#what is up with this show and mutual endangerment in ships

[gayofthefae]

Thinking about how in 414 a big part of the sniper was Bobby’s life being endangered motivating Athena to empathize with how scared he felt when hers was.

[nthngtoseehere-blog]

I finished "Healer" and just. This show! So good!

And Ji Chang Wook! So pretty!!

SPOILERS below

I have a couple of nitpicks mainly related to some loose plot threads, but who cares. I enjoyed the show so much.

Seo Jung Hoo is a great character. The whole thing where he was figuratively raised by wolves and just does not how to be normal and have real relationships with people is done so well. He's great at pretending to be different types of people, but doesn't know how to be himself, or even know who he is as “himself.”

There were times that his derpy alter ego Park Bong Soo felt like less of a fake identity and more like Jung Hoo's actual comfort zone in terms of interacting with people. When he acts, as Bong Soo, bewildered by peoples' behaviors, and clueless about social norms, it's so obviously Jung Hoo reacting naturally, which is so funny and kinda sweet. He babie.

I love his relationship with Ahjumma. She's the only person so far who hasn't abandoned him AND who treats him like a human being. (His teacher did not. That relationship was fascinating story-wise and horrifying child-endangerment-and-neglect-wise.) When he finally gets to spend time with her face to face he's so gleeful about it, it's adorable.

Also adorable: his relationship with Chae Yeong Sin. I am on board that ship. They fell in mutual weirdness, which is such a great category of love. It’s also great to see them actually communicate with each other, once they decide to be together. After Jung Hoo is blackmailed to admit on camera to murders he didn’t commit, he knows he has to go on the run and drop contact with Yeong Sin to protect her, but he doesn’t just disappear. He shows up and tells her exactly what happened and what he’s going to do about it. It’s such healthy adult relationship behavior, which is hilarious because I’m pretty sure he does it because he has no filter around her anymore because he doesn’t know How to Relationship.

Yeong Sin is also a great character, and often passes the Bechdel Test which is nice. She had her own trauma and goals, and while she and Jung Hoo obviously helped each other in important ways she could have managed without him. In fact she didn't necessarily need him, while he absolutely needed her, in order to live a meaningful and happy life. That's down to her adoptive family, both her father and the rag tag bunch of ex-cons he collected as their found family. Where she came out of a traumatic childhood into a supportive and loving family, Jung Hoo came out of a traumatic childhood into juvie and then into the hands of a guy who thought that being responsible for a child meant isolating them together in a warehouse, slapping the kid around until he learned to fight back. And then abandoning the kid. On his birthday. WTF.

Anyway. Yes. So glad Yeong Sin, at least, won the adoptive family jackpot.

I found the back story of the parents’ generation fascinating because, I’m ashamed to say, I don’t know anything about Korean history. I’m going to start learning, though, partly because my son’s long term gf is South Korean and I’d like to know more about where she comes from.

Speaking of the gf, Healer is evidently one of her absolute favorite shows 😄 She also recommended a show called “City Hunters” to me, but I can’t find it available in my region anywhere. I’ll keep looking though.