Summary
Great performances and a solid command of tone continue to impress as See You in My 19th Life enters its second week.
This recap of the Netflix K-Drama See You in My 19th Life Season 1 Episode 3 contains spoilers.
What a show is about, superficially, and what it’s about fundamentally are often two different things.
In its third episode, See You in My 19th Life does a good job of allowing those deeper themes – including trauma and loss – to seep into its present-day, faintly fantastical romance. They were always there, of course, but there’s a fair helping of actorly nuance here that very much brings the subtext to the fore.
See You in My 19th Life Season 1 Episode 3 Recap
Picking up from where we left things in Episode 2, with Seo-ha and Ji-eum reminiscing over a past we haven’t been made privy to.
Of course, Seo-ha knows Ji-eum as her 18th reincarnation, Ju-won, and hasn’t put the pieces together yet. But the legacy of loss clearly still haunts him. He yearns for that lost relationship, still carries the pain, and wears the scars of his literal and figurative injuries as panic attacks that blight him in busy traffic.
A close call with a truck on the way home hammers the point home.
What happens on Seo-ha’s birthday?
Ji-eum is also reminiscing, mostly about her life as Ae-kyung’s uncle. Soju, the great Korean social lubricant, steers the conversation around to regrets, the past, and emotions, and Ae-kyung persuades Ji-eum to confess her feelings to Seo-ha – and on what better day than his birthday?
Ji-eum takes this advice on board and does just that, but the situation is made more awkward than necessary by Cho-won, who has brought Seo-ha a cake to try and cheer him up on his birthday since he has always linked the event to the loss of Ju-won. However, Seo-ha is in no mood for either of his potential suitors.
Who is Cho-won in love with?
See You in My 19th Life gets a little subversive with the typical love triangle dynamic in this episode. When it’s later revealed that Cho-won impersonated someone else to ensure she was hired as part of the hotel renovation project, it seems like we’re venturing into the usual territory, but Seo-ha’s words send Cho-won out of the place in tears, and she ends up bonding with Ji-eum over lunch.
She also reveals it’s Do-yun she’s in love with, not Seo-ha, which takes her off the table as a love rival in a welcome development. There’s a somber tone to this episode as we begin to get a real sense of the longstanding character dynamics and closely guarded personal traumas that define the major players in this drama.
See You in My 19th Life Season 1 Episode 3 Ending Explained
Later, Ji-eum drops Cho-won off at home. Seo-ah, having contemplated his outburst, heads out to apologize to Cho-won but decides against it, instead running into a very contemplative Ji-eum, who is crying and hugging herself while calling out for her mother, whom she briefly imagined as being present.
It’s, again, a somber note to end things on as this drama begins to enter a more serious and introspective phase early in its run.
You can stream See You in My 19th Life Season 1 Episode 3 exclusively on Netflix.
