Kdramas and Music--Mini Update

             
Do you ever have That Song that gets stuck in your head during a drama, a song that seems to typify the story? It first happened to me during Prosecutor Princess, when Ed Sheeran’s “Lego House” suddenly took on a whole new meaning. I wasn't particularly enamored of that drama, but the lines "And out of all these things I've done, I think I love you better now" were just so Seo In Woo.

It's happened since, of course. And both times with my most recent watches.

Signal has, without a doubt, shot to the top of my favorites chart and shows no inclination to change location any time soon. I actually found myself dragging out how much of the show I allowed myself at a time, trying to make it last longer. How can I break it down? Every weekly case was good, not only engaging my head in a whodunnit, but my heart in a pleasecatchthem. And that was before the big cases, the ones we'd been building up to all show long, were achieved. By that point, I was wringing my hands, gasping, begging my screen for the characters to hurry up, to not do that, to listen.

And of course, the magic to that was the writing of the characters, who breathed and moved like organic people, with real relationships and evolving personas. There was a magic in the way we watched all three main characters grow from rookies into real detectives, the way they felt about each other, and cared, and fought. Avicii's "Hey Brother" took up real estate in my head and wouldn't vacate. Every line spoke to me on some level, about the way these three found a way to communicate and connect, even across a twenty year gap.

While Signal might be grim, it had in the end an uplifting message about never giving up the good fight, because with enough determination, there can be change. My newest watch, Six Flying Dragons, I have a terrible presentment isn't going to give me that kind of encouraging story. Twelve eps in, and Kaleo's "Way Down we Go" -- "Oh father tell me/do we get what we deserve?/oh, we get what we deserve/way down we go" sung in a gravelly moan seems indicative of the fate of at least some of our characters.

We know Lee Bang Won, our antihero, is on the road to true villaindom. We've seen him in Tree with Deep Roots after all, where his ruling policy seems to be 'iron and blood,' and where he challenges his humane, idealistic son to find an alternative way to rule. It's a great road, from idealistic kid who wants to end evil to...evil. Who doesn't enjoy that kind of story? There's nothing worse than becoming that which you hate, and the road is sure to be a heart-rending one. I'm so in.