“Yumi’s Cells” (유미의 세포들): Season 2

By Jae-Ha Kim
jaehakim.com
August 3, 2022

☆☆☆☆
Yumi (played by Kim Go-eun)
Ba-bi (played by Park Jin-young)
↑Note: Korean names denote the surname followed by the given name.

The second season of “Yumi’s Cells” picks up where season one left off. After Yumi and Woong’s breakup, she ventures into a new relationship with an exceedingly attractive colleague named Ba-bi. They go on sweet dates and slowly fall in love. But when things seem too good to be true, Yumi almost anticipates their breakup. That’s what she has come to expect from men.

Woong never cheated on her. But her previous long-term boyfriend before him was a user and left her for a woman he was already dating (and would later marry).

If you watch this series on Viki, you have the option to turn on the viewer timed comments, which will pop up in a corner of your computer (or phone etc.). And I enjoyed turning this option on at times, if for nothing else than to see all the fans rooting for either #TeamWoong or #TeamBabi. (I was in the former faction, by the way.)

What this series really drives home is that if you don’t trust your partner and, more importantly, yourself, the relationship is doomed. This season gave a realistic depiction of how damaging emotional cheating can be. And while some of #TeamBabi thought Yumi was ridiculous for not trusting him, I sympathized with her. As Yumi’s cells depicted, that’s who she is. All of our life experiences add up to who we are today. And Yumi was a work in progress, learning to deal with all her emotions that often were dependent on how her partner behaved towards her.

I also appreciated that our female protagonist took a risk to shake up her stable office job to pursue her dream of becoming an author. I’ll be honest. The mom in me said, “Nooooooooooooo, don’t quit your job. Work on your writing after hours!” But that may actually have been one of the reasons she gave up writing fiction. It’s exhausting working full-time and then coming home to toil away some more.

If she failed at getting published, she could always get another office job or at least a part-time job. She also had the safety net of having loving parents who undoubtedly would’ve helped her financially if it came down to it.

Life is short. And dreams can’t become reality without some effort (and risks) on our parts.

I always know that Kim Go-eun will deliver in whatever project she stars in. She beautifully conveys all the complicated emotions that Yumi goes through. But Park Jin-young is a revelation as Ba-bi. He takes a character that could have been one dimensional and adds maturity and pathos. And even though I have been #TeamWoong since last season, I admit that Ba-bi was so sweet and loving that I was swayed over to #TeamBabi’s side a few times.

Airdates: Fourteen hour-long episodes aired from June 10 to July 22, 2022 on tvN. You may read my review of Season 1 here. I watched this series on the streaming app Viki.

Spoiler Alert: Yumi doesn’t end up with either Ba-bi or Woong. When she sees that it’s not working out, she breaks up with Ba-bi. (Woong needs to follow suit and move on, rather than hoping she’ll come back to him.) Professionally, she’s at a very good place in her life. She gets her own webtoon and publishes her first book. (Never mind that all of this happens unrealistically quickly, within a year or two of quitting her job.) She doesn’t freak out when she sees either of her ex-boyfriends. The finale does hint that there will be a new love interest — an editor at her publishing house. Maybe that’ll be explored if the showrunners add a third season?

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