Fallen Flower 2
Episode 2 of Tomorrow picks up where we left off, with Gu-Ryeon and Jun-Woong inside Eun-Bi’s memories. Specifically, we see Hye-Won bullying Eun-Bi as a result of the latter laughing happily with her friend in class. Eun-Bi is taken outside with several other girls and beaten down. She’s forced to laugh every time she hears the clicking of a pen, suffering repeated kicks to the stomach, milk poured over her head and horrific mental abuse. Jun-Woong has enough and shields Eun-Bo’s body. The thing is, if a memory becomes aware of the death angels and their presence, they’ll get trapped inside the memories. With Hye-Won becoming aware of the rookie angel, the entire world begins shattering and falling apart. This catches us up to the moments we left off last episode, but with a bit more context now. The office building they run through happens to be Eun-Bi’s place of work. From the train, they use the key and make it back to the office. Only… Jun-Woong accidentally breaks the memory key on the way back in, as awkwardly out of place comedic music plays. Time and a place Tomorrow, come on. We now get a lot more context around how badly Hye-Won bullied Eun-Bi, and how traumatized the latter is because of it. Her interview last episode now hits a lot harder, given her book is designed to “bring comfort to victims of bullying.” Of course, that’s horribly ironic given she’s the one who bullied Eun-Bi so viciously. Jun-Woong, now aware of Hye-Won’s bullying, finds himself struggling to watch as she begins bullying Eun-Bi again in the present. She clicks a pen constantly; a throwback to those moments in school. Unfortunately, it begins again that night as Hye-Won confronts Eun-Bi and starts clicking the pen in her face, forcing her to laugh. This, unfortunately, pushes Eun-Bi over the edge as her chances of committing suicide skyrocket. Eun-Bi bolts out the room, hurrying to the rooftop as Jun-Woong scrambles to follow. He promises to help her however he can. Only, Gu-Ryeon happens to be waiting on the rooftop and gives her some tough love, calling Eun-Bi out for whining. With Jun-Woong forced back into the hallway, Gu-Ryeon tells Eun-Bi she should have just “got over it” and moved on rather than dwelling on the past. Gu-Ryeon goes on to call her a nuisance, and how she needs to fight back and stand up for herself. Gu-Ryeon goes on to claim killing herself is going to be a fate worse than she’s currently suffered, encouraging Eun-Bi that she needs to get over this. And as Gu-Ryeon approaches her, Eun-Bi falls off the balcony… only to be caught by Gu-Ryeon who stops her and saves her. On the ground, an office worker shows up and starts praising her, dancing in the street. He makes Eun-Bi laugh, which is enough to stop her from being suicidal. “Thank you for hanging in there.” Jun-Woong says, hugging her warmly. Jun-Woong’s influence helps to drop the number down to 20, way lower than it’s been before. Gu-Ryeon eventually heads off to see Hye-Won, telling her she needs to apologize to Eun-Bi formally. In order to show how badly Eun-Bi is affecting, Gu-Ryeon turns the tables and forces her to play out the past in Eun-Bi’s perspective. She’s shocked, but not as much as the news reports when it’s revealed Hye-Won used to be a bully and her victims are coming forward to share their experiences about her. Jun-Woong decides to team up with the other death angels but after his big outburst about their insensitivity, he’s on the verge of being sent back. However, Gu-Ryeon of all people speaks up and decides to take him into the team. Why? Well, clearly he reminds her of herself from her younger days, as we see a flashback to Gu-Ryeon trying to help a suicidal man hanging from the top of an office building. During the epilogue we see Jun-Woong actually paid off the earlier office worker to make Eun-Bi smile, so the whole thing was staged and not a genuine act of kindness.
The Episode Review
Tomorrow returns with a rather subjective episode that’s going to be a bit of a love/hate affair for many people. For me, I’m on the fence with this. After a strong opening episode, the moral compass in this chapter is skewed all over the place. The whole “tough love” idea for Eun-Bi could have easily pushed her over the edge, and it leaves a sour taste in the mouth knowing that the whole thing with the office worker was staged. Also, the rules around these suicides aren’t initially clear. So Eun-Bi steps forward as a victim of bullying – as do many others – and shame Hye-Won into hiding. She’s now going to be vilified by the media… so what happens if she then becomes suicidal? What will the team do then? These sort of questions aren’t really answered and it leaves holes in the worldbuilding and general make-up of this reality. Compared to shows like Taxi Driver, which handled the idea of bullying with a little more composure and an interesting take, this one feels a bit more of a mixed bag. It’s still early days though so we’ll have to wait and see how this show tackles more cases alongside this one.
