'It's Okay to Not be Okay' Episode 3: Kwak Dong-yeon's cameo shows Mun-yeong and Kang-tae's trauma brilliantly
'It's Okay to Not be Okay' Episode 3 has left us stunned with how it weaves Kang-tae and Mun-yeong's trauma and fear through a patient's struggle. Be it the trauma that they carry from the past that has become baggage in their present relationships or the way they have decided to lead their lives; there is more to their story than what we see on the surface. All of this is brought together in a visually stunning episode.
While there are many parts of the episode that stunned us with its brilliance, the one that truly took our breath away was when Mun-yeong visited her childhood home again after years. The house that looks more like a castle is built in the middle of a dense forest and since Mun-yeong and her family moved out, it had not been lived in. Rumors of the mansion being a ghost house spread far and wide, leaving Mun-yeong no option but to keep the mansion. Now that she has followed Kang-tae to OK Psychiatric facility, she needs a place to stay and so she decides to use the mansion again.
It looks like Mun-yeong's father is not the only one who has inflicted pain on his daughter. Something about her mother continues to haunt her, in nightmares, through instances where her PTSD gets triggered and all of this gets portrayed with a touch of horror. The voice that Mun-yeong hears after she retires at the mansion is of her mother's, and she narrates the tale of sleeping beauty. How a girl was cursed and how the only thing that could save her was the prince's kiss. However, the scary lady in Mun-yeong's nightmare tells her that if the prince did arrive, she wouldn't let Mun-yeong escape, because she would kill the prince first.
The extent of trauma that Mun-yeong experienced has not been revealed yet. We do know that her father had tried to kill her and himself when she was a child, but nothing about her mother or why her father did what he did has been revealed. Having experienced such toxic dynamics within the family could also be the reason why Mun-yeong understands the struggle that Kwak Dong-yeon's character as a politician's son faces. She understands how he must have led his life -- filled with bias and hatred by his own family members. So when she takes him out for a ride, away from the hospital, it is not a decision that she takes lightly.
It's also through Kwak Dong-yeon's character that we understand how Kang-tae feels. The first time Kang-tae meets this patient, he is not surprised that the patient is wearing nothing. Instead, he says, you must be feeling cold. He dresses the patient up, and after doing so, the question that he asks the patient might strike many as strange. He asks the patient how fast he can run? How much time does he take to run 100 meters? Why? Kang-tae is familiar with wanting to run away. He has so far been able to restrain himself because of his brother, but he understands this patient's needs to run more than anyone.
The episode also saw Kang-tae and Mun-yeong have a confrontation after Mun-yeong enters his locker space without permission. Despite him repeatedly telling her that he doesn't want to see her, Mun-yeong doesn't respect the boundaries that he is setting up between them. As a result, a frustrated Kang-tae asks her what she wants. He understands that she is not someone who would let go without getting what she needs. She wants him. She wants him unlike wanting anything else before and the reason that she states is that he is pretty. However, that's not why.
The reason lies in the fact that just the thought of Kang-tae was able to chase her nightmares away. So when Kang-tae tells her that he has no interest in her or spending time with her, she calls him a hypocrite. Mind you, it is not in anger but in understanding that she responds so.
This understanding is something that Kang-tae is unable to accept in the beginning. For someone who sees his shackled self in Kwak Dong-yeon's character, and yet as he continues to believe that his life is dedicated to caring for his brother alone, accepting that he is a hypocrite will break him down. When he feels the relief that comes with breaking free of the shackle through his patient in the future though, that's when Kang-tae considers going along with Mun-yeong's plan. Just this once. So when he asks her if he should just hang out with her, no one is more surprised than Mun-yeong herself because she understands how big a step Kang-tae had to take in asking her this.
In the end, what we are left with is to wonder if anyone else would come close to understanding her as she does the others.
'It's Okay to Not Be Okay' originally airs on tvN on Saturdays and Sundays at 9 pm KST in South Korea and can be streamed on Netflix.
