Recap Korean Drama "Mental Coach Jegal 2022" Episode 15-16 (Final Episode)

Mental Coach Jegal ends its run with some really good beats and a message that I love to bits — but also with characters neglected, a completely unnecessary love line, and the general feeling that this drama weakened as it went along. I want to hang onto the good and let go of the rest, but really, why are Mu-gyeol and Young-to etc. just left hanging in the wind? And why did we have to bypass the wonderful platonic bond between Ga-eul and Gil and make it into romance?

Before we dive fully into the drama’s ending notes, though, let’s pick up where we left off: the epic fight of our three ex-taekwondo athletes and their humorous and long-awaited partnership. Because if there was a storyline that I really liked was Tae-man’s redemption arc and his teaming up with Moo-tae and Gil — apologies, insults, teamwork, and all. I’m not sure if I totally understand why Tae-man sided with the good guys in the end, but I’m glad he did.

And so our band of good guys just gets bigger and bigger, with Gil and the No Medal Club now joined by Tae-man and Moo-tae and Dr. Park. They know that in order to expose the corruption in the athletic kingdom, they have to get right to the roots, and that involves some dangerous maneuvering.

First, Tae-man pretends to return penitently to Assemblyman Park in order to get the location of the computers that store all the damning information. This leads our three taekwondo stars to an even more dangerous fight than previously — but first Assemblyman Park shows up to mock them. He and Gil have a verbal and ideological battle, and then our three good guys are beaten to a pulp by a throng of thugs. Gil, in particular, is knocked unconscious, and it becomes a bit of a turning point for him.

 

Dr. Park arrives at the warehouse to rescue them, and indeed she does — brave and willing to contradict her father, call the cops, and expose the whole thing. (Her arc, though a long time coming, was good. She finally saw his true colors — ugh, he’s scary — and exposed his evil deeds.)

Gil is now hospitalized and surrounded by a million people who love and care about him. He’s fine when he wakes up, hero that he is, but this little interlude serves for Dr. Park to confess that she likes him, and more importantly, for Gil to have his final chapter of emotional healing. Importantly, Ga-eul — who still adores the ground Gil walks on — sees this confession from the window in the door and flees in tears.

 

Thanks to Dr. Park, the crew get the evidence they need to make sure Assembly Park and all his evil plans are brought to light. He never expected his daughter would turn on him, so that was minorly satisfying. But really, who cares about that plot line, since we knew he’d get justice eventually, and they dragged it out a bit too long.

Similarly dragged out was Coach Oh’a take-down; he circles back again in our final episodes to taunt and threaten both Sun-ah and Ga-eul. Luckily, Ga-eul has become so strong and confident now that she stands up against him, flips the narrative, and in the end, his sexual assaults (plural!) are brought to light and he is finished for good this time. (The drama makes it clear he’s in prison for keeps, but because they have brought him back at least four or five times already, it’s hard to believe them. But we will.)

Actually, for me, the most satisfying thing about justice for Coach Oh was seeing Ga-eul’s mom finally act like a mother! Watching her clobber Coach Oh with her broom and then threaten to choke him with his own intestines (such a classic ajumma threat!) was one of my favorite things about this conclusion. As was, of course, her apology to, and comfort for, her daughter. Now that was a long time coming.

So, in terms of satisfying conclusions for characters, I would say Ga-eul and the other girls on the team had the most growth — not only in the things they overcame, but how their mentalities were in such a better and brighter place when the drama ended.

And now for our WTH moments. Mu-gyeol — after fronting several episodes and then disappearing from the plot entirely — returns in our final episode. He conveniently appears to hug Ga-eul when it’s necessary for the plot, but then the drama confirms that he’s dating Yeo-woon. This is nice and all, but I don’t understand what they were doing with this plot arc at all. In the end, it felt uneven and inconsistent, and Mu-gyeol as a character feels short-changed. Which sucks because I liked him.

And speaking of short-changed, so is Young-to. Early on, we learned that he was a victim of Coach Oh as well, and we were promised his role in Coach Oh’s undoing. But after the first few episodes, Young-to was also only present in the plot tangentially — in adorable cardigans — so I feel unsatisfied in how the drama handled his arc as well. If they weren’t going to do much with it, they shouldn’t have spotlighted him at all. And that, actually, leads to one of my main complaints with the drama: so many spotlights, so little time.

 

When the drama did shine a spotlight on a character or moment, it did a beautiful job, and the threads of mental coaching and mindset through this drama were some of its strongest elements. But in the end, the plot was stretched in too many directions, and we ended with something that felt watered down.

That being said, I did love Gil’s final piece of coaching. He gives it first to Ga-eul, and later to a packed auditorium of national athletes. He says that the true opponent isn’t the person opposite us, but the thoughts in our head. And then, that we have the ability to choose which thoughts we listen to. In Gil’s words, “Don’t let that jerk build a house in your mind. Tell him to leave!” In practice, this works for Ga-eul against Coach Oh, and his poisonous remarks are left powerless. And it works for our other athletes, too: they realize they have ownership of their thoughts, and I love everything about this. I just wish the drama focused on this message more strongly, instead of juggling 55 other things as well.

 

And now for our hero, who’s had his near-death experience, and has learned an important life lesson: he never loved himself, so he couldn’t love another. I buy the first part about self-love, but I would argue Gil definitely did love others, and his care of the No Medal Club and the national athletes was full of love and care. I suppose they wanted this love to be about romantic love, though, and so… that becomes Gil’s final victory.

When Ga-eul and team win silver at the Olympics, Gil “gets his tears back.” He hasn’t cried since he was seven, but now he cries. Which doesn’t bode well for those of us that were hoping his relationship with Ga-eul would stay platonic. Indeed, the drama wavered on this quite a bit and I wasn’t sure if they had even made up their mind: there was a lot of tenderness in the Dr. Park storyline and I could see him growing closer to her in that way. They certainly had more in common than him and Ga-eul.

But, instead, the drama goes for a subtle love line between Ga-eul and her mental coach. The two share a ~moment~ in a public ice rink where Gil says to Ga-eul’s beaming smile: Let’s try it. Love.

So that happened. And while I appreciated the subtleness, I also feel like it was unnecessary and took away from the other strengths of the drama. If ever there were a drama that didn’t need a love line — or really even have room for it — it was this one. I could have completely accepted Gil’s emotional healing without him realizing he had romantic feelings for Ga-eul. And the same for Ga-eul: she received maximum healing in all her plot lines, and I don’t feel like Gil’s affection elevated any of that.

And so, I’m back where I started. Mental Coach Jegal had so many strengths, and a lot going for it. It balanced its darker edges with humor and heart, and in the end had some really great things to say about how to live life and how to own a positive mindset. But, instead of just doing those things well, it tried to do a dozen other things well, too, and we ended up with a drama that could have been so much better. I’m tempted to pick up my red pen and rework all their plot arcs and shave off a bunch of characters and episodes. But instead, I’ll just take what they handed us, and enjoy the strong moments, and the goodness that was always at the core.