Last episode is here!

To be honest, I kinda dragged my feet on this one, not just because episode recaps take much more time than anything else, but because I didn’t want to face the blankness of having nothing to watch for the immediate future (and don’tcha know, avoidance always solves problems!). Plus, I feel that final episodes deserve a little more time and effort to give (good) series their proper send-offs. (Bad series can just suck it.)

SONG OF THE DAY

Oldfish – “Way to Home.” I LOVE Oldfish. [ zShare download ]

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Read the rest of Mixed-up Investigative Agency: Case 16 (Final) (2,966 words)

© javabeans for Dramabeans, 2007. | Permalink | 27 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: episode recaps, Lee Eun-sung, Lee Min-ki, Mixed-up Investigative Agency, Ryu Seung-soo, stuff I dig, Yeh Ji-won

What an excellent episode. By far the best to date. Episode 15 had everything — adventure, mystery, suspense, emotion, depth, and yet another well-done cliffhanger ending.

In fact, it rather felt like a mini-movie more than an episode of television because of the way it skillfully brought the tension to a head; and yet, there were still those trademark Mixed-up small moments of goofiness and wit. It wasn’t till the episode finished that I realized I’d spent the hour all tensed up in anxiety. With just one more episode to go, do our fearless friends finally find the treasure??!?

SONG OF THE DAY

Rumble Fish – “그곳으로” (To That Place) [ zShare download ]

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Read the rest of Mixed-up Investigative Agency: Case 15 (2,309 words)

© javabeans for Dramabeans, 2007. | Permalink | 10 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: episode recaps, Lee Eun-sung, Lee Min-ki, Mixed-up Investigative Agency, Ryu Seung-soo, Yeh Ji-won

Seriously, just when I think there isn’t room for any more twists, Mixed-up Investigative Agency throws another one in. I’ve never seen such a tightly plotted series before, not even Veronica Mars. Here, it seems like not only are many clues peppered throughout all the episodes from the beginning, not one clue is wasted.

SONG OF THE DAY

Kite – “Insomnia for the Cake.” Kite is a modern-rock band that I haven’t quite made up my mind about yet. Their first album is half meh average rock, but there are a few tracks I quite like. This is one of them, for its interesting melody and laid-back rhythm. [ Download ]

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Read the rest of Mixed-up Investigative Agency: Case 14 (2,021 words)

© javabeans for Dramabeans, 2007. | Permalink | 16 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: episode recaps, Lee Eun-sung, Lee Min-ki, Mixed-up Investigative Agency, Ryu Seung-soo, Yeh Ji-won

(Another) one of the things I like about Mixed-up Investigative Agency is that the band of treasure-hunting misfit friends has some good ideas, but so often, they’re just plain WRONG. One tricky thing in making a mystery come alive is in making each step believable and yet keep the viewers guessing. The difficulty, many times, is in allowing the heroes to gain their objective, but not TOO easily (or there’s no suspense or fun), and yet also not too much by coincidence, otherwise it’ll seem like they didn’t earn their victory.

The friends mess up quite often, but their mess-ups often lead to insights they wouldn’t have gained otherwise. Which also means that other, smarter people might not have figured out these clues, because they would’ve thought of different, more clever ideas. In this way, this really is a “mixed-up” agency — a bumbling, awkward, clumsy, but lovable group of heroes who may just be the only people capable of finding the treasure. Not in spite of their flaws but because of them.

SONG OF THE DAY

J – “Ghost” from her newest (sixth) album. [ zShare download ]

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Read the rest of Mixed-up Investigative Agency: Case 13 (2,115 words)

© javabeans for Dramabeans, 2007. | Permalink | 12 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: episode recaps, Lee Eun-sung, Lee Min-ki, Mixed-up Investigative Agency, Ryu Seung-soo, Yeh Ji-won

Two things have occurred to me while watching Mixed-up Investigative Agency, ideas that solidified in Episode 12. I’ll get to the second item later in the recap, but first is that nobody’s really a bad guy. Certainly, you have people who do more good than bad, and others who do more bad than good, but it’s like a sliding scale of morality and not a definitive, black-white, heaven-hell dichotomy.

The good way of looking at that is that everybody is capable of ceding to their good side. The dumb gangster subordinates, for instance, are aligned with criminals and career violence-doers — but really, they spend most of their time waiting around and filling their hours by bickering or, more hilariously, dancing. I found it pretty touching to see 007 given more depth in recent episodes, and showing remorse for his actions. And it’s not just that he was nervous at the thought that Hee-kyung was seeing Junsu’s ghost — his admission that he’s seen Junsu’s face in his dreams shows that he’s actually been haunted by his complicity in Junsu’s death (even if he didn’t kill him directly) for years. And who’d've thunk all-around badass Baek Min-chul’s Achilles heel was love?

Maybe by that corollary, you must also concede that nobody’s entirely good, either. Our “good guys” are the traditional good guys merely by dint of being the protagonists in this story — but are they necessarily good? Does not being bad make someone good? They’re caring friends and loyal allies (good) but so far they’re mostly acting upon their own interests (bad? morally neutral?). In any case, this good-bad duality is something we see in striking contrast in this episode.

SONG OF THE DAY

Casker – “말할 수 없는 이야기” (A story I can’t tell)
[ zShare download ]

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Read the rest of Mixed-up Investigative Agency: Case 12 (2,328 words)

© javabeans for Dramabeans, 2007. | Permalink | 13 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: episode recaps, Lee Eun-sung, Lee Min-ki, Mixed-up Investigative Agency, Ryu Seung-soo, Yeh Ji-won

One thing I find striking about Mixed-up Investigative Agency is how it’s able to convey such emotional intensity in its expressions of love — but not heart-fluttery romance, or in-the-moment passion. Rather, the deep-seated, time-worn bond between long-bygone (but no-less-remembered) loved ones and their survivors. The person may be gone but the memory of their love is just as strong and able to provide comfort — and pain — now as much as ever.

The first such instance came early in the drama — Jo Man Gi’s bitter son in Episode 2 (or was it 3?) — but has really come out in full force in recent episodes. Eun-jae, for instance, may seem calm and stoic on the outside but harbors deep, internalized pain from losing her father at such a young age. The depth of her father’s love is all the more painful for its loss, but ironically it’s also what gives her the strength to endure that very pain. We first met Yong-su as the World’s Laziest Slacker, seemingly with no ambitions and no motivation, but now we see that the scars of losing his brother were so deep that they in essence stunted his life’s development.

Even (the other) Kim Junsu encounters issues of loneliness and abandonment. Major baddie Baek Min-chul is still hurt by the memories of a childhood of ostracism. And Hee-kyung shares his experience of being deprived of friendly (and familial) affection. What this series has done, then, is provide an impressive study on the memory of love (and its repercussions).

SONG OF THE DAY

BAY – “Misery” [ zShare download ]

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Read the rest of Mixed-up Investigative Agency: Case 11 (2,045 words)

© javabeans for Dramabeans, 2007. | Permalink | 4 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: episode recaps, Lee Eun-sung, Lee Min-ki, Mixed-up Investigative Agency, Ryu Seung-soo, Yeh Ji-won

I think Episode 10 was the first standout episode of Mixed-up Investigative Agency. Perhaps some other fans might feel it hit that point before this, but for me, I’d always felt there was something a little “not-quite” about the series. Or maybe it’s just that the particularly masterful ending sequence this time was terribly moving. And while we’ve seen substantial proof of Yeh Jiwon’s (Hee-kyung) talented acting thus far, we now see a flash of depth in Ryu Seung-soo’s as Yong-su.

In any case, it’s too bad the series has hit a new ratings low of 2.9% (source: Newsen) because I think it’s remarkable how the plot just gets tighter and tighter as things fall into place, one by one. Most series are the opposite — they start out with an interesting premise and drop threads along the way. Not here, though. You get the sense every little thing has a purpose and has been planned completely in advance.

SONG OF THE DAY

Fortune Cookie – “Winter Story” [ zShare download ]

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Read the rest of Mixed-up Investigative Agency: Case 10 (1,764 words)

© javabeans for Dramabeans, 2007. | Permalink | 10 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: episode recaps, Lee Eun-sung, Lee Min-ki, Mixed-up Investigative Agency, Ryu Seung-soo, stuff I dig, Yeh Ji-won