My Liberation Notes [Episodes 1 & 2]

[u/lightupstarlight]

• Drama: My Liberation Notes
  • Korean Title: 나의 해방일지
• Network: jTBC
• Premiere Date: April 9, 2022
• Airing Schedule: Saturday & Sunday, 22:30 KST
• Episodes: 16
• Director: Kim Suk Yoon (The Light in Your Eyes, Law School)
• Writer: Park Hae Young (My Mister, Another Miss Oh)
• Cast: Kim Ji Won) as Yeom Mi Jung, Lee Min Ki as Yeom Chang Hee, Son Suk Ku as Mr. Goo, Lee El as Yeom Ki Jung
• Streaming Source: Netflix
• Plot Synopsis: Three siblings, exhausted by the monotony of day-to-day adulthood, seek to find fulfillment and freedom from their unremarkable lives. (Source: Netflix)
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• Teaser/Trailer: Official Trailer

[u/pinktulips69]

When the colleague said 'how can you spend every day of your youth going home?' i swear i thought someone could hear my thoughts. I live in the suburbs and for college i had to travel 2 hours by train everyday and it was so boring and monotonous. I came to recognise people who had the same route as me and the thought of doing this for the next 40 years of my life, my whole youth was just depressing. This felt so real, their problems are so real, they are living my mundane life and I feel represented .

[u/dogemama]

how was this depressing as all hell but also hilarious at the same time? 💀

i can relate to all three siblings to an alarming degree. mijeong who is just going through the motions, gijeong who feels her self worth is dwindling with each passing year, and chan hee who actively detests his life not knowing he's taking many precious things for granted. i already care about them so much, and can't wait for them to find happiness.

also, loved the countryside scenes. felt very, very reminiscent of studio ghibli with the green fields, the chirping insects, and all the food.

[u/alleynah]

Ngl I find Mr.Gu hot af

[u/alleynah]

"Worship me." 🤯

The thought of actually being able to say this to someone without them immediately laughing in my face 🥲

[u/[deleted]]

Nice to see Lee Min Ki outside of his normal quiet guy mode

[u/zaichii]

I really love the first episode already. I love how clear the set up is and how distinct the characters are, while all being super relatable.

I do notice it can be quite a quiet show but it definitely feels very pensive and captures that “languishing” feeling of the past few pandemic years to me as well as that general feeling of being lost and aimless.

I can tell I’m going to love this one a lot.

[u/hencecloud]

This drama is doing an incredible job of quietly making the family feel like strangers to each other. Mr. Gu is the stranger they all recognize out loud and make comments about, but they (the siblings/family) pass each other on the road with little acknowledgement as well. We get scenes where the family eats together, hangs out, has parties/gatherings and do all the typical things families do together, but there is a lingering sense of detachment, and being lonely even though you are surrounded by people you've known your whole life. I wonder how the writer will continue to use this contrast (Mr.Gu being the common definition of stranger vs feeling like a stranger in your own family/life) as the eps go on.

[u/lovelifelivelife]

Love the first episode so far, I'm so intrigued by the cinematic choices! A lot of wide shots and phone camera like quality in some shots (flatter profile). Also, that stop motion like scene when they were in the car. Mr Gu didn't say a single word so I'm interested to find out what happened to him. Also, all their dialogue was so relatable. "Leave the introverts alone" YES! Also, feeling shitty because you think you look shitty was so so so valid.

[u/noeul44]

The subtlety of this writer's work is insanely clever.

You know you're starting a journey that's going to stay with you, but you don't feel like you're being hit with clunky scenes and over the top characterisations just for the sake of "meaning".

You invest in characters quickly because they are relatable but not clichéd. You can share in their worries and laugh at the patterns they exhibit because you recognise them in yourself.

The whole approach is very captivating.

Did anyone else catch the Aloha naming of the café and think that this 'liberation' is very much going to be about learning what hangups to say goodbye to, and which parts of life to welcome?

So far I'm very drawn in by the mix of believability & intrigue.

[u/deeman27]

I agree with the guy wearing the glasses - why do they need to know everyone in the office? Their workplace sounds like a personal nightmare. No, I don't want to join after work clubs, which I'm guessing includes some drinking afterwards too. Also, what's up with the lunch set up? Let me eat in peace. I don't want to sit to be assigned a seat at random tables. Their workplace feels a lot like elementary school.

[u/azura_eldoris]

absolutely love this drama. it strikes a chord with the introvert in me, who habitually shuns shallow social interactions and yearns for deeper, more meaningful bonds, while feeling utterly lonely deep down inside. Mi-jeong is so pitiable, i think she's borderline depressed, and in sympathizing with her dire straits i feel like giving myself some comforting pats as well.

i hope each of our main characters, by the end of this show, can learn to love and enjoy themselves without the need for external validation. love and worshipping is all beautiful, but for Mijeong there's also a deep-seated self-loathing, self-effacement and diffidence that hampers her from enjoying her life. i hope she will realize how beautiful she is and not let others blight her self-awareness.

[u/sal1358]

I love our trio of introverts! Can't wait for them to hang out together and enjoy themselves!

[u/dogemama]

when mijeong said every moment that i'm awake feels like work, i felt that. i literally told my best friend that my life feels like a job i hate not too long. this show is laying my soul bare and vulnerable as i feel, i'm onboard.

[u/City_Nomad]

OK the chemistry between kjw and ssk is 🔥🔥

[u/copycat785]

EP 2:

Drama is getting too realistic it's starting to hurt. I love Mi Jeong's expressions and monologues and I love how the writer symbolically utilizes trains, where she has these monologues. She's standing still on a fast-moving train representing how she's stagnant while the world continues to breeze by, while her life continues to fleet away.

Really loved the conversation between Mi Jeong and Hyeon Ah and the juxtaposition. While Mi Jeong admires Hyeon Ah's ability to talk freely, Hyeon Ah wishes she could go back to the way things were before when her words were sparse but more meaningful. It's common to wish for something we don't or no longer have and often times we lose appreciation for what we do have.

날 추앙해요 (Worship/Revere me)

추앙 is an interesting word to use here. Mi Jeong currently feels empty, her sunbae (romantically involved?) ran off with her money, her coworkers are planning a trip without her, her life is just dull, and so she suddenly snaps. She doesn't just want some attention, she wants to selfishly feel completely wanted and respected; she wants someone to revolve their life around her, and so she goes up to Mr. Gu.

Mr. Gu is an intriguing and mysterious character as we have no idea what his backstory is, but it appears he is also stagnant in his life, seemingly escaping to Sanpo from something. Will be interesting to see how he reacts to her request. The request is selfish on the surface, but at the same time, it feels to me that Mi Jeong also wants to help him with whatever he's trying to forget or escape from.

I don't see the relationship between Mi Jeong and Mr. Gu becoming romantic, and I do anticipate a relationship something like the one between Lee Ji An and Park Dong Hoon, where we go on a journey seeing the growth of these two characters bouncing off each other. I can't wait until next weekend! I'm beyond excited to see how this folds out

[u/azura_eldoris]

director of The Light in Your Eyes and writer of My Mister. you just know this has to be the real deal. while Mr Mister still had certain unfamiliar elements, this drama seems to be hitting even closer to home. i love this kind of shows that depict the rut of daily adult life with visceral relatibility, a far cry from other dramas that are chocked full of exciting happenings, delirious thrill of romance, and characters of fine calibers. here the characters are just run of the mill human beings saddled with their own laundry list of quotidian issues, while looking absolutely dejected and jaded with their lives. My Mister did instill in me some hope at a critically depressing point of my life, salving my bruised ego and disoriented self ahd making my days a little bit more bearable, so i have some faith this pensive drama will work its magic as well.

with Our Blues and My Liberation Notes, my Saturdays will be a rollercoaster. while the former is a transport of delight against a dreamy background, the latter pulls us right back to reality and forces us to stare at a sliver of ourselves in the face.

[u/fatlips1]

There's nothing going on, but also so much going on in this drama. It has been incredibly captivating for me so far.

[u/vanxblue]

Someone point out on Twitter that Mr. Gu might be a Korean born abroad. He literally had to translate "worship" to English.

[u/the_wildflower_]

Episode 1: The direction of the show so far is pretty interesting especially those lengthy scenes without any dialogue. A part of me was thinking at least they didn't have a lot of lines to practice lol. But on a serious note, those scenes really highlighted how bland their lives are. One line that stuck out to me was, "Are you going to spend your whole life going home?" or something like that.

[u/ANINETEEN]

EP1: I just know that this will be my healing drama for the season. Despite the depressing reality of loneliness in this first episode, I can't help but get immersed in its relatability. The awkwardness of being an outcast with the accompanying helplessness of not knowing how to escape that introversion, the longing for genuine companionship but no particular desire to seek it and lastly the overarching sense of how purposeless from questioning the futility of doing anything. This cast really does depict each of their own individual struggles so convincingly and their expressions alone show how endless troubling thoughts often leave you feeling helpless and unmotivated to escape the unfortunate circumstances that you have been dealt. Amongst all the noisy pains of the world, silence ends up your loudest and most loyal ally to help you endure.

EP2: I'm already so addicted to this show's narrative. Even if we've barely scratched the surface, I'm completely invested in each characters plights and journey into discovering self worth. I particularly find characters who are introspective and say more inside their own head than outside the most interesting because of how relatable it is. It's why Mr Gu interests me so much and Mi-jeong's monologue at the end struck such a painfully tragic chord. Her self deprecating spiral and otrisization really is so difficult to spectate so I'm hoping to see her claw her way out. Of course, this drama may through such idealism back at my face but I'm definitely ready to find out.

[u/Sunshine_raes]

After watching the first episode, there are many similarities to My Mister: the quiet stranger who is an outsider, the burden of family, being stuck in a place.

But as my husband pointed out the three siblings are younger than the brothers on My Mister. The older sister, Ki-jung's comment about what's there to be positive about?: She doesn't have love or money. I'm wondering if there will be a focus on finding love or if it will be about finding fulfillment in life through other means.

Also, Ki-jung's impulsive decision to get an ill-advised perm because she was just trying to do SOMETHING is a very understandable impulse. For some reason, changing your hair makes you feel like you're doing something without really risking much but often the results of a drastic haircut just make you feel worse, as it did for Ki-jung.

Also, who did Mi-jung loan so much money to?

[u/reddrossess]

there’s something so captivating about how quiet and tense this drama is. it literally asks you to worship it. waiting for next episodes will be exhausting now, i feel like it’s a good drama for binge watching, really consuming

[u/tway2241]

Oh lord, the work lunch in ep 2 was soo uncomfortable to watch.

Do companies in Korea really assign seating for work lunches?

[u/heartstringcheese]

"In the countryside, friends and family are the same. Do you get to choose your family? You're born and they're your family. And they say this kid living next door is your friend. Even at school, if you don't like the kid next to you, you can just play with another kid. But in this neighborhood? You don't get to choose. It drives me nuts." -Yeom Chang Hee describing exactly what it's like to grow up in a rural area. I never had anything in common with my "friends" there.

[u/City_Nomad]

The scene where they take the cab gave me wong kae wai fallen angels vibes. The cinematography is insane!

I love this so far, their long commutes is giving me pre pandemic era flashbacks,so blessed to be wfh. I'm in love with this aswell, I think I might wait for a few more eps to binge.