"Please Come Back, Mister" Episode 8 recap

Yeong-soo and Gi-tak had a pretty successful run last episode in terms of accomplishing their goals. The problem that brings up is, if they've already mostly accomplished what they needed to do, then why are they bothering to stick around in the world of the living? Yeong-soo and Gi-tak will have to go back sooner or later. And until then they're at risk of breaking one of Maya's rules- a penalty which is finally elucidated and which Yeong-soo and Gi-tak will have to struggle to avoid enacting.
Well, that much is true for Yeong-soo anyway. Can't let Ji-hoon get the upper hand after all. I'm not completely sure that the penalty is necessarily all that bad for Gi-tak, though. Gi-tak doesn't really seem to care that much about how people remember him. It's pretty noticeable how Yeong-soo is always coming up with elaborate justifications to crash Da-hye's life while Gi-tak simply pretends to be his own younger sister and never takes insults personally.
That all is criticism in broad strokes. The story in "Please Come Back, Mister" is, as usual, so lacking that there's barely even anything to latch onto. Da-hye struggles with financial problems, some of which might be Yeong-soo's fault for pretending like he owes debt to Hae-joon. All of this, in any case, is to set up the next conflict, which involves Da-hye fighting the department store over proper compensation and acknowledgment of fault when it comes to Yeong-soo.
And you know, as much I hate to admit it, the corporate infrastructure here does have a point. While it's tragic that Yeong-soo died and they were probably a little too quick to assume his death was a suicide, what real liability do the suits have here outside of good will? No satisfying answer is offered to this query, which is a problem since Yeong-soo is already out on a limb trying to rationalize his continued presence in the world of the living. Gi-tak, meanwhile, is trying to get I-yeon a job.
"Please Come Back, Mister" is thoroughly mediocre. The drama lacks any apparent ambition. There's Jae-gook (played by Choi Won-yeong), who struts around and acts antagonistically every few scenes, conveniently being the enemy of both Yeong-soo and Gi-tak for unrelated reasons. But as antagonists go Jae-gook is mostly just a generic jerk. About the only real bright spot this episode is I-yeon explaining why Yeong-soo doesn't get women. But even then, reminding us about the protagonist's worst features isn't exactly a winning strategy in terms of viewer engagement.
Review by William Schwartz
"Please Come Back, Mister" is directed by Sin Yoon-seob, written by Noh Hye-yeong and features Rain Kim Soo-ro, Kim In-kwon, Oh Yeon-seo, Lee Min-jeong, Lee Honey, Choi Won-yeong, Yoon Park and more

Copy & paste guideline for this article
Always put a link back to the source and HanCinema permalink