They Don't Kiss Until Episode 16

This post will not be a review but rather an expository essay about why fans of The Uncanny Counter did not need season two of a perfectly good show. 

If you want to read my review of season 2, click here. All in all, the show was entertaining but frustrating. Part of the way through the show, around episode 8, I was ready to throw in the towel, but with only 4 episodes left, I decided to stick it out. 

The reason we didn’t need a season 2 of The Uncanny Counter boils down to one point: the second season did not let the characters lead the plot. This happened because the writers did not continue to build the world established in season 1. 

The writers of the show world built as the show went on. This was probably to have people who didn’t see season 1 join the show without feeling like they missed something. Admittedly, this was effective. I didn’t remember everything that happened in season 1, and when I found out season 2 was set to air, I needed more time to rewatch the whole season. I could join into season 2 and feel like I was watching a brand new show and not the continuation of a show. But that new feeling came at a cost, and that cost was a character-driven plot. 

World-building is the key to a fantasy story. With proper world-building, we see the characters respond to their environment because they work within their world’s confines. With adequate world-building and rule establishment, the plot is character-driven. The writers wanted to give us shock and awe.

Season 2 of the show needed to do one of two things:

1. Explore Yung (seeing Yung as a character itself)
2. Explore the dynamics of the group

Let’s look at one in depth.

EXPLORING YUNG AS A CHARACTER ITSELF

If the writers chose to have Yung, the spirit realm, be a character itself, the show would have been infinitely better.

The Territory

The freaking Territory.

If you have seen season one, you know that before So Mun, the Counters needed to corral an evil spirit into the Territory. The Territory is best described as vertical beams of light similar to the Aura Borealis that boost the Counters’ superhuman powers, enabling them to exorcise evil spirits. But this process is tricky as the Territory pops up in random places in random intervals for a random period of time. So Mun’s addition to the group allows Eonni’s gang to call the Territory whenever, wherever. Much more efficient and effective.

We knew all through season one and most of season two that the Territory could not be called before and that if not called it appears randomly. Then, in season 2, episode 8, the writers decide that the Territory has a height limit!

Why? How did we not know this before? But most importantly, why?

The writers needed to create a tense situation in which it looks like the Counters will not win and make a hurdle for the main character So Mun to overcome. When it happened in the show, I threw my hands up and yelled, how can a power apparently from heaven not be able to reach…heaven.

As the audience, we could have seen the Territory’s limits early on in the season in a less dangerous situation than the setup in episode 8. That way, when we arrived at that episode, we could see if So Mun could again defy the odds and try to extend the Territory himself since he could call it or would fail. We could also understand the inner workings of the spirits that helped the Counters and how one gets to that point. 

The weak characterization of antagonist/villain Hwang Pil-gwang

This was a really nasty guy, but it all fell flat because you didn’t know why he or his mini-evil gang were doing what they were doing. There was no character-building. In season 1, you begin to understand the Counters’ main villain. There were some villains they came across who were just nasty people. Then there was the main villain, who might have had a different ending had he not been abused and used throughout his life. Even the villains they didn’t explore all the way, you could glean the basics: they were generally selfish, self-absorbed, and carried a chip on their shoulder. They didn’t take the higher road and thus started to vibrate on the level of evil, attracting those spirits. 

But we have three really nasty villains who can kill a whole set of Counters and absorb their powers, and we don’t get a bit of backstory of how they got there?

I mean the character of Hwang Pil-gwang is just so outlandish; he doesn’t make sense. I wouldn’t be nitpicking now if the story had followed some sensical path.

When we meet the evil trio, they are hiding in a mansion in China, having killed its inhabitants. The story behind Pil-gwang is that he used a gangster disguised as a CEO to create an elaborate housing scheme, enabling him to steal millions of dollars from the scheme’s victims. He goes into hiding, and upon hearing that this gangster is dead, he decides to return to Korea to claim the money the gangster was supposed to deliver. This is not an unreasonable backstory, save for a few details.

Before Pil-gwang and his crew kill the Counters, the Counters already sense their evil spirits. From what we’ve seen of the evil spirits, they don’t hide. Pil-gwang doesn’t even have a police record. He never had a reason to hide in China for two years and then return. Furthermore, assuming he already had evil in him when he left, why would he not preemptively figure out how to ensure the gangster didn’t steal the stolen money? I mean, some of the show’s episodes are of him and his crew tracking down the money they schemed to get. 

It’s not like this was Pil-gwang’s first crime. You have to be deep in the underworld of illegal activities to convince a whole gang to run a scam for you. I don’t know anyone like that. This leads back to the first point: how did he get this evil? How did he get involved in this crime world? Who else knows him? Someone else has to know him, even if the police don’t. He becomes a character who is just doing shit to be doing shit and not making reasonable decisions as a well-built character responding to his environment. We never even learn how Gelly, Wong, and he met. Even if we don’t know anything else about him, the audience should have been let in on that.  

You didn’t feel anything when Pil-gwang made decisions that caused chaos for the Counters because you didn’t know why he was doing it, except for the writers needing him to act out.

The introduction of a complete evil spirit

This was a compelling concept for the Counters to explore, especially with Mr. Ma becoming evil through trauma. But the writers just dropped the idea and didn’t know what it was. I still don’t know what a complete evil spirit is. From what I gathered, a complete evil spirit is when one level three evil spirit consumes another level three? Let’s go with that.

But the writers didn’t go back to the show bible. Early in season 1, we learn about a level three spirit. The Counters had never encountered one because they usually nip the situation in the bud early. Anyway, a level three evil spirit speaks with two voices, can move things with their minds, and there was some other stuff. Their villain in season one, a level three, gave them a run for their money without being a complete evil spirit. But the key is that the Counters knew of a level three evil spirit; they’d never encountered one before. But you mean to tell me that in the nearly ten years that Mo-tak and Ms. Cho have been doing the Counter thing, no one in Yung mentioned that besides a level three evil spirit, there is such a thing as a complete evil spirit? They are rare, but they exist. 

Even if this wasn’t mentioned in season 1, if this season had explored Yung more in-depth, we could have gotten this information early on in season 2. Instead, the writers plop it down mid-season to build tension for tension’s sake. The tension is already there. Pil-gwang ate a set of Counters. You don’t get any more tense than that. 

The Chinese Counters meeting their demise

When this happened in the first episode, I was on the edge of my seat, but I also wondered how the hell the Evil Trio managed to do it. In season one, the level three evil spirit kills a Counter. This is how So Mun is recruited. That Level 3 eats the spirit of that Counter and is like, whoa, that was delicious. I can go for some of that again, but he never gained that Counter’s powers. He never had any ability that a Counter would have. So…

How are all of the Evil Trio able to do it? WE NEEDED THIS ANSWER! If we explored Yung as a character, we could have come up with a reasonable answer. We could understand the great battle of good vs. evil that ostensibly the Counters are the pawns of. Was Pil-gwang already a complete evil spirit? Is he beyond a level 3? Did the Counter’s use of the Territory allow for their spirits to be eaten? In contrast, for the other Counter, the Territory had fallen away. Thus, the evil spirit only killed that Counter and ate the spirit as regular. 

But this is never explored. We never get a scene in which the spirit counterparts in Yung are researching or meeting to figure out how a whole group of counters, who were supposed to be using the Territory, were wiped out by a set of evil spirits who also absorbed their powers. But instead, we have action for action sake, not a character-driven plot. 

Mr. Ma…le sigh

I really like the idea that this good guy can become possessed by an evil spirit because his whole world has collapsed. I would consider having Pil-gwang push his character so he can use Mr. Ma to absorb So Mun’s powers. But we needed to understand, like Pil-gwang, how Mr. Ma could do so much with his powers within a short time. How did Mr. Ma harness these new powers overnight, and even as incredible as So Mun is, he couldn’t do that? So… if we explore the spiritual realm more as a character, we could understand how that happened and even understand how So Mun could attract Wi-gen despite not being in a coma. But Yung was so far in the background we didn’t even see the usuals that we saw in season 1. 

Conclusion

All in all, if the writers chose to have season 2’s focus be the spiritual realm for which the Counters are fighting, it would have been a better-written show with a plot driven by character actions and not just for the sake of having tension. I mean, the setup was there. Mo-tak, in seasons 1 and 2, told the spirit counterparts that they were risking their lives daily on Yung’s behalf to fight evil. Exploring that tension, as I’ve stated before, using Yung as a character, the show wouldn’t have left so many question marks.