Finland Papa: Episodes 5-6 (Final)

by missvictrix

As the mystery of our cafe owner’s identity comes to the fore, our heroine has to do some self-reflection. Lucky for her, her newfound family is a source not only of support, but of healing.

 
EPISODES 5-6

I have loved Finland Papa’s simple and minimalist tale from the beginning, but at the back of my mind I was a bit worried over how they would handle the big reveal and the “stage” that has been the Finland Papa cafe. Well, have no fear because it’s underplayed in the most perfect way possible — because the core of this story is not the theater itself, but what the theater was able to elicit. In the end, this drama was always about healing from hurt and making amends with those you love.

But first, that killer cliffhanger from last week. Alas, it’s not Woo-hyun appearing on the scene to rescue Yuri — it’s Yong-joon. His adorkable presence is somehow enough to send off the gangsters, but the clincher is that we later see it was indeed Woo-hyun who saw the threat unfold via CCTV and frantically called Yong-joon to step in in his stead.

Yuri and Yong-joon hang out at a convenience store afterwards, and she wants to know why he rushed over to Finland Papa like that. Yong-joon comes up dry and blurts out it’s because he likes her all of a sudden. Yuri’s weirded out, and so is Yong-joon. After she leaves, he drinks himself silly until a friendly hand touches his shoulder. (This will later be revealed as Woo-hyun.)

As usual for this drama’s seamless style, we segue into flashback sequences from there and see that Woo-hyun did indeed save that gum wrapper from their picnic in order to confess to Yuri (and what a cardigan-wearing cutie he is!). Yong-joon mucks the whole thing up while the three are at a noraebang, making it totally awkward between Woo-hyun and Yuri. I don’t know who’s more flustered: Woo-hyun, forced to make his (super swoony) confession in the hallway while Yuri tries to bolt, or Yuri later that night, who just hears his confession on endless repeat.

Now that we’re dead-certain these two had feelings for each other (as if I needed any more convincing!), back in the present the gangsters come back more than once and make a mess of things, with two important outcomes. One is that we get to see our family defending each other with pots and pans; the second is that when they’re later cleaning up the trashed kitchen, Yuri finds some Very Incriminating Evidence. It’s the list of ten rules she and Woo-hyun made up as kids, hidden in one of the Finland Papa cabinets. Yuri marches over to the CCTV camera and holds it up in what is essentially Woo-hyun’s face, saying that she knows it’s him.

That moment is both the beginning and ending of our tale. For Finland Papa, it’s the ending. The business soon shutters because of Woo-hyun’s identity reveal, but in a strangely quiet way that makes it feel like it disappears into bubbles instead of explodes into a giant plot twist. And as for the new beginning, it starts with the reparations between Woo-hyun and Yuri.

In some clever rewinds, we see all the times Woo-hyun’s presence was hinted at the cafe. But even more than that, we see that Woo-hyun was there at the columbarium in our opening frames, and that he’s been hovering around her ever since. It’s at this point where the drama has to handle very carefully Woo-hyun’s theater. Too much and it feels manipulative instead of sweet; too little and it feels pandering and pointless.

Yuri’s feelings are all over the place, starting with the very normal and annoyed reaction of “Why did he hide and trick me?” to deciding that he did it out of pity for her. But later, a letter from Woo-hyun says that he didn’t lure her to the cafe on purpose; it just all sort of played out that way. I would have liked a little more time — even just a few more scenes — given to this unraveling, since Woo-hyun set up so much and let it all drop so quickly. But what I really did like was the way the drama looked at what was holding these two back from each other.

We finally learn a bit more of Woo-hyun’s side of things, returning to that evening when he stood in the rain and Yuri refused to see him. Her grandma knew how destroyed he was over it (she missed nothing, and I swear she knew they were destined for each other). In a wonderful scene, tells Woo-hyun she’s giving him her dream of going to Finland to see the aurora borealis, and that that dream is what is going to keep him going. Our fears are indeed confirmed: it was Woo-hyun’s dad who killed Yuri’s, and the clog of emotions like guilt, sadness, and pity are what came between these two so many years ago.

The drama suspends time a bit while we wait for the dust of the Woo-hyun reveal to settle, and I think that’s my favorite bit about the conclusion. We know they have to meet up, but we know the time isn’t right yet. Still, the two are dancing around each other until the time is finally right.

At first Yuri is all “why don’t you just show up” to Woo-hyun, but with a little help from Yong-joon and her found family, she realizes that she was the one that made it hard for Woo-hyun to do just that. We see both sides of this impasse; neither of them really wants to have this rift in their relationship, but neither of them knows quite how to close it either.

The stories of Kaka, Mari, and Toto are perfect subplots here, pulling on the same chords, but each telling a unique story. But more than the healing these three saw in their individual family lives, what happens between the “fake” family might be the most touching. Even when the Finland Papa cafe is closed down, our family of four are too close-knit by now to just treat each other like past coworkers. And so, they’re still in each other’s lives, whether it’s starting a food truck (with some gorgeous hula dancing to attract customers), or walking around together and haunting the Finland Papa neighborhood.

In the end it’s the healing that all of our characters have experienced that helps them move forward in each of their circumstances. And I think what I love the most is that nothing is completely solved; rather, each character becomes able to push past the paralysis of their negative emotions (grief, depression, anger, etc.), continuing to move and heal instead of staying stuck forever.

The final scenes of the drama are equally moving, with a twinge of magic. Yuri’s been in the habit of wandering by the closed down Finland Papa cafe, and one night the gate is opened and the lights are on. She finds her way to the roof — and there is Woo-hyun, now confident enough to grab her in a loving embrace the second she opens up to him. You can see the weight of grief and guilt lift off both of them. And then an inexplicable aurora borealis lights up the sky, and we see all of our characters marveling at it.

While there are certainly some elements in this story that could have been better fleshed out, or handled differently, as the drama ended I realized I enjoyed it as much for the way it was told, as I did for the story it was telling. It didn’t linger in details or give us much explanation; instead, much of the story relied on us picking up on the inner state of our characters, and seeing how far they’d come.

In the end, the reconciliation that had to occur between Yuri and Woo-hyun was at the core of this story, and I really like that in the end it wasn’t about the healing magic of the cafe setup at all, but about something much more real: the willingness to forgive, and the courage to keep moving.

 
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