twenty five twenty one finale thoughts (spoilers below the cut!):
wow this was a painful one, the writers really tried to prepare us for it, but i was still so unprepared for the final messaging of the show to be: growing up is just losing all your friends and selling your soul to your job.
one of the things that i really have loved about this show is that they’ve done such a fantastic job of capturing the beauty of youth and feeling like you're on top of the world. i know that the thing about this beauty is in how fleeting that youth is, and while i overall understand the way things ended in 2521 with heedo and yijin, i feel like the show missed the mark in some areas.
in the last two episodes, i felt like i didnt understand when yijins motivations shifted to be primarily job focused. i know that he’s always wanted to do his best and work hard, but it felt so out of line with the yijin who fought his superior because he had something more precious to fight for (heedo). i can understand work schedules just having the two of them grow apart, but what the fuck made him apply for a full time job in new york and think it was perfectly ok to not tell heedo -- if he was running away from his problems, show us that writers!! yijin’s always been so direct and has avoided miscommunication with heedo at all costs throughout the series, that i didnt understand how his motivations made any sense. like, if he felt like he was living in hell, what made him want to stay?? the job stability and prospect to move up the ladder? if that’s the case, i dont think it was developed well enough. he’s okay leaving his family for basically 8 years???
their breakup was presented as inevitable because the ways they wanted to grow professionally kept the two of them apart, and prevented further growth and intimacy in their relationship to the point that they would no longer know each other over time. going to ny escalated the timeline, but also added a lot more angst than i was expecting to the breakup. yurim and ji-woong were presented as a foil to their relationship, but i wish they had shown how the two of them had made time for each other over LDR -- this would’ve made them a better contrast to the main couple. (i also have to say that while i wouldve loved to learn more about ji-woong i actually love that his defining character trait is how much he’s in love with yurim).
do nOT get me started about seung-wan. they had MY BEST GIRL WHO WAS GOING TO CHANGE THE WORLD, BECOME AN ENTERTAINMENT AD????? girl was talking about schools as another type of prisons on her own talk show and now is making variety shows?? and just has to settle for happiness with a man??? i get it!! youth makes you believe you’re bigger than you are show, but seung-wan was THE one to do big things!!!!
i also think that part of where the show fell short in is how the present day stuff (like 2020s) was handled. it wasn’t fleshed out properly, there was not really any proper development for heedo of 41 or minchae. i can’t say i care one way or another if minchae kept doing ballet or not, and im not exactly sure how the na heedo of the present feels connected to na heedo in the late 90s/early 2000s. they don’t even feel like the same person, nor are they even styled similarly.
overall, it was so devastating to get the confirmation that 25/21 is the year that yijin and heedo fall apart, and enter the world separately as adults. however, i still love this story so much, heedo and yijin’s story means so much to me. they were there for each other and made each other laugh when they felt like they had nothing to laugh about. they had a love that was the right place and right time, but it wasn’t forever, and that is special and beautiful in its own right. im glad they got to have this story even if the finale didn’t get everything right imo.
OH!!! the thing that show got right -- yurim and heedo’s ending. rivals :) that was the perfect way to round out the way this show started. thank u kim taeri for that hehe.
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