Summary
There’s still something missing from The Atypical Family, but Episode 3 provides some intriguing backstory, and the premise continues to have potential.
Nobody I’ve spoken to about The Atypical Family knows whether or not they like it. I doubt Episode 3 will help them decide either way. The good ideas work, there’s potential in the premise, but there’s still an oddly lacking quality to the whole thing. It’s hard not to feel like something quite crucial is missing, though equally hard to figure out what it is.
A Gift and A Curse
After Episodes 1 and 2, Gwi-joo remains in an odd predicament, suddenly unsure about whether and indeed how his powers work. He’s only supposed to be able to return to fond memories, but at present can only return to his moment in the mall with Da-hae, with whom he doesn’t have any times to reminisce over.
It doesn’t help that his mother remains adamant about matchmaking between the two, planning to invite Da-hae to become a live-in tutor for Yi-na.
Speaking of Yi-na, flashbacks in this episode reveal how Gwi-joo was inadvertently neglectful of her. When she was born, he had lost a firefighter colleague and kept returning to the moment of Yi-na’s birth to try and save his friend. The obsession nearly cost him everything.
Thematically, the point is obvious. The power is a gift and a curse. It would be bad enough that the best moment of Gwi-joo’s life, the birth of his child, shares space with the worst moment, the loss of his friend. But his ability to ineffectually and obsessively return to that best and worst moment is maddening.
More to the point, it’s unnatural.
What is Yi-na’s power?
The whole double-edged sword thing is reflected in Yi-na as well. In the manner of Rogue from X-Men, she’s terrified of her own power, but luckily she doesn’t kill people with her touch. She can hear their thoughts by making eye contact with them, though, which for a kid is probably just as bad.
We see this manifest a couple of times, both through Da-hae – Yi-na hears her think “She is the key,” which isn’t a surprise – and a boy at school named Joon-woo who thinks Yi-na is pretty. The power has its upsides, clearly, but it’s easy to see how the whole thing could backfire.
Dong-hee Throws Her Fiancé Out
Episode 3 of The Atypical Family also spares a bit of time for Dong-hee, for whom things are just going from bad to worse.
She’s not the model she once was. She can no longer fly. Her mother’s selling her apartment to recoup some dough, and her fiancé is playing away. It’s just a litany of terrible circumstances to navigate.
Luckily, she makes a good start by packing her fiancé’s bags, ready to throw him out in the morning.
Da-hae Makes A Startling Discovery In The Atypical Family Episode 3
Dong-hee also interferes with Da-hae’s plans with Gwi-joo and Yi-na. Man-huem’s plan seems to be working out and everyone is enjoying having Da-hae around, but she’s forced to drink her own drugged tea to stop Dong-hee from doing so and keep her cover.
After being kept a close eye on by Dong-hee, Da-hae tries to return the favor by following her and filming what she assumes is an attempt to steal from the family. However, she also inadvertently catches Dong-hee levitating, which freaks her out completely.
Remember, while the family’s powers have been mentioned to Da-hae before, she didn’t believe the claims. Not anymore.
Da-hae flees and runs into Gwi-joo, who has only just discovered another memory with Da-hae that he can travel to, and that again he can touch her in. This seems to only apply to memories of Da-hae. At the end of the episode, a screaming Da-hae faces a dripping wet Gwi-joo, and both are surely going to have some questions of one another.
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