[HanCinema's Drama Review] "Pinocchio" Episode 6

While Jae-myeong lurks somewhat ominously in the background, for the foreseeable future it looks like the drama's just going to be team In-ha and team Dal-po working against each other to get to the bottom of mysteries. It should be note, of course, that none of our main characters are actually detectives. So even if "Pinocchio" seems to have the appearance of a police procedural, by the end it's quite clear that their motivation is something else entirely. If we do get an explanation of what actually happened in the big scoop this week, that discovery will mostly be incidental.

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In the immediate sense this is just character actors working off of each other. Beom-jo and Yoo-rae finally get the chance to live up to their second billing here as they work like foils for  Dal-po and In-ha. The friction between Dal-po and Beom-jo is understandable enough. They're romantic rivals, even if neither of them have declared any actual intent toward In-ha. At the same time they're both trying to get information by out-nicing each other, which is such a weird dynamic that it's inherently delightfully comical.

In-ha and Yoo-rae, by contrast, actually fight each other in rather catty ways, even when doing so obviously inhibits their ability to do any real investigation. There's also this weird sexual dynamic going on where they attempt to get information out targets by using feminine wiles. This female reporter stereotype was bound to show up sooner or later, but any possibly offensive material is mostly mollified by the fact that they both look so ridiculous acting that way.

It's an aspect of the writing that I really like. A more traditionally feminist structure would be trying to spin In-ha and Yoo-rae as taking a somehow empowering command of their sexuality. Here, though, their inability to think of a better plan is instead evidence of their general experience. The major breaks in the case come not from their acting stereotypically, but rather In-ha and Yoo-rae thinking creatively to get a hold of information that clearly wasn't meant for them.

The preview too holds a lot of promise. This episode was the investigation stage, so consequently, next episode will explore how the practice of finding information is transmogrified into a news story that can actually be consumed by a mass audience. Particularly interesting is that both teams manage to come up with something useful, which means we're also going to get a direct look at how the same story can take on a completely different hue depending on the editorial angle. Pretty intriguing stuff, that.

Review by William Schwartz

"Pinocchio" is directed by Jo Soo-won and Sin Seung-woo, written by Park Hye-ryeon and features Lee Jong-suk, Park Shin-hye, Kim Young-kwang, Lee Yu-bi, Lee Pil-mo, Kang Shin-il and many more.

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