Yonder: Episodes 1-3

by lovepark

From acclaimed director Lee Jun-ik comes a new series about death and the afterlife. Set in the future where science has made it possible to control the unknown, one widower finds himself at a loss when his wife returns from the dead. However, is this truly a miracle for a second chance together, or is it all a farce based on lies?

 
EPISODES 1-3 WEECAP

When does one truly die? When our physical bodies go away? When our memories fade? When our lives are forgotten? Yonder asks the audience to think about what comes after death for both the deceased and the living in a complicated story about loss, grief, and love. The show delves into a world much like our own, except here, technology may have made it possible for humans to final conquer death.

Taking place in 2032, the government has legalized euthanasia for people like CHA YI-HU (Han Ji-min), a thirty-eight-year-old artist with terminal heart cancer. Before she dies, a visitor named SIREN (Lee Jung-eun) stops by to finalize a contract, and Yi-hu takes her last breath in her husband’s arms.

KIM JAE-HYUN (Shin Ha-kyun) grieves the passing of Yi-hu mostly in silence and isolation. Every corner of their home reminds him of her, and though he stores her things away, not everything can be so easily hidden. One day, a strange video message from Yi-hu arrives, and Jae-hyun retraces his wife’s digital footprint. From the late-night visitor to the odd sticker found on her body, all the clues lead him to By N By, a viral company that promises its users a chance to “design” their own death.

When Jae-hyun arrives at the company’s building in the middle of nowhere, he is greeted with a message that sounds eerily similar to Yi-hu’s parting words: “Dying does not mean I will cease to exist from myself. It means I’ll cease to exist in you.” With mounting suspicions, Jae-hyun demands Siren for answers, but the mysterious woman tells him that there is no reason to fear the unknown.

She leads him to a dark chamber where a virtual world waits for him, and once Jae-hyun steps through the crystallized barrier, he comes face to face with Yi-hu. In this blurry, ethereal place, Yi-hu smiles at her husband, but Jae-hyun questions her existence. He tells the image in front of him that she is not Yi-hu, and suddenly, everything freezes. Blasted out of the virtual world, Jae-hyun finds himself standing in the black room again.

Shaken by the experience, he begins to research the company in earnest in hopes to uncover the truth, and attends a public announcement by spokesperson DOCTOR K (Jung Jin-young). During the showcase, a virtual Dr. K claims that people can dream after death in their new world created from memories, but his grandiose statements are met with some skepticism. A few dissenters question where this data is downloaded to, but the crowd of fans drown out their valid criticisms with their cheers.

With the increasing popularity of By N By, Jae-hyun meets with a few other users, including a young woman named PEACH (Yoon Yi-re) who happened to be present during his first venture into the virtual world. As he learns more about these individual cases, Jae-hyun realizes that not every recreation has to be directly extracted from the host, and in some instances, doctored memories can also be uploaded. While everyone else finds comfort in seeing their loved ones once more, Jae-hyun’s uneasiness grows.

In order to interview the creator, Jae-hyun attempts to find Dr. K with the help of his friend, HACKER PARK (Bae Yoo-ram). After some digging, his friend discovers that the true identity behind the virtual face belongs to Dr. Jang Jin-ho who died five years ago. It seems he researched this very topic before his death, but this revelation creates more questions than answers.

Returning to By N By, Jae-hyun asks Siren about Dr. Jang, and she tells him that he died a while ago. He wonders if he can talk to him in there, and she says that he might if he thinks the people in the new world are real. With that, Jae-hyun steps through the barrier and meets Yi-hu a second time.

Jae-hyun walks with Yi-hu down an empty street, and in a blink of an eye, the day shifts into night. Surrounded by fireflies, Yi-hu steps closer to her husband and presents him a necklace she lost in the past when they went swimming.

Yi-hu: “If you cannot forget about what you lost, then you never lost it. If you forget about something, that means you wanted to get rid of it in the first place. If you threw everything away and still cannot forget it, then that means it was something you did not want to lose. What is that thing to you?”

Jae-hyun tells her that memories of her were things he did not want to forget, but for some reason, the thing he lost is right here. He asks if she is in his memories right now… or is he in her memories? Neither know the answer, and Jae-hyun finds himself alone again even in this virtual heaven.

Yonder feels like a film, and these first three episodes are the opening act to introduce the main protagonists and set up the central conflict. Despite not much happening on screen, the episodes fly by quickly, and by the end, I was drawn into this world. The show also has so many things I love: a character-driven plot, an atmospheric tone, and a complex core message that challenges viewers to think.

Death is a fascinating concept that people across the world have pondered for millennia. One’s view on death reflects what they valued in life, and in Yonder, it becomes clear that memories are the core tenet of humanity. To be remembered is to be achieve immortality in the eyes of Dr. K and his followers, but is their “heaven” for the dead or the living? Jae-hyun’s final question becomes the cornerstone of this show, and the concept of memories becomes an indefinable and amorphous thing. Exactly whose memories are we looking at, and what happens when memories conflict? The fact that this technology can be easily altered and forced raises multiple ethical as well as moral questions, and the implications of preserving memories in this almost perverse state suggest that this new world may be further from reality than promised by its creators.

Though the show has caught my interest, there’s something about it that keeps me from fully loving it. At times, the dialogue is beautiful and haunting — the way Jae-hyun asks Peach if she likes this new world is such an odd yet powerful choice of words that implies that he views this entire experience as a farcical imitation of the truth. However, at other times, the script is choppy, and the characters feel like they are reciting stage directions for a present audience. I know the actors, both main and supporting, have the skills to deliver phenomenal performances, so I can only assume it is either bad writing or a deliberate choice by the director to keep this awkwardness in certain scenes. Regardless, there is something gripping about Yonder that captivates me, and I cannot wait to see what answers lie ahead.

 
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