The Reason We’ve Been Waiting for “Yumse” — Previewing Episodes 1 & 2 of Season 3

Cold sweat broke out. It was because Yumi (Kim Go-eun) looked so much like me—trying to avoid riding the same bus as the awkward coworker. That’s exactly why, when Season 3 finally arrived, Yumi—who had become a huge success as a romance writer—met a brand-new PD named Roonrok (Kim Jae-won), a “reindeer” who was completely incapable of small talk. No matter how friendly she tried to be, all she got back were curt answers: “Yes” or “No.” Once Yumi learned that she and Roonrok were going the same way home—and even that they had to take the same bus—she hesitated and ended up clocking out 10 minutes later than him, trying to avoid him. But just her luck! Even though she showed up at the bus stop 10 minutes late, Roonrok was already there. No choice but to take the bus home together with Roonrok. So what do you do? Put in your earbuds? Or don’t?

Looking back, the reason we loved Yumi—and “Yumse”—was because of moments like that. So tiny, petty, and awkward that other works wouldn’t bother shining a light on them—yet these moments and feelings are pushed in anyway, pried open, and called out by name as “the 00 Cells.” “Awkward Cells,” “Touchy Cells”—putting labels on feelings that were embarrassing, awkward, and shameful to begin with somehow helps them come out at last. And in the end, it pulls out everyone’s common emotions as viewers.

Drama Yumi's Cells__RANGLE_BRACKET> series has always been like that. In brutally realistic situations, it captures those private feelings people don’t want anyone to discover—and then describes them, somehow, in cute and lovable forms. That’s why “Yumse” could earn massive love from viewers every single season.

Even in Season 3, isn’t a story where flashy, almost fantasy-like events happen and love falls into place like magic. It’s a drama centered on Yumi’s petty little feelings. Of course, there’s a big ongoing romance thread with Gu-ung (Ahn Bo-hyun) and Bobby (Park Jin-young) each season—but ultimately, the reason viewers love “Yumse” is that Yumi’s private, pathetic, painfully relatable emotions feel like they’re “my own.” In Season 1, when her relationship with Gu-ung was starting to heat up, and in Season 2, during the process of breaking up with Bobby, what this drama really wanted to say wasn’t, “So did they end up dating, or not?” As Yumi goes through a series of relationships and breakups, resignation and a change of jobs, plus a handful of setbacks and bursts of joy, her cells bump into things, clash, connect, and grow.

Like the moment she spies on a friend-of-a-friend’s SNS, almost like a detective, and gets more and more bothered. Or the moment a trivial flash of impatience suddenly spills into tears. Or the moment she runs into her ex-boyfriend by chance and takes it out on something completely unrelated. Or the moments when, after a breakup, she struggles to endure the loneliness that keeps crawling up on her every night—those moments are really the same ones that have been repeating for me, and for all of us.

Even after reaching Season 3, Yumi is still Yumi. Even if her social status or circumstances change, the pathetic yet lovable essence that forms her private inner world never changes. In Episodes 1 and 2 of Season 3, many of the cells in Yumi’s cell village have vanished. Now that Yumi has become a famous writer and is fully absorbed in writing, she takes a break from romance for three years and spends her days in peaceful routine—days where “nothing is wrong is the problem.” So maybe that’s why all the cells in charge of “joy, sorrow, and love” are asleep. After all, she’s supposed to be a romance writer—so what if she doesn’t write romance? Didn’t Hemingway say you have to live life first if you want to write about it? Yumi embarks on an adventure—maybe it’s research for writing romance, or maybe it’s a way to jolt herself when the usual ups and downs of love aren’t there. Then she meets Roonrok. A character like Roonrok—completely opposite from Yumi in every way and utterly incapable of forming any kind of human connection—stirs up a unique feeling in Yumi called “Ogi.” In Episodes 1 and 2 of Season 3, Yumi and Roonrok show off their so-called “can’t-stand-each-other” chemistry. For instance, the “Strawberry Choux Cream Fish Cake” incident. When Yumi saw Roonrok buying up every last one of the remaining strawberry choux cream fish cakes in front of her, something starts to spread through Yumi’s cell village: a fish called “Bbakdom.” And somehow, “Bbakdom” becomes Yumi’s new drive. Since a new emotion has risen in the calm cell village, Yumi’s cells will likely interact and clash in a different way than in Seasons 1 and 2—helping her grow. That’s the reason we’ve been waiting for “Yumse.” We’re more curious about the feelings Yumi discovers along the way than about how the romance ends.