The premiere week gives just what I was hoping for: an intriguing mystery with compelling characters and a touch of nostalgia. It’s shaping up to be an intense ride for our time-traveling leads who find themselves in the past, each with their own strong motivations to change the future.
EPISODES 1-2
After two episodes, I’m already hooked. The drama dives right in without wasting time, but it doesn’t feel rushed. Pieces of our characters’ lives and the mystery are revealed at a good pace – so far, it seems like the type of drama that keeps you on your toes without dragging things out unnecessarily. But what really grabbed me was how emotionally grounded the story feels. While this is a crime mystery/thriller with a lot of ground to cover, our characters’ unique motivations and fears are given center stage.
We’re first introduced to reporter YOON HAE-JOON (Kim Dong-wook) who almost crashes into an old, abandoned car sitting right in the middle of an empty road on a rainy night. Inside the open vehicle, he finds a handy dandy “time machine” manual. He’s too curious to ignore the possibility, however ridiculous it seems, and follows the instructions. He drives through a tunnel and poofs right into 2037. But his excitement is short-lived when he sees something there that shakes him.
Next thing we know, Hae-joon is an old hand at time traveling and mills around 1987 in the village of Woojung-ri. He sets up camp there, becoming a high school teacher and settling in among the residents, endearing himself to the townsfolk by using his knowledge of the future to save some high teenagers from dying.
But he’s not there to sight-see or even save kids – he’s there to find the true culprit of the impending 1987 Woojung-ri serial murders. Hae-joon has made a habit of hopping back and forth between 1987 and his current timeline of 2024, fact-finding and setting things in motion. His next stop in 2024 is to visit the (falsely) convicted serial killer in prison and get his help finding the truth.
Hae-joon isn’t solving this case out of justice or even journalistic duty. In fact, he’s quite literally saving his own skin. We now discover what he learned in 2037: he’s destined to be the serial killer’s next victim in 2024. And seeing as the supposed killer hung himself in prison in 2024 in the original timeline, that means the real killer is someone else.
Next, we’re introduced to the other half of our time-traveling duo BAEK YOON-YOUNG (Jin Ki-joon), an overworked editor/manager for the demanding, self-involved author KO MI-SOOK (Kim Hye-eun). An only child, Yoon-young has a complicated relationship with her parents. She sends money home but rarely visits, seeming embarrassed by her deadbeat dad who’s constantly drunk and gambling and her old-fashioned, quiet mother LEE SOON-AE (Lee Ji-hyun) who spends her days at home watching home videos of Yoon-young as a kid.
Soon-ae comes off as tragically lonely and ignored, waiting around for her husband to come home and her busy daughter to visit. She lives for her family who are busy living for themselves. While it’s clear Yoon-young loves her mom, every time she sees her, she feels angry at how her mom lives her life, wearing cheap clothes and doing nothing for herself.
Making it even more tragic is how proud Soon-ae is of her successful daughter who finds her embarrassing and hard to be around. After pretending not to see her mom while in the mall with her boss, Yoon-young gets into a fight with her mom. Yoon-young yells at her mom for spending her money on shoes for Yoon-young, and Soon-ae calls her out for being embarrassed by her. They go their separate ways, Yoon-young frustrated and Soon-ae hurt.
That night, Yoon-young gets a life-changing call: her mom’s body was found in a river in Woojung-ri. She left a note for Yoon-young, so it’s assumed she died by suicide. (Although, that’s called into question when Yoon-young finds a Bong Bong Teahouse matchbox – the serial killer’s signature – on the shore with an unreadable note inside.)
Soon-ae’s death is tragic both for her sake and the guilt-ridden Yoon-young’s whose regret, pain, and anger are palpable. I’ve always liked Jin Ki-joon, and she’s great here as the daughter who took her mother for granted. She’s utterly devastated and lost when she realizes her mom is gone.
When Yoon-young finally gets ahold of her dad (who’s drunk per usual), she rails against him for how lonely he made her mother. But she doesn’t let herself off the hook either. Yoon-young wishes she could go back in time to stop her mom from meeting her dad and giving birth to her so that her mom could live a life without them making her lonely. Oh, and just to add to her horrific day, Yoon-young is fired from her job.
Our storylines converge as Yoon-young wanders aimlessly down a road in Woojung-ri, right into the path of Hae-joon’s oncoming, time-traveling car. He swerves and manages to avoid hitting her head on, but he taps her, pulling her into 1987 with him. She’s so dazed that she doesn’t even register she’s gone back in time. On the street, she literally bumps into her young father BEAK HEE-SEOB (Lee Won-jung) in his ‘80s leather vest with his wannabe rocker vibes, but she doesn’t recognize him.
She ends up fighting with this kid trying to drag her into a club and finally registers that she’s not in 2024 anymore. Then, she spots young Soon-ae (Seo Ji-hye) who she does immediately recognize. Before Yoon-young can follow her, Hae-joon finds and pulls her aside to explain their predicament – they’re stuck in 1987 because his time machine got fried when the car crashed.
Yoon-young doesn’t mind one bit since it means she can spend more time with her mother who she tracks down in that nearby club. Of course, calling the teenage Soon-ae “mom” and sob-hugging her freaks timid Soon-ae the hell out and makes her think Yoon-young must be high on glue like lots of the local kids. Understandably, she headbutts Yoon-young and runs away.
Once Hae-joon catches up to Yoon-young again, they start arguing about who’s at fault for the accident. They don’t trust each other enough to share names or any personal info, but he does put her up at his place while he tries to fix the car. He warns her to stay inside and not mess with anyone’s future, but Yoon-young is not about to pass up the chance to see her mom, so she sneaks out the next day. As luck would have it, her mom lives right across the street.
Soon-ae is sweet enough to let Yoon-young hang with her, assuming she must look like her dead mom. She seems flattered by how excited Yoon-young is to be with her. Yoon-young’s bright, adoring smile as she watches her mom go about her day is both sweet and heart-wrenching. She sees Soon-ae reading and sadly recalls that her mom once dreamed of being a novelist. And then it hits Yoon-young that her wish of saving her mom and giving her a better life might just be possible.
Right when Yoon-young hatches a plan to stop her parents from marrying the next year, her father sees Soon-ae for the first time and is smitten. Yoon-young catches his name and immediately drags him away like an overprotective parent. She knows what type of person he is and how cheap his love is, and as Soon-ae’s self-proclaimed bestie (ha), she orders him to stay away from Soon-ae.
Naturally, Hee-seob is baffled but declares that she’ll come to like him in time. This Hee-seob comes across as loveable and clueless. His enthusiastic, passionate nature is such a far cry from the beaten down, lifeless man he becomes.
While Yoon-young guards her mom, Hae-joon gets roped into a community walk with his boss PRINCIPAL YOON (Kim Jong-soo). And here we get yet another connection because Principal Yoon is Hae-joon’s estranged grandfather. After the walk, Hae-joon finds the Bong Bong Teahouse box Yoon-young brought with her and realizes she’s connected to the case, too. He matches the note inside to one he has which reads, “women who read are dangerous.” So our killer is an old-fashioned misogynist, then.
Then we get a twist that further ties our threads together. Snooping in her mom’s notebook, Yoon-young sees a passage she recognizes from a famous novel from 1987: her boss Mi-sook’s supposed debut. Oh ho. Yoon-young rushes to find Soon-ae and sees her classmates bullying her. They push her into the lake, so Yoon-young jumps in to save her mother who can’t swim. Among the classmates, only one seems concerned about Soon-ae and rushes up to help. Lo and behold, it’s novel-stealing Mi-sook who Yoon-young gives a healthy glare.
Yoon-young takes Soon-ae home and asks her about the bullying, but Soon-ae quietly denies it. The girls are her friends – they were just joking around. When Yoon-young pushes back, Soon-ae begs her to let it go. No one likes her, so she needs to believe these girls are her friends or she’ll have no one. In a whisper, she says she wants to die. That decides it for Yoon-young. Just as Hae-joon fixes the car, Yoon-young tells him she’s got things to do here, so she’s staying.
And that wraps up week one. While I do enjoy the mystery here, the characters are what really have me invested. I love the juxtaposition of Yoon-young and Hae-joon’s motivations for staying in 1987 with Yoon-young trying to erase her future self and Hae-joon trying to save his future self. While I can’t say I like Hae-joon all that much yet, I am interested in his story. We’ve only scratched the surface with him, but he doesn’t seem to have anyone in his life.
I’m already all in with Yoon-young. Her pure joy at seeing and spending time with Soon-ae is so bittersweet given it’s too little, too late. And then there’s Soon-ae, who has apparently been underappreciated and lonely her entire life. We’ve seen less of Hee-seob, but how did that passionate kid lose himself so thoroughly in adulthood? I’m not convinced Yoon-young can or even should prevent her parents from falling in love, but I do hope she can find a way to help them be happier versions of themselves.