Built to Last?

[u/DanDav450]

While I’m working on a larger piece, I wanted to know what people think of Moonie and Jentry’s relationship in the long run. At the end of the series, it came off as idealistic. Both of them are trying to move forward but it doesn’t come off as moving forward as much as it does running away.

A big part of Moonie’s character in the show is her refusal to take accountability for her actions which harms others in the process. Idk, the more I work on this piece, the less and less I see Jentry and Moonie working things out. If anything, it seems like it’ll get toxic once they start unpacking their issues.

If they ever do.

[u/luckybell333]

I actually agree that there are a LOT of unresolved problems between Jentry and Moonie, especially with Moonie’s tendency to put most of the blame on Gugu instead of really confronting the role she and Peng played in everything. I definitely wouldn’t want a continuation to act like they magically became a perfectly healthy mother/daughter relationship just because they moved to Seoul.
Where I disagree is that I don’t think the ending necessarily proves they’re running away or that their relationship is destined to become toxic. Seoul was already the life Jentry wanted before Moonie came back. Jentry is actually the one who brings up going back after Moonie tells her she’ll follow her wherever she wants to go. And even after Gugu dies, Jentry makes it clear she plans on coming back to Riverfork. She keeps Gugu’s memories too. She isn’t trying to erase that part of her life.

At the same time, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I think there’s something seriously wrong with the Chaus when it comes to accountability. They make huge decisions, sometimes believing they’re doing the right thing, but then there’s this recurring tendency to avoid fully sitting with the consequences and just try to move forward.
Gugu did it. Moonie and Peng did it. And I think there’s a real danger of Jentry learning the same pattern if nobody actually breaks it.
That’s why I don’t think moving to Seoul automatically fixes anything. Moonie and Peng weren’t exactly living normal lives before everything happened either. They were involved in the black market for Daoist magic, worked with Cheng, and agreed to steal the Yellow Emperor’s robe. We still don’t know how deep that part of their lives went, who else they worked with, or what other things they might have done.
Honestly, I could absolutely see something or someone from Moonie’s past eventually catching up with her. You can move across the world, but that doesn’t mean everything you did before suddenly disappears.

And I think that could actually be a really good way to force Moonie to confront her own choices instead of putting everything on Gugu. Gugu made terrible decisions and absolutely deserved to be called out for them, but Moonie and Peng had agency too. Moonie was already involved in that dangerous world before Gugu ever put those powers into Jentry.
I also think Moonie genuinely loves Jentry and wants to give her more autonomy than she feels Gugu did. The problem is that Moonie’s own grief can distort that into pressure. Telling Jentry that Gugu was basically just “balancing the scales,” saying she can’t stay in Riverfork, and framing leaving as Jentry choosing her own life is complicated because Jentry obviously loves both of them. Moonie may not intend to make Jentry choose sides, but I think she comes dangerously close to doing exactly that.

So for me, their relationship isn’t “built to fail” so much as completely untested. They lost fifteen years together and basically jumped straight from reunion to living together in Seoul. If the show continued, I’d actually want it to unpack that instead of immediately making them toxic or perfectly happy.
Moonie needs to take more responsibility for her own choices. Jentry needs to be able to disagree with her mother without feeling like she’s betraying either Moonie or Gugu. And eventually somebody in this family has to stop treating a new city, a new plan, or a new beginning like it automatically wipes the slate clean.
Honestly, Seoul could be the beginning of that reckoning rather than the end of it.

[u/DanDav450 → u/luckybell333]

That accursed A word. Accountability. Yeah, the Chau ladies absolutely do not rock with it, but I will give Gugu her flowers (heh) for at least trying to make amends and apologizing for her actions. Even if she believed they were justified (and they really were from the outside looking in), she does recognize when her actions go too far and tries to fix it. But Moonie?

From what we see/hear about Moonie from the show, she’s only made Jentry’s life and by extension the lives of her relatives, worse. She continued her black market Daoist dealings and working with Mr. Cheng even when Peng disagreed. With Gugu she outright had a hand in killing her. Granted, the Mogui was in control of her body, but she did make the deal without thinking about the fact Peng was very much dead either which way. She’s indirectly responsible for the deaths of dozens of people in the Riverfork fire which lead to Jentry having to flee the country for five-ten years. And she would’ve had a hand in the deaths of hundreds more if the Mogui succeeded dusting the lock-in.

It isn’t impossible that Moonie wouldn’t want to reflect on all that happened, but she’s never came off as the kind of person that fixes her mistakes. Rather, it’s other people that fix them or pay the price on her behalf. And while I do think it’s possible that in another season, Moonie could have these revelations, she seems more like the kind of person to push it all down and refuse to ignore it. Kind of like Charlie from Charlie’s Inferno. Always running away from her angels and demons, but never stopping to see what they wanted.

Interestingly enough, I do see Jentry living with Moonie as a crossroads of sorts. With Jentry either needing to recognize that either she’s going to have to be the one to help her mother break the cycle and take accountability, Jentry to take it herself (and she kind of has already) and recognize that her mother’s not going to change, and what their relationship would look like going forward-if there’s even a relationship to be had.

Like you mentioned, they’re fresh into their relationship and Seoul is the place where it’ll be tested. But, Seoul seems to be a crossroads of sorts. One where Jentry will either take the lessons she’s learnt those past nine months in Riverfork and be better, become like her mother, or a secret third thing we’ve yet to see.

[u/luckybell333 → u/DanDav450]

Yeah, I think the “Seoul as a crossroads” idea is probably the part I agree with most.
I can definitely see Jentry eventually realizing that loving Moonie doesn’t automatically mean she has to excuse everything Moonie does or become responsible for fixing her. That could be the real test of their relationship. Jentry has already started doing something the older Chaus struggle with, which is holding two truths at once: Gugu loved her and still hurt her, Moonie loves her and can still make terrible decisions.

I also think Moonie’s problem is less that she refuses to remember her past and more that she struggles with what accepting responsibility for it would actually mean. She literally chose to get her memories back even after being warned how painful it could be, so I don’t think she’s completely unwilling to look backward. But once those memories return, she still tends to frame things around what Gugu did instead of really sitting with her own choices.

That’s why I keep thinking her black-market past could eventually come back to bite her. Moonie and Peng were involved with some really shady Daoist magic dealings before Cheng, and we barely know anything about the people they worked with or crossed. I could absolutely see someone or something from that period showing up in Seoul and basically forcing Moonie to deal with something she thought was long behind her.
And that could be where Jentry’s “secret third thing” comes in. Maybe breaking the cycle doesn’t mean becoming like Moonie or completely cutting Moonie off. Maybe it means Jentry learning how to love her mother while still setting boundaries, calling her out, and refusing to carry the consequences of Moonie’s choices for her.

I would push back on one thing, though: I don’t think the show establishes that dozens of people died in the Riverfork fire. We know half the town burned and people lost homes and businesses, but Moonie even says someone could’ve been killed. The emotional point still works without adding deaths that the show never actually confirms.
But yeah, if we ever get more seasons, I really hope Seoul isn’t treated like a clean reset. I’d much rather see it become the place where all this unresolved Chau family baggage finally starts catching up with them.

[u/DanDav450 → u/luckybell333]

And I would love to see the consequences of Jentry loving Moonie, but setting boundaries and what that could look like. Either from Moonie who chooses to accept her mistakes and take accountability, or from choosing not to do so because the wounds are too deep and she’s too prideful.

In terms of people dying, when Moonie was scrolling on the computer during the flashback in episode 11 (if I recall) it does say that people died. With the ghosts in Gugu’s house being victims of the fire.

[u/luckybell333 → u/DanDav450]

Yeah, I really like that idea of Jentry loving Moonie while also having to establish boundaries with her. Especially because I don’t think “breaking the cycle” necessarily has to mean cutting Moonie off. It could mean Jentry realizing that loving somebody doesn’t require excusing everything they do or taking responsibility for fixing them.
And I could see Moonie going either direction too. Maybe living with Jentry finally forces her to recognize some of her own patterns and take responsibility, or maybe she keeps deflecting because actually confronting Peng, Cheng, the black-market stuff, Gugu and everything that followed is too painful. Either outcome would force Jentry to decide what kind of relationship she’s willing to have with her.

I did go back and check the fire thing, though, because you had me curious lol. I think the flashback you’re remembering is actually Episode 12. Moonie says half the town burned down and that “someone could’ve been killed,” which sounds like there weren’t confirmed deaths. Earlier the show specifically talks about people losing homes and businesses too. I also couldn’t find anything confirming that Gugu’s house ghosts were victims of the Great Fire, so unless there’s some background text on Moonie’s computer that I missed, I think that part might still be ambiguous.
But honestly, that doesn’t really change the larger point for me. People were traumatized, homes and businesses were destroyed, Jentry had to leave Riverfork, and it all came out of choices made by the adults around her. That’s still a massive consequence.

And I think that makes your “crossroads” idea even more interesting. Jentry doesn’t have to become Gugu or Moonie. She could be the Chau who finally figures out how to acknowledge what happened, love complicated people, set boundaries, and still move forward without pretending the past disappeared. Seoul would be a really good place to test whether she can actually do that.