After gunning it last week , Pachinko took its foot off the pedal for “Chapter Fourteen.” Almost ten minutes shorter than “Thirteen,” the episode feels like an interlude –– some new information is revealed, but it’s done slowly, so that the main emotional beats of the chapter remain more or less the same throughout its run time. Perhaps for the first time this season, the events in both timelines are evenly paced: Solomon’s story moves along at the same clip as Sunja and her family’s.
I’m afraid I’m losing the thread on Solomon’s Abe-san plotline, which is getting stretched pretty thin across the season. Solomon’s thirst for revenge is compelling, particularly if we think of it as a reaction, however conscious, against his grandfather Isak’s ethos of mercy. Where Isak was all grace, Hansu was aggression, and the show suggests that one of these approaches is more durable than the other and that cynicism is a reliable companion to survival.
All that said, this stuff about the loan and Abe and the Korean landowner –– which is the show’s own stipulation; Solomon doesn’t get nearly as much air time in the novel –– is getting convoluted. Why does Naomi suddenly have so much power at Shiffley’s when Solomon once got through to her by pointing out she would never rise to the top of the firm? What incentive would the firm have to call in the loan and lose Abe’s business? Why is Tom willing to further damage his reputation for Solomon, whom h.