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When Pachinko debuted two-and-a-half years ago, it was one of Apple’s best-reviewed shows, mainly because Soo Hugh was able to make “TV sense” out of the epic, generation-spanning novel by Min Jin Lee. In the second season, one of the time periods shifts forward by about 15 years, but the series is no less compelling.
PACHINKO SEASON 2: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
Opening Shot: We see the headlight of a locomotive as it approaches the camera. The brakes screech as it slows and then stops.
The Gist: “OSAKA. 1945.” Koh Hansu (Lee Minho) approaches the train and sees the haul it has brought back for him. He isn’t sure whether he’ll sell it to the Americans or Soviets.
In a market under railroad tracks, Sunja Baek (Minha Kim) is selling her kimchi, calling it a “taste of home” to the Koreans who live there. She’s on her own with her two sons Noa and Mozasu (Kang Hoon Kim, Eunseong Kwon) since her pastor husband was hauled away by Japanese soldiers seven years prior; she and her sons live with her sister-in-law Kyunghee (Eun-chae Jung). But she’s running out of money and the cabbage supply she needs to pickle her kimchi has run dry.
Sunja and her family get word that the Americans will soon take over Osaka, and look to defend themselves. But, as Koh Hansu overhears, the takeover will be preceded by the massive bombs that the Japanese always feared the Americans had.
In 1989 Osaka, Solomon Baek (Jin Ha) is trying to start the investment fund that he knows he’ll manage to success. He gets the promise of some seed money from his Yale friend Tetsuya (Ryotaro Sugimoto). When he goes to the new pachinko parlor owned by his father Mozasu (Soji Arai) and grandmother Sunja (Yuh-Jung Youn), he’s shocked to be given a check for $700,000, which his father wants to use for the fund. Mozasu got the money by taking out a second mortgage on the parlor.
The younger Sunja runs into her old friend Jiyun (Jeong Sori), who is in more desperate straits than she is. Jiyun has heard about people bootlegging rice wine, and given that she has no other income, she asks Sunja to help her. Sunja at first objects , but manages to convince herself and Kyunghee because she knows it’s the best way to stave off starvation and desperation. Sunja ends up getting arrested in a raid, but gets off without a sentence because of a connection even she didn’t know she had.
Solomon finds out that Tetsuya’s investment is going to fall through, and when he goes with Sunja to the market to pick up a cake for the grand opening party, he gets into an argument with the racist bakery clerk, who cites Sunja’s patchy Japanese as the reason why the cake was messed up.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? The sprawling narrative of Pachinko, based on Min Jin Lee’s epic novel, feels very much in the same scope as the FX version of Shogun, despite the differing time periods. Our Take:
The shift of younger Sunja’s timeline to World War II is an interesting choice. She’s been married, she’s experienced the tragedy of having her husband hauled off by the Japanese, and now she has two sons to raise. The fact that she has Koh Hansu’s attention will make for an interesting aspect to how the subsequent years in her life play out. How she’ll establish herself in Japan as the Allies take over and look to reestablish a democratic government, but then start engaging in a battle with the Soviets back home in Korea, will be fascinating to watch.
We rarely get views of the Korean conflict from the view of ex-pat Koreans who looked on helplessly as their homeland gets torn apart by two superpowers, and we hope that we get to see young Sunja and her family dealing with this.
In the 1989 segment, Sunja is still dealing with the racism that greeted her in the country 45 years earlier, even though it may not be as obvious, and it seems that Solomon is going to struggle, as well. How that hooks into the earlier story is still to be seen, but there does seem to be higher stakes in the more recent part of the storyline than we saw in the first season.
Sex and Skin: None in the first episode.
Parting Shot: Koh Hansu, knowing the American bombings are coming, offers Sunja and her family shelter in the countryside. But she refuses to leave her jailed husband to do so.
Sleeper Star: Let’s give this to the team that makes the opening-credits dance sequence, this time around done to the song “Wait A Million Years” by The Grass Roots.
Most Pilot-y Line: None we could find.
Our Call: STREAM IT. Pachinko continues to be a show that deftly handles its sprawling settings and themes to make for a compelling multi-generational drama.
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.
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