Studio Phoenix·SLL·Studio Flow
Act 2 opens.
JTBC “Everyone Is Fighting Their Worthlessness” (directed by Cha Young-hoon, written by Park Hae-young, produced by Studio Phoenix·SLL·Studio Flow, hereafter “Mojamussa”) has passed the halfway point to favorable reviews from viewers. While it mirrors the fierce reality of modern people who fight to prove the value of their existence, it also charges that reality with a warm “power” that offers comfort and laughter. Here are three viewing points that will make Act 2 even more meaningful.
#. Koo Kyo-hwan: Will He Overcome Worthlessness With ‘We Make the Weather for You’
Hwang Dong-man (Koo Kyo-hwan) has spent twenty long years battling the social stigma of being a “jobless man in his forties,” unable to properly prove his usefulness. Despite the harsh judgments around him “Stop clinging to what will not work, do not be bitter about others’ success, and start living more productively now” he never let go of the script titled ‘We Make the Weather for You.’ What he wants is not a grand success. “If I can just complete even one piece and overcome my worthlessness a little, that would be good.”
However, the stalled ‘We Make the Weather for You’ found a tearfully good revision direction thanks to the gemlike “axe-chop” feedback of Byun Eun-a (Go Youn-jung), who is said to revive even dead scripts. Having faced the fact that the protagonist’s missing “power” stemmed from his own deficiency, Hwang Dong-man set his inner creative engine to full throttle, powered by love. Unlike before, when he had to squeeze out pain just to write a single sentence, he is now experiencing a miraculous moment in which words pour out at a speed that he cannot scoop back up. Whether Hwang Dong-man can, through ‘We Make the Weather for You,’ clear the fog of gnawing worthlessness and welcome the sunny weather he so longs for has emerged as a key point to watch in Act 2.
#. Go Youn-jung: Will She Escape the Age-Nine Trauma Rooted in Her Birth Mother, Bae Jong-ok
Byun Eun-a has been fighting the terror of abandonment she suffered at age nine, when she was left unattended by her birth mother, national actress Oh Jung-hee (Bae Jong-ok). Back then, to avoid anyone discovering she had been abandoned, she pretended everything was normal going to school and spending powerless days eating and sleeping alone while her chest pounded with fear and that was when the nosebleeds began. This trauma has continued into adulthood, appearing as a physical symptom of nosebleeds under extreme stress and as a desperate emotion she describes as the urge to “self-destruct.”
For her, in particular, the word ‘mom’ is so exaggerated and painful that she cannot say it in one breath; she reveals deep aversion by spelling it out as ‘e-o-m-m-a,’ separating consonants and vowels. It also torments her to see the present in which her birth mother the first person to mark her with an “X” performs a happy motherdaughter act on social media with her stepdaughter, Jang Mi-ran (Han Sun-hwa). At age nine, her name was Byun Si-on. In Act 2, key questions include why Byun Eun-a abandoned that name and how she will protect the life she has chosen for herself now. Attention is on whether she can shake off the trauma and reach her life’s goal of becoming a “strong mother with a calm center.”
#. Everyone Is Fighting Their Worthlessness
As the drama’s title suggests, every character in the story has fought, and is fighting, their own worthlessness. Park Kyung-se (Oh Jung-se), who stubbornly insists on writing alone out of a petty temperament and inferiority complex that still views receiving help as a weak tool that mars his perfection; Go Hye-jin (Kang Mal-geum), head of Gobak Film, who combs every corner with eyes ablaze in hopes that even a penny of help might drop to cover rent and salaries; Hwang Jin-man (Park Hae-joon), who, after experiencing incompetence and collapse, spends each day in drink; top star Jang Mi-ran, who feels stifled by the methods of her mother, national actress Oh Jung-hee (Jang Mi-ran), who keeps putting her head before her heart with a daughter who understands with her heart first; and ‘The Eight,’ who do not want to admit they used Hwang Dong-man’s eccentricities as material for their own film yet feel a pang of guilt all of them are locked in fierce struggles with their respective deficiencies. Though they trace different life trajectories, they ultimately reflect all of us striving to prove our own value.
As Hwang Dong-man wishes, the work’s final destination is not to overcome worthlessness perfectly. Rather, it lies in accepting even that worthlessness as part of life and in the compassion and empathy that pity me and all of us alike. Thus, just as Hwang Dong-man declared with confidence, “I am exactly as unhappy and happy as you,” the process by which imperfect characters affirm one another’s pain and move forward is poised to become the highlight of the latter-half narrative. This is why there is anticipation over what searing aftertaste writer Park Hae-young will leave with viewers this time.
“Mojamussa” airs every Saturday at 10:40 p.m. and Sunday at 10:30 p.m. on JTBC.
