I truly can't believe that it took six episodes for these two to come face to face. I often like slow-paced, winter-set dramas with a melancholy feel, but I agree that this one should have roughly half the episodes and a faster pace. There are a lot of lingering shots of movements or environments that don't actually build mood, character, or plot. And for such a plodding drama, it's very difficult to feel immersed in the story; it has an oddly aloof tone and style that is starting to really put me off. So these two episodes were a chore for me to get through.

I like your point about how, in reality, most of the negative repercussions of hanging out with Mi-jung happen once she and the person are no longer physically near one another. That would be an interesting turn.

This drama kind of infuriates me. In a way, this drama is about obsessions, just for all the wrong reasons. It's about Dong-jin's obsession with Mi-jung's curse, but also about this dramas obsession with Dong-jin. This drama is so obsessed with Dong-jin that it forgets Mi-jung is an actual character most of the time. It has gotten to the point where Mi-jung only appears when it's convenient for Dong-jin's story. Technically that story may also be about her, yet she is left with no real story of her own, and no real agency. The drama simply isn't interested in her character, and she only really exists to be Dong-jin's object of affection. Suffice it to say, I hate it.

As for Dong-jin, this drama is asking me to root for an obsessive stalker, but quite frankly, the writing isn't nuanced or complex enough to actually pull that off. The drama is kind of aware of his problematic behavior, yet it also casually skirts around any of the concerns or problems that come with it. Case in point: Eun-sil brings up all of these problems, yet all of this is literally dropped in 5 seconds because Dong-jin says "he wants her to live a normal life". There is a lot of room for an interesting debate here, about all the themes that come with his behavior, and the question about whether or not it is justified. But this drama isn't interested in that: it never asks you the question, nor does it ask you to make up your own mind. This drama has picked a side from the very beginning, that side being that, yes, his behavior is justified because he loves her and wants to help her. Most of his stalking is either portrayed as romantic or comedic, because at the end of the day, this still a romance. As a result, all of his behavior ends up being romanticized, which I think is the real problem here. You could say that he has to stalk her because it's dangerous otherwise, but what has his present-day stalking actually accomplished? He only made progress when he started investigating the past incidents. So was his stalking actually necessary? Aren't there other ways to reach out to a person while still maintaining distance (hey, anybody remember 2020)? All this begs the one question this drama isn't actually interested in: Do these circumstances, and the possible danger, really justify excessive stalking, invasion of privacy, and undermining the agency of the person you supposedly care about?

I agree about the slow pace (I also felt tortured while watching Dong-Jin knock apartment doors), but I am really intrigued with the story. It really is unlike anything else I have seen in a kdrama, so I am really curious to see where it goes next. I also think the two main leads are having unique actions for leads, and that also has me intrigued. While My dearest nemesis is cuter and faster paced, I find myself periodically bored by the story.
I know the stalking is bad, but our ML might not be alive right now if he was had been openly contacting her.
I love the idea of the curse being reversed if you stay long enough. All these boys don’t actually like her as they barely know her; they just like the idea of her.

I'm in love with this drama.

Last week when people discussed about Dong-jin's reluctance to introduce himself properly to Mi-jeong and provide a real support system for her, I had an inkling that deep down, he believed that dangerous things did happen to men around Mi-jeong who has a crush on her. He might dislike the term "The Witch" that people slapped on her because it implied that she knowingly caused harm to those boys, which she didn't. But that didn't mean he wasn't haunted by his research paper for his "Statistic 101" class back in the days.

And so, we have a male lead who finally realized he has some sort of a crush to Mi-jeong, but somewhat aware that it might put his life in a risk to express his feelings in any ordinary way. Unlike most romantic hero who would jump into that beginning of a relationship without double thinking, Dong-jin instead chose to collect as many data as possible to understand the real situation and find the best way to help Mi-jeong. Maybe his semi-stalker-ish action didn't sit well with many viewers who preferred him to just openly enter Mi-jeong's life. But to me who preferred a carefully planned action and ability to solve problem effectively, I think Dong-jin chose the best approach possible in this situation. He didn't only need to help Mi-jeong solve her problem, but also to prevent serious bodily harm from happening to himself (and consequently prevent Mi-jeong from feeling even more guilt-ridden by one more injury allegedly cause by her "curse").

To have someone like Dong-jin, who was fully aware of the risk he put himself in, carefully entered Mi-jeong's life appeared to be a very committed choice. While most people avoided Mi-jeong out of fear the moment tragedy struck, Dong-jin and Eun-shil who steadfastly stayed with her throughout it all felt like the most loving people in her life now.

If I have one complaint, it was about the separate subplot of Dong-jin's detective friend. It was the only story that didn't seem to mesh well with the rest of the drama. Unless it somehow has something to do with Mi-jeong's unfortunate situation??

“I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound or stab us. If the book we're reading doesn't wake us up with a blow to the head, what are we reading for? So that it will make us happy, as you write? Good Lord, we would be happy precisely if we had no books, and the kind of books that make us happy are the kind we could write ourselves if we had to. But we need books that affect us like a disaster, that grieve us deeply, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, like being banished into forests far from everyone, like a suicide. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us. That is my belief.”
― Franz Kafka

This quote kind of sums up why I watch The Witch, in spite of the fact that it weighs on me sometimes. Settling silently like a blanket; like dust, or a dead albatross around the neck.

For context's sake, I have to watch 2 other shows of levity (Nemesis, Undercover HS) just to balance the ledger of gravity and grief here.

Pain Point: The psychological Maginot Line

Revisiting the pilot which sets the premise, leitmotifs and themes of the series, we can now look at Dong-jin's attempts to delineate the parameters of his hypotheses with all his data collection, against his spiel on the pain point to his casino client.

Here's his definition in pilot: "The pain point is the point where the shock of loss deters the person from return. Think of it as the psychological Maginot Line."

Every single boy crushing on Mi-Jung has hit their respective private pain point - either through serious injury or death. They never returned. We are now about to see where Dong-Jin's pain point actually exists (if at all. More on that).

What keeps the gamblers coming back over and over again is keep their losses as near as possible to their precise pain point (BUT without ever breaching it); past that point they would never return.

This is the Critical Distance & Radius of Fatal Attraction that this investigative story is trying to discover, with Dong-jin as our guide.

@solstices wrote: "It'd be interestingly ironic if the solution is to stay close rather than run away... Perhaps Mi-jung’s “curse” is an unconscious manifestation of her wish to have someone stay by her side?"

To add a second level of irony: the very expensively fortified "Maginot Line" erected by the French to deter the Germans during WW2 was not breached but circumvented instead. It has since become a metaphor for expensive efforts that offers a *false* sense of security.

Again, a fortification line. A defence radius. Ultimately circumvented not breached in any direct confrontation with the line itself. I am beginning to think that what his Stats professor told him will come back to haunt us in more ways than one: "You are asking the wrong questions." (about his thesis on disproving the idea of a witch)

Perhaps, the solution is going to be utterly out of the box, because this Maginot Line is false. Perhaps what is intolerable as pain to one is quiet endurance for another.

Perhaps the line that shifts is truly love. Perhaps there really is another way out: just like Rapunzel leaving the prison of the tower castle - it requires Mi-jung letting her hair down, and Dong-jin climbing his way up. It will take two of them and I am here for that journey's end.

I don't know where this drama is going and I find it unusual enough to be intrigued. The 'curse' only seems to hit males - Dong-jin is not looking much into this gender bias, maybe it is too obvious for him to think more about this.

He firmly believes that Mi-jung is not a witch and is still trying to prove this. He therefore does not consider what he will do, if he discovers that she really were a (horrible) witch and hurting and killing these boys/men?

As a comp-sci student, I am biased and rooting for Dong-Jin purely for the fact that we're both into data. But as a 'spinster' cat lady, who is only inconvenieced by men, I want to see Mi-Jeong use her powers for good. (lol *cough*cough*)

I agree with a lot of viewers who said this is basically a "Dong-jin" show, and as the female "lead" almost has no reason to exist beyond an intellectual curiosity for the ML (even though he claims he likes her and want to make her life better). This is frustrating, so I thought I would actually pay attention to all the "sciencey" stuff he is DJ is doing. And what do you know - the writers have left a GAPING HOLE in this research plotline as well. Let me ask the most obvious question - how does her parents' death fit into his hypotheses? For the mother's death, she is not a male, but the only female MJ has "killed" supposedly. Doesn't that warrant further exploration? Personally, I think that was just a case of childbirth death, but would have been nice if the showed DJ looking into that first and then actually approaching MJ to say what he has found and then tell her he is going to do similar research to all other deaths to find answers. THEN - the show could have actually given MJ some agency and removed the whole stalker scenario too!

Moving on to her father's death.....that one is even more of an anomaly given DJ's hypotheses. Her father was a male who knew her, lived in VERY close quarters with her, loved her and have probably told her he loves her, BUT did not die until she was almost 20 years old (even though her supposed killing ability started from when she was a little girl). WHY? Isn't THAT the most interesting death actually? And the real nerd in me was also hoping the show would include a female character who might have been in love with MJ, and maybe had given MJ some gift (like candy or flowers) and got hurt. That would also be interesting, because then you can establish that the "curse" affects ppl of any gender who might love MJ in a non-platonic way, which may in turn shed light on the father's death (that his death was not a pattern fitting the curse since his love for MJ was not romantic, and was merely a freak accident!) Again, the writers come close to making one aspect interesting, but then fails the logic test there too! :(

The slow pace is really killing me but I am intrigued! Could he have called her or emailed her to let her know his plans instead of going through all the stalking? Clearly the contact needs to be physical to experience the danger so why was indirect communication not considered? And why is she not curious about her own misfortunes? Wouldn’t she be also open to his investigation to prove to her own self her own self worth?

The Witch I’m late to the party, and I’ve been slowly watching. The pacing was slow and it was on the verge of getting dropped…
Don’t drop.
By episode 7, it’s amazing. I think Kangful has a pattern of making you wait and then rewarding your patience.

Thank you for the recap. 🧙‍♀️🧹📊📚

I like the precise and consistent way Dong-jin works to collect and analyze the data. To no one's surprise all things do point to Mi-jung being the witch she is accused of being. While we know the rumor was started by a petty school girl is does seem to have taken a life of its own and the lie being perpetuated by being oft-repeated. Perhaps it would need something bigger than just an acknowledgement of wrong doing by the perpetrators to be dispelled. I am curious is the drama saying that curses are real and that carelessly spoken words can impact so many lives. Was Mi-jung already a witch or did she become one by the power of these thoughtlessly scattered words. Perhaps the curse would have been forgotten and dissipated while Mi-jung was in college but thanks to it being repeated again it seems the witch lie got a second lease of life. I am interested to know what explanation the drama will come up with for this.

I like Heo Eun-shil's no-nonsense approach and somehow her dynamic with Mi-jung reminds me of Dong-jin's relationship with Joong-hyuk.

So now that Dong-jin has collected the data and formulated his hypotheses he is methodically proceeding to test them. So now we can finally have our OTP face to face or rather helmet to face. 😆 Will uri Dong-jin "suvive" the close encounter. 🤞🏻💪🏻👏🏻✊🏻🙏🏻