The ending of our drama brings us — and our characters — full circle as our leading lady regains her memories of her first life and identifies the catalyst that triggered her ability to remember her past lives. With this revelation comes the cure to her curse, but will she be willing to sacrifice her present happiness in order to stop the cycle?
EPISODES 11-12
See You in My 19th Life has come to an end, and I find myself conflicted as I try to finalize my thoughts and put my feelings into words. The romantic in me has a lot of praise for the cinematography, the romance that spanned lifetimes, Shin Hye-sun’s acting, and the happy ending. But the part of me that’s rooted in logic? Well, she’s chomping at the bit to write a 400-page essay on all the plot holes opened by our drama’s ending. I don’t know about y’all, but I ain’t got time for that, so let’s talk about Ji-eum’s first life.
The bold reds and blues that have been heavily featured throughout the course of our drama are a visual connection to Ji-eum’s first life as Su, a woman tasked with dyeing the fabrics that would adorn the sacred shaman bells to be used in a much anticipated ritual for the gods. When she learns that the sacred bells could be traded for medicine that would save her sickly sister Seol (past life Cho-won), Su sneaks into the temple under the cover of darkness and steals them. The way the music kicked in just as Su grabbed the bells gave me chills.
Unfortunately, bells aren’t the most stealthy of objects to steal, so Han-ya (past life Seo-ha) and Cheon-un (past life Min-ki) — the lord in charge of blessing the bells and leading the ritual — quickly tracks the sisters down. Su pleads with Cheon-un and asks him to let her trade the bells for the medicine, vowing to answer to the gods’ wrath for eternity, but Min-ki was annoying and condescending in his past life, too. He does not see the value in Seol’s insignificant and fleeting life, and next thing we know, Han-ya is holding a bloody sword, and Su is crying over her sister’s body.
As gut-wrenching as it was to watch Ji-eum cry tears over her sister’s body in her first life, I found that her emotions in the present landed a harder sucker punch. As she choked Seo-ha, she was not only reliving her sister’s murder, but she was struggling to separate the past from the present. Logically, she knows present day Seo-ha is kind and loving, but remembering and accepting that fact is hard when the memory of her sister’s death feels, in the moment at least, raw and fresh. When Ji-eum curls into a little ball on her bed and asks a helpless looking Seo-ha to leave her alone — oof! That right there was the moment that crushed my heart — absolutely pancaked it, like a melodrama leading man flattened by a truck of doom.
While Seo-ha gives Ji-eum the space she needs to process her newly recovered memories, he officially closes the chapter on our car accident story arc, which — surprise, surprise — has a lot of plot holes and unrealistic and underdeveloped character behaviors. For starters, Yoo-sun was aware that Seo-ha’s uncle instigated the car accident that killed her daughter, but she agreed to keep quiet in order to protect and spare Seo-ha’s feelings — which is a massive pile of bullsh!t if you ask me. I don’t care how much she loved Seo-ah — there’s no way a mother is going to let her daughter’s murderer run loose in order to coddle her best friend’s child.
This whole cover-up might have temporarily protected Seo-ha’s feelings, but what about poor Do-yoon and Do-jin, who became orphans after their father died? Did either rich family offer them support out of guilt for hiding the identity of their father’s killer? That would be a big fat no — unless all those packets Seo-ha’s father was trying to slip Do-yoon were filled with his guilt money and not payments for spying on Seo-ha. Guess we’ll never know, because the drama’s attempt at showing the softer side of Seo-ha’s father was another case of too-little-too-late and too-bad-this-drama-was-only-12-episodes-when-it-should-have-been-16.
If only Seo-ha’s father had adopted Do-yoon and Do-jin out of guilt. Then maybe, just maybe, Do-yoon could have grown up as more of Seo-ha’s equal, and as a result he’d have felt more confident dating Cho-won. This would have saved us all from a lot of dramatic fist clenching, and perhaps given our secondary couple a better paced romance.
As it is, we spent the majority of this drama watching Do-yoon run away from his feelings, and in the end it’s Ji-eum and Do-jin (yay, matchmaker Do-jin!) who give him the nudge he needs to say, “F**k the 1%!” and date the woman he loves. Well, at least we got there eventually. It’s just a pity we only got, like, five minutes of them as a couple once their ship officially sailed. There was a lot of ground to cover in our final two episodes, though, and most of it was concerned with Ji-eum’s repeated tries to remember her first life.
Although Ji-eum thought she had seen everything the first time around, Min-ki can tell that she still has gaps in her recovered memories. So Ji-eum — at Seo-ha’s encouragement — takes grasp of the bells once again. This time we see that Han-ya stepped in and tried to convince Su to give the shaman bells back to Cheon-un before anything happened to Su or her sister. But, while Han-ya was crouched next to her, Cheon-un took a sword and killed Seol. He also took a swing at Su, but Han-ya blocked his sword and convinced Cheon-un to spare her life.
Ji-eum’s memories then skip a few hours to the bridge surrounded by fireworks. There, Su tried to kill Cheon-un in revenge, but Han-ya stepped in and took Su’s knife to his chest. Once again — and despite being stabbed by Su — he tried to convince her to let go of her rage and move on (“It’s not what your sister would want”), but she was too emotional to heed his advice. Even after a random soldier shot her in the back with an arrow, she stumbled towards Cheon-un. With the shaman bells in hand and on the verge of dying, Su vowed never to forget what he’d done, and so began her cycle of remembering her past lives.
Su and Han-ya died on the bridge together — but not as tragic star-crossed lovers. There were certainly a couple of lingering looks that suggested they could have possibly developed a romantic relationship with more time, but I like that they were merely acquaintances in Ji-eum’s first life. Without the concept of fated lovers, Ji-eum and Seo-ha’s relationship feels more special — like they’ve earned their happiness rather than had it handed to them.
And, ultimately, Ji-eum’s present happiness is the key to letting go of her own grudge, breaking the cycle, and saving Ae-gyeong. But, of course, there’s a plot twist. If Ji-eum ends the cycle of remembering her past lives, she will forget everything — and everyone — instantly. Meaning she will no longer recognize Ae-gyeong, Seo-ha, and the rest of her loved ones from her 18th life that she has befriended again as Ji-eum. As much as Ji-eum wants to unburden herself from her past memories, she doesn’t want to forget her loved ones. (Cut to the scene of Ji-eum’s past life as a flamenco dancer while she ponders how to give someone a beautiful and happy goodbye and trigger all the feels.)
As Ji-eum wavers, failing to find the conviction she needs to part with her memories and loved ones, good ol’ Seo-ha steps in with a pair of couple rings and a promise to find her after she’s lost her memories. Ever since he’s confirmed that Ji-eum is Ju-won, Seo-ha has become a new man. He’s happier and more confident. He’s making jokes about driving, and not once did he seclude himself at the bottom of a pool in our finale. I love seeing this version of him that channels his past life personality as Han-ya. But, if I look back at the drama as a whole, I’m not a fan of the abruptness of his transformation or that it was seemingly brought on by his knowledge of Ji-eum’s identity. You’ve heard of a slow-burn romance. Well, gimmie that slow-burn character development.
With Seo-ha’s blessing, Ji-eum prepares her goodbyes, starting with Cho-won, who gives Ji-eum some PPL jewelry as a parting gift. The sisters then have dinner with Yoo-sun, who watches Ji-eum interact with Cho-won almost knowingly. It’s never explicitly stated that Yoo-sun has figured it out — and maybe she hasn’t. Maybe, instead, when she tearfully accepts Ji-eum’s hug, she agrees out of wishfulness. Either way, the mother double-daughter hug was a poignant goodbye to not only Ju-won but the rest of Ji-eum’s past lives.
The next day Ji-eum clasps the shaman bells, meets Su on a spiritual plane, and tells Su that she has found happiness. With her grudge from her past life settled, Ji-eum forgets her past lives and all relationships connected to them. It’s at this point that I must resist writing a treatise entitled All the Sh!t that Makes No Sense Now that Ji-eum Lost Her Memories.
I have sooooooo many questions: Is Ji-eum aware that she has gaps in her memory, or did new, fake memories replace the old ones tied to the people from her past lives? If she’s the only one who forgot her past, how did she get her old job back? Did she just show up one day, thinking she still worked there as an engineer? Did her old boss rehire her — no questions asked and with no comment about her brief stint working at MI Hotel? If she no longer works at MI Group because it’s tied to memories of Seo-ha, then why is she back at her engineer job when her whole reason for choosing that career path was to be closer to Seo-ha? Where does she live? Surely losing her memory of Ae-gyeong, the woman who provided her with a roof over her head from the time she was a child, did not magically conjure up a fully furnished rooftop apartment for her to live in, right?
Unfortunately, we’re given no explanation or clues. Instead we’re expected to passively accept the fact that Ji-eum is settled into a happy life with no memory of Seo-ha or any of her other past life connections. And if you are someone who can turn off your brain at this point, then the ending to this drama is very happy.
Seo-ha and company have been watching over Ji-eum from afar, but after Seo-ha’s latest attempt to recruit Ji-eum to MI Hotel fails, he goes on the offensive. One by one, Ji-eum’s loved ones from her past lives pop into her life like celebrity cameos, until she finally meets Seo-ha. And, gaping plot holes aside, the way Seo-ha woos Ji-eum with the very same dialogue she once used on him is extremely cute and satisfies my inner romantic. Too bad my inner romantic is also currently drowning in a sea of questions that I have for our writers.
So how do I feel about See You in My 19th Life as a whole? It was a beautiful letdown. It’s hard for me to find fault in the cinematography, acting, and the overarching story of Ji-eum’s past lives and romance with Seo-ha. Unfortunately, even I, as biased as I am for this story, could not ignore the many plot holes and underdeveloped characters. It’s very easy to imagine the absolute gem this drama could have been with a little more polish and time, and I feel a little robbed of the fact that it wasn’t a 16-episode drama. There’s no guarantee the extra episodes could have saved it, but considering See You in My 19th Life mostly faltered in the second half as the ending drew near, it’s one of the rare dramas whose plot could have benefited from more time.