Summary
A Virtuous Business makes good dramatic progress in Episode 3, paralleling the similar experiences of Jeong-sook and her mother.
There were some worries that A Virtuous Business would darken as it went, but I’m pleased to report that Episode 3 doesn’t really go in that direction, despite the last-minute implications of Episode 2. It is a little more dramatic, I’d say, but that’s to be expected; you can’t tell a story about empowerment without understanding why the characters need to be empowered in the first place.
Credit is due, I think, for taking what is on paper a relatively salacious premise and turning it into something meaningful and relevant, without leaning entirely on the idea of a cultural clash around a taboo subject. Attitudes aren’t formed in a vacuum, after all, and the strength of this show is in highlighting how they adjust over time and in different contexts.
This is how someone like Jeong-sook ends up being painted as a bad guy for selling lingerie and sex toys; how graffiti on her wall is treated as just penance instead of criminal vandalism. Word of the daubing spreads quickly, but luckily Da-hyun helps Jeong-sook clean it up before Min-ho gets home from school, where he has been bonding with Dong-u, Ju-ri’s son.
Da-hyun determines that the wall was graffitied by someone with a grudge – you don’t say! – and sets about finding a lead while Jeong-sook continues to struggle with her predicament. Seong-su sends a scumbag letter and a gift to Min-ho, highlighting how infidelity and separation can make playthings of innocent children. Min-ho thankfully doesn’t turn on his mother, but that’s not really the point. The intention was bad enough.
And amid all this Jeong-sook has to keep bumping into Mi-hwa and In-tae. She’s experiencing a sense of shame that continuously escalates through her various circumstances and reaches a fever pitch when Min-ho goes missing. Da-hyun is supportive and reassuring, but Jeong-sook’s own mother is terribly blameful, making the entire situation worse.
One of the things I like about A Virtuous Business Episode 3 is how it tussles with things like “shame”, and how they’re attached to different ideas of what’s acceptable and what isn’t. It’s “shameful” to sell lingerie, but not to berate and slap one’s daughter when they’re at their lowest, because sex and sexuality are taboo subjects. Not upholding the status quo culturally apparently opens a person up to all kinds of mistreatment and judgment.
It’s refreshing to see how understanding Da-hyun is in these circumstances. It’s he who helps Jeong-sook out when she discovers that Min-ho is camping outside Seong-su’s workplace, trying to get his job back. It’s he who reassures Jeong-sook that the kind of trauma she’s experiencing triggers all kinds of thoughts and behaviors, and that everything she has done has been entirely normal. He even drops off some stuff to patch up her cheek.
One of this episode’s most reassuring narrative decisions is in explaining, though importantly not justifying, why Bok-sun is so hostile to Jeong-sook. She, too, was a victim of a cheating scumbag husband, Yong-deok, who ran off with a mistress and left Bok-sun thoroughly humiliated and disenfranchised. She’s seeing history repeat.
So, too, is Jeong-sook, who can recall seeing the pain her mother experienced and is now faced with the same fate. They’re united in that, at least. It’s clear that Bok-sun is lashing out from fear, and a renewed kind of bitterness and pain that Jeong-sook is similarly experiencing. But at least she finally seems to accept that Jeong-sook is doing what she’s doing to make ends meet and keep her head above water, which is progress of a kind. Hopefully, there’s a little more for them both in the near future.
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