Pachinko Season 2 is worth watching for its updated opening title sequence alone.
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Like Season 1’s stirring opener, this sequence features members of the Baek family dancing, carefree, down aisles of pachinko machines. In a new twist, though, these credits are split across two pachinko parlors: A muted, 1940s-era parlor with wood-paneled machines, and a much larger, rainbow-bright parlor from the 1980s. Characters from the show’s earlier timeline dance through both sets, a joyful reflection of the ways in which history, both personal and global, layers itself over the present.
These echoes of the past — some joyful, some tragic — persist throughout the main body of Pachinko‘s second season, which remains a magnificent portrait of a family across generations.
What’s Pachinko Season 2 about?
Credit: Apple TV+
Once again, Pachinko splits its time between the lives of Sunja (Minha Kim) and her grandson Solomon (Jin Ha), both of whom find themselves in periods of extreme transition.
In Osaka in 1945, Sunja struggles to keep her family afloat during World War II. As the American forces close in on Japan, a reunion with her former lover Koh Hansu (Lee Minho) — and father of her eldest son Noa (Kang Hoon Kim) — offers Sunja an escape to the countryside. There, she, Noa, her youngest son Mozasu (Eunseong Kwon), and her sister-in-law Kyunghee (Eunchae Jung) can wait out the end of the conflict.
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While Pachinko continues to focus on Sunja’s hard work to ensure her and her loved ones’ survival, it also opens up to a coming-of-age story for Noa and Mozasu. The two face anti-Korean prejudice from their Japanese compatriots everywhere from schoolrooms in Osaka to the rolling rice fields of the countryside. Yet they also form new dreams and new friendships. Among them? A bond with Hansu, whose secret connection to Noa looms large over the season.
Meanwhile, in Tokyo in 1989, Solomon is fighting a war of his own against businessman Abe (Yoshio Maki) in retaliation for the loss of his career. Centered around discussions of real estate deals and starting his own fund, his is a struggle that’s so far removed from Sunja’s own that her older self (Academy Award winner Yuh-Jung Youn) can barely understand it. But of course, it’s in the moments where younger Sunja and Solomon’s stories intersect — or diverge — that Pachinko finds some of its most potent meaning.
Pachinko Season 2 continues to be an exceptional exploration of the past.
Credit: Apple TV+
Pachinko‘s earlier timeline stands by itself as a moving tale of perseverance through dark times, full of simple life-affirming moments like family dinners or days spent flying kites. But it also elevates the later timeline by constantly reminding of us of everything that brought Solomon to where he is today. His business ambition has roots in Noa’s own drive to study for a university entrance exam. Any time a character in the past mentions wanting to go to America, we recall that Solomon went to Yale.
There are differences, too: In one episode, Noa learns a valuable lesson in forgiveness, while Solomon forgoes any kind of forgiveness in favor of revenge. The lack of Noa in 1989 reverberates through the past as well, making every scene with him a new step on the inevitable march towards his absence.
Throughout it all, Pachinko remains one of the most stunningly crafted shows on TV. Each set, costume, and prop bursts with lived-in texture. Often, the series slows down to detail the everyday processes that make up the Baeks’ lives, from days spent working on a rice farm to hours spent making family meals. Each scene is so evocative you can almost feel sweat on the back of your neck in tandem with theirs, or smell the food they pass around their table.
Occasionally, Pachinko Season 2 breaks this carefully conjured realism, for better or worse. In the “better” corner, we have a tense sequence counting down to the dropping of the atomic bomb on Nagasaki — an inevitability from the very first episode. Mundane activities play out in a Nagasaki factory, rendered in black and white, as if we’re watching a newsreel of the moments leading up to the bombing. It’s a breathtaking stylistic change, and marks a shift in the rest of the season. Unfortunately, Season 2 does stumble a tad in its final episodes, with love triangles and the occasional “shocking” reveal tending towards soap opera-esque melodrama.
Overall, though, Pachinko Season 2 is a triumphant achievement for one of TV’s best shows. Like Pachinko‘s characters in the 1989 timeline, who can always sense the brush of history at their backs, you’ll feel like you can reach out and touch the past just by watching.
Pachinko Season 2 premieres Aug. 23 on Apple TV+, with a new episode every Friday.
