This article contains major spoilers.
3.5/5 stars
Lead cast: Jang Ki-yong, Chun Woo-hee, Go Doo-shim, Claudia Kim
Latest Nielsen rating: 4.9 per cent
If The Atypical Family made one thing clear, it is that we cannot change our fates. Man-heum (Go Doo-shim), matriarch of the Bok family – whose members all have superpowers – has had many visions throughout the show’s 12 episodes, and each of them has come to pass.
However, being certain about one piece of the puzzle does not give you a view of the full picture. Man-heum’s dreams may have been accurate, but they were often not clear. She might see a fire, but then mistakes where and when it will take place.
The Atypical Family gave us the happy ending we so desired, but only by betraying its message and opening the door to a host of potential plot holes.
Gwi-ju’s superpower was the ability to return to, but not change, happy moments in his past. He lost this power, but when Da-hee appeared it was restored – with some twists: he could return to happy moments, but only ones shared with her, and he could change the past.
Da-hee was saved from a fire in her high school when she was a teenager after being locked in a room. This was the same fire that claimed the life of Gwi-ju’s firefighter partner, who had taken his place that day since Gwi-ju’s daughter In-a had just been born.
She was saved by a mysterious man with a birthmark on his neck. While Gwi-ju has no such mark, it was plain to see that he must have been her saviour. The problem is that in saving Da-hee from the blaze, the man perished.
Since Gwi-ju can go into the past and interact with Da-hee, and given the fact that she survived the fire, it follows that he will die in the future.
Some scenarios came to mind. Perhaps a far older Gwi-ju goes back into the past to save Da-hee, giving the couple many years together until it is his time to go. There’s also the possibility that Gwi-ju simply saves himself from the fire by returning to the present in the nick of time.
Any hope for either of these scenarios is dashed when Da-hee and the Bok family are swept up in another blaze, this time during a talent show at In-a’s (Park So-yi) school.
Gwi-ju saves Da-hee and In-a by holding up a large plank and giving them a route to escape. But in doing so he has condemned himself to die since he cannot save himself. Thus the only escape for him is to go back to the past, but this time it will be a past from which he cannot return.
This leaves him a clear path to take – go back and save Da-hee from the other fire in the past.
At this point we are given an explanation for the birthmark Da-hee years ago thought she saw on her saviour’s neck. It turns out to have been a temporary mark from a flower that Gwi-ju gets during another trip to the past.
So Gwi-ju perishes in the original blaze and for a moment it seems as though the show has stuck to its guns by giving us a thoroughly tragic conclusion.
Yet aside from a handful of the genre series that Netflix produces (this is a JTBC cable show licensed by the global streaming platform, not one it financed), happy endings are something of a foregone conclusion in Korean dramas.
And so, in a coda to The Atypical Family that takes place a few years later, Da-hee has given birth to a son – her child with Gwi-ju – who is starting to show signs of his superpower: he can bring things back. Da-hee asks if he can bring his father back – and that’s that.
Yet while its very last note may have been a disappointing one, this series was a symphony of emotional surprises, not least because of its wonderful score.
Whereas most Korean fantasy romance dramas have a flimsy logic and trot out tired supernatural concepts, here we had a richer concept that was fully fleshed out, and a narrative that applied it cleverly to produce a sweeping and emotional story.
The Atypical Family is streaming on Netflix.