Instead, Park opted to combine these options, but stopped short of providing us with conclusive endpoints. Some of her characters get what they wanted but not in the way they expected, while others embark on surprising new beginnings. Some seem hopeful as we leave them, others uncertain.

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All have demons that threaten to return, but they have also learned to appreciate small snatches of tranquillity throughout the day.

The members of this quartet each sought escape in their own fashion. Ki-jung looked for it through marriage, desperately seeking someone to latch onto before the long winter. For Chang-hee, escape meant securing financial stability. Mr Gu searched for his at the bottom of the bottle.

Those three characters sought their escape instinctively, reacting to their situations and surroundings, but Mi-jung was the most aggressive. Her philosophical approach defined her as a person. She was driven by her need to identify and achieve liberation for herself.

This search began with the “liberation club” she joins at work, which she forms with colleagues like her who don’t want to join any clubs. The club gives birth to her “liberation notes”, the words of which provide the show with its wistful and pensive narration.

Her main outlet for liberation is the inscrutable and magnetic Mr Gu, who long-jumped into her heart and ours early in the series and has stayed there since. For Mi-jung, who is surrounded by temperamental siblings and stoic parents in a small countryside home, and suffocated by her office job, Mr Gu (and his enigmatic silence) is a novelty – someone who doesn’t judge and doesn’t ask her for anything.

Mi-jung, on the other hand, does ask for something. In fact she demands that Mr Gu worship her, and worship her he does. Mi-jung is the only thing that gets a reaction out of Mr Gu, who drinks the nights away and never shares anything about himself, not even his name.

Pieces of Mr Gu’s life do eventually trickle out, including the key to a Rolls-Royce which Chang-hee discovers in his bathroom. In the back half of the show Gu lends the car to an overjoyed Chang-hee. Chang-hee later dings the car, which provokes a rare response from Gu. He chases Chang-hee for miles, until both of them board the subway into town.

The Seoul subway is a powerful symbol throughout the show. An artery that connects millions of people, it stimulates their dreams while also confirming their hopeless situation. After all, people who can afford fancy cars seldom ride the metro.

When Chang-hee runs to the subway he does so out of instinct. He never quite felt like he belonged behind the wheel of Mr Gu’s car, but the subway is home for him.

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For Gu, the subway connects him back to his former life. He found himself in the countryside when he got off at the wrong stop (a mistake that saved his life) and never left. Chasing Chang-hee onto the platform, another of life’s unplanned journeys, triggers his return to his former existence as a gangster.

Although he needed alcohol to do so, Gu could tolerate his quiet life around Mi-jung in the countryside, but back in Seoul he descends into destructive alcoholic behaviour. At this point in the series, Mi-jung also gets into trouble in town, understandably losing her cool with the boss and colleague whose affair has unfairly affected her life.

Both Gu and Mi-jung are lashing out after being separated from one another, but while they each may be a calming influence on the other, the truth, which they both later acknowledge, is that they hate other people. They are misanthropes who shrink back into themselves to avoid dealing with the world they hate.

Regardless of which side of the human spectrum you find yourself on and which character’s journey you relate to the most, My Liberation Notes has been a rich and rewarding journey like few others.

My Liberation Notes is streaming on Netflix.