I'm Gonna Spam The Timeline With Secret Forest Posts!

I'm gonna spam the timeline with secret forest posts!

Could you analyze the scene from ep.12 (the one with the stairs)? It's one of my favorites because defines very well the relationship between Shi-mok and Han Yeo-jin. 😗

Aha, yes! 

The stairwell scene is interesting because it’s one of the few scenes in the entire show that’s solely devoted to relationship building, as opposed to having something to do with the case. Relationships obviously develop over the course of the show, but most of it happens in the background/over small details, subtle moments. The stairwell scene stands out because it’s so completely in our face about Shi-mok and Yeo-jin, in a way that stood to highlight how far our favorite duo have come in their relationship despite the setbacks of the first half of the season.

In this Youtube video, you can see one of Shi-mok’s pain episodes in S1 juxtaposed with the stairwell scene in S2. The very first time we see Shi-mok deal with his pain is in S1E6, after he comes back from speaking with his mother. It’s implied that the headache is triggered from his interaction with his mother, who is clearly a source of deep trauma and emotional repression for him, and he deals with the aftermath of his pain alone. 

In that scene, he spills an entire bottle of water as he collapses, and he wakes alone to the same puddle of water next to him. No one was there to see him go through his pain, and no one is there to clean up the water for him. He trudges to get a paper towel roll and mops up what he can.

The sheer sense of loneliness and isolation we get from this dialogue-less scene is immense. We’re told throughout the series, in brief subtle moments, that the core of Shi-mok’s emotional state is defined by his isolation. His pain isolated him from his parents and his classmates; his surgery isolates him from the entirety of human society. The only reason Shi-mok seems to be able to deal with his situation is because of his work, the relentless pursuit of justice that seems to anchor him to his identity, and the fact that his lobotomy eliminated the worst of his emotions. Otherwise, I can’t imagine any person actually enduring his situation for the entirety of their adulthood. 

Towards the beginning of S1, Shi-mok tells Jung-bon flatly, “You’re right. I don’t have anyone beside me, and I never will.” Jung-bon, who doesn’t know about his condition, would clearly interpret this as Shi-mok refusing to develop a relationship that might alleviate his isolation. But for the viewer who knows about Shi-mok’s condition, it’s clear that he’s simply resigned to the idea of his solitude. He doesn’t expect companionship because of his inability to connect to his emotions, and I think this expectation might have more to do with the other person not accepting his condition than his own lack of desire for connection.

So this is where Shi-mok begins: alone and resigned to being alone.

S1 is spent proving to Shi-mok that he doesn’t have to do the work alone; Yeo-jin is not only a good partner but also a unique conduit for his deeply dormant emotional state. Without crossing the line or breaching his boundaries, she gently points out that he actually can tap into a deeper recess of himself and interact with other people in a way that is meaningful. 

At first, he seems almost disturbed by her suggestions that he can feel and act out emotions, but over the course of S1, he reaches a place where he actually does tap into a part of himself that he might not have engaged with for a good part of his life. So Shi-mok’s emotional development over S1 is not just about his fight for justice, but also about him relearning his ability to connect with people. 

If S1 is spent with Shi-mok learning about his ability to connect, I think S2 then leads naturally to him learning about his desire to connect. His resignation to his solitude in S1 means he never thinks of friendships, relationships, or human connections as a possibility in his personal life, so naturally, he never seems to ask himself if he wants it in the first place. It makes sense that S1 thus addresses the issue of him realizing that the possibility exists at all, but it never gets far enough to show Shi-mok actively desiring that human connection.

Shi-mok at the beginning of S2 is in a similar place as the beginning of S1, in that he is fairly alone and isolated due to his exile to Tongryeong. It doesn’t seem like he’s kept in regular contact with anyone, not even Yeo-jin, and he clearly hasn’t made any personal connections in his new district office. Yet unlike S1, when this just seemed like a part of his character, Shi-mok in his isolation feels deeply unhappy. We’re given shots of him alone in a hotel room because he’s unable to find a place to stay in Seoul, of him watching families and couples run past his car at a rest stop. They’re very subtle moments, but I think they amount to Shi-mok having a deeper awareness of his own isolation, and perhaps the possibility that he doesn’t actually want to live in such solitude. 

And of course, when he sees Yeo-jin again in S2, he is also noticeably different.

S2 is all about Shi-mok reaching out first, even as Yeo-jin draws back further and further due to her own personal emotional arc. Since we’ve discussed all of those moments to death already, there’s something more specific I want to look at: Shi-mok making his personal preferences known.

These are also small moments, hardly relevant to the major plot at hand, but in multiple scenes, Shi-mok openly voices his (food) preferences and Yeo-jin listens. In S2E2, Yeo-jin asks him if he wants to eat stir-fried octopus or hot pot, and Shi-mok, without making the usual polite deferrals or simply ordering on his own, tells her that he wants stir-fried octopus. This repeats in S2E16 (he asks for soju, not makgeolli), and of course, during the stairwell scene In E12.

I think among all the moments in the stairwell scene, I was most surprised when Yeo-jin offers to buy Shi-mok a can of cola for his headache, and he simply accepts the offer. It’s not exactly a personal preference, per se, but it places Shi-mok in a position where he has to decide what he wants. Unlike other acts of care by Yeo-jin (buying him food in S1E6, getting him chamomile tea in S1E12, ordering him another round of cabbage in S2E12), in this particular moment, Shi-mok actually has to actively say whether or not he wants what Yeo-jin is offering. In all of her other moments, Yeo-jin just does the thing — she takes him by the arm to buy him dinner, she shows up at his door with the tea, she orders the cabbage without him asking — but in this particular one, Shi-mok has to agree to receive her kindness. 

And he does, without a moment’s hesitation. 

Knowing Shi-mok and the way he uses politeness as a barrier and defense mechanism, it would have been natural for him to politely refuse or even simply put up the pretense of hesitation. But much like their dinner scene in S2E2, he doesn’t put up any of those pretenses around Yeo-jin. It shows us clearly that Shi-mok recognizes her kindness for what it is, is grateful for it, and wants it. 

The stairwell scene in S2 is a neat piece of writing work, since it gives us a clear moment of personal connection directly following a scene where Shi-mok and Yeo-jin are forced, again, to be on opposite sides. It’s a moment of reconciliation, when both sides (esp. Yeo-jin) have to admit that their personal care for each other transcend the confrontations of being on opposite sides, and it’s also a moment calling back to earlier moments of connection in S1 that serve as the basis of their relationship. After this scene, something significant changes between them — both of them seem to implicitly agree that their partnership is most important and that they’re willing to prioritize their work together before any of the petty politics dividing them. 

But it also gives us a significant moment of Shi-mok’s own emotional development, since we see how he is no longer just realizing the possibility of his connection to other people, especially Yeo-jin. He’s making his own (small, small, baby steps) approach to these connections on his end. He’s showing that he does actually have certain desires, preferences, that he is willing to share them with Yeo-jin, and that he’s willing to work on his end to build on whatever connection he has with other people. He’s no longer resigned to his isolation or even just realizing the possibility of potential personal relationships; he’s actively working to build on the one he has, the one that he’s deemed most important.