“You kept calling us. Mom and me… It’s time to stop.”
Episode 87 of Payback gave me a lot to think about as we slipped away from the danger and action we’d been leading up to. After being stabbed and beaten black and blue, Yoohan finds himself in a memory which feels like a dream.
In the dream, Yoohan’s younger brother Hansoo was telling him to stop calling as though in that timeline the money had been paid, Hansoo hadn’t been stabbed, and Yoohan was contacting them to check on them. If the Yoohan in that timeline intended to reunite the family, it wouldn’t be a surprise, especially as this existence is shown only in light of Yoohan having held his grief for 5 years and only just come to terms with his sadness around it.
Dreams are subconscious manifestations of the thoughts on our minds but in fiction there’s the opportunity for dreams to be the echoes of ghosts, messages from the other side. Did Hansoo say this more with the intent to get Yoohan to stop the revenge, or at least to stop using him and his mom as an excuse not to live?
From the end part of season 2 the theme of life’s purpose or whether [Yoohan] deserved to live became stronger. The script change devised by Executive Director Yoon Jay and (film) Director Jeong mostly addressed that theme. Yoohan’s reaction was a strong one and he cried for the first time in 5 years because of it. Though he’d started season 3 the happiest he’d started any of the seasons, the need to rescue Jimin came up quickly.
Of course Yoohan should have done something about Jimin. This man wasn’t someone he knew well but that isn’t an excuse to use him for the means of revenge and toss him aside. Jimin was made to remain around the people who orchestrated his gang rape and spy on them. Naturally yoohan should have done something as the person who brought about that situation. Without the regressive thoughts Yoohan was having, who is to say whether he actually would have tried to save Jimin. I think he would have because he’s shown to do the right thing but we never fully know Yoohan’s mind.
Yoohan’s perspective seemed to have calcified by the time he was carrying Jimin out of the place he was being held. Yoohan had to do this because he didn’t deserve to have a life sprinkled with happy moments. He shouldn’t forget that the only reason he is here is to avenge his mom and his brother.
This goes directly against all the sweet nothings Jay has been whispering in yoohan’s ear. Constantly, Jay has been nudging towards the reality that, little by little there will be happy moments and things to hope for which multiply and multiply until Yoohan wants to live. Whatever thoughts you might have about Jay, the fact that he is planting this seed is a really precious thing. No matter how much blame yoohan should take for what happened to his mom and his brother he deserves to live his life too.
Naturally, the more fitting result is the dream of speaking to his brother was simply yoohan’s unconscious mind supporting Jay’s point. However I quite like the less grounded possibility that Yoohan’s brother has had enough of his memory being weighed down by his tragic and untimely death. We know very little about him or his mom. Isn’t it about time Yoohan started living his life properly. At least that way he’d be more likely to offer up some of the scant happy memories that exist about the family he’d left behind.
Hush Nili 
Leave a comment