Everyone Struggles with a Worthless Self, Episode 7, First Read-Through

Who decides someone's worth?

Everyone Struggles with a Worthless Self, Episode 7, First Read-Through

I think Episode 7 was the episode where the women stepped to the forefront.

Up until now, the focus has been on Dong-man, Gyeong-se, and Jin-man, depicting "worthlessness" and "people who cannot say 'help me'."
But in Episode 7, the storylines of the women—Eun-ah, Mi-ran, Oh Jeong-hee, and Hye-jin—suddenly emerged.

The question being asked in this episode is probably,

"Who decides someone's worth?"

I think that is what it is.

First, it was significant that Park Yong-se, the representative of the Eight-Person Association, was made to say the line that is also the title of the drama,

"Everyone struggles with a worthless self."

This is something that cannot be overlooked.

Moreover, they placed this line in the episode right after the halfway point.

I believe this was the writer's intention.

In this drama, it is not just Dong-man who is struggling with a worthless self.
Gyeong-se, Jin-man, Eun-ah, Hye-jin, Mi-ran, and Oh Jeong-hee are all wavering over their own worth in different ways.

In Episode 7, that question became clearer.

Being chosen by someone.
Being loved by someone.
Being acknowledged by someone.
Having one's work evaluated.
Being seen by a mother as a daughter.
Having one's value recognized as work.

By what do people confirm their own worth?
And is that worth really something that can be decided by someone else?

I felt that this is what is being questioned.

Dong-man looked a little happy in this episode.

Mi-ran boldly says in front of everyone that she likes Dong-man.
To that, Dong-man replies,

"But I like Ms. Eun-ah."

he replies.

Until now, Dong-man was someone who would eat when anxious, protect himself with words, and cling to the past.
But here, he expresses his feelings in front of others.

To be loved by someone.
And to be able to say that he, too, loves someone.

I think Dong-man has finally reached the threshold of that.

However, that does not mean he was 'saved by romance.'
Dong-man's worth was not created by the presence of Una.
Rather, I think that things which were there all along, but were invisible to others and even to himself, have been gradually made visible by Una.

Because of that, it seemed that the members of the Eight-Person Association were also beginning to recognize Dong-man's worth little by little, in ways other than words.

On the other hand, concerns about a love triangle have also emerged.

Mi-ran says she likes Dong-man.
Dong-man replies that he likes Una.
Una listens to this in silence.

Looking only at this composition, there is a hint of a love triangle typical of Korean dramas.

But I think what is important in this scene is not the romance itself, but the fact that Una is 'chosen in front of others.'

Una is a daughter abandoned by her mother, Oh Jung-hee.
And by her mother's side is Mi-ran, as a daughter who is not related by blood.

For Una, the wound is not just that she was abandoned.
It is that someone else has been placed in the spot where she should have been.
She was placed in an invisible spot, while Mi-ran is in a visible one.

That Una is chosen by Dong-man in front of others.

That is why I don't think that silence was just shyness or surprise.
It looked like the silence of someone who is not used to being chosen by someone in public.

The scene between Oh Jung-hee and Una was also heavy.

Jung-hee approaches Una and tells her to move, take a credit card, and live a life without hardship.
But those are not the words of a mother welcoming her daughter.

She is trying to tidy up Una's life because she feels ashamed of it herself.

What Una wanted was not money, a card, or a place to live.
It should have been for her mother not to treat her as something shameful.

Una tells Jung-hee not to reveal her to the world as 'the daughter you abandoned,' and that she will never do so either.

This was a very painful line to draw.

It is not a plea to be acknowledged as a mother.
Rather,

If you cannot acknowledge me as your daughter, then I will not use the fact that I am your daughter either.

That is what it sounded like she was saying.

For Una, there is nothing left but the resentment, sadness, and loneliness of having wanted to be loved by Jeong-hee.
That is why she calls Jeong-hee a 'mass of contempt'.

And she confronts her head-on, saying that you must have abandoned both my father and me because we were embarrassing.

What becomes visible here is less about the love and hate between mother and daughter, and more about
the image of a person who has been treated as a source of shame refusing to be disposed of again for someone else's convenience.

Hye-jin was also quite important in this episode.

Until now, Hye-jin had appeared as Gyeong-se's wife and the producer who had been nurturing Dong-man for 10 years to help him debut as a film director.
But in episode 7, her face as a production company executive clearly emerges.

Even when she receives sarcasm and contempt from the president of Cheong Film, she endures it while moving the business forward.
Even though there are things she wants to retort, she swallows them to make the work a reality.

I think Hye-jin is also a person who finds value in 'creating good work'.

It is also revealed that she is producing films while receiving government subsidies.
She is likely close to a production company that makes many independent films or works with a strong authorial voice.

But just because it is independent does not mean you can purely look only at the work.
Fundraising, subsidies, investors, the director's pride, the perfection of the script, the company's credibility.
She is trying to create good work while carrying all of that reality.

Gyeong-se is hurt by how he is perceived.
Hye-jin is looking at how to make the work a reality.

This difference is significant.

She is a person who believes in talent, but at the same time, she is a person who swallows humiliation to turn that talent into an actual production.

I think episode 7, while taking the form of a romance or family drama, was actually an episode that talked quite strongly about 'value'.

Una is a daughter treated as a source of shame by her mother.
Mi-ran is a daughter who, although not related by blood, is kept by the side of a great actress.
Oh Jeong-hee is a person who approaches Una not with maternal love, but with concern for appearances and control.
Hye-jin is a producer who swallows humiliation as an executive to create good work.

And Dong-man is a person who has finally said he likes someone and has stood at the entrance to being loved by someone himself.

Perhaps this episode was one where the women were the protagonists.

However, my apprehension has not yet disappeared.

A daughter abandoned by a great actress.
A daughter with no blood relation.
Signs of a love triangle.
The love and hate between mother and daughter.
The convergence of romance and salvation.

Looking only at the premise, there is still a danger that it could fall into the clichés that Korean dramas often succumb to.

However, if this drama remains strong, these elements should not become mere melodramas of love and hate.

Romance does not become salvation; rather, being chosen by someone makes one's own wounds even more visible.
Families do not reconcile; instead, it is revealed who was placed in a position to be seen as a daughter and who was hidden away as a source of shame.
Even the act of creating art is depicted not as a dream, but as something established amidst humiliation and reality.

Episode 7 was quite important as the first move after the halfway point.

Everyone is fighting their own worthless self.
So, is that fight about winning against someone?
Is it about being chosen by someone?
Is it about being recognized by someone?
Or is it about living on, even while carrying a self that might be nobody at all?

From here on in the second half, I want to see how they provide the answer to that.