K-Drama Rewind, Goblin: Gong Yoo and Lee Dong-Wook's raw and grief-soaked supernatural series still reigns supreme

Some dramas stay with you. They sit by your side, perhaps like an old friend with whom you are so comfortable with that you don’t ask questions. Both of you sip tea, next to each other in the quiet.

And, there are those like Goblin, the quiet friend who grips your arm. You don’t drink tea with each other in the silence. A strong, black coffee would do, with both of you reliving both the bitter with the sweet and a laugh here and there.  That’s the rare feeling that Goblin leaves behind.

Starring Gong Yoo, Lee Dong-wook, Kim Go-eun and Yoo In-na, Goblin is flexible with its genres. At its heart, it’s a supernatural romantic drama, if you wish to be precise. A man, Kim Shin, is cursed to roam the world for a millennium with an invisible sword in his back, and only his real ‘bride’ can free from this pain. He is the ‘goblin’, or a magical deity immersed in Korean folklore. He has to room with a Grim Reaper, cheers to Lee Dong-wook and the most comforting display of brotherhood that K-Dramas that have ever seen.

Shin meets Kim Go-eun’s Eun-tak, a cheerful girl whose fate has already been written.  And she is the only one who can see the sword, as she can also see ghosts. She is riveted by him; he just needs her to free him. But of course, it’s not that easy.

A cautious friendship begins that later grows into love. But there is a rather worrying uncertainty and yet a predictability about this romance: What chance does it have in a world where one’s death has already been written? Yet, when there is life, there is hope.

Eun-tak and Kim Shin’s relationships grows slowly over time, with Kim Shin’s cynicism ebbing away and seeing her as more than just a woman who will end his immortality. He learns the oldest, most brutal lesson: you never truly know what you have until it’s lost.

That’s one of the rather unsettling themes that recurs through this supernatural show, as the characters learn rather brutal lessons, especially Lee Dong-wook’s Grim Reaper, whose past is connected with Kim Shin, though neither remember it. After all, the past is a different country and they do things differently there.

Goblin is many, many things. It’s about consequences, lessons, all tied in with the themes of life, death and grief. It’s about the rare beauty of humanity. Deities can’t foresee everything, least of all, when a human does something so unexpectedly pure, perhaps like saving children and putting their own life at risk, as Eun-tak does in one of the most heartbreaking scenes of the show.

It’s an overwhelming watch at points, perhaps owing to the undercurrents of emotion that just break free and almost submerge the viewer. Tears are shed, aplenty. But after each storm, comes a sliver of hope. Kim Shin and Eun Tak aren’t separated for too long, despite memories vanishing and different lives.  Dong-wook and Yoo In-na’s characters are unable to move on from the wounds of one life, but they will find each other in the next.

There isn’t a show like Goblin. There never will be.