Chicago Typewriter: Episode 6

by gummimochi

Who knew that spooks and haunts could be so funny? Revelations come tumbling out this hour as Se-joo faces the world that doesn’t see his own reality. It seems the only way to make sense of what’s going on in the present is by learning more about the past, where only Yoo can make the world seem all right and can make the darkness seem bright.

 
EPISODE 6 RECAP

Jin-oh reveals that he is in fact, a ghost that has resided in the antique typewriter for over eighty years. Now the pieces fall in place in Se-joo’s head—every word from Jin-oh’s mouth and every interaction with him pointed to this very fact. Shocked, Se-joo collapses.

Se-joo is roused awake by the sound of Jin-oh’s voice, and he screams when he opens his eyes to see Jin-oh’s face. Any attempt to run away is foiled by Jin-oh, who can easily walk through walls, hoping to have a civil conversation with him. Se-joo screams endlessly instead.

When Se-joo eventually calms down enough to talk to Jin-oh, he admits he doesn’t know what caused Se-joo to start seeing his physical manifestation. He thought their first encounter was a fluke, but then after their second encounter, he realized that Se-joo can definitely see him.

He feels awkward when Se-joo speaks to him in a mix of jondae and banmal, and assuaging his fears that seeing him is a bad omen. He doesn’t quite know what it means for Se-joo to see him (oh?) and confirms that Se-joo is the only one who can see him. He involuntarily defends himself when Se-joo moves his pillow, then remembers that there’s one other person who can see him.

Cut to: Bang-jin, dictating her latest story to her typist, Seol, who sighs at the illogical tale of lovers being reincarnated as horses. She prays to the heavens to help her become a great writer, and her mother immediately scolds her for having such useless aspirations like becoming a drama screenwriter.

Bang-jin’s mother raises a broom against her when Bang-jin greets a visitor by the gate. It’s a teenage ghost whom only Bang-jin can see, and she leaves their guest and her mother alone to chat.

Back at the house, Jin-oh thinks they should find out why Se-joo is able to see him, though the latter thinks he has a better chance of moving on into the afterlife. He asks for Se-joo’s help on becoming visible, which prompts Se-joo to ask if Jin-oh plans on using bodily possession.

Jin-oh laughs, saying that he can only possess animals for now (which would explain the stray dog). Still afraid, Se-joo asks what Jin-oh plans on doing with a body—become a celebrity? Jin-oh sheepishly replies, “I want to tell Jeon Seol how I feel about her. I told you that I fell in love at first sight.” Awww.

Seol highlights a passage from a book entitled “Perhaps, The Words I Wish To Hear Most” by Jung Hee-jae. As she rewatches Se-joo’s press conference, she narrates, “I now know, you must endure things you cannot endure, be worn out by the things you cannot accept, that there are nights when your eyes are brimming with tears. And daresay I know… what you’ve dreamt of, and what you’ve lost. ”

She immediately heads over to Riccardo where Dae-han fixes her up a fancy packed meal he calls “O Sole Mio” (Oh, My Sun!). He pouts hearing that this food is for another man, namely the one who “bowed his head to the nation for my sake” aka Se-joo.

Jin-oh worries about all the suitors in Seol’s life, though his first step is making himself known to her. Se-joo asks if he’s tried before, and Jin-oh says he hasn’t mustered up the courage and he fears that he’ll be driven to despair if he doesn’t succeed.

He wonders if Se-joo likes Seol too, and Se-joo snaps back, “Are you nuts? There are just two things I don’t need in my life. A ghostwriter and a woman.” Jin-oh has made the list tonight, and he’s told to leave before Se-joo calls an exorcist. Aww, Jin-oh looks like he’s about to cry.

Just then the doorbell rings. Jin-oh: “Is that the exorcist?” No, it’s Seol, and he cheerily encourages Se-joo to let her in. Before Se-joo can get two words in, the gate opens and Jin-oh hides behind a wall. LOL.

Realizing that it was Jin-oh who’d been opening doors for Seol, Se-joo screeeeams at him for doing just that… just as Seol arrives at the front door. Suddenly, Jin-oh is gone and Se-joo looks around, only to find him waving his hand in front of Seol’s face. “What are you doing?!” Se-joo hollers.

Taken aback, Seol asks why he’s so angry. Jin-oh guesses that Seol can’t see him and walks away, defeated. Awww. Se-joo asks why she’s here so late at a man’s house, but Seol doesn’t see him as a man, and he’s offended when she says he transcends gender in her eyes.

Jin-oh zooms back when Seol offers up the packed meal, and Se-joo growls at him to “get lost.” She hears the tail end of that sentence, though, and Se-joo invites her inside.

Jin-oh sits next to Seol while Se-joo is touched by the scrumptious-looking food, asking if she’s here to comfort him. She’s here to thank him as well because the threatening calls and emails have stopped thanks to his announcement. Se-joo can barely hide his smile and plays it cool.

She apologizes for being unaware that Se-joo held an important press conference after spending the afternoon with her that day. She thanks him for calling her by name and finally recognizing her as his first fan, and he tells her to stop with the accolades.

Saying she has something to share with him, Seol takes out her book. Jin-oh looks at his angel with heart eyes, and Se-joo responds, irritated: “Won’t you shut up?” Seol gapes at him. Lololol.

Hurt, she softly tells him to read the passage on his own. She’s worried when he says he’s pretty tired, and when Jin-oh asks if he’s sending Seol away, he flips his lid: “What does it matter to you?! Get lost! Why are you being impertinent and butting in?!” Oh, this is never gonna get old.

Seol rises from her seat, apologizes profusely, and turns to leave. Se-joo and Jin-oh reach out simultaneously… and Jin-oh accidentally rips her bag. She storms out and Se-joo catches up to her, twirling her around to get her attention.

He pauses upon seeing her tear-stained face, however, and Seol says that she understood that things haven’t been easy for him lately and even made excuses for his behavior. But she’s human too, and there’s only so much she can take. Believing that she liked his writing talents, not him as a person, Seol apologizes again and leaves.

Se-joo storms back inside and yells at Jin-oh to show himself. But Jin-oh is nowhere to be found, and Se-joo gets an idea when he spots the typewriter. The eyes of the Eugene O’Neill portrait follow him.

Se-joo grabs the typewriter and threatens to smash it… then nearly crumbles from its weight. HA. So he sets it down on his desk, then looks at the Eugene O’Neill portrait, whose eyes move whenever Se-joo isn’t looking.

Se-joo decides to catch the eyes in the act and whips around to looks at it, but now it wears a dark expression. Se-joo passes out in shock.

He wakes up with a jolt the next morning, relieved to find his room ghost-free. But then he’s greeted by his house staff, who vows to stay with him no matter what. Aw. Ji-seok comes bursting in the next moment, praising him for pulling off such a fantastic performance that won sympathy points with the internet.

Ji-seok thinks they’re ready for the future, only to choke on his coffee when Se-joo asks him to discontinue the serial novel. Se-joo says he meant every word in his press statement and plans to give up writing. He refuses to continue writing a series he never wrote, which prompts Ji-seok to ask who was writing Chicago Typewriter then.

Se-joo motions Ji-seok toward him and whispers, “A ghostwriter. But that ghostwriter… is an actual ghost.” Ji-seok nods, then zips out of the room to call Se-joo’s psychiatrist.

Meanwhile, Se-joo glares at the Eugene O’Neill portrait and orders Jin-oh to come out. Then he removes the portrait from the wall and starts shaking it. Seeing this, Ji-seok cries.

Se-joo goes to see his psychiatrist and figures proper rest will resolve his burnout syndrome symptoms. His shrink asks if he’s still suffering from fear of abandonment, explaining that those who do typically tend to cut off ties with people before they get too close. He wonders if Se-joo’s claims of a ghostwriter are tied to that, and asks if Se-joo still suffers from nightmares.

Fifteen years ago. On a rainy day, Writer Baek sought out young Se-joo living alone in a rooftop apartment. Calling himself his late father’s friend, he invited Se-joo to come live with him.

Tae-min was friendly when Se-joo moved in, and Tae-min’s mother laid out some ground rules: He must be a ghost-like presence that must never make himself known because he was an embarrassment to this household.

Se-joo is still bothered by that memory and looks up to see Jin-oh as his shrink asks if he still sees ghosts. Hold up—still? Staring at Jin-oh, he lies, “No, I don’t see them.”

Jin-oh reappears next to Se-joo in his car, though the latter tries to convince himself that he’s dreaming. “Can’t we keep writing the novel together?” Jin-oh ventures. “I’m a ghost and nobody knows who I am—”

Se-joo pulls to the side of the road and screams in frustration. He thought that it’d be easier coming clean, but no one believes in Jin-oh’s existence. He can’t even atone for his wrongs, though Jin-oh believes that Se-joo has done nothing wrong because “I didn’t write that novel… because you wrote it yourself, eighty years ago.”

Jin-oh says he and Se-joo were friends in their past lives and were both writers, which Se-joo finds hard to believe. He says that novel was never finished, but that novel was the story of their lives and he desperately wants to see its ending. Se-joo screams at him to get out, and finds Jin-oh gone.

Se-joo returns home to find his secretary hanging up the Eugene O’Neill portrait, which is now sporting sunglasses. He demands to be left alone, promising her that he won’t do anything dangerous, and sees the book Seol left behind.

Seol is picked to buy lunch for the entire staff when Tae-min runs in with his injured cat. His look of concern drops once Kitty Seol is rushed inside. He thanks the vets upon hearing that the surgery was successful and treats everyone to lunch.

He asks if Seol is free after work and brings her to his workspace since they’ll be working together. When Seol is confused by the news, he realizes that she was too tipsy to remember that night, and Seol asks if she agreed to be his assistant because she was sure she passed on that opportunity.

He fixes her a drink and confirms that she did reject his offer that night. So he brought her out here to ask her again, and Seol replies that she’s working at the animal clinic. Tae-min knows that it’s only on a part-time basis, and reminds her that he needed a reference, not a ghostwriter. Moreover, she’s a bookworm.

She mulls over the offer before accepting the offer. They shake on it, and she gasps when he presents her with a signed copy of Fate with a personalized message.

At home, Se-joo reads another highlighted portion from Seol’s book: “I place my hand on your forehead. You, have lived diligently. Please place a hand on my forehead too. The moment one person leaves their fingerprints on another forehead and comforts him, all the frivolous things fall by the wayside, and the silence we never took advantage of while we were engulfed with desire will embrace us.”

We see Se-joo take a walk and stop in front of storefront window as we hear the rest: “You’ve, worked hard, to live, to survive, you’ve worked hard to get this far. I pray that the happiest moments of your life are yet to come.”

He calls his secretary to order the bag from him before deciding to do it himself. He then heads to the animal clinic hoping to meet Seol, and sees her return with Tae-min. He hides and overhears her worries about being Tae-min’s assistant.

But then Seol’s face brightens to see the stray dog in front of the clinic. Hee, is this Jin-oh? Seol feeds the dog inside, and when Tae-min says this one seems to like her, she remarks that she’s always been more popular with animals than humans.

This dog is responsible for getting her in touch with Se-joo, much like the animals did in the tale of Gyeon-woo and Jik-nyeo (commonly known as Chilseok). She decides to name the dog Gyeon-woo, though finds it a shame that he’s a Sapsaree, a breed believed to ward off ghosts and evil spirits.

Hearing that Gyeon-woo doesn’t have a home, Tae-min offers to take care of him. Say no, Seol! But she doesn’t know that he’s a pet abuser who belongs in the seventh circle of hell and entrusts him with the dog.

Se-joo confronts Tae-min outside, sneering that he must be too busy hanging out with Seol and taking abandoned animals to write. Tae-min explains that his cat is a patient here, and refers to Gyeon-woo as a present given to him by Seol.

Both men can tell that Seol is someone quite special to the other, and hearing that Tae-min has read up on his scandal with Seol, Se-joo wonders why he’s so interested in him. He amends that statement, “You’re probably interested in what’s mine.”

Se-joo knows that Tae-min would even go so far as to steal if he wanted to. He puts an end to this conversation, but Tae-min isn’t finished: “Haven’t you ever thought that it was also your fault for letting me steal [it] from you?”

“Because losing something… means you failed to protect [it]. You have no right to something you couldn’t protect. It’s no different than being abandoned.” Tae-min grits out. That’s why Se-joo has decided to never let anyone steal what’s his from now on. Tae-min asks, “Like what?” Se-joo: “Whatever it may be.”

Tae-min asks if that includes Seol and can see that topic shakes Se-joo’s resolve. As payback, Se-joo takes Gyeon-woo with him.

Se-joo is mulling over Tae-min’s words on the walk home when he stops in his tracks at the sound of Jin-oh’s voice. And then Gyeon-woo/Jin-oh shakes his coat to get his attention.

Reminding him that he can possess animals, Se-joo realizes that it was Jin-oh was the one who entered his home, swallowed the USB drive, and jumped into Seol’s arms. Pffft, then we see Jin-oh’s ghost form asking why Se-joo left out the part of him where he saved Seol when she was accused of being a stalker.

Se-joo tells him to come out so they can talk, but Gyeon-woo/Jin-oh says it’ll probably look even weirder for him to be talking to a dog in the street. Se-joo grabs him by the jaw, threatening to punch him and raises a fist when a voice calls out behind him.

It’s Seol, who promptly takes the leash from him. She asks if he wants to be reported to the authorities while Se-joo defensively says that what she sees isn’t everything. She asks why he “interfered,” which he takes to mean getting in the way between her and Tae-min.

She claims Se-joo will simply neglect this dog and eventually abandon it, because he doesn’t love anything other than himself. Hurt, Se-joo counters, “Says who? Who says I’m like that?”

She says everything about him screams that, from his actions to his words and his fickle nature. When Gyeon-woo/Jin-oh pipes up, Se-joo orders him to be quiet, but that’s the last straw for Seol, who decides that she cannot be his fan anymore.

She leads Gyeon-woo/Jin-oh away, though the latter keeps looking back at Se-joo. Jin-oh tries apologizing in person when Se-joo returns home, but Se-joo has none of it. He announces that he’ll be selling this mansion and sending the typewriter back to Chicago.

He turns around only to find himself face to face with Jin-oh again. When asked if he plans on letting Tae-min steal everything in his life from his writing to his relationship with Seol, he orders Jin-oh not to meddle in his life.

“Don’t you want to know why I sent myself to you?” Jin-oh asks. Se-joo isn’t the least bit curious, though he surmises that Jin-oh probably wanted to publish a novel under another writer’s name. Jin-oh cries, “I wanted to write a novel with you!”

He’s unable to write that novel himself—furthermore, the original work belongs to Se-joo, and most importantly: “And I… don’t recall the final moments of my past life.” OH.

Se-joo scoffs at that, then asks if he was supposed to feel sad for him. When Jin-oh doesn’t leave, Se-joo marches into his office, grabs the typewriter, and raises it above his head… when he hears the voice of Jin-oh’s past self asking, “Is this the Korean typewriter that just came out?”

We flash back to the 1930s where Jin-oh and Hwi-young admire the typewriter in a display window. Hwi-young sighs that only the rich can afford such a luxury at present, and Jin-oh says while they can’t afford two… he can probably get one for his buddy.

Taking out his pen, Hwi-young says he’s satisfied with this writing tool when it comes to changing the world. He eventually does end up with the typewriter of course, which Jin-oh boasts as custom-made. Jin-oh tells Soo-hyun that this next project is something that Hwi-young has been wanting to write.

Soo-hyun sends him a hopeful look, but already knowing what she wants, Jin-oh refuses. “Traitor,” she mutters before sneaking up to Hwi-young and stealing his freshly typed pages from him.

Jin-oh gets called a traitor again when he stops Hwi-young from going after her, laughing that this is the power of love. Meanwhile, Soo-hyun reads the pages intently.

The club is abuzz that night while Hwi-young paces back and forth waiting for his pages to be returned to him, along with Soo-hyun’s criticism. Suddenly, Soo-hyun rings the bell to the get the crowd’s attention and gets up on stage. Both Hwi-young and Jin-oh grow nervous when she speaks on how they’re in the midst of a dark era in Joseon.

“But I saw a dim ray of light in the darkness that surrounds us,” Soo-hyun announces. “I’ve witnessed the birth of a phenomenal writer that will be like a torch that drives away the darkness. I’d like to share the joy of that discovery with you all.” She then raises her glass in the air: “Here’s to the bright star of tomorrow, writer Seo Hwi-young!”

The crowd gives him a round of applause, and Soo-hyun declares that drinks will be on the house tonight. She threatens to open a bottle of champagne in front of the boys, who scurry away from her. She sprays the champagne at them as we fade back to the present.

“Will you believe what I have to say now?” Jin-oh asks. He pleads with Se-joo to finish that novel because it’s the only way for him to figure out how he died and why he was trapped inside that typewriter.

Se-joo has a question of his own: “In your past life… was Jeon Seol a part of it?” Jin-oh nods and replies, “Her name was Ryu Soo-hyun. She was our comrade… and lover.”

 
COMMENTS

Argh! How are we supposed to make logical leaps in character relationships when Korean is a language where pronouns aren’t essential to make a sentence grammatically correct? Because as it stands now, that last line reads as if Soo-hyun could’ve been romantically involved with both of them. Not to say I would’ve blamed her one bit, but I’m thinking that the absence of an additional pronoun is a deliberate choice to keep us in the dark.

I wish I could assume that the romantic ties in the past are similar to the setup in the present (wherein Jin-oh loves Seol who admired Se-joo who likes her but doesn’t know it yet), but there’s always the possibility that Jin-oh and Soo-hyun did become an item in the 1930s. We know that Soo-hyun had a deep admiration for Hwi-young’s writing talent, and that the trio shared a deep bond, but we have no idea which of these friendships turned into romance, if ever. And as much as I love this band of independent fighters and that Past Jin-oh operates Carpe Diem, I do have so many questions when it comes to our ghost writer.

He’s definitely the spirit of the typewriter whose fate is inexplicably tied to the machine. Even if we don’t have all the details surrounding his death yet, Jin-oh’s connection to it makes sense if only because he was the one who bought it for Hwi-young. I’m sure it’s no coincidence that his friends jokingly called him a “traitor” to his face in their past lives, especially when Seol is the one who believes she betrayed the country and Se-joo is currently believed to have saved it. But what if everything we’ve been told about them is a red herring or that these teasing insertions about Jin-oh are also a distraction method? Furthermore, Jin-oh can’t remember the circumstances of his death and why Se-joo is able to see him, but he knows that Hwi-young’s writing needs to be seen to completion. Does he believe that completing this novel will actually set him free?

Still, I can’t imagine Jin-oh being an evil character when his ghostly behavior serves to benefit Se-joo’s career. I’m actually impressed that he recalls so much of Hwi-young’s work eighty years after the fact, and thought it was sweet that he earnestly wants to be visible to Seol so he can tell her how he feels. It worries him that Seol has so many people in love with her, though I can’t really tell if it bothers Jin-oh if Se-joo is starting to harbor feelings for her too.

In any case, it’s been a great pair of episodes this week, one that has made me laugh and cry and yearn for more. That’s a great position to be in when we have so much ground to cover. Have a treat, Chicago Typewriter.

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