Thanks for tuning into Split Screen, everyone! Your rusty intro blogger Madelyn here, shaking off the cobwebs for our first Split Screen watch party since before our Japan vacation. It’s good to be back.
This week, Jun-pyo is marching to the altar on Boys Over Flowers, and Dark Shadow is experiencing some…alterations to his usual demeanor in My Hero Academia. Plus, I’ll go to any lengths for a pun, but that’s not news! Fire up your streaming services and settle in for this week’s post!
(New to Split Screen? You can catch up on all of our posts here.)
Boys Over Flowers Episode 21 (from minute 33)
M: I’ve missed my Boys Over Flowers!
E: You may not know this, reader, but we’ve been working from a backlog for a while. So it’s been a very long break since we watched either of these shows.
M: Fortunately, the last episode was pretty memorable. Even though it’s been like a month, I was able to pick it up.
E: I remember we commented that not very much happened at the time, which ended up being good for our purposes.
M: I’m still equally disturbed by the wedding photos.
E: I really, really didn’t like how he left the ring box open on top of them out in the open on his desk for his grandpa to see.
M: I think it was for the artistic shot. Will grandpa be alive when they get back from the wedding?
E: This show is not dark enough for him to return and find his grandpa’s rotting body.
M: Hey, Jan-di and Jun-pyo were beaten to a bloody pulp by a homicidal assassin in a parking lot.
E: Yeah, but that’s one thing and a flea-riddled corpse is another.
M: Where did the fleas come from? What do you think fleas are?
E: Fly-riddled, sorry.
M: They come back and he’s alive and well, but he has mange and a tapeworm!
E: That’s more believable to me. Prediction number one, getting to it early.
M: It makes even more sense that Ji-hoo traded the Jeju trip for the lifetime supply of meat since they’re literally flying to Jeju Island for the wedding.
E: I can’t wait for the couple who took the tickets to burst in and ruin the wedding somehow.
M: Ji-hoo calls in the favor.
E: Yeah, so, some more half-hearted writing for Jae-kyung. But that’s just what we’re gonna have to deal with for the next…rest of the show.
M: I don’t think she’ll be in the rest of the show. She’ll disappear before the finale.
E: Okay, but there’s only four episodes left.
M: Really? I can’t believe that.

Us, considering life without Boys over Flowers
E: Yup! We’re in the Endgame now, as Dr. Strange would say.
M: Half of the cast dies in the final episode.
E: You didn’t know it, but the first installment in the MCU was actually Boys Over Flowers. Since it’s a kdrama, it’s way under the radar.
M: Woo-bin becomes Thanos. He’s bitter about that time he had to drive a sports car all alone.
E: What made it funnier is that it was the exact same model as Yi-jung’s except for it was yellow.
M: They’re best buddies.
E: Jeju Island, by the way, has a diverse ecosystem. Yellow flower fields (could not tell you what kind of yellow flower) and wheat fields, all for you to walk through and have dramatic moments. By the way, we never actually got any sort of ending to the scene with Yi-jung and Ga-eul there. We just transitioned to the day of the wedding.
M: They walked back to the hotel in awkward silence, probably. Checked out the wheat field.

Pick your indie band album cover
E: But he was like mad. I think. I don’t know, he didn’t say anything to the last statement.
M: He was shocked, right? First, he was mad that she was being high and mighty, and then she was like “why didn’t you go on Valentine’s Day?” GASP!
E: Yeah, but, why didn’t he go on Valentine’s Day?
M: We’ll never know. Actually, I wouldn’t be shocked if he told her, and we see it in flashback next episode.
E: That’s possible. As for our other characters, I feel like Jan-di was mostly busy being sad for this half of the episode. Whereas Jun-pyo was begging everyone around him to just beat him up already.
M: Let’s talk about Jan-di first. The scene with Jae-kyung by the water provided some much needed clarity about Jae-kyung’s social intelligence. She’s known all along! I think that makes it worse!
E: I feel like we already knew that though. I was really taken aback by that scene, because I just never would have expected that kind of directness from her character. She’s really previously been all about pretending nothing’s wrong.
M: This week in particular she came across as an entitled brat. She knows she’s hurting everyone around her because she wants a chance at being loved in twenty years? It’s sad. But she promises to make it up to Jan-di for marrying the love of Jan-di’s life, and guess what? Even if Jan-di had told her about the relationship, she would have done the same thing! Friendship!
E: Yeah. I don’t think they’ve done enough for Jae-kyung’s character in any direction. I don’t really understand why she’s so fixated on this. They haven’t told me enough about her for me to understand why she’s so obsessive about things being perfect or why she’s so hung up on Jun-pyo. Am I supposed to believe it’s a sincere love or just a need for control?
M: He’s given her nothing to hang this obsession on. He’s totally unappealing! That’s not out of character; we hated him for the first month we watched the show. But also, why would Jan-di want to keep being Jae-kyung’s friend? She isn’t that fun. She seemed really cool when we met her in Macau, and that all disappeared. She’s just pathetic.

Just BFF things
E: I feel like her character wasn’t given any room to breathe outside of her fixation on Jun-pyo. Like, as soon as she entered the main storyline, Jun-pyo is nearly the only character she has a relationship with.
M: She says she loves him because he’s independent and strong-willed. I’m sorry girl, you’re a beautiful, wealthy heiress. You think you can’t find anyone else who’s kinda stubborn to marry? I hope it will become a more coherent arc once I can see where it ends. Now they’re just layering on the pathetic.
E: She’s really become just a cliche. Which is too bad.
M: She’s twenty, and she’s resigned herself to a life where maybe decades from now, she’s loved. That’s really bleak.
E: Mostly that’s just the type of thing that needs motivation and background to support it. And they’ve not given her any of that.
M: Poor Jan-di for having to deal with this. And man, I hated when Jan-di told her “all the dresses are pretty” and Jae-kyung responds “that’s not good enough BFF. Tell I’m ugly.”
E: It is annoying when people do that though. Like, don’t give you advice when you’re asking for it.
M: Yeah, but Jan-di comes from negative money.
E: You can still tell when you like or dislike something.
M: Sure. Jun-pyo, on the other hand, is sort of manning up? Maybe?
E: Jan-di tells him at the end that he’s really just trying to run away again, and I agree. Breaking your arm is not a long-term solution. Props that he went and tried to talk to Jae-kyung like an adult, but I’m glad that in the end it’s coming down to him having to take a definitive action and not just get out of it by pure luck and coincidence.
M: I also feel that his relationship with Ji-hoo is too sketched in, but I appreciated the acknowledgement from Jun-pyo that one, he’s wronged Ji-hoo and deserves a punch and two, that Ji-hoo is giving up everything for their friendship.
E: I agree. As much as I do enjoy the drama, I feel like the show has drifted more and more away from its friendships in order to mine maximum feels out of the romantic relationships.

We cheered when this happened which says something about us, I think
M: I’m hoping that the Endgame returns to more relationship grounding. I think once we get this big wedding set-piece out of the way, maybe they can focus in.
E: Is that about it for the episode? Beyond Woo-bin totally being down to break a bro’s arm?
M: And Yi-jung was like “yep, this is happening. Yikes.”
E: His face just screamed “oh man, here we go again.” Like this was a regular occurrence.

Big mood, Yi-jung
M: I’m still disappointed that Jun-pyo didn’t ruin the wedding by throwing red wine on his mom’s stylish pantsuit.
E: That would have viscerally satisfying.
M: I realize Romance Tracker is basically obsolete, but let’s use it to predict what’s going to happen at the wedding!
E: I honestly don’t know. He’s obviously not going to go through with it, because we don’t have enough time left for a divorce…slash I don’t want the show to go that direction. So he’s either not going to show or run out on her or come in and finally throw that red wine on his mother.
M: Do you think they’ll set it up so that Jan-di thinks he’s gotten married?
E: God, I hope not.
M: Princess Bride-style.
E: And then we time-skip ten years….
M: Mawiage.
E: But yeah, I just want Jun-pyo to finally do something about this.
M: Jan-di has been pretty passive too. She shouldn’t have to cause a scene at the wedding, that’s his job, but she’s been completely unwilling to say anything encouraging to him.
E: True. She does need to answer his question at the end there and tell him that she wants a relationship with him. Especially since he’s going to have to essentially throw away his entire life, as Unnie put it. And that is a hard thing for Jun-pyo to have to do, although maybe it wouldn’t have been that bad if he hadn’t waited this long.
M: It’s going to have to be big and dramatic. I’d prefer that he goes to the ceremony. Running away just delays the fight. Go big or go home.
E: That is the Boys Over Flower philosophy.
M: Any non-romantic predictions?
E: Woo-bin drives into the ceremony with his yellow car. Jun-pyo and Jan-di jump in. And then they ascend to the skies like Grease.
M: You know, I was going to say something dumb about Manager Jung or Jae-kyung’s version of Manager Jung, but forget it. You’ve called it.
E: Ooh ooh ooh. Honey.
My Hero Academia S3E6: “Roaring Upheaval”
M: I’m very disappointed that Dark Shadow didn’t eat anyone.
E: How would Dark Shadow eat anyone? Where would they go?
M: Dark digestion.
E: Does Dark Shadow need to eat? The questions that we wish this show would answer.
M: Darkness within darkness.
E: So yeah, we pick up with Tokoyami having lost control of Dark Shadow after seeing Shoji get one of his many hands chopped off.
M: Doesn’t seem like a big deal to me. Dude is literally a Hecatoncheires.
E: It’s dark. It’s scary. You’ve been attacked. He probably didn’t see the extent of the damage at the start. They’re children. I think it’s a decent impetus.
M: What you meant to say was: he’s birdbrained.
E: Yes. Yes, I did.
M: Good one, Emma.
E: However, baby Midoriya in his natural baby carrier comes up with a decent plan to get where he needs to go and calm the big raging bird of darkness down.
M: I just realized that his back cradle is just like the way they carry Bran around in Game of Thrones. Deku the Broken.
E: Deku: Wait, what are you calling me? What about Deku the Heroic or Deku the Child-Saver?
M: Deku the wiggly wiggly arms are jiggly.

Deku the Babby Boy
E: Madelyn and my real life argument was played out on the show today too in which Madelyn (already confirmed to be Bakugo) just wants to blast everything in sight and me (accidental Todoroki fangirl) is more cautious about being able to see things. Clearly I’m right.
M: I can’t fight it. I’m bully height.
E: At least you got your big blast later in the episode. Even though it failed. As I always said it would.
M: Only because they were fighting a stealth hero. Anyone else, it would have worked fine!
E: Sure, just keep telling yourself that.
M: His name was Mr. Sinister, right?
E: Mr. Compress. So, no.
M: Pretty close. Usually it takes me a full season. Half right ain’t bad.
E: So, quick quiz. When Uraraka and Tsu noticed that Bakugo was gone, did you think that he had run off by himself?
M: One million percent.
E: You did predict that he would do something dumb this episode. And you were wrong for once.
M: Yeah, I can’t say I anticipated that he would get turned into a prize for Mr. Compress’s gacha machine.
E: They are literally capsules, aren’t they? Will you win the Bakugo or the Tokoyami?

Mr. Compress is just bitter because he wanted to be a gatcha
M: I feel weird about my little Deku pressed against the glass gacha now.
E: Yeah, that does take on a whole new meaning, doesn’t it? He’s literally trapped forever in this acrylic stand.
M: He’s having a great time with Champ and Mulan and the fighting chicken thing.
E: The fighting chicken thing might as well be from My Hero Academia.
M: Whoa, spoilers.
E: Okay, other little things that happened. Uraraka and Tsu meet up with the creepiest of the villains, of course.
M: Can you explain to me how Uraraka’s power works?
E: When she touches something, she can make it weightless for as long as she holds it. She doesn’t have to keep touching them but she has to keep her power going.
M: And can things move while they’re weightless?
E: Yeah. Like, it doesn’t immobilize them. It just lifts them off the ground. And I assume she could then throw them around while they weightless.
M: Okay, the equivalent to my constant cry for Todoroki to use Ice Blast is that Uraraka should float every villain a hundred feet in the air.
E: I think she would have to throw them up for them to stay high in the air. They don’t just go up like a balloon as far as I know. But, again, in this case, I would say that Toga has equipment on her that she can fling out- like her blood suckers are sort of rope-like, so she might be able to counterattack. I think Uraraka keeps her pinned down in order to capture her, whereas if she floated Toga away, she might lose track of her.
M: It just made me sad that the boys got to have a good fight with real strategy and took out a villain. A real “me and the boys” moment. The girls looked incompetent by comparison.

At least this move was pretty cool
E: Fair enough. I do think it balances a bit when you think about the fact that it took the teamwork of five kids to take out Moonfish- Todoroki and Bakugo were struggle just as much as the girls when it was just the two of them alone. But the boys do get that moment of triumph at the conclusion. The girls just get saved, and they don’t get to go after the villains at the end either.
M: Did Momo get knocked out by the gas?
E: No, she got hit in the head by the Nomu.
M: Of course they had to sideline the most powerful hero. Nice tracking device though. I thought it was gonna be a tiny bomb.
E: A tiny bomb would have been epic, but the tracking device is probably more useful.
M: Why not both?
E: Because the tiny bomb would eliminate the usefulness of the tracking device probably.
M: It’s a tracking device until someone notices it, then it becomes a bomb. Two birds. Not Dark Shadow though.
E: Let’s just give smarty Momo props for making a tracking device on the fly without having to come up with the mechanical and chemical formula for making a tiny bomb tracking device.
M: She’s really doing A- work.

Me, my responsibilities, and my problems
E: Speaking of A- work, how on earth did Aoyama manage to get himself right in the middle of where all the villains are? How did you do that, Aoyama?
M: Did he take the bodies back to camp? There were bodies in the flashback.
E: No, Jiro and Hagakure were passed next to him in the present.
M: I missed that.
E: Dabi noticed him but apparently he didn’t care. Which. Fair.
M: Feels in character.

Me, my wall of self-delusion, and my problems
E: And that pretty much brings us to our cliffhanger with Deku, Todoroki and Shoji literally making a tactical strike on the villains from the sky. Poor dead Class 1-B student was left behind.
M: I kept thinking he was going to wake up and be the healer everyone needs. But no.
E: I feel like I looked up who it was supposed to be when I was first watching this season, but I don’t remember what his Quirk was (EDITOR EMMA: It’s Solid Air. He was on Monoma’s team during the cavalry battle at the sports festival).
M: I think Lawsuit Watch is pretty clear.
E: There wasn’t anything new in My Hero though.
M: Unless Uraraka gets some kind of blood-borne infection.
E: Can’t sue until it happens though.
M: Still giving it to them, because the major potential lawsuit incident, AKA the broken arm, was averted on Boys Over Flowers.
E: My Hero is definitely beating Boys Over Flowers when it comes to number of arms broken. All we’ve got on BOF is Yi-jung’s injured hand. Deku’s just shattering himself.
M: And Jan-di’s shoulder! Don’t forget her shoulder!
E: Oh yeah, her stupid shoulder.
M: I’m ready to accidentally predict some things that happened last episode because I’ve forgotten everything.

Me and my problems finally catching up to me
E: I’ll stop you, I’ll make sure you get your fair shake at predictions. Anyway. I love this episode title. Episode 7 of Season 3 is called “What a Twist!”
M: Oh come on.
E: OOH, A TWIST!!!! THAT’S VERY TWISTY!!!
M: I guess I’ll have to predict five different major twists. Ready?
E: Go for it. Twist it up.
M: Prediction number one: Deku wakes up in bed after he dies in the field! It was all a dream! He doesn’t have a quirk!
E:
M: Prediction number two: it’s revealed by the Nomu that UA isn’t a hero school after all. It’s Villain School! They’re in The Bad Place!
E:
M: Prediction three: against all odds, Deku, Todoroki and arm guy, er, Shoji defeat enough of the villains to force them to retreat. When Todoroki texts the group chat later asking to go out for a celebratory milkshake, Shoji says “hey, you don’t have to twist my arm!”
E: What is this fanfiction, Madelyn?
M: It was all for the pun.
E:
M: Prediction four: Aizawa arrives on the scene, looking like he’s going to save the day. But then he erases Todoroki’s power and joins the side of villainy.
E:
M: Prediction five: they do rescue Bakugo and Dark Shadow, but Bakugo decides he wants to be a villain after all and leaves anyway.
E:
–
Hey everyone! As always, thanks for joining us on the Split Screen journey. If you want to hop in, we’re watching the My Hero Academia dub on Hulu (oh boy, that reminds me that I have a few localization corners coming up) and Boys Over Flowers on Netflix.
Next time! I can’t find that I find this twist too twisty on My Hero Academia. And we see whether or not Jun-pyo throws that wine on his mother. She deserves it.