When Sunja (Yuh-jung Youn) confronts a new friend (Jun Kunimura) about dark secrets she’s dug up from his past, he reacts with the resignation of someone who’s long since come to terms with them. He does not act out in shock or denial. He offers explanations that are not quite excuses.
He accepts that she’s right that his history cannot be changed. But, he asks, “What are we supposed to do then? Spend the rest of our lives chained to it?” Sunja does not provide an answer, and neither does her series. Down to its very format, which cuts between two timelines, Apple TV+’s presents itself as a reflection on the impossibility of finding one.
Seeds planted years or decades or generations earlier have a way of shooting up at unexpected times, in unexpected ways. And as she did in the series’ breathtaking , creator Soo Hugh (adapting Min Jin Lee’s novel) harvests them for emotional truths whose bittersweetness lingers long after the end credits have rolled. The second season picks up with both halves of the story right where they left off.
In 1945, a 30something Sunja (Minha Kim) and her family are whisked away to wait out World War II in the relative safety of the Japanese countryside — thanks to the orchestrations of Koh Hansu (Lee Minho), Sunja’s shady former lover and the biological father of her eldest son, Noa. Meanwhile, in 1989, Sunja’s grandson Solomon (Jin Ha) plots his revenge against Abe (Yoshio Maki), the businessman he blames for tanking his caree.