Sumith Prasad
The second season of Apple TV+’s period drama series ‘Pachinko’ follows the budding romance between Solomon Baek and his former colleague, Naomi. After the former gets fired from Shiffley’s Financial, their companionship ends, only for it to revive when he visits the company to proceed with the sale of Halmoni’s property. During the visit, she asks him out, and they go on a date. In the fourth episode of the sophomore installment, Solomon and Naomi share intimacy for the first time, making their relationship definite. While the former is an integral character in Min Jin Lee’s source novel of the same name, the material does not help us figure out the fate of his relationship with his former colleague! SPOILERS AHEAD.
Solomon and Naomi’s Relationship Does Not Exist in Min Jin Lee’s Novel
Naomi is a character conceived by Soo Hugh and her team of writers for the television adaptation of Min Jin Lee’s historical novel ‘Pachinko.’ In the source text, Solomon Baek does not nurture a romantic companionship with a colleague he meets in Tokyo, Japan. Instead, he is in a relationship with Phoebe, a Korean-American woman who attended Columbia University with him. In Soo’s show, Solomon attended Yale University, and Naomi went to Harvard Business School before they joined Shiffley’s Financial. Even though the character in the show may seem like another version of Phoebe, that’s not really the case.
Naomi and Phoebe’s personalities are drastically different. The former cherishes her Asian heritage in a multinational company even though it affects her chances of earning a top position in her firm. When Solomon struggles with his Korean roots in Japan, Naomi helps him embrace the same. However, Phoebe is the exact opposite. Although her ancestors are Korean, she is more or less an American as far as her soul is concerned. She arrives in Tokyo with Solomon after they both graduate from Columbia and finds it immensely difficult to adapt to life in Japan in the source novel. This difficulty ultimately convinces her to break up with Solomon.
Towards the end of the source novel, Phoebe tells Solomon that she cannot tolerate Japan anymore. She makes it clear to her boyfriend that she wants to leave for the United States and asks him to join her. Phoebe wants him to find a new job in the West and be with her. However, Solomon decides to remain in Japan and take care of the pachinko business of his father, Baek Mozasu. The decision provokes his girlfriend severely, who packs her bags and leaves Tokyo after breaking up with him. In Jin Lee’s book, he does not get together with another woman.
Solomon and Naomi Are More Compatible Than Solomon and Phoebe
While creating ‘Pachinko’ for Apple TV+, Soo Hugh made several significant changes, and Phoebe’s omission is one of them. To convincingly explore Solomon’s struggles with his Korean-Japanese heritage, the creator needed a character who could teach and help him rather than someone who would add to his confusion with her American soul. Thus, Naomi was born in the absence of Phoebe. The former assists him in navigating life in Japan. Solomon comes to terms with his ancestry with the help of Naomi, who embraces and prioritizes her “home” over the coveted positions she can earn in the West. This compatibility may help them to end up together.
“He [Solomon] and Naomi just have this connection. It’s both push and pull because they’re so similar, but at the end of the day, you realize these two people really do see one another. I think that’s why that love blooms between them. I just love that he found this connection with this woman who really understood him,” Soo told Deadline. If Solomon decides to follow in the footsteps of Baek Mozasu and run the latter’s pachinko parlors, as in Min Jin Lee’s novel, Naomi must be the first person to support him and embrace his decision. If that’s the case, their togetherness may last forever.
Read More: Pachinko: Do Kim Sunja and Koh Hansu End Up Together in the Novel?
