On the Way to the Airport

September 21, 2016

Choi Soo-ah (Kim Ha-neul), a flight attendant in a loveless marriage, and Park Do-woo (Lee Sang-yoon), a pilot whose wife is destroying his daughter's life, meet at Incheon International Airport. Their connection is immediate and unplanned. The airport establishes the drama's central metaphor.

September 21, 2016

Soo-ah's professional world — the specific emotional labour and physical discipline of a long-haul flight attendant.

September 28, 2016

Do-woo's daughter and her situation — the immediate injustice that connects Do-woo and Soo-ah through the school teacher who is also Do-woo's wife.

September 28, 2016

The Jeju Island flight route used for Do-woo and Soo-ah's professional encounters — the transient space of an aircraft as a location for honesty.

October 5, 2016

Both marriages' specific emptiness — not dramatic failures, but quiet extinctions.

October 5, 2016

The airport as their meeting place — the specific quality of chance in a space designed for departures.

October 12, 2016

The difficulty of the choice both characters are slowly making — against their own interests as social creatures.

October 12, 2016

Soo-ah and Do-woo at their midpoint — the love acknowledged to themselves if not yet to each other.

October 19, 2016

The spouses' growing awareness of what is happening.

October 19, 2016

Both characters calculating what the truth will cost.

October 26, 2016

The drama's central act — two people choosing each other with their eyes fully open to the consequences.

October 26, 2016

The aftermath of honesty — the social, professional, and familial consequences.

November 2, 2016

The airport as the space where their new beginning is possible — departure as liberation.

November 2, 2016

The resolution of the marriages and their consequences.

November 9, 2016

Soo-ah and Do-woo together — not romantically uncomplicated, but genuinely chosen.

November 9, 2016

The finale. Kim Ha-neul and Lee Sang-yoon's quiet, adult love story — one of 2016's most mature examinations of what it means to choose someone.