Critic’s Rating: 5 / 5.0
5
Congratulations to Pachinko’s Anna Sawai (Naomi), who won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series for her role as Lady Mariko in Shogun!
There was so much going on in Pachinko Season 2 Episode 5 that the dancing credits sequence was skipped to make room for it all.
The super-sized episode still featured moments of laughter, but they were definitely hard-earned.
Yoseb In Nagasaki
The opening factory scenes in newsreel black and white were a shock after the gauzy Days of Heaven golden hour light we’ve gotten used to on the farm.
It was good to get a sense of what Yoseb’s life in Nagasaki had been like while his family was in the country. It was doubly good to see that the post actually worked and Kyunghee’s knitted sweater had indeed arrived safely.
For some reason, I thought the factory and Nagasaki itself would be more chaotic. Instead, they were almost frighteningly orderly.
I had honestly forgotten that Yoseb was a real person and not just a vague existential threat to Kyunghee and Mr. Kim’s maybe-kinda-sorta flirtation. He’s been absent from the family (and the show) for so long that his status as head of household felt more honorary than anything else.
This episode was a much-needed reminder that Yoseb has been contributing to the family all this time while being isolated in a sooty factory town.
One thing I did remember about Yoseb is how tightly he clung to a rigid sense of class structure. Just as his brother Isak stubbornly clung to his religious ideals, Yoseb rarely bent from his beliefs.
The young would-be assassin Taehoon definitely challenged Yoseb’s strict sense of right and wrong. It was clear that Yoseb couldn’t let Taehoon’s plan go forward, but wow did I not expect him to take a chisel in the chest for it.
And so much blood! How sharp was that freaking chisel, anyway??
Yoseb didn’t have to wait long for karma to kick in, even though I’m still not sure how a truck with what looked like a canvas roof offered more protection from a nuclear blast than a building.
Well, unless that building was a munitions factory that was probably destroyed, I guess.
That truck still looked super flimsy, but if a refrigerator saved Indiana Jones in a similar situation, then anything is possible.
Last Days On The Farm
The show switched back to color for Yoseb’s recuperation at the farm. The montage from his point of view was an interesting and efficient way to chart his healing process and how the family dealt with it.
It was not ideal for Yoseb to regain full consciousness with only Koh Hansu in the room. To be fair, Koh was pretty neutral at first as he calmly brought Yoseb up to speed with what had happened.
But that ended real quick when Yoseb pegged Koh as Noa’s father — seriously, how did Sunja ever expect to keep this a secret from Noa forever when everyone around him knows? — and tried to assert his dominance over the situation.
Koh neatly shut down any illusions Yoseb had that he still held any real position of authority with the family or any say in Koh’s relationship with them.
It was perhaps unnecessarily cruel of Koh to show Yoseb his disfigured face with a mirror, but it was effective in taking away Yoseb’s last shred of dignity and made him compliant — to Koh, at least.
Yoseb redirected his powerless anger at Koh to Kyunghee, lashing out at her attempts to help him. This seemed like a new family dynamic that promised to continue long after Yoseb’s bandages came off.
Return To Osaka
The war was finally over, and Koh let the family stay at his farm until Osaka was safe. His definition of “safe” was pretty generous since the family pulled up next to a pile of burned and broken wood that used to be their home.
Kyunghee had been right to demand a few extra minutes to bury the family heirlooms back when they fled Osaka. Those items were still there and would undoubtedly help with reconstruction.
However, Yoseb did not seem pleased to see Mr. Kim help his wife dig them up, which could have foreshadowed his keeping a suspicious eye on them in the future.
A New Decade Begins
The time jump to 1950 was bittersweet because we had to say goodbye to Eunseong Kwon and Kim Kang-hoon, the actors who played Moz and Noa.
They were both fantastic, but Eunseong Kwon, in particular, needs to get some kind of award recognition for his performance as the precocious young Moz.
The “new” versions of Moz and Noa as teenagers did a great job of embodying the qualities we saw in their characters as children.
It was nice to see the family in relative prosperity, with plentiful food and a rebuilt home filled with light. Of course, money was still a struggle, mostly because Noa refused Koh’s help in any way.
It was hard to see that gorgeously framed shot of Kyunghee alone in the kitchen, physically and emotionally caught in the middle of the house between her ghost of a husband living as a recluse upstairs and Mr. Kim living as a soulless shell out in the guest quarters.
Speaking of Mr. Kim… it was SO STRESSFUL to watch as he shuffled into Koh Hansu’s bar like a sullen teenager and then gave his boss some serious lip.
Um, do you not remember what happened to the farm foreman, Mr. Kim??
Koh got his own dig in when he casually mused that he’d thought Mr. Kim would have gotten over his crush on Kyunghee by now. But sure, he could move out of her house once Noa was settled in at the university.
Add Mr. Kim to the long list of people invested in Noa acing his college entrance exam.
Unrelated news: Noa was stressed about his upcoming exam. Between studying all night and working at the telegraph office all day, he barely even had time to flirt with the tofu stall girl.
I was kind of surprised that Koh hadn’t anticipated a romantic interest like this on Noa’s part, or at least that Mr. Kim hadn’t noticed it in real time and brought it up. But then again, Mr. Kim wasn’t going above and beyond for Koh very much these days.
Noa seemed to have all of his mother’s noodle stall customers and the entire neighborhood rooting for his college success.
But it was touching when he confessed his fear of failing his entrance exam to the tofu stall girl since it was a vulnerability he couldn’t expose to his family. And of course, she told him he’d got this!
The Future Is Golf
Okay, did I just forget that Tom and Naomi had an affair at some point, or is this new information??
It was apparently news to Solomon as well, so… (clinks glass).
This TOTALLY reframes the scene of Tom and Naomi in the boardroom litigating their boss about Abe-san’s loan.
Naomi made a super-convincing argument against Shiffley’s calling in the loan, while Tom pretty much just drowned in flop sweat.
It was apparent that Tom was coasting on vibes in this meeting, but NOW THAT I KNOW he and Naomi had an affair, his statement, “You really think that past can be cleared so easily?” reads as being about much more than just the secret wartime burial ground.
Solomon’s dubious investor, Mamaru Yoshii, was completely uninterested in his business proposal for a members-only golf club until he saw that Tom hadn’t known Solomon was dating Naomi and sensed some drama there.
Yoshii was now all in on the golf club deal, but only if Solomon himself would get Naomi to back off from saving Abe-san.
AND SOLOMON AGREED!!!
Naomi… you are in danger, young woman.
Notes And Observations
Noa’s old pal-slash-bully Minoru was back to his snot-nosed ways and totally ignored his friend at the entrance exam. I guess his time in the country didn’t change him at all.
Where is Koh Hansu’s family?? I think I remember him saying something about getting them out of Osaka right before the air raids, but they’ve been MIA ever since.
Koh’s father-in-law is all over this episode, but it’s like they are the only two people who live in his Osaka house. Where are Koh’s wife and daughters??
Koh has a new rival and nemesis in Liberal Party leader Kurogane-kun. How long before the two clash?
This episode was action-packed and stylistically innovative. What were your favorite scenes and storylines? Let us know in the comments!
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