Reasons To Enjoy Surely Tomorrow

Reasons To Enjoy Surely Tomorrow

This article will contain mild up to major spoilers from 1-4 episodes!

Lee Kyeong-Do (Park Seo Joon) works as a reporter in the entertainment department at the Dongwoon Daily News. He is an ordinary office worker who is neither rude or unusual. When he was 20, he met Seo Ji-Woo (Won Ji An) for the first time at a theater group club and they fell in love. She was his first love, but they ended up breaking up. When Lee Kyeong-Do was 28, they dated again, but broke up for the second time. Now, Lee Kyeong-Do works on a story involving Seo Ji-Woo's husband in a scandal. Due to the story, he reunites with Seo Ji-Woo after several years. (Source: Asianwiki)

(Graphic images source: ryoun on Tumblr)

The poster offers a glimpse of the two characters during the time they were each other’s first love. Seo Ji Woo shows an innocent face as she rides on Lee Gyeong Do’s back. Her carefree touch pairs perfectly with Lee Gyeong Do’s warm gaze as he effortlessly responds to her.

In particular, the bright smiles on Lee Gyeong Do and Seo Ji Woo’s faces show that simply being together makes them completely happy. It remains to be seen how their unforgettable first love, which remains a powerful memory, will shape their lives.

The production team previously mentioned, “Throughout the poster shoot, from the outfits, atmosphere, and expressions, it truly felt like seeing Lee Gyeong Do and Seo Ji Woo in their youthful days. When they are together, Lee Gyeong Do and Seo Ji Woo shine brighter than anyone else, and with actors Park Seo Joon and Won Ji An bringing their story to life, their chemistry is expected to make everyone’s hearts flutter."

(Poster souce: themoviedb.org)

Let's skip the details and formalities, 'cause in a show that doesn’t have overt punchlines but subtle threads of humor running through — is that Gyung-do is mostly afraid of Ji-woo’s response to him being the one to break the news, rather than her reaction to the affair itself. And when we meet Ji-woo, we start to discover the main reasons why.

We skip back to 2007, when Gyung-do was in college, to see how he and Ji-woo met. She’s standing in front of her expensive red convertible and he’s searching on the ground for the 500 won coin he dropped. He doesn’t notice her, but Ji-woo sets her sights on him as he flits away to class, minus his banana-milk money.

They meet again soon when Ji-woo is on campus, holding down the fort at the drama club signup table. She’s not in the club, but Gyung-do doesn’t know that, and this time, not only does he notice her, but he becomes a drama club member in order to approach her. This is where their attack-and-defend dynamic is first established — which is still running strong 18 years later when we meet them again.

(Photo source: MyDramalist)

Ji-woo is rude, brash, bossy, mocking, and seemingly totally full of herself. And that’s her way of flirting. When she walks away from the drama club table that first day, she expects Gyung-do to follow, and of course, he does. In fact, he’ll be following her around forever, which leads us to the name of the drama, Surely Tomorrow (alternatively known as Waiting for Gyung-do), and if you’re wondering whether or not that’s a riff on the Samuel Beckett play, Waiting for Godot, it is. Now, it’s been ten years since they saw each other and our pair is in each other’s orbit yet again. She’s divorced, following that article he published, and our hero is most definitely still emotionally hooked on her. 

Gyung-do is always there for her and she starts to open to him little by little. He’s into literature, and when he recites a sad poem for her, she cries. He’s never seen her act like anything but a scoffing, swearing, sex-talking siren, and so, those tears feel like a tiny breakthrough.

The bigger breakthrough comes after another altercation with her mom, where Ji-woo stands there and takes it, but then runs out of the house and calls Gyung-do from a payphone. He comes running and she throws herself into his arms, sobbing. After all her hard-ass antics, this terrifies him. He says that he’s happy she came to him, although he has no idea what’s wrong. Through her tears, she says that she likes him.

He responds by telling her he only joined the drama club because she was at the signup table. This makes her laugh and then lean in to quickly kiss him on the lips. She continues to laugh, while he looks surprised, but he’s not willing to miss his chance, so he goes in for a longer kiss. Afterward, she’s smiling brightly and looks truly happy.

(These photos and poster source: themoviedb.org)

In the present, Ji-woo seeks out Gyung-do (who’s avoiding her) after his article is published. They go for a nighttime coffee, where she starts in with her attitude immediately. He thinks she’s upset about the article, but she cuts him off, saying that after ten years of no contact, why would he want to talk about that? Instead, she brings up the play he performed in college: “Godot never comes, even if you wait,” she says. “But you’ll come, won’t you?” 

She says she’s thankful for the article he wrote because she had been trying to get a divorce for a long time. The story let her out of her unbearable marriage. Her ex-husband’s family blamed her for everything, citing her struggles with panic and depression, along with her inability to get pregnant, as the reason for his affair. Ji-woo says the affair didn’t surprise her, only the fact that he made no attempt to hide it.

Gyung-do sits across from her, listening, getting angry, cursing, as she tells him to stop, and jokingly adds that she can’t fall for him again. She’s leaving for England, now that she’s free, and she wants him to write an article from her perspective about the divorce. He refuses, saying it was hard enough to write the first one. He didn’t want to see her face to face and listen to all her non-sense. She laughs this off, but his eyes are red and teary. “I’ll see you at the funeral,” he says. “Whichever one of us dies first.” And then he grabs his coat and walks away. 

Even though some time passes by there’s one internal family conflict with their mean mom and her horrible husband, and she doesn’t want Ji-woo to go to England. If she does, she’ll be cut out of the family’s money and go broke within a few years, and Ji-yeon won’t be able to stop it because…she has Alzheimer’s. Now, she needs Gyung-do’s help to stop Ji-woo from leaving. Our final scene is Gyung-do at the airport, stealing Ji-woo’s luggage so she can’t check-in for her flight.

We pick up right after Gyung-do has stolen Ji-woo’s luggage to stop her from making her flight. She starts in with what will be her continual MO, which is to prod him into validating her one way or another. She’s testing to see if there’s still love there, but she won’t be forthright or honest in her approach.

She smiles and follows him home, since that’s the option she was hoping for. In her mind (and the stories she’s telling their friends), he’s just done a super romantic thing, which eggs her on for more approval seeking.

When they get home, she wants to know why he stopped her from leaving the country. On one hand, it’s because her sister asked him to, but he can’t tell Ji-woo that part of the story. On the other hand, his excuse — which is that he’s trying to stop her from running away again — is true. We learn that when they dated at 20 and 28, she went abroad without a word both times. Now, post-divorce, she’s fearfully leaving again and he tells her that she has a chance to stay and reinvent herself instead.

He’s worried about her, he says. “Is it love?” she wants to know. But he won’t bite every time she throws out one of these hooks. He tries to leave for work and change the subject, but she asserts that he must have stopped her at the airport because he still has feelings for her. The whole tone here (and throughout the episodes) is Ji-woo acting like she’s tough — like she holds the power — but really, she’s too scared to admit she has feelings without being absolutely certain of how Gyung-do feels.

Gyung-do, though, is not who he once was when it comes to Ji-woo. He’s been hurt bad enough by her before that he’s trying to protect himself this time. For starters, when he gets home from work the first night that Ji-woo is at his house, she jumps on him, totally drunk, and then passes out. The sweet way he caresses her hair before carrying her to bed tells us that he’s still got a tender spot for her — and it’s dangerous.

After that, he sleeps at the sauna for a few days, until she’s finally convinced to leave his house. The whole time, she’s trying to goad him into coming home and staying with her. She realizes he’s changed — he won’t come running every time she calls anymore.

But then we get deeper into the weeds of learning about their past breakups. The first time, back in 2007, Gyung-do finds out Ji-woo’s real identity when she’s at an exclusive restaurant with her family and he’s their server. In overhearing their table conversation, he learns that she’s not a student at his school, she’s rich, and she’s leaving for the US soon. When Ji-woo tries to speak with him outside the dining room, her mother catches them, gives him dirty looks, and asks for a new server. And Gyung-do walks away with humility, after lying that he and Ji-woo are just acquaintances, when they’re actually dating.

This incident actually brings them closer. Gyung-do is kind to Ji-woo the next time they meet on campus, as she hangs her head in shame. She’s expecting rejection, following the way she misled him, but instead, he wants assurance that her feelings for him are real. That’s all he needs to let it go, and they both fight tears as they hug in confirmation of their mutual feelings.

Unfortunately, the money ends up getting in the way. Ji-woo buys Gyung-do a shirt that costs the same amount his mother earns in a month and he starts acting weird. It’s not just that he won’t wear the shirt, but that he wants to take her out to a nicer restaurant (that he can’t actually afford) and she really, truly likes the cheaper places better. They get in an argument in the street one night where he tells her how uncomfortable he is, and they both end up crying, not feeling like they can be themselves together anymore, and Ji-woo walks away.

Later on, he starts drinking daily, until he’s having soju with breakfast and filling his water bottle with liquor at work. His job is hanging by a thread, his boss, family, and friends are all very worried about him. And finally, he injures himself, and then accidentally shoves his mother (Kim Mi Kyung) to the ground, fracturing her arm. When Gyung-do wakes up in the hospital and learns what he did to his mom, it’s the final straw he needs to get himself into treatment.

When we met Gyung-do in Episode 1, we learned he had been sober for some years, but when the details come out here about why, it’s clear that his sobriety, and the circumstances leading up to it, have shaped his life significantly. This is the reason that his friends become worried when they learn Ji-woo is back in his life. And his mom, who’s already constantly worried he’ll fall off the wagon, has been kept in the dark so far about Ji-woo’s return.

When Ji-woo hears this story, she goes straight to Gyung-do to give him shit about his alcoholism. And then she uses it as another way to try to get him to admit he cares about her — since it was her leaving that caused his breakdown. In the argument that follows, Gyung-do yells that he just couldn’t understand why she left him the way she did, and he still doesn’t understand now. “If you were going to leave me like that, then you shouldn’t have come back,” he says, fighting back tears.

When they calm down, they sit on a bench and talk quietly. This is the beginning of him trying to convince her to quit drinking also, since he’s recognized she’s got a problem too. And in this conversation, she tells him that she wasn’t leaving him back then; she left because she wanted to die, but didn’t go through with it. She apologizes for messing with him the last few days and then tries to define what they are to each other: it’s no longer love, and she’d be a jerk to call it friendship. So, she ends by wishing him well and leaving again.

We come to realize that Ji-woo is an “illegitimate child” (her words) who her mother had through an affair. Ji-woo found out at the age of 28 — which likely explains that last disappearing act she pulled on Gyung-do. Now, Ji-woo and her mother get into an argument when Ji-woo says she has no intention of keeping her shares in the family company or going to work there.

When her mom leaves Ji-woo’s apartment, Ji-woo takes a bunch of sleeping pills with alcohol, and Gyung-do and another friend find her unconscious and rush her to the hospital. She’s fine afterward, but this sets Gyung-do on a mission to pour out all her alcohol and begin checking in on her. As this goes on, she acts like he’s a nuisance, but really, she likes that he’s showing care for her.

One night, Ji-woo calls Gyung-do to come meet her and she presents him — in her cryptic way — with a choice. Basically, watching him act caringly toward her makes her wonder what’s going on between them. She says that she’s leaving again and if he tries to stop her this time, she’ll take it to mean that he’s confused, like she is.

In that moment, Gyung-do seems to make his decision when he tells the ex that he’s doing his best to win Ji-woo over (a.k.a., back off buddy). And with that comment, Ji-woo’s eyes light up and my heart sinks, watching our tenderhearted hero jump right back into this mess.

Gyung-do can’t fix Ji-woo. She has to want to fix herself. And she’s got a lot of work to do in that arena. She’s suicidal and self-loathing, constantly seeking love and validation, and can’t express her emotions. I find her authentic, relatable even, and I’d love to see her heal. But at the same time, she uses manipulation to try to get her needs met, and we’ve seen how she tore apart Gyung-do’s life before. All in all, their dynamic is dangerous. And yet, I feel totally hooked to this story, the same way that Gyung-do is hooked to Ji-woo. So, whether it’s love or addiction, we will get to see what kind of emotional blows we’re in for.

(Photo source: MyDramalist)

OFFICIAL SOUNDTRACKS LIST:

(Main source for audio and music videos: YouTube)

Related previos topics I wrote are:

A Look Back With Hi Venus, Reasons To Enjoy Thyphoon Family, Reasons To Enjoy My Youth & Reasons To Enjoy My Lovely Journey.

  Hope you enjoyed this topic as well along with Park Seo Joon  big return to acting! Have a pleasant week, my dear readers!   And a big thank you to my hard working editors who always do their very best with insight and patience!

Sources: MyDramaList, Asianwiki, Soompi, themoviedb.org, DramaBeans, here, Spotify, Tumblr, Namuwiiki, YouTube.