OK. Here goes. Start.

First, I really liked Park Saeroyi. But even I should have realized that he would have gone way beyond expectation and just do what Park Saeroyi does. There are K-drama romances, and there are K-drama flannigans. This is one of them. Besides a perfect first episode, and an otherwise rocky start, it jumbles and tumbles like Dumbo but on solid footing. Because Park Saeroyi is first shown after seven years, smiling at Oh Soo-ah, wearing his heavy boots and he is almost never shown in different shoes after. The soundtrack was particularly good, K-dramas considered, and the insert songs were beautiful. More than just one I keep listening to after. Start, Still Fighting It (I hope they play it again after episode 14), Someday the Boy, and two others I think, I will have to find.

Yes, while I could finish, I dropped with two episodes remaining. I think watching this show, esp. after the food wars segment, gave me a motivation to make a decision about my life. I have a dream, but it's time to think about what I really want. Why I want it, and then, to think about how to shape my life going forward. I think this was a show that tried to do more than its 16-episode run allowed, but that's OK. I'll just pat it on the head and move on. I'll talk about how this show, until the romance didn't go the way I wanted, hit me.

So again, back to Park Saeroyi. You have inspiring characters, you have stalwart, unchanging characters, and you have good. Truly good - characters. In this, they put together all three. I may have the capacity for being truly good, and sometimes show it, but I need to be good every day. I need to be better, and be so good that even I don't doubt it (although I think that true good thinks it never attains the bar). I have a dream, and for the longest time I thought I wanted it for one reason. But I'm starting to realize what the act of writing really means to me, and that it's OK - perhaps better - to withstand the slings of arrows and outrageous fortune, and keep fighting it. Set a goal for further down the line. And aim even higher. I don't want to watch Breaking Bad for ambition, but Itaewon Class was about business ambition raised around people, the people around us we can't do it with. And maybe there's love too, and while K-dramas tend to "try romance" as a default (unless the premise distinctly forbids it), I saw something hopeful, something proud, in Park Saeroyi's ambition which was driven by revenge. In a way, his story resembles Edmond Dantès, where even he realized how he felt, and how he could go this way. I hesitate to apply this to my own life - this third part - because it's so much more delicate, and I need to get my life together first, before I can truly deserve that, rather than get my life together for someone else. I think in this way Oh Soo-ah, as she was to Saeroyi, is truly inspiring.

Other than Park Saeroyi's Tanjiro-levels fortitude, my favorite scenes were those with Ma Hyun-yi. Complete acceptance. Really lovely to see from a country that's somewhat trailing behind in that department, and I think like many other parts of this drama, a warm nod to the hope and strength and family we can bring to others. Itaewon Class is a powerful show, and while I'm not sure if I'm going to see the last two episodes, because I can talk about the two waylaid sons, the domineering chairman; Toni, who heightens the inclusiveness even further, or the former gang henchman who became a failed comedic support, the former bullied kid who slams at hedge funding, or the epic Kang Min-jung. There are tighter shows. There are "better" shows. But I think this one, more than Twenty-Five Twenty-One's Na Hee-do and My Mister, will make me at least think about the proper steps going forward. What do I really want to do with my life, who do I want to spend it with, and the kind of person I want to be. Thank you Park Saeroyi for showing me.