The tender Apple TV+ series returns for a bittersweet second go that can’t quite match the highs of the first.
Akhil Arora, a Film Critics Guild member and a Rotten Tomatoes-certified TV critic, who has watched all eight episodes of Pachinko season 2. He has been reviewing movies and TV series since 2015 and has written for NDTV and SlashFilm.
Deep into the second season of Pachinko—the generation-spanning Apple TV+ drama series that rightfully captured hearts and won several awards upon its debut almost two-and-a-half years ago—the ruthless man of many trades, Koh Hansu (Lee Minho), utters eight words that unfortunately underpin the show: “For people like us, there is no home.” The lives of Pachinko’s characters have always been ravaged by war. First, they were made to feel lesser than and uprooted from their homeland. And since then, they’ve found themselves stuck in a world—as Koreans in Japan—that won’t really accept them no matter how much they give to it. The longing for home, the desire to feel safe and settled, and a quest for solace have defined their existence.
In season 2—developed by creator Soo Hugh off Min Jin Lee’s 2017 novel Pachinko—they are thrown into the most tumultuous period of the 20th century. From the colonialist ways of imperialist Japan to the Empire’s partnership in the Axis and the horrors of the Six-Two-Five, their lives have been changed irreversibly by men operating 100x over their heads. It’s people like them on the ground who must bear the heaviest brunt. But no matter what seismic historical event is ongoing, Pachinko season 2 never loses sight of who or what it’s about. Its lens is forever rooted in the characters it follows. To paraphrase what a grown-up teenage Noa (Tae Ju Kang) says about a different universe, with the show slyly commenting on itself, it “depicts a world where the people struggle to endure.”
Pachinko season 2 is not quite as adept as season 1
The characters in Pachinko are bound by forces both external and internal. For all the restrictions placed upon them by the society they are in, they also crucify themselves. They either wait on others, hold themselves to an ideal, repeatedly sacrifice to provide for their family, or deny themselves happiness because they feel they aren’t deserving. But when all is said and done, what do we have in this life? The ones around us, the love we have for them, and the time we have with them. Nothing less and nothing more.
For all of its touching designs, Pachinko season 2 struggles to land with the same encompassing emotional wallop as the first. Its eight episodes—directed by a new team of Leanne Welham (Conversations with Friends), Arvin Chen (Au revoir Taipei) and Sang-il Lee (2013’s Unforgiven)—are not quite as adept at unearthing those emotional truths or as deft at making those minute observations that made season 1 such a delight. But I say that in full recognition of the fact that Pachinko season 1 was truly excellent. It’s why I placed it in the fourth spot among my top 10 TV shows from 2022. Season 2 is still great, but it doesn’t have the same effect as the original.
Post-WWII cloud over Pachinko season 2
Seven years have passed since we last saw the Baeks in Osaka’s grimy Koreatown. It’s 1945 and Sunja (Minha Kim) is struggling to even find cabbage to make her kimchi. That’s how dire things are thanks to six years of World War II. Anyone who knows their history knows what’s coming to Japan. Sunja wants nothing to do with Hansu but given her circumstances—her husband remains in jail—she’s forced to accept his help. You can sense how she wants to get away and live her life away from him. The man who fathered a child only to then reveal that they couldn’t be a family. Sunja felt used and it’s that feeling she never wants to relive. In raising her two boys on her own, she has struggled and faced numerous setbacks but learnt to be on her own. She doesn’t want any charity.
The other timeline hasn’t moved an inch—it’s still 1989. Having been fired by the bank he was at, Solomon (Jin Ha) is courting investors to open his own fund. But wherever he goes, he faces his past. Frustrated by a former client who’s standing in his way, an angry Solomon decides to be petty and once again sets out to convince the woman who wouldn’t sell her home just so he can stick it to the big guy. He knows now that he cannot let sentimentality get in the way. In season 1, Solomon went from a hungry guy wanting to prove himself to taking a stand for Koreans like him. But he paid for it heavily. In Pachinko season 2, he wants to stick it to the Japanese. Were his grandmother Sunja (Yuh-jung Youn) to learn about his new plan, he would likely be disowned.
The lows and highs of Pachinko season 2
The late eighties full-on corporate screw, in which Solomon tries to get back at someone no matter the cost, is reminiscent of a show like Billions or something. The cutthroat world of finance and how people behave is an odd match for a show that is otherwise all about people’s emotions and the things they struggle with. It also doesn’t help that there isn’t much going on elsewhere in that timeline apart from old, lonely Sunja seeking companionship and worrying over Solomon. Mozasu (Soji Arai), Sunja’s son and Solomon’s father, literally has one important scene in Pachinko season 2. It’s almost insulting. The Apple series has little idea of how to liven up the 1989 proceedings—I can count memorable moments on one hand—and that’s a shame.
Thankfully, the other section is filled to the brim. Pachinko season 2 spans a six-year period from 1945 to 1951, which allows Sunja’s two kids to feature as characters of their own accord. A calm and centred Noa deals with the weight of expectations, while his pricklier younger brother Mozasu (Mansaku Takada) rails against the norms placed on him. There is Sunja’s sister-in-law Kyunghee (Eunchae Jung) dealing with the fear of losing her husband Yoseb (Junwoo Han) who’s away at a munitions factory in Nagasaki. And amidst it all, a new man, Kim Chang-ho (Sungkyu Kim), Hansu’s henchman, is assigned to live with and support the Baeks. Mostly so that Hansu can keep an eye on his offspring and only son, Noa. Their worlds are fractured further as their homeland is split into two by global forces.
Pachinko knows what makes great TV
But the two timelines are also united by certain elements. Pachinko season 2 notes that some things don’t change be it in 1945 or 1989. Casual racism against Koreans in Japan is prevalent no matter how many decades apart the story might be. At school, Noa and Mozasu are teased by their classmates, and Noa doesn’t even think about university because it isn’t for “people like him”. In 1989, Solomon must deal with a bigoted baker who attempts to brush off his error by blaming it on Sunja’s Japanese not being good enough.
Even Hansu feels the effects of being a second-class citizen. Despite all the power and fortunes he has seemingly amassed, he’s still seen as Korean even in a new post-war Japan. As his father-in-law courts the new powerbrokers and politicians in Pachinko season 2, Hansu must not only bear insults to his family and daughters (who are labelled half-breeds) but also isn’t told about important meetings and ceremonies. In the typical Hansu way, he takes a bold step. But his desire for control also has limits, as he learns all too well late into the second season.
The other element that’s consistent is Pachinko’s recognition of what makes great TV—room for conversations. Despite the dull nature of his storyline, Solomon gets two very nice ones in season 2, including one each in episodes two and three. An episode 6 interaction between Sunja and Noa, where she reminds him why she’s given so much and what she wants for his future, is also a highlight. That said, on a general level, the writing in Pachinko season 2—Hugh is the head writer—doesn’t have the same nuance and feel. I was impacted more by season 1 though I wonder if the higher expectations have any role to play in that.
The season’s most standout section comes in the opening minutes of the fifth episode. Filmed in black-and-white 4:3 aspect ratio, it focuses on Yoseb in a munitions factory in Nagasaki and counts from August 1, 1945, to the day the bomb was dropped. With a ticking clock in the background (very Oppenheimer-like), the near-silent nature of the work, and Yoseb overseeing a new Korean sweeper in whom he finds shades of his brother, it’s all very nicely done.
Pachinko is first class even when second-best
Through Yoseb, Pachinko season 2 also offers a love triangle and a look at years-long PTSD. But both of them are ultimately too simplistic and don’t really test the characters enough. If there’s one beat that resonates, the one facet the Apple series does a great job of impressing upon you, it’s how all of us live by mores, rules and in cages. We place binds on ourselves, feel guilt over events and happenings that were entirely out of our control, and punish ourselves to live one way because the alternative would bring shame. Through it all—and by way of a new supporting character with a dark past—Pachinko dares to ask: “What are we supposed to do? Spend the rest of our lives chained to the past?” This is what makes the show unlike any other, for in this it’s purely Asian.
Sure, it cannot always match the bittersweet intimacy of its quiet moments with the handling and shepherding of its bigger picture that’s increasingly required. (The season finale feels particularly dense and rushed at the same time. It’s evident that it’s busy setting up a potential season 3 as Sunja’s teenage sons take centre stage.) But even when it’s second best, Pachinko is head and shoulders above anything on TV right now.
Pachinko season 2 is out Friday, August 23 on Apple TV+ worldwide. A new episode drops weekly every Friday until October 11.
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