ikaqui jankiela ellysah
Silvana Fleischacker
In my opinion, it would have been more interesting if the show leaned into how unhealthy the relationship between Yeo-jeong and Dong-eun was as opposed to trying to present it as something sweet and wholesome against the dark backdrop of death and revenge. If The Glory explored how instead of the two of them being in love, they were obsessed with each other as a result of their traumas and shared vendettas, I would have appreciated what they were doing with that subplot a lot more. Even then, I never once felt that Dong-eun even felt half as much for Yeo-jeong as he did for her, so even if they took the limerence approach they would still have had to develop their relationship a lot more. Yeo-jeong is cute and all but when the love-bombs started flying between the two, I was genuinely confused because how the hell did we get here?
Nasty bastard but very well crafted villain. The contrast between him wanting to be a father to Ye-sol and the fact that he raped and impregnated So-hee is so jarring that it works to make his character that much more terrifying. Everything he ends up doing in preparation for his daughter gets shrouded in the fact that he is an active danger to women with past actions that have been hidden. No one, not even his closest friends, knew that he raped let alone impregnated So-hee until close to the very end of the season and we, the watchers, spend most of the show believing that the sexual abuse stops and starts with Myeong-o.
Overall this K-drama was amazing and horrifying at the same time. The fact that some children actually go through horrible stuff like this is disheartening and made me lose hope in humanity but hopefully this show gives some solace to the victims !!
I already watched this show but if I hadn't I'd be sold immediately. I particularly enjoy your take on her mommy issues bc it was a thought I had that I couldn't flesh out properly on my own. Once again, what a wonderful read !
Surprisingly, I don\u2019t watch a lot of k-dramas. That has to do with me having a very short attention span and most k-drama episodes running for more than fifty minutes. Watching and reading subtitles isn\u2019t a chore per-say but it can be a little jarring for me when I\u2019m not wholeheartedly invested in the show. I need to be interested with a capital I to watch anything that runs for that long, for several episodes. So, when I say I watched Part 1 of this show in one sitting and all of Part 2 of this show on the day it dropped\u2026 that means something.
The show I\u2019m talking about is Netflix\u2019s The Glory (2023), a thriller following a bullied teenager who grows up into a young woman, obsessed with getting revenge. There\u2019s a lot I want to say and I think the best way to go about it is to discuss the show through its main cast and all their individual character arcs. So\u2026 Here we go!
I was rooting for my good sis, Dong-eun! How could you not? All those bullying scenes from Part 1 were so intense, so stomach-turning, that I had to look away from the screen. But, I would be lying if I said that I didn\u2019t get bored of her as a character at some points during the show. The whole aloof, calculating, standing in the corner with her bob and briefcase thing was understandable but an unemotional performance can only hold my interest for so long, especially amongst a cast of characters with such large personalities, characters who are so dynamic even in their nastiness. It doesn\u2019t help that we pretty much experience the bulk of Dong-eun\u2019s character arc in the span of a single episode. We see her grow from an abused and bullied teenager into a vengeful adult, and it\u2019s in that latter form that she remains for the large majority of the show. I mean\u2026 it is a revenge story at the end of the day. As a result, she remains unchanging in her wants and motivations for nearly every episode. The show does try to convince you that her \u201Clove\u201D for Yeo-jeong aids in shifting her world-view but, in my opinion, that really didn\u2019t stick.
As I said, she remains unchanging for nearly every episode in the show. Although I\u2019m not too convinced by the impact of her romantic relationship, the friendship she develops with Hyeon-nam (and, consequently, her daughter) presents a very believable shift in her otherwise unphased facade. Dong-eun breaks her own rules and ends up getting involved in Hyeon-nam\u2019s personal situation, not just financially but emotionally. This is an interesting layer to add to Dong-eun\u2019s character development because she has her very own mummy issues. In fact, I\u2019d go as far as to argue that Dong-eun\u2019s mother is the antagonist that had the biggest impact on the overall outcome of Dong-eun\u2019s life. Dong-eun even expresses the same sentiment when she says that the actions of her mother were the \u201Cbiggest betrayal.\u201D If her mother hadn\u2019t changed her report or sold her apartment and instead offered support, would Dong-eun have grown up so obsessed with revenge? Would she have suffered so immensely in the pursuit of it? Could a loving, present parent have stopped any of this from happening?
I\u2019m a sucker for anything about mother/daughter dynamics, healthy or otherwise. This show definitely shows the otherwise. Dong-eun\u2019s mother is a disgusting, foul, selfish woman and I wanted to punch my laptop screen whenever she showed up on the screen. In Part 1, she betrayed her daughter for money but it\u2019s in Part 2 betrayal that really stung. This second decision was fuelled not just by greed but by envy, a genuine resentment for the fact that her daughter had the audacity to lead a successful life in separation from her. All Yeon-jin needs to do to get her on her side again is tell her that Dong-eun\u2019s success does nothing to benefit her. Don\u2019t even get me started on that excellent scene of Dong-eun cutting up all her mother\u2019s new purchases only to have her mother cut her cheek in retaliation. The leather skin of a purse means more to her than the tender skin of her child\u2026 What great writing!
In summary, Dong-eun's best moments are moments where her mummy issues are agitated and we get to see how she chooses to react to that. We see it in how dedicated she is to helping Miss Kang and her daughter; in how she uses Yeon-jin\u2019s dependence on her own mother and her love of her own daughter against her; in how she interacts with the landlord of that flat she\u2019s never in, and finally how she reacts to Yeo-jeong\u2019s mother begging her not to jump. I\u2019m sure the show wants us to think that she didn\u2019t jump because she just loves Yeo-jeong so much, but I think it\u2019s more believable to interpret that decision as Dong-eun being stunned by the love Yeo-jeong\u2019s mother shows her son through begging her to continue living for him. Yeo-jeong\u2019s mum is pretty clearly saying, \u201CI love my son and he apparently loves you, so stick around and stop him from spiraling? Please?\u201D So there\u2019s a part of Dong-eun that remains soft despite everything she\u2019s been through, a part that longs to help out loving mothers who have space in their hearts for their kids.
From the moment he shows up, I think it\u2019s pretty clear what purpose he\u2019s meant to serve outside of being the love interest: he\u2019s the bottomless purse, the needed upper-class influence used to exact Dong-eun\u2019s revenge. But Part 2 of the season fleshes out his character a little more and offers up some interesting conversations surrounding morality, about what it truly means to be just and good and if it\u2019s possible to always be both. One of my favourite conversations out of the season occurred between him and his mother, the two of them reminiscing about his late father, discussing whether it\u2019s right to hail a person for being good when said goodness leads to foolish decisions.
Let me just rip the band-aid straight off with this one\u2026 the romance arc was easily the weakest part of the show. Not only did I think that it was unnecessary but it also felt very underdeveloped and forced at some points.
With the way the season ended, it\u2019s possible that we could be getting a new season centred around exacting Yeo-jeong\u2019s revenge on his father\u2019s murderer. I guess that could be a cool watch and I\u2019m probably going to tune in if it does drop on Netflix. Still, I doubt it would ever amount to this first instalment because The Glory\u2019s strengths lie in its large ensemble cast and the depth of the dark history all the main characters share.
Whenever I thought she\u2019d cave in to the pressures of her shit-stain husband or Park Yeon-jin, she proved me wrong and showed me that she\u2019s always already four steps ahead of them. Her loyalty and her literal physical well-being are under constant threat throughout the entire show, but as long as her daughter\u2019s safety is promised, Dong-eun (and the audience) doesn\u2019t even have to question if she\u2019d up and change sides. Hyeon-nam is a ride or die. Literally.
I also really appreciated the fact that she actually grieves her husband\u2019s death, despite the fact that he was abusive and despite the fact that she played a hand in the orchestration of said death. I think it would\u2019ve been really easy to have her laughing her head off at his funeral, but having her satisfied yet sobbing felt a lot more authentic, so real in the way that it\u2019s not a straight-forward change in her life. Grief, in and of itself, is a very complex emotion and I\u2019m sure only gets harder to navigate when it\u2019s an abusive family member that\u2019s passed away. The show explores this complexity not just through Heyon-nam crying at her husband's funeral, but also through her wearing the dress he said she looked beautiful in to the event. She could be wearing it for several reasons. It could be a final \u201Cfuck you\u201D to the man who harmed her; it could be a way to reminisce all the happy (yet fleeting) moments they did get to share with each other, or it could be both.
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