It’s Okay to Not Be Okay  is a 2020 South Korean romantic dramedy series starring Kim Soo-hyun and Seo -Ye-ji. Kim is making an appearancein the small scren after 5 years. Seo is also making an appearance after the series ‘Lawless lawyer'(commercial hit series).The series tells an unusual romance story between two people who end up healing each other’s emotional and psychological wounds. 

I am eagerly waiting for this series ever since I watched the trailer in Netflix. Let me jump to the review and will post my reviews at the end of the recap,

EPISODE 1:THE BOY WHO FED ON NIGHTMARES

The series starts with up a animation story.Long time ago, there was a lonely girl who lived in a castle in a beautiful forest. She is bored as she had no friends. One day she left her castle to play with her friends. Even though she offered extraordinary gifts , nobody accepted her. She found the reason soon as people called her ‘A monster who bought along death’. She was so angry and decided to let go her frustration on the fishes she caught. While pulling the fish rod, a man came out from the river. From that day onwards, instead of her shadow, the boy followed her everywhere. One sunny day , the girl asked him,”Will you stay by my side?’. The boy got scared and ran away.(The girl was pucking the butterflies like flower petals). The shadow of the death came back and whispered,

“No one can ever stay by your side because you are a monster,Did you forget that, Don’t you understand?“

We see Moon Kang-tae(played by Kim Soo – hyun) meeting with the head of the machinery school where his brother Moon Sang-tae (played by Oh Jung-se) works. His brother had a mental breakdown in the middle of the machinery class. The head of the school requests him to drop and send him to another school. Kang- tae unpacks all the stuff from his brother locker and promises him to send him to another school.

We are introduced the Go Mon-Yeong(played by Seo -Ye-ji) eating steak in restuarant. She is a famous children author.A mother and her daughter recognizes her and asks for a autograph.

The daughter says she is a big fan and she looks pretty like princess in a fairy tale. The girl says her mother calls her princess as she is also pretty. After signing, she suggests a photo taken with the daughter. Moon silently whispers to the girl in lap,”You are not my fan. Witches are pretty in my fairy tales. So you are a pretty witch”.On hearing those words the girl ran away crying.

The manager(played by Kim-Joo-hun) arrives and asks about the girlwho ran away crying. Moon replies, she corrected the little girl misconception.He says they still have 2 hours to the reding event at children hospital. He requests her to visit the beauty salon as she looks like ‘Francessca’ from Addams family. Instead of giving the children hope, her outfit will scare the children away. She takes the steak knife and scratches the plate to stop him from talking. She likes this restaurant not because of the steak but for the original knife they give for cutting the steak. She pricks her finger with the knife and says she is pretty. {A nice way to say ‘no’}

We are back to Kang-tae as he is dressing himself to the care givers uniform. He goes to the lounge and we see a patient scolding another patient for eating all her food. We see a patient who is sitting in the ground eating all types of food. Kang gets the food from her hand and says she will get upset stomach if she eats fast. She replies that he said he liked her when she had food. He smilingly replies, “Its just that when you like someone, you even like the way , the eat”(Cheesy pickup line). She blushes and hugs him and pukes all her food on his back(Oh no!)

We see another patient who suffers from anxiety disoder is put on restrains as he tried to commit suicide along with his daughter by overdosing. Luckily the girl threw up after taking the drug and she is getting treated for PTSD(Post Traumatic Stress Disorder).

On the way to chidrens hospital, the manager receives the call from ‘OK Psychiatric hospital’. Moon asks him to put him in the speaker mode. Nurse Nam Ju-ri (played by Park Kyu-Young) says they have set date for Go Dae-hwan surgery but need guardian consent which is long due.

Moon interrupts and says , ‘Go Dae-hwan is dead to me’ . If the nurse is desperate to save him, she can come to her to get consent(What a cold hearted lady?!)

The nurse was schocked and she says the patient needs surgery on glioblastoma relapse. The other nurse hears about the cold reply and says the patient is longest admitted and the guardian never visited. So instead of calling the ungratefu guardian, she asks Ju-ri to visit the guardian so they can save the patient.

Kang -tae was asking his newbie friend to keep an eye on the anxiety disoder patient before he is transported to police.His friend says he will take care of it and he adds he and other caregivers had a bet at dinner about Kang- tae moving from one hospital to another. They made 3 guesses,

• He is chased by Loan sharks.
• He made a huge truble and he is hiding his identity fro the cops.
• He is kicked out for flirting with nurses and patients.

Kang-tae says its a fourth option and says’MEN’ and slowly r.ubs his friend shoulder{Ha!}

Kang calls his brother who is scribbling in the children book. Kang says his favourite author is visiting his hospital. Sang felt so excited and wanted to visit the authorin person . He can’t make to the hospital in time even if you starts now, so he promises he will get an autograph for him.

We see Moon smoking in the garden, Kang interrupts her and asks her to stop smoking as this is a non – smoking area. Long silence as both of their eyes meet{it was really a looong one}. She asks him if he believes in destiny and puts away the cigarette in his cup and leaves the place

“If someone shows up, when you need them , you call it a destiny”.

The event begins and Moon start reading the book, “The Boy who is fed on Night mares”.

“Bad memories from the past that he wanted to erase from his head were replayed from his dreams and haunted him non- stop.”

“The boy went to the witch and begged that he doesn’t want a nightmare and he will do anything for the witch. The boy became adult and he was not so happy.”

We see the anxiety disorder patient searching for his daughter and he reaches the auditorium. Kang is alerted and he starts searching for the patient. The story was stopped and the people in the auditorium are asked to leave. The patient grabs his daughter and takes her to the back stage which is noticed by Moon.

Go – eun is scared and she starts crying. Her father consoles saying she may end up in an orphanage if he goes to a mental health institute. But the kid cries , she want to live and not die. His father adds, the kids can’t live on their own, so he suggests they should die together. Slowly Moon approaches them and says it’s ‘bullshit’.

“You don’t think you can get on with your life ,yet you can’t even muster up the courage to die alone“

She asks him to be a loser and die alone. She hits him and he pushes some objects while falling. He tries to take the knife but Moon pushes it away.Angrily he tries to strangulate moon, while his daughter runs out of the room and saved by Kang Tae.

While strangulating, he says he can kill her since she is his own child. We see a flashback in which we see her father strangulating Moon.( Now I understand her cold hearted towards her father). When she was about to lose consciousness, Kang takes away the patient and binds his hand.

Moon takes the knife and tries to stab the patient. Kang stops her with his hand and he hurts himself. Still holding the knife, Kang asks her to let go as he is still a patient. In defense, she says he is not a patient, but a vermin. The patient says she is insane mad runs away he is caught by other caregivers.

Kang calmly binds the knife with the cloth. Moon says she wanted to give him a small cut with the knife, but Kang overreacted and he got hurt.

Moon throws the knife away from the cloth and she ties his wound with the cloth. She adds ,

“Some people in the world deserve to die, but some thoughtful freaks kill them for us in secret.This is why clueless civilians can sleep peacefully at night”.

She asks him to which category she belongs .He replies that she is a clueless freak and she laughs at him.

Kang gets treated at the pharmacy and the doctor says his suturing skills are getting better everyday and asks him to stop hurting himself.

Manager explains he can change the cancelled event to buzz marketing but he doesn’t know how to explain the knife fight as one of the hospital staff is injured and they may have a press release. Moon asks them to bribe them as they have done it many times else she will use a honey trap and seduce him(Ahhh!!!).Manager calls someone to find the contact information of the person who got hurt by Moon.

Kang is scolded by his supervisor because of the escape of the patient. Since his friend is a newbie, they can’ t fire him so he should take the blame. The supervisor says he has worked in 15 hospitals for 10 years so changing job is not difficult for him. He will show that Kang had worked for them a year so that he will get his severance pay. Kang quietly takes the blame and bids farewell to his colleagues.

We see the nurse is visiting the author in her hotel room. The manager gives the room number and leaves the room. When moon opens the door, she recognises the nurse. She quotes to the nurse she looked different than 20 years. She asks why she traveled 3 hours for this signature. She says her dad soul is dead but he is alive like zombie. But her mom physically died, her soul is still here. Moon signs the form and asks if she can visit her mom like old days. Nurse leaves with the consent form.

Kang waits at the bus stop. We see a man ( played by Kang – ki- doong) who parks his bike near Kang. Kang thanks his friend for giving a ride. Suddenly the motorcycle runs out of fuel, they had no option of pushing it to home.  After hearing the accident at event, Jae – su couldn’t believe Moon is insane. Kang – Tae corrects him saying she is not insane but born that way. Jae – su asks why he didn’t create a scene for his unfair dismissal. He said I’d he had overreacted he would not have got his severance pay( smart). Jae – su says he and his brother are like 2 peas in a pod as they both got fired on the same day. Kang Tae remembers thek autograph. Jae – su makes a fake one by viewing the autograph from the internet. When they reach home , his brother founds it and throws a tantrum.

Meanwhile ,Manager sends Kang tae a message apologizing for the incident and asking him to drop by the office. Kang replies yes to the message and the manager is overjoyed.  We see a breaking news that the suicide patient is found dead and investigation is being carried out.

Moon thinks about Kang and says he has beautiful eyes. Meanwhile , Kang thinks about the encounter he had with Moon and searches for her book in his brother’s collection. He starts reading the book(The Boy who is fed on Night mares) and we get the ending of the story.

One night, a blood moon, filled with night sky, and the witch finally showed up again to take what he had promised in return for granting his wish. And he shouted at her with much resentment.All my bad memories are gone. But why can’t I become happy?.Then the witch took his soul as they had promised and told him this.

“Hurtful,painful memories.Memories of deep regrets.memoriesnof hurting others and being hurt. Memories of being abandoned.Only those with such memories buried in their hearts can become stronger, more passionate, and emotionally flexible And only those who can attain happiness.So don’t forget any of it.Remember it all and overcome it. If you don’t overcome it, you’ll always be a kid whose soul never grows.“

Suddenly his brother gets a nightmare that he is lost in a forest and is chased away by the butterflies. He gets scared and wakes everyone and says the butterflies will kill him.

We see the daughter of suicide patient reading the same book ( Moon had written ‘ Never forget today’ in the book). She asks for her father and the nurse consoles her every thing will be alright. She cries she is missing her Dad.

Kang Tae goes to visit the manager of Moon who is the CEO of the publishing house. He is asked to wait for the CEO.We see Moon driving her car fast and she unexpectedly visits the publishing house. Moon sees him and says he looks so dashing in normal clothes. He asks her if she can’t talk politely she should try not to be cryptic. She says he came for the money for the knife accident and she says money works instead of verbal consolation.

Kang says he is not for money. He was hoping he could see her again as her eyes made her wanted to see her again. He says her eyes reminded her of someone who he knew from his past. He says she has no conscience, merciless, and her eyes lacked warmth. She asks if he is scared of her. He says it is the opposite as he liked her.

COMMENTS

Wow,this is an emotional episodes and it is just the beginning. This episode had a lot of children stories and Illustrations painted with it. We see the animation story at the beginning of the episode is the story of the childhood of the lead female character. The children story ‘ The boy who fed on nightmares’ is a emotional healing story not only for the actor but for the people watching as well. We can’t run away from the fears, we have to face it to overcome it, else we will be like the soul that never grows up. Let’s wait for more episodes and see how the characters grow up. Meet you at the next recap.