For its opening week, Melancholia exposes the different challenges of students as they cope with the pressure of gaining achievements.
Lee Do Hyun and Im Soo Jung suit up to characters who showed their love for Mathematics alongside the tension happening in a school that craves excellence.
Sammmeh_ watches Melancholia in iQiyi
Opening Week Ratings:
Episode Recaps:1 & 2 | 3 & 4 | 05 | 06 | 07 | 08 | 09 | 10 | 11 |12 | 13 | 14 | Series Review |
Melancholia Opening Week Story
Set in the world of the 21st century wherein everyone is expected to excel in life, the drama centers on Baek Seung-Yoo (Lee Do Hyun) who gains attention from the public because of his mathematics skills.
At the age of 10, Seung-Yoo was able to enter MIT and can solve college-level math problems. However, he disappeared and came back hating math.
At the opening of the drama, parents are gathered to a meeting but suddenly Ji Yoon-Soo (Im Soo Jung), a math teacher at Asung High School talks back to Noh Jung-Ah. Seung-Yoo also came rushing riding his bike and assures Yoon-Soo that he would “prove” it.
Giving a little flashback, Yoon-Soo and Seung-Yoo are rumored that they have a sexual scandal that causes all the mess. However, there is still no clue about what happened.
Yoon-Soo and Seung-Yoo first met on a train wherein they accidentally exchanged their bags. When Yoon-Soo got home she saw a camera on a bag and saw the pictures from it. She thought that the person to whom the bag belong likes math.
They contacted each other and decided to meet up so that they can exchange bags again. Yoon-Soo notices the number “1729” in Seung-Yoo’s clothes and talks that this number is somewhat special.
Furthermore, Yoon-Soo loves teaching math and believes that it also goes out beyond numbers. That’s why she tested her students and challenges them to answer and explain a certain problem. However, no one got the correct answer.
Later on, students are looking to the bulletin board because there is someone who tries to answer the problem. Yoon-Soo reads and checks the mysterious student’s answer and was amazed that this person got the correct answer.
The curiosity of Yoon-Soo was heightened on who is this student. In the next scenes, she found out that the number “1729” is the student who answered right. However, Seung-Yoo keeps saying that he’s not interested nor likes math.
In the second episode, the parents of Seung-Yoo keep pressuring him to study math again. However, he avoids this conversation and says that he doesn’t want to. Seung-Yoo’s father pushed the face of Seung-Yoo on a cabinet full of trophies and scolds him that he needs to fill this cabinet again.
In the later part of the episode, Seung-Yoo’s father pushed him to get an entrance exam for a science school for prodigies wherein Seung-Yoo has no choice but to follow.
Ending the episode, the students in Asung High School are all geared up to answer the exam and get a chance to be the school’s representative on the upcoming Mathematical Olympiads. Yoon-Soo hopes that Seung-Yoo would come but his entrance exam for the school of prodigies happens the same day.
Getting ready to close the door to the examination hall, Yoon-Soo was shocked because Seung-Yoo came running and stops the door from closing.
Melancholia Opening Week Musings
Being a person who actually doesn’t like math, Melancholia gives justice and explains to its viewers that mathematics is enjoyable to the individuals who find comfort while solving math problems.
I gave a high score for Melancholia because its plot is so timely especially to the students who are pressured to be nothing but the best. It also reveals the hidden corruption happening inside a school, wherein education becomes a business.
Lee Do Hyun did an excellent job in being a teenage boy who is pained by the past and is pressured to do well because of him being called “genius.” It’s the same with Im Soo Jung because she became a unique teacher who teaches her students with passion.
Even though there are no romantic scenes for the two, I can already feel their chemistry that even their simple gestures to each other make my heart flutter. I just love everything about them and I am hoping that the next episodes would also be good ones.
Melancholia airs every Wednesday and Thursday. International fans may watch on K-Plus Channel and iQiyi.
Photos: tvN
