“May I Help You?” (일당백집사)

By Jae-Ha Kim
jaehakim.com
February 11,  2023

☆☆☆☆
Kim Tae-hee (played by Lee Jun-young)
Baek Dong-ju (played by Lee Hye-ri)
↑Note: Korean names denote the surname followed by the given name.

I liked this series much more than I thought I would. The beginning of “May I Help You?” looked goofy initially and I wasn’t sure I’d make it past the first couple episodes. But as I continued to watch, it grew progressively more interesting, with some nice twists and turns that I hadn’t anticipated.

The conceit of this K-drama revolves around a young woman who is working as a funeral director. Dong-ju is smart with a sunny disposition, but no one believes that handling dead people is a suitable career for her. People look down on her. They are grossed out that she touches the deceased as she does their makeup and consider her necessary job as disgusting and beneath them.

While helping a woman plan her mother-in-law’s funeral, Dong-ju is grateful for her kindness. Dong-ju even shares some of the flowers she purchased for the funeral with the daughter in law, who fawns over her, but later throws the bouquet away. Why? Because someone dirty (Dong-ju) had touched them. Dong-ju overhears the woman telling her young son not to touch the funeral director’s hands, because she’s unclean. It’s clear that to some people, there is a caste system in place and they feel unnecessarily superior for all the wrong reasons.

Dong-ju has a boyfriend who doesn’t want to be with someone who handles dead people, but he’s too much of a coward to break up with her in person. Instead, he hires a surrogate from an errand service to break up for him. That’s where Dong-ju and Tae-hee meet. And, of course, this is the beginning of their relationship that, of course, will turn romantic eventually.

Tae-hee has his own demons to deal with. He has a tragic past that he has to contend with and is wracked with guilt over something he couldn’t control. Through his relationship with Dong-ju, he comes to terms with an incident that he feels responsible for.

Oh, did I mention? Dong-ju has the ability to talk to the dead — at least those who aren’t murderers or died by suicide — for a a short while before they are sent to heaven.

Just about each episode deals with a new story, and many of them are heartbreaking.

• Two orphans grow up, get married and are days away from becoming parents. But while the husband is out buying apples for his wife, a man enters their apartment and murders her. Inconsolable, the young husband tries to throw himself off a bridge. But remembering a few things Dong-ju had told him, Tae-hee rescues him. It’s at this point that Tae-hee realizes that Dong-ju does have the ability to speak to the dead.

• Dong-ju’s boss has his own issues to deal with. A female friend begs him for money to pay for her infant’s hospital bills. He does, and also gives her his credit card to purchase whatever she needs for the baby. But the woman’s father is furious, telling her that she shouldn’t associate with someone who works with dead people and that he’s the reason for the baby’s illness. That his filthy career is the source of bad luck that rubbed off on her and the baby. ??? Make. It. Make. Sense. Why, then, isn’t her father or, even more importantly, the baby’s father, taking responsibility for their own family? Why aren’t they using their clean money to help the child?

• Midway through the series, there is a story arc involving Don-ju’s friend, So-ra, whose grandmother has dementia. So-ra loves her dearly, but grows frustrated at the old woman’s lack of awareness and repetitive questions. Anyone who has a loved one with memory loss will relate. You can absolutely love someone, but still grow frustrated by their inability to be who they once were. After her beloved grandmother dies, So-ra said she regrets asking her halmoni questions she knew the elderly woman couldn’t answer. She was ashamed thinking about how her grandmother desperately tried to think of a way to reply to her granddaughter. This last part broke my heart. (By the way, So-ra is played by the exceptional actress Seo Hye-won, who has plum roles in “Business Proposal” (You know I have no 친구!), “Nevertheless,” and “Alchemy of Souls“.)

• There is a sweet camping episode that I initially sideeyed. Dong-ju’s uncle, a priest, asks Tae-hee’s uncle who he had just met to take a young boy on a camping trip. OK, we know that the uncles are righteous men. But noooooooooooooo. Why would you send a child alone on a camping trip with a stranger?! Tae-hee ended up filling in for his uncle and Dong-ju was sent as well, but the priest sent her to further her relationship with Tae-hee, and not as a safeguard for the child. After the boy falls asleep during their camping trip, Tae-hee suggests they take a walk. Noooooooooo! What are you even thinking? What if he wakes up scared in a new place? And that aside, you never leave children unattended…even when it seems safe. Some might argue that Korea is much safer than many countries like the United States. I wouldn’t disagree. But I can tell you for a fact that my parents wouldn’t have done this, even when we lived in Seoul.

• Every time Tae-hee and Dong-ju are about to grab a meal or have coffee together, his ex-girlfriend shows up. Instead of sending her away, Dong-ju removes herself from the situation. Girl, what? Nooooo! And the piece de resistance is when the ex shows up with her suitase after a fight with her mother and announces that she will stay with him for a few days. It’s one thing if someone is truly homeless. But she’s a successful doctor who could stay at a nice hotel…or just sleep at work and change there. So while it’s her fault for being overly clingy, he also needs to grow a spine and set boundaries. And Dong-ju needs to stop stepping aside as it happens. “We have dinner plans.” How difficult is that to say? The real problem, of course, is the ex who clings onto a man who has said that he doesn’t want her. Imagine if a man was doing this to a woman. We’d say he was an obsessed stalker. That’s what she is. And she needs to get therapy, let go and move on, for her sake even more than his.

This doesn’t have to do with any of the plot, but I thought it was funny that Tae-hee was wearing a t-shirt that’s misspelled as “You’r my wonderwall.” LOL

OK, more in my Spoiler Alert below…

Airdates: Sixteen 67-minute episodes aired on MBC from October 19 to December 22, 2022. I watched this on Prime Video (U.S.).

Spoiler Alert: Tae-hee’s backstory is quite tragic. He had a much younger brother who idolized him. With Tae-hee working as a doctor, he didn’t have much time to spend with the boy. But he promised that they would go see the stars at night. He asked his baby brother to bring the engagement ring that he was going to give his long-time girlfriend (who is the ex I mentioned in the main body of this review). It was raining heavily and the boy ran across the street on his way to meet his brother. But he was hit by a truck driven by a drunk driver.

Tae-hee’s ex treated the drunk driver first, not knowing that the victim was her boyfriend’s brother. Though it’s not articulated, Tae-hee probably does blame her, at least a little bit, for not prioritizing his sibling. He quits being a doctor, signs up for his mandatory military duty and later joins his uncle’s errand service.

But here’s part of the backstory that I hadn’t anticipated. In most of the flashbacks, we see that the drunk driver’s younger brother is a police office who is friends with Tae-hee and his circle for friends. We see the older brother on life support for years in the hospital.

When the police officer came upon the accident, he’s frazzled. The little boy begs him to save him, but the cop doesn’t know what to do. He keeps looking back at the truck and the boy, especially after he realizes the the driver is his brother.

I can understand the moral dilemma, and even his fears that his brother was at fault. But I don’t understand why he didn’t get on his phone and call for an ambulance. Maybe the child would’ve died anyways, but to not do everything in your power to save his life is a crime in and of itself.

The surprise element is that it was actually the police officer, who had also been drinking, who drove the truck and killed the little boy. After the accident, he moved his brother into the driver’s seat to make it seem like it was a drunk driving accident. When his brother finally dies, he feels relief.

It was Dong-ju who figured this out. Remember I mentioned earlier that she can’t speak to those who have killed others or died by suicide? As she’s putting makeup on his face, he talks to her. That’s when she puts two and two together.

As for why Dong-ju was able to speak to dead people, it appears they were all tied to the same tragedy. Her mother was pregnant with her and she and her coworkers were trapped in a fire at an electric company. Tae-hee was there that day, too, and rescued by Dong-ju’s mother.  (But I’m still not sure how the young couple raised in an orphanage tied into all of this. Maybe their parents had perished in the fire, too? Also, how did her uncle know all this about her life? He’s a priest, not a shaman.)

The finale is satisfying. Dong-ju has lost her power to speak to the dead, but she finds her work fulfilling and remains as a funeral director. Having let go of his guilt, Tae-hee returns to work as a doctor. And yes, it appears he and Dong-ju will live happily ever after.

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