Hello new drama premiere, It’s Okay to Not Be Okay! I can’t wait to see how this drama shakes out because I am all sorts of confused as to what it is about. Granted, I haven’t really read any articles about it which would fix that right up.
From what we have gathered, this show is a healing human drama which means paaaaaaaain all around for everyone in the show as well as everyone watching. It is basically a big no-no sign for us because the two descriptions we don’t like in a drama are “healing” and “human”, lol. Expect the tears to be pulled from you and guard your emotions appropriately!
SPONSORED BY HELLO DRAMA BOX
If this drama gets to be too much feeeeelings wise, then gets lots of feel good snacks and favors from Hello Drama Box! Hello Drama Box is premiering their newest box, The Drama Survival Kit (which you will probably need for this show!), on Drama Milk. Thank you Hello Drama Box!
Hello Drama Box is an adorable company that sends care packages by mail to Drama loves all around the globe. Their sister company, Meeniful, scours the internet to find and sell a lot of the PPL products that we see in Korean, Japanese, and Chinese dramas. Read our Interview with Meeniful to learn more about them and be sure to go to their website and show them some love!
Caution: Be wary of typos
How to Watch: Netflix
Shorthand Character Chart: It’s Okay to Not be Okay
How we do this: This live recap will be in two parts and we segment each post around every 10 minutes. Sometimes sooner, sometimes later depending on the scene. There will be typos which we have fantasies of fixing once the episode finishes airing. Also, if there is a preview then we will try and translate it. Look for that at the bottom or on a separate post!
KOREAN DRAMA IT’S OKAY TO NOT BE OKAY RECAP EPISODE 1 – PART 1
——-dramamilk.com——-
#1
We open with an adorable puppet stop action that looks straight out of Coraline. It is night time and the camera scrolls down to a fence with a crow on it and a tilted house in the distance.
The camera pulls in on the house to show a girl with long dark hair and pail skin looking out over her balcony.
VO – A long long time ago in a castle in the deep forest. A beautiful girl lived.
Night turns to day with the girl still on the balcony. She is looking down on four kids playing in the courtyard.
VO – The girl who was always alone, lonely, and bored.
They goes down to play with the kids.
VO – One day she left the castle to find a friend.
She holds up a box to them. They look inside, but it is dead fish. They all gasp.
VO – Even though she presented the best present she could think of, no one excepted it. The girl later found out the reason.
Her hair starts to grow and come to life
VO – A monster that brings the shadow of death with her, so people call her monster, monster.
Her hair turns into a monster looking tree.
VO – She is angry at everyone in the world. She needs a victim to release her anger.
She walks to the beach and throws a fish hook into the water. She pulls out a fish and steps on it. Then another and another. But then she pulls out a boy from the pond. He flies up. She steps on him and all the water is spit out.
VO – Since the day she accidentally rescued a boy from death, strangely the scary shadow that follows her everywhere, disappeared.
The boys eyes open and he sees her.
VO – Instead, the boy followed her everywhere, day and night, mountain and field, he was always behind her.
The boy follows her everywhere.
VO – Oe fine days she asked the boy. Will you be with me forever? He said of course, I will never run away.
She stands to give him something and then her eyes turn demon cat like.
VO – What if I do this?
She kills the butterfly she is holding by pulling off heir wings. She did that to dozens of them. The wings all start to fly over him. He runs away.
VO – The shadow of death came to the girl again now that she is alone. It whispered to her, no one can stay with you because you are a monster. Do not ever forget about it, okay?
The puppet turns into a real girl, Ko Moon-young. She tells the voice, okay mother.
The scene changes to a illustrated cover on a picture book that is of a terrified boy. Moon Sang-tae grabs it from his locker and looks at it.
Then we cut to a bus where a person hops off the bus. The camera is shaky as if we are following along with him. He is going to a building
VO – During the class he was screaming!
We see Moon Sang-tae screaming and hitting his head while at work. He has high level autism. The boss is yelling at someone about Sang-tae and how it is dangerous because there could be dangerous equipment around him. We don’t know who the boss is yelling at though.
Moon Sang-tae waits outside and peeks in at the person on the other end of this noise. It is Moon Kang-tae. He quietly listens. The boss yells, tell me what you think! Sang-tae whispers, angry.
Kang-tae clears out his brothers locker and then kneels in front of him. His brother looks nervous, but Kang-tae smiles and chuckles. He asks him if he is hungry? Don’t you want to eat anything?
They walk up the street together.
KT – When we move, I will find a better school, promise.
ST – *mumbles something about Chinese food*
Kang-tae puts his arm around him and says that they can go to that Chinese restaurant and they talk about how much they like that Chinese restaurant.
#2
STEAK
A woman is dressed like she is a well dressed woman from A Nightmare Before Christmas. She is inside a Victorian looking room and cutting a bloody steak. Her lips are bright red. Her hair is black and so is her outfit. There is a painting behind her.
A girl and her mother come up to her to ask if she is Writer Ki Moon-young? Moon-young looks over and says yes. She does not smile. The mother tells her that her daughter is a big fan of hers, can you sign this?
She hands her a notebook to sign. Moon-young takes it and asks the girls name to sign. She tells her and they talk about how pretty she is. The girl says that she is like a princess in a fairytale.
That makes Moon-young scratch the paper a bit harder than necessary. She asks the girl, why do I look like a princess? The girl says it is because she is pretty. My mother always tells me that I am a princess because I am pretty. The mom smiles at her.
Moon-yong asks the woman if she would like to take a picture? She puts the girl on her lap for the picture and says, you are not my fan, right? The girl is all like, what? Moon-yong continues and says, in my novel the witch is always pretty. Who says that the princess is always pretty and nice. Did your mother say that?
She smiles for the photo and continues, if you like being pretty that much, just say this, Umma, I want to be a pretty witch.
The girl starts to cry and runs out. The mother chases after her to see what is wrong. They run right past Sang-in who mutters, not again!
He runs into the restaurant and greats her with BONJORNO! Then asks what she did to make that little girl cry like that? He happily sits at the table. Moon-yong stands and tells him that she might be moved because I corrected that wrong fact.
Sang-in is about to say something but then changes his mind and says, good job. Predisposed ideas are more dangerous than tigers or transmittable diseases (he is being sarcastic). Good, good job, you are great.
A mental hospital calls but he pretends like it is a loan shark and hangs up. She sits and keeps eating her steak. He smiles again and tells her that they should start, they have two hours.
She crosses her arms ad looks at him with a blank expression. He asks if she is going like that? She wants to know what is wrong with this? He tells her that she looks like Francesca (from an old Korean show called Hello, Francesca) that is going to the Adam’s Family funeral. Are you going to a pediatric hospital like that? You are giving dreams and hopes to little kids to write their own book.
She tells him that he said prejudiced ideas are scary things.
He tells her that she is scarier than that. She grabs her knife and scratches it over the plate. He puts his hands over his ears and tells her okay, okay, okay.
MY – Do you know why I like this restaurant?
SI – I don’t know
MY – *looks at the knife* It is killer.
She plays with the knife and mutters, “I want it”. Her finger starts to bleed from the knife. She gets up and walks off as a spooky song starts to play. The waitress calls after her but Sang-in gives her money and motions that she should stay quiet about it.
KANG TAE
Cut to Kang-tae’s 6-pack. it is on full display as we watch him change into his button up shirt. He has some scratches and wounds on his shoulder. He puts on his nurses attire. Another nurse coms in and tells him there is an emergency.
Ah, it looks like he is a caregiver. They point him in the direction of the problem. There is a woman who is eating all the food from the small fridge in the cafeteria area. Everyone is looking at her.
He softly walks up to her and says that if she eats it all like this then she will have a stomach ache so just eat it slowly. She mentions that he said she is pretty because she eats well. He cleans off her mouth and says she eats well so he likes her, for people in love, everything looks pretty.
She throws herself into a big hug with him. He motions for the nurse to shoot her with her shot. The woman asks, then why did you have an affair with that skinny model woman? She puts her finger in her mouth and throws up (but we dont’ see that part, we only see everyone reactions)
Everyone is all like, Ewwwwww and the camera cuts to lots of things being poured out like milk or trash or metal or a water fall or corn from a factory. He just pats her on the back. But then she throws up again and we see roses flying into the air. Kang-tae lays in a field of roses.
She stops throwing up, finally. he asks, are you okay? She slaps him and says not to laugh you a-hole.
Later on, he talks to another doctor or nurse about a new patient who is coming in. This patient is yelling that he should not be here and has to be held by two other men and strapped to his bed. The doctor tells the sad story of the man who tried to kill himself and his daughter by eating a drug. But the daughter threw up so she is okay. She is a patient in our hospital now.
We cut to this girl who is drawing a picture with her doctor. But she is only drawing a series of circles. The other doctor gives Kang-tae his instructions for this situation.
#3
CAR RIDE
Bak to Moon-young who is currently being driven around by Yoo Sung-jae and Lee Sang-in. Sang-in briefs Moon-young on her schedule and mutters if he is a secretary or personal CEO. Sung-jae tells him that she joined this company as an art director but now I am your secretary.
He says, you said you would do whatever I asked of you. She mutters something about that and they bicker back and forth for a moment.
The mental hospital calls again. He gasps. She asks if he is going to a mental hospital? He mutters for her to be quiet but Sung-jae says that is actually a good idea!
Moon-young notices their conversation but ignores it. She does tell him to pick up the phone and put it on speaker phone.
So he does that, reluctantly. The nurse calls and tells him that she is nurse Nam Juri. She tries to get ahold of him a lot but he does not answer. He mutters that he is actually busy now. She continues and tells him that she told him that the patient has their surgery scheduled. How long should I wait for the surgery agreement? if you avoid the phone call then that means that you want to kill the patient.
Moon-young mutters that Ko Dae-won is dead to me. Why are you reviving a dead person, are you Jesus?
The nurse asks, excuse me?
Moon-young says, hey Juli/Juri, if you really want it then you should come.
Juri hangs up the phone in annoyance and walks back to her desk, holding her tongue. The other nurse asks, what did they say?
Juri says, she told me to come? They talk about whether she is crazy. The head nurse comes in so they talk about the case with Moon-young’s father. The head nurse mutters that this man has stayed in this hospital the longest but she has never visited us. Do we want to save the patient or only hold your phone? You should visit.
The other nurse wonders, why do we have to do this much? The head nurse tells her that she is a professional then she should do it. She hands the paperwork to Juli. Juli says she needs two more days and then she can do it.
The head nurse asks if she has a husband in Seoul or something? The other nurse asks, are you dating someone? Juli says no, I will leave soon.
Juli goes to the mans room and opens the window. She looks at him and then walks to kneel in front of him. He is in a wheel chair. She holds his hand and tells him that it might be difficult for his daughter to visit him. he looks up at her and tries to say something but he can’t truly form any words.
She stands to leave, he grabs her hand and keeps mutters, DI I I I I I I E E E E, I F S HE COMES D I I I I I I E E E E E .
The nurse is alarmed though not as alarmed as you would think. He looks at Juli and sees his daughter in the image of a reaper.
COFFEE MACHINE
Cut directly to a coffee cup that was just dispensed from a coffee machine. We are looking at it from inside the machine. Someone comes up and takes the coffee. he sits to drink it and we see that Kang-tae is also in this break room. A large cardboard picture of Moon-young is in this room.
They both talk about the person that had to be restrained and how the cops showed up and all that. Then the other man mentions that they were talking about why Moon Kang-tae hops hospitals all the time like a grasshopper. He smiles.
Man – First, he is running away from loan sharks. Second, [missed this one], Third, he hits on patients, nurses, doctors, whoever and is kicked out because of that.
KT – What did you bet?
Man – I bet on #3, a woman. What is the answer?
KT – #4….a man. *touches his shoulder*
The man tells him not to joke and then goes back to chuckling and drinking his coffee.
HOME
Sang-tae is drawing on a notebook on the floor and mutters everything that the TV show says a few seconds before it says it. He is having a fun time. He has all of Ko Moon-young’s books as well as other books about art work.
The entire house has little notes with instructions for him that are tapes to everything. For instance, on the TV is says “watch it from far away”.
Kang-tae calls and tells his brother to eat. Don’t eat noddles only, I bought a lot of side dishes yesterday.
Sang-tae mutters something and Kang-tae understands right away. He says he is drawing her book again, aren’t you? She is coming to our hospital to read her book to the pediatric patients.
His brother starts to mutter that he is going to go there! He says it over and over again rapidly and then starts to mutter numbers as he hops up and puts on his jaket and grabs his bag and runs out.
Kang-tae yells for him to take three big breathes. Sang-tae does that. Kang-tae tells him, listen to me. Even if you leave now, it will be too late by the time you get here. Plus, only pediatric patients can go here. You are not a little kid right?
Sang-tae tells him that he is 37 years old and looks younger than he is but he is not a little kid. Kang-tae says that he will get her signature for him. He also asks, do you like me more or Ko Moon-young more? But Sang-tae has already hung up and starts to draw again.
