The Equation
Episode 10 of Melancholia begins ripe with tension. Ms. Noh approaches a man who is obviously trying to obscure a figure from her view. It’s Seung-yoo, and he’s hiding Yoon-soo. Just as Ms. Noh would say something, a waitress interrupts and takes her to her table. Shocked by the near discovery, Yoon-soo has a panic attack and quickly contracts a fever. Seung-yoo then takes her to the hospital, and Gyu-yeong briefly sees them together. Seung-yoo tries to comfort Yoon-soo. She says she wants to make Ms. Noh apologize for ruining her life. Seung-yoo mentions that Ye-rin owes her an apology as well. At the school, Mr. Han is being pressured by auditors for having received a bribe from a student’s parent. Ye-rin’s mother worries that the student’s name will be leaked; it was she who gave him money so that Ye-rin could have test answers four years ago. Ye-rin doesn’t know yet about this turn of events. She gets dinner with Seung-yoo and apologizes for giving the airport picture to Ms. Noh. She never knew that Ms. Noh would advertise the picture at Yoon-soo’s wedding. After dinner, Ye-rin runs into Gyu-yeong, who is jealous that Ye-rin is spending time with Seung-yoo. He warns her about Seung-yoo and mentions that he saw him with Yoon-soo. Now it’s Ye-rin’s turn to be jealous. Seung-yoo gives his class a difficult maths problem to work on. Si-an asks Yoon-soo to help her with it. Although Yoon-soo’s passion for mathematics has deflated, she starts working on this equation with full force. She meets with Seung-yoo again, who says he wants to make everyone who had a hand in Yoon-soo’s downfall pay for their corruption. He lists names: Ms. Noh, Ye-rin, Mr. Han, and Vice Principal Choi. It looks like setting investigators on Mr. Han is just the first step in his plan. Driven by her jealousy of Yoon-soo, Ye-rin goes to see Ms. Noh and informs her that the former teacher is back in town. Ms. Noh asks her to find out if she is in touch with Seung-yoo. Afterwards, authorities escort Mr. Han out of the school, and Ms. Noh wonders if Yoon-soo or Seung-yoo had anything to do with the audit. Ye-rin goes to see Yoon-soo and warns her not to bring Seung-yoo down after everything he’s accomplished. Yoon-soo says she had hoped Ye-rin would have grown up and apologized for her actions instead of acting in this petty way. Later, Seung-yoo visits Yoon-soo. Unbeknownst to him, Ms. Noh’s sister Yeon-woo has a picture taken of him outside Yoon-soo’s building. Seung-yoo then finds Yoon-soo looking up the answer to his maths problem. He’s upset that she would give up on trying to solve an equation. He tries to remind her of the days when she loved solving maths. She starts to cry, and he takes her in his arms. The episode ends with Seung-yoo holding her face in his hands as they look at each other intently.
The Episode Review
Yoon-soo gets a well-drawn development arc in this episode as we see her struggle with Seung-yoo’s equation. That all culminates in an affecting moment in the last scene, where she breaks down in front of Seung-yoo. That left me with hope for their relationship and for a brighter future for Yoon-soo. This episode escalates the drama between Ms. Noh, Ye-rin, Seung-yoo, and Yoon-soo well. However, I didn’t feel like sufficient explanation was given as to why Ye-rin would help Ms. Noh again. Sure, she has this newfound crush on Seung-yoo. But she also feels bad about what she did to Yoon-soo—and now she might make things worse? It doesn’t quite add up. Ye-rin will be a key player to the series once again. But this time, I think she might eventually be swayed (guilted?) to Yoon-soo’s side. Time will tell!
