Pachinko Recap: Under Pressure

Pachinko
Chapter Thirteen
Season 2 Episode 5
Editor’s Rating ★★★★
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Pachinko is a dense show — not only with plot and character but with history and context. Last season’s finale concluded with a mini-documentary of interviews with real-life Korean women who had come to Japan under circumstances similar to Sunja’s. This expansion doubled as an argument for the value of adaptation: In different hands and a different medium, the same material can open up new possibilities of understanding the story.

I’ve mentioned the sparseness of Min Jin Lee’s prose before — her book is more than 400 pages long, but it also spans more than 60 years in chronological order, so it can only accommodate so much attention to any given period. The show, meanwhile, luxuriates in the details of everyday life for the Baek family across time. It also works to fill in some of the gaps the novel leaves to the imagination. In the novel, when Yoseb suddenly arrives at the farm after the bombing of Nagasaki, we have no clue what his life might have been like in the interim years. In one of their boldest departures from the book, in “Chapter Thirteen,” showrunners David Mitchell and Soo Hugh lift the curtain on the unspeakable tragedy of Yoseb’s experience. Like the show itself, it’s a dense episode, probably the most intricate yet this season. By the end of it, everything has changed for every single character. 

Nagasaki, 1945

“Chapter Thirteen” opens on a roughly 13-minute black-and-white segment detailing the week before America’s unconscionable second atomic bomb hit Nagasaki. Yoseb has been working at a factory characteristically filled with Japanese workers who are extremely open about their hatred for their Korean counterparts. I allowed myself the slight fantasy that Yoseb’s tolerance of these mean-spirited comments was enlarged by the fact that, yes, Kyunghee’s care packages do reach him after all! Just a couple of days before, he went to pick one up from the post office, smiling to himself at the little wildflower Kyunghee had enclosed within. 

At the factory, the floor manager asks Yoseb to interpret for a new young Korean man, Taehoon, tasked with sweeping the floors. Later that night, the two of them chat while drinking sake, though at first, Yoseb resists Taehoon’s attempt at friendship. Yoseb later tells Taehoon that he reminds him of his late brother Isak, but I thought Taehoon recalled the spirited, charismatic Mozasu. Politely but irresistibly, he draws Yoseb into a conversation, and they talk about Taehoon’s deceased father and Yoseb’s hope that Korea will be able to pull out of the war, a statement that makes him come across as slightly more patriotic than he’s ever been before. Taehoon wonders if there would be anything to go back to, but Yoseb is confident that their country will be there for them: “I know where I belong,” he justifies. 

A couple of days later, the manager announces that one of the emperor’s advisers will visit the factory, so everyone needs to be on their best behavior; they increase the load of production tenfold. Yoseb sees Taehoon pocket a chisel from the floor — perhaps he was emboldened by their conversation — and later at the bar tries to dissuade him from how he can instinctively tell Taehoon plans to use it. On the radio, reporters announce the bombing of Hiroshima. Yoseb urges Taehoon not to do anything that will almost certainly result in his death and that killing is a sin. Yoseb might be regretting talking with Taehoon about Korea in the same way he regretted bringing Isak to Japan. But, like with Isak, there’s nothing Yoseb can really say to change Taehoon’s mind. When cholera struck his village, all 89 people who populated it died, except for him. Taehoon is convinced that the purpose of his survival is to take action against the Japanese Empire. 

When, on August 9, 1945, the emperor’s adviser arrives at the factory as promised, Taehoon sticks to his plan. He breaks out of the line of workers to lunge at the adviser, but seeing him, so does Yoseb; Taehoon ends up stabbing his friend instead. Both men are taken by the police in opposite directions: Taehoon is dragged farther into the factory, while Yoseb is taken outside and shoved on the bed of a truck. Just then, the world goes blindingly bright. At 11:02, the bomb strikes. 

Countryside, 1945 

Over a rising sun, a radio broadcast announces Japan’s surrender. Through a blur, Yoseb can sort of make out Sunja’s face, and then Kyunghee’s, which keeps coming in and out of focus. The sight of a bandaged and burned Yoseb is probably the gnarliest image in the show so far; it made me instinctively flinch in pain. When he wakes up, it’s Koh Hansu who is sitting by his bedside. Hansu tells him the war is over, but they must stay in the farm until Osaka is safe; Korea is out of the question. Yoseb can tell, like Yangjin, that Hansu is Noa’s father right away. At this point, only Noa hasn’t connected the dots. This makes sense — he is a child — but with every subsequent discovery, it feels more and more dangerous to have Hansu around … 

Yoseb tries to make that argument, but Hansu will obviously have none of it. To start with, Noa is his son, and secondly, he single-handedly saves everyone in this family. Hansu is extremely cruel to a man who has only barely survived an atomic bombing (and a stabbing) just because Yoseb points out a few actually true things, like the fact that Isak was the only father Noa ever knew, the man who raised him. Hansu disagrees; he thinks Isak raised Noa to be “a pauper.” When Yoseb makes as if he will get up from the bed to kill Hansu, no matter how little strength he has left, Hansu holds a mirror up to his face, and Yoseb is confronted with the damage from the bomb for the first time. Absolutely insane move. For the past couple of episodes, I’d started to soften on Hansu — he did help Sunja and her family achieve at least some sort of normalcy during very abnormal years, and he did make compelling arguments about why Sunja should let herself be happy. But the way he tells Yoseb that Sunja and Noa are his, looking him in the eye like that, his full control-freak tendencies unleashed, sent a shiver down my spine. Yoseb may be the head of the family, he says, but he is the one in control. And he will continue to be because what choice does anyone else have?

Gradually, the Baek family prepares to leave. Hansu makes sure Kyunghee is weaning Yoseb off pain medicine, and both of them notice Noa seems quieter than usual. Kyunghee wonders if it’s the prospect of going back to Osaka that is getting to him, and it may well be since it seems to be getting to pretty much everyone. Yoseb snaps at Kyunghee as she changes his bandages: “Why are your hands so shaky?” he barks. (I can think of a couple of reasons.) In the foreground of the frame, Sunja and Kim pack, and Kyunghee trades places with her sister-in-law once she’s been deemed incapable of the bandaging job. The hurt in Kim’s eyes is too much for me to bear; I had to look away. I wish there was a whole show just about these two. Noa says good-bye to his friend in a pretty anticlimactic way (no hug), but they hope to see each other again in Osaka. 

The city, when they arrive, is all ashes. Nothing much remains of their house, though Kyunghee finds the buried box with her family’s heirlooms intact. An American soldier gives Mozasu a pair of aviator sunglasses. He looks pretty cool wearing them. 

1950 

Life goes on, as it tends to do. The kimchee Kyunghee chops on a cutting board activated my taste buds pretty much immediately. Yoseb didn’t have the same reaction — he sends an older Noa back downstairs with the tray of food Kyunghee had asked her nephew to take up. Noa is starting to look less of a teenager and more of a young man, and in an inspired casting choice, Tae Jun Kang (who plays the older Noa) has a striking resemblance, I thought, to Lee Minho, who plays Hansu. Mozasu has similarly gone through the Hulk-like transformation that seizes teenage boys after age 12. Kim, Kyunghee, and Yangjin haven’t changed much, and neither has the hushed, tortured exchange of looks that characterizes the relationship between Kim and Kyunghee, which makes the air so thick with tension I don’t know how Yangjin doesn’t catch on to it.

At the market, Sunja’s noodle stall is thriving. A regular customer, Goto-san, comes by for his bowl. They chat briefly about Sunja’s plan to open a restaurant, and he promises to help her get a reduced price on a place near the train station by calling in a favor from the owner. When Noa stops by, Goto-san asks about the looming university entrance exam, applying slight pressure to someone who evidently already has very high expectations for himself: If he doesn’t pass the exam, his grandmother will die of disappointment. Goto seems like a real affable guy, but I literally can’t think of a worse thing to say to someone who is about to sit for a very important test, jokingly or not. 

It’s not just Goto who is a little too comfortable bringing up the entrance exam to Noa; everyone is talking about it. Before heading back to his post at the telegram office from the noodle stall, he stops by the tofu lady, who also mentions the exam, besides making some very unsubtle suggestions about Noa and her own daughter, who works quietly next to her. Noa smiles sweetly; he likes the girl. He goes to see her the next day, and it’s just the two of them. She serves him a generous portion of tofu before — surprise, surprise — mentioning the exam. In a demonstration of trust and affection, he asks her: “What if I don’t pass?” The odds, he says, are stacked against him, as the university only lets in one in every seven students. The girl assures him: He is Noa Baek. There is simply no way he won’t pass. Again, a comment that is supposed to alleviate Noa’s worries and surely is only making everything worse. He knows, people! He is trying his best!

During the night that passes between Noa’s conversations with his crush, Kim and Hansu meet at a bar to discuss, among other things, you guessed it: Noa’s entrance exam. More pressingly, though, Kim wants to move out. “How much longer do I have to do this?” he asks intolerably. I don’t know how Hansu can face the suffering in his eyes — probably because he’s a coldhearted psycho — as he tells Kim that he can leave once Noa is settled at university. Kim poses the impossible question: “What if he fails?” He even wonders whether Hansu will fix the exam so that the possibility is foreclosed, and Hansu looks as if he’s taken offense to the suggestion — like that’s not something he would do. But there is a palpable resentment between the two men. When Hansu asks Kim how serious Sunja is about the restaurant, Kim snaps, “Perhaps you can allow her this.” Also, Hansu doesn’t have to tell him how to do his job; he knows well by now. 

Kim is not the only one questioning Hansu’s authority. When Hansu gets home, his father-in-law is in a meeting with some aspiring Japanese politicians looking to fund a new party that will “be a force to be reckoned with” and “restore [the] nation’s pride and glory.” Hansu asks a few questions about their plans and policies, but the politicians don’t respect him; they pretty much laugh in his face. They bring up Hansu’s commercial dealings with Americans and make sure to note that they’re all about “steering Japan in the right direction,” which is, seemingly, away from communism, Americans, and Koreans. Despite their treatment of his son-in-law, Hansu’s father-in-law promises them unlimited resources, no questions asked. 

In the meantime, Noa studies for the exam so long that he falls asleep in his papers. Sunja is moved by her son’s determination and apologizes for the fact that he has to work so hard. But Noa reminds his mother that Hansu isn’t wrong when he says Noa chose this. He knows that they could have accepted a bunch of money from Hansu, but he’s glad they didn’t: “I didn’t want to do it that way, either,” he tells Sunja. It’s a nice moment between mother and son, but on the morning of the exam, Noa is obviously freaking out. He seems paralyzed with fear, then with apprehension. In the large exam room, he spots his friend from the countryside, who pretends not to see him. Two whole minutes pass before Noa starts writing on his test paper. It’s June 25. While he takes the test, his family listens to a radio announcement that Korea is at war.

Tokyo, 1989 

It wouldn’t be Solomon if he weren’t getting little ideas, even when things seem to be going his way. After spotting a billboard for a driving range from the balcony of his apartment, he takes this pitch to Yoshii at dinner: What if they bought back the land after the Colton/Shiffley’s deal fell through and used it to build an exclusive, members-only golf club? I’m dizzy with all of Solomon’s ideas about this land, to buy it, to sell it, to flip it, to do God knows what with it; I think he should forget it all and focus on building a nice, caring relationship with Naomi, who already seems like she is too good for him.

Unbeknownst to Solomon, Naomi is actually ruining his plans faster than he can utter the words “what if.” At Shiffley’s meeting with Tom and a higher-up executive, she makes the case for Abe: They’ve worked together for more than a decade. Does loyalty count for nothing? The firm should give him time to get back on his feet financially, and even if Colton Hotels pulls out of the deal, they could still search for a different partner, like Hyatt. Tom plays Solomon’s advocate, pushing for the firm to drop the indebted Abe, but it doesn’t work. When he meets Solomon and Yoshii at the restaurant, he tells them the firm won’t call in the loan. Naomi’s argument that they should preserve their relationship with Abe is too convincing.

Not that it matters, since they have already made a bunch of money, but if the point, as per Solomon, is to screw over Abe, then it’s not that big of a deal: All Solomon has to do, Yoshii says, is talk to his girlfriend and get her to change course. The revelation of their relationship takes Tom by surprise: He used to be in love with her. She didn’t reciprocate the intensity of the feeling, though she did, by Tom’s estimation, relish in the “transgressiveness” of dating him, someone of whom her family would never approve. Naomi is sleeping in front of the television when Solomon gets home. She wanted to surprise him, but he took too long. He carries her like a newlywed to bed and looks at her with genuine tenderness and affection. I will continue to root for them, although I have a sinking feeling that Naomi will be sorely disappointed, and soon. For his part, Solomon already looks hurt. 

Pinball Thoughts

• I was a bit puzzled by the exchange between Taehoon and Yoseb when the young man tells him, “May your cup always runneth over” and runneths over Yoseb’s sake glass. Besides the heavy-handedness of the metaphor coupled with its visual representation, I’m unsure what Taehoon means. It’s not like Yoseb is exactly rolling in luxury; it’s not even that his faith is ostentatious. It seems to me like the kind of dialogue that looks smart on paper but feels forced onscreen and unnatural to the characters. There is a hostility to Taehoon in that line that’s not really present elsewhere in their brief relationship, which is tragic to begin with. As Hansu mentions, it was Yoseb’s instinct to stop Taehoon that ultimately saved his life: The truck shielded him somewhat from the bomb explosion. 

• Seeing Sunja cry as she talked to Noa in this episode reminded me of a line in Lee’s novel that suggests, without spoiling anything, that Sunja spent decades without shedding a tear. “She was not the sort to cry easily,” Lee writes. At this point in the novel, it’s 1978, so beyond the events of “Chapter Thirteen.” As I mentioned earlier, I mostly admire the departures the show has taken from the book, but Sunja does seem more fragile here than she does in the original story; in the show, she cries all the time. I think this goes some way toward illustrating Roxana Hadadi’s point that “Sunja and Kyunghee are mostly left to perform domestic labor and worry” while the men have more complicated inner lives. Food for thought!

• For some reason, I find the dynamic between Solomon and Tom incredibly stilted, though I’ve seen Jimmi Simpson, who plays Tom, act competently in other shows and movies. Anytime it’s the two of them onscreen, I suddenly become too aware of the fact they’re acting, which takes me out of the story.