#watch me post this wholeass review and it doesnt even show up in the tag

[nichester]

Review: Extracurricular

Media Type: Korean Drama

Genre: Teen drama/Crime/Noir

Summary:  Ji Soo, a diligent but poor high school student is saving for college and paying rent by moonlighting as a pimp.  His precarious balance of school and work begins to fall apart when another student, Gyu-ri, discovers the truth about his job and wants in.  Things spiral quickly out of their control.

Why you might care:  If you enjoy watching teenagers do crime and get realistically in over their heads; if you are interested in dark shows with Really Good performances (in particular from the leads, who have enough chemistry for us to buy their toxic but unbreakable bond) or if you are interested in any of the themes of crime and class struggle.

Why you might not care:  Give this one a pass if you don't like your shows dark and/or are looking for a happy ending. Importantly, pay attention to potential triggers in this show! (Suicidal ideation, self harm, violence against women, sexual assault, hallucinations, and torture all occur, although not always explicitly, on this show.  Feel free to message me if you need more detailed warnings!)

Trope Bingo! Partners in crime/Bonnie and Clyde; enemies to sorta? lovers, literally I have no idea how to categorize their relationship

If you liked _______, try ______!

Can't say I've watched much in this vein! I've heard that School 2013 or Sky Castle are both excellent dramas about struggling high schoolers, but which have less grim endings.  The Get Down is a great netflix show also about marginalized teenagers struggling to pursue their dreams despite the crime and violence they're surrounded by.

~Spoilers (not anything detailed but just to be safe) and overall thoughts under the cut~

Plot:  I'll be honest, I'm not a big plot girl. Unless there's something stand-out about a story's plot, I tend to consider it more as a vehicle for character development than anything else. In this show's case, I was on the edge of my seat in horror for most episodes. The plot unfolds in a seemingly inevitable negative spiral that takes all of our characters down and leaves them far worse off than when they started. This show did rely a lot on coincidence, both positive and negative. Usually I would consider this a flaw, but I think it worked well here as a way to portray a random, unfeeling world around the characters and to emphasize the precarious nature of their situation.

Central character(s):  I was really attached to both of the leads. They had the convincing contradictions and vulnerabilities of deeply troubled teenagers, and their different traumas and personalities played off of each other well. For all of Ji Soo's smarts and skill, he has a startling naivete and a tendency to panic when things don't go according to plan. Gyu-ri is equally smart, but loud and manipulative in contrast to Ji Soo's awkwardness and isolation. Gyu-ri pushes Ji Soo to try to expand his business to make up for his unexpected losses (decisions that drive the plot), but this goes against his every cautious instinct.  Ji Soo tends to focus on maintaining what little he has, while Gyu-ri fully embraces the philosophy "the best defense is a good offense." Indeed, Gyu-ri is reckless to the point of suicidal, but the later episodes reveal a protective instinct that seems to be as unexpected to her as it is to the audience, an instinct which continually drives her to throw herself into harms way in defense of Ji Soo.  The strongest development that both characters had was in their relationship with each other, which led them to be both braver and more open than they had ever been in their lives. But their involvement with each other and their reluctance to cut ties is part of how they got to where the show leaves them--cornered and bloody.

Romance:  Technically this show has no romance, but I think it's fair to say that the leads develop an obsessive, Bonnie and Clyde-style relationship that is partially romantic in nature. Ji Soo has a distant crush on Gyu-ri at the beginning of the show, which she exploits. Honestly, some of the funniest moments in the show come from the contradiction between Ji Soo's side-hustle as a pimp and his complete and total inability to speak normally in Gyu-ri's presence. His disillusionment with her is genuinely painful, but necessary for their relationship to become one of equals. Their grudging partnership is abrasive, but their bond feels very convincing. No matter how much they resent each other, they're more strongly drawn to each other. (Watching Ji Soo pack up her discarded chip bags to bring with him on the run is just….. Its so….. Kids make me cry ok!)  It's clear for both of these lonely and deeply messed up kids that simply having a partner--someone who they can reveal their ugly sides to and depend on--is an intoxicating feeling. By the end of the show, they'd kill for each other and probably die for each other. The show smartly doesn't ever "consummate" the romance--they don't really have enough downtime when they're not actively fighting to make it convincing, and despite everything they've done both characters are still very young.  If there is a second season, this is a ship that is likely to sail (but possibly crash and burn).

Side Characters/Side plots:  In a show like this one, which depicts a marginalized and frequently abused group of women, the presence of sympathetic characters who are also members of that group is crucial, or the drama would feel exploitative. This show's most prominent side plot depicts an underage sex worker, her post-traumatic stress response to a violent client, her struggle over whether or not to speak to the police, and her desire to find genuine human connection, whether it is with her shitty boyfriend or with her pimp. (Their odd father/daughter relationship was one of the most moving parts of the show!) While I thought the writing was sympathetic to Minhee's situation, she is frequently used as a reminder of the human consequences of the other character's actions. This is both good and bad--it's important to remind the characters and the viewer of how damaging their behavior is, but it also risks treating her as a more of a tool for the lead's development than a thoroughly explored character. Up until the last episode I think the writers gave her a distinct enough arc to avoid this pitfall, but depending on her ultimate fate (in a theoretical season 2) I could change my mind.

Tone:  The tone is dark, tense, and constantly on the verge of slipping into chaos. Hallucinatory sequences play out as Ji Soo and Gyu-ri imagine themselves killing people, destroying things, or being buried alive. These sequences emphasize the character's instability, while also establishing the camera as an unreliable narrator of events in a way that pays off in the ambiguous final moments. The fantastic acting is buoyed by the directing to depict the precarious state of the leads' minds as their situation spirals further out of their control. Ji Soo's scenes feel claustrophobic and paralyzing--when he ventures out of his apartment to talk to Gyu-ri or to go to the café you get the blinking, shuffling sense of something emerging from a cave. Gyu-ri, on the other hand, is a loose cannon, and her scenes have a jittery, dangerous edge to them. As a whole, the show is excruciatingly tense and frustratingly unresolved.

Theme:  This show is a full-fledged tragedy. It is a brilliant example of a negative change arc, with all of the characters taking more and more drastic actions while still managing to retain our loyalty. I think the writer's are clear that although none of these kids have made good choices, the real tragedy lies in how they have been abandoned, used, or neglected by the adults in their lives. The few adults who show any care for them are either relatively powerless themselves (like Mr. Lee and their teacher) or too late to avert disaster (like the prosecutor). Extracurricular is a grim look at how we fail vulnerable children to the point that even a boring, average life seems like an impossible dream.