Pachinko Season 2 Review: Apple TV+'s Epic, Intimate Family Drama Is Richer Than Ever

One of the most impressive elements of Pachinko's first season was its scope. Set across two timelines, the season's eight episodes stretched from a small island outside Busan in 1915 to the bustling Tokyo of 1989. Like the Min Jin Lee novel it adapted, Season 1 both told an intimate family story and used the experiences of that family to explore the fraught history of Koreans in Japan in the 20th century. None of that changes in Pachinko's second season, despite the tightening of its time frame, which, as the season opens, jumps between the final stretch of World War II and, again, 1989. The contrast between the two only underscores the profundity of the changes made in those years, both for Japan and the Koreans who live there but never quite think of it as home.

Picking up a bit after where the first season left off, the premiere finds the young Sunja (played by Minha Kim in the earlier time frame and Yuh-Jung Youn in the 1989 scenes) struggling to find ways to survive in Osaka's Koreatown as shortages cut into her ability to prepare the kimchi that she's used to keep a roof over her family's head during the war and the imprisonment of her husband. Koh Hansu (Lee Minho), the father of her older son Noa (played as a teen in later episodes by Tae Ju Kang), remains willing to extend a helping hand, but Sunja's resistance to his aid remains firm. At least until times turn too dire for her to say no.

Meanwhile, at the end of the '80s, Sunja's grandson Solomon (Jin Ha) attempts to climb his way out of a different sort of crisis. After ending the previous season in professional disgrace due to an act of compassion, he endeavors to put his career back together only to find that doing so might be impossible without making a moral compromise. And then another and another. And as Sunja's other son Mozasu (Soji Arai) encounters some financial bumps of his own while attempting to expand his pachinko empire, Sunja strikes up a slow-paced courtship with a Japanese man (Jun Kunimura, most recently seen on Sunny).

8.8

Pachinko

at Apple TV+

Like

• Complex storytelling
• Historical detail
• Strong performances

Dislike

• The finale sometimes feels a bit rushed in the way it lays the groundwork for a potential third season
• There's not a lot to dislike though

What's gained as the series' two timelines draw closer to one another is a sense of intimacy. It's easier to make connections between who the characters were and who they're destined to become. That's partly because their narratives begin to converge and overlap. We see, for instance, how early Mozasu's pachinko fascination begins. But it has just as much to do with the work of the cast and the attention showrunner Soo Hugh and the series' creative team give to creating moments that rhyme and comment on each other. 

One episode, for instance, cuts between Sunja's first visit to a Mexican restaurant, where she delights at the attentive service (and strong margaritas) and Sunja in Osaka, laboring tirelessly as she serves noodles in the midst of a bombed out city. Though played by different actresses decades apart in age, they're unmistakably the same character. It's one instance of many in which Pachinko's performances, writing, directing, and editing work in harmony to elevate the series. (The ensemble cast, which expands to include Sungkyu Kim as a Hansu employee charged with watching over Sunja's family who develops feelings for Sunja's sister-in-law, Kyunghee [Eunchae Jung], remains uniformly excellent, but both Kim and Youn do MVP work in each time period.)

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Yet as graceful as the series' construction remains, its characters' paths get even rockier this time out. As with the first season, Season 2 retains the broad strokes of Lee's novel while both filling out the narrative and diverging from it. (One of Season 1's standout episodes, a depiction of the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923 and its horrific consequences for Korean residents, didn't draw from the book at all.) This season brings the story deeper into the world of prestige TV filmmaking by emphasizing its characters' moral ambiguity without losing empathy for them. Hansu is not Tony Soprano (mostly), but his storyline and Lee Minho's performance capture the character's easy charm and genuine concern for Sunja and his son without forgetting the brutality inherent to his life in the yakuza.

Similarly, and less predictably, the season explores Solomon's romantic side via a reunion with his former co-worker Naomi (Anna Sawai) while also exposing a ruthlessness unseen in the first season. When Solomon explodes at a grocery store baker who does nothing to hide his prejudice against Koreans while talking to Sunja, it feels like a rage accumulated not just in his lifetime but passed down from one generation to the next. It's the sort of moment made possible by the series' patience and care and the time we get to spend with these characters. Hugh has successfully translated a complex novel to television without losing its depth, while giving Lee's story a TV-friendly shape, complete with episode-ending moments of high drama. And, if this season is any indication, it's the sort of show that will only grow richer with each new season.

One final note: Though both the images and theme song have changed, Pachinko still has the best opening credits sequence of any current series.

Premieres: Friday, Aug. 23 on Apple TV+, followed by a new episode each Friday
Who's in it: Minha Kim, Yuh-Jung Youn, Jin Ha, Anna Sawai, and Lee Minho
Who's behind it: Soo Hugh working from the novel by Min Jin Lee
For fans of: Family dramas, historical sagas
How many episodes we watched: 8 of 8