Not Others finds its footing in the second week, lowering the shock-value humor and keeping the crime cases closer to home. With a focus on family in all its forms, we get introduced to some new characters and plunge into deeper (darker) themes. I choked back a few tears this week but also laughed out loud — so I’d say the show has me right where it wants me.
EPISODES 3-4
I wanted to like this drama and now I do. The premiere week felt like it was working a little too hard at the comedy, but now we’ve settled into a less overtly comedic space where the jokes flow from the central storyline. More importantly, it’s not all laughs this week.
We start with another criminal case, and it’s the second one we’ve seen involving child abuse. Jin-hee gets very emotionally invested in these cases and Jae-won reprimands her for not remaining detached. But then, when Jin-hee does her best to forget it and let headquarters handle it, Eun-mi judges her for being a heartless cop. The poor girl can’t win.
Eun-mi is the one who reported the crime in this case after an elderly woman, covered in bruises, visits the clinic where Eun-mi is a physical therapist. The woman’s adult son has been abusing both his young child and his elderly mother. But Eun-mi isn’t just upset about being witness to abuse — we come to learn that she herself suffered physical abuse as she was growing up, and this case is needling her trauma.
We get a little more backstory on Eun-mi when we see her as a pregnant teenager, getting the living hell beat out of her by her alcoholic father. Her mother is absent (maybe deceased?) and she has nowhere else to turn. In the end, one of her high school friends saves her life by inviting Eun-mi to live with her and her mom. They become like her family and help her take care of baby Jin-hee.
In the present, we’re introduced to the high school friend, KIM MI-JUNG (Kim Hye-eun), who’s still like family to Eun-mi and Jin-hee. She’s known them long enough to be comfortable with how they fight and argue all the time, and she just joins right in when they do.
We’re also introduced to Jin-hee’s best bud from childhood, KIM JIN-SOO (Im Sung-kyun) — her unrequited first love, who now looks like an idol and only comes around when he’s having girl troubles. Like Mi-jung, Jin-soo just ignores the mother-daughter arguing and makes himself at home in their apartment.
All in all, the drama is building a tight-knit little adopted family for our heroines, and this is where it hits its mark. It’s easy to see why people would be pulled into the world of these women because, no matter how tough their lives have been, neither one has any self-pity. They hold themselves like survivors, not victims, and don’t take any BS from anybody (except each other).
And it looks like they may be adopting another newbie if Eun-mi has anything to say about it. One day, while mom and daughter and their two old friends are out for drinks, Eun-mi spots Jae-won walking by and hauls him inside to have drinks with them. Eun-mi is already half in the bag and acting like her flirtatious self (“Do you have an older brother?”), and then she remembers that Jae-won was the “police academy oppa” from Jin-hee’s training days. Jin-hee is quick to point out that she never called him oppa, that’s just how her mom talks. The family of four continues on with their normal, overly honest way of communicating, and Jae-won looks extremely uncomfortable — but also, maybe a little curious?
The family theme also extends to the police station, where Jin-hee has been ostracized since she joined her new precinct. She views her colleagues as detached and feels like she’s the only one who gets emotionally involved in cases. She attempts to rally her team to go against procedure and gather evidence in the latest child abuse case, only to learn that they’re actually already doing that — they’re just way more nonchalant about it than she is.
In addition, Jin-hee learns that Jae-won — who’s constantly yelling at her to follow the rules — is actually a rule-breaker himself. When following procedure will take too long, he does what he can to remedy things on his own. Jin-hee is moved by all these realizations about her new team and, after a night of heavy drinking together, we see the seeds are planted for this police station crew to become their own quirky little family unit.
The development in the “citizens hero” case from last week leads to Eun-mi being followed around by a guy in a baseball cap and hoodie. When the woman that Eun-mi rescued turns up dead in a park, Jin-hee worries that Eun-mi is in danger too. The victim had asked for police protection multiple times, but was dismissed (and there’s a running thread about how the police don’t do their jobs very well).
We end with a brief introduction to a character who’s still a mystery, but will likely become important. Jin-hee tries to arrest a man she suspects of being a pervert, but he’s let go for lack of evidence. That night, she sees the same man looking up at her apartment window and she chases him down until she’s got him pinned to a wall. She demands to know who he is, but we’ll have to wait until next week to find out.
I’m liking this better now that Jin-hee and Jae-won are breaking the ice and the drama is keeping its focus on the relationships. I already liked the leads last week, but these episodes dive deeper into the heartfelt tension and the jokes hit better when they follow very intense scenes. All the hilarious cursing from the mouthy trio of physical therapy patients (cameos by Kim Young-ok, Sung Ae-jae, and Jung Eun-shim) doesn’t hurt either.
Also, the crimes make more sense for the story this week, with child abuse being a trigger for Eun-mi. There’s a nice exploration of generational trauma and its long-lasting effects when Eun-mi admits that there are things she didn’t do for Jin-hee because no one ever did them for her, and she didn’t know she was supposed to. As an adult, Jin-hee is learning how to care for people on her own and Eun-mi is learning from her.
The killer on the loose still feels a bit strange, but I understand it gives the drama an overarching structure. I’m much more interested in the perp Jin-hee picked up at the end, though. Is he Jin-hee’s father? There was a moment when Mi-jung fantasized about how she’d torture the father if she ever met him, and now it makes me wonder if we will indeed meet him. But, no matter who he is, I’m looking forward to seeing how he’ll tie into their lives. The drama does best in its character-driven moments and I love how this little family keeps adopting new members.