The Asexual K-Drama Geek Reviews: The Uncanny Counter 2 Counter Punch

As a K-Drama fan, it’s always a good day when you find out one of your favorite shows is getting a second season. In the era of the Korean Wave, this phenomenon is happening more and more, but many times, these second seasons are on the far horizon. But in the case of the 2020 series, The Uncanny Counter, that “far horizon” was finally reached this summer and the second season – entitled The Uncanny Counter 2: Counter Punch – just finished airing on Netflix a few days ago (at the time of writing this post).

If you’ve read my review of the show’s first season, you’ll know it’s one of my top 5 favorite K-Dramas, so I’m sure I don’t need to tell you I was extremely excited for Counter Punch’s arrival and to rejoin the amazing squad of evil spirit hunters. So today, moving away from K-Dramas I’ve seen in the past, I’m going to cover this brand new, just-watched second season of the show. Did it meet my expectations, and do I think it will meet expectations for fans of the original? And, most importantly, did it continue the things that make the first season so special?

This post contains well-marked spoilers

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Summary

Counter Punch picks up two years after the end of the first season, during which the Counters have continued to hone their skills and catch evil spirits, which seem to be increasing in volume and frequency. For the most part, things are going well, although the team is starting to feel burnt out and keep petitioning their spirit partners in Yung to allow them to enlist the aid of another Counter, a process which the Yung guardians seem to be dragging their feet on. But then one day, rather by accident, Mo-tak stumbles upon their new recruit – a young man who is left comatose after he pushes a young woman out of the path of an oncoming truck.

Image description: New Counter, Na Jeok-bong, played by Alchemy of Souls and All of Us Are Dead star Yoo In-soo

Although reluctant, the young man, Na Jeok-bong, eventually decides to join the team and begins training with them. I was actually pretty excited to meet this character in large part because he’s played by Yoo In-soo, whom you may know if you’ve watched Alchemy of Souls. His character in that show, Park Dang-gu, is not only a character I really enjoyed (he’s on my Best Boy list, so that should tell you everything you need to know), but was the nephew of Park Jin, who is played by the same actor who plays Mo-tak here in The Uncanny Counter.

Jeok-bong joins the team right in time; soon after, three incredibly powerful evil spirits kill a group of Counters in China and absorb their powers, posing a serious threat not only to innocent people, but to our Counter squad back in Korea. When a fourth evil spirit joins them from an unexpected source close to Mun himself, the squad is forced to deal with situations they never fathomed or even thought possible. The trials will lead to tension among the group at times as each Counter is forced to approach the situation in different ways and adapt to the frightening new reality these demons represent. Will they be able to win the day this time, or will the evil spirits prove too powerful?

My Thoughts/Review

I won’t lie, for the first three or four episodes of Counter Punch, I was actually quite disappointed. There’s a great deal I love about the first season that just isn’t present in the early episodes, or isn’t present to the same effect. For instance, if you’ve read my first review, you know I literally can’t shut up about the amazing relationship between the Counter team, and while that’s still present in this season, it feels at times like the camaraderie is somewhat forced. I don’t think that’s anyone’s fault in particular; rather, I think the writing just assumes we love or accept the Counters’ bond and doesn’t work as hard to establish or honor it the way it did in the first season.

In other instances, the show chooses to focus on the Counters’ relationships with other people instead, and each of them have bonds or subplots that take them outside of the usual group. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, especially since Mun had outside relationships in season one with friends and family members that meant he wasn’t always solely or exclusively with the Counters anyway. In fact, in this season, many of those additional relationships are interesting, and they certainly give the characters more to do than just punch things or learn new techniques for evil spirit hunting. So, while it does help the characters as individuals, it perhaps sometimes does so at a bit of expense to the team dynamic I love so much.

Of course, bringing new people in is always a bit of a threat to the established dynamic, which was a concern of mine when the new character was announced. But even so, as I said earlier, I was so ready to love Yoo In-soo’s character and how he’d fit into the team. And unfortunately, I just… didn’t. In my opinion, the character is so over-the-top that it becomes unpleasant, and what could have been an endearing goofiness plays to me as annoyingly unserious. As a result, a lot of this season suffers from a problem I’ve noticed in other K-Dramas with dark or serious subject matter – in an effort to balance out the grim or serious stuff, it seems like they attempt to shoehorn in humor where it doesn’t quite work.

Furthermore, for me at least, the humor just wasn’t funny. Jeok-bong being clumsy would have been one thing and could have been legitimately funny if played well (for example, I did genuinely laugh during the scene where he’s testing his Counter powers by trying to leap and press his handprint on the same wall that his fellow Counters have, only to have his print be barely above his own height). But most of the other “comic relief” surrounding him contains humor that is either crude or just exists for the gross-out factor. Before becoming a Counter, Jeok-bong worked at a dairy farm cleaning up after the cows, so a great deal of the jokes surrounding him are about cow dung; so, instead of letting him be an interesting character, he’s repeatedly made the butt of the jokes and the humor encourages us to laugh at him as a loser.

When he becomes a Counter, his special power is the ability to distinguish evil spirits by smell and, while this power actually proves pretty helpful at times – especially when the Counters can’t just rely on summoning the Territory the way they would have previously – it’s also ridiculously played. Again, many times it’s used for a gross-out factor, which I think immediately takes away from the seriousness of the situations, especially in later episodes. He doesn’t really feel like a character that ever grows, and even in the episodes where they try to give him some depth, it feels like far too little to make up for what it is otherwise a chaotic, over-the-top, and often unpleasantly written character.

Image description: Two promo posters for season two, the one on the left featuring the Counters and the one on the right featuring this season's evil spirits.

In terms of other new characters, I wasn’t sure I’d actually enjoy the three main powerful demons, as they started off as so evil, they almost felt like cartoon or comic book villains. However, I did enjoy the way the plot with the three evil spirits developed, especially when it comes to the true main evil spirit of the season. [Spoilers!] This character, Ma Ju-seok, starts off as a good man, but his rage and heartbreak at the loss of his family prompts him to accept the sway of an evil spirit, and I found it fascinating to watch how someone who is a demonstrably good person at heart alternately fights against the demon’s influence and accepts it.

As the season went on and the stakes got higher, I found this character growing increasingly more compelling, and both the writing and acting that brought him to life were exceptional. These plot points allowed the dynamic of the spirits and the Counters to be explored in entirely new ways – as well as some amazing fight scenes – that made the latter half of the season a very enjoyable, tense, dramatic ride. The latter half of the season definitely improves a great deal and, although many of the issues I mentioned earlier are still present (among others not listed here), I think it certainly ends strong. It doesn’t ever quite reach the level of the first season, but the entire cast gives some great performances at various times throughout the season and the expansion of the lore is great. What’s more, it’s a delight to be with these characters, even in a season that could have been better.

The Aspec Stuff

Okay, I have to admit to a little hypocrisy here. In previous reviews – both of this drama’s first season and just of other K-Dramas in general – I’ve discussed how much I trust K-Dramas to do right by their characters and how, because of that, I’d be okay with seeing certain romantic relationships develop. While that is certainly still true in theory, I found it wasn’t quite true in practice as I watched this season. For instance [spoilers!], the season establishes pretty early on that Mun’s two best friends have started dating one another and all I can ask myself is “why?”. Especially since this plot plays absolutely no role in the story whatsoever, I’m not at all sure why it was necessary.

As I mentioned in my post about the first season, the series is based on a webtoon, so it’s entirely possible this plot point was included as a nod to the webtoon’s plot – I’ve never actually read the webtoon, so I can’t confirm that either way. My other thought is that it might have been included as a way to explain Mun’s friends being in this season far less than they were the first one, but even so, there are other ways to do that, and I think it would have made far more sense. The entire dating situation seems to be (here’s this word again) shoehorned in, and it seems oddly like the two friends aren’t even enthusiastic to be dating one another, so I’m truly not sure why the plot point was deemed necessary.

Another instance of a relationship that seemed to have no point was Ha-na’s relationship with a former schoolmate she runs into again by chance. It seems at times like the only reason for this relationship’s inclusion is to make Jeok-bong jealous, which is a weird choice. That being said, I actually like the way this relationship plays out because, although it’s clearly meant to have romantic overtones, it never actually becomes overtly or intensely romantic. Rather than forcing it to be romance-centric, reconnecting with this former schoolmate means more that Ha-na gets a chance to be happy and have fun, leaving behind a little of the grim seriousness that otherwise plagues her life.

Additionally, despite the weird moments of Jeok-bong being jealous, I love the fact that the series did not push him and Ha-na together, nor did they have Mun end up with Ha-na. Instead, the show focused on Mun’s relationship not just with his Counter family but with Wi-gen, his spirit partner in Yung, as well as his connection to Ma Ju-seok and why he longs to save the man. Speaking of Ma Ju-seok, I’d like to talk about his ending, so of course spoilers ahead!

Warning – Ending spoilers!

Image description: Kind-hearted firefighter Ma Ju-seok, an unexpected standout part of this season, in my opinion.

Obviously, this character begins the show with more “traditional” types of relationships – he’s happily married with a baby on the way. However, when the Counters eventually free him from the influence of the evil spirits that have claimed him following his wife’s tragic death, Mun promises Ju-seok that he can see his wife’s spirit and speak to her. The scene that plays out is beautiful, and follows other K-Dramas’ example of having his wife encourage him not to go out and find another romance, but simply to be happy, have adventures, and then reunite with her one day to tell her all about them.

Naturally, there’s nothing wrong with remarrying or finding a new relationship after a tragedy. However, I feel a lot of Western media is obsessed with the idea that people do that, even if they don’t seem ready or willing to do so – I discuss this notion a great deal on my main blog due to the uncomfortable connotations it has from an aspec point of view. Although the pressure to find a new relationship after a previous one ends in tragedy is something that would most likely affect allosexual people more predominantly, it can still happen to certain people of aspec identities and be even more meddlesome. Even more so, this attitude can be wielded against aspec people too; after all, if an allosexual person is willing to do this to another allosexual person, it’s entirely possible they’re even more willing to do it to an aspec person who doesn’t want a romantic or sexual relationship at all, and that is even more insidious.

Therefore, I find it extremely refreshing to see this particular story and how it ends not with the idea that overcoming tragedy and pain should come from a new relationship, but rather comes through going through the painful process of growth. And the show demonstrates that this isn’t a process that one has to go through alone; just like Ju-seok has Mun and others, people in real life can find people to help them as well. It also ends on the optimistic idea that love, dedication, and perseverance are stronger than grief, anger, and fear – and that, I think, is a lesson not only core to The Uncanny Counter, but that all people, regardless of identity, can embrace.

End of spoilers

Image description: A promo poster for season 2

In my opinion, something amazing about K-Dramas is that even a K-Drama that stumbles is more compelling, more exciting, and overall better than just about anything else. Despite its issues, the second season of The Uncanny Counter still had my parents and I hooked, and we were still eager to watch it, especially as we got later into the season. Even when we complained about certain elements or had problems with certain choices, we were still eagerly discussing it as we waited for new episodes and had theories and questions that kept us coming back for more.

While it’s not as good as the first season, I think Counter Punch had a lot of good stuff in it and a lot of things that I think many people could find very valuable. And, apart from a few of the things I mentioned, I think it was once again quite satisfying from an aspec point of view. While I don’t know how some of my other favorite K-Dramas with second seasons on the horizon might fare when it comes to keeping aspec-friendly elements intact, seeing how Counter Punch handled these things at least proved it was possible, and for that I’m very grateful. Despite the missteps, I certainly wouldn’t mind joining these characters again in future for one more fun, exciting, and action-packed ride.