When the Camellia Blooms is a 2019 Korean Series that ran for 20 episodes.note
A young woman named Oh Dong-baek moves to the fictional town of Ongsan with her baby son Pil-gu. The ladies of Ongsan gossip about her because she is an unwed mother, but Dong-baek pays them no mind. She starts up a bar called "Camellia" ("Dong-baek" being Korean for "camellia", which quickly becomes a popular spot with the men in town, who look to a place to avoid their hectoring wives.
The other lead is a police officer, Hwang Yong-sik. Yong-sik, who is so good a policeman that he makes arrests almost by accident, still manages to damage his career by smacking around a murder suspect in front of a phalanx of TV cameras. He is sent from Seoul back to his hometown of Ongsan, where he falls for Dong-baek. However, Yong-sik's mother Jung-sook is strongly opposed to her son marrying a single mother.
Another plot thread follows Park Sang-mi aka "Jessica" and her husband Kang Jong-ryul. Sang-mi is an internet "influencer" and social media personality, while Jong-ryul is a baseball player and star of his own reality show. Sang-mi and Jong-ryul pretend to be a happily married couple for the public, but in fact they dislike each other and don't even live together. Sang-mi is particularly uninterested in their baby daughter, whom Jong-ryul is effectively raising as a single dad. Jong-ryul, it turns out, is Pil-gu's father.
There is a third plot thread focusing on the "Joker", a Serial Killer who stalks Ongsan. The Joker, who was never caught but has been inactive for several years, now seems focused on Dong-baek as his next victim.
Tropes:
- Animated Credits Opening: The opening credits for each episode start with a live-action shot of Dong-baek driving to Ongsan, which transitions to animation of all the major characters juxtaposed with blooming camellias.
- Answer Cut: In episode 19 Ja-young comes over to the Camellia to shoot the breeze with Dong-baek. They chat for a while, and then Ja-young asks if Dong-baek has any hard liquor in the place. Cut to Gyu-tae and Dong-baek carrying a drunk off her ass Ja-young to the car.
- As You Know: Yong-sik says to his boss, "Chief Byun, you still have the police file [about the Joker], you were demoted for that!"
- Awful Wedded Life: Sang-mi and Jong-ryul are in an extremely unhappy marriage. She apparently married him only to piggyback on his fame as an athlete, and wants nothing to do with him or their son.
- Baseball Episode: In episode 11 there's a big game between Pil-gu's team and a rival elementary school team. Hilariously, it ends in chaos when Pil-gu charges the mound after he's hit by a pitch.
- Blackmail: Hyung-mi arranges to get caught on a security camera with Gyu-tae at a hotel. She then blackmails Gyu-tae into paying for her to leave Korea and move to Copenhagen. Then in episode 9 she starts blackmailing Jong-ryul over pictures of him with Dong-baek.
- Bland-Name Product: Apparently the producers weren't willing to pay for any Major League Baseball logos. So in the final scene of the final episode, Pil-gu is revealed to have made it to MLB, with the LA "Modgers".
- Call-Back: Part of the montage of Yong-sik's everyday heroics in episode 1 has him apprehending a criminal while working as a taxi driver. It turns out that the passenger in his cab was a criminologist, who pops up again in episode 16 to analyze the surveillance tape of the Joker from 2014.
- Chekhov's Gun:
- In Hyang-mi's first appearance she is said to be a compulsive kleptomaniac, and a couple of times she is shown stealing small items. That's why Dong-baek's bracelet is seen on the wrist of the murder victim.
- In the last couple of episodes, after Seok-yong is identified as the Joker and arrested, he seems strangely fixated on getting his glasses back from home, insisting on this repeatedly and refusing to cooperate if he doesn't get his glasses. The reason is that the bag that contains his glasses also contains his son's yellow ear plug, the one that matches the one that a dying Hyang-mi swallowed.
- Criminal Mind Games:
- The Joker is called that because he had a habit of leaving behind notes at his crime scenes that said "Don't be a joke."
- In episode 16 Yong-sik finds a green lighter, of the sort believed to be used by the Joker to commit arson, deliberately left on the hood of his car.
- A Day in Her Apron: In-Universe, Jong-ryul is starring in a reality show where he does this. The joke is that in real life Jong-ryul actually does all the parenting because Jessica has no interest in their daughter.
- Dead-Hand Shot: As the corpse is taken away from the crime scene, a hand flops out from under the sheet. The wrist has a bracelet which is shown in Episode 1 to belong to Dong-baek.
- Disappeared Dad: Dong-baek asks Pil-gu if it bothers him that he doesn't have a dad, and Pil-gu says he doesn't care. Soon after it's revealed that Jong-ryul is his father, and that Jong-ryul had no idea he had a son.
- Distant Finale: The last scene of the last episode skips forward 20 years or so to reveal that Pil-gu made the major leagues after all. Dong-baek and Yong-sik are shown, from behind, watching the press conference on TV.
- Distant Prologue: The opening scenes of the first episode, in which Dong-baek comes to Ongsan and starts her bar, are followed by a six-year Time Skip. The bar is a success but the mean ladies of the neighborhood still hate her.
- Distracted by the Sexy: All the men of the neighborhood when Dong-baek first comes to town. A guy tossing a baseball drops it. A guy on a bicycle runs over the peppers that a store owner is drying on a mat.
- Dramatic Irony: The real estate agent in episode 8 telling Dong-baek that she should sue Pil-gu's father for child support, while Jong-ryul, Pil-gu's father, sits right behind them cringing.
- Dramatic Sit-Down: In episode 2 Yong-sik crumples to the ground in the mud by the river, after lifting the sheet and seeing the face of the dead woman.
- Empathic Environment: A very silly scene in episode 7. Yong-sik gathers all the old ladies in the neighborhood together and asks if they know anything about the Joker. It's broad daylight outside but everything gets very dramatically dark as the women tell Yong-sik about rumors they heard. Unfortunately, it's all nonsense, and a frustrated Yong-sik cuts the conversation short. As he does, the darkness turns to light again.
- Feet-First Introduction: The first shot of Yong-sik is in the How We Got Here opening, as the camera focuses in on his feet as he trudges through the mud to a crime scene.
- Flashback: Many. In the first episode a flashback to 2003 shows how Yong-sik, then a student, foiled an armed robber at a bank by beating the hell out of the armed robber with his lunchbox. Other flashbacks sketch out the history of Dong-baek's relationship with Jong-ryul. One particularly frightening flashback in episode 5 shows how Dong-baek was a witness to the Joker's last kill: the Joker murdered Dong-baek's beautician friend while Dong-baek was at the scene, getting a tan inside a tanning booth.
- Foreshadowing: A quick shot shows that Hyung-mi didn't die immediately when she was killed, but instead lay twitching in a pool of blood. This matters, as it turns out she had time enough to swallow a piece of incriminating evidence as a Thanatos Gambit.
- Genre Mashup: Part of the series is a typical Korean Drama soap opera, with a Love Triangle and a lot of tears and emotions, centering on a pretty young heroine and the handsome young man pursuing her. The other part of the series is the hunt for a brutal Serial Killer.
- Girl Posse: The ladies of the neighborhood, who once hated and bullied Dong-baek. They rally to protect her in the later episodes, after it becomes clear that the Joker is after her personally.
- Glasses Pull:
- In episode 2, Yong-sik is awkwardly explaining to Ja-young how he might get arrested for mugging because he took Gyu-tae's walled to pay Dong-baek. Ja-young pulls her glasses off when she realizes that the drunk jackass who caused a confrontation with Yong-sik over $7.50 in peanuts is her husband.
- Jessica does this in episode 9 when Jong-ryul calls her bluff and agrees that they should get a divorce.
- Gossipy Hens: Chan-sook and all the other mean, nasty married ladies in the neighborhood. They don't just gossip about Dong-baek, they seem to actively hate her just because she's young and pretty and a single mom.
- Henpecked Husband: The men of Ongsan are second-class citizens, bossed around and henpecked by their wives. No Gyu-tae may be the richest guy in town, but when he comes home, his wife Hong Ja-young bosses him and corrects his grammar.
- How We Got Here: The series opens with the police, including Yong-sik, finding the body of a woman who was murdered and dumped on the river bank. Then the main story, which happened much earlier, unfolds. Occasionally episodes jump back to the scene with the body by the river.
- I Have This Friend: Jong-ryul tries to tell a teammate about Dong-baek using this ruse in episode 3. It does not work, because apparently he's told his friends about his "first love" Dong-baek many many times, especially when he's drunk.
- Inadvertent Entrance Cue: In episode 1 a fortune-teller informs Yong-sik's mother Deok-soon that her son will fall in love with a "dragon from the east". Deok-soon grouses that she doesn't know what direction east is, which leads the fortune-teller to point and say "That's east"...and she points right at Dong-baek, who is new in the neighborhood and has arrived bearing a rice cake as a gift.
- Inner Monologue: The thoughts of characters are often heard as voiceover.
- Jackhammered Conversation: The string of curse words that Dong-baek lets loose in the final episode after bashing Heung-sik over the head with a glass mug, are drowned out by the sound of a passing truck.
- Lady in Red: By episode 10 Dong-baek has decided to be more assertive, and part of that assertiveness is strolling through the neighborhood in a bright red dress while all the older ladies in the neighborhood gawk at her.
- Letting Her Hair Down: Quite literally. When she finally snaps in episode 6 over Gyu-tae being such an entitled asshole, Dong-baek lets her hair down out of its bun, before going over to the police station and swearing out a criminal complaint against him.
- Local Hangout: The "Camellia" bar, where all the Henpecked Husbands of Ongsan go to find refuge from their hectoring wives.
- Match Cut: In the first episode there's a match cut from the Dead-Hand Shot dangling from the stretcher, to Dong-baek's hand as she reaches for a painting she's hanging. Later in the same episode, there's a match cut from Jong-ryul patting his baby son's back, to Dong-baek patting her son's back.
- Missing Mom: Dong-baek is an orphan because her mother abandoned her, sending her to an orphanage when she was only 7. In episode 6, her mother Jung-sook shows up in Ongsan without any warning. It turns out that Jung-sook is deep in the grip of dementia.
- Mood Whiplash: Episode 7 ends on one heck of a mood shift. Dong-baek and Yong-sik come back to the bar from a dreamily romantic date, giddy in each other's arms, only to find a message from the Joker spray-painted all over a wall.
- Nature Versus Nurture: Discussed Trope in the last episode. As Seok-yong agonizes about why his son turned out to be a Serial Killer and what he could have done differently as a father, Heung-sik smirks and says "I guess you wouldn't know if I was raised like this or born like this."
- Obfuscating Disability: It gradually becomes clear that Dong-baek's mother, Jung-sook, is faking her dementia. By episode 14 even Dong-baek, always slow on the uptake, figures this out.
- Once More, with Clarity: Sometimes done with flashbacks. On the night Hyang-mi disappeared, Jung-sook rather creepily said "She won't come back." Why? Episode 17 reveals that earlier that night Jung-sook saw someone hauling away the Camellia moped on a truck. She assumed that Hyang-mi sold the moped and skipped town.
- Parking Garage: In episode 16 Dong-baek is lured to an empty parking garage at night to retrieve her scooter. She stupidly takes the bait and then narrowly avoids the Joker, hiding in an elevator.
- Protagonist-Centered Morality: The drama presents Dong-baek as independent and sympathetic, and Jong-ryul as self-centered and controlling. It never deals with the moral implications of Dong-baek keeping Jong-ryul's son secret from him, and then refusing to let him into his son's life even after Jong-ryul finds out by accident.
- Reassigned to Antarctica: Yong-sik is sent from Seoul back to his hometown of Ongsan because he hit a particularly insolent murderer during a press conference.
- Redemption Equals Death: In episode 16, Hyang-mi says that she's going to turn her life around and become a new person. As the viewer already knows, she gets murdered immediately after this. Lampshaded by Gyu-tae, the person she makes her declaration to: "People say you'll die if you suddenly mature."
- The Reveal: Episode 11 finally reveals who is the murder victim seen in all the How We Got Here shots scattered throughout the first half of the series: Hyang-mi, waitress at the Camellia cafe.
- Round Table Shot: Episode 17 features a Round Table Shot showing the married ladies of the neighborhood, as they sit together and debate what to do about the Joker.
- Running Gag: Throughout the series, Yong-sik follows Dong-baek around and pursues the Joker. His supervisor Chief Byun keeps pestering him to follow up on a complaint by a woman who says her dog was impregnated by a neighbor dog. This gag that is repeated in many episodes pays off in episode 15 when Yong-sik wants to see a security camera on a radish farm...and it turns out that the radish farmer is Yeong-sim, the woman who was complaining about her dog. She says he'll have to get a warrant. The final episode reveals why Chief Byun kept bothering Yong-sik about looking into the dog problem; Yeong-sim is Chief Byun's girlfriend.
- Secret Test: In the last episode Yong-sik grills Seok-yong, who was arrested and charged as being the Joker, why he crammed Hyang-mi's throat full of sawdust and super glue. Seok-yong says it was to shut her up. Then Yong-sik drops the bomb: neither sawdust nor super glue were found in Hyang-mi's throat. He has figured out that Seok-yong is covering for his son, Heung-sik.
- Serial Killer: The Joker, who was never caught but has not killed in five years. At the start of the series he is stalking Dong-baek.
- Serious Business:
- Getting married to a woman who already has a kid is portrayed as an earth-shattering decision.
- When news breaks in episode 19 that Jessica was married before, it is treated as a gigantic scandal. Jong-ryul has to call a press conference in the last episode to defend his wife's honor.
- Show Within a Show: Jong-ryul is the star of a TV show called "The Return of Superman". He is filming a scene from the show in Ongsan in Episode 2 when he meets Dong-baek.
- Shut Up, Hannibal!: In the last episode Heung-sik tries to play some sort of weird mind game with Yong-sik, claiming that while he murdered the other five victims, he didn't kill the delivery man. Yong-sik blows him off. When Heung-sik claims that everybody can be a Joker, Yong-sik shoots back that the Jokers of the world will always be hugely outnumbered by decent people.
- Sleeping Single: Gyu-tae and Ja-young sleep in separate beds, because theirs seems to be a Sexless Marriage and they clearly dislike each other.
- Snow Means Love: Naturally the first snow of the year starts falling at the beginning of episode 10 as Dong-baek and Yong-sik kiss for the first time.
- Spit Take: Jessica does this in episode 10 when one of the other baseball wives reads an internet rumor, regarding one of the players having a mistress in Ongsan.
- Split Screen: Used in the first episode to show some of the heroics that lead to Yong-sik joining the police force, like when he subdued an armed robber or when he took down a motorcycle thief while peeing against a wall in the street.
- Thanatos Gambit: Episode 18 reveals that Hyang-mi swallowed something as she was dying, but the cops aren't sure what it is. It turns out to be Heung-shik's ear bud, which he had dropped right before he killed her.
- This Is Reality: "Life isn't a drama like you see on TV," says Dong-baek in episode 3, as she explains to Yong-sik why she doesn't just fall into his arms Korean Drama-style.
- Time-Shifted Actor: A couple of scenes feature an adult Pil-gu, like the Flash Forward at the end of episode 18, as well as the Distant Finale at the end of the series.
- Token Minority: In a reversal of how this trope usually plays out, one of the minor characters in this series is a white person. Deok-soon employs a young lady named Helena, played by American actress Carson Allen.
- Took a Level in Badass: Yong-sik getting arrested for defending her from Gyu-tae in episode 6 finally motivates Dong-baek to stop being such an Extreme Doormat. She stomps over to the police station and swears out a complaint against Gyu-tae for three years of relentless sexual harassment and verbal assault.
- Whatever Happened to the Mouse?: The ending of the series gives no hint as to whether Jong-yeol will get visitation rights to the son he didn't even know he had until Pil-gu was eight years old. He gives Dong-baek a slush fund for Pil-gu's support, so one might think he would, but the series never states this.
- Your Princess Is in Another Castle!: The Joker storyline seems to be wrapped up in episode 18 with the arrest of Seok-yong, Heung-shik's father—the DNA under Hyang-mi's fingernails matched him. It isn't a completely obvious case of Your Princess Is in Another Castle!, as there seems to be plenty of plot to fill out the remaining two episodes, like the various romances or Jung-sook's kidney failure. But there's still the matter of the unidentified yellow object that Hyang-mi swallowed before she died. Sure enough, the last episode reveals that Heung-shik is the killer after all. Seok-yong had DNA under his fingernails because he was helping his son dispose of Hyang-mi after the fact. The mysterious yellow object? Heung-shik's ear plug.
