Mr. Plankton (2024)

This series will trick your emotions.

I finished watching this series a few hours ago. It was a strange show. From the very first episode, I knew with all my heart that I loved it and wanted to keep watching, but I couldn't quite grasp why. Even after it ended, I was unsure of the feelings I was experiencing. At first, I thought it might have been better if Hae-jo's death had been portrayed differently, or at least if the series had continued for a few more minutes after his passing. I didn’t have any strong feelings about the ending, but once it was over, the thought of it lingered in my mind.

The series was filled with various emotions. However, its unparalleled humor constantly made me laugh. I didn’t shed a single tear for this series, nor did I choke up; I just laughed. Yet beneath my laughter, something squeezed my heart and made it hard to breathe. It felt as if the entire series mirrored Miju's laughter—like the scene where, after joking about the label on the mushroom packaging, she hid her immense sadness behind her chuckles. Now, I am no longer hesitant about this series because I know exactly what I witnessed. This series was liberation itself. It was growth itself. It began with the pain and bitter fate of all the characters—pains that remained and were never miraculously resolved. Yet, despite all that pain and bitterness, it concluded with the sweet fate of the characters.

It seemed that everyone had something within them that they were desperately trying to hide. One person concealed their eyes behind dark glasses, another buried their cigarette in the ground. One hid their courage, another their fear, and yet another their love.

Jang-na hid his pain behind his dark glasses, believing they kept his suffering hidden from others, unaware that those glasses not only concealed his from the world but also limited his own vision. In the darkness, those shades brought his down even more and prevented her from seeing others clearly.

Oh-young buried the cigarette that reminded her of her pain in the ground, thinking she no longer needed it, unaware that nothing had changed for her. The only thing that had changed was what she held in her hand to ease her suffering. She had replaced the cigarette with her son and instead of burning tobacco, she held him in her hands and set her on fire.

Oh-young hid his courage because he thought he had to behave like an obedient dog to stay safe, oblivious to the fact that he was a roaring tiger merely playing the role of a dog.

Jae-mi concealed her fears and shortcomings. She feared being alone, not being accepted, not being loved, and being abandoned. She longed to be deeply loved by someone but didn't think she was enough for that love. She believed that marrying into a prominent family would hide her loneliness and lack of family; becoming a mother would erase her own motherlessness; and if anyone knew she couldn't become a mother or that she sought marriage solely for family reasons, she would be rejected and left alone without family once again. Unbeknownst to her, others loved her despite all her limitations and shortcomings, simply for who she was.

And Hae-jo hid his love and desires from others because he feared that by loving them and keeping those he cared for close, he would hurt them. With all his heart, he wanted to return to Jae-mi and his father. He carried their beautiful memories with him but didn’t dare run towards them. Perhaps he thought that his desires might pull them away from their own wishes or make life bitter for them.

And then, when all the hidden truths were revealed, everything became more beautiful and easier. It became possible to breathe, to understand and be understood; to give others the chance to come forward and embrace them while saying this wasn’t what they wanted; to run towards what they desired; to be liberated; and to love themselves and others even more.
It seemed that all the characters were plankton—small yet valuable. Each one made another's life beautiful and meaningful. Now I think this ending was the best conclusion this series could have had; it didn’t need anything else to be complete. This series was, in every sense of the word, life itself, which concluded with a beautiful death—a death that perhaps, as Hae-jo said, wasn’t beautiful on its own; it was life that made death beautiful.
Beyond the beautiful themes of the series, what truly captivated me was the believable and stunning performance of the actors, especially Woo Do-hwan, who truly shone. The first role I saw him in was as Sun-ho in "My Country: The New Age." In that series, it felt like Woo Do-hwan didn’t just play a role; he created a real character named Sun-ho. You couldn’t trace Sun-ho in Woo Do-hwan or any of his other roles. He was solely Sun-ho, a young man who lived beautifully at a certain point in history and ultimately concluded that character with his death in the same series. After that, I saw Woo Do-hwan in other roles, and yes, his acting prowess was exceptional, but it seemed that his performances in no other series satisfied me in the same way that the name Sun-ho did. He no longer created characters; he merely portrayed them. The essence of Woo Do-hwan and the character did not fully overlap; at times, I would see only Woo Do-hwan, at other moments just the character he was playing, and then there were instances of a new persona that merged both. Thus, the intended character was created and dissolved in an unstable manner. But in the series Mr. Plankton, Do Hwan once again acted incomparably and this time he created another wonderful character named Hae Joo. This time, like the role of Seon Ho, there was nothing more or less than Hae Joo. Neither the character of Woo Do Hwan rode the role he was playing nor the role rode Woo Do Hwan. Neither surpassed the other. They were completely intertwined and one, and this time, Hae Joo's character ended with his death in this series. It was as if Hae Joo was really a young man who lived somewhere in the real world and with his death, his life's diary ended and only his lessons and happy memories remained. Hae Joo who perhaps reminded me of many (like Nam Seon Ho in the series My Country, Shin Joon Young in the series Reckless Love, Gu Dong Ma in the series Mr. Sunshine, etc.) but was not an imitation of any of them. He was just Hae Joo and that was it.

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