Burnout Syndrome 1×02 Review: Episode 2

Jira faces his first task for Koh, and comes to the realization that perhaps accepting mysterious job offers from equally mysterious individuals is not the best decision.

Credit where credit is due, Jira does know that he possibly didn’t make the world’s best decision. I suspect that he is so intrigued by Koh that he lets that cloud his better judgment. (I suspect that won’t be the last time that happens.) The first thing he does when he wakes up is gaze longingly at the painting he did of Koh the night before, and then he accepts the job offer. But he almost immediately reconsiders and goes to Ing for guidance.

The job is certainly mysterious, as even when Koh is explaining it, he keeps it light on the details. Koh is someone who doesn’t like people and doesn’t want to deal with the drama. (I love that this is coming from quite possibly the show’s most dramatic individual.) He highly values his privacy; not only do his own employees not know what he looks like, but he also hides his identity from his therapist.

He is, in essence, asking a lot of Jira while providing virtually nothing in return. He won’t give Jira any context for his assignment, throwing him to the wolves without anything to use as a weapon. He still won’t tell Jira his own name. (Jira writing his name in his underwear is hilarious; is his memory that bad?) Koh flays Jira bare and reduces him to all of his worst fears and insecurities, then dismissively tells him that his tears mean nothing.

Koh is quite possibly one of the worst BL villains. Is he worse than someone like Korn from Kinnporsche, or more recently Risa from The Wicked Game? Perhaps not, but he’s definitely up there. He’s manipulative, brutal, and unempathetic. He is the embodiment of capitalism. Also, as someone who is staunchly anti-AI for a multitude of reasons, the way in which he calmly and detachedly ruins lives for the technology is something that I really cannot stomach.

And now we understand why Pheem dreams of smashing things. That’s even less of a red flag to me now, knowing the context.

I can’t wait to see where this show goes with its commentary about AI. Currently, we have Jira’s impassioned speech against it in the first episode, and Mawin’s enraged, “I just coded myself out of a job,” in this one. It’s clear where the narrative stands on this issue, and I’m excited to see how the characters’ conflicting relationships with the concept get resolved.

We know that Koh and Jira are endgame, and I understand and acknowledge that characters are allowed to be morally gray. However, they’re going to have to work hard to convince me that I want him to end up with Jira. He’s definitely interested – and he knows it – and Jira seems to be into red flag behavior. They definitely have the chemistry. But it’s hard for me to root for a couple when one of them treats the other so poorly.

It reminds me of another OffGun series, Theory of Love. In that series, Off played a womanizer named Khai who continuously took advantage of Gun’s character Third, who was in love with him. Only after Third finally decided to shine up his spine and move on did Khai change his tune and start trying to woo him. For the entire first half of the series, I found myself wondering why I even wanted these two to be together. Admittedly, Khai did a pretty good job of growing and atoning. I expect that we may get something like this with Koh, although it’s hard to see that happening as it stands now.

Then again, Burnout Syndrome may choose to go in the opposite direction. Instead of being a story about love redeeming someone, it may be about love ruining someone. Perhaps Jira’s love won’t “save” Koh. Perhaps it will damn himself.

I saw someone posit that one of the reasons Koh is looking for basically a human avatar to handle all his dirty work is that he subconsciously feels guilty. He is just using “drama” as an excuse. Given his insomnia and his failure to make any true breakthroughs in therapy, there may be something to that theory. Still, when we saw him take a private phone call, he seemed perfectly content with what he’s doing. He’s less of a mystery to us than he is to Jira, but we still don’t know much about him.

There is a moment, though, when it looks like the show is telling us to look deeper. That first scene with Koh getting out of bed is shot beautifully, through the glass. It’s fractured and disjointed, broken in the way Koh seems to be. At one point, we see two Kohs, which may symbolize something like him being of two minds or him being two people.

To be perfectly honest, though, I don’t know that I subscribe to this theory. Koh seems to take pleasure in ruining people’s lives. He fires Jira without a second thought, despite knowing what dire financial straits he is in. He tells Pheem to lay off his entire department when that could just as easily be handled by HR. (The fact that it’s Pheem’s birthday is likely the cherry on top.)

But then, I’m not sure if Pheem is much better. He seems like the better choice, but mostly in comparison to Koh. He expresses frustration at his current circumstances, yet when Jira tells him he should quit, he is full of excuses as to why he can’t. When contrasted with Jira at the end of the episode, who has no problems quitting even though desperately needing the money, Pheem seems particularly weak-willed. This is a man who is all talk, and when push comes to shove, will prioritize the safe option.

I think Pheem and Jira’s relationship is demonstrated nicely with the wine-throwing scene. Jira has a picture in his head of how it will look, and it doesn’t match up to his expectations. (Dew has got game, though. I was not expecting that.) Even with all of their mutual flirting, Jira doesn’t seem all that into the kiss.

Last week, I pondered how long Jira would keep his moral compass. I didn’t realize that he would be tested quite so soon. I love that he had the conviction to tell Koh that he would quit if he was asked to do anything he didn’t want to do or didn’t agree with. Shamefully, I also found it funny when Koh was basically like, “Yeah, we’ll see.”

And he did as he said. When he learned that he had been used to acquire a company so that Koh could use his AI technology to train on their archive, Jira quit. He’s an artist – one who wrote his thesis not only on fashion but on the very man whose company he just helped destroy – and as we saw in the first episode, he is very against AI. Given Koh has combed through Jira’s social media, there’s no way he doesn’t know his stance on this. Using him in that way feels like a very perverse power play, the same way that firing him rather than letting him stand on his principles is.

Can we talk about what a fantastic actor Gun is? He is really bringing his A-game with this show. I am continually in awe of his range.

This show as a whole is just phenomenal. Everyone is acting their butts off, but the cinematography and soundtrack are nothing to sneeze at, either. I am incredibly impressed with this series so far, and it’s only been two episodes. Although I will admit that it is difficult for me to sit through, considering how conflict-averse I am. I am often viscerally uncomfortable when watching, which is a sign that the script is doing its job.

Author: Jamie Sugah

Jamie has a BA in English with a focus in creative writing from The Ohio State University. She self-published her first novel, The Perils of Long Hair on a Windy Day, which is available through Amazon. She is currently an archivist and lives in New York City with her demon ninja vampire cat. She covers television, books, movies, anime, and conventions in the NYC area.

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