Oasis: Episodes 5-6

by Dramaddictally

The birth secrets keep coming as Oasis vies for the title of most melodramatic of 2023. While our gangster with a heart of gold continues to butt heads with our would-be prosecutor, our leading lady accomplishes a major goal and lives to tell the story. In the process, she stands up to everyone around her and proves she just might be the real hero of this drama.

 
EPISODES 5-6

Did you think we were done with birth secrets? It looks like last week’s cliffhanger was actually a birth lie. Yeo-jin told Choong-sung that he was Cheol-woong’s father in order to get his help, but the truth is even worse: Cheol-woong is the biological child of Doo-hak’s parents.

What does this mean? 1) Cheol-woong and Doo-hak are brothers, like, for real. 2) Cheol-woong’s “father,” Young-shik, was not as upstanding of a guy as I thought — he’s shown begging the ever-pleasing Joong-ho to give up his son because Yeo-jin can’t have children. 3) The drama has gone off the histrionic deep end.

But in terms of the plot, it doesn’t mean much just yet. I’m guessing this is the end-game rivalry we can count on in the final weeks.

The brunt of these episodes are spent reinforcing the idea that Doo-hak is a good guy (as if we needed convincing) and that he’s not cut out for the life of organized crime. We see him “rescue” his sister from factory work while breaking up the labor union that she and the other workers have formed — not the best way to show he cares, but we get the idea. He then tells off his father (finally), hitting home the fact that outside the gang, there aren’t many options for an ex-con.

Later, we see Doo-hak targeted and framed by guys inside his own organization and then beaten almost to death (for an excessive six minutes of screentime). Doo-hak’s name is cleared and he goes on being a trusted leader in the gang, but it all serves to show just how dangerous his job is and what a thin line he’s walking.

At the same time, Cheol-woong — in a series of ill-fitting suits — is still being threatened by Choong-sung and Man-ok, even though Choong-sung now believes Cheol-woong is his son. This time, Cheol-woong will have to cooperate with the Agency for National Security Planning (the Korean CIA) — and give up the names of the protest organizers — if he wants to become a prosecutor. Ultimately, he folds, joining the side he had been fighting against.

This alliance ends up serving him well, though, when Jung-shin is kidnapped and no one can locate her. Basically, Jung-shin stepped on some toes last week while expanding Geum-ok’s film production company. She’s infringed on the territory of Star Entertainment, which evidently is nothing more than a glorified gang. They nab Jung-shin right out of her living room, tie her to a chair, and threaten to kill her if Geum-ok doesn’t sign over her newly acquired contracts.

Doo-hak learns that Jung-shin is being held hostage but his gang can’t find her, so he turns to Cheol-woong, who’s now on the inside of law enforcement. Cheol-woong begs Man-ok for help, vowing to be a “part of the family” if the ANSP will use its surveillance techniques to track down Jung-shin. They find her, and Cheol-woong rides in like a white knight, knocking out a few thugs on his way.

Cheol-woong is doing this to impress Jung-shin (after confessing and being rejected earlier), but he obviously has no idea what it takes to impress her. After she’s safe and the two are alone, he leans in for a kiss and she dodges it. He then holds her hand, which she agrees to only because “they’re friends.” From a distance, Doo-hak is watching their interactions, becoming so uncomfortable he can’t bear to look anymore.

Jung-shin doesn’t miss a beat as her spunky self and gets right back to business after the kidnapping fiasco. Her main goal has already been attained (she’s reclaimed her father’s theater) and now that she’s risked her life, she demands more shares of Geum-ok’s company. Geum-ok offers to make Jung-shin her “daughter,” meaning she’ll inherit everything one day. Jung-shin agrees, but what exactly is at stake is still in the air.

With her business affairs righted, Jung-shin sets her sights on her next goal: turning Doo-hak into an honest man. The two come face-to-face when Cheol-woong organizes a dinner for the three of them, where neither Doo-hak nor Jung-shin know the other will be there. Doo-hak tries to leave but, before he can, Cheol-woong admits the reason they’re all there: he wants to be able to confess to Jung-shin without doing it behind Doo-hak’s back. Jung-shin gets angry and yells at both of them that she’s not a toy. She walks out the door and Cheol-woong insists he’s going to continue competing with Doo-hak. Ugh.

When Doo-hak leaves the restaurant, Jung-shin secretly follows him home. She announces herself by entering the gate behind him and asking for food and soju. He tells her to leave but ends up complying with her orders to bring alcohol — until she’s very drunk. Then she starts confessing her feelings in all kinds of ways.

First, she tells him she’s about to make a splash in the film industry and he should come to work for her and then go to college — she can pay for it. She then admits she knows that her father was the reason Doo-hak broke up with her (which she’s just learned) and teases him that they’re not shooting a melodrama here. Finally, she utters one of the most pragmatically romantic lines I’ve ever heard from the mouth of a female lead: “Get out of that line of work. I’ll feed you and help you study.” Gah. If his heart didn’t skip a beat, he doesn’t have one.

She passes out drunk and Doo-hak moves near her. He touches her hair and his face becomes innocent again, like it was when they first met. In the morning, Jung-shin wakes to find Doo-hak doing chores in the courtyard. She asks if they slept together and he’s astounded — “I slept outside because of you!” She says he should have just come in. “Were you afraid I’d take advantage of you?” He acts even more virtuous, asking how a woman could say that. She defends her position, saying, “If you like someone, you should hug them tightly.”

As she’s leaving, she tries again to convince him that he’s not cut out for the gangster lifestyle, and then kisses him. He tells her not to play with a person’s feelings like that. She vows to keep playing until he gets out of the crime business. They part, not knowing that Cheol-woong is watching them, angry that Jung-shin never arrived to the bar last night where he waited for her.

Jung-shin learns that Cheol-woong was waiting all night — though they didn’t have plans together — and she goes to his work to make herself clear. She tells him she was with Doo-hak because she wants him to quit the gang and adds that Doo-hak is still an inherently good person. Cheol-woong spits back: “Did you come to defend Doo-hak or apologize for making me wait all night?” Jung-shin is cool: “I never asked you to wait. I’m here to tell you not to have feelings for me.”

To this, Cheol-woong comes back with, “Did you sleep together?” Jung-shin rolls her eyes and says, “This is why it’ll never be you.” She gets up to leave and Cheol-woong tries to say he was joking. Ick, typical. He claims he wants to save her from the misery of being with Doo-hak. Jung-shin stands up to him again, saying, “My happiness and misery are up to me and I’m responsible for that.”

Jung-shin is a badass. And not in the way the drama has been trying to tell us since we met her. She’s been used as comic relief to tone down the tense scenes between the boys — being a loudmouth who high kicks her opponents. But she is literally the only person in the entire show that stands up to Cheol-woong, who by this point has few-to-no redeeming qualities. Everyone else falls at his feet — including Doo-hak in a lot of ways. The story has a lot of flaws, but watching Jung-shin be the center of these episodes brought the lifeblood back into it for me.

By now, only the love story is moving me. There’s a lot of situational action that’s introduced and resolved quickly, giving the drama an episodic feel. Aside from the love triangle, I think the joint parental lineage is supposed to tie the story together, but it wasn’t introduced well, and I can’t feel any emotions about it. Also, it’s unnecessary. Choong-sung being Cheol-woong’s dad would actually create a more interesting dynamic, in my opinion. Doo-hak and Cheol-woong have a fleshed-out, complicated relationship already — they don’t need to be real brothers. Giving Cheol-woong a personal problem, with Choong-sung as his father, would do a lot more for his character development, and maybe give me a reason to feel for him again.

 
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