"Bring It On, Ghost" Episode 12 recap

A major pivot takes "Bring It On, Ghost" away from ghost fighting as the dramatic emphasis shifts to when and how Hyeon-ji will recover her memories. For Bong-pal the course of action is a simple one- of course he loves her, and is infinitely relieved to discover that Hyeon-ji was in a coma all along. It does take an irritatingly long time for Bong-pal to actually find out what's going on with Hyeon-ji, but the scenes we get when that finally happens are fairly sweet.
This is recurring problem in "Bring It On, Ghost", that even though we in the audience know what's happening the characters themselves have access to relatively little of this information. I've realized, upon further consideration, that even Myeong-cheol doesn't actually know all that much about Hye-seong's extra-curricular activities. Which to me is just further evidence that turning Hye-seong into a serial killer was a major misstep on the part of the production team.
Let's consider his character for a moment. Hye-seong is, on the surface level, a model citizen, yet some sort of supernatural influence makes him go into sudden violent rages. That's not so implausible on its own, minus the ghosts. Plenty of abusive husbands have the same dual personality. But by dedicating so much time to Hye-seong's dark side, "Bring It On, Ghost" makes anyone who falls for his act for even a minute look like an idiot, including the main characters.
The funny part is that Bong-pal being kind of an idiot is a big part of the drama's charm. He never has the sense to quit with Hyeon-ji, and I find it funny that the main difference between technically older than Bong-pal Hyeon-ji and teenage Hyeon-ji is that the former had more of a smug sadistic streak. The latter is more content to mind her own business, even if that inevitably proves to not be a realistic option.
There's always an unpredictable dynamic to the relationship between Bong-pal and Hyeon-ji that I really do wish was better replicated in the rest of the story, which tends to obscure important information for no reason. We still don't have any clue what Hye-seong's actual goal is- a better written drama would be using this ambiguity to float the possibility that Hye-seong may have a non-evil motive. But no, I guess it was really important that we watch him kill that cat way back when. Bah. At least the outtakes are good.
Review by William Schwartz
"Bring It On, Ghost" is directed by Park Joon-hwa, written by Lee Dae-il-I and features Taecyeon, Kim So-hyeon-I, Kwon Yul, Kim Sang-ho, Kang Ki-yeong and Lee David.

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