Early Access: Yumi's Cells 2 E8 (Patreon)

E8. Guh. This was a tough episode to watch, you guys. 😭 I do think it's the toughest one so far, and I'm slightly wary of where Show's going to take us next, after this. 🙈

First of all, the fact that our starting little episode is titled "Babi's Secret" does not give me a good feeling about where everything's going.

For a start, though, I do like that we get some context and backstory, around Da Eun and her crush on Babi.

It's true that Babi's quite the catch, and I totally get why Da Eun would develop a crush on him.

Importantly, we see that Babi doesn't actually encourage this crush, and doesn't hide the fact that he has a girlfriend.

In fact, according to Da Eun, Babi's bragged about Yumi to his colleagues, so that's good, because it means that he's being completely open about the fact that he is very much taken.

BUT THEN. When we go back to the scene where we left off last episode, there's that whole sequence, where Babi's Reason and Emotion cells knock out Love cell, and take the memory scroll to that deserted corner of cell town (labeled with "Danger" signs and all!), to burn it.

And then, they give Love cell a faked memory scroll, with the cleaned-up memory, which Babi eventually tells Yumi; that he'd first fallen for her, when he'd seen her bopping to music in the office pantry.

As much as I love Babi, this whole thing gives me pause. Because, what about the answer needed to be cleaned up, before he could give Yumi an answer, right?

We don't have much time to dwell on this, though, coz Show takes us back to that flashback where we see that the Editor-in-Chief, Ahn Dae Young, had actually been in one of Yumi's classes, and had had this massive crush on her.

It all seems harmless and low-key entertaining for a while, until we see that the dorky dude had actually been Ahn Dae Young, the Chief Editor whom Yumi's meeting.

And I have to say, I didn't enjoy this arc very much at all.

I was really thrown by just how.. weird, Ahn Dae Young's cell town is.

It's really strange to me, that his cells all look like variations of some kind of Ken doll, where every single one looks tall, streamlined and muscular.

That's probably an indication that that's how Ahn Dae Young sees himself on the inside - because that's totally not what he looks like on the outside.

And I do understand that there are real people like Ahn Dae Young, who are socially awkward, and say and do things that other people would consider strange.

I just.. never imagined what their cell towns might look like, and Ahn Dae Young's weird cell town did make me uncomfortable, not gonna lie.

I think one of the things that bemuses me the most, is that Ahn Dae Young's Love cell is so robotic. On top of that, he's got very strange ideas about when to be warm to others, and it was just really, really strange.

I mean, Ahn Dae Young thinks that he's courting Yumi, but in reality, Yumi feels legitimately tortured by him, with the way he keeps piling on the work, so that he'll have the chance to see Yumi sooner rather than later.

And so, it was really uncomfortable to watch Ahn Dae Young try to make the moves on Yumi, while Yumi feels unable to say no to his requests, because he's the one person who's shown interest in publishing her work.

The scenes of Ahn Dae Young Love cell launching an attack on Yumi's Gate of Heart were also uncomfortable to watch. I mean, I'm sure a Love cell has no business looking so.. fierce?

Therefore, when Ahn Dae Young realizes sees from Yumi's SNS that she has a boyfriend, and decides to back off, I was hugely - massively! - relieved.

BUT THEN. This means that Hunch cell's intel, that someone will get in the way of Yumi's relationship with Babi, and cause them to become distanced from each other, is not about Ahn Dae Young, but someone else.

AND THEN. We see that Babi's cell town experiences the tremors of an earthquake, when Da Eun makes that indirect confession to Babi, at the bus stop.

Which means that even though Babi handles it with an appropriate sense of distance, his heart is wavering in response.

AND THENNNN. When Babi spots Da Eun leaving on the bus for Busan, Babi's cell town experiences a full-on earthquake.

ACK. This means that even though Babi isn't doing anything inappropriate - for example, he doesn't go after Da Eun to the airport, thank goodness - he IS feeling something on the inside, in response to Da Eun.

No. Noooo. NOOoOo~ *wails*

I hadn't expected this from Babi, at all! 😭😭😭

This does tie up very neatly with that earlier arc, where Babi had cleaned up his memory of when he'd first liked Yumi, though.

I mean, on hindsight, the only inappropriate answer would have been that Babi had liked Yumi, when he'd still been dating his ex-girlfriend. To my mind, that would be the only reason that memory needed to be cleaned up, and an alternative, acceptable memory served up in its place.

Also, all this time, I've been thinking that Babi really is the perfect boyfriend, I've actually also been wondering what flaw Show would introduce, for Babi, because with this drama world being as realistic as it is, there's no way that Babi would actually be perfect.

I just.. hadn't anticipated that this would be Babi's flaw; that he tends to start having feelings for other women, while still in a committed relationship.

*BAWLS* This is NOT okay, Show. I am not okay. 😫😫😫

Next episode notes will be out on: Thursday, 21 July 2022!