"Please Come Back, Mister" Episode 15 recap

I find that watching "Please Come Back, Mister" without a sense of context tends to be instructive for getting a feel of the drama. As per the last cliffhanger, there was a big car accident and Yeong-soo, rather than do the sensible thing and go to the hospital, stumbles around through sheer force of will to his intended destination. One might think from that much that there was a serious romance going on between him and Da-hye, rather than the deliberately ambiguous mess we actually ended up with. And then Gi-tak shows up using the cute "dearest spouse" form of personal address.
At its best moments "Please Come Back, Mister" has a lot in common with more traditionally minded dramas, with the emphasis on high-stakes emotional situations. Where the production usually falls flat is with the often awkward use of supernatural elements. The watches make a comeback here, and Maya gives us a somewhat arbitrary rule that can apparently be used to deal with Yeong-soo's sudden bad situation.
That bad situation, by the way, is the fault of villainous influences that until recently haven't been much of a presence. Looking back, the overall plot is actually kind of a whodunit, in that we're left guessing as to which vaguely antagonistic character is the true villain who's been orchestrationg every bad thing that's happened in the story. There aren't really that many candidates, although it yet remains odd how apparently the true villain has also been at odds with most of the other almost villains, yet has somehow not been exposed.
But full elucidation on those points will have to wait until the final episode. In the meantime, I could appreciate the music design. While it's nothing espoecially innovative, the score always goes through the right beats necessary to, say, make us sad when something bad happens and tough choices have to be made. It does help that "Please Come Back, Mister" has lately mostly avoided having Yeong-soo make the kind of petty decisions that made up his characterization in the early part of the drama.
Yet that's unfortunately often the best the production team can really do in "Please Come Back, Mister". They can make the action vaguely entertaining without being all that impressive, or even mockworthy. Improbable escapes just come off as kind of improbable, not really ludicrous. As a production "Please Come Back, Mister" has often been stuck trying with trying to strike the right balance of absurd comedy with absurd drama, and it hasn't been that successful.
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

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