They Don't Kiss Until Episode 16

I’m glad I waited to watch The Glory after all the hype because if I couldn’t handle the suspense of waiting for part two.

This show was so damn good. Excuse my language.

The Glory is a story about a woman, a survivor of school violence, who makes it her mission to get revenge on the group of students who terrorized her in school.

Initially, when I watched the first two episodes, I thought there were moments where this woman could stop what she was doing and go live her life. Did she really spend 18 years planning revenge on people who had forgotten her and moved on with their lives? Is it worth it?

The answer is yes. And what made me see the beauty of this plot was not the revenge but the game.

I decided to watch The Glory 1) because everyone raved about it, and even though the topic was heavy, I knew I had to see it, and 2) it satisfies challenge number 10 I believe, to watch a drama featuring a game. In the show the game of Go (baduk) is almost a character in and of itself. So since we are here, lets talk about the characters.

The Characters and Plot

As I watched the show and learned more about the game, I started to see why this show was so great because it takes a spin on the whole revenge plot by making revenge a game between the person seeking revenge and the original wrongdoer.

The main character, Moon Dong-eun, explains throughout the show that Go is a game where you build houses and take the houses your opponents built. Moreover, you struggle and war with your opponent in silence. She likes this aspect of the game. So when Dong-eun let’s your main former bully Park Yeon-jin know that she plans to take her down so early in the show, I think this happens in like episode three or four, I was sort of shocked. Most shows of this nature have the person operate in the shadows, then in the end reveal that in fact she was the person causing all the chaos all along. But not in this show very early on it seems like Dong-eun reveals her cards. And I’ll admit I wasn’t sure if I was happy with that creative choice for the plot. Then I realized that Go was a character itself. Moreover, the more Dong-eun learned how to play Go the better she became at planning her revenge. She set the table and really all her enemies took each other out. Furthermore, her opponent was Yeon-jin in this very large game of Go and her is the fun part. Yeon-jin never learned how to play the game. Never cared to. So even though she thought she was going to outwit and outsmart Dong-eun she wasn’t able to.

Yeon-jin was never a player. She always reacts and has someone else clean up her messes; Dong-eun knows that and uses it to her advantage. If Yeon-jin doesn’t have anyone to clean up her messes anymore, then where is she?

I think the way these characters were written was excellent because they weren’t one-dimensional. Yes, the gang of five was abhorrent, but they were still human. Terrible humans but human nonetheless. Yeon-jin may have ben the number one bully in high school but she did have insecurities at work since she couldn’t write her own scripts. And she truly loved her daughter and gave her daughter more attention and affection than her mother gave her. Same with all the others. When Sa-ra gets high in her father’s church because she hadn’t had a hit in weeks, you felt sorry for her because you know despite her being a horrible person she is also an addict and addiction is terrible. Even Jae-joon has an immediate soft spot for Ye-sol, his biological daughter and even though it is backwards, really wants to be a part of her life. But at the end of the day, they are all still sociopaths with little empathy, which is very real. My mother often says that people don’t change, they just get older and can’t do the same things they did when they were younger.

That is literally the case with these five. It takes a certain level of horribleness to inflict that much violence on a person and only care about it in so much as you just don’t want the story to get out to ruin your life now. Not one of them had any regret or remorse. They just didn’t want the life that they had now to be taken away and each got their just desserts.

Moreover, every character served a purpose. And every character had a beginning, middle, and end.

The plot moved forward so well because it was character-driven. I cannot say this enough: when you have characters driving the plot that is character-driven, the plot flows smoothly, there are few loopholes, and you are on the edge of your seat (I’m looking at you, Uncanny Counter). All the decisions that the characters made fit their personality and their underlying motivations. And this was critical because the whole backbone of Dong-eun’s revenge was having her four tormentors behave exactly how she expected them to behave. Which is what makes this show so compelling.

There are other revenge shows that aren’t that engaging because they feel very fantastical. What made this show enjoyable was that you wanted Dong-eun to find happiness, but you wondered if she should find happiness via this intricate revenge plot. And you felt bad for her character because she stayed with that pain and anger. She didn’t let joy enter her world and at first I wondered if I could do that. But as you saw her revenge play out you realized that she had to stay there in that hole not just be be angry enough to make sure the revenge happened but to remember who these people were in order to make sure they made the decisions she knew they were going to make. What motivates Hye-jeong to follow along, who does she try to be? It’s not just that pain brings Yeon-jin joy but what is it particularly that she feasts on when she is tormenting someone? The past can get a patina on it that softens the harsh edges. That’s why sometimes we get back together with exes we know we shouldnt’ be with. There is a reason why you left that person but time does heal, it softens things. But if you stay sort of rooted in the past, replaying with details you can remember clearly. She needed to remember who they were clearly in order for the revenge to work.

Casting

I think this was excellent casting. Especially since Song Hye-kyo is typically your romantic beauty in dramas. Here, you have a classically beautiful woman who is so distant, so walled up, and then has these horrible burns on her arms; you wonder what the heck happened to her.

Initially, I was put off by Lee Do-hyun as her love interest/second lead. I believe in the noona love that seems to be more prevalent in K-dramas now, but he is just so young looking. I he fit the role. I know that sounds confusing. Since seeing him in The Good/Bad Mother, I see that Lee Do-hyun is really good at characterizing men who look seemingly innocent and puppy-like, but then immediately switching to slightly psychopathic looking. But next to Song Hye-kyo it seemed like she was just hanging out with her younger brother. There was chemistry there, just not romantic chemistry. For her character it makes sense, because Dong-eun wasn’t interested in romance and Song Hye-kyo portrays that very well. And Lee Do-hyun does look like he likes her but in a puppy younger guy kind of way.

Speaking of like, Mr. Jung Sung-il is a hottie AND he was able to carry off that ‘I’ve been wealthy all my life, and the air I breathe is just different’ vibe so well. You really felt his emotional ups and downs as he contemplated cheating, realized he was part of a game, learning of his wife’s brutality and infidelity and the pain of wondering how he was going to protect his child. Now those two had grow-folks chemistry and I want to see them in a show together. I don’t care what the genre is I just want them to kiss passionately. Thank you.

I just want to add that I love Yeom Hye-ran, and I can’t see any other person in her role as Dong-eun’s revenge assistant. When I saw she was in it I knew it was going to be good (yes I know she was in The Uncanny Counter 2, but the first was great so I’ll excuse).

And lastly, whoever picked Shin Ye-eun to play young Yeon-jin deserves a raise. That woman was able to play twisted, spoiled, sadistic so damn well. She has been winning awards for The Secret Romantic Guesthouse, so I might have to check out that show because I think she has a devoted fan.

Extras

There was only one product placement, Dior lipstick, and the green shoes don’t seem to have a specific brand, but there are tons of similar shoes. Just type in green shoes the glory and viola.

The opening credits were mysterious, and dark and served to let us know what was happening in the show without giving too much away but it was really just perfunctory, and that is fine. I would rather have a boring OST with an epic show than an epic OST and a lackluster show (Even thought Game of Thrones gave us both, until season 8).

All in all, The Glory was a total package of a show. It receives 5/5 saranghaes! If you haven’t seen the show yet, this is your sign to go watch!