Love in the Big City: Episodes 1-2 (First Impressions)

by solstices

Poignant and authentic, this queer coming-of-age tale follows the journey of a gay man through slice-of-life vignettes as he navigates through the love and loss of growing up. It’s honest, it’s hilarious, and above all, it’s so devastatingly evocative.

Editor’s note: This is an opening review only. For a place to chat about the entire drama, visit the Drama Hangout.
 
EPISODES 1-2

Right off the bat, our drama wastes no time establishing its offbeat tone. Our protagonist GO YEONG (Nam Yoon-soo) wakes up all cozy in bed the morning after, sweetly snuggling up to his boyfriend and wheedling for another round — except the door opens and his boyfriend’s ex waltzes in like they’re still dating. Turns out Cheating Boyfriend hasn’t broken up with his ex, he’s still breaking up with him. Like, it’s a process. Pfft.

There goes one week of dating, and Yeong gets lectured for being late to his part-time modeling gig. But there’s a meet-cute in store for him: the photographer KIM NAM-GYU (Kwon Hyuk) has a stiffly polite demeanor and is particular about every tiniest detail, much to the amusement of the free-spirited Yeong. Then they run into each other at a gay club that night, and a tipsy Yeong dives right in for a kiss.

Alas, they’re briefly interrupted (more on this later), and by the time Yeong turns back, Nam-gyu has left. Luckily for him, Nam-gyu takes the initiative to ask him out again, and when Yeong apologizes for the sudden kiss, Nam-gyu shyly admits that he liked it. The prim and proper Nam-gyu may seem like an AI bot with the way he constantly speaks in formal language with fancy vocabulary, but underneath his awkwardness lies a sincere heart.

Carefully driving at a snail’s pace the whole way, Nam-gyu takes Yeong to his favorite spot — one that overlooks the city skyline. As they gaze out at the night lights, Nam-gyu tells Yeong that he has a clear and bright soul. He can see it all through his viewfinder. Leaning in, the two share gentle, romantic kisses, like the start of something heartfelt and precious.

Before we progress any further with the loveline, let’s rewind back to the aforementioned interruption. Our lovebirds’ kiss was witnessed by CHOI MI-AE (Lee Soo-kyung), who attends the same college as Yeong and promises to keep his secret. Mi-ae is a whirlwind and a half, living her life boldly with reckless abandon, and in her wake follows countless rumors. Namely, that she sleeps around and is desperate to get into men’s pants.

Unable to tolerate the snide gossip, Yeong flares up at his college buddies, which inevitably gets him outcast. With that, both Mi-ae and Yeong wind up forging an unlikely friendship over their loner status. They click instantly, venting about awful exes and giggling over what they look for in a man (size, lol), and Yeong ends up moving into Mi-ae’s apartment.

I really like how the drama handled Mi-ae’s character here, because it doesn’t make a moral judgment or even take a moral stance on her promiscuity. Just as it doesn’t condemn her for it, it also doesn’t try to justify or vindicate her behavior — that’s just who Mi-ae is, and that’s that. It’s much the same for Yeong, too. There’s nothing wrong or right about their sexualities; they’re simply two people, living their lives in their own way.

Circling back to our leading man and his new beau, there’s trouble in paradise. Nam-gyu may be earnest and open, planning dates for Yeong with all his heart, but when he buys 24k gold couple rings, it’s clear he’s moving a little too fast. His tastes differ far too much from Yeong and his friends, too. Eventually, Yeong coldly breaks up with Nam-gyu, citing their incompatibility and Nam-gyu’s lack of effort in compromising. Yeong feels stifled when he’s with him.

Utterly heartbroken, the spurned Nam-gyu takes to texting Yeong snippets of lovelorn literature. He promises to change for Yeong’s sake, then goes the extra mile to give Yeong tupperwares of homemade food, waiting outdoors in the freezing cold for hours because he doesn’t know Yeong’s exact address. Nam-gyu’s meticulous sincerity now feels like the clingy obsession of a jilted lover, and Yeong harshly brushes Nam-gyu off. They’re over, and he’s not taking him back.

In any case, Yeong has more pressing matters to deal with — a scream from the toilet preludes the reveal that Mi-ae’s pregnant. With no money and no idea who the father is between the two guys she’s been weighing her options between, Yeong steps up to the plate. Not only does he accompany Mi-ae to the clinic, but he also pays for her abortion and supports her through the aftermath.

Yeong and Mi-ae’s solidarity shines not just in their staunch loyalty to each other, but also in how similar they are. Adrift and floundering their way through the alienation of not quite fitting in anywhere, the pair commiserate over the struggles of women and gay men, both marginalized by a patriarchal and heteronormative society. But through it all, at least they have each other to rely on.

That’s why, when time inevitably passes and Mi-ae gets a job, the ensuing loneliness is that much harder to bear. In the quiet nights with no one to talk to, Yeong writes his novel, waiting for Mi-ae to come home. But when she returns, it’s in her office boyfriend’s car. LEE JOON-HO (Kim Tae-jung) is conventional marriage material, and Mi-ae acts like a completely different person in front of him, as if wanting to leave her past behind her.

The rumors catch up to her, though. Joon-ho gets the entirely wrong idea when he hears of Mi-ae having a long-term boyfriend that she lived with through college, and in a panicked attempt to defend herself, she ends up outing Yeong. Back at home, a contrite Mi-ae confesses to Yeong, and he’s understandably upset. He can’t trust that Joon-ho won’t go around blabbing. For both of them, it’s a matter of self-preservation — Yeong can’t risk his safety in a homophobic society, while Mi-ae’s terrified to lose the stability she finally has a chance at.

Their argument escalates, and Yeong leaves home, drinking himself into a stupor. With no one else to contact, Yeong ends up calling Nam-gyu, who speeds for the first time as he drives back to their skyline spot. There, Yeong apologizes for being a coward. “I wanted to be loved by you, but I didn’t have the courage to accept your love,” Yeong admits. Wishing that Nam-gyu will meet a good person who can truly love him, Yeong parts ways with him after a grateful hug.

Ten months later, Yeong finishes his novel, and it wins a new writers’ contest. He calls Mi-ae to share the good news, since his story resembles their experiences, and the nostalgic familiarity has Mi-ae tearing up. Aww. She has good news of her own, too; she’s getting married to Joon-ho.

Before Yeong can celebrate, though, he’s hit with a tragedy. Nam-gyu has passed away from a car accident, in which he was speeding. Oh god. The implication of it hits Yeong hard, and in the funeral hall, Yeong scrolls through all the unanswered messages from Nam-gyu. All along, Yeong’s thought that Nam-gyu was achingly slow, while he’d been impatiently fast — but the opposite is true, for Yeong has never centered his life around a relationship before. Now, he’s realizing far too late that Nam-gyu was someone he could have shared a long and warm future with — but now, that future is no more.

Time flows by yet again, and Yeong helps Mi-ae pack to move out of her apartment. She tells him he can take over her lease, then asks him to sing a congratulatory song at her wedding. With his closest friend’s romantic union so imminent, Yeong has a realization — he’s always thought of everlasting love as a foolish wish, even as he couldn’t help but yearn for it. But now, he’s not so sure that it’s foolish after all.

At the wedding, Yeong’s nerves get the better of him and send him way off key, so Mi-ae winds up grabbing the mic, hee. As they sing their hearts out — punctuated by the hilarity of them belting a love song together while the groom stands off to the side — it feels like both a culmination and a bookend of their friendship.

Afterwards, Yeong returns to an empty apartment, all traces of Mi-ae’s colorful individuality cleared away. With that, the episodes close with Yeong reflecting on the ephemerality of beautiful moments — the fleeting transience of the times he’d thought would last forever.

Oof, I’m still blinking back tears. The narration ties it all together with a thread of introspective melancholy, and it works so well with the drama’s pacing. It really feels like we’ve stepped into several pages of their lives — both the characters and the world they inhabit feel deeply authentic. It isn’t sanitized, but it isn’t sensationalized, either. It’s a candid, unembellished portrayal of what it means to be a queer youth in a conservative society, and its unfettered honesty speaks to the heart.

For that, I have to take a moment to appreciate Nam Yoon-soo’s performance, and his courage in taking this role. He imbues so much pathos into Yeong, playing him with a raw sincerity that grounds his struggles and his fears in emotions that are deeply relatable. With all the adversity that this drama endured — from the disdain its cast suffered, to getting its teaser taken down due to conservative protests — I am so heartened that it successfully made it to the screen, marking a meaningful step forward in South Korean queer narratives. These are the voices that have been silenced, and that deserve to be heard too.

Next to the attention that its movie counterpart received, the drama version certainly holds its own and then some. Masterfully weaving together the juxtaposition of Yeong’s and Mi-ae’s trajectories, the drama never once hammers the point home. Instead, it just turns the pages of its story, allowing its audience to draw their own connections in the spaces of all that is left unsaid. I particularly liked the way Yeong and Nam-gyu’s first meeting subtly parallels their relationship — Yeong was always preoccupied by other worries, and by the time he finally turned back to face Nam-gyu, it was far too late.

At its core, this story isn’t just about romantic love, but also the platonic love that raises us up in our darkest times. There’s Yeong and Mi-ae, and then there’s Yeong and his circle of gay friends, too. Though life may eventually lead them in different directions, what matters is that they were there for one another when it mattered. Ultimately, this tale is about how love, in all its forms, struggles to stay afloat amidst the tumultuous waves of a sprawling metropolis. Love in the Big City is a heartbreakingly beautiful show thus far, and I’m definitely watching to the end with a box of tissues by my side.

 
RELATED POSTS

• Premiere Watch: Love in the Big City
• News bites: October 8, 2024
• News bites: September 3, 2024
• News bites: August 28, 2024
• News bites: February 8, 2024