Time Jump
Episode 7 of Melancholia kicks off four years after the events of episode 6. When Ms. Noh leaked Ye-rin’s incriminating picture of Yoon-soo and Seung-yoo, Yoon-soo was fired from the school. She broke things off with her fiancée and moved away. Seung-yoo has now won several awards and garnered international fame for his theorem. But he still can’t stop thinking about Yoon-soo and wondering if she is okay. He runs into an Ahseong student, Choi Si-an, who has a book that Yoon-soo once lent him. Following this lead, he finds a library where Yoon-soo has donated multiple books. He goes to the hospital in town, where he finds Professor Ji, as he had hoped. He also runs into Yoon-soo, her expression blank. She tells him he should not come back, but he assures her he must; he promised her father. Seung-yoo accepts an offer from Ms. Noh to teach at Ahseong Maths and Arts Special School. He stated that it was his dream to teach, but whether that’s true is obscured by his greater motivation: to find out the truth about who framed Yoon-soo. Several other former Ahseong students are back as well. Ye-rin and Gyu-yeong return to take part in a mentorship program. They’re both baffled at Seung-yoo’s return. Ye-rin worries he will learn of her part in Yoon-soo’s downfall, but Ms. Noh argues that there is no evidence to implicate them. A new specialized school means new students for Ms. Noh to manage—including her own daughter, Kim Ji-na. Ji-na gets into trouble for cutting the hair of the minister’s daughter and fellow student Kyung Soo-young, which causes Ms. Noh to have a breakdown as she pleads with her daughter to do better. Meanwhile, Ms. Noh is still up to her politically corrupt ways. She accepts Soo-young into school solely because of her father’s money. She also asks someone to look into the Sammu Academy, a prestigious program with secret membership. As it turns out, Yoon-soo secretly teaches the clinic at the Academy. Ms. Noh may have found this out; as the two narrowly miss each other one day when Ms. Noh arrives to speak with the director of the program. One of Yoon-soo’s students is Si-an, who is now also Seung-yoo’s student. Si-an informs her that Seung-yoo has been asking about her. In the closing scene, Yoon-soo goes to the same library Seung-yoo visited at the beginning of the episode. She flips through a book she and Seung-yoo once looked at together. Seung-yoo approaches her from behind. As they lay eyes on each other, the lights in the library go out.
The Episode Review
Melancholia picks up after a four-year time skip, and each character is carrying a fresh perspective. There’s a lot of newness in this episode; it’s somewhat overwhelming, but a lot of it is good. Seung-yoo is decidedly more mature, for one. He’s a character we want to root for even more than before as he sets out not only to be an amazing teacher, but also to redeem Yoon-soo’s name. Nearly everyone else’s reintroductions felt too inconsequential, and their motivations vague. Being thrown into their new stories four years later is disorienting without any context. The episode leaves me wanting more, however! I need to know—will Yoon-soo allow Seung-yoo to get close to her again? But more than that, I have worries that bleed over from episode 6, where Professor Ji mentioned a potential error in Seung-yoo’s theorem. How will this error come to light in the future, and how will Seung-yoo’s reputation cope?
