Game of Clones is a British dating show where a single person describes their perfect look, producers find eight near-identical matches and dress them the same, and the dater uses games and dates to pick one because, when everyone looks alike, personality decides.
I think I have spent too much time thinking through the Ttang Ttang noodles scene but in my defense, it’s exactly what the show wanted me to do.
Lee Dong Sik: You shouldn't be doubting a single word I say.
[...]
So, did I look okay on the video?
You can really see why Lee Dong Sik ended up adopting his lunatic persona, how it lets him keep some distance while he engages in fully pointed performances while managing his own pain and emotions, how it naturally fits with the way he acts and thinks, but also how it is necessary because performance ultimately is such a big part not just of life but of police work as this whole interrogation scene clearly presents.
Like, “You shouldn’t have any doubt” applies to Lee Dong Sik’s innocence as well as his guilt. If he doesn’t have an ironclad alibi and is not able to explain every single fact, he’s a suspect: but if he also doesn’t recite a perfect confession that covers every single fact, he’s just a suspect, because he can’t be condemned by anyone except the court of public opinion. The series hints at this with his flashbacks, but as someone who wasn’t familiar with Korean crime anything and didn’t know about the theatrical re-enactmens, it took me watching other shows to realise exactly what kind of fucked up situation Lee Dong Sik was in, first beaten up to get a confession and then beaten up to perfectly perform such a confession beyond reasonable doubt.
Lee Dong Sik: Are you guys detectives from some TV show?
Case in point, this whole interrogation and arrest happened on extremely flimsy grounds simply because Han Joo Woon is Han Ki Hwan’s son. The whole thing rests entirely on Lee Dong Sik’s appearing suspicious, with only Lee Dong Sik, Nam Sang Bae (and privately Oh Ji Hwa) apparently taking into consideration anything beyond the surface.
Even seizing and searching Yoo Jae Yi’s butcher shop only relies on Han Joo Woon’s status, no matter how arrogantly he says that a judge wouldn’t sign such an order on a whim: because his father has already used his influence to arrest Lee Dong Sik and Lee Dong Sik has managed to make a public spectacle of it, now they have to rush like madmen to actually find anything that justifies any of it.
I also love this line because - yeah, this is ridicolous, what are we doing only because the higher ups said so?
Passing Woman: She'll hear you.
I have been reading recently about gossip as a form of female guerrilla, both in conflict situations and within patriarchal societies where the celebration of male violence confines women into the domestic sphere and that has made me pay a lot more attention on the way the community gossip is presented in the show through female characters acting almost as a greek chorus - and especially on which characters they focus. So far we have had Lee Dong Sik, Yoo Jae Yi, Han Joo Woon and Kang Min Jeong (and there are a couple of guys talking about her on television, but with their voices distorted to a more feminine pitch), and it’s very explicit how gossip is intentionally used as a tool of dehumanisation and exclusion of which the victim (or their loved ones) are meant to be aware of. But at the same time, gossip by women it's the main way we hear the unofficial voice of the community contrasted to the official version of the male dominated institutions.
That doesn’t mean that gossip doesn’t effect, influence or is even used by male characters such as Lee Chang Jin and Han Ki Hwan, but it’s a very particular distinction I am trying to pay more attention to this time around.
Nam Sang Bae: You can't even wash anywhere. Life isn't easy for anyone.
Oh Ji Hoon: You are the one that provoked them.
Endlessly fascinated by both approaches to Han Joo Woon after the egg scene: Nam Sang Bae is infinitely patient and leading by example while pointing out that for someone who hates being typecasted, Han Joo Woon clearly has no qualms to do the same to others, while Oh Ji Hoon tries to be understanding but once Han Joo Woon accuses the people he loves, he immediately goes straight for the throat and Han Joo Woon actually looks rattled from it.
Kwon Hyeok: But I heard your police higher-ups are all super charmed by him?
No that’s great Kwon Hyeok, I love the police brutality implications and how it sucks that no one really feels like taking a go at him, I’m so glad you are a prosecutor. Also the way the show makes sure you notice what a fucking difference it plays that Lee Dong Sik is a cop this time around, even if a disgraced one.
Yoo Jae Yi: I'm going to return it when you get back and never even look back on this place.
I’m always in awe of Yoo Jae Yi’s writing because it would have been so, so easy to fuck up, there are so many character archetypes she fits into that basically write themselves in the worst way possible (thank you Kim Soo Jin for killing the Han Joo Woon/Yoo Jae Yi thing dead) and the way her mothers’ disappearance is tied to the freedom of moving on in all senses of the world, the way she wants to fucking quit everything and never return is one of my favourite things about it. She’s the one that gives everyone else a place of home and belonging and community and the one who most wants to leave. Manyang can go fuck themselves and while they all have to suffer it, she'll carve a place for her and her people and one day everything will be okay and she'll finally leave it all behind.
Han Joo Woon: That blasted attachment was the trap.
The way Han Joo Woon actually hits a button by bringing up that everyone Lee Dong Sik loves eventually dies and then immediately misses by bringing up the serial killer thing and then crashes into a wall once Lee Dong Sik deduces what happened to Lee Gum Hwa. A++, truly the top of the nation.
Lee Dong Sik: Did that woman know you sent her to die?
Thank you Kim Soo Jin for wondering “What if there was a psycho sexual cop/serial killer dynamic but none of them was a serial killer and also they both stopped being cops (but they kept doing mind games for the fun)”.
On a more serious note, I'm also looking very closely on how Lee Dong Sik uses Lee Gum Hwa's name and her death.
There’s a lot to say about the way the class dynamics influence the behaviour of Team Evil, and Lee Chang Jin actually eating the food that is in front of him is one of my favourite ones.
Park Jeong Je: Who eats tofu in this situation? You just slept in the lockup for a day.
This is what true friendship is all about <3
I always love the contrast of the two scenes, both in what they say about Manyang and in how the situation has drastically changed in twenty years, both for the city and Lee Dong Sik himself. There is also this layer of discomfort once he gets to the butcher shop and while it’s mostly because of what happened the last time he was here and because Yoo Jae Yi's shop was seized and searched, I do think Lee Dong Sik also genuinely struggles with the show of love and care here. The reaction at the seolleongtang shop was familiar and arguably even one he wanted and he can accept it, but here even if this is also what he probably expected and hoped and wanted, he struggles.
I always forget how fucking good his laugh is here, how genuinely broken and pitched and unsettling. And of course once again, the matter of performance: Han Joo Woon saw him and he’s extra guilty, because he’s not acting like a perfect victim should. Let's break into his basement and threaten him with a gun.
Han Joo Woon: I also heard the story that it might be Sergeant Lee Dong Sik who killed his partner.
I CAN’T BELIEVE I FUCKING FORGOT, HE DID BROUGHT HIM UP AND THREW IT BACK IN LEE DONG SIK’S FACE. Also can’t believe it’s only been three years since he’s back in Manyang, that does make Han Joo Woon’s theory more solid.
I’d love to know if these rumours started because Lee Dong Sik couldn’t explain what happened or because it became known that he had been a murder suspect before. Or both!
Lee Dong Sik: Yeah, I understand. There’s no other way than getting my confession.
Nam Sang Bae’s very explicit wording: “Don’t try to forgive or understand”.
Just.
Lee Dong Sik always refers to his status as a cop to justify/explain his actions and the way he words it here doesn’t seem different (he knows the law because he also had to get people to confess) or if it does, it’s because he’s also baiting Han Joo Woon - of course a serial killer who has been getting away with murder for twenty years would know every minute detail of the law to avoid get caught.
But that’s not why he is so familiar with this process, nor the reason why he joined the police in the first place.
Lee Dong Sik: Give it a try. Think of it as practice.
The implications of this line as they pertain to Han Joo Woon’s character and what does it mean if he shoots now, if he becomes the monster with a long, successful police career in front of him…
Also the ambiguity of Lee Dong Sik’s thoughts here: of course Han Joo Woon isn’t going to shoot him, this isn’t the kind of person he is, but there was still a chance he would, and he just. Closes his eyes and lets go.
And also that little line about never having shot anyone - not only the contrast with the last episode, where he is actually sure and firm enough that he still hasn't shot anyone but he's not afraid then - once again reinforcing that this really is Han Joo Woon's First Case/First Day Outside.
(There is probably also here something to say about how Han Joo Woon hasn't been in military service, so the way he has been thought to use is a gun is presumably markedly different than the others'.)
Lee Dong Sik: Lieutenant Han Joo Woon. Are you self-destructing?
[...]
Han Joo Woon: Who killed them? Who are you protecting?
Aw, their proto-“Are you worried about me?”. We still have oceans of time to cross, but here Lee Dong Sik has a very clear confirmation that yes, Han Joo Woon, as the fandom has sapiently put it, is a bull in a china shop who WILL go overboard with no hesitation without caring what happens to him if he thinks it’s the right to do.
And here Han Joo Woon still hasn’t abandoned his first line of thought (Lee Dong Sik is the culprit) but at least a very small part of him is willing to consider that Lee Dong Sik’s attachment to other people is real, maybe so real that he could pick others over himself, so maybe really there is more than meets the eyes.
Also I’d love to know how long he was gloating in the dark waiting for the right moment for his dramatic entrance while Lee Dong Sik just let him lurk in the shadows because come the fuck on. I guess this is payback for the way Lee Dong sik waltzed to the one-way mirror to coily fix his hair when he was being interrogated for murder just to spite Han Joo Woon’s personally.
#lana del rey
#cats of tumblr
#horror movies
#photography
