[HanCinema's Drama Review] "Pinocchio" Episode 16

The first portion of the episode starts out with some romantic comedy- not any real discussion of the actual plot at all, just Dal-po and In-ha getting involved in a classic genre set-up designed for humor. Good use is made of the hiccups. Lee Jong-suk and Park Shin-hye really are cute together whenever the script calls for it. The entire bit is really more a scene of extended fanservice than anything else but a little light humor is always welcome. Especially when the situation will inevitably get worse.

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Not the romance- don't worry about that. It's the main plot that slowly builds up to In-ha and Beom-jo discovering the full extent of their parents' collusion. That story development has been so heavily telegraphed it's not even a spoiler. The main interesting question (which is on hold until next episode) is what In-ha and Beom-jo are actually going to do with this information, and how other characters will react to their discoveries.

Between the light opening and the dark closing the main plot is actually more intellectual discussion of all things. Eagle-eyed viewers have probably noticed that the timeline in "Pinocchio" is not yet contemporaneous- at this point they're in February of 2014. You may or may not remember the huge news event that took place during that time- if you've forgotten, well, that's part of the point. News is, by its very nature, fleeting. Something that might have seemed like a huge deal last year might barely register as important at all in the present day.

It's from this standpoint that the characters debate what they should be doing as a news organization- covering what people want to see, or what they should see. For that matter, is there even a difference? Again, the timeshift adds a lot to this argument. Given the practically banal reliability with which all major networks can be counted on to cover certain events, what's really more interesting? The network that's doing what's popular, or the one that's being different?

The result is a fairly decent mix of narrative tones for this episode of "Pinocchio". As usual, they don't really interact together all that well, and some subplots (like Yoo-rae's behavior toward Dal-po) are so laughably underdeveloped there's not really much to do except briefly chortle at a silly character joke. While this works to prevent "Pinocchio" from being truly great, the drama is at least fairly entertaining and engaging as regards the prompts it uses well.

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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