This is the review + recap page for episode 1 & 2 of the 2024 kdrama The Atypical Family.
TRIGGER WARNING - this kdrama contains MANY depictions of psychological issues.
Air Dates: May 4 - Jun 9 2024 - [Sat/Sun]
Genres: Fantasy, Romance, Psychological, Action
Main Tropes: Time travel, Super powers, emotional scars, injury, healing, scams
Synopsis: The Bok family used to have super powers. The grandma can see the future, her son - Bok Gwi Joo (Jang Ki Yong) - can travel back in time to happy memories, her daughter can fly, and it's unknown what the granddaughter can do. But through a series of modern psychological issues, each family member has lost those abilities and hasn't been able to get them back. But when Do Da He (Chun Woo Hee) gets involved with them, things start to change! The grandma finally sleeps and sees a shaky vision of the future where Da He is wearing the family ring! Thinking this means something big, she starts scheming to get Da He set up with her son.
Quick review: I'm not sure how to feel about this, even as someone who studied Psyc! I feel like I understand a lot of the issues going on, and it seems like the show will have a major theme around healing from those. But I'm more curious how the super powers will intersect with all of that. The romance, too, seems very conflicting. There's so many secrets and it's only the first episode, so my interest is piqued. But...so far I'm rating it 4 stars because the psychological issues might get a little heavy.
Episode Recap
SPOILERS BELOW
Episode 01 Recap
The Bok family is having a meeting near the beach. The grandmother asks them each in turn to try out their powers, but none of them work. She gets frustrated and thinks about ending things, but is just being dramatic. She just wants their powers to return. Suddenly, she notices that her son, Bok Gwi Joo, has disappeared. People start shouting from nearby and they see that he is struggling in the water!
Do Da He rushes in to save him and pulls him to shore, where she does CPR. He coughs up some water and comes to. The family comes rushing up, but forgets to get her details.
Conveniently, the grandmother meets Da He at the spa not long after. Da He is a new hire, and willing to take on the grandmother as a client - none of the other girls want to take the risk. At first, Da He looks like a perfectly eager new employee, going above and beyond to help the grandmother. The grandmother gets some sleep and is shocked. When she asks about the employee, she finds out it was the girl who saved Gwi Joo at the beach!
Upon learning this, she requests for Da He to do future massages at her own home (so that she can feel comfy going to sleep). Da He agrees, and goes to their giant estate which has lots of weird features (a strange path leading to an underground cave, and a room filled with antiques made of gold, among them).
Before giving the massage, she goes down to prepare some tea. But when she enters the kitchen, Gwi Joo is there...and trying to open a bottle of wine with some scissors. She notices that the table is a little wobbly, and says it's dangerous. She offers to help. He says no, and is about to retreat, but then we see her purposefully knock the wine bottle over! Maybe she isn't the perfect new hire, after all?
She cleans up the mess and pretends to be heroic in front of the grandmother who came running. Gwi Joo, however, is not impressed.
After this, Da He prepares the tea, and we find out why the grandmother slept the last time: she slips a sleeping powder into it! Da He sees movement behind her, but doesn't catch a glimpse of anything solid. She thinks she wasn't caught.
Later that day, the grandmother falls into a deep sleep and has a shaky vision. She sees Da He wearing the family ring, and assumes it means that she's supposed to marry her son! She's more excited about the fact that she saw anything at all, and doesn't question it. So she begins scheming to get them to meet again, and picks the worst date possible: the day that Gwi Joo's wife died (which is also his daughters birthday).
Meanwhile, the sister is having some trouble keeping her job at a liposuction clinic - the clients don't believe it works because she looks bigger. The clinic fires her after the latest client runs out. So the sister goes to the gym which is owned by their family, and meets a girl who wants to be a trainer. We find out later that this girl is Da He's sister. By the end of the episode, we learn that they're doing something like the scam in the movie Parasite, where the entire family gets involved.
Anyways. They invite Da He to the birthday party, but everything goes wrong. The grandmother faints, and Da He is left behind. They ask her to turn off the stove. She's terrified of fire. So Gwi Joo's daughter, the quiet Bok Yi Na, has to do it for her. And this is where Yi Na admits that she saw Da He slip something into the tea. The flash of movement from before was her.
Da He hears Yi Na's stomach rumble as she turns to leave, and decides to finish making the seaweed soup. When Yi Na returns, she offers it to her and they both eat. Yi Na likes the taste, so she gives Da He some genuine advice. She admits the family secret, and tells Da He to run away because of it. Da He thinks that Yi Na is making it all up.
At the very end, we see that Da He has run two other scams before...and come out with a divorce settlement. She approached this family on purpose, although she's a little curious about the situation. She doesn't believe in the powers, but she definitely recognizes that something weird is going on.
Then, we're left with the memory of the last time the son did some time travel. He left his wife and daughter, and came back to the accident already done - his wife had already passed away. We saw some kind of power flash from his daughter just before it happened, but we don't know what it was.
Episode 02 Recap
(coming soon!)
My TMI for this recap:
I'm not sure what to think about this kdrama. It's so...real? And I'm not sure if that makes it dark, or relatable, or both? Having studied psychology, a lot of these issues are things I understand (or have even written papers about). So for me, that part isn't shocking at all. What's shocking is to see it on a kdrama! Lol. They usually don't get too deep into these things, and if they do: it's only a few people. In this, though, it looks like every character except for the grandpa is struggling with something.
But maybe that's because I usually don't stray too far from the fantasy romance stuff? Since this one had so many genres, I'm giving it a try. And...I think it'll be pretty cool. The preview for ep 2 already has me wondering about how the powers work, and what's going to happen.
If you're also watching this drama, let me know what you think over on X (Twitter)!