Summary
“West Sky 2” plays out as the second half to yesterday’s episode, with an emotional story and some compelling themes.
This recap of Tomorrow season 1, episode 12, “West Sky 2”, contains spoilers.
As we learned at the end of yesterday’s episode, it’s Yu-hwa who is on the brink of suicide in “West Sky 2”. After losing her baby she has been experience wildly fluctuating moods, only exacerbated by people asking her about the issue. She blames herself for her child’s death and dreams of raising it. Jun-woong, who wonders about whether to tell Ryung-gu, who is now working in sales, about all of this, has to work with Ryeon to try and stabilize Yu-hwa’s feelings.
Tomorrow season 1, episode 12 recap
Children are always a touchy subject. Like the previous episode that utilized a dog for easy emotional pull, it’s easy to feel like Tomorrow is plucking low-hanging fruit here. But like that episode, this one is also pretty well-done, dealing sensitively with the subject matter while also functioning as essentially the second half of yesterday’s episode dealing with Ryung-gu.
Of course, when Jun-woong does ask Ryung-gu for help, that’s when the continuation of that story really begins, with Ryung-gu helping to convince Yu-hwa that her Honeybee will grow up in the afterlife, sure of how loved she was and is. But Yu-hwa has to go on living for that to happen, no matter how much Jun-woong brings the mood down with ill-timed jokes (Tomorrow still hasn’t really gotten a handle on its mismanagement of tone.)
Amongst all this we explore themes of parenting, grief, memory, things left unsaid, and the power of honesty, of saying how one really feels. Refreshingly, there is also no easy solution; it’s even stated outright that Yu-hwa will need to be kept an eye on, given how the pain of losing a child could potentially span many regenerations. You don’t simply get over that kind of loss, but you can learn to live with it, to allow it to become a part of you.
The discussion about memory sparks something in Joong-gil, but it’ll be for the next few episodes to really delve into that since the archive of his own memories is under lock and key, accessible only by the Director. But until then Tomorrow has delivered another good pair of episodes united by the same character arc and overlapping themes. It might be late in the game, but it’s still nice to see the show continue to come together.
You can stream Tomorrow season 1, episode 12, “West Sky 2”, exclusively on Netflix.
