It's Okay, It's Love - Ep. 3 Analysis
OKAY I FEEL REALLY SMART RIGHT NOW.
SO, at the end of episode 3, Jang Jae Yeol (Jo In Sung) is seen running with Han Gang Woo (Kyungsoo) before Gang oo disappears.
So Gang Woo is Jae Yeol’s imagination - an imaginary person created by Jae Yeol himself - in order for him to cope the fact that his father died because of him - whether it was because he physically stabbed his father or his father ran towards him and accidentally stabbed himself.
This makes sense since, when the doctor guy meets Jae Yeol’s brother - who’s in jail - the brother describes about his nightmare and how, although his mother clearly saw Jae Yeol holding the knife, she doesn’t state this fact during court, leading to the brother being sentenced to jail.
In this scene, the mother has a bruise on her upper-right side of her forehead, and seeing as how Jae Yeol comforts a shaken Gang Woo after he comes to him - stating that he punched his abusive father - by saying that he “didn’t punch his dad” but that it was “self-defense”, the mother’s bruise along with this dialogue show that Jae Yeol himself was in the same situation Gang Woo is in; he used to live in an abusive family where his father physically abused his mother. This explains Jae Yeol’s frustration with Gang Woo when he came to him in barefoot, because in the past Jae Yeol was frustrated with himself in his inability to protect his mother from his dad’s abuse.
So maybe the change of the girl in the window from a high schooler to a more older person reflects Jae Yeol’s old crush.
This idea also makes sense since this is a show based on psychology, specifically on the idea of psychological therapy and healing. Each character is supposed to have issues - Park Soo Gwang has Tourette Syndrome, Ji Hae Soo has Genophobia. Thus, Jae Yeol suffers from schizophrenia(?) and the guilt of somehow causing his father’s death - whether it was direct or not is not clear, although this may just be me denying the fact that Jae Yeol killed his father since I want Jae Yeol and Hae Soo to be all cute and shit.
Tl;dr - Gang Woo = a product of Jae Yeol’s imagination created after the incident of being involved in his father’s death.
Man it feels good to organize my thoughts. I love this drama. I love the screenwriter of this drama. I love Jo In Sung and Gong Hyo Jin; I fricking love Kyungsoo.
