LUCA episode 11: in which Jin Kyung’s church-lab becomes the stage for yet more alarums and excursions, including our inter-species couple’s first (and probably last) serious disagreement over child-rearing.
After what happened at the HumanTech building, surely security at the church-lab should have been beefed up to the max? But noooo: Zi-oh strolled in, Team Leader Choi strolled in, and now Lee Son and his pals stroll in too. I was sad to see Lee Son in such a wretched state, bereft of all human feeling except anger and hatred. But although he has a nice little exchange with Jin Kyung, right now he and his boss Kim Chul-soo are just getting in the way of the truly important issue: Bringing Up Baby.
As I’ve mentioned before, the looniness of LUCA co-exists with many believable – matter-of-fact, unsentimental and sometimes surprisingly serious – moments. ZO knows just how important memory is – how much one’s identity, sense of belonging and mental well-being depend on it. But Gu-reum doesn’t think that’s worth electrocuting Baby for. One might argue, as ZO does, that GR should bear Baby’s pain now for the sake of Baby’s health and happiness in the future. Baby is as resilient as ZO; GR is just being squeamish. IMO, Baby can live with memory loss as long as she has strong, loving parents to support her at the start of her life. I can see why ZO so desperately wants to spare Baby that handicap, but in the end even ZO baulked at all those horrible electrodes.
There is another factor in GR’s favour: those electrodes are applied by Dr Ryu, whose mild and kindly manner in the last few episodes, especially towards ZO, had distracted me from all his Nietzschean talk. GR might have rejected ZO earlier, but at the start of this episode she recovers enough to beg him to leave with her and Baby. Unfortunately, just as Dr Ryu’s lecture about ZO’s genes triggered doubt and revulsion in GR, so Dr Ryu’s odes to superior beings have caused ZO to revert to his numb, pro-animal testing earlier self. I think it’s a pretty small step from being worshipped by a roomful of religious fanatics (“These people are crazy,” says Team Leader Choi with his usual pithiness) to allowing your baby to be electrocuted by the likes of Dr Ryu. After all, this is the guy who was in charge of an exploding pregnant woman, and whose creations don’t seem any less problematic than ordinary humans.
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knewbie
March 9, 2021 at 6:27 AM
LUCA episode 11: in which Jin Kyung’s church-lab becomes the stage for yet more alarums and excursions, including our inter-species couple’s first (and probably last) serious disagreement over child-rearing.
After what happened at the HumanTech building, surely security at the church-lab should have been beefed up to the max? But noooo: Zi-oh strolled in, Team Leader Choi strolled in, and now Lee Son and his pals stroll in too. I was sad to see Lee Son in such a wretched state, bereft of all human feeling except anger and hatred. But although he has a nice little exchange with Jin Kyung, right now he and his boss Kim Chul-soo are just getting in the way of the truly important issue: Bringing Up Baby.
As I’ve mentioned before, the looniness of LUCA co-exists with many believable – matter-of-fact, unsentimental and sometimes surprisingly serious – moments. ZO knows just how important memory is – how much one’s identity, sense of belonging and mental well-being depend on it. But Gu-reum doesn’t think that’s worth electrocuting Baby for. One might argue, as ZO does, that GR should bear Baby’s pain now for the sake of Baby’s health and happiness in the future. Baby is as resilient as ZO; GR is just being squeamish. IMO, Baby can live with memory loss as long as she has strong, loving parents to support her at the start of her life. I can see why ZO so desperately wants to spare Baby that handicap, but in the end even ZO baulked at all those horrible electrodes.
There is another factor in GR’s favour: those electrodes are applied by Dr Ryu, whose mild and kindly manner in the last few episodes, especially towards ZO, had distracted me from all his Nietzschean talk. GR might have rejected ZO earlier, but at the start of this episode she recovers enough to beg him to leave with her and Baby. Unfortunately, just as Dr Ryu’s lecture about ZO’s genes triggered doubt and revulsion in GR, so Dr Ryu’s odes to superior beings have caused ZO to revert to his numb, pro-animal testing earlier self. I think it’s a pretty small step from being worshipped by a roomful of religious fanatics (“These people are crazy,” says Team Leader Choi with his usual pithiness) to allowing your baby to be electrocuted by the likes of Dr Ryu. After all, this is the guy who was in charge of an exploding pregnant woman, and whose creations don’t seem any less problematic than ordinary humans.