Let Me Hear Your Song: Episodes 13-16 Open Thread

by missvictrix

We’ve reached the halfway point in Let Me Hear Your Song, and it signals a big shift for our heroine. She’s gone from blissfully ignorant about last summer’s accident to haunted by it at every turn, and she’s confronted with some pretty scary possibilities.

   
EPISODES 13-16 WEECAP

Last week’s cliffhanger had Yoon finally giving Yi-young something definitive: he tells her she was indeed his brother’s girlfriend, that she was there during the accident, and that it’s likely she is his killer. We knew this was coming, but Yi-young clearly did not. Of all the emotions she has to wrangle with, Yi-young is most shaken by the fact that Yoon deceived her from the get-go, knowing who she was all along.

To Yi-young’s credit, she is more betrayed and heartbroken than she is guilty towards him. She even denies the possibility that she’s the murderer at first, pointing out that the random facts that “prove” her guilt aren’t really evidence — and she’s right. However, the further Yi-young travels into her own memories, the more she comes to believe it’s true. She holds the infamous switchblade and suddenly remembers what it felt like to hold it that fateful night. She finds Soo-young’s video recordings of their counseling sessions (though that conveniently-placed USB was a bit of a stretch), and hears herself confess to the murder. Eventually, Yi-young believes it’s true.

What’s interesting here is that since Yi-young barely remembers the actual incident — and has no idea why she would have done something so horrible — she’s pretty unaffected by the act itself. What has gotten under her skin, though, is the fact that she can’t fathom her own behaviors, or the crime she believes she has committed. The entire experience is so remote from her real-life frame of reference that she’s able to approach it like a riddle she has to solve.

There’s a great section between Episode 14 and 15 where Yi-young sets out armed with the facts, determined to understand what happened last summer. I got super excited by this moment, and the shift it seemed to signal in the storytelling. The theme music kicks in, Yi-young advances alone, and it had the feeling of a princess warrior on a quest. She’s brave, she’s taking charge… is she going to take this thing by the horns instead of being forced to react, again and again, to the clues people keep dropping?

Sadly, no. Instead, Bucket Hat Baddie (who we met last week) turns up before Yi-young can get very far on her quest. Her terrorizes her like any good baddie — but interestingly, had no idea that she lost her memories, and for him, it explains “why the higher ups let her live.” He’s also pretty loose-lipped, so we learn that he’s looking for something that Kim Ian had, and assumes that Yi-young has hidden.

Bucket Hat Baddie might be new to the scene, but he’s not new to the drama — he’s been involved from the start as the driver of the supposed hit-and-run accident. Now that he’s out of jail he seems to spend his time visiting Maestro Nam, Jang Yoon, and the orchestra higher-ups, threatening them, and in so doing, clueing us into vital information. Like the missing item that “they” want so badly, and the fact that there’s a larger conspiracy at work.

But it’s not all baddies and blades this week — we also witnessed Maestro Nam turn on the charm. I’m kind of waiting for the drama to decide what they’re going to do with him. Is he the rival for Yi-young’s affections that he sometimes pretends to be? Or is he more deeply involved in Kim Ian’s murder, like Han Eun-joo believes?

There’s a nice segment of the drama where he takes Yi-young out of the city to visit his grandmother. They wear ahjumma pants, hang out in the yard, and watch the night sky while listening to Debussy’s Clair de Lune. It’s lovely. But it’s also curious.

Most dramas would use this as an excuse to force the couple to have some kind of romantic encounter, but in Let Me Hear Your Song, it seems to act as a bit of breathing space for Yi-young. When she’s struggling the most, she gets refreshed by Maestro Nam’s feisty grandma who pep talks like the best of the dramaland halmeonies. Our heroine is made ready for the road ahead, encouraged to face her problems head-on.

Let’s hope that that’s exactly what Yi-young does in the second half of this drama. She might have the facts — and her own memories — working against her, but what she has on her side is not only her sweet nature, but a cousin who’s determined she’s innocent, and a man who’s falling hard for her even though it’s K-drama-level complicated.

The music continues to be great in this drama, and Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade remains a focal piece for the Shinyoung Orchestra. Surely there’s a reason why it was chosen, and is played in the drama so frequently? Outside of being absolutely gorgeous and the right amount of dramatic, it occurred to me that there’s a bit of metaphor involved, too. After all, what better story to reference than an ancient tale that’s basically a homage to the power of storytelling, and the desire to know how a story ends? I love me some good meta.

  
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