3 Dark Yet Thought-Provoking Moments In Episodes 3-4 Of "Namib"

“Namib” episodes three and four have been kind to Shim Jin Woo (Lee Jin Woo) – he found new friends and saw his bullies get the taste of their own medicine. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for Yoo Jin Woo (Ryeoun), Chris (Lee Ki Taek), and to some extent Yoon Ji Yeong (Kim Ji Woo).

Here are three dark moments from “Namib” episodes three and four that will make you pause and think about the nightmare idol trainees live every day.

Warning: spoilers for episodes 3-4 ahead!

Normalized restrictive diet culture

After observing the facial expressions of every character in the scenes we will discuss soon, it is clear that the show creator wanted to criticize the normalized restrictive and unhealthy diet culture in the K-pop entertainment industry.

The first instance happens when Yoo Jin Woo skips his lunchtime at school to come and join Kang Soo Hyun (Go Hyun Jung) for a practice session. After his vocal evaluation is done, Soo Hyun tells him he is free to leave, to which Yoo Jin Woo asks what should he do about his lunch as he used his lunchtime for the practice session. Unfazed, Soo Hyun replies he should just skip it. Not only does Yoo Jin Woo react negatively to Soo Hyun’s response, but the vocal coach also seems uncomfortable with her choice of words.

Another scene that highlights the gravity of this issue is when Yoo Jin Woo and Ji Yeong are at Soo Hyun’s house, celebrating Shim Joon Seok’s birthday. The scene goes as follows: Ji Yeong orders fried chicken because, in her words, birthdays are incomplete without it. Shim Joon Seok asks her and Yoo Jin Woo if they will be able to control themselves as he knows the trainees are on a diet, to which Ji Yeong replies with a yes because “we have been doing it for 10 years.” It should be noted that both Yoo Jin Woo and Yoon Ji Yeong are high schoolers, and around 17/18 years old, which means they have been dieting since they were basically only eight. Thankfully, in the end, Joon Seok convinces both of them to eat the chicken, implying that he does not agree with Soo Hyun’s restrictive diet ideology.

In a later scene, after Yoo Jin Woo and Ji Yeong perform for a small audience in a cafe as a practice session, Yoo Jin Woo mentions his hunger to Soo Hyun. Once again, she tells him to “endure it” and gets back to business.

What makes this scene in particular more painful to watch is that the night before this entire ordeal, Soo Hyun saw Yoo Jin Woo binge eating. Although the reason behind his binge was emotional distress rather than pure animalistic hunger, he is still a teenager struggling with his eating habits, and Soo Hyun encouraging him to starve is rather inhumane.

Chris: villain or victim?

One of the things that almost every viewer agreed upon after watching the premiere episodes of “Namib” was that Yoo Jin Woo’s adult friend, Chris, is the bad guy. He is constantly trying to paint Soo Hyun as an evil self-centric CEO who only cares about her own profit and making Yoo Jin Woo part ways with her and trust only him instead. However, after the recent episodes flesh out Chris’s character more and show his side of the story, it is difficult to know whether he is good, bad, or just another human who has been wronged by a morally grey Soo Hyun.

For context, the premiere episodes hinted at Chris being a trainee under Pandora Entertainment who never got to debut, and he now hates Soo Hyun for his inexistent idol-career. The percentage of trainees that any entertainment company debuts is never 100, so the viewers gave Soo Hyun the benefit of the doubt presuming Chris could not score high enough to earn his debut.

While we still don’t know if Chris had the skills to be a successful idol or not, one of the main reasons why his chance of debut vanished 10 years ago was not his inability to perform well but because Soo Hyun haphazardly left for the States for her son’s treatment.

On one hand, who can blame a mother for leaving everything behind to be there for her son? On the other hand, she did ruin someone’s chance of finding their piece of success and happiness.

Although a look into his backstory does prove that he might have been a victim 10 years ago, it might be too soon to decide whether is he a comically bad guy in the present day and sabotaging Yoo Jin Woo out of jealousy or not. But by solely looking at the events that unfolded in episodes three and four, Chris seems like a misguided man who does not want Yoo Jin Woo to trust the same person, who, in his eyes, ruined his life. Chris might turn evil and actively try to ruin Yoo Jin Woo’s chances of winning “Star Rise,” but in the present, he seems to genuinely care for a teenager whom he has known since he was a scared and abandoned kid.

The unethical practice of using trauma for clicks and views

The year is 2025, and everyone, or at least a vast majority of avid reality show viewers, knows how manufactured reality shows actually are. The producers often use the subject’s tragic past or mental health struggles to garner more views simply to increase their profit. And while idol survival shows cannot be entirely categorized as reality TV, they are not far from it.

From the premiere episodes, “Namib” has been pointing out how, for most of these survival shows, the real winner is selected from the beginning. And regardless of the talent or effort other contestants put into each week’s performance, their fate has been sealed from the beginning.

Episodes three and four focused more on an equally unethical and dehumanizing aspect of these shows. In one scene, Soo Hyun goes to talk to the “Star Rise” producer to show how Yoo Jin Woo is a well-rounded candidate for the show and should get more screen time. According to her, he has the looks, the talent, and a tragic backstory. And while Soo Hyun refuses to invite his mother to the show to make Yoo Jin Woo’s audition more buzz-worthy, the producer seems to have something else in his mind.

In a scene where Yoo Jin Woo is getting his introduction recorded for the show, the producer prompts the interviewer to ask him about his parents, which leads to Yoo Jin Woo having a mild anxiety attack. Later in the same episode, when Yoo Jin Woo goes on stage to perform for the judges for the first time, he sees his mother sitting in the audience.

It seems out-of-character for Soo Hyun to invite her and impossible for the producer to locate her at such short notice, so Yoo Jin Woo’s mother probably showed up on her own accord. But one fact should not be forgotten that if the producer could, he would have definitely invited Yoo Jin Woo’s mother himself to increase the ratings of his show at the expense of distressing an already mentally unstable teenager.

While the recent episodes were quite dark and made the viewers emotional, there is one good thing that came out of it and that is the fleshing out of Soo Hyun’s character. She is not a Mary Sue!

Soo Hyun is a mother who loves her son but at the same time refuses to realize how she is imposing her own dreams on him. She is a mentor who undoubtedly wants her trainee to succeed but at the same time is not shying away from the way she can benefit from the deal. As a human being in the real world, she might not be considered a good person, but as a character on screen, she is definitely an interesting subject to analyze.

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Javeria is a binge-watching specialist who loves devouring entire K-dramas in one sitting. Good screenwriting, beautiful cinematography, and a lack of cliches are the way to her heart. As a music fanatic, she listens to multiple artists across different genres and stans the self-producing idol group SEVENTEEN. You can talk to her on Instagram @javeriayousufs.

Currently watching: “Namib,” and “Doom At Your Service.”
Looking forward to:  “Motel California,”  and “Reborn.”