The question of what happens after we die has pestered humanity for many centuries. This timeless mystery offers fertile ground to JTBC’s Heavenly Ever After, whose narrative examines life, identity, and kinship while breaking away from more conventional settings and storylines. Unique, entertaining, and poignant, this Kim Hye-ja-led drama is as comical as it is raw, guiding us through a journey that feels at the same time utopian and realistic. But, more than exploring our curiosity as to what lies beyond death, Heavenly Ever After is a masterfully crafted allegory about grief and a tender celebration of human bonds.
Directed by Kim Seok-yoon and written by Lee Nam-kyu and Kim Su-jin, Heavenly Ever After can be considered a spiritual sequel to The Light in Your Eyes. Both series count on the same creative team, a flawless use of allegory to examine human nature, and an infallible trio heading the main cast: Kim Hye-ja, Han Ji-min, and Lee Jung-eun. The difference between the two lies mainly in tone. While The Light in Your Eyes is a darker story, Heavenly Ever After is more lighthearted and much brighter โ both visually and narratively.
Heavenly Ever After is told in 12 episodes and it follows Lee Hae-sook (Kim Hye-ja), an octogenarian who lived a difficult yet fulfilling life alongside her husband. After she dies, she finds herself at the Heaven Admission Counselling Office. There, she decides to keep her 80-year-old appearance as her husband used to tell her that, even though she was pretty when young, sheโs the prettiest now. To her surprise, once she arrives in Heaven, she reunites with her husband Ko Nak-joon (Son Suk-ku), in his younger, 30-year-old version. It seems that Hae-sook is the only person in heaven who has chosen to keep her older appearance. While navigating their new life in Heaven, Hae-sook and Nak-joon face the people and deeds that marked their life on Earth.
This review contains spoilers, so read it at your own risk! If you haven’t watched the show yet, give our spoiler-free summary a shot. It’s at the bottom!
Worldbuilding & Character Identification: How Heavenly Ever After Brings Us Into Its Universe
Heavenly Ever After creatively plays around with the ideas of Heaven and Hell, developing its fantastical universe and its circumstances based on Eastern philosophies such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, and shamanism. In Hae-sook’s universe, life continues even after death. But Heaven isn’t some kind of perfect place in which we can’t get hurt and can do whatever we feel like. Heaven is a place where we’re still expected to respect others and work for the common good. That means that we’re constantly facing the consequences of our actions and, through our work in Heaven and reincarnation, we become better versions of ourselves โ kinder, wiser, and more tolerant. Worldbuilding is then key to the development of Heavenly Ever After and the script seamlessly designs the world around Hae-sook episode after episode, setting rules and limitations that our characters have to work with (and around sometimes).
The narrative that unravels isn’t about character development as much as it is about character identification. Hae-sook is flawed but resilient and fair. At 80, she’s the perfect product of her experiences โ her financial, social, and personal struggles shaped her into a headstrong, jaded, and sceptical old woman. She curses and lacks the patience and elegance you’d expect of a heaven-dweller. And she knows that. Aware of her shortcomings, Hae-sook initially doubts that she even belongs in Heaven.
But no one tells us โ or Hae-sook โ why she’s actually in Heaven. Instead, the narrative allows us to witness her life as observers, encouraging us to empathise with her and come to our own conclusions. We look from afar as she cares for her bedridden husband for years on end with nothing but love. We see her as she refuses to take more than she’s owed. We follow as she sees and reaches out to a little girl suffering, an old man without a reason to live, a young woman who didn’t even have anyone to conduct her funeral. We cry alongside her when she appreciates the love of a mother whose blood she didn’t share and when she regrets her lack of understanding towards her mother-in-law.
The Heart of Heavenly Ever After: Human Connection
Through Hae-sook, we reflect on our own relationships, no matter how fleeting and seemingly unimportant they may seem. Hae-sook reminds us that every word we share, every smile we offer, and every helping hand we give matters. The bonds we create with the people around us โ from our families to our romances, from our friends to complete strangers โ define who we are, what we believe in, and the design of our own journeys. The moments and emotions we share are the only things that may survive death, creating our legacy on Earth and wherever else we might go from here.
Thanks to the ideas of reincarnation and karma that Heavenly Ever After explores, the series strengthens the emotional weight of its theme and consolidates its story layers. The bonds these characters create actually mould their future and later dynamics.
Relationships can take different shapes throughout different lives but the emotions that arise from them survive time and memory. Our characters owe each other debts of consideration, care, and understanding, which is why they keep meeting in hopes of fulfilling these obligations. Their interwoven lives create a layered narrative that emphasises a simple message. According to Heavenly Ever After, that’s the meaning of life: we are here to correct our failings, but also to forgive and empathise with one another.
Nak-joon also complements this theme through his undying love for Hae-sook, which she responds to in equal measure. Their relationship remains unbreakable through life and death and is based on the utmost feeling of respect, gratitude, and thoughtfulness. The emotion that brings them together is so sincere, so selfless, so profound that it can’t be described, only illustrated. Beyond the comedy or the difference in appearance that frustrates Hae-sook, their love comes to the surface with every gesture of care and concern and with every word of consolation. Most importantly, it boils underneath the series’ main narrative arc, which relies on a splendidly executed allegory.
How to Use an Allegory to Effectively Tell Your Story
Som-i (Han Ji-min in her second marvellous series of the year after SBS’s Love Scout), whom Nak-joon instinctively saves and Hae-sook naturally repudiates, is the personification of Hae-sook’s memories. Better yet, Som-i is the grief and guilt that Hae-sook couldn’t process after the disappearance of her son, a facet of her identity that was buried inside and frozen in time.
It’s fascinating to look back through Heavenly Ever After and see the little details sprinkled throughout the entire series, effectively building an allegory for grief, guilt, and the process of self-forgiveness. Hae-sook can’t help but detest Som-i as soon as she sees her and she spends 10 episodes struggling to truly accept her. Even so, Hae-sook still does her best to show her kindness and understanding. Som-i, lost and orphan of an identity, first seeks love, recognition and, later, even forgiveness from Hae-sook. But, as her identity becomes clearer, she then embodies the anger and hatred that were born out of Hae-sook’s guilt.
Meanwhile, Hae-sook develops a gentle, amusing, and heartwarming bond with the Pastor (a formidable Ryu Deok-hwan). The Pastor seems to detest Hae-sook forโฆ almost no reason at all at first. And here’s another detail that Heavenly Ever After leaves behind for us: it’s as if he is wired to reject her. But Hae-sook’s sincerity and kindness prompt the Pastor to see beyond his anger and consolidate a profound connection that only a mother and a son could. Their relationship heals both of them and prepares Hae-sook for the narrative’s climax.
It’s in the extraordinary episode 11 that Hae-sook finally confronts her grief and guilt. Nak-joon realises that he needs to let go and believe that Hae-sook is strong enough to overcome her pain. Even though he witnesses this process, Hae-sook is the one who sets it in motion, her motherly heart naturally coming to the surface when she’s about to bid farewell to her son, the Pastor, once again.
With Hae-sook truly seeing Som-i for who (or what) she really is, she’s faced with her past. Hae-sook literally suffocates at the hands of her suffering but eventually forgives herself, letting go of the darkness that silently haunted her for decades and accepting her entire life for what it was. Both Som-i and Hae-sook recognise the fact that they are one and neither of them deserves any blame. They deserve love and compassion instead, which Hae-sook is belatedly able to understand. From there, she can see that her time with her son was limited but endlessly meaningful and deserving of remembrance โ which allows the series’ allegory to connect with the main theme of human relationships once again.
By combining well-rounded characters, a fantastical setting, and just a bit of mystery, Heavenly Ever After builds an engaging narrative that illustrates how difficult it is for us to face the darkest corners of our existence. It reminds us of our own demons, fears, and regrets that we might choose to forget but that continue to haunt us nevertheless. Just like Hae-sook, it’s only by looking back at our younger selves and offering them the understanding and forgiveness they โ we โ deserve that we’re able to move forward and fully appreciate our existence, embracing both our joys and heartbreaks.
Technical Notes: Performances, Visuals, and Music
Heavenly Ever After skilfully blends tragedy and comedy, reflecting this daily balance of good and bad, laughter and tears, that we face in our own lives. Humour is another key element at the core of the series. Through a mix of wacky farce and irony, Heavenly Ever After invites us to laugh at bygone days and weird quirks. We’re all a lot more similar than we realise and share the same pains and disappointments. Hae-sook’s folks in Heaven then encourage us to see the ridiculous, the particular, and the foolish in all of us, little specks of dust in the grand scheme of things.
The sense of humour in Heavenly Ever After works not only thanks to the script but also thanks to a cast of extremely talented performers. Kim Hye-ja makes you love Hae-sook but she also drives you insane with her stubbornness, makes you cry with her pain, and makes you laugh out loud with her one-of-a-kind expressions. She’s just so natural at times that you can’t tell whether she’s acting or if Hae-sook is just a persona within Hye-ja’s identity.
Son Suk-ku, Han Ji-min, Lee Jung-eun (who plays Hae-sook’s surrogate daughter Lee Young-ae), Ryu Deok-hwan, and Chun Ho-jin (as the Heaven and Hell Centre Directors) are all just as charismatic as our leading lady. They all balance emotionally intense scenes and hilarious shenanigans (and double personalities!) with finesse, naturally responding and elevating each other’s performances. A special mention needs to go to Shin Min-jae and Kim Choong-gil, who played our lovely dogs Jjajang and Jjampong and delivered such silly but vital roles with perfect dramatic and comedic timing.
While special effects are acceptable and not really of note, the set design and the cinematography are excellent. Director Kim makes use of a lot of negative space in compositions that make humans look quite small compared to the sky. In that way, he emphasises this vastness, brightness, and peace while highlighting how small we are in comparison to the universe. These compositions also contrast with the dark and cramped Hell, which we get to see in episode 5. I must add that episode 11 is superb: the performances are incredibly passionate, and the sequence in which Som-i and Hae-sook’s memories start to “merge” is flawlessly edited and shot.
You can clearly see a collaborative effort in Director Kim’s directing of actors, which reminds me of something he shared during the press conference for the show:
“This project was conceived from the outset with Kim in mind. The screenwriters even halted their other scripts to join what we affectionately called the ‘Kim Hye-ja Project,’ focusing on how to create a platform where she could fully immerse herself. It’s essentially a bespoke creation aimed at delivering both entertainment and profound emotion. (โฆ)
Other actors were willing to join even with the script still in development, which meant we could design their roles based on a clear understanding of the individuals. This approach, giving them tailored performances rather than generic ones, is why the characters feel so authentic and alive.”
We should also take into consideration how challenging it must’ve been at first for Kim Hye-ja and Son Suk-ku to deliver a proper married couple dynamic despite their age gap. So praise must be given not only to the actors but also to the director’s guidance โ because they definitely pulled it off.
Heavenly Ever After also counts on a stunning soundtrack (make sure to give Sam Ock’s Think of Me and JeHwi’s Stay Happy a listen!) that, appropriately, fits the tone of the series and never steals the spotlight from where it should be.
Should You Watch Heavenly Ever After?
Heavenly Ever After offers a whimsical portrayal of the afterlife, making exceptional use of a compelling allegory to explore its themes and design its characters’ journeys. Counting on a perfect cast, layered dialogue and narrative, and unconventional storylines, Hae-sook’s tale is marked by warm humanity and empathy. As the series blends moments of raw honesty, comical shenanigans, and heart-stirring exchanges, Heavenly Ever After fascinates and entertains.
I’ll leave you with Director Kim’s own words about Heavenly Ever After:
“We wanted to delve into the connections people forge through many lives. The core message we wish to impart is the significance of human relationships. We wanted to narrate the origin of these connections, the journey of their development and the inherent value they hold.”
Why don’t you give Heavenly Ever After a shot and tell me if you think they succeeded?
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