part of it, like even in the most gruesome death that we see, which we'll get into, they were especially Guru and his father, they were very steadfast about, OK, we're here to clean something up. Let's pay respect. Let's do this with respect and just piercing together what this person was thinking, who they were, what they left. Everything's a story. It's so good, Yeah. I love that.

I love that part of it other than the just general interest piece of it of like this person was left in the room for three months and then we came in and we had to, you know, there was a lot of stuff got under the tiles and we had to. I am super interested in that. And I understand that's not everyone's fascination. I know that that's might be unique to a certain subset of people.

Might be the true crime girlies out there may understand me a little better than the usual slice of life K drama girlies. But that's just me. And that is also what made the show different, I think, for a lot of people, is that there is a morbid aspect to it, but there is, like you said, a lot of dignity to this profession. And the way these characters, you know, handle all of the belongings, all even the space, when they walk into it, they pay respect.

As soon as they walk into it, they introduce themselves to the deceased. It's very beautiful and intentional. And the box being yellow. Oh stop it. Like the box being yellow. Oh my God. Yeah, well, do you want to talk about why the box is yellow or? You're just my interpretation. Yellow, I mean, yellow is just the most joyful color, right? I mean, everything about how they're set up is so optimistic. The fact that the company is called Move to Heaven, I mean,

come on, that's pretty good. And then like the box being yellow, it's just such a joyful box. And when you open that, the inside is yellow, the outside, it's like very intentional design. So when you open the box, you would see how the light would shine in. And just like everything looks illuminated in the box. Everything looks beautiful and joyful and like, hey, this is the most prized possessions. They're left behind, but they're in a safe, happy, bright place.

I love that. Like when I saw the box, I was like, but I have a whole thing with yellow. I love you. I'm wearing yellow. I. Love yellow. I love yellow. Joyful color, yeah. But yeah, I just. That's a little detail that stuck out to me immediately. I was like, oh cool. Yeah. So. You mentioned Gudu and how he is basically the conduit through which we view the show a lot of the time, and he's a very

sympathetic character. His grief is, I think, what breaks me the most when I rewatched the show. How did you find him and what what were your thoughts about Han Guru as a character? I'm gonna do as a character, I think really, he broke my heart the most out of anything that happened in that show, except for one thing.

But even that takes second place to I found his character very difficult to reconcile with because even with being neurodivergent, it shows that we all kind of experience the stages of grief in the same way. He may not recognize it right away, He may not process it at the same time, but that's variable. It doesn't it? It really gave him a strong kind of point confronting death and confronting his own grief. And the stages, if you watch the show really carefully, you can see them unfolding.

And he gets more and more agitated because he doesn't understand what he's going through until it hits him. And when it hits him, it hits US. And when it hits US, it kills everybody in the city because it's so incredibly sad. But I think this was a really good representation of grief from a very, as far as I've seen, uncommon perspective. But I think it is character was he was funny, even if unintentionally. And at times he was, he had a very strong sense of what was

right and wrong. And his grief journey is just like ours, just like everyone's like I loved him as a central character. He's one of the most interesting characters I've seen in a long time. Along with that, I want to say this is something that stood out to me because I was hoping it wouldn't be like this and

thankfully it wasn't. There's a lot of shows that will take a neurodivergent character like Oh my God, The Good Doctor, The Big Bang Theory, House, or at least they're perceived to be. If not, some of them are exposed this summer and they they'll always take one of two routes with it and both are so cringe inducing and horrible.

Either they take the comedy route where everything they say is like, ah, he's so funny because he doesn't get one and it kind of it feels icky, or they make him into this like wide reaching savant and everybody's in awe of him and everybody. And they didn't do that with him. They respected Guru's character. Like, sure, there was people who didn't understand, but right off RIP, they noticed. OK, there's something about this guy that's a little bit different.

Some people react poorly to it and they're rude, but they would be rude to anybody. And he'll confront people who can recognize his talent, but they're not falling over themselves making a big deal of like, wow, he knows all this. So his character was treated with so much respect, being neurodivergent, but also the universe that he's in is a little more grounded to that fact and very accommodating to

that. It's a world where people get frustrated when they don't know what's going on, but they're encouraged by other people to ask questions instead of making assumptions. And I really like that, Like, a lot. What did you get out and go to his character? Like did you? I think the first time I watched it, I was completely enamoured

by him. I was totally on his side and was really upset with everyone around him who didn't understand or weren't sympathetic toward him, if that makes any sense. Yes, and this rewatch, I was still very drawn to him, very connected with him. But Ijan's character of Sangu, the uncle, I understood him a lot more. And I don't know if it's because I have four more years of life under my belt, but I'm like, I understand.

I, you know, him not understanding Gudu and being very impatient with him and very aggressive and sort of like the way he speaks and he's so gruff and everything. I'm like, yeah. But he, you know, look at everything that happened to him. He what do you think he's going to have read all of the books on autism and all of the literature and all of the YouTube videos that say, oh, so don't do this, do that, don't do this, do that. No, like he's just no. He literally just got a yeah like.

Like please. And was foisted on this adult and this responsibility. So right, you know, Yeah. So I had a lot more grace for EJ Inn's character of Sangu and his journey as well. What did you think of EJ Inn's Sangu, the Uncle character? I think with the uncle, I actually really liked him from the very beginning.

I think that, well, we operate from the idea that if somebody behaves the way he does, you know, short tempered, stressed out, whatever, they have a lot of things that they haven't confronted. So you can give grace to someone like that. And I felt the same way, like, OK, we didn't know his deal from the very beginning, but just getting out of jail, you, you get out of jail to find out, you know, is it, is it a spoiler? His brother, Yeah, it's in the

MDL synopsis at his. Yeah, So he gets out like, you find out your brother's dead. You know, you find out you have to take over as a guardian for your nephew and then live in your. Like, it's just such a stressful situation for anybody. And you get to the place, you realize there's all these conditions that are attached to it. They use it and ask for you didn't even have a good relationship with your brother. So I had a lot of empathy for his character.

And besides that, I found him really funny. No idea. He's like. Super great. He's so. Funny, literally. Like he, he was a bit rough. He was a bit, but I didn't see him necessarily as a bad guy. Like if they were trying to make us hate him at the beginning, it didn't click for me. I was like this. He's just funny and he's not going to go out of his way to abuse his nephew. But I liked him. I thought it was funny. I thought he stepped up to do the right thing when he needed to, you know?

And just watching his growth as a character is really rewarding. I agree. Like he has a very good payoff. So I totally agree. There's a moment with him that we can get into in the spoiler section that yeah, broke me in half. And I don't know if it the same moment broke you, but yeah, I love EJ and he's a great actor. And this role is suitably gross. Like it's it's a gross person. He doesn't have great sense of personal hygiene and he's he.

Has a mullet. He has a. Mullet, He's kind of an oath, but I like him. It like despite everything, I like him. I thought on this watch that moved to heaven reminded me a lot of Rain Man. Oh, OK. Oh, you know what? Yeah, I could see that. Where Eden's character is Charlie Babbitt, which is Tom Cruise's character in Rain Man. And it's like the same setup, you know, he learns that his estranged father has died in Rain Man and he returns home to discover he's completely

basically cut out of the will. All he has is the Rose, the Rose Bush famously, and one car left by his father. But the millions of fortune that his father left behind is left to the mental institution where his older brother Raymond, and lives. That's Dustin Hoffman's character. And Dustin Hoffman plays another, you know, autistic savant who, yeah, very famously goes to Vegas and, like, takes Vegas. That's that's the thing with Korean dramas though, right?

Like you'll be watching something in 1/4 of the way through and like, wait a minute, this seems familiar. This. Seems familiar. It's like, let's go. And then it's always a 90s movie. And you're like, right, yeah. I mean. Let me be clear, it's a very good spin on DO. A Little Rain Man, which is in 1988, it kind of swept the Oscars that year, was the number one grossing movie that year. And at the end of the movie, it's very similar to Move to Heaven where their lives are

changed, right? Their perspectives are different. And maybe Dustin Hoffman's Raymond isn't in any way, shape or form a cured or anything of his condition. But in rubbing elbows with his brother, Charlie Babbitt's Tom Cruise. Tom Cruise's Charlie Babbitt, I should say, is changed. She's like, it doesn't matter. The money doesn't matter anymore. I'm just happy to have a brother, Yeah. With understanding comes, you know, Yeah, coexistence and all the rest of it.

And. It's very similar to Move to Heaven, where, you know, Sangu, the uncle is like, yeah, it's really not about the money anymore. Yeah, What can I contribute? You know, I'm just so happy to have this nephew and care for him. And, you know, there's a real connection and bond here that we've forged in the last three months. And none of this is explicitly stated, which I love. No, it's actually you're wondering until the very last minute whether or not it's actually clicking.

And it's like, oh, OK, OK, thank. God, absolutely. Who is the most annoying character to you? Next door's mom. Oh my God, yes. Like girl, leave me alone. Like I get like my God. And you know, let me be clear. She's not even in the show that no she like if we had to count maybe 5 appearances maybe, but just the nagging and the screaming and the throwing of cops and this and that. Like by far, yeah. I didn't really have a problem

with even next door. Next door was a little bit pushy, but it's justified considering, you know, they're young. She's a next door neighbor. She cares for this person who she sees as defenseless and is, like, freshly an orphan. So even on her worst day, I'll be like, OK. Like, she means well. The mom, though, like, how dare you go over there and it's bad luck to clean out people's houses and you're lying to me. And you're like, non-stop. Like, yeah, enough.

Yeah, there's enough. It's just like a superstitious bunch over there. It's always with the superstition. Don't leave a ceiling fan on. You'll die like you've heard about that, no? What's that about? Yeah, so apparently they don't. And correct me if I'm wrong, I've read this a few times over

the years. I've looked into it, but apparently in Korean culture there's something called Korean fan death where you can't just leave a fan on because you'll die and it started from some electrical. It started with a very reasonable explanation, but then it evolved into like, it's bad luck to have a fan on. And I'm a superstitious guy. I don't know if you know that, but in a very, very, very mild, small ways, like the salt over

the shoulder thing, whatever. But but leaving a fan on like it's hot, like we live in, we can't touch that. We're going to get cursed. You know what I mean? Like, yeah, it's adaptable superstition. I'm leaving the fan on. All right. Well, I think we've come to the point where we can probably get into the spoiler section. So what would you rate this show out of Fives Hoju bottles? 4 1/2 Four. And a half, all right, I would give it a four.

What is the half point off for? There is something that didn't pay off at all for me. It's a major plot point. It's with the encore and I don't. I feel like if they had a couple more episodes, it would have paid off. But sometimes I wonder whether or not they should have introduced it at all. Because we come to the end of it and I'm like, OK, I feel like maybe there was supposed to be a second season. It feels like there was supposed to be a second season.

So I was already, like, on top of all the mourning and grieving, that was something I had to add to my plate because I'm like, what the fuck is Season 2? Like, excuse me, I'm sorry, but like, where is it? I'm like clicking frantically like where is in it, but other than that, and it's, it's such a small thing in general in terms of things I didn't like, but by virtue of that, I can't give it a 5, but I'll give it a four and a half, okay?

I'll give it a 5 out of five because I love this show. There's probably very, very few things that I would change about it, if anything, if I can even come up with something in this episode to necessarily complain about. I love the show. I think it was better on 2nd watch. It hit me so very deeply. I was crying. I was sobbing especially in the final episode. And you mentioned season 2. There is no season 2, unfortunately or fortunately.

I of the opinion that K dramas should just stick to the one season format as is traditional. And I don't see the need to return for a season 2, although you can interpret the very final scene as being like, well, then what's going to happen with this person like it? There has to be. There's more stories and you absolutely can iterate.

You can certainly do more Move to heaven clients and stories drum up some through line for the nephew and the uncle to solve in the course of a season 2. I. Genuinely and generally don't care for a season 2 and there has been nowhere of a season 2. I looked up move to have in season 2 to see if there was anything about it. Netflix hasn't said anything about it. There's fake trailers online for a season 2. Yeah, I. Kept coming across that sketchy blog on Filipino Facebook.

Yeah, like. People will those K drama editors are like fucking vile. They'll do whatever to just get someone to click on their page and that is, I think that's evil. Like people genuinely connected with the story and they want, if they want a season 2, they're looking for this online and then they see this fake ass trailer like that's rude. That's so rude. Horrible. So unfortunately for in your case, there is no season 2 and I'm sure that upset you.

I'm sure that's part of the .5. Yeah, but not for the reason you would think. It wasn't for the final scene, it was for something else. OK. OK. Yeah. All right. The final scene, I'm like, OK, OK, But like, yeah, OK. We'll go get into it. Yeah, yeah. Get into it. Yeah. Right after this. Excuse me. I can't tell. I can't tell. You know I have no tingle. Oh, sorry. Swear discussing shirts. What All right, we're on the other side of spoilers.

So we are going to talk a little more in depth about what happens in Move to Heaven and I would love to start us off and know what what made you downrate and move to Heaven. What got me was the Fight Club thing. OK, The Fight Club thing confused me. I felt like they were building something, but I never really felt the stakes of the Fight Club. I felt like there was a tension with the uncle just like, OK, like, you know, he has someone after him.

He's going to gamble away the house and this. But I never felt the stakes of that. I never. So when there's finally a battle and then his friend is like let or his prodigy that he brought up, it just felt like not a useless pop point, but it I felt like it should have either been resolved by the time he got to the house and he just lives with that grief and lives with his own regret. But every time they would go back to it just, I was like, OK, like, what's the threat?

Yeah, I think you know. What I mean like I didn't, I didn't get it. Like I didn't get what they were doing with it. So OK, I took. This way differently than you because even though it ends with a little bit of a wah wah wah in the story, I took it a little better than you because he does need this kind of closure with his protege, his friend that he trained and was in a coma. And this friend was actually he this this guy is actually really

famous now. It's Iduk. He plays Kim Sochol, who's the protege dude who he saves from like a bullying situation. And then he just sticks around and becomes a national boxing champion, which I was like, OK, all right. But I was like, you know,

Korea's really small. But anyways, so, you know, all this to say, he is basically still ensnared by this old life of his where he's in this underground Fight Club and the the bitch bookie who's, you know, lying to him and saying like, Oh yeah, I got like a new fighter for tonight. She's very exploitative and conniving and she is still like trying to drag him into this life and say like, oh, you owe me because she's the one that's paying the hospital bills for E, jokes Sutrol. Like that?

Character. Oh crap, never mind, I take it back. I forgot about that detail. Entirely OK, OK. That's what she's like. You got to fight. You have to fight. Please come back and fight. And he's like, no, no, no. But also he is desperate to save Sutrol. He is immensely guilty. Yeah. Over what? He, he's still alive. So it's him trying to hold on to like, OK, all right, I get it now. Never mind, I'd like to change that. And now it's a 5.

No, I mean, like it's still if, if it didn't work for you, that's fine. But that's this is how I took it and how I was reading it is that he was just so, so in pain, so guilty and would do anything to save his life. And it was never part of the, you know, you would think that maybe he's like, no, you have to get him to live so that I don't go away from murder, right? He's like, no but. It's not, Yeah. It's not that at all.

He's saying you have to get him to live because I, I basically can't live with myself if he died and you and I'm not going to let you live either if he dies because it's totally on you as well. That's real. And then what? The bookie, the bookie being in the world that she is, when he does die, she's like, you should be thanking me, like, that's all your problems gone, right? You're dead. You're not going away. Like, you're fine. And it's like, I'm not fine. So yeah. It's it's painful.

And that character as well serves as a almost like a found family type of deal for Sambu's character before he obviously reconnects with Gudu and the whole, yeah, gosh, that side of the family. His brother, his blood brother is, you know, he spent years presumably training this kid, watching him rise up the ranks and become a boxing champion.

He says he wants him to go to a sport university or become, you know, an Olympian. But get get out of this life somehow and don't be like him because he's in a freaking underground Fight Club. He's not. He's like, I don't be like me. So I thought that was all part of him taking responsibility for someone other than himself, for him loving somebody else other than himself. And then when he makes a mistake and loses that person, it's completely devastating to him, to his character.

Yeah, and it forces him to confront his old grief with. His brother, yes, exactly so. You know. Because Sichol was calling him hyung, you know, older brother, it's, it's a lot. It's a lot in there that's packed into that one relationship. One thing that I found interesting was that Suto's younger sister was the one that was taking care of him in the hospital. And when Sangu goes to visit the hospital, she's like, look at what I'm doing.

Like this is what the reality is, is that I'm giving him sponge baths. He has no consciousness, he's in a full on coma. He's brain dead. This is no life. No, even if they were to get because there's the moment with the surgery and the doctor very plainly tells him, look, we can do it, but he's he's going to die in surgery. There's just no. And he tries to get it done anyway, but even his sister's like, you need to let this go. You need to let this go. And that's like. He's gone.

Even if they fix it, he's gone. So yeah. I found that really special, and that is a type of grief that I'm sure a lot of younger audience members have never dealt with of caregiving for a family member. Yeah, it's not. I think that it's very. If you haven't been through it, it's very like, first of all, it's. Complicated. It's complex.

It's very, I felt. A lot for the sister and I was very upset with Sangu who is basically delaying the inevitable and throwing money down the drain, hoping that he will get better or hoping that he'll just subsist in this vegetable like state. Yeah, because before they're gone, I think a lot of people from the outside would look at that and say, well, wouldn't you want to keep them alive? And it's like, no, because there are fates that are worse than

death. There are situations that are worse than death and a situation just really begins to rot. It's easy to look at that. And it's like, oh, well, what do you mean you're going to sign a do not resuscitate form? What do you mean you're not? And it's like, and if you're directly in it, it's like it's not about an inconvenience. It's not about a burden. It's not about a loss of love in

most cases. I mean, there's so many, it's a kaleidoscope of just like earth shattering grief that happens before what you know is going to happen is going to happen. So you look at a situation like that and at a certain point there's this acceptance where it's like I have to let go because if I don't let go, this is going to undo me and everybody around me. And also the reality of the

situation is very plain. And his sister was there and you can recognize, I'm sure you you saw it like on her face. She's like, no, like this, this needs to end. It's. No life for her, it's no life for him. You know, Sutol, the kid that's in a coma, you know, Sangu just didn't see that. He was like, no, he has to stay alive. Yeah, that's but. He never changed a diaper. I mean, yeah, very. It's very evident. If you know, you know, Right. So like it, it makes sense why

he would want to do that. But ultimately what ended up happening was for the best. So yeah, like it had to be so. Yeah. So. OK, so we've gone over over that whole thing, but there's so there's so many stories. What was your favorite episode or or you know story client of Move to Heaven? Favorite is such a funny. Well, let's say I'm kidding. I'm kidding. It's fine. Not. Favorite, but, you know, memorable ones, no. Yeah, the most memorable ones. Oh, OK. The most memorable ones were the

school teacher. OK. All right. Talk about it. Yeah. The school teacher, 1, was grueling. It was just grueling because it was my favorite because three major things happen. First, there's a school teacher, you know, she, she's looking after the kids. She's doing living her life. A friend teacher of hers just introduces her to this guy. This guy becomes incredibly obsessed with her and ultimately

just kills her. But what I love about that episode specifically is that good shows that he understands love, what it is and what it isn't. He can differentiate obsession and like possession from actual true love. And we get to see in his own way. It took me a while to get it, but we get to see in his own way, him expressing real anger towards the school teacher's assailant. Like her murderer. Yeah, the stalker. So he, I love the way that that episode played out for the

detective work. You know, they get there and get her pieces together. He's like, this woman keeps all of these instruction manuals to everything. We found everything except for the camera. She doesn't have a pet. She knew she was in danger. Works with the prosecutor. The prosecutor shows him the video, which was gut wrenched. Well, that wrong choice of words, no pun intended, gut wrenching like shows him killing her and saying you're a cruel person, you're a liar, you're

all this stuff and. He just starts laughing, yeah. He just starts laughing even as the lawyer. Was gagged the. Defensive lawyer was like and he's just like looking down like holy shit, who am I defending? I love that episode because it shows and all the episodes do in their own way. They show different kinds of love and different kinds of the impact that a person will make on people's lives. So my favorite moment of that episode, aside from the camera reveal and everything, because I

love detective work. I think you know this like I wanted to be a detective, I wanted to do all this. So seeing all that play out is so cool. But when go to is like, it kind of flips the narrative. I have to give this box to somebody who understands and I need to show. So he shows this drawing of all her students that will no longer be able to ever see her again and how much they love her and how, oh, when I grow up, I want to marry you. Oh, you're so pretty.

Thanks for not yelling at me for not eating broccoli, whatever. And Gooder just keeps repeating over and over like, you didn't love her, you didn't love her, you didn't love her. And it clicked in my head at that point. It's like, oh, he can't. His condition doesn't let him really super duper express outwardly. But this is the analog to shouting at somebody and just screaming at them and trying to show that anger.

And seeing how that kind of shook up the stalker also really got to me. But that episode was really hard because it happens every day. You know you meet the wrong person and it spirals out of control before you know it. That's it. So. Yeah, this episode was definitely brutal. It was episode 3 and I can't remember where where I heard this, but stalking is a murder in slow motion, yes. I've. Heard and this was exactly that,

right? This guy inserted himself into her life and was clearly obsessed with her. She wanted nothing to do with him. And there is a small moment where you see in a flashback, he shows up at her apartment. He's banging on the door. Let me in. Let me in, let me in. The cops get called and he lies his way out of the situation saying, oh, look, we're, we're lovers, Like we're just having a little spat or whatever. And the cops leave. They leave him there on her front door.

No more questions, no more they're like oh OK, bye like which is fascinating to me because it it really something I love about K dramas is it reminds you there is no utopia. It seems like people are alike all over. Nobody listens to women with stuff like this. And it's it's weird because it's like, how do you even explain that? Like, oh, yeah, we showed up. But he said it was just a fight they were having. It's like that's a domestic disturbance.

There's people screaming loud enough to wake neighbors and all that. Like, what do you mean you just leave? Like I don't it's. Troublesome. It's madding and obviously it ended with her losing her life. And for nothing completely. Avoidable. And we don't know. They don't tell us. Oh, she took out a restraining order on him. She did all this or whatever, but it shouldn't have to get that far. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. It shouldn't have to get that far.

There was plenty of times to stop it. I do like in that episode that the uncle will see he's going on his run, like just training, and he sees this woman getting thrown to the floor and that Herman is just like, you know, degrading her, making her feel terrible, just abusing her in general. And he just runs past. Like, you know what? That's none of my business. But after that situation and realizing, oh, I can step in and do something. I can help someone.

We understand why later because the first time he intervened for this kid who was getting beaten up by all these bullies, he took them on as a brother and all this. So, you know, of course he would be hesitant to try to step into another situation again. But I think that was a really cool moment for him because he's like, no, I, I have to do something about because he sees them fighting again. Beats the shit out of the dude. Yeah. Yeah, it emboldened him to do something about it.

It's. A very pivotal episode. Yeah, it's. Super pivotal. Also you learn, I'm not sure if it's now or later but you do see in flashback form his childhood and how he did come from an abusive household where his father was a piss poor drunk and was constantly beating up on their mother and beating up on him too. That was gut run as a child screaming like just kill me and he's like I'll never give you what you want. I was like what the fuck?

Oh my God. So I can understand from his point of view how he's like, I just don't want to get involved. Like this is more trouble than it's worth to insert myself into somebody else's story. And I feel like that is also a very pervasive Korean thought is like, mind your business. That's not my business. That's not my household. That has nothing to do with me. Yeah, it's and it's kind of like and. That's not really an American. That's not really an American ideal.

I would say, no, it isn't. And I would like to make a call back to this, to the Squid Game episode that we had where this dude comes with all this food and he's mocking all these people and he starts like crow hopping on top of all the food and everything. And I think I mentioned like, if that happened in Washington Square Park or anywhere, that guy would have gotten his shit rocked so hard, so fast. But I don't see that in these Korean dramas.

I'm not going to say that that's a direct reflection of their society. I don't know, but I do something that always throws me about all these Korean dramas. Someone's having a heart attack and collapsing to the ground. Someone's just, and people just walk by. Like it has nothing to do with me. Like everyone just walks by and it's weird. It's so weird and frustrating to watch like, like, help them up. They're on the floor like. Extended bystander effect.

Yeah, it's weird, but. Instead of the bystander effect is, oh, somebody else will handle it. There's surely somebody else will come and help this person or take care of the situation. Call 911, whatever it is. I feel like in Korea, the bystander effect is no one's going to do anything about this, Why bother? Yeah, I hate it. It's weird. So that's. That's the episode that really

stood out to me the most. That's the episode that we get so many different angles you see you go to expressing anger, not at himself or not in the form of frustration. So that was really cool. Seeing the uncle's character kind of grow past that bystander effect was also really nice. The did you notice something I wrote this down there was did you notice how many women in power there were in this show? Like, did that stand out to you at all? Like no. But ask me about it.

Yeah, so there's like a lot of women in power here. Like you got the ringleader of the underground Fight Club, you have the prosecutor of this case, the main detective of this case, you have what was the name of this woman? We meet her in the episode where, Oh my God, the old man. Oh my God, yes, the the social worker. Yeah, we have so many women at the like. A lot of the major characters were women. That really stood out to me because that's not really common. I don't have anything to

elaborate on that. I just found it pretty interesting. Yeah, I agree that there are a lot of female characters in this show that are movers and shakers, you know? Yeah. That's the best way to they're they're leaving an impact. And she recognizes specifically the prosecutors and detective, Detective, rather, she recognizes Godot's talent right away, doesn't make a big deal of it, but decides to kind of keep an eye on him. So love that. And that payoff is great, too. So yeah.

You mentioned the social worker though that is played by Suyong from SNSD slash Girls' Generation. Oh yeah dude. Yeah. And that episode is one that really convicts you. Whether you agree or not, it's going to convict you in some way, shape or form. The story of the old man janitor who calls move to heaven trauma cleaning for himself and his wife who was in a long term care facility, but he checks her out and they commit suicide together. There's a lot. There's just a lot here.

I mean, there's a lot in every single one of these episodes. But this one particular we talked about dignity in the non spoiler section. And I think that as we get older and, you know, the aging population as people get ill, there's a loss of dignity when it comes to long term care, when it comes to paying for long term care. And dying in some way, shape or form on your terms is really difficult to do. Absolutely. You're at, I mean, you're beholden to so many things.

What your family wants, what the doctors want, what you know, and it's and especially at their age, it's like, what are we going to do? You know, like, how long is this going to go? Yeah, it was a very challenging episode it. Is challenging because they basically euthanize themselves. Yeah, they euthanize themselves. This has been pretty controversial for a while, yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. And the uncle is super black and white about it. He refuses to clean the rooftop apartment.

He says he thinks it's cowardly and cruel to commit suicide. It's tantamount to murdering his wife, his Good Wife. There's no way to know if she wanted to die alongside of him. And he says they're going to hell. Like, he goes so far as to say, oh, they're going to hell. Guru is like, hey, like, we don't talk about that kind of shit around here. Yeah. Like immediately, like puts a stop to that because that's what's interesting about that, right?

Okay, sure. I work in an underground Fight Club and yeah, I don't treat everybody the best. And sure, like, I'll see a woman getting beat within an inch of her life, but you know what I'm not going to do? I am not going to abide suicide because it's disgusting. And it's it's those very hypercritical, these very hypocritical and hypercritical moments of just like, oh, that's where your morality shows up to extrapolate all sorts of judgement from a situation you can impossibly understand.

That's where I draw the line. And I think that that's this show is so well written because he would be the kind of dude to do that. Right. Yeah. Like to look at it and be like, oh, well, and then there's like a fear in there too. Like, I'm not going to go in there to clean up. Yeah. Like, he already wasn't that helpful to begin with, but he was like, I'm not going to go in there to clean up. That place is cursed. They took their lives. They're ungrateful.

They're this. And it's like, oh, OK, right. You know, maybe you could help other people. Maybe you could find other ways to be, you know, to stand on principle of morality. But and we see that all the time that's you do. So, you know, in it's Sweden, right? I think it's Sweden. They've had a program for a while and you it takes months to get approved or whatever, but you can euthanize yourself. It's a very controversial process.

This woman shared her story about it and everything, and it's controversial, but it always kind of fits into this episodes kind of narrative, you know, where is the line and how much choice do you actually have? Yeah, it's just yeah, in. This case, the old man had

terminal pancreatic cancer. The infirmed wife had been basically bedridden for presumably years and was in this facility, was not living with him, needed 24/7 care, and she had been saving her sleeping pills for suicide and was trying to convince her husband to join her. She's like, let's go together. And once he gets that terminal diagnosis, he's like, I'm going to make your wish come true. He says fine, like let's do it, let's go together.

Checks her out of the hospital when they go home and with pancreatic cancer, forget it. Like you only find out that you have it when it's too late. Like that's just a fact. The. Old Man was played by Zhong Dong Huang who is a prolific actor. He has been in things like When the Phone rings, Hotel Deluna and he was the dad in the airs. And then the old woman was played by Kanye Shim.

Funny you brought up Squid Game. She is the season 2 mom and Squid Game player 149. And she's also been in a bunch of K dramas like A Virtuous Business and Tell Me That You Love Me. She actually got her starting K dramas a little later than Zhengdong Huang, but also a very well known face. I love this episode because there's a lot that's like, not really said. It's kind of cultural. They're living in a rooftop apartment and the rooftop apartments in Korea are cheaper.

They're less desirable because they're so high up. There's no elevator, less and less installation. They're prone to extreme heat in the summer, extreme cold in the winter. It's almost like a temporary structure up there. It's not private because the rooftop is kind of like a backyard for everybody in the building. So everybody can come up to the rooftop and right outside your door, and it's almost a surefire sign that someone is living poorly. You know, it's kind of impoverished.

It's like those maid chambers in Paris where you have that like, have you heard that? Like you know, the top of those buildings, they rent them out legally, illegally, but it's like an attic where the maid used to live or whatever. Like maybe 200 square meter apartment maybe super tiny window that looks out, same thing. They don't have AC anyway but it's burning hot. No insulation, no bathroom, no nothing. It's just you're like a border in that own room so not a good

sign. You're either a student or you're broke. Yeah, exactly. So they're living up there, this old couple or the old man. And it's not until the uncle comes in and finds this tiny door leading to a beautiful greenhouse full of thriving flowers and plants. That too young, the social worker says. Does this look like something made by an evil man who killed his Good Wife? And. That's no he had such an appreciation for life. His whole bit with the flowers

was amazing there. Was a lot of language of flowers in this episode he. Knew all the meanings of the flowers. He had written them all down. It was beautiful. It was so cool. It was, it was very beautiful. And a lot of those flowers that he grew himself or saved himself from people's garbage piles and things like that, they are the flowers that adorn their funeral and it's beautiful. It's just really sad.

It's so moving I. Know I love the whole thing and even the language of flowers comes back towards the end of the episode when the social worker sends back pink dahlias to the uncle. The meaning of those are happy to know about your heart. That was so cute. Yeah. I love that. The moment where Gary tries to give the flowers back. I also that that was something that I really loved about this show is that he doesn't always get it right and he doesn't

always get his way. So Guru keeps trying to do what he thought was right. He gets all these flowers, tries to give it back to the residents. He's like, and they're like, what the hell do I want that for? And he's dead. Are you trying to bring me a curse? Like what is this? And of course the only person who accepted it was the little girl which that was earth shattering, saving up her pocket money to buy him and and like an air con unit for his. Yeah. Like little office. Yeah, yeah.

It was so sad and but he didn't like good doesn't always get what he wants and that's a really. He doesn't see how people would perceive it. Right, 'cause some. OK, what about the episode with the son and the mom? The mother who has dementia? Oh. Dude, Oh dude, that. One was gut. That's a that's even earlier that one I. Think that was the first one that they did without his dad, yeah.

I think it's episode 2 where this episode the uncle moves in and then the old lady with dementia dies alone and there's a lot of maggots and bodily fluid on the floor and the money grubbing son and daughter-in-law are like throw everything out. We just want whatever money or bank book is in there. And he has to wash all that bodily like excretion, Yeah. It's. And he just does it because he's like, well, that's my job. So sure, he's like.

Yeah, we can clean the money with chemicals and they're like, well, do it. I mean they're just so rude to him right off RIP. I actually have a note here. I I wrote this a couple of times and that was the first time I wrote it and I was like wow, everyone this trio encounters is collectively such a piece of shit. They are. And then later, by episode 6, I was like, why is everybody in this universe such a piece of shit? Like, it's, they're so horrible.

They're so horrible. And they take him for granted. They take his work for granted. But there's a good kind of gotcha moment with that, right? She has dementia. She's walking around. And this whole time she was trying to save up. All she could think about was her son. That's it. We don't know what led them there. We don't know what led them to being estranged or anything. He always looked like a brat, even in like the flashback sequences. But this woman, she still had

her own life. And even though she did the same thing every day, her mind never left the same thing. He finally, finally gives him the box and he's like, I don't want anything to this. You can't trick me into like confronting this situation, opens it and finds this nice little like nighty or like yes. This is thermal underwear, so I can explain this a little bit. So it's a tradition.

It's an old tradition for sons and daughters to give red long underwear to their parents as a symbolic gift when they received their first monthly salary. Since houses were not heated in the past, long Johns were the best present for offering warmth and coziness. So it is an old Korean tradition. This happened in the 80s when the son got his first paycheck and he did give his mother, you know, red long Johns, red thermal.

Underwear, she never used them. She was just so proud of the fact that her son actually got a job and he write, she writes on the and it was in 1988. 88, yeah. So everybody was struggling, You know, that's that ominous Korean year. And she's like, my son got his first job and the date that she received it. And I'm like, oh, I'm going to throw up. Like I'm so I'm so set like and it's she never stopped thinking about him. That's he's all she really cared

about. So he's like, she was like, I'm going to get you a suit. I'm going to buy you a suit. And it becomes like her route every day. And it's just so gut wrenching. My God. You see all these pictures that she has. That one hit me the hardest because it's like when they're packing up her place, you see all of the stuff that she owns

all these pictures, whatever. And you see her in these pictures, and it's like, I don't know what she envisioned for her life or who she wanted to be when she was an adult, but it definitely wasn't what she ended up as. Yeah, it's just so beautiful but also so sad. And you can't run away from your feelings, right? Because there's gonna be a kid with a yellow box who's gonna shove it onto you. And that's it. Like, you can run as far as you want.

You can collect all the money. You're gonna confront it. So yeah, that. Was a a really moving episode and I agree that the dementia grandma with the thermal under Oh my God. Oh my shit, me out of here. Oh my. Shayla What did she think of the Doctor Who got sliced in the neck by a crazed patient and died in the Ed? But he was actually a closeted homosexual and his parents never accepted him and completely shut down his relationship with his cellist lover.

It's amazing how you can be everything your parents want you to be, and if you do one thing that's out of line and they're not the right person, nothing you do will ever matter. So. I just like, closed my eyes for a second because like that was so spot on. He's like, like, he's a, he's a doctor, right? He's an accomplished, like, what else could he possibly owe you? You know what I mean? That story was really gut wrenching because it's another one.

Like I was watching him like wow on Pride month, but then I realized it was like 4. Like the show's like 4 years old. The show. 'S four years old, yeah, but. I thought that that was a really sad episode. It was just really terrible. But it also, it's not about, I want to word this really carefully because I don't want it to come off as like shifting responsibility or anything. But it's amazing. What keeps you tied down, right? He could have chosen himself.

You know how final death is. Makes you realize it's like, OK, all these rules exist. All these expectations for me exist. How I live for myself exists. Until the 2nd I died. Then it was all for nothing because I could have just gone to San Francisco. I wouldn't have died. Also, it's always sad. It's always the wrong person to get killed, isn't it? That whole thing was just terrible. Wait, who should have died instead? Well. The craze, not him. The crazed. The crazed, the.

OK, Yeah. Who's like, give me drugs? Give me drugs and holds a scalpel to a woman's neck like no one was getting out of that one alive but and then seeing his parents more his dad than anything like he's. Like a war dog. He looks like a clown. He's wearing like it's like he has all these ribbons and stuff, like he, he's like in full military regardless of burning all his son's things. That's like, you look so ridiculous, the fact. That they didn't. They were. They're the parents, Yeah.

And he lived, I think, in their house. That's a question all about his he. Lived with them I think is how I interpreted it. And they did not clean out his room. They still hired out. I think it signals that they really didn't love him. They just expected things from the mom loved him. You could see grief, but there's

a difference between the two. I see this a lot with a lot of parents, especially of queer children, gay children, any across the board or even outside of that through the lens of like, this is what we want you to do for a living. This is who you're being raised to be. The very Rory's going to Harvard thing, You know what I mean? Like you drill something onto someone for so long and the second they fall short of your expectations, that's not love

anymore. You created a person, you're building up a person and no matter what they do, they could fall in line with everything you want. It's not going to be good enough because it's not going to be what you envisioned. That's not love, that's an expectation. That's a hope. That's an investment at best. In these parents mind, the mother showed some semblance of regret. She's like, you know, if we would have just let him go, he wouldn't even be dead. And the father refuses.

He's like, well, it doesn't matter. It's better this way because I would have never accepted that and he wouldn't live right. The shame of it. Right, like at that point your priorities are your military legacy, what your war dog friends think. The thought of being embarrassed, the fear of maybe being embarrassed or humiliated or like you fell short supersedes anything good your son will ever do.

There was never, he was never going to win anything with his parents, so he may as well firebounded and moved to San Francisco, I mean. The doctor was played by Kwan Suhyon who is most recently from Buried Hearts. He was in Cafe Minandong Record of Youth Abyss and 100 Million Stars falling from the Sky, AKA The Smile Has Left Your Eyes, which we have covered on the podcast feed. Yeah, I thought this was another really difficult episode.

I don't know. Hearing Christmas music anytime outside of Christmas always brings a little tear to my eyes. So that Christmas song on a quartet of cellos? Come on, I it. Was beautiful, like it was like, Oh my God, and it was that should have been its own romance thing. Like it was a good romance and they were both very we. Missed out on a good BE elder. Yeah, that would have been a really good BL and it could have ended the same way. Maybe that'll be the spin off

like we'll just. Ends in tragedy no matter what. I mean, don't they always? OK, so I'm going to move to the end of that episode. Guddu says He envies Mr. Ian, who is the cellist, because he got to hear from the doctor and receive this present. There must have been so many things that his dad wanted to tell him, but he never heard it,

never got the chance. He swears up and down that his dad was not ashamed of him because every time he faced obstacles, every time he got bullied or he got kicked out of school because he was talking too much, he wouldn't shut up in school so they just he could not attend regular school. His father said not to worry, that it wasn't his fault. God. That was so gut wrenching. And that is such a simplistic but honest and innocent way to look at, you know, it's almost evidence based love.

Yeah, yeah. It's like, well, that can't possibly be true because so the idea that he couldn't wrap his head around why this guy's dad just didn't love him or wouldn't accept him, he's like, I don't get it, right? And he's envious of the cellist because he got that closure. He got that final word from the doctor. And he was like, I never got that. I know that my dad had something to tell me, had more to say, more to give me. And he didn't get that chance.

And like, I don't, I don't want to get emotional on the podcast, but like we all have those moments in our lives where we're like, there's things left unsaid and I can't, I can't have those words. No, you have to. It's funny because I was just having a conversation about this this morning. It gets to a point where it's like if you remember the things that were most important that you heard from someone before you lost them and you grow with

them, they change shape. So this is like really whatever, but just hear me out. Like you'll take something that you hear and not only will it take shape, but you can kind of see it evolve. Everything you remember from someone that you lost. Good advice, bad advice, things you agree with, things that you don't. As you grow older and your perspective changes and it shifts and it morphs into something else, you can see everything you remember from them evolve with them.

So that does live with you, but only if you choose to see it that way. But especially at the beginning, you're like, wow, I'm never going to hear anything new again. And I'm sure there was so much left on set. And it's just, how do you live with that? But Guru finds a way to do it, Yeah, in his own way. So it worked out for him, sort of. Stop it. And also he found the phone. Yes, he stop it.

So one thing before we get to the phone in the final like couple of episodes is in episode 7, the uncle finds his older brother's business card, the move to Heaven business card in with Udaic's medical files. And he was diagnosed with chronic traumatic encephalopathy, CTE. And this is the biggest bullshit of the show actually, is that the only definitive diagnosis can occur during an autopsy.

So the fact that he had a whole like medical diagnosis, he was printing out Google Sheets on CTE and the symptoms of CTE, that would never happen. You know, you don't know if you have CT until it's basically too late, until you're dead and they can crack open your brain and be like, oh shit, he or she was suffering from CTE. Symptoms of CTE occur in four stages, generally appear 8 to 10 years after an individual experiences repetitive mild traumatic brain injuries.

I'm not sure if 8 to 10 years had even lapsed between when they meet and when he dies. Yeah, that's in it. It it just didn't track. I was like, oh, OK, because. We get a 10 years prior flashback when they meet, but that doesn't mean 10 years later, like in the present day, he had just died or he had just succumbed to his injury. Yeah, just doesn't it? Was like, OK, so it's only been several years, you know what I'm saying?

All right, between that and oh, he fell in a coma after this, the Fight Club I. Mean, I guess they could have at least gone for like, oh, he has a TBI, you know what I mean? Like, yeah, or they could have gone in another way. But they don't have to make stuff up either, yeah. Like the CTE diagnosis that cannot be made in a living individual. There's no definitive test to prove the existence in a living person. So I'm sorry, like that part was not.

They're usually good with stuff like that in Korean dramas 'cause they're so medical heavy all the time. So I wonder why they chose to take creative liberty with that when they could have just gone with a TBI. Yeah, like, I don't get it speaking. Of the K drama of it all, the bookie bitch kidnaps Gudu in episode 8 just but then lets him go very easily. She's like, don't, don't make me stoop so low as to kill a kid. Like that's what she had said. She's like, don't make me do

that. But that's where the show started getting a bit. Something that I liked about the show is it got kind of Boxcar Children, you know, like the three. It got very Hardy Boys for a second there. So when they kidnap him and he's just playing cards cuz I guess you know Rain Man but. I was thinking that, too. I was like, this is so Rain Man. He's just playing cards with the bodyguards. Yeah. OK, so wait, I just want to know who tipped off it was good too, right?

Or who tipped off the detective about the underground fight? Yeah, it was good too. It was. Good too, right? Yeah. OK, Cool, cool, cool. OK, we have to talk about the first time I lost my shit in this show. Like truly lost my shit was the June 29th birthday ritual. On the same day every year, Guru goes out with his father and this is the first year that he went out by himself to have a picnic, quote UN quote with his dad. It's the amusement park, chicken restaurant, pizza, Chinese.

And then they go to Sue in train station and do like a little like prayer and they put a little smooth river rock and do a like a Little River rock tower right by the train station. And that is when the uncle realizes that it's for him. It's on his birthday. And he's pissed and he's because he's like, great. Like, so you treat me like I'm dead, but you abandoned me. And then we find out this department store collapse, which apparently is a real thing that's. Absolutely true.

That's 100%. It's like the biggest loss of casualties in a time of non war. And I was like, what? Because I saw the footage of this building collapsing and it was like, oh, it's real. It's totally real horrible, yeah. June 29th, 1995, Sampung Department Store in Sochodong, Seoul suddenly collapsed due to structural failure, which resulted in over 1000 casualties, employees and guests. The 5th floor showed signs of collapse in the morning of a

disaster. They ignored it and decided to stay open while fixing the problems. At 5:52 PM, the entire building collapsed in 20 seconds, making a pillar of dust. The damage estimates were 270 billion won. A total of casualties included 501 deaths, 6 disappearances and 937 injured. It was the biggest casualties since the Korean War. And this is all direct from Guru's mouth.

It's true. And it's real and it's, I think it's the notion of like this, this was a part that gave me a tremendous amount of relief because the actor especially who plays good his father, he is like kindness humanized. Yeah, he has, like, whatever. He just looks very, very kind and very nice. So I was like, I really hope they don't pull A twist. Or I was like, oh, he just left them there to rot in this train station. So I was like, oh, thank God. Yeah.

We did get an Instagram question that says what if the older brother actually did abandoned Sangu. I don't see it. So he was time and place is so important for this and also looking at their society. So it's 1980 what this happened 9595 ain't no social media. Ain't no none of that. OK. Like these are two runaways who are trying to find a way to live a new life without being found to begin with. Nobody knows that that kid is there. The older brother is older. He's not that much older.

He's. Still in school? He's still in high school. Right. So the whole idea is pretty far far fetched, but they're doing what they think they have to do to survive to begin with. He gets into the department store. He buys the shoes that his brother wanted. Do you know how? Like, how long is it going to take to clean up that mess for him to regain consciousness? Yeah, they said. He was trapped for three days and then he was stuck in the hospital recovering.

That's it. Like how is he ever going to find him again? Right. Yeah. The thing of that was they didn't want to be separated. The little boy was going to be, the uncle was going to be put in an orphanage. You know, that's like a, that's a bad look. There's a stereotype and a, a prevailing notion around orphans, right? In Korea. You don't know where they come from. There's a lot of mystery surrounding them. They could be anybody. They weren't raised right.

You know, they didn't have parents or family to show them right from wrong. And so they could potentially turn out to be criminals. They could be murderers. You have no idea. So the brother was like, no, we can't be separated. I'll come and get you at the train station on your birthday. And it just never had this tragedy, had this very true tragedy happens. He gets stuck under a building. Yeah. And then he had to go to physical therapy and all this other. Yeah, he had.

To completely get rehabilitated and it completely fractures their relationship. Yeah. Severs it completely we. See how they're treated. There's that episode with Matthew where he's looking for his mom, He is born, he's or he he's given up for an adoption. Nobody in Korea wants him so they ship them off to the US to go get adopted. Then they have no state status. It's a whole thing. So I don't buy the And also he

bought all those Nikes anyway. He did make a concerted effort to try to find him, but I'm sure there's privacy laws around that. Like you can't. Even if a social worker or something saw that he was looking from, they can't. Just why? Would they give that information to a teenager? Yeah, and why would they give it to anyone knowing the situation this kid is coming out of? That could be somebody dangerous

from his previous life. And then at this point, I, I wouldn't, I didn't buy it. And I'm glad that they didn't go in that direction. That was going to be really, really annoying. If they did, it wouldn't have fit. Uh huh. So especially with how we find out how the Father finds Gudu to begin with. Yeah. Oh, no. Stop. That if you have anything else, because if we're getting there, that was the episode that was just like.

Well, I'll say so. I did break down when Sangu the uncle finds all the Nikes and he finds like the little the little baby Nike. I, I like lost it. It was. So sad. I was like and a. Little like that kind of was it. Then we get episode 9, which is when we get Matthew Green's story. The Korean American adoptee from New York got deported because he's undocumented. And that is a very real story, right? I remember Were you with me when we watched Blue Bayou.

No, I wasn't. Oh damn, I thought you were. So the movie Blue Bayou is also about this very real thing, you know, this pervasive adoption story that is very painful for a lot of Koreans. And she's not the mother. And it's like the news broadcaster who feels very close to Matthew Green and, you know, stitched his name onto, like, the baby blouse and stuff like that before he left her house as

a teenager. She does this beautiful broadcast in honor of him and it is all about this story, right we. Need to do better. The government over 60. Five years 200,000 Korean kids stand away for overseas adoption and how this is a great dishonor to Korea, which becomes known as the biggest baby exporter of the 20th century. It's humiliating, it's.

Humiliating and she calls the. Thing with choosing, like choosing where the morals show up, you can't just get rid of all these human beings just to hold up an image because then the image is worthless. It's crazy that that happens as often as it does. And that's how they've officially decided. I don't know if they still do it now. They do, I imagine right?

Or. It's getting better, is my understanding of it. But there are still headlines of people saying, you know, it was the 80s, it was the 70s and, you know, my mom couldn't take care of me and she put me through the system and told them specifically that she was going to come back for me. She made every effort to build a home so that she could pick me up and Take Me Home. And when she went back for me, I was already adopted overseas. They just went like, sent me away.

That's. Insane. It's. Been a great source of humiliation for Korea. It's only getting semi rectified now. That's a long time to hold on to something that draconian, but sure. So this was a very heartbreaking story. They're they're all heartbreaking stories. But episode 10, we're going to skip to episode 10, which is the finale. I was laughing that the uncle's fight name is Nightmare. And then the opponent's name, he was a Russian and his name was Hellraiser.

And I was like, shoot, All right, OK, sure. I'll tell you. I at this point, this is the point in the show where I started crying and I couldn't stop. It was when Guddu comes into his dad's room and does the trauma cleaning. Trauma cleans his own dad's room, and he does his ritual speech that says, you know, my name is so and so I'm here for move to heaven. And I'm going to help you on your move to heaven. Yeah. Packs up all his stuff, his own dad. It's gut wrenching. I.

Was a puddle. I was a puddle. Absolutely. Just it. It was just so sad. It was so. Sad but the. Final stage of the phone doesn't hit it. It is. And that's the scene that really got me was actually just before that when Gooder runs away and he goes to the aquarium back in Busan that like I fell apart completely because he doesn't understand what's going on directly. The freshness of my dad being because you forget very quickly. You start forgetting things very quickly.

So when he's saying I can't hear his voice anymore, he's forgetting. And how familiar his dad's voice really was like it his he's starting to time is starting to pass and he's starting to forget. And when he starts panicking at the aquarium and his uncle shows up and he it's when he finally realizes because it's his version of what we all do with grief. You throw yourself into work, you throw yourself into your friendships. You get really busy, you get

very determined. And he's finally having this moment of I'm never going to see my dad again. This is it. Like he, he's not going to be here to say good job. He's not going to be here for this. And that was so gut wrenching to me because because it's just like, oh, he's getting it now. It's finally hitting him now that all of these different things are either way, the adrenaline has dropped.

He has to reconcile with this. But it's also such a beautiful moment because then he realizes, like, at least I have my uncle here and I want to have my uncle here. But it that part just destroyed me completely it. Destroyed me when he says I don't like this. Yes, he says. I don't like this. And I'm like, I just want to like pull him in for a hug, even though he doesn't like hugs, because who does, right? It's such a real global sentiment of like, I don't want

to go through this. I don't like this look all this that. Shit. Sucks and he's going through it and he he has to confront it. He has to confront the reality. I love that he and when he's trauma cleaning the room and he's undoing the closet and he picks up his dad's clothes and he just like lifts it up to his face. He just like, breathes it in and I'm like, that's something that I wish we don't have that right, that capability to smell what the characters are smelling as

we're watching media, right? Television shows or movies or whatever. But that is very real. Scent is such a powerful tool for memory. So is taste and all the senses. I'll tell you, one of the most visceral memories was a few years ago. My aunts used to make pumpkin bread every holiday season, like in Mass, and give out the loaves to all of their friends, you know, at work, at church, everywhere.

And I remember going over to their house and just watching them, watching them with this assembly line of pumpkin bread and the way everything smelled and the way they looked. And it's just, like, transported. A few years ago, during the pandemic, I think, my mom bought some pumpkin bread just from the store, and I picked it up without thinking and took one bite. And the taste of it, it was like in a movie, like a montage of all of these memories, just like flashing through.

And it was so intense. Like it just hit me right in my chest. All of the memories, the taste, the smell, like I was back in their house, you know, 1520 years ago. And it completely gagged me. I took one bite and I couldn't even swallow it. I was just, like, frozen. And I remember my mom going, hey, how's the pumpkin bread? Does it taste good? And I was like, it's good. That's all I could manage was

just, it's good. And it took me, like, several months to be like, hey, remember that pumpkin bread you bought, like, in November? Yeah, that like wrecked me because it took me back. And that's just one moment. I'm sure everyone has their own particular moment where they were walking through a Macy's and they smelled their grandmother's perfume or their, you know, something that they just. It makes them instantly remember, instantly nostalgic and freezes them.

And it's, it's also the most innocuous things to like, it's the most innocuous silly things. Like I had a situation like that with Starbucks. Like, I was at a Starbucks of all places. Like, OK, I'm here doing my thing. And I hear the song. It wasn't Duran Duran. It was Eyes Without a Face by Billy Idol. And so I was like, OK, yeah, like, I'm just trying to keep it together because my mom always listened to literally nothing but 80s music. And then Duran Duran comes on and I'm like, OK.

And then another song. It's the this is so stupid. I'm going to brace you for this because it's so stupid. You know that song I come from the land down on? Yes. That comes on and I start fucking sobbing. Yeah, with like a cold brew. And I'm like, Nah. And just like running. And so I was like, OK. And so watching that happen and just how he, It's also so symbolic, the way that he would never give his dad a hug because it really does hurt. The name I'm going to start crying.

It hurts their nerves to just, you know, like it's very uncomfortable because it's so, you know, binding. So seeing him really embrace the shirt, like undid me. It's like, Oh my God, no, it's Oh my God, the sticker, the I love you sticker. Oh my God, Yep. So many little Yeah, I. Know, I know. But he seems well taken care of though, right? Like now. That's why I love that the uncle came around. He grew from it.

Yeah, but that was brutal. It was it was and then the last part of the show that really, you know, this was the Niagara, like me in a barrel pushed over Niagara Falls was this moment it was He hugs the memorial trees, Yes, of his dad with the. Plaques. That was so. And then you hear in voice over, what did I always say to you? Although you can't see someone, it doesn't mean they're not with me. As long as you remember they are not gone. Oh. My God I hate it. I hate it and they.

Made and they made me really love the dad so much yeah so like just the. Father Christmas level just. So like kind understanding person and then dad and I'm like, OK, wow. Like this sucks. Yeah, but it was beautiful. It was right. Like, I mean, the resolution is great. It has it has really funny moments. It was there a moment that actually like, you know, we've done the set, like we'll we'll be here all day. If we talk about what made us said.

Was there anything that made you bust out laughing in this? OK, so when they go to the funeral for the old man and the old woman who euthanized themselves, the uncle goes and sees another funeral that's happening for some important director at some conglomerate. And there's tons of funeral wreaths, flower wreaths around. And he goes to steal one. And as soon as he turns around, Gudu is there and he's like thief. And he starts like pointing at

him and screaming thief. That was historical to me. That was so funny. That took me out like, and he's like learning in real time, like the ends can justify the means sometimes, yet he's trying to learn to be a little more flexible. Yeah, that was such a fun, like moment. Just like they're not using it anyway. They have like 1000 of these.

Like we need to bring something. I laughed when they go when the uncle first shows up to the house it was after like no you can't sleep in my daddy's room yes and honestly good like no you can't but like no you can eat on the floor in the living room by but when I. Don't know you. This cracked me up and kind of he's like, well, he's not using the room. He's like, it's my dad's room,

It's my dad's room. You can't and you know, miss next door decides like she's there and she's like, you can't use the room no matter what. It's not going to happen. Well, where am I supposed to sleep? And they do that classic like rough cut joke and it there's a tent in the living room. The. Yes, the can you see? It slowly like unzipping, like the door falls and he's there with this really pissed look. I'll give you, I'll give you one last one.

So when they go to the the cellist concert for the quartet next door is like, Oh yeah, you're not going to like this kind of music for sure. And was kind of like disrespecting uncle. Yeah. You cut too. They're actually in the concert. Home Girl is falling asleep in the cello quartet concert, while Uncle Sangu is wide awake, excited, clapping enthusiastically at the end of the song. Love that I. Loved it, I loved it. There's so many little charming moments throughout everything.

Despite itself, there was so much humor in the show, and I loved it. Yeah. Wait. Was a quick little stray observation I had about that, though. Was that supposed to be like, a shocking twist? Like we know he was going to be with a guy from the beginning, right? And. No, I think that was supposed to be shocking. Was. That supposed to be? Oh yeah. Were you shocked?

I mean, the first time I saw it, I was like, OK, not very shocked, but I totally understand how if you assume that it's going to be one of the three female cellist, how would be really shocking that it's the male cellist who's the lover? OK, I could see how they set that up. I thought that I was like projected from space though. I was like, OK, when are we going to find out that it was

the guy? But. No, it's very obvious on the rewatch, but when I first watched it, I was like, OK, I mean, it's still I had a very muted reaction than if I was maybe Korean or up closer to that culture. That's. True. Yeah. OK yeah. Oh, I love the I love the diversity of the lives of the victims, too Oh yeah. Like I do like that we had a good young and old. We had a mix. We had a young guy trying to make it work. We didn't talk about that first one. The very, very first one were

the kids. Oh, the. Workplace accident I have. To ask you, because you're way more in this, is it true hospitals close over there? Is that really a thing Like the hospitals closed tonight? I've heard about this as a rumor. I don't know but like. I know it's like that in Japan. Like in Japan there are like, of course they have an emergency service if it's like very life or death, but apparently they close. So even though his leg was all like. Mangled, you know.

Crunched in and mangled. He couldn't go to a doctor. Is that I know this is so. Is that a thing? So I think that one had more to do with not I don't think it was necessarily that the hospital was closed for the night. I think it was also the fact that they were pressuring him not to get any emergency service on the on the so they. Didn't have to, yeah. They were like, you didn't get, you know, they were pressuring him and kind of gaslighting him into not getting help. Got it.

OK, trying to silence him and claim that the company holds no liability, even though there's a ton of evidence on his phone and in the text messages exchange that this was clearly, you know, coercion on the part of the company. Like come into work, fix this thing after hours. Avoidable. All the things, the people that showed up at his funeral to manhandle the mom and make her sign an NDA or pay her off or whatever it was very. And she was deaf and mute. She.

Was deaf and mute. And at this point the dad is still alive and the dad speaks on her behalf, like translates on her behalf because he knows sign language. When Guddu was younger he was nonverbal and so he that's when he learned sign language. It's very sad to see how they basically took advantage of a disabled person. Yeah, and they tried to get ahead of it on top of that. So what a good show though. Oh yeah, I think we ended up talking about every single one of the.

I think so too. I This whole show left a really strong impression on me. I really liked it. I'm going to see it again in a few years if yeah, I think four years is a good amount of time. I. Circled back several years later, I still I was still a wailing mess by the end. If you've come this far and we spoiled the whole show for you, highly recommend going and watching for yourself. It is a beautiful pandemic show and that's that's pretty much it. I had no other thoughts, did you?

I have one more OK, and it's really small and I can't really expand on it. So do it this what you will. All right, good. It is like fascination with the the marine animals, like the Stingrays and stuff. When he goes. I just don't want yellow to die. I never want yellow to die. I never want yellow to die over and over. And I'm like, oh, there's more yellow again. I don't take from that way. You will. Yeah. But like, he gravitated towards that really hard.

Yeah. And yellow seems to be a pretty big theme throughout the show. I'm not sure what it means, but if somebody out there watches it and gets something out of it, you know, run it back, I guess. But that stood out to me, too. Anyway, sorry. That's it. That's all I got. OK. I like it. Miguel, thank you so much for coming on the show once again. Do you want to plug anything at all or? Not today. OK, I'll plug this show. Keep coming back. Keep listening. Thank you Endow People.

Well, that's been our show. I'm Jessica and this has been the Tebaki Rambles podcast.