Cinderella's Sister Episode Recaps (source: dramabeans.com)

EPISODE 1 RECAP

In a small, shabby hilltop home, a teenage girl cooks silently, stoically. She is SONG EUN-JO (Moon Geun-young), whose face remains impassive even at the sudden burst of shouting adult voices. She is joined by a young boy, HAN JUNG-WOO (later to be played by Taecyeon), rotund in his baseball uniform — a good-hearted kid, if a little slow on the uptake.

Case in point: Eun-jo immediately understands what’s about to happen — having lived through it countless times before — and sits down to eat quickly, but Jung-woo does not. He is perplexed at her reaction until she explains that she doesn’t know where her next meal is coming from, so she’s gotta eat up. Now Jung-woo gets it — if she’s leaving, his only source of food will also soon be gone — and he hurriedly grabs a bowl and shovels food into his mouth.

The shouting comes from Eun-jo’s mother and Jung-woo’s father (surrogate, if not biological). He is a mean drunk and has hit Mom (name Kang-sook, played by Lee Mi-sook) for the last time, because she’s not taking it anymore and is determined to leave him. Desperate to keep her, he begs her to stay.

As in so many abusive relationships, the batterer’s remorse soon turns to anger that his girlfriend is leaving him, and the argument becomes violent. When Eun-jo’s mother screams for her, Eun-jo and Jung-woo race to the room, where the man is threatening Kang-sook with a baseball bat. Eun-jo takes him down, and Jung-woo (bless his heart) races outside with his bat, throwing it down the hill. (I felt a burst of emotion at the gesture, because baseball obviously means a lot to him but this shows that growing up with such a mean ol’ guy hasn’t corrupted his own sense of what’s right.)

The bat comes to rest at a distance, displaying the message written on its side in a boyish scrawl: “Song Eun-jo is Han Jung-woo’s woman forever.”

Daughter grabs Mom’s hand and the two race down the hill together. Drunk Boyfriend shouts after them, alternately threatening and begging, and runs in pursuit.

When they reach the bottom of the hill, Boyfriend pleads, “Kang-sook, don’t go!” Jung-woo shouts, “Noona, don’t get caught and go! Eat well and be healthy!” And he completely wins me over with his next gesture — when the man starts to chase again, Jung-woo tackles him to let his noona escape.

It takes some persuading (okay, a lot of screaming) for Eun-jo to convince her mother to get on the train. Kang-sook yells that they have nowhere to go and orders the taxi driver to turn back. Eun-jo yells back that they’ve got nothing left for them there, that anywhere else is better. She brings out a box, asking if her mother’s reluctance to leave is because of the shiny diamond ring inside. If she’s worried that she didn’t get a chance to grab the ring, Eun-jo took care of it. Mom brightens immediately and orders the cab driver to the train station.

The ring had been hidden away by the Mean Boyfriend, who now discovers it missing. He may have lost his woman but he ain’t losing her AND his rock, so he sends some gangster buddies after them.

As the train prepares to depart, Eun-jo spies the gangsters boarding and looking around for them. Her mother is dozing, and she briefly attempts waking her… but then another thought occurs. She hesitates momentarily, then grabs her bag and steps carefully into the aisle, leaving Mom asleep in the seat.

Eun-jo’s narration:: “My mother has switched men at least a million times. Before I get stuck with my one-million-and-first father, I decide to leave my mother.”

Eun-jo stands poised at the exit door, about to step off the train…

But she can’t do it. She turns back and urgently wakes her mother, who wakes up with a gasp to see the men. They bolt for the back of the train, and the gangsters spot them and follow.

At the back of the train, they push through a crowd of students, who block the aisles as they goof around. Thankfully this also impedes their pursuers, but they still find themselves at a dead end. With nowhere else to go, mother and daughter split up and dive into separate lavatories.

Eun-jo’s is already occupied, and the occupant lets out a scream. Eun-jo claps a hand over the mouth of the young student to keep her quiet. This is GU HYO-SUN (Seo Woo).

And then, we speed away to pick up the story at a different locale, leaving behind Eun-jo and Kang-sook for the moment to introduce Hyo-sun’s world.

Hard at work at a makgulli (rice wine) warehouse is a young man, HONG KI-HOON (Chun Jung-myung), who loads a truck with cases of makgulli. Hyo-sun pops up to ask her oppa (as in a close family friend, not relative) why he hasn’t answered her calls. She’s got a big problem on her hands!

Morosely, Hyo-sun relates her source of trouble while Ki-hoon works, and as she is the owner’s daughter, her presence here raises no eyebrows. (Although, she did duck out of school just to talk to him.) She has lost something important — some sort of ring — and moans that she’s in huge trouble! She can’t remember where it went, and if she really lost it she’s doomed.

Ki-hoon is used to her “emergencies” and reminds her of all the other times she has lost things, which have all turned up eventually, if a little worse for wear.

You can tell from their interactions that they’ve known each other for ages. Ki-hoon treats her like an adorable kid sister, and she looks up to him as her friend, oppa, and problem-solver. When he drops her off at school, Hyo-sun is back to her usual cheery mood, and tells him he has eased all her worries: “Oppa, you’re mine. If you said the moon were square, I’d think it were square. If you said salt were sweet and sugar were salty, I’d drink saltwater and spit out sugar water.”

He teases that if he gets fired because she keeps holding him up with all her talky-talk, will she be able to take responsibility for him? She declares, “Since you’re mine, you’d better not think of anyone else!”

Hyo-sun has a visitor at school, who finds her in the hallway (where she’s being punished for skipping out of class). It’s Kang-sook, the lady from the train, and now Hyo-sun’s fretting over the lost ring makes sense.

The gangsters had managed to drag Kang-sook and Eun-jo back to the house, where Eun-jo currently waits. But before they were returned, they’d given the ring to Hyo-sun for safekeeping, not willing to let the Horrible Boyfriend get his hands on it. Now she’s here to recover it, and Hyo-sun leads her to her home, chattering happily all the way.

As soon as they near the vicinity of the house, two ajummas greet Hyo-sun worriedly. Her father’s on a rampage, and they urge her home quickly.

This is because Hyo-sun is the only one who has the ability to calm her father down when he’s in a snit. GU DAE-SUNG (Kim Gab-soo), the owner of the makgulli enterprise, is furious with his employees for making a subpar batch of the rice wine, which he deems unfit to sell. In a fury, he breaks the earthen jars and scolds them all for their inferior work.

Hyo-sun jumps in and urges her father to calm down. Kneeling before him, she tells him solemnly that half these men are her friends’ fathers. She even fakes a few sobs, and when Dad seems appropriately chastened, she charms the sulks out of him with a few childish faces. He’s a gruff man, but he dotes on his only daughter, and the dour mood is lifted.

Watching all this is Kang-sook, who hangs back uncertainly. The ajummas cluck disapprovingly, saying that Dae-sung wasn’t nearly this bad when his wife used to be alive. At mention of this — and the grandness of the estate — Kang-sook’s interest is piqued. You can practically see the gold-diggery gears turning in her brain as she files all this information away. Hyo-sun darts into the house for a moment to search for the ring, trying to remember where she put it.

Kang-sook had been irritable and snappish on the walk here, but now she adjusts her attitude and tries to sweet-talk the ajummas, offering to help with their work. They have no idea who she is and eye her suspiciously, declining her offer. Kang-sook persists, and in so doing she accidentally gets in the way of some water being thrown out and ends up a sopping, fishy-smelling mess.

Hyo-sun gives Kang-sook a change of clothing. As nothing else is available, it turns out to be a dress once belonging to her dead mother.

When Hyo-sun sees the lady in her mother’s dress, she gapes at the sight, unexpectedly moved. All she can say is “You’re really beautiful,” struck with how much Kang-sook reminds her of her mother. Her eyes slowly fill with tears and her voice trembles, explaining, “The clothes really look good on you.”

Kang-sook is startled to see Hyo-sun crying and wipes her tears away gently. She pats the girl’s head and draws her in a hug. Hyo-sun, feeling a tug at this reminder of a mother’s touch, asks her to pat her on the head again, and hugs her close.

I don’t think Kang-sook’s comforting gesture is calculated, but the girl’s reaction is definitely noted. You can’t really blame Kang-sook for leaping to conclusions when Hyo-sun herself does the same. Finally recalling that she left the ring in her travel bag, Hyo-sun asks her uncle if knows where it is. He offers to retrieve it for her, but she urges him instead, “Hide it for me.”

Hearing that Dae-sung scolded his daughter fiercely when he heard that she was entrusted with a ring from a stranger, Kang-sook offers to explain the situation. She enters Dae-sung’s office with a demure air, and he stares at her in surprise — not only is she lovely, she’s wearing his deceased wife’s dress. If anything’s going to prod him to look at her as a woman, this is it.

Dae-sung stammers in surprise and is stuck staring as she apologizes about the ring. In a calculated move, she approaches Dae-sung — coming uncomfortably close — and requests a favor of him. With affected humility, Kang-sook explains that Hyo-sun lent the bag containing her ring to a friend. Until that friend returns, could he possibly allow her to stay, and give her some work?

Back at Jung-woo’s house, Eun-jo waits anxiously. The drunk ajusshi believes that Kang-sook has left him again, but Eun-jo insists that her presence is proof that Kang-sook is going to come back. He challenges, “Do you believe your mother? Do you really believe she’s going to come back, just because you’re here?”

Eun-jo answers firmly, “Of course” — but it’s clear that this pricks at her own uncertainty. She tries to tamp down that thought, insisting that her mother has never abandoned her, but she’s assailed by the fear that he may be right.

Back at the Gu estate, Hyo-sun races home excitedly, her middle finger stuck straight in the air. It’s not a vulgar gesture — rather, she has gotten a splinter stuck in her finger and is excited to have this excuse for some motherly attention. She beelines for Kang-sook and announces happily, “I’m hurt!”

When Kang-sook pulls the splinter out, Hyo-sun grabs the shard and tucks it away, wanting to preserve it as a keepsake. Then, eager for some more maternal bonding, she leans into Kang-sook and raises the woman’s hand to pat her on the head.

This scene is witnessed by a few men, who can see plainly how Hyo-sun is bonding with the new ajumma. The man on the left is Hyo-sun’s uncle (her mother’s brother), who grunts his disapproval. It’s hard to know exactly how the other two men feel — Ki-hoon and Dae-sung — but they aren’t upset like the uncle. Maybe conflicted is a better word.

That evening, Kang-sook takes another step toward her goal, using a torn buttonhole as an excuse to approach Dae-sung and touch his shirt. She can sense his attraction to her, but given his awkwardness with his feelings, she takes things slowly.

For instance: She asks Dae-sung for directions to the market, so that she can buy materials to pack Hyo-sun’s lunch. Even though it’s far, she says she is fine walking. Of course that will not do, so Dae-sung brings out his bicycle, and offers her a ride.

Modestly, Kang-sook says she can go alone, but accepts the ride. Along the way, she lightly kicks the back wheel to cause the bike to lurch, enabling her to grab his torso before pulling back, feigning embarrassment. A few moments later, she gives the wheel a stronger kick, enabling a longer embrace this time. And finally, a third kick sends them tumbling to the ground.

Yet all is not hunky-dory, because Hyo-sun’s uncle does not approve of this growing relationship. Ki-hoon comes upon Hyo-sun sobbing alone, and she wails, “Uncle gave her the ring!”

With no excuse keeping her here, Kang-sook has to leave. Without a reason to ask her to stay, Hyo-sun and Dae-sung have to let her go.

Ki-hoon confronts Dae-sung, who is sorry to see Kang-sook go but too passive to do anything about it. Ki-hoon tells him that he ought to go after her — working together, they can hit the bus and train stations and catch her before she’s gone. Can’t he see how happy Hyo-sun has been lately? It’s like she’s back to being a happy 7-year-old (the age her mother died), but if Kang-sook suddenly leaves, it’ll be like a 7-year-old losing her mother all over again.

Ki-hoon and Hyo-sun head for the train station. His words are enough to prod Dae-sung to seek out the bus stop, where Kang-sook waits for her ride.

Dae-sung asks how she can leave a girl who is crying for her, using Hyo-sun as his excuse to suggest that she stay. Kang-sook answers that she also has a daughter who is likely crying for her (ha!), so Dae-sung says that her daughter can join her. He’ll go and retrieve her, so they can both live here.

Just to make things absolutely clear, Kang-sook asks if Dae-sung’s response is purely out of concern for Hyo-sun’s sake. (Implicit question: How do you feel about me?)

He gulps, then grabs her in a hug.

It’s been days since Kang-sook has been gone, and Jung-woo chatters to Eun-jo about how she doesn’t have to worry about anything, because he’ll take care of her. After all, her mother has run away and left her behind. Eun-jo asks him if he really believes that, and he answers yes, of course.

His confirmation makes Eun-jo’s expression harden… but surprisingly, she thinks with a smirk, “Hurray.”

While Eun-jo was unable to be the one to leave her mother, now that her mother has left her, she finds her path clear. She moves briskly, stocking the fridge with food and packing her bag. Jung-woo tries to act manly and insists that she stay, but she shoots him a sharp look. Without her mother, she’s sure that she can be happy on her own.

Eun-jo ignores Jung-woo’s pleas not to leave, but she only gets as far as the front gate before being stopped. Two men appear and inquire after her: Hyo-sun’s uncle and Ki-hoon. The latter smiles warmly at her; she rolls her eyes in a surly gesture.

In the car, Ki-hoon looks back at the sullen Eun-jo and speaks to her in a friendly way. She eyes him warily, then asks for a bathroom break. While the men wait for her outside the building, Eun-jo runs out the back way.

This scene is one of the definitive moments in this episode, and has already been pegged as many people’s favorite. I don’t disagree, as the combination of the music, the camera work, and Eun-jo’s melancholy narrating create a striking ambiance:

Eun-jo’s narration: “I won’t stop. Even if I have to spend days rooting around garbage cans, I’m not going to go live with my mother Song Kang-sook, or whatever worthless man she’s clinging to.”

Ki-hoon chases her down the road, hand outstretched to grab her. He is nearly successful, but his hand only connects with the pencil in her hair, bringing the rest of her long locks tumbling down…

The effect is eerily beautiful, as Eun-jo looks back at him amidst her flying hair, looking like a wounded animal. She continues running, but that brief image has Ki-hoon mesmerized, and he stops running, as though forgetting to continue.

It’s not purely a case of realizing her beauty — I’d be vastly annoyed if we once again played into the trope of a man not finding a woman beautiful until he is hit in the face with a Great Big Flag of Femininity, like a gorgeous waterfall of hair or pretty clothes or a made-up face. It is more that Ki-hoon is transfixed with the image of her vulnerability in this moment, at this glimpse into the humanity underneath her cynical veneer. There’s a beauty in that, but not of the purely physical kind.

And then he brings himself back to his senses, resumes the chase, and catches up to her. She fights back, grabbing his hair and biting his hand, but he maneuvers her into a judo flip which lands her on the ground.

Winded, he lies down beside her as they catch their breaths. Her mom said she wouldn’t come easily, and that was no exaggeration. Eun-jo remains stubbornly silent as Ki-hoon asks if she has money or a place to go. He knows she must be worried about how to survive on her own. She’s not going to find it easy to make it alone, particularly at her age.

However, he adds that things will be different once she’s 20 — the Korean age of majority — so why doesn’t she endure a bit longer till then?

Eun-jo maintains her sulky exterior, but oddly, his words have an effect on her. She thinks grudgingly:

Eun-jo: “It’s strange. It feels really strange. The way he talks, I’d want to believe him even if he said the moon were square. I must be possessed by a ghost.”

At Hyo-sun’s house, Eun-jo argues with her mother, deeply cynical that this time will be any different from the many, many times they’ve lived off one of Kang-sook’s boyfriends. How long does she think they’ll last here? How is this any different from the other times they’ve mooched off one man after another? Eun-jo begs her mother to try afresh, just the two of them — surely they can manage together.

Kang-sook tries to hush her, saying this is all for her. Eun-jo screams in frustration: “Lies!” And then, sarcastically: “Do you live for my sake? Is that why you abandoned me?!”

That actually surprises Kang-sook, who had never thought of ditching her daughter. Eun-jo exclaims that her mother left her behind with that disgusting man. With horror, Kang-sook asks unsteadily if that man did anything to her. Eun-jo cries, “I was scared he would!” and that relieves Kang-sook’s fears.

Eun-jo declares that she will leave this place, so her mother is on her own now. She starts to leave, but Kang-sook stops her with the vow that this is the last time — now they don’t have to depend on lowlifes to feed them, or sleep in motels while on the run. Plus — and this last one speaks most closely to Eun-jo’s heart — she can start going to school regularly now.

Eun-jo is scared to believe her mother, but asks tentatively if she really means it. If they end up getting kicked out of this house too, she wants her mother to promise she’ll let her go.

Eun-jo is expecting another deadbeat, but she doesn’t betray any emotion upon meeting the gentle Dae-sung, who tries to speak kindly to her. He doesn’t know how to approach her or what to say, and wonders what he should do for her first. If she tells him what she wants, he’ll promise to do whatever she asks.

Eun-jo cuts him off: “I don’t need promises. I don’t believe in them. Rather than making any promises, just let me go to school.”

Just then, a voice calls out, “Hyo-sun is home!” Hyo-sun bursts into the room and notices the newcomer. Recognizing Eun-jo from the train, she claps a hand over her mouth and squeals. Ignoring Eun-jo’s glower of disdain, Hyo-sun exclaims, “Unni, hi!”


COMMENTS

What a great start. Right away, we have emotion, humor, wonderful chemistry, and characters who are real and interesting.

Take, for instance, Jung-woo. That kid won me over right away when he threw away his baseball bat, and again when he tackled the hateful boyfriend to let Eun-jo escape. Despite his declarations that he will “take responsibility” for Eun-jo, I read that as motivated by a pure spirit, not one born of a romantic crush but a general devotion to her. She may not coddle him with affectionate gestures but she has taken care of him for the past however many months. Actions speak louder than words, and he appreciates her. I suspect that this also points to Jung-woo — like Ki-hoon — being the rare person who sees past Eun-jo’s toughness to understand that there’s a good heart underneath.

I appreciate how the relationship has been set up between Eun-jo and Kang-sook, which is complicated and complex. Their escape gives us a glimpse into the reversed mother-daughter dynamics, because Eun-jo is the more mature one. Kang-sook even wants to stop running to change her shirt — this one’s ripped, you see — and whimpers a little to hear her boyfriend’s begging, which weakens her resolve. Eun-jo is the one who tugs her along.

Also note that Eun-jo and Kang-sook share the same surname (Song). This inidcates that Eun-jo has never had a proper father figure, and probably doesn’t know her own father. In Korea, wives keep their surnames upon marriage, and children are always listed under the father’s name in the paternal family registry. For a mother and child to share the same surname usually indicates that a father has not been present in the child’s life. In recent years, more divorced women are winning the right to register children under their family names — as did Choi Jin-shil — but generally children of divorced families keep the surnames they were born with (i.e., Dad’s). I’d say there’s still a lingering stigma attached to a child bearing his mother’s surname.

This explains Eun-jo’s disgust with her mother’s parade of boyfriends, those men to cling to and mooch off of and leave when there’s nothing left to take anymore. Not only do they have to live with those dirtbags, they’re actually dependent upon them — so I see a lot of self-loathing mixed in with the outward disgust.

I love the way Eun-jo’s character has been established, because she is simultaneously fierce and vulnerable. On the surface she’s all teenage angst, but there’s nothing bratty about it because it’s rooted in something genuine and sad. Because she tries so hard to put up that defensive front, it’s a little heartbreaking to glimpse the cracks when her childish fears show through — like when she is told she can go to school. That one detail gave me a little heart pang — that she really just wants a normal life and an education. And when Dae-sung agrees to give that to her, she is both mollified and a bit distrusting, like it would hurt too much to believe him in case it doesn’t come true.

That’s what Moon Geun-young does so well in this role. It’s not the brash talking or the bravado that I’m impressed with — it’s the way she rolls together hope, mistrust, and fear.

As I mentioned in the first-impressions post, the chemistry between Moon and Chun Jung-myung has me intrigued, and I’m totally invested in their relationship. The chase scene is obviously a hugely important moment, but so is the quieter scene after, when he talks to her. He doesn’t condescend to her, and he doesn’t make false promises. Anyone who pushes Eun-jo too hard is likely to get shut down swiftly, and anyone who approaches too tentatively would get dismissed as weak. Instead, he just lays out the truth, acknowledging that she probably has some fears and gives her a compromise. He isn’t trying to convince her for a selfish reason, but makes the argument with her best interests at heart, and as a result he gets through to her in a way nobody else has.


EPISODE 2 RECAP

Hyo-sun shows Eun-jo to their room, which they’ll have to share for a little while. Hyo-sun apologizes for not knowing that Eun-jo was an “unni” and not a “hey you” when they first met on the train. She is genuinely excited to have an unni, and has even cleared out closet space and prepared pink frilly pajamas for Eun-jo to wear.

Eun-jo is completely uncomfortable in this opulent room, awash in a sea of pinks and purples, and her trip to the bathroom makes the difference even more pronounced. She can’t even figure out how to work the automatic-sensor faucet, and even though she approaches everything with a disapproving/mocking glare, it’s clear she’s also sort of overwhelmed, as she’s never encountered someone so wealthy, and so annoyingly NICE on top of it all. Unsurprisingly, she doesn’t trust Hyo-sun or want anything to do with her pink pajamas.

Eun-jo tries to sleep, but Hyo-sun is so excited to have a companion that she chatters away, telling Eun-jo her whole life story in excruciating detail. Eun-jo tries to get her to shut up, but Hyo-sun just brightly asks if maybe she should skip to when she’s ten? I know I’m in the minority here, but I find Hyo-sun adorably wide-eyed and innocent. While her face looks freakishly hand-crafted by a doll-maker, I think Seo Woo is doing a nice job conveying a brightness, with an innocent sadness underneath. I read this character as choosing to be light and bright, as a way to mask her loss. Although you could argue that she has faced very little adversity compared to Eun-jo, the death of a mother is not a small thing, so I don’t think she’s just a dim spoiled brat, in my humble opinion.

Unable to tolerate any more rambling, Eun-jo gets up. Hyo-sun offers to follow, but Eun-jo shuts her down with one look. That girl could build icecaps with that glare.

Outside, Eun-jo runs into Ki-hoon, enjoying a little nighttime drink on his own. He’s happy to see her and smiles unwittingly, as he invites her to join him. Eun-jo immediately pulls out her claws, asking what he wants from her, thinking he’s smiling as a way to get on her good side. Ki-hoon doesn’t even know how to respond, as he doesn’t even realize that he’s smiling, and tells her that there are a million reasons to smile, none of which involves wanting to get something out of her.

Eun-jo stalks off, leaving Ki-hoon bewildered and thrown by this young girl. He sings to himself, and something about his voice, perhaps a faraway sadness, speaks to Eun-jo, as she listens curiously in the distance.

A wedding photo tells us that Eun-jo’s mom and Hyo-sun’s dad have married, and we pick up with the girls at school. They are in the same class even though Eun-jo is older, as she has been unable to attend school on a consistent basis. Hyo-sun is excited to have her sister as a classmate, and her friends even extend a warm welcome since she is Hyo-sun’s family.

That goes about as well as can be expected. When they ask if they should call her unni, Eun-jo replies curtly that they shouldn’t call her at all, leaving them stunned that someone wouldn’t appreciate their generous social overture, as most popular girls are wont to think.

Meanwhile, Ki-hoon gets an unwelcome visit from a thug on a motorcycle, chasing him down until he stops to talk to him. The thug starts with a punch in the mouth, knocking Ki-hoon to the ground, and threatens him to stop meddling with the family.

What we can glean about Ki-hoon’s backstory: he is the heir to a very rich family business with questionable morals and considerable control issues. He was disowned (either by his father or of his own accord, although I’m fairly certain it takes two to tango), and has promised to live quietly out of the media spotlight where he can’t do damage to the family name.

The thug throws down some pictures of Ki-hoon working at the makgulli factory, asking if he made some deal with a journalist to bring shame to the family. Clearly Ki-hoon knows that the accusation is not only unfounded, but illogical, so he returns the punch and makes it known that he doesn’t want anything to do with his so-called family.

Once he is alone, his cool exterior fades, and Ki-hoon betrays an underbelly of years of hurt and anger associated with his family. He has been both the runaway and the abandoned child, which links him emotionally to Eun-jo and explains his immediate empathy for her.

Back at school, Hyo-sun is excited to greet their parents’ return from their honeymoon, but Eun-jo couldn’t care less. Ki-hoon offers them a ride, but Eun-jo walks right past them both, leaving Hyo-sun pouting in disappointment. Ki-hoon tells her that no one can force a girl like Eun-jo to do anything. They drive off, leaving Eun-jo to walk home on her own, and as they pass by, Eun-jo notices Ki-hoon’s cut-up lip.

The whole town has shown up to greet the wedding party, and I mean the whole town. Kang-sook has to bow down to all of the family elders one by one, and the look on her face pretty much says it all.

Hyo-sun’s uncle disapproves, as does Dae-sung’s aunt, the town elder, former shaman, and now pastor of the local church. Ha. It’s a throwaway line, but the fact that the town went from Shamanism to Christianity with the same town elder as leader just makes me appreciate the witty social commentary.

Scary shaman-pastor Aunt asks Kang-sook about her fortune (as in astrological birthdate-related fortune, not so much her bank balance), which is apparently a severe sign of disapproval.

She then catches a glimpse of Eun-jo in the background, and the two commence in the most awesome silent face-off ever.

I don’t know if Witch Aunt is trying to read Eun-jo’s aura or just trying to outstare her, but either way, she is no match for the icy blue steel of Eun-jo’s patented glare. Aunt breaks out in a smile, and thusly Eun-jo has tamed the witch. I fully expect Eun-jo to make her dance like a puppet, but that doesn’t happen.

During the face-off, Hyo-sun notices for the first time the way that Ki-hoon looks at Eun-jo. She waves to her oppa, but he doesn’t break his smiling gaze at Eun-jo, and Hyo-sun’s face falls at the realization that his attention is no longer solely hers.

Kang-sook takes a moment to rest her tired feet between the bowing and the partying, and Dae-sung comes in to rub her feet and be the doting husband. Kang-sook is both hilariously princessy (“Is that all? My other foot is tired too.”) and also surprisingly moved at Dae-sung’s sincerity and kindness.

Hyo-sun awkwardly walks in on them, and Dae-sung springs up and leaves the room, leaving Kang-sook to explain that maybe Hyo-sun should knock when entering the room.

Eun-jo, meanwhile, looks for a room to hide away and get some schoolwork done. She’s interrupted by a conversation between Dae-sung and his aunt, arguing over Kang-sook. Aunt sees the man-eater in Kang-sook and doesn’t want Dae-sung to make the marriage official (as in legal and therefore binding), but Dae-sung stands up to her, insisting that she stop giving her opinion on the matter at all. He declares that Kang-sook and Eun-jo are family now, and that’s the end of that.

This is news to Eun-jo, as she’s used to attitudes like those of the Aunt, but unfamiliar with Dae-sung’s brand of loyalty and faith. She looks cautiously curious about this man who she thought up until now would just be another in a long string of abusive father figures.

Ki-hoon finds Eun-jo in her hiding spot, and when she gets up to leave, he flips her shoes around (so that they face outward and are easier to put back on), which is a small gesture, but doesn’t go unnoticed. The wedding party’s about to head this way, so Ki-hoon offers her a quiet place to study. She declines sullenly at first, but when the partygoers head straight for her, she decides to let him help her.

This boy is already smitten. That face is halfway to la la land, despite the fact that Eun-jo’s reactions to him have ranged from reluctantly civil to brazenly hostile.

The wedding party goes well into the night, with Dae-sung proudly looking on as Hyo-sun shows off her new mom to all the townsfolk. She’s so genuinely happy to have a mother that it breaks my heart.

Ki-hoon shows Eun-jo his personal secret hiding place in the makgulli wine cellar, and Eun-jo silently gets back to her schoolwork. Ki-hoon, ever the doting oppa, offers her a makeshift table and chair so she doesn’t have to crouch in the corner, but of course Eun-jo declines the offer rudely by pushing it away in silence. Ki-hoon scoffs at the extent of her coldness, but doesn’t say anything.

Meanwhile Hyo-sun has been looking for Ki-hoon and Eun-jo, and she sees them from the window outside the storeroom. She can’t hide her surprise or hurt as it dawns on her that she doesn’t want to share Ki-hoon’s affections.

But it must not sting that badly, because the next morning Hyo-sun is chattering away to Eun-jo about a boy at school who hasn’t returned any of her ten text messages. She wonders if they got lost and if she should change cell phone carriers, to which Eun-jo has to explain that texts don’t get lost; they get ignored. The realization is unsettling for Hyo-sun but she accepts that it’s possible.

On way to school they see the boy in question, and Eun-jo, badass that she is, goes right up to the boy and demands he answer Hyo-sun’s texts and be honest with her if he doesn’t like her. She claims it’s because she can’t stand Hyo-sun’s ceaseless whining, but methinks she’s really sticking up for Hyo-sun in her own way, even if she wouldn’t be able to admit it to herself. Because we all know that Hyo-sun would be rambling away anyway. Is it wrong for me to want these sisters to be best friends? Am I just setting myself up for heartbreak? Don’t answer that.

Later that day, Hyo-sun works through her angst in dance class, then gets a text from the boy. She comes home crying, saying that he doesn’t want her to text him anymore. Through her tears she thanks Eun-jo for helping her out, while Mom and Dad look on sweetly at her adolescent boy trouble.

Mom swoops Hyo-sun into her arms, holding her sweetly as she weeps. Eun-jo notes this with a twinge of jealousy, and Dad sees Eun-jo, realizing how she might be disconcerted by Mom’s affections towards Hyo-sun.

Dad decides to try and make a connection with Eun-jo, so he calls her out later that night, and says that he met with the girls’ homeroom teacher who told him that Eun-jo is very smart. She confirms this, with no false modesty. He awkwardly asks what she wants to be, for which she has no answer, so he asks if she wants to dance like Hyo-sun, or perhaps learn piano or violin. Maybe you should offer her something more like taekwondo or telekinetic death by eyebeams. Is that not an extracurricular activity?

Dad offers to do anything to help her achieve her dreams, and he’s totally sincere, which makes me love him. Eun-jo doesn’t budge an inch outwardly, but it’s clear that even though it’s not the first time she may have been offered lofty empty promises, this is the first time anyone’s been so sincere and open to provide avenues to better herself. The poor girl has probably never allowed herself to have any dreams, for fear of having them dashed. Dad adds shyly that she can rely on him. She doesn’t answer, but she looks like she may give him a chance.

In math class the next day, the teacher puts a problem on the board and asks the first place math student to solve it. Hyo-sun proudly announces her unni as the head of the class. Eun-jo looks up at the teacher and declines to solve the problem.

Oh, that’s not how things are done in Korea. It’s an outright act of defiance to refuse a teacher’s order, and everyone gasps, including the teacher, who can’t believe the cajones on this girl. But it looks like the teacher’s actually a little afraid of Eun-jo too, because she looks relieved when the bell rings and class ends. Hyo-sun looks over at her sister in admiration, saying that her unni is the “jjang.” (Jjang is a slang word that means “best,” and is also what students usually call the leader of the class—socially, not academically.)

But when Eun-jo makes her way to the makgulli factory to seek out Dad, we find out the real reason for her defiance in math class: she’s been memorizing all the problems and answers to get by, but she doesn’t actually know how to do the math. Dad is a little confused, as she scores high in the subject, but she shows him her notebooks filled with memorized answer sets, and explains that because she’s skipped a lot of school, she doesn’t know the basics.

She asks for a math tutor, reminding him of his offer. Dad smiles and says he’ll get her a math and grammar tutor. Eun-jo declares she doesn’t need a grammar one; she’s the best in her class, you see. But Dad corrects her speech, saying gently that she should be speaking more formally with adults (not as a lecture but more as a way to point out that she could benefit from a proper education.) She concedes the point.

While the girls await their new tutor, Hyo-sun keeps trying to engage Eun-jo in conversation, and when she doesn’t answer for the Nth time, she musters out, “If you keep this up, I’m going to get tired…”

…indicating to me that she’s neither stupid nor a bottomless pit of goodness. But when Eun-jo glares at her, she shuts right up.

In walks Ki-hoon ready to tutor the girls. Eun-jo scoffs at the sight of him, while Hyo-sun confirms that Ki-hoon is plenty smart enough to tutor them, as he is a student at a top university and only here as a part-time employee on his term break.

Thus tutoring commences, with Hyo-sun mostly finding reasons not to study, while Eun-jo learns diligently. Eun-jo is curt and rude while asking Ki-hoon questions, so he decides that she needs to call him Teacher and use formal speech with him. She gets up and storms halfway across the room, then decides against it and comes back.

She snottily adds formalities to the ends of her sentences and the word she calls him is “teacher,” but she says it in the tone of, “bastard.” She says that she doesn’t want to bother asking for a new tutor, and he’s a pretty good teacher anyway, so she wants to learn as much as she can before she runs out of time.

Ki-hoon replies that he doesn’t like her tone, but that he’ll accept it as a big step forward for her. I think he enjoys his position of power here because he otherwise doesn’t have the upper hand with her, and she’s been so hard to bring down a peg. Which I wouldn’t argue that she needs.

Ki-hoon asks her what she meant by, “running out of time,” and Eun-jo shouts back that she doesn’t know how long she’ll be in this home this time around, so she’s just trying to learn everything that she can. She storms off in tears. I don’t think she’s angry at Ki-hoon, but rather upset because he’s calling out her vulnerabilities in a way that others usually let go by unnoticed.

Hyo-sun can’t find Ki-hoon or Eun-jo, so she runs to tell Mom and Dad about it. Kang-sook somehow masterfully turns this into an opportunity to manipulate Dae-sung. Through tears, she lies that the other kids are making fun of Eun-jo for having a different surname from Hyo-sun, which wouldn’t be the case if he just made their marriage legal. Oh, she’s good.

Ki-hoon finds Eun-jo in his secret wine cellar, and sits down next to her. He tells her that he was a lot like her, and he turned out awesome. “Don’t you think I’m awesome?” he adds cheekily. He tells her that he knows she’ll turn out even more awesome than he is.

He adds that he won’t steal her precious study time anymore, which I think gets through to her—he gets what’s important to her and doesn’t treat her like a child, offering up platitudes like everything will be okay. He knows that she’s been through too much to have faith that anything will last.

Hyo-sun finds the two of them back to tutoring, so she jumps right in, trying to feel included and ask for help. But Ki-hoon dismisses and ignores her, making her notice yet again the connection between them and how boxed out she feels in their presence.

Hyo-sun seeks some reassurance from Ki-hoon the next day, but it’s clear that he sees her as a kid sister, while she’s growing confused by the developing love triangle. It’s murky territory for her, because she’s almost as enamored with Eun-jo as she is with Ki-hoon, so I think she feels jealous not just because Eun-jo has Ki-hoon’s attention, but because the two have some connection that doesn’t include her.

Later that day, Ki-hoon has another visit where worlds collide, as a mysterious well-dressed man comes looking for him and concedes that the last messenger was a waste of time. Turns out this is Ki-hoon’s actual brother, betrayed by Ki-hoon’s query after their father’s health.

Ki-hoon’s older brother wants him to leave this town, asking why he chose this place in particular to settle in. Methinks there’s some drama concerning this small town and their family in the past, eh? His brother offers him an allowance and a lifetime of leisure to go study abroad if he just leaves, as he doesn’t want Ki-hoon causing a scandal for the family. What kind of scandal? That he’s making makgulli on his spring break? There’s definitely something deep and dark here that we’re not privy to.

Ki-hoon replies defiantly that he doesn’t want their money. And as he has signed away all rights to the family business, they can’t tell him to stay or go; he’ll do as he pleases, thank you very much. Ki-hoon wonders why his brother came all this way, and if they want him to sign something ELSE away. Turns out he’s perceptive, because big brother really is here to get him to sign documents disowning all claims to his inheritance. And people question whether money is evil?

Ki-hoon broods in the wine cellar, saying wistfully that his faithful companion, makgulli, is all he’s got. I’ve been known to convey similar sentiments to my martini. What? But then Ki-hoon sees a pencil that Eun-jo left behind, and thinks to himself, “That’s right. I’ve got you too.”

He goes shopping for a new hair-chopstick for Eun-jo to replace the pencil, and his awkward interaction with the store lady is hilarious.

He drives home, eager to give her his gift. And is that…glass? Omo. So soon.

In another part of town, Kang-sook waits in gnawing anticipation as Dae-sung legalizes their marriage by registering it with the state. What follows is an indescribable moment of sheer delight and triumph, as Kang-sook steals away for a moment to take another look at the official document. She clutches it to her heart and pores over it, tears streaming down her face as she breaks out into a congratulatory speech to herself:

Kang-sook: “Dirty bitch. A dirty bitch’s fate. At age forty, you’ve finally become someone’s wife. You’ve become someone’s WIFE. You’re someone’s wife! Song Kang-sook, congratulations, bitch! Congratulations, you dirty bitch!”

How much do I love this woman? She has such pathos, such emotional depth and an undercurrent of self-awareness to what could easily be a despicable gold-digging step-mother character. Even from the first episode, I’m so firmly on her side, that I want her to get everything that she wants, and find myself rooting for her even as she does crazy things. I can’t explain it. She’s magnetic, this woman.

Hyo-sun and Eun-jo arrive home later that night, and Hyo-sun has since been drunk at school, and found out from Eun-jo that Mom lied about Eun-jo being teased about their surnames. Hyo-sun is still tipsy, and wants to ask Mom about it to innocently clear the air.

She’s about to do so when Ki-hoon and Dad arrive on the scene, Ki-hoon clutching his gift for Eun-jo behind his back.

Eun-jo doesn’t want to be bothered about it, so she shakes Hyo-sun off her arm, but since Hyo-sun is drunk, she goes tumbling down to the ground, through no fault of Eun-jo’s.

Eun-jo quickly realizes how bad this looks. She freezes. Mom sees that Dad has arrived, so she thinks quick: she slaps Eun-jo across the face and rushes over to Hyo-sun, cooing over her.

Dad and Ki-hoon look over at Eun-jo, stunned. Eun-jo’s face hardens at the realization that she’s just been bitch-slapped by Mom over Cinderella.

If this is the kind of subtle overturning of the Cinderella mythology that we’re going to get throughout, I’m totally in love with this drama. It subverts everything I expect, even from a switch-up, because each character is sympathetic and properly motivated in his or her own right. This is the perfect breeding ground for a complex dynamic between all of the characters, and there’s so much drama (the good kind) to be mined from that.

I hope they don’t fast-forward to adulthood too quickly, as I really enjoy these early developing relationships and dramatic situations. I’m scared that a fast-forward will lock the characters into archetypes, but hopefully they’ll continue to keep the characters daring and complex right through till the end.

EPISODE 3 RECAP

Following the slap, Dae-sung is actually disappointed in his wife for taking such an extreme measure against her own daughter. He recognizes that Hyo-sun has been doing her share in harassing Eun-jo and tells Kang-sook, “I was embarrassed and upset. Don’t do that again.”

He’s more generous regarding Eun-jo than Kang-sook gave him credit for, and she sees that her move has backfired — she was trying to look like a good mother to Hyo-sun but she has come off looking cold to her own child. So she breaks down and says that she was afraid he’d look down on her because of her daughter’s behavior.

While this is true enough, Kang-sook the Opportunist sees a chance to use this moment to her advantage. She cries that she can feel the judging eyes of others, and that people (like uncle and the ajummas) give her dirty looks and think she’s just a lowly widow who wormed her way in.

Ain’t she crafty! She’s not lying about any of this, but her master stroke is in twisting the situation so that she comes off as a total innocent. As a result, not only does she get herself off the hook, Dae-sung issues a stern ultimatum to his staff: anyone who doesn’t accept his wife can resign. Hyo-sun’s uncle and the ajummas gulp uneasily.

We introduce an element of fantasy — it’s not overdone, just a touch of delightful whimsy — as Eun-jo sits by the lake, moodily tossing rocks into the water. She thinks, “In my thoughts, I’ve packed my bags more than a hundred times.” An imaginary sheet of paper drifts from the sky to settle at her side, upon which she envisions clothing and a suitcase. With a finger, she drags items into the bag, mentally packing her belongings.

Thus packed, Eun-jo decides she’s ready to depart for a place without her mother, and grabs the handle of the suitcase that has appeared out of thin air.

She stops short to see Ki-hoon, ever smiling, who has been searching for her far and wide. She’s holding her suitcase with one hand so he takes it from her grasp, only now the luggage has turned back into a rock, like a pumpkin that has lost its magical properties at the stroke of midnight.

He starts to lead her away, but she wrenches her arm out of his grasp. That sudden movement causes the glass slipper hairpin (which he bought for her) to fall out of his pocket. It settles on the sand, unnoticed.

Eun-jo pushes past Ki-hoon, who calls after her to wait up since that she doesn’t know the neighborhood. When he stumbles and falls over a rock, she looks back momentarily but keeps walking on. Hilariously, just as he grumbles over her unconcern, SHE trips and falls. She pops back up instantly, trying to save face, and continues on.

With some effort, Ki-hoon catches up to her and notices that her knee is bleeding profusely — the rock has cut a huge gash in her leg.

Shocked at the extent of the injury, Ki-hoon exclaims that it must hurt. It won’t stop bleeding and she’ll need to attend to it. Eun-jo keeps a stoic face and he asks, “Doesn’t it hurt?”

Finally, sick of his fussing, Eun-jo retorts, “It hurts! Why wouldn’t it hurt? But so what?”

At home, Hyo-sun asks Kang-sook hesitantly where she heard that the kids were making fun of Eun-jo for having a different last name. Hyo-sun has asked every student in her class and nobody said such things, which Eun-jo also confirms.

Kang-sook isn’t about to admit she lied, so she tells Hyo-sun that she must have misheard. Thankfully, she’s got the tried-and-true head-pat to win Hyo-sun’s affections, and the girl agrees to let the matter die here.

Eun-jo keeps a blank expression on her face while a doctor disinfects her injury, then stitches it up. Ki-hoon is a big ol’ wuss and can hardly stand to watch her being fixed up, and is incredulous at her lack of response. He even asks the doctor if she has a problem perceiving pain, because that would make a lot more sense. It’s her lack of expression at feeling pain that he can’t fathom.

As they walk home, Eun-jo asks Ki-hoon what language he was singing in the other night. Ki-hoon perks up at her interest and explains that it’s a Spanish song. Liking the idea of Spain’s distance from Korea, Eun-jo thinks, “If I go hide there, nobody will be able to find me.”

But first, she’ll need to be prepared. She asks whether Spanish is hard to learn, and Ki-hoon starts talking enthusiastically about Barcelona and Gaudi. Uninterested in that, she cuts him off to tell him to teach her Spanish. They can use one hour of their math lessons for Spanish lessons. Without letting him get in a word in edgewise, she walks off.

Ki-hoon hasn’t had a chance to tell say anything, so now he worries to himself, “But I don’t know Spanish.” HAHAHA. I love him.

Ki-hoon’s only half-right about Eun-jo not showing pain, because it’s only in front of others that she won’t display her hurt. When Eun-jo comes home to see her mother cradling Hyo-sun, both asleep, her emotions are much easier to read without anyone around to witness it. Her hurt plays across her face, and a tear even glints in her eye.

That night, Ki-hoon starts to study Spanish on his own, trying to learn enough to teach Eun-jo without giving himself away. And I LOVE the flipped dynamics in their subsequent tutoring session, because he has to fake his way through it. Tutoring sessions are the only time Eun-jo shows him any respect, and he doesn’t want to be found out as a fraud.

As they start, Eun-jo asks whether South America is farther away than Spain. Ki-hoon takes issue with the way she rudely cuts him off, which is when she cuts him off again to say they ought to start the lesson.

Ki-hoon wants to start by teaching her the alphabet, but she has studied that on her own last night and is eager to advance to Lesson 2. Having only studied enough to stay one step ahead of her, Ki-hoon’s face falls and he looks a little panicked. He isn’t ready for Lesson 2, so he turns to her previous question. Drawing a vague outline of South America, he points to a dot representing Ushuaia, Argentina, which is the world’s southernmost city.

She asks how long it would take and how much it would cost to get there, prompting the question of why she’d want to go to Ushuaia. Curtly, Eun-jo tells him to forget it and turns back to await her lesson expectantly.

Faced with continuing their conversation or revealing that he’s a fraudulent Spanish teacher, Ki-hoon chooses the former. Thankfully, he’s rescued by the sound of voices outside, which give him an excuse to cut the day short.

(To Eun-jo, asking Ki-hoon for Spanish help is a necessary evil, and she figures that nobody will be able to find her if she runs for Ushuaia. Ironically, she’s just setting this up so that nobody would be able to find her EXCEPT for the one guy who will become the one most determined to track her down. I’m not saying she’s going to be running to Ushuaia anytime soon, just that she’s giving him the tools to figure her out without realizing it.)

(Also, the conversations are so well crafted here. You can reveal so much through conversation structure — what is said, what is not said, the order in which things are said. Well done.)

The noise comes from arriving guests, here to celebrate Dae-sung’s birthday. As Eun-jo watches from a distance, Hyo-sun approaches to offer one of two gifts she is holding. She figured that Eun-jo wouldn’t have had a chance to buy a present for her father, so she prepared one for her. It’s a sweet gesture, but unsurprisingly Eun-jo rejects it.

Returning to her room, Eun-jo checks a voicemail message on her phone, which immediately darkens her mood. It’s from Jung-woo, warning her that the drunk ajusshi (he’s only identified as Ajusshi Jang by the drama) is on his way to find her mother.

Eun-jo confirms that Hyo-sun’s uncle gave him the address, and takes out her agitation on him. How could he? The uncle has no idea why this is a cause for upset, nor does Ki-hoon, who is eating dinner with him.

Eun-jo finds the drunk Mr. Jang sitting in a heap just outside the front gate. He has settled here after peering into the party to witness Kang-sook presiding as hostess, singing a song for the guests. Miserable, he cries as he sings along with Kang-sook — it’s a song he taught her, he explains.

Nervous that he’ll be caught and angry that he came here to crash the party, Eun-jo drags him away, just as Ki-hoon comes up to them. He doesn’t know what’s going on but he can read the general tenor of the situation, and ushers both to the wine cellar so they can hash this out in privacy.

After Ki-hoon steps out, Eun-jo tells Jang that Kang-sook is out of his life now — he’d better get over it. Is he here for money? Jang insists that he loves Kang-sook and that this is not about money.

The sound of men’s voices makes Eun-jo tense, and she claps a hand over Jang’s mouth to silence him. Dae-sung and another partygoer have come from the party to grab more makgulli from the cellar, and they’re headed straight inside.

Thankfully, Ki-hoon is waiting outside and intervenes, volunteering to deliver the wine to them. He comes inside to grab a cask, then warns Eun-jo not to stay in this room for too long, lest they be discovered.

Eun-jo speaks harshly, trying to drive the point home to Jang: he doesn’t have any of this — a grand house, a large family, status. If he did, Kang-sook would go to him without a second thought. But instead, he’s a lowlife gambling drunk “whose body and heart are rotten.” The sharpness of these words finally cuts through his drunken haze, and he mumbles, “Stop it.”

I actually think Eun-jo’s derision is as much (if not more) directed at her mother for being so mercenary, although she doesn’t harbor warm feelings for Jang, either. She warns him not to come back until he can bring Kang-sook these things: “If you don’t show up, I’ll believe that you loved my mother. Disappear now. If you don’t, you’re a lowlife who just came for money.” She’s unable to stop a tear from falling down her cheek.

Slowly, he gets to his feet and stares at her for a long, uneasy beat. Eun-jo looks scared — it’s unclear what he means to do when he steps closer to her — but holds it together under the weight of his glare. Finally he decides he’s had enough and stumbles off, and only now does she allow herself to tremble in fear and relief.

After making his delivery, Ki-hoon finds Eun-jo in front of the house, staring: Jang is passed out in a heap by his truck. Frustrated — so close to getting him gone, yet thwarted at the last step — she growls, “Will you kill that guy for me?” She’s powerless to do anything in this moment but stare at him, wishing him gone.

Ki-hoon sees the frustrated tears in her eyes and takes charge, taking the driver’s seat to drive him home. Eun-jo doesn’t say a word, but he assures her it’ll be fine — he’ll take the last train home and make it back by morning. Eun-jo can’t tell him she’s worried about him, but he seems to sense it anyway and repeats, “Don’t worry.” With a last small smile, he drives off.

This entire encounter is more proof that Eun-jo does care about her mother and, perhaps to a lesser extent, her new family. If she didn’t, she could wash her hands of everything and let the others discover Jang, letting the chips fall where they may. Jang would have babbled freely about his relationship with Kang-sook, reflecting badly on her and giving others reason to look down on her. It would also disillusion Dae-sung about his wife and by extension disrupt the familial harmony that he is hoping to achieve.

If Eun-jo truly didn’t care — or if she were as heartless as people may believe — wouldn’t she be fine to let that happen? Or even enjoy the disruption? The fact is that she’s preserving the family and trying to be as invisible about it as she possibly can.

Heading back inside the gates, Eun-jo sees Hyo-sun leading Kang-sook in a song and dance routine. (For the curious, it’s Two Two’s 1994 hit song “One and One Half.”) Dae-sung beams approvingly, but he notices Eun-jo trudging off in the distance and indicates to Kang-sook that she should check in on her daughter.

It’s out of duty that Kang-sook finds Eun-jo in her room, where she complains about her rudeness and Dae-sung’s attentiveness regarding Eun-jo. After her ordeal tonight, Eun-jo orders her mother out, screaming in frustration when her mother ignores her.

Eun-jo’s hurt that her mother has barely noticed her and asks why she even bothered bringing her here. She didn’t even know that she needed stitches in her knee! Ironically, despite Eun-jo’s facade of cynicism, the only thing that really gets through to her is sincerity — like Ki-hoon’s and Dae-sung’s (though not Hyo-sun’s) — and she cannot abide her mother’s fakeness. So now she rejects her mother’s concern when Kang-sook worries over the stitched knee.

I believe that Hyo-sun is being sincere in her overtures, so it’s interesting that Eun-jo views her motives suspiciously, not believing that her kindness is real, though Dae-sung has (somewhat) earned her trust. Perhaps the difference is that Hyo-sun is monopolizing her mother’s affections and pleading for Eun-jo to like her back, while in contrast Dae-sung offers his help without any demands on Eun-jo’s feelings.

When Hyo-sun finds her outside their room to tell her that she gave both gifts to her father, Eun-jo says flatly, “I don’t like you. You don’t like me either, do you? You can’t like me. There’s no reason to, so how could you?”

Hyo-sun says, “But I really do.” Eun-jo can’t believe that, and says, “It’s much more natural to dislike me. It’s harder to make yourself like someone because you have to. So it’s fine to dislike me. I’m saying to act like you don’t know me.”

Crying now, Hyo-sun asks Eun-jo to believe that she isn’t just pretending to like her, or forcing herself to act friendly.

Eun-jo returns, “You’re fooling yourself” and tells Hyo-sun to think carefully. As she walks away, she meets eyes with Dae-sung, who has overheard the exchange. This is unfortunate, and Eun-jo probably would have preferred he not witness this, but she walks on stoically.

Eun-jo calls Jung-woo to let him know that someone is driving Jang ajusshi home, and asks him to call her when Ki-hoon leaves. Not one to bother with pleasantries, she starts to hang up, but Jung-woo keeps her on the line. He has something to tell her, and announces, “Noona… you’re my woman! I love you!”

Jung-woo hangs up quickly, then exults that he confessed his feelings at last.

Eun-jo stays up that night waiting for Ki-hoon to return home. When it’s past 4 am and there’s still no sign of him, she opens the gate and waits in the dark on the front step. But still, he doesn’t come, and finally she heads back indoors, leaving the gate slightly ajar so he can make his way inside.

When dawn breaks, she is still awake, not having slept all night.

The reason? Ki-hoon has been called to see his father, and now we get a bit more insight into his background. He’s a youngest son, but he’s also illegitimate and has been disowned by the Hong family. Neither man enjoys this encounter, but President Hong (who runs his own company) feels he must address this issue before it grows out of hand. Recall that Ki-hoon’s photos had been taken in an earlier episode, and the family had paid off the source to hand them over. But the longer Ki-hoon stays as a worker in Dae-sung’s wine company, the more possibility there is of him being discovered and written about in the papers. This possibility has the family on edge, in particular Hong’s wife. They’d all prefer he dropped off the face of the earth, because that would make life easier for them.

Ki-hoon replies that he won’t stop working for Gu Dae-sung. Wasn’t it President Hong who said that he had no place in the Hong family? Therefore he gives his father no right to dictate how to live his life. He will sign the document giving up his inheritance.

Enter the hateful stepmother, who tells Ki-hoon to show some respect — they’ve done so much for him. If by “so much” she means neglected, sent away, and pretended he didn’t exist, then I suppose she’s right.

Interesting that even with a shared dislike of Ki-hoon, both spouses are also at odds with each other. This is a political marriage, not a love match.

Dad tells him soberly, “If you don’t save me, I have nobody on my side.” As Ki-hoon stands up to leave, President Hong stops him with the words, “I need you.” His wife and eldest son are buying up stocks of the company. Ki-hoon understands that his father needs his shares, not him. Although he has never placed any great expectation for affection from this man, he is bitter in his response: “I almost believed you for a moment when you said, ‘I need you.’” He adds accusingly, angry with his father for getting his hopes up, “I almost thought you really needed me.”

Ki-hoon visits his mother’s mountainside grave, where he sits despondently. He asks his mother whether he ought to go ahead and talk with the reporters and reveal everything, just as the Hong family fears. Or maybe he should let them pay him off handsomely in exchange for his silence. What should he ask for? His tone is bitter at this fresh reopening of old wounds, and he takes swigs from the bottle of soju he has brought (which is a common offering to the dead).

All day, Eun-jo remains distracted. In class, her ears perk up when Hyo-sun calls her uncle to ask about Ki-hoon, who isn’t back yet and isn’t answering his phone.

At nighttime he’s still absent, and she lies awake in bed, unable to sleep. She gives up trying and heads outside again.

Only, this time he stands there slightly drunk, leaning against the wall. (Warning: this next scene will break your heart just a little, and you will like it.)

Surprised, relieved, nervous, Eun-jo thinks to herself, “He’s here.” And then he smiles at her and she thinks, “He’s smiling.” Simple words, but they carry the weight of a revelation.

He calls out to her, “Eun-jo ya,” and waves her closer. Her eyes fill ever so slightly with moisture and she thinks, “He called me ‘Eun-jo ya.’”

Ki-hoon tells her to come over, but she stands unmoving, thinking again, “He called me ‘Eun-jo ya.’”

Unaware of how very much she feels his presence, Ki-hoon misreads her non-response as disinterest and mutters in dissatisfaction, even as she revels one more time, “He called me ‘Eun-jo ya.’”

Thinking she’s not going to come to him, he walks over to her, stumbling at the last moment. She reaches out to steady him, thinking, “He called me ‘Eun-jo ya.’”

Ki-hoon leans into her, wearing a stricken expression on his face, and says, “Eun-jo. I’m hungry.” Potentially comic words are actually quite telling of his emotional state — i.e, his emotional hunger. He fights his tears — one falls — and says, “I’m starving to death.”

So, what exactly is the significance of “Eun-jo ya”? Would it be too maddening to answer “Nothing, and therefore everything”?

Plainly put, there’s nothing terribly significant about Ki-hoon calling her “Eun-jo ya.” One could argue that it implies closeness, because the suffix “ya” is the casual way of calling someone’s name — someone your age or younger, with whom you are on somewhat familiar terms. You couldn’t use “ya” to address someone older than you. But since she is still a minor, “ya” is a perfectly appropriate way for Ki-hoon to address her. I don’t think it’s that meaningful that he uses that term because it just means that he’s older and has that right.

I’ll argue that the significance lies entirely in Eun-jo’s reaction to the words. She is moved by them, not because of some deep meaning in the words themselves but because of the context. She wants to be close to him in this moment, and for once she’s not fighting herself and trying to close off this new feeling with ironic eye-rolls. It’s an emotional breakthrough for her, and all because of a simple matter of him calling her name.

Hunger is one thing she can help him with, so Eun-jo busily prepares a table of food for Ki-hoon. All the while, she thinks to herself — and even her inner voice seems softer now — “He called me ‘Eun-jo ya’… He called me ‘Eun-jo ya.’” As though the repetition makes it more true.

When she takes the food to his room, he’s asleep. Uncertain, she lingers in the room and tells him to eat, but he’s dead to the world.

She looks at Ki-hoon closely, noticing that one of his socks is loose. She reaches over to pull the sock off gently, but when he moves in his sleep, she leaps up and runs away like a startled animal. She’s panting when she reaches her room — a combination of physical exertion and a more emotional stirring.

When she looks down at her knee, the scar is healed. Symbolic?

In the morning, Hyo-sun bursts into Ki-hoon’s room and wakes him. She wonders why he bothered to prepare food but didn’t eat any of it.

Seeing the table, Ki-hoon remembers Eun-jo’s words to eat — heard subconsciously in his sleep — and that killer smile emerges again as he realizes who’s responsible. He digs in, leaving Hyo-sun sad to sense that he’s miles away from her. She asks, “Oppa, who am I?” but he’s too busy eating to respond.

On the way to school, Hyo-sun hesitantly brings up her upcoming dance competition. Mom and Dad may miss it, and she’s not sure about her uncle or Ki-hoon. Working up the courage, she asks if Eun-jo can come see her, and gets back an immediate no.

Hyo-sun is disappointed but doesn’t press the issue, now that she’s used to Eun-jo’s attitude. She says with fake cheer that that it’s okay — Dong-soo (the boy who told her to stop texting) has been acting nicer to her now, and when she told him about her competition, he said he’d make it.

Eun-jo doesn’t care to hear this and sighs. In a trembling voice, Hyo-sun says:

Hyo-sun: “I know what a sigh means. It means you’re tired of me, right? I know, but unni, no matter how I think about it I don’t know what you mean about me fooling myself. I really like you for real. But you hate me. I know, so you can keep hating me. I’ll keep liking you. Even if you hate me, I’m not going to bug you to like me, so don’t tell me to force myself to hate you too. If it makes you happy, I can do anything — just not hate you. You probably hate me harping on this, don’t you? I know. I’m sorry.”

Hyo-sun runs off to join Dong-soo.

As Eun-jo studies, Ki-hoon’s voice intrudes on her thoughts. It’s a little unnerving to her. After school, her walk home takes her by the lake, where she sees Ki-hoon sitting alone on the hillside.

For a moment she seems pleased, but her mood sours when an unknown girl joins him and hands him a shopping bag.

When she arrives home, Dong-soo is lurking around the house with flowers. He trips at the sight of her and drops the bouquet, then runs off without a word. Eun-jo has no desire to convey the flowers to Hyo-sun, so she leaves them there.

Inside, she sees Mom clipping Hyo-sun’s toenails in another of their cozy moments. While I don’t think she wants the same kind of attention from her mother, she certainly feels hurt to be passed over entirely for her stepsister, and this darkens her mood even more.

It’s been a bad afternoon for Eun-jo, who has been passed over three times now — first Ki-hoon and his mystery girl, then Hyo-sun’s Dong-soo with the stupid flowers, then Mom. So when she finds a tea party set out in the bedroom, she glowers.

Hyo-sun presents it as a surprise, because Eun-jo is moving in to her own room tomorrow. This is her way of celebrating their last night as roommates.

Any other day, Eun-jo may have just ignored this, but today she’s feeling angry and perverse. So she asks Hyo-sun leadingly, “If you like me so much, can you give me everything I ask for?”

Hyo-sun brightens — it seems like Eun-jo’s finally ready to take a step forward! — and asks what she wants. She’ll do it!

Eun-jo asks, “You can handle it no matter what I take?” Hyo-sun nods without hesitation. Eun-jo challenges, “No matter what I have, you can like me through the end?” Hyo-sun promises that she can. Really!

So Eun-jo heads outside to retrieve the bouquet from where Dong-soo dropped it, thinking, “I don’t know why I wanted to play that kind of joke. I just felt really angry about something, but I couldn’t figure out exactly what.”

We can presume that it’s Ki-hoon’s defection to another woman that rankles the most, but Eun-jo doesn’t recognize the stirrings of jealousy. When Ki-hoon comes walking home holding the shopping bag, she turns away coldly, to his surprise.

She presents the flowers to Hyo-sun and announces that Dong-soo gave them to her and wants to date. There, she’s made her point that Hyo-sun was fooling herself. Now that Eun-jo has claimed Hyo-sun’s crush, she can’t keep liking her no matter what.

Hyo-sun is stunned and hurt. She sees the card in the bouquet, and starts to read it. Eun-jo hadn’t noticed the card, which is about to ruin her joke, so she snatches it away as Hyo-sun starts to cry and walks out in a daze.

As harsh as the joke was, Eun-jo is content to use it to make her point and let it end here. But when she looks down at the card, to her shock it actually IS for her: “Song Eun-jo! I like you. I want to go out with you — let’s go out! I’ll treat you well.”

I think her upset reaction shows that Eun-jo is mean enough to play the trick, but she’s not so mean that she would have done it for real, had she known the truth. Her expression shows her regret.

Just then, Hyo-sun storms back into the room. Glaring, she mutters quietly, “Beggar.” Eun-jo asks her to repeat herself, so Hyo-sun, brimming with anger, says in a loud, clear voice: “BEG-GAR! Get lost.”

And Eun-jo’s actually relieved at that reaction.


COMMENTS

There’s no question that Eun-jo acts in rude, unkind ways. But she’s generally the type who reacts when people bother her; she doesn’t incite trouble. Therefore, this lie to Hyo-sun falls outside of her normal range of behavior, because she initiates the conflict. And when she realizes that she has hurt Hyo-sun unintentionally, she’s upset with herself. It may seem inconsistent that she’s been fine hurting Hyo-sun’s feelings all along but feels bad now, but the difference is that this time the hurt inflicted isn’t the hurt intended, if that makes sense.

Also, Eun-jo is uncomfortable with the idea that Hyo-sun likes her when she dislikes her back — it makes her the bad guy. She pretends that doesn’t matter, but she would have a hard time justifying being so mean if Hyo-sun were truly as good and nice as she seems. So at the end of the episode, it’s a relief to have Hyo-sun fighting back — it relieves that guilt.

I don’t think Kang-sook’s reason for treating Hyo-sun nicely is purely calculated, but I think that her bonding sessions are her way of “earning her keep.” A large reason Dae-sung married her was after seeing his daughter taking to her so well, so it’s up to her to maintain that.

I also suspect that Kang-sook finds Hyo-sun easier to treat nicely than her own daughter, so she prefers to maintain this illusion of doting mother rather than work on the relationship with Eun-jo. Eun-jo doesn’t let her get away with crap and brings out her true self, and Kang-sook doesn’t like that reflection. Perhaps Eun-jo’s insistence that Hyo-sun is fooling herself stems from Kang-sook’s behavior. It’s like Kang-sook is pleased to live out this fantasy as someone’s devoted wife and loving mother. I bet she likes that vision of herself better than the one Eun-jo reflects — the one that shows her in the harsh light of reality without any fancy mirror tricks.

If you disagree with the following, that’s cool, but as for me:

I find Eun-jo is eminently relatable. I mean, how many of us have seen kdramas with an adorable and/or plucky and/or perfect heroine and wanted to be more like her (gorgeous even through the “shabby” clothes and with men falling at her feet), but really had nothing in common with her?

Eun-jo, however, is constantly misunderstood — and sometimes by her own fault. She gives us hope that someone out there will see the real us despite the way the world misinterprets our behavior, and who finds enough value there at the core to try to connect even when our pride puts up that wall.

EPISODE 4 RECAP

Hyo-sun calls Eun-jo a beggar and tells her to get out of HER house. Eun-jo actually looks rather pleased that she was right about Hyo-sun all along. I think that Hyo-sun wasn’t really faking her fondness for Eun-jo; she’s just not used to not getting what she wants—she’s the ultimate princess. She’s spent her whole life being cooed over and adored; even her very stern father bends to her all-powerful pout-and-shake. So this is as much a revelation for her as it is for Eun-jo, that she could hate this much. Eun-jo’s actually taught her to get in touch with her anger (kind of like therapy in reverse).

Eun-jo turns right back at her and tells HER to get out. Ki-hoon comes in to witness. She says that even though she may hate it here, she’ll never leave just because Hyo-sun wants her to. She’ll only ever leave of her own accord. It’s like watching two dogs fight over territory, although we know it’s not so much the house as its inhabitants that they’re fighting over. Hyo-sun is taken aback at the response. Eun-jo walks out, and Hyo-sun runs after her. Heh, even in her anger, she still chases after her unni.

Ki-hoon sees the note from Dong-soo, and mutters, “Those little things, not studying when they should…” but then finds himself annoyed: who is this Dong-soo kid? He’s jealous! Of a high-schooler. It’s adorable.

Linchpin Dong-soo is down by the river, trying to work up the courage to talk to Eun-jo, but he hides when he sees Hyo-sun coming, and witnesses the sisters’ continued fight. Hyo-sun catches up to Eun-jo and screams if this is what she wanted, pulling out a handful of Eun-jo’s hair. Hyo-sun looks more surprised by what she’s done, but it’s too late…a hair-pulling, knock-down, drag-out fight ensues.

They roll around, yelling insults, yanking hair, and at one point Hyo-sun stops, noticing Eun-jo’s bleeding lip. Pausing out of genuine concern, she goes, “unni ya, you’re bleeding!” Eun-jo looks even more annoyed by Hyo-sun’s concern, and she tosses her aside and walks away.

Hyo-sun comes home crying at the top of her lungs, and this is why Eun-jo hates her—because she commands sole attention without even thinking about it. It’s just her way of life, to be the doted-on princess. It’s imbued in her upbringing, so it isn’t necessarily Hyo-sun’s fault, but it’s understandable why Eun-jo can’t roof with her sweetness. As I would say, she ain’t on my bus.

Kang-sook is in the middle of a phone call (from the drunken ajusshi, presumably) and she hangs up and rushes over to Hyo-sun, consoling her. Hyo-sun cries out, “I wish you never had Eun-jo!” Eun-jo, who hears this from her room, says to herself, “That’s what I’M saying.” Ha. And heartbreaking, all at the same time.

Dad comes in, angry and fired up about the commotion. He drags Hyo-sun to another room to punish her, yelling out for sticks. Mom goes straight to Eun-jo, asking her what she did this time to make Hyo-sun so upset, and yeah, is anyone confused about why Eun-jo is so angry? If your only family in the world, the one person who’s supposed to be on your side, repeatedly blamed you for Cinderella’s poor-me tears, you’d have a permanent scowl on your face too. Kang-sook can’t believe Eun-jo can’t handle (read: manipulate) such a simple little thing like Hyo-sun, while Eun-jo is angry at mom for only caring that the princess is crying.

Dad’s got them both kneeling in his office, old Korean style, as he says that until they get along, he’s not going to let them use separate rooms. The girls are NOT happy to hear this news. Ki-hoon brings in the requested sticks, and lingers, so Dad asks if he wants to be hit too. Ki-hoon gallantly asks if he can’t just try to talk to the girls himself, so Dad says, okay, you can be hit too; just wait over there. Heh. No one messes with Dae-sung when he’s on a righteous anger streak.

He brings out Hyo-sun first. He tells her to say she was wrong if she was wrong, and hits her once. She immediately cries uncle and yelps in pain, saying she was wrong, so very very wrong. Dae-sung sends her back to her spot. Next he calls out Eun-jo, who pulls down her socks and prepares for the coming pain. Dae-sung repeats the same option to Eun-jo to admit fault, and this time he hesitates, perhaps not wanting to inflict any more pain on this damaged girl. But he rules his house with an iron fist and must be fair, so he hits her.

We’ve come to expect Eun-jo’s reaction. She steels herself through the pain and doesn’t budge. Dad is startled, and doesn’t know whether to keep hitting her, but he continues, as Ki-hoon and Hyo-sun watch in pain, trying to intervene on her behalf.

Meanwhile Kang-sook is on the phone again with the drunk ajusshi. He’s singing to her, and I’m assuming she’s already tried hanging up on him. Jung-woo comes to the rescue yet again, this time with a frying pan to the head. He advises Kang-sook to change her phone number. I like this kid. I wish his grown-up version would stay pudgy and twangy, but I know that’s not going to be the case.

We go back to the caning session, and by the stacks of broken sticks and the gashes on Eun-jo’s legs, it seems they’ve been at it for quite some time now. Dae-sung is bewildered by the steeliness of this girl, but strangely, I wouldn’t want her any other way, even if it’s painful to watch her be so stubborn. Ki-hoon finally can’t take it anymore (aw for the loving oppa), and stops Dae-sung and does the patented manly wrist grab, taking Eun-jo out of the room.

Kang-sook comes in and finds Dae-sung defeated and exhausted, and Hyo-sun about to faint. What are you fainting over? Being pain-adjacent?

Ki-hoon brings Eun-jo to their wine cellar and paces around her going, “You…what kind of kid…your head is a rock, isn’t it? Stubborn fool. All it takes is just saying you were wrong, and you can’t even…” But he trails off as he looks down at her gashed legs. He tries to tend to her wound, but she doesn’t budge, and just sits there in silence. Ki-hoon gets frustrated, saying that if she were the type of person to listen to him, she wouldn’t be in this situation in the first place.

He calls her “saek-gi” and “nohm” here, which are technically bad words, but also what guys who are really close call each other in jest. The only equivalent I can think of is girls today calling each other “bitch,” but in a non-hateful way, like “hey bitch!” or “love ya, bitch!” He’s sort of yelling at her, but he’s not calling her names out of spite; he’s more like a frustrated oppa.

Ki-hoon leaves to go get her medicine, and when she’s alone, Eun-jo hears a faint bubbling noise. She leans onto a large makgulli jar and presses her ear against it, listening to the rising bubbles. For whatever reason, for just a moment, the gurgling bubbles popping on the surface soothes her, and she leans in intently, as if listening for a secret message trapped inside. It’s as if her own anger and hatred has bubbled over and dissipated in the same way, rising to the top and then bursting at the surface.

She’s so enraptured that she doesn’t even notice that Ki-hoon has returned, using this opportunity to tend to her wounds. He tells her that it’s the sound the makgulli makes when it’s fermenting. He says that next time she should just run away instead of getting hit, since she’s such a pro at running away. He adds, “If you ever get hit again, you’re dead.” Aw, you’re cute when you’re trying to be tough.

Ki-hoon calls to her: “Eun-jo ya,” and when she doesn’t respond, again: “Eun-jo ya…you could give me a response…Eun-jo ya” And finally, she answers, uttering out a small “uh” as if speaking for the very first time. Ki-hoon: “Does is hurt?” Eun-jo: “uh.” (“Uh” is the Korean version of “yeah.”) Ki-hoon lights up at her responsiveness, having finally broken through a major wall.

Then in a little bit of the show’s patented whimsy, Eun-jo imagines herself and Ki-hoon floating away in a giant makgulli bubble, headed for the moon. Her voiceover shows the fundamental change in her: “My legs don’t hurt. They bleed, but they don’t hurt. Why, I don’t know. It’s just…my heart is soaring to the edge of the sky. I can even reach the moon.” The literal ride to the moon is a little cheesy, but the sentiment is innocent and beautiful.

Later that night Dae-sung feels terrible for the extent to which he punished Eun-jo, and comes into her room while she’s sleeping to tend to her wounds. Eun-jo is awake though, and she realizes his remorse and his care for her.

The next morning Eun-jo waits outside for Ki-hoon, and she launches right into an inquest. Who was the girl at the river, huh? Ki-hoon is taken aback. She asks again, fiercely, but almost too fiercely, as it gives her away. Ki-hoon breaks out in a smile as he realizes this is Eun-jo…being jealous!

He beams from ear to ear, even trying to contain his laughter when she death-rays him with her eyes, but he can’t help but find her adorable. He teases, “Did you come find me first thing in the morning to ask me that? Were you so curious that you couldn’t sleep a wink? Is that it?”

He goes into his room to grab the package that he received yesterday from the woman in question. He shows Eun-jo the contents, essentially a collection of his favorite albums and books. He excitedly starts to tell her about each one, but she’s not interested. He snaps at her to listen, and she snaps right back, “Who was the girl?” He answers that she’s the younger sister of a friend who was storing his stuff for him. Satisfied with that response, she gets up and walks out, leaving Ki-hoon flustered. He shouts after her, “Hey, what about you? Are you…are you really going to date that Dong-soo jerk?” HAHAHAHAHA.

She doesn’t even turn around to see his puppy face, all you’re-not-going-to-pass-me-up-for-that-pre-pubescent-kid-are-you? It slays me, the oppa-knows-best attitude followed by the 180-turn into “but…but…I’m cooler than Dong-soo, right?” It’s beyond cute.

The girls get ready for school, and Hyo-sun asks Eun-jo to pretend that they’re getting along in front of the parents in order to get their separate rooms. Eun-jo reluctantly agrees to do so. Hyo-sun sees Eun-jo’s scars on her legs, and even in their cold war, Hyo-sun gives her a pair of her new socks and runs off. Eun-jo, who’s so angry that she doesn’t even know why, can’t even accept the tiny gesture, and throws them on the ground.

Ki-hoon drives Kang-sook to the temple, while Dad eats breakfast with the girls. Hyo-sun uses this as an opportunity to apologize in front of Dad (making her much more like Kang-sook and speaks to their mutual kinship), and she has to prod Eun-jo to play along, kicking her under the table. Eun-jo concedes, and mutters out a half-hearted “No, I was wrong,” pleasing Hyo-sun and Dad very much.

Dae-sung sees Ki-hoon and wonders why he’s back at home so soon. Ki-hoon tells him that Kang-sook wouldn’t let him take her all the way to the temple, insisting on taking the train there herself. Dae-sung calls the priest on business, and asks him to send something by way of his wife, but finds out that she’s not there. We see that Kang-sook is on the train to somewhere, but it ain’t to pray.

Ki-hoon is busy studying Spanish, talking aloud to his computer that his student is such a quick study that he has to study extra hard just to keep up.

Later that day he has a visitor, and it turns out that the thug from the second episode really IS his half-brother. I know Ki-hoon called him hyung-nim the first time, but I just didn’t think he was from the same family as the oldest brother. How come one brother looks like a Kennedy and the other brother looks like a Kardashian?

Second brother, Hong Ki-tae, drives Ki-hoon somewhere, and recounts going with Dad to visit Ki-hoon and his mom at their house when they were kids. So we know they grew up in separate houses, for at least their childhoods, explaining the vast difference in, well, everything. It’s interesting though, that all three brothers, Ki-jung, Ki-tae, and Ki-hoon are named thusly, as most illegitimate children are not named in succession to their “rightful heir” siblings. At least that’s how it is in my family. But that’s a whole other can of worms.

Kang-sook returns home late that night, from nobody knows where, and Dae-sung is out waiting for her, hoping that she’ll explain herself. He asks where she was, but when she says “temple,” she can see it’s not the answer he wants. Ever quick on the uptake, Kang-sook immediately starts with the tears, making up an elaborate story about wanting to get Eun-jo some medicine for her injuries, so going to see her old herbalist, and not wanting Dae-sung to know because he’d feel guilty. Man, she should start an improv group.

Ki-tae drops off Ki-hoon at an office complex, where his evil stepmother and her lawyer are waiting for him with the contract to sign over his inheritance (including the all-important shares of the family company). She asks what his demands are, and he calmly replies that he wants half…of the company.

She scoffs, and offers to add another zero to the end of the sum (that they’re offering in exchange, I gather). That just makes Ki-hoon sneer. She even insults his dead mother, saying that she may have given birth to him with the intention of taking half the company, but he can’t have it.

That riles him up but good. They start a shouting match, as much as Korean WASPy types shout. Then Ki-hoon offers to bring his lawyer next time, as he has no intention of signing over his inheritance under duress, referring to the army of suits waiting outside. What are they, expecting a battle royale? There’s enough minions out there to take on Batman. He makes threats of his own, saying that unless they plan on making sure he’s dead, they shouldn’t bother laying a finger on him. He leaves and calls his father right away, asking how he can help. Time to take down the evil stepmonster.

One other tidbit that we learn here is that the Hong company has the suffix “Ju” which means alcohol. So I’m assuming that the family company also deals in liquor, and that his brothers’ distaste for Ki-hoon’s place of employment is not about the backwoods country, but about his working for a competitor in their market.

At Dae-sung’s makgulli company, it’s the season for a new batch to be made, and I’m totally enraptured by the procedure of making rice cakes and preparing them for the wine-making process. I feel like I’ve stumbled upon the Food Network or the History Channel; I could watch this for hours. Dae-sung leads a prayer ceremony to get things off on the right foot, and all are present for the big event.

Ki-hoon and Eun-jo use the opportunity to make eyes at each other, but this time Ki-hoon looks at her sadly and longingly. Hyo-sun notices their mutual attraction yet again, and her face falls.

At school Eun-jo is presented with the First Place Academic award, while at the same time Hyo-sun has just completed her dance competition and done very poorly. Mom and Dad are present for Hyo-sun’s performance, and console her, as she is very upset not to have won first place. See what I mean? It’s her basic sense of entitlement that irks the likes of Eun-jo.

Eun-jo practically runs home with her award on her back, excited to show her family, or perhaps at least Dad, who despite his sternness has always supported her academically. But she arrives home to find the entire household a rapt audience for Hyo-sun, performing a repeat dance recital (no doubt orchestrated by her enabling parents to fulfill her need for acceptance).

In voiceover, Eun-jo says, “It doesn’t matter. I only wanted to be praised by one person.”

She taps Ki-hoon on the arm and tells him to meet her “there.” He finds her in their wine cellar, where she silently presents her award to him. She contains her excitement in her Eun-jo-esque way, but her eyes reveal her anticipation of Ki-hoon’s approval. He opens it, and beams with pride: “You did well. You did really really well!” He calls her Eun-jo ya, and tousles her hair and pats her on the head affectionately. She basks in his praise and warm affection, to the soundtrack of fermenting wine, bubbling over like the love in her heart.

Ki-hoon wants to give her a present for the good job she’s done, so he brings her to his room and gives her one of the contents from his favorite stuff collection. He gives her an old fountain pen, wrapped in a cloth case. He says it’s probably older than her, and that he’s broken it in over the years. He tells her, “Use it to write letters, and journals, and whenever you hold it in your hand…think of me.” Well, there goes my heart, floating away on a cloud.

And then…she SMILES at him. Not, you know, a full-on bleeding heart smile, mind you. This is Eun-jo we’re talking about. Just a glint in her eye, but that’s all it takes. She’s come miles, and he knows it.

Eun-jo gets up to leave, and when she opens the door, Hyo-sun is looming just outside, sulking. She demands angrily why she doesn’t get one, why she went out on a dance competition, and Eun-jo’s the only one to get a present. She cries, “Did you forget? Don’t you know who you belong to?” Both Ki-hoon and Eun-jo just look back at her silently. Eun-jo may have yielded her mother’s love, and everyone’s undivided attention to Hyo-sun’s inherent selfishness, but she’s not about to give up Ki-hoon.

That night Hyo-sun sulks in bed, while Eun-jo stays up and takes out her fountain pen. She carefully fills it up with ink, and on a blank page, writes: “Eun-jo ya” as we hear Ki-hoon’s voice calling her in her memory.

The next morning, Dae-sung greets Eun-jo outside, and she tells him that one of the jars of makgulli in the cellar is ruined. Surprised, he asks how she would know such a thing. She replies that there’s no sound coming from that one. Dae-sung is impressed, and promises to check it out.

Just then, Hyo-sun comes back, dejected and dragging her feet. Dad asks, “Did Ki-hoon leave okay?” Startled, Eun-jo turns around, wondering what that meant. She follows Hyo-sun back into their room and demands to know where Ki-hoon went. At first Hyo-sun refuses to answer out of spite, but once their shouting brings Dad into the room, she yields, and drops the bomb…Ki-hoon has left for the army.

Eun-jo runs to his room, their wine cellar, the yard, finding all of them empty. She races down to the river, but there’s no sign of him. At home, Hyo-sun cries, and pulls out a letter. We see in flashback that Ki-hoon gave her the letter, asking her to give it to Eun-jo. Stupid, stupid man! Were you born yesterday? Doth ye not own a television? Or read any Shakespeare?

She opens the letter, but it’s written in Spanish, so she can’t decipher it. From the few words that I can see, and from my very limited vocabulary, I can make out the following words: “Dear Eun-jo…I go because I think my father needs me…Now I go alone. Later I will take you…to the moon and the stars…..Wait for me at home…” I can’t make out the rest or the words or phrases in between (maybe a native speaker can do a better job?) but that’s a little of what Ki-hoon wanted to say to her.

Eun-jo rushes to the bus station, where the soldiers are leaving for the army. But Ki-hoon isn’t there, you see, because he’s not going to the army. He’s got a family turf war, and his vote’s the one to tip the scales.

He looks back before boarding the train, as he thinks, “Will you…stop me? Even when blood gushes from your knee, you’re unable to cry, just like stupid Hong-Ki-hoon. Eun-jo ya. If you hold me, I think I could stop here. Before I get on the train, stop me. Eun-jo ya.” But she doesn’t come, and he slowly lifts his foot off the platform with one last look, and leaves on the train.

Eun-jo goes down to the sandy bank, and crumples to the ground. Her tears come crashing down in a wave, as she lets all the years of pain and anger flow out of her like an endless ocean held in by a tiny dam. The tears pour out of her small, fragile body, and she clutches her heart, as if knowing it was there for the first time. She cries out, “Eun-jo ya…Eun-jo ya” over and over again, searching for the sounds, as she has been silent for so long. She cries from the depths of her soul, letting go of her tough façade and being, for one brief moment, just a young girl in love with a boy.

It is achingly beautiful and although a heartrending moment for Eun-jo, it is, in fact her breakthrough as a person. As she cries, we hear in voiceover: “That person…I’ve never called him anything before. So, just like a cuckoo bird cries, ‘cuckoo, cuckoo,’ like a bird, I called out my own name as I cried.” The camera pans down and we see that Ki-hoon’s glass hairpin is lying in the sand just behind her; the gift thwarted for the love thwarted.

And then we pick up…eight years later. If you mess this up, we will have words, Show. Don’t do me wrong now. Not after that last scene.

We’re in Seoul, and GU Eun-jo, as her nametag reads, is giving a presentation for her makgulli company, outlining new trends and ways to market their product, as well as their all-natural approach to production, as a way to differentiate themselves from the competition. Basically she’s confident, smiling, well-spoken, and no longer the bottled-up young girl of old.

Outside the office building, she looks across the street and sees a sign for an art exhibit, featuring Ki-hoon’s favorite artist, which he mentioned for a split second when showing her his favorite things. She can’t help but feel drawn to it, so she goes inside.

She looks at the paintings, and Hyo-sun appears next to her, having come to the exhibit after hearing about it from Ki-hoon. Eun-jo asks what she means, and Hyo-sun baits her, “Didn’t you know? Ki-hoon oppa and I are dating.”

NO! Take it back!

I guarantee she’s lying. Okay, I’m 99% sure she has to be lying. Right? Someone pat me on the head and reassure me, right now!

I wanted to spend longer in the teenage phase, and honestly, I could have done with the entire drama being set in that stage of the girls’ lives, but I’m not the conductor of this train, so I’ll just sit back and see where this takes us. While it’s satisfying to see Eun-jo take on her stepfather’s surname and work for the company as a successful and confident young woman, the journey of how she got there interests me more than how great she turned out. I’m sure there will be much more conflict and hard times ahead, so I know we’re not out of the woods yet, but I already miss the wounded, misunderstood teenager who was experiencing love for the first time.

I don’t know the actresses’ respective ages, but I have to say, Seo Woo is far better suited as the older version of Hyo-sun, while Moon Geun-young seems better suited for the younger Eun-jo. Both actresses are amazing, of course, so I have no doubt we’ll be enraptured by their dynamics at any age, even if they’re still fighting over Ki-hoon at 80.

What I love about this drama so far is that it’s epic, not in scope, but in making the tiny moments monumental. It makes mountains out of molehills, essentially drawing us into quiet character moments that become increasingly significant the longer we spend with them. Eun-jo’s anger, her quiet resolve, and finally her cascade of tears become revelations that plant her firmly in our hearts. Now we are with her, and there’s no turning back.

EPISODE 5 RECAP

We backtrack a little from Episode 4’s ending to see from Hyo-sun’s perspective how she came to be in the art gallery. She sees Eun-jo walking up the stairs to the exhibit, so she hurries inside and pretends that she has been here all along.

After announcing that she and Ki-hoon are dating (and despite some confusion, yes the meaning is very clear about them dating romantically), Hyo-sun looks closely at Eun-jo for a reaction. Eun-jo is hit hard by this news, but won’t give Hyo-sun the satisfaction of rattling her and keeps her face stoic.

Hyo-sun asks whether Eun-jo thinks she’s lying, but Eun-jo turns to ask the curator a question, ignoring Hyo-sun, who looks at her in petulance. This short scene goes a long way in demonstrating the dynamics between these adult sisters — there is no love lost, and both know how to push each other’s buttons.

In the car, Hyo-sun presses the topic again, saying (rubbing in) that Eun-jo must not be in contact with Ki-hoon if she doesn’t know they’re dating. Now the narration is in Hyo-sun’s voice, who thinks in dissatisfaction, “She should be dying to ask me, but this hateful sister just pretends to sleep. If she just asked, I would answer.”

But that’s exactly the point — Eun-jo will not ask, because she will not give Hyo-sun the upper hand, especially when it’s so clear that Hyo-sun is goading her. Finally, Hyo-sun screeches to a halt, rousing Eun-jo from her fake-sleep. She has something important to tell her before they arrive at home. Dae-sung is furious with Hyo-sun for racking up a mountain of credit card bills, so Hyo-sun asks her sister to talk to him about it. She doesn’t even know how much she spent — “just a whole lot.”

It’s not hard to surmise that Hyo-sun, the spoiled sister who likes spending money on fripperies, has often disappointed their father, who looks favorably upon his hard-working, competent elder stepdaughter.

Eun-jo has no desire to enable Hyo-sun to continue her foolish spending without consequence (Hyo-sun defends her shopping because “There are so many beautiful things in the world”). Hyo-sun asks why her sister is always so righteous about everything, thinking she’s better.

Eun-jo gets out of the car to walk, and Hyo-sun follows her out to continue this argument. Is Eun-jo really going to let Hyo-sun get hurt? (By “hurt” she means punished with a stick, aka held accountable for her irresponsible behavior.) Note that now Hyo-sun talks in language that is just as rude as Eun-jo’s as a teenager.

Eun-jo challenges Hyo-sun: “What’s your dream? How are you planning to live in the future? Do you have any plans?” Hyo-sun defends herself — she goes on ballet auditions all the time! Eun-jo points out that Hyo-sun’s feet are clean and pretty, which indicate how little she actually practices, which explains why Hyo-sun is always failing her auditions.

Eun-jo: “You don’t practice, do you? You don’t even want to do ballet that much, do you? You have no dream, do you? You have no plan or goals — you have no thoughts.”

If Hyo-sun admits that she has no dreams, Eun-jo offers to consider her someone to be pitied and will help her. (You push my buttons? I’ll push yours back.) But this is too great a price, and Hyo-sun won’t give her sister the satisfaction, either.

There’s an additional family member now, as Dae-sung and Kang-sook now have a son named Jun-su. We don’t dwell on him very much except to establish a couple points, one here and one later: (1) he is very cute, and (2) he’s got the beginnings of a mean streak.

Dae-sung brings out the trusty punishment stick and whacks Hyo-sun on the back of her legs, and she falls to her knees, yelping and begging for mercy. But he’s not going to let her off so easy this time and orders her back up. However, Kang-sook swoops in to the rescue and urges Hyo-sun to flee (who is more than happy to oblige), then pleads with her husband to calm down. She argues that this is the province of a mother, and promises to talk to Hyo-sun appropriately.

The clever woman sees that he’s close to giving in and just needs a little push, so she asks in a wounded tone, “Do you even think I have the right to be Hyo-sun’s mother?” If he punishes Hyo-sun, it feels like he isn’t acknowledging her as a mother with the right to discipline her daughter.

Lest you think Dae-sung’s a fool to fall for Kang-sook’s manipulations, he IS aware that she is crafty, but he has a soft spot for her and often relents. This time, he asks with affection, “How many tails do you have?” She answers, “I only have nine.” (He’s referring to the gumiho, or the nine-tailed fox, but in addition to the mythical allusion, any mention of a fox also carries with it the connotation of a sly woman who manipulates men.)

In the privacy of her own room, Eun-jo lets her unhappiness show as she recalls Hyo-sun’s declaration that she’s dating Ki-hoon. Opening her armoire, she sees at the bottom a duffel bag, which spins her back into a flashback to the last time she’d used it.

It was soon after Ki-hoon’s departure that she decided to run away. In stark contrast to the last time she tried to run — dashing away frantically, chased by Ki-hoon — this time her steps are heavy and her eyes tear-filled, like she doesn’t really want to run but has little choice. She sends a lingering look at the pavilion where she had heard Ki-hoon singing.

Dae-sung comes up to her and says that he had the feeling she’d try to leave after Ki-hoon had gone; he understands that his home wasn’t enough of a consolation to keep her here: “When he left, I worried most about you.”

Eun-jo asks him in a shaking voice to let her go, and she looks like such a young child in this moment that it breaks your heart just a little.

Gently, Dae-sung shakes his head no. She counters that she’ll find a way to go anyway, and he’s well aware that she may try. So he promises that he will let her go when the day comes that he won’t feel the need to worry over her departure. He’s a man of his word and asks her to believe him, and takes the bag from her.

Every episode has had at least one standout scene, and this is my favorite in this episode. Eun-jo looks so lost even as she’s trying to be defiant, and Moon Geun-young plays her tears with so much complexity of emotion. There’s fear there, and sadness, and abandonment — but there’s also a kernel of hope, like she’s just dying for somebody to stop her and despairing that nobody loves her enough to do that. It’s also a striking similarity to Ki-hoon’s departure when he’d been hoping that Eun-jo would stop him from going. And just as she was the only one who could hold him back, Dae-sung is the only one who can hold her back now.

Back to the future. The family lines are even more clearly drawn at dinnertime, at which Eun-jo talks business with Dae-sung while Hyo-sun pouts in the background. Eun-jo wants to hire someone to handle the company’s marketing, while Dae-sung is hesitant because he doesn’t harbor the ambition to grow that big.

Eun-jo challenges him, “Then what is there for me to do?” Is he just going to waste her and her microbio education? What’s the point of her working there if he’s not going to cultivate the company’s growth?

Eun-jo’s strong words are not quite disrespectful but they’re certainly pushing the boundary. Rather than being affronted, Dae-sung chuckles. She’s got a point.

Just as father and stepdaughter have developed their relationship, Hyo-sun and Kang-sook have also formed a unit, bound together with their love of pretty material goods. Kang-sook wants to see all of Hyo-sun’s cute purchases — the very ones that Dad is so mad about — and delights over the bag Hyo-sun bought her. But she also turns her eye to the massive stack that Hyo-sun has bought herself, and claims another by saying it’s too old for her.

Mom starts to try all the handbags on, and we can be assured she’ll come out of this with a lot more than Hyo-sun intended to give her. But there’s a hint of sadness here, too, when we see that Hyo-sun IS very aware of her stepmother’s manipulation but is eager to give her what she wants, rather than incur her displeasure. She still feels the need to buy her love; how interesting that the pampered princess feels just as bereft of affection as the neglected child. If only these sisters could bring out the best in each other rather than the worst… but I suppose we’d have no drama then.

I know we’re all dying to get to the burning question: What’s the deal with Ki-hoon and Hyo-sun??? And it’s becoming slowly evident — to the viewer, but not to Eun-jo — that perhaps it was all a lie after all, one Hyo-sun couldn’t resist.

That evening, Eun-jo finds herself distracted as she studies, and overhears Hyo-sun talking on the phone. She’s being pestered by one of her discarded suitors and dashes off to talk to him at the gate, facing him with annoyance. The poor nerdy-looking fellow is smitten with Hyo-sun and hurt by her coolness toward him as she sends him off.

He calls immediately to tell Hyo-sun that his car has a flat tire, so Hyo-sun directs him to the mechanic’s shop at the train station. She calls him “oppa” — and to Eun-jo’s ears, this is confirmation that she is in fact dating Ki-hoon.

Now Eun-jo rushes out on her bicycle, thinking of Ki-hoon all the way to the train station. But when she arrives, there’s nobody there, and she thinks she has missed him for the second time. She returns home in disappointment.

So what has actually happened with Ki-hoon? Finally we see him fly in to Korea from the States, and he is taken to see his father. The mood is cold between the two men, and Ki-hoon faces him with cool reserve.

President Hong has called Ki-hoon here for the first time in eight years, and fills him in on the company’s status. Eldest brother Ki-jung is competently running things now — he runs a tight ship and is on top of every detail. He knows the smallest details of his employees, not out of personal concern but to ensure that he has everyone on his side. He has stolen everyone to his side, leaving President Hong bereft of support.

Ki-hoon delivers a document to his father, but President Hong puts that aside to address a more important matter. We don’t hear what it is, but it must be a doozy, because Ki-hoon reacts with intense emotion — anger, frustration, loathing.

Alone in his hotel room, Ki-hoon sees a magazine feature of Dae-sung’s company, which also features Eun-jo as one of the directors. The article is about how Dae-sung’s company has been rising sharply in sales in the past year, encroaching upon Hong Ju (Ki-hoon’s family biz), which has ruled the market for a long time.

Ki-hoon reaches to touch the phone, wanting to call, but pulls back. Then reaches again. Pulls back again. And when he does call, his smile finally comes out as he greets Dae-sung.

(The lack of music in these scenes is a fantastic choice to add to the spareness of the scenes. It gives Ki-hoon a starkness and a sharpness that he didn’t have before.)

Now for the entrance of grown-up Jung-woo, who comes to Dae-sung’s winery (still carrying his old baseball bat in his bag). Finding Hyo-sun’s uncle, he salutes him in the military style, which indicates that they served in a similar unit.

(Serving in the army builds something of an alumni network, and one can sometimes use those connections in real life in the way that one makes use of college alumni networks. As the age difference between the uncle and Jung-woo is obviously too great for them have served together, I presume Jung-woo is utilizing this connection to get a job working at the company.)

Taecyeon doesn’t have too much to do in this episode, so I can’t make any definitive statements on his acting debut just yet. We’ll get to that when he has shown more range. But my initial impression is positive, and I found him downright adorable in one part where he gives his enthusiastic military-style greetings. I think his thick regional accent may slip in and out from time to time, but overall he manages the dialect competently. (It’s a pretty tough dialect to master.)

Jung-woo catches a glimpse of Eun-jo and is immediately captivated, gazing after her with yearning. He follows the group of businessmen to whom she is giving a tour, joining them in the makgulli cellar.

Eun-jo asks the men for a moment of silence to hear the sound of the wine fermenting. For a moment, Eun-jo gets lost in her own memory, listening to the bubbles. Dae-sung notices and takes over the tour until Eun-jo recovers.

Hyo-sun performs at a ballet audition, where she falls on a turn. She’s immediately cut, but she ignores the judge’s dismissal and insists on starting over, only to stumble again.

Maybe on any other day she would be able to shrug this off, but today puts proof to Eun-jo’s words that she lives an aimless, goal-less life. Breaking down, Hyo-sun cries, “Then I can plan from here on!” This outburst has the judges eyeing her in disdain, murmuring that she lacks even the basic skills.

Dae-sung has a candidate for the marketing position, but Eun-jo has plans to interview two of her own candidates tomorrow. Dae-sung adds his candidate to the interview list, though he doesn’t give the name (one guess who!).

He feels that Eun-jo is pushing herself too hard; he didn’t mean for her to give up her youth to help him. Surprisingly, she answers that she’s not here just to help him: “I’m waiting.” (One guess who for!)

Eun-jo reminds Dae-sung of his promise to let her go when the time was right, and informs him that once she has succeeded in her goals here, she will leave. Upon that event, she will consider that her debt has been repaid. And despite the fact that he has grown used to her clipped way of speaking, he’s stunned to hear her call this a debt, hurt at this coldness.

Jung-woo has begun working as a menial laborer, and runs into Eun-jo in the courtyard. She pays him no heed, but he grabs this chance and asks, “Don’t you know me?”

She looks at him indifferently, not recognizing such a drastically transformed Jung-woo, and brushes him off. Frustrated, he follows her out to say, “I’m Jung-woo!” The name doesn’t ring an immediate bell, so she tells him he has mistaken her for someone else. Since he was hired through Hyo-sun’s uncle, she assumes he’s here looking for Hyo-sun — yet another admirer, perhaps.

And then, Ki-hoon makes his appearance for the first time in eight years, and Hyo-sun is the first to see him. (Curses!) Shocked, she greets him emotionally, running to hug him tightly, proving (just in case there was still a doubt) that she has not, in fact, kept in touch over the years. (It’s the fact that she knew nothing of Ki-hoon that gave her the nerve to lie to Eun-jo, I believe, because it was unlikely that Eun-jo would know enough to contradict her lie.)

Eun-jo dismisses Jung-woo, so he identifies himself more specifically — he’s the Jung-woo who used to live with Jang ajusshi.

But alas, she has not heard one word of his explanation, because just as he speaks, she glimpses a horrible sight: Ki-hoon arriving arm in arm with Hyo-sun. As she already believes they are dating, this is a particularly harsh blow, and she puts up that wall again to keep from betraying how painful this moment is.

As ever, Ki-hoon and Eun-jo only have eyes for each other, while the others look on curiously. Eun-jo’s non-reaction is a disappointment for Ki-hoon, who tests the waters by saying, “A face I recognize. You’re Hyo-sun’s sister, aren’t you? Do you remember me?”

Eun-jo keeps looking at Ki-hoon with an accusatory stare, as if to ask how he could do this. Not knowing the source of her anger, he looks uneasily back at her while Hyo-sun asks curiously how she doesn’t remember Ki-hoon oppa.

Finally, after a long moment, Eun-jo says, “Hello,” as though speaking to a stranger she has just met. And Ki-hoon, bitterly disappointed at her reception, returns the cool greeting in a daze. Oh, squeeze the life out of my heart why don’t you!

The next day, Jung-woo sees Ki-hoon hanging around outside. Recognizing him from the day before (and having clocked the tension between Ki-hoon and Eun-jo), Jung-woo speaks informally and a little rudely to Ki-hoon as he asks where he completed his army service. (His fixation on the military suggests to me that he has just gotten out of service himself, as the army is his first way of relating to other men.)

At first Jung-woo speaks as though challenging Ki-hoon, but as soon as he hears that Ki-hoon served in the Marines (considered particularly tough), he swallows that attitude and immediately salutes to his senior, as he was also in the Marine corps. I believe the Marines are particularly tight and have their own, close-knit sense of camaraderie.

As Eun-jo’s two interviewees are no-shows (one got another job offer), it’s time for the third, and boy is this an awkward moment. Eun-jo treats Ki-hoon like a stranger as she goes through the interview questions.

But the underlying meaning isn’t lost on Ki-hoon when she asks why he’d want to work here in a dinky rural setting — is he just going to take off when something better comes along?

He answers, also with extra meaning, “I’ll work hard, and you won’t want to let me go. If it seems like I may leave, you’ll treat me even better. I’ve lived here, and I like it here. Having lived here is my biggest asset.”

She can’t resist asking a few questions to sate her curiosity, although of course she frames it as interview questions: Did he leave for the States right after his army discharge? (Yes.) Since he lived there for five and a half years, did it take him that long to earn his degree? (He worked at a marketing firm in New York after school.) All this she asks while keeping her gaze averted; he answers looking directly at her.

And then, she finally looks up at him to ask a question that has extra importance: Did he ever come back during that time? She holds her breath. He answers that he came back every vacation.

At this, Dae-sung speaks up to scold him for never calling. Ki-hoon apologizes — he was busy every time he was here. No doubt Eun-jo hears that as “I was too busy for you” — and she takes a shaky breath.

Hyo-sun receives the results of her audition — another failure — and hears Eun-jo’s words ringing in her ear. Ki-hoon finds her here by the water and guesses that she’s upset to have been cut again. He comforts her, saying that she’ll pass one day — and if not, well, it’s not so horrible when the world is full of fun and interesting things.

Hyo-sun asks where he’s been. Verging on tears, she sighs that she has no dream and no goals. “Is someone like me able to live an interesting life?” (Implication: Do I deserve it?) She asks him to tell her the moon is a square, like he used to.

Ki-hoon tells her that she can gain those things gradually, as she goes through life. At his kind, gentle words, Hyo-sun lays her head on his shoulder and says, “You’re mine, oppa.” Tearily, she adds, “Why did you come now? Jerk.”

They sit there by the water — and as timing would have it (per our Rule of Melodramas), this is the tableau seen by Eun-jo, who drives by at just this moment. Her face hardens.

As a result, Eun-jo is particularly aloof when she, Dae-sung, and Ki-hoon meet to discuss marketing strategies. Ki-hoon presents his idea for TV advertising. Eun-jo asks for detailed calculations on the cost of television ads, then excuses herself for a meeting.

Trying her own idea out, Eun-jo photographs a mock ad with Hyo-sun as her model. She gets her shot, and though she says it with no pleasure, she has to give her props to Hyo-sun: “You’re quite pretty.”

Hyo-sun is dumbstruck, then asks her sister to repeat her words. Eun-jo points out that this is hardly the first time she’s heard that she’s pretty.

Even so, Hyo-sun smiles at this unexpected validation. I’ve got to believe that as much as Hyo-sun thrives off of demanding people’s attentions and basking in pretty words, she understands the difference between flattery and sincerity, and this means a lot to her.

When Ki-hoon presents Eun-jo with a breakdown of advertising fees, she rejects the numbers, going down the list to strike things they don’t need. A model, for example (she’ll probably use Hyo-sun), nor a outside ad agency. She instructs him to redo the numbers with the barebones costs.

Ki-hoon can’t understand why Eun-jo is treating him so coldly, and asks, “Do you have anything else to say?” She betrays nothing, so he leaves.

That evening, Dae-sung decrees that he will be putting Hyo-sun to work, which is an idea that pleases neither sister. He will not be swayed by his wife this time and instructs Eun-jo to find some work for her to do.

Interestingly, Kang-sook is still making regular visits with Jang, who is still in love with her and suggests that they get back together. She puts him back in his place immediately, saying that she’s not meeting him because she loves him, but because she needs an outlet for expressing herself once a month — otherwise, she’d die of frustration from keeping up the perfect wife facade. With Jang, she can be as vulgar and drunken as she pleases.

She still has to be wary of Dae-sung at home, as she comes home late that night and possibly smelling of liquor. Thankfully for her, he is preoccupied with graver worries, as they received a call from Hyo-sun’s friend saying that she is passed out drunk. Eun-jo and Ki-joon have gone to pick her up.

On the drive, Ki-hoon tries to make conversation, and asks if Eun-jo remembers anything. She feigns sleep to avoid talking to him, and they drive on in silence.

On their return, Ki-hoon carries Hyo-sun to her room, and after he leaves, Eun-jo tucks her sister into bed. She may not be willing to show affection to her sister in the light of day, but there are little moments like this (and the “you’re pretty” exchange) that show that their relationship is not all hate and jealousy. I appreciate that.

As she leaves the room, she finds Ki-hoon in the courtyard, standing still like he was so lost in thought that he just forgot to keep walking. He looks up at her and they meet eyes, but she breaks the stare.

Looking intently at her, Ki-hoon asks again, “Do you really have nothing to say to me?”

Till now he has asked this question in polite (i.e., stranger-to-stranger) speech, but now he takes the familiar speech, like he’s not going to just accept her distance this time.

He grabs her wrist and she glares. He pulls her out to the front gates, where he confronts her openly, all pretense dropped now.

Ki-hoon: “Do you really have nothing to say to me, you awful girl?”
Eun-jo: “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Ki-hoon: “Awful girl. You’re pretending not to know me?”

She looks straight at him now, her sneer back:

Eun-jo: “Do I have to act like I do?”
Ki-hoon: “Do you know how much I—”
Eun-jo: “Shut your mouth.”
Ki-hoon: “What?”
Eun-jo: “Crazy bastard.”
Ki-hoon: “What?”
Eun-jo: “What’s Hyo-sun, and what am I? I didn’t know this, but you’re a son of a bitch.”

Suddenly he understands, and looks stricken as he insists, “That’s not it.” She doesn’t believe him, so he presses on, “Hyo-sun isn’t the one. She’s not. That’s not true.”

Eun-jo challenges, “Does Hyo-sun also think it’s not true?” He answers, “I’m telling you it’s not true!”

Not moved at all, she retorts, “And who are you? You’re fired. Don’t step one foot inside this house.”

And she walks away, ignoring him as he calls after her, “Hey, hey!”

But then he calls out “Eun-jo ya,” stopping her in her tracks, against her will. And again, “Eun-jo ya.” Her eyes brim with tears and she stands frozen. He keeps calling out after her.

“Eun-jo ya.”

“Eun-jo ya.”


COMMENTS

First off, a few leftover threads from the time-skip period:

I love that Ki-hoon’s parting letter was in Spanish, which hammers home the point that Hyo-sun can interfere, she can thwart the natural order of things for eight whole years, and she can try to claim Ki-hoon — but she still can’t understand the letter. She’ll never comprehend the stuff at the core of their connection, because twoo wuv transcends, or some such.

I find Hyo-sun infinitely more interesting as a character in these grown-up years, because she’s not really Cinderella anymore, is she? I had always considered the traditional Cinderella to be the good girl beset with unjust and cruel treatment by outside forces — namely, the stepmother and evil stepsisters. That’s generally how she is framed in the straightforward interpretations of the fairy tale. She’s a worthy heroine who is made to suffer indignity.

But Hyo-sun makes me ponder the situation from a different angle — is the very experience of triumphing over unjust treatment what makes Cinderella worthy? Is a Cinderella without adversity, who is spoiled and indulged of her every whim, just as likely to end up a spoiled brat? We saw the good nature in young Hyo-sun, although the potential for her to be a spiteful person was always there. She didn’t rise above her challenges (bad Cinderella!) and instead went the other way.

So is Cinderella an inherently good person who happens to overcome adversity, or is the suffering what shapes her into worthiness? I’m just asking for my own amusement, as this gets us into Lockean vs. Rousseauian arguments of the nature of man and I’m sure there is no real answer.

I also mourn the loss of Eun-jo’s glorious waterfall of hair, but on a thematic level it makes sense. Eun-jo’s hair is a metaphor in this reworked Cinderella tale, as it was the catalyst that made Ki-hoon see through her shell and to her true self. We had him pulling the pencil out of her hair accidentally — stripping away her facade? — and replacing it with the glass slipper equivalent, the glass hairpin. That trinket was lost in the place where they lost communication for the last time, as she sobbed on the beach a few feet from the dropped hairpin. So in the intervening years she has cut her hair, just as they have disrupted their rapport.

EPISODE 6 RECAP

We backtrack again to pick up a few details along the way from the last episode. Are we always going to be starting episodes with Hyo-sun’s B-side? Back in the car, Ki-hoon turns up the volume on the record he once played for Eun-jo, but she’s not in the mood for memory lane. At her coldness, Ki-hoon muses that it’s so simple for her. That she just forgets and walks away. He betrays a bitterness, like what he really wants to say is: “How dare you forget me.”

Hyo-sun is awake in the backseat, picking up on all the tension and reading between the lines. Once they’ve tucked her in bed, she sneaks back out, and sees Ki-hoon dragging Eun-jo out by the wrist. Can’t the hero ever just politely ask a woman to follow him outside? Must there always be a barbaric show of male dominance with an undercurrent of “I want you so badly, but I’m gruff and out of touch with my emotions, so I’m taking it out on your tiny tiny wrist”?

We pick up with the pair outside, just after Ki-hoon calls out, “Eun-jo ya” again and again, making her stop in her tracks. She cries for just a moment, with her back still towards him, then wipes away her tears and braces herself for his approach.

Eun-jo spins around and spits out her venom, fast and furious: “Whoever you were, however you laughed, whatever your name was, none of it matters now. Less than dust, less than a bug, you’re nothing to me now. Call my name or laugh, just try it. Then I’ll just…kill you.”

It’s harsh, to be sure. But it betrays her vulnerability to two key things: the way he laughed, and the way he called her name. It’s her way of keeping her guard and not losing face in front of him (lest he think she was pining away for him like a naïve schoolgirl), but for Ki-hoon, the words cut like a knife. Not for nothing is she the evil stepsister, I’ll tell you that much.

Hyo-sun has heard everything, and I’m not sure if her tears are poor-me tears or ones out of empathy. Despite the fact that her inclination is poor-me, she’s also very aware of both Eun-jo’s and Ki-hoon’s feelings, seeing as how she so desperately wants to be loved by them. My guess is it’s a mix of both, leaning heavily on the feeling of “but oppa is MIIIINE.”

Hyo-sun goes back inside and sees Dad with little Jun-su on piggyback, and she smiles sadly, thinking in voiceover: “Everyone went on a picnic…leaving me behind…leaving me behind…leaving me behind.” It’s interesting to see how things have turned around for the two sisters since their teenage years. I like that this drama confirms my theory that spoiled brats turn out to be useless sorts of people as adults, and it’s not hard to see how the princess ended up adrift and feeling left behind. But I think that it makes her a more interesting character, to have lost something, by way of Eun-jo gaining something for the first time. They will forever be at odds, because they both so desperately need to be loved, but are encircled by the same four people their whole lives.

Dae-sung calls Eun-jo in for a meeting, where he tells her that she can leave (as per his promise eight years ago, and her admission of waiting for the opportunity). He tells her that he never thought she had stayed with the intention of leaving someday. He praises her for being diligent, smart, hardworking, and adds sweetly that if she wanted to fly, he would’ve pinned her some wings. Dae-sung says that he’s never thought for a second that she owed him anything (referring to her very calculating business-like statement that she wanted to repay him for his kindness).

Eun-jo replies that she knows. But Dae-sung shakes his head, “No, you don’t know. You don’t know. You couldn’t know. If you did, you couldn’t say those things.” I think Dae-sung is right here, as he usually is. He doesn’t mean this statement in a hurt way; he means that she thinks she knows, but can’t actually fathom the love of a father. I agree, only because Eun-jo still sees the world from a very limited perspective, and although she has experienced Dae-sung’s care for eight years, she still doesn’t believe herself worthy of true love, fatherly or otherwise.

He says that he’s never thought of her any differently from Hyo-sun…then concedes that maybe he has, but only in the very recesses of his heart, where no one could understand why. He adds that even if that’s the case, he is not ashamed (he can stand honorably with his love for Eun-jo as his daughter). It’s a very honest answer, and another glimpse into why these two get along—Eun-jo responds well to Dae-sung’s fastidious honesty and his steadfastness as a person—he is still the same man who punished her fairly and then tended to her wounds all those years ago.

Dae-sung says (breaking my heart) that he thought Eun-jo felt the same way about him. He tells her to give him a proposal for her departure, aka Life Plans and Such. An Excel spreadsheet for her life…does anyone else want to take this girl out for a drink? Dae-sung says that as the father who changed her surname to his, he has the right to make sure she’s got a real plan, means to live, and ways to achieve her dreams. Eun-jo says she’ll draw up the plans, making Dae-sung sad and resigned.

Just then…Kang-sook appears, having heard the tail end of their conversation, and flips out. She breaks down, wailing at the top of her lungs, thinking that she and Eun-jo are being kicked out. She faints in Eun-jo’s arms, leaving Eun-jo and Dae-sung dumbstruck. Even though I’m assuming that Kang-sook is doing a bit of acting here, I don’t know if it’s because the actress is so good, but it feels real, like the histrionics are exaggerated, but based in real fears deep inside.

In another part of the house, Hyo-sun explains very cutely to Ki-hoon that she’s decided to marry him, so he should follow suit. He’s like, what’s the what, now? The cute thing is that she’s totally serious, without knowing how ridiculous she sounds. It shows that she’s still a stunted child in many ways. Ki-hoon just laughs and says “okay,” the way you’d answer if a kid asked you to go to Mars with her someday. You’d answer “okay, sure thing.” This isn’t the response she was looking for. She may be a kid, but she ain’t no dummy. Hyo-sun says glumly that she knows he likes Eun-jo, but that can never be. If he goes to her too, then who does she have left? She gets up abruptly and adds that anyway oppa is hers; he’s been hers since forever and a half ago, so that’s the way it is, and that’s that! Haha. Your logic does not resemble Earth logic. But it’s cute just the same.

The doctor has come and gone, and Eun-jo sits by Mom’s bedside, telling her to rest and take it easy with true concern. Mom asks if they’re alone, and when Eun-jo confirms that they are, she hilariously pops up and rips Eun-jo a new one for thinking of leaving. She fumes that she’s set up everything for her and Jun-su to inherit the kingdom, but she dares to throw it all away? Eun-jo goes mad before our very eyes, as it dawns on her that her mother has put on a show for the umpteenth time, and she has fallen for it yet again. And you wonder why she has a hard time TRUSTING?

Eun-jo’s soul turns inside out, as she struggles to keep her tears in. Kang-sook tells her to use the ailing mom defense and not even think about setting one foot outside. Eun-jo, shaking in disbelief, says quietly, “I should have just died then. There were so many times I could have died. So many times I could have disentangled myself from you.” Damn.

Kang-sook doesn’t understand what she’s going on about, and warns her not to ever speak of leaving again; then she’ll really put on a show. Hyo-sun comes running over, fawning over Mom, and Kang-sook goes right back to her angelic invalid pose in a heartbeat. Ha. Evil genius.

Eun-jo walks outside in a teary stupor, where Jung-woo is waiting for her. He silently turns her shoes around (a recurring motif and such a beautifully simple and selfless visual gesture). And the way he looks up at her, expectantly…just about kills me. I feel like the less this kid says, the better—not because I have a negative judgment about his acting, but more because I like the impact of this character as the silent bodyguard type. He could turn out to be the reincarnation Lee Jung-jae in Sandglass, if he keeps this up.

Eun-jo is lost in her own world, as she walks slowly to the riverbank. Jung-woo follows ten steps behind her, wanting to reach her but unable to get close. He stands guard as she sits by the river and finally decides that this is his moment. He tentatively takes small steps, his face breaking out in a smile at the thought of approaching her. But the second he sits down next to her, Eun-jo pops right up to leave. It’s the same thing she did to Dae-sung when he first tried to get close to her—she’s got a lot of built-in defenses, this girl.

Jung-woo gets right back up, ever doggedly pursuing her, and it makes Eun-jo finally turn around and acknowledge him, though not in the way he was hoping. She asks if he’s on an errand or if her father is looking for her, and I’m getting the impression that she knows this isn’t the case, but is offering him an out so that she doesn’t have to deal with his advances. Jung-woo just nods, reading that she doesn’t want to be bothered right now. His undeniable adoration of her is written all over his face, and it’s priceless.

She turns and walks away, just as he utters out, “noona,” but she doesn’t hear him because Hyo-sun’s uncle is honking at the kid. He takes Jung-woo on another nefarious delivery, this time even giving him a cut of the hush money.

In a quiet moment, we see Hyo-sun clinging to Mom as they sleep, and the depth of her loneliness as she gets passed up for Jun-su. She feels that Mom’s love for her is empty, but clings to it desperately anyway, which breaks my heart.

Later that night, Dae-sung tells Eun-jo that he won’t fire Ki-hoon; that he’s an unfortunate kid, and he’ll only let him go if he chooses to leave of his own accord. Dae-sung tells Eun-jo that she’s arrogant (he says so matter-of-factly, not unkindly) for wanting to get rid of Ki-hoon. He asks for her Life Proposal, but she doesn’t have it. He supposes she changed her mind because of Mom, and breathes a sigh of relief, saying that he didn’t know what he would have done if she really went through with it. Aw.

He adds that he knows that she can take care of herself full well; what he wanted was for her to find a warm place to rest her heart, and until that time, he wanted to take care of her. Double aw. He says that her insistence on repaying her debt to him means that she doesn’t know his true heart, and that he’s been torn up the last few days. Okay, stop being so damn perfect, Dad. You’re making me worry for your well-being. But Eun-jo, ever the heartbreaker, throws down one of her patented, rip-open-a-vein-why-don’t-you honest confessions:

Eun-jo: “This house is…arduous. Don’t give your heart to me. If you’ve given it, take it back. I’m an unbelievably horrible person. How awful…you can’t even imagine. If you knew the thoughts I live with every day, you wouldn’t want to look at me, even for a second. For now I’m stuck because of my mother, but I will leave. Whether I repay my debt to you, or marry that man my lab sunbae wants me to meet, I will leave. So don’t dote on me. I’m not the kind of kid who will stay here forever, thankful for your grace, just because you trust in me.”

Because she doesn’t understand…that love can be unconditional, forgiving, and stronger than pain…she can’t let anyone love her, just as she can’t let herself love anyone again.

Ki-hoon goes to meet his father at a hotel, and he tells him that the current project (read: acquisition of Dae-sung’s makgulli company) isn’t worth his time and effort. Daddy Hong thinks Ki-hoon’s gone soft because of his feelings for Dae-sung (well, that’s a close guess…), but Ki-hoon corrects him, saying that he’s not the same Ki-hoon of eight years ago. When he left that place he left all those feelings behind. (Ah, some insight into his self-imposed exile away from his looooove.) He says it might have been different had he never left, but once he did, he forgot it all.

Dad doesn’t understand; what’s the problem, then? Ki-hoon starts to laugh, which is exactly the sort of chuckle down the road to madness that Eun-jo does with her mom. It’s not hard to see why Ki-hoon saw right through her pain as an adolescent.

Ki-hoon muses that this whole charade is right out of a Joseon-era history book: a father betting on the darkhorse prince to topple the king and usurp the throne. He goes further with the analogy, saying that he’s drawn his sword in battle, but has found that his opponent is too young (which we can read as both Dae-sung’s company being too young and small-time, but also as Eun-jo being too young and mismatched an opponent for him to fight fairly). He says he’s retreated his sword; Dad shouldn’t worry about small-fry Dae-sung being a worthy adversary. He plans to just rest there a little while and think of other ways to help his father.

Dad scoffs that Ki-hoon knows nothing. He hands him a document, while the chimes of evil masterminding ensue. Ki-jung has apparently bid on Dae-sung’s company and has not given up making advances. Dad refuses to lose this to Ki-jung. And for good measure, he adds the requisite Tragic Twist of Melodramatic Proportions: Do you want to know how your mother really died? OH, JEEBUS.

From the looks of Ki-hoon’s walk of stunned dismay, the answer isn’t good for Dae-sung and Co. As he walks out, Ki-hoon sees Eun-jo walk past, wearing a dress and high heels, which is probably a very surprising sight for him. He follows her into the café, where she is on a mat-seon with that guy her lab sunbae wanted her to meet. It goes hilariously badly, as Eun-jo picks a thing, anything, (happens to be height) to pick apart the poor guy’s attempt to get close to her. When he asks how tall she is, she responds accusingly, “How tall should I be for you to marry me? If I’m 170(cm), will you marry me? 172?” Haha. Who on earth thought this girl would be good on a blind date?

Ki-hoon looks stricken as he listens to her talk about marriage with another man, even if it is in her over-my-dead-body Eun-jo-esque way. He meets her outside, and asks if she’s on a mat-seon, adding snottily that she must not have liked the guy if she’s leaving so soon. She just ices him with the silent treatment and drives away.

Ki-hoon follows her, and catches up on a windy mountain road, where he races to try and stop her, and she speeds up to try and lose him. You silly kids and your cat-and-mouse games. Although, if someone loses an eye or gets amnesia from this, I will hurt you, Show. He calls her to tell her to slow down, which is just hilarious, since YOU’RE CHASING HER, but whatever. He finally cuts her off, leading to an almost collision, and tells her to slow down, and he’ll stop chasing. Uhh…it would’ve worked the other way around too, and you wouldn’t have had to cause a near-accident, but what do I know?

Oh, NOW I get why this scene is here—Ki-hoon starts telling her that it’s unsafe and that he’ll stop chasing her, but his insistence on those words have a secondary meaning. He ends up saying: “I won’t chase you. I’m not going to try and hold you, and I’m not going to ask you to hold me. So you don’t have to run away. You got it? Anyhow, I’m also…” But he trails off, unable to complete his words. I’m also…what? Moving on? Denying my one true love for the sake of my family? Frustratingly stubborn when it comes to you? What?

Eun-jo arrives at home, and Jung-woo follows a few steps behind her in silence. She finally acknowledges him and asks if he has something to say to her, but he simply smiles and shakes his head. When she takes off her shoes to go inside, he turns them around for her, and she looks at him like, what’s your deal with my shoes, dude? He says it’s a pledge of allegiance (much like an army salute) for the person who feeds him. So nicely written, these spare scenes. She understands it as she’s the boss and he’s grateful for the job; he means that he’s grateful for all the times she made him food when they were young and she was the only one to ever take care of him.

Late that night, Ki-hoon broods on his pavilion, then makes a call to Daddy Hong. He says that if Dad can promise that once they acquire Dae-sung’s company, he’ll give Ki-hoon full control, then he’ll agree to start the work. I’m assuming from the chimes of evil masterminding that there’s going be some nefarious corporate espionage or something at work. Either that or he’s going to drink up all the makgulli before they can bottle it up. Can I help with that?

The next day, Hyo-sun has been put to work with the other laborers, washing rice. She’s terribly bumbling at even the most menial of tasks, but to her credit, she does it with a song in her heart, mostly because she’s determined to get Eun-jo and Dad’s approval. Dad chastises her for spilling even a kernel of the very precious organic, hand-picked rice. At this, she wonders aloud, “Am I useless?” But she gives herself a pep talk, saying that she can do it, and continues to work.

Eun-jo comes by, making Jung-woo stand up at the sight of her. She asks to see Hyo-sun when she’s done, and walks away. Jung-woo salutes her as she walks past, hopeful, then deflated when she just blue steels him.

Eun-jo has Hyo-sun try on dresses for the commercial, and Hyo-sun asks what this is all about. Without answering her, Eun-jo just says offhandedly that she’s pretty, but this time rather than being earnest, I think she’s using it as a way to throw Hyo-sun a bone. Hyo-sun replies that being called pretty doesn’t work on her anymore. She calls Eun-jo a liar, calling her pretty just to boost her ego and get her to do whatever she wants. She won’t be fooled twice.

Eun-jo doesn’t bat an eyelash; that’s fine with her, so long as that’s what she wants. If Hyo-sun doesn’t want to do it, she’ll just use Dad’s money. (She says here, “Your Dad,” purposely distancing herself in her snotty way.) Hyo-sun declares her evil. Eun-jo just taunts her, saying over and over, “You’re not going to do it, are you?” until finally Hyo-sun stops her. Next thing you know, Hyo-sun’s dancing around in a tutu for the commercial. Ha. I almost feel bad knowing that Eun-jo is so much smarter than her. But they pretty much know how to push each other’s buttons equally.

During the filming, Eun-jo notices Ki-hoon smiling at the monitor, and shoots him the sidelong death ray of jealousy, which he doesn’t notice. But then he sees her walk away from him and has the pouty face of why-doesn’t-she-love-me? Oh, you two.

The three of them go out to eat afterwards, where Eun-jo thinks only about work, and Hyo-sun blissfully eats away. She pulls the classic I’m-going-to-feed-my-boyfriend-in-front-of-you move, driving Eun-jo to drink. But she apparently can’t hold her liquor very well. So Ki-hoon, instead of stopping her, matches her drink for drink. It’s like a hilarious pissing contest, neither of them knowing why they’re doing it, but just fueled by anger and hurt feelings. And yeah…if I had to look at this…

I’d be drinking till I blacked out too. The two of them end up vomiting by the river, with Hyo-sun looking on in amazement. She can’t win…these two will always be in sync, whether in bliss or in misery, and they’ll always leave her out.

Hyo-sun calls her uncle, who sends Jung-woo out to fetch them. By the time he comes running, Eun-jo and Ki-hoon have passed out on the ground. Haha. Jung-woo drives them all back, and Hyo-sun catches him stealing glances at his beloved Eun-jo noona in the rearview mirror. She asks his name, and finds out that he’s a recently discharged soldier, nay marine, which he insists is not just any solider. Hyo-sun laughs at his earnestness.

Jung-woo puts Ki-hoon to bed, and Hyo-sun brings her sister’s purse in, noticing that the strap has torn off. The look on her face is that of genuine sadness; I bet she would love more than anything to give her unni one of her many pretty purses, but Eun-jo would never accept that sort of gesture from her.

She meets Jung-woo back at the car to bring Eun-jo in, but when they get there, she’s not there anymore. They run around the house looking for her, and Ki-hoon wakes to hear them say they can’t find her. But he knows where to look. He goes over to the factory, to their makgulli cellar, to the place of their unfulfilled love. Their eyes meet, over the sound of bubbles, and Eun-jo passes out. Ki-hoon reaches his hand out to touch her, but pulls back, unable to reconnect with her.

He leaves, and in walks Jung-woo. Symbolic, that Jung-woo replaces Ki-hoon in the cellar, just as he has taken over shoe-turning duties; he can traverse that icy barrier that Ki-hoon dare not cross. He carries Eun-jo home on his back, wondering what on earth is going on with her.

Then we get a commercial break…wait…oh, it’s Hyo-sun’s commercial debut, complete with cheesy changeover from what…hooker on the run?…to pink ballerina? It’s intentionally funny, and cute. Apparently the media exposure did the trick, because the orders are coming so fast that they have to turn some away. Eun-jo saves the day though, securing a way to increase their production, so they take all the orders that come in.

They celebrate, but then stop in their tracks when they notice that Eun-jo’s got a bloody nose. She’s been pulling all-nighters at the lab, and ends up collapsing to the ground in Dad’s arms. Ki-hoon rushes her to the hospital on his back, and we catch up with her in the hospital, Hyo-sun at her bedside.

Hyo-sun (voiceover): “Wow. Song Eun-jo, no, now Gu Eun-jo. I can’t even imitate her. I can’t be like her. If I try to be like her, my legs would split. As soon as the thought that I can’t keep up with her enters my head, I want to cry. I’m not at all worried about her, but the tears won’t stop. I swear by the heavens and the earth, every word I’ve spit at her is 100% a lie.”

She calls out loud, “Unni ya. Unni ya, don’t die. Unni ya, I’ll do well. I’ll adore you. Don’t die, unni ya.” This is one of my favorite things about her—the way she calls Eun-jo “unni ya,” which is a contradiction. You can’t call someone “ya” if you’re younger, and you wouldn’t call one person both “unni” and “ya.” But it’s the perfect thing for their relationship, as they’re two girls of the same age who were thrown together as sisters. It also mirrors the heartfelt way that Ki-hoon calls her “Eun-jo ya;” it’s her own moniker for her love/hate sister/not-a-sister.

She thinks to herself, “Your nose bled because you picked it, didn’t you?…is what I really wanted to say.” She breaks down in tears. And then Eun-jo wakes up, telling her to shut up. She shocks the tears away from Hyo-sun as she asks, “Am I dying? Did they say I was going to die? Or do you just wish I were?” Haha. Damn, you’re cold. And hilarious. She tries to get out of bed, but Hyo-sun throws her back down.

Hyo-sun: “You’re an unparalleled weakling. I’ve never seen a girl like you in all my life. You want to make me pathetic, don’t you? That’s why you showed up at our house, isn’t it? Where are you going? Don’t move a muscle. I can’t stand to look at you move. I can’t stand to hear you talk. You’re just trying to impress Dad so you stay up all night at the lab, and get a bloody nose. Even if you don’t do that, I’m always being compared to you and becoming a pathetic person. And next to pathetic me, you’re becoming a faithful and decent person. Just try and move again. Just try and collapse again! I wish a thing like you would just die!”

And of course, that’s the moment when Mom and Dad walk in. Oh, crap. Dae-sung can’t believe the words out of Hyo-sun’s mouth, and she runs away from him, scared to get scolded yet again for being the bratty sister. She jumps into Ki-hoon’s car and begs him to drive her away.

As if one crazy hospital visitor wasn’t enough for one day, Kang-sook has sprawled out on Eun-jo’s bed (just like her to take the sickbed from the sick girl), saying that Eun-jo will be fine, and that she’s lucky to be sick in such a conveniently melodramatic way. She tells her not to try so hard; even without all the all-nighters and nosebleeds, it’ll all be hers anyway (the company).

Eun-jo asks Mom if that time that they lived in Gunsan, when she made herself a noose…did she intend to die? Kang-sook scoffs at the idea. “Why would I die?” She explains that sometimes you have to go to the extreme to get what you want. Eun-jo asks if that means this time, she’ll make another noose if Eun-jo tries to leave. Mom answers, “Of course,” without so much as a second thought. Eun-jo: “For me? Because of me?” Mom: “Why, do you think I’m lying?” Eun-jo: “I wish that it were a lie.”

Mom slyly checks to see if the door is closed. She walks over to Eun-jo and says:

Kang-sook: “I carried you on my back and dug through trash. Because I thought it would be better than not feeding you. When I fed you, and you got sick, when your eyes rolled into the back of your head and all I could see was the whites of your eyes, I said, ‘God, Buddha, Lord, just try and kill my baby. You think I’ll leave you be? I’ll chew you up and spit you out until there is no heaven.’ That night I gave up the notion of love as holding someone close. Do you know who I am? I’m the bitch who challenged God and Buddha to the death and won…to save your life. A noose? I could tie one a hundred times, you bitch.”

She tells Eun-jo not to be moved. Betraying a tear, she says what mother wouldn’t do that for her child? Eun-jo asks if she loves Dae-sung. Kang-sook is surprised at the sudden question. But Eun-jo needs to know: did she ever love Dae-sung, or is he just another man who has something she can rip him off for? Mom’s like, what the hell with this line of questioning?

Eun-jo cries, desperate to find some bit of humanity left in the dark corners of her mother’s heart. She asks her to please tell her that he’s not just another man to rip off, that she loves him. If she can say that, Eun-jo will forgive her for everything. Kang-sook replies that she does like him…she likes him a lot…because he’s got so much for her to rip off.

Just then, Dae-sung opens the door, having heard the desperate query from Eun-jo and the startling answer. He walks in, just as Eun-jo goes stark raving mad. She screams like a wounded animal, trying to shut out the horrifying truth of her birthright. No matter how good she tries to be, she can never wash off the sins of her mother, and her own position as the rationale for it all.

This episode was family-heavy, which I don’t mind, since the time leap has changed the family dynamics in interesting ways, and I’m fascinated by the changes in each character, both small and large. I’m most intrigued by Hyo-sun, who has become quite desperate and much closer to Eun-jo’s wounded teenage state than either of them realize. I love Eun-jo’s relationship with Dae-sung, and the growing complexity of her character, as someone who both loves and loathes her mother, hates herself because of that, and doesn’t believe she deserves to be loved by Dae-sung because of her mother’s sins.

The time leap actually hasn’t found them as fully formed adults yet either, so I don’t mind it as much as I anticipated. Both girls are still young and searching for their place in the world, so I find that I’m as invested in their motivations and their journey as I was in the beginning. What makes this drama so watchable for me (besides the deliciously compelling character studies) is the nimble balance of light and dark, of comedy and melodrama, and its offbeat sense of humor, even in the darkest of characters like Kang-sook. It’s a difficult line to tread, but this show manages it with a stroke of whimsy.

EPISODE 7 RECAP

Dae-sung opens the door to Eun-jo’s hospital room just as she’s begging her mother to say that she likes Dae-sung. He overhears Kang-sook declare that she likes him because he has so much for her to take from him.

Kang-sook may be callous but she sees herself as a pragmatist, telling her daughter — while she swipes the hospital fridge’s beverages, in a nice juxtaposition — that she doesn’t know what it’s like to live the hard-knock life. But the sound of a door makes her look up — Eun-jo has left the room.

Eun-jo has caught a glimpse of Dae-sung watching from the hallway and sees him walking away with a weary gait, as though suffering from Kang-sook’s declaration. He walks numbly out of the hospital, and Eun-jo follows.

On the street, she tries to call out to him, but her voice is weak as she says, “Um, excuse me.” She calls out louder, and this time he turns, smiles weakly, and waves her along. Eun-jo follows anyway, a bit uncertain of what to do but not willing to leave.

Seeing that she won’t go, Dae-sung turns to tells her, to her shock, “It wasn’t something I didn’t know.” He asks her not to tell her mother that he overheard their conversation.

He continues on, but despite his words it seems that Kang-sook’s words have dealt him a heavy blow. There are two ways to read this scene — either he really did know the truth, or he is only saying this to mitigate Eun-jo’s pain. Personally I think it’s the latter, given how hard this scene has hit him, but perhaps it was always a thought that niggled on the verge of his subconscious, that needed this push to come out into awareness.

Ki-hoon and Hyo-sun sit in the parked car (following her “escape” from the hospital after yelling at her sister), and she tells him that she genuinely liked Eun-jo, “but how could she do this to me, oppa?”

As much as I can sympathize with Hyo-sun — she’s the displaced sister, the one who should be her father’s favorite but who feels shoved aside for her non-blood-related stepsister, even if it’s a consequence of her own frivolity of spirit — I do love Ki-hoon’s response, which is essentially a huge ol’ princess smackdown. He sternly tells her not to cry, and when she doesn’t, he bites out harshly to cut it out.

He takes issue with Hyo-sun’s charge that Eun-jo “stole” things from her, and gives her a rude awakening: “If you don’t want something taken from you, then get your act together and watch what’s yours.” Hyo-sun is stunned at his attitude, but he demands, “What, can’t I be angry? Do you think nobody can get angry at you? Does everyone have to coddle you, no matter what do? Are we only supposed to accept you, laugh for you, and clap for you?”

He asks what she has achieved on her own merit without relying on anyone else: “Eun-jo stole from you? You’ve never earned anything on your own strength so how can you have something stolen away?!”

Trembling, Hyo-sun contains her tears and glares indignantly, but Ki-hoon will not even let her get away with that: “What are you looking at? Why are you staring like that? Do you feel unfairly accused? Are you mad that I’m not taking your side? I’m not yours, you punk!”

Hyo-sun can’t help her tears and goes to him for a hug, but he pushes her away impatiently: “Your enemy isn’t Eun-jo. Make things on your own, and protect what you’ve made. If you get things stolen from you without doing that, there’s nothing you can say. Got it?”

He tells her not to rely on him — he won’t play that role. Impatient and frustrated, he growls, “Hurry up and grow up. Soon.”

He gets back in the car and tells her to get in, but she doesn’t. Not about to indulge her petulance today, he drives off.

Ah, Ki-hoon, you may just have redeemed yourself with that heavy dose of tough love! It’s pretty harsh, but honestly, Hyo-sun needs it, and badly. Furthermore, there’s nobody else from whom this speech would have this impact on her.

Eun-jo continues following Dae-sung, a few steps behind, all the way to the factory. He tells her to go rest, but she won’t — what she so sorely lacks in words she is trying to make up for, however inadequately, in actions. Although she’s not actually doing much, Eun-jo’s so defensive and closed off that her mere presence — and persistence — is hugely significant.

She asks how Dae-sung can be like this — calm, acting normally — when he knows the truth. He returns, “You mean even though I know that she’s with me so she can mooch from me?” He says it’s okay.

Eun-jo feels miserable merely knowing this, so she cannot understand Dae-sung’s attitude. He answers that he thinks of Kang-sook as someone to be pitied, because she can’t help thinking the way she does. When he first met Eun-jo as a young adolescent brought up under her mother’s way of thinking, she’d easily accused others of wanting something from her, thinking there was no other reason for them to approach her. He’d felt sorry for her, and says, “It doesn’t matter, since I like your mother. To me, it’s much better for me to be taken advantage of than to live without you and your mother.”

Eun-jo’s tears fall freely, and Dae-sung approaches to gently urge her home to rest. Or how about accompanying him to the company picnic?

He’s trying to turn her thoughts to happier things, but Eun-jo asks tearily, “What do I have to do?” He answers, “Don’t leave me.”

Company picnic. The men engage in a rousing game of… some mix of soccer, tennis, and volleyball. Among the players are Ki-hoon and Jung-woo, and when the ball goes out of bounds and rolls over to her, both jog over and extend their hands to her. Symbolism!

Eun-jo looks between them for a moment before making her choice: She tosses the ball past both, over to Dae-sung. Aw!!

Because the company is out enjoying their day, Hyo-sun finds herself home alone when several angry, unruly men arrive at the factory to complain about the spoiled makgulli they bought. She calls Eun-jo nervously to ask what to do — she’s been trying to handle this without depending on anyone (per Ki-hoon’s words) but she doesn’t know what to do.

Hyo-sun faces the men anxiously, and tastes the alcohol to find that it’s rancid. However, she says that it’s not their wine — the bottles are theirs, but the makgulli inside is definitely not, and she knows this because she’s practically been raised on the taste of their wine. Gaining confidence as she speaks, she informs them that company practice is to turn extra wine into vinegar rather than sell it, but the angry customers are hardly going to take her word for it. Hyo-sun asks in her cheery way, “Care to make a bet with me?”

Eun-jo, Dae-sung, and the rest hurry back to the factory, knowing that Hyo-sun is alone. But when they get there, to their surprise Hyo-sun is happily toasting the men with makgulli, the mood jovial, the men engaged in an energetic round of singing.

Hyo-sun gives the bad wine to her father, who tastes it to make sure. He passes the tainted bottle to Eun-jo, who also takes a sip and notes that it’s gone bad. Hyo-sun glares at her sister, saying that she’d already told them that — does Eun-jo not trust her? (Given that her father also took a sip and earned no ire, Hyo-sun is overreacting here. It’s understandable that she’s oversensitive after her smackdown by Ki-hoon, but this time Eun-jo hadn’t meant anything by her comment.)

Suddenly nervous, Hyo-sun’s uncle takes Jung-woo aside to warn him not to say a word. Since he’s an accomplice, he’d better keep his mouth shut!

We’ve seen the two of them driving off on mysterious errands, and now it becomes clear that it had something to do with this spoiled product. But Hyo-sun’s uncle is a sloppy saboteur at best (he’s no brilliant mastermind, that’s for sure), and now he’s scared he’ll get caught. Although Jung-woo hadn’t been in on the loop, the uncle’s panicked reaction now triggers his suspicions.

As the tainted makgulli has gone out for sale, the news breaks that the company has distributed product containing prohibited additives. Dae-sung and Eun-jo are questioned by police, where they defend their practices — unlike other companies, they don’t add preservatives and they make sure to pick up the unsold product the day before their expiry dates, but these days they haven’t even had any leftovers because of high sales. The factory has turned up no traces of those additives in the tainted bottles.

Dae-sung agrees to cooperate, saying that it’s all okay. However, Eun-jo grows indignant thinking of the business and how hard they worked to get things to this level. All orders have ceased and the factory has stopped production.

In the empty factory, Hyo-sun finds herself at a loss and asks plaintively:

Hyo-sun: “What do I have to do at a time like this? Oh, right — you told me not to rely on anybody. Am I not supposed to do anything in this situation? Am I not allowed to ask this? Is just asking also relying on someone? Okay, I won’t ask.”

As she turns to go, Ki-hoon says that it’s a good thing this happened before they increased production, which would have increased the recall. They can handle this. Hyo-sun asks, “You just said that the moon is a square, didn’t you?” His words have their usual calming effect and make her believe that maybe they’ll be fine.

Ki-hoon’s confidence in their recovery can be attributed to the fact that he believes this is the work of his father — that he somehow sabotaged the Dae-sung company to pave the way for takeover. But President Hong informs him that he has nothing to do with this, and neither does big brother Ki-jung.

Ki-hoon warns his father not to get any ideas of doing anything to Dae-sung Co. while it’s weak. Recall that Ki-hoon is supposedly working there for his father, and he wants control once Hong takes over. He says: “I won’t ruin the company or its image. I’ll take it, and I don’t want to take something that’s ruined.”

Ki-jung hears of this tete-a-tete between father and son, and guesses that Ki-hoon is working at Dae-sung under his father’s orders.

It is both hilarious and heartbreaking that Kang-sook slips into Eun-jo’s room that night to ask furtively whether there’s anything they can rescue before the company falls. She urges Eun-jo to secretly start stashing stuff that they can take before it all goes to ruins.

Eun-jo knows her mother is mercenary, but even so, she’s in disbelief at how low her mother can go and tells her, “We aren’t going to be ruined. And even if we are, there are lots of things for you to rip off. A ton. If you die, you’ll die of excess, not of starvation.” And like the silly, single-minded woman she is, Kang-sook is happy to hear this. Lee Mi-sook is so awesome, finding the dark edge of humor in such an extreme character.

Jung-woo finds himself conflicted with guilt, thinking back to the suspicious behavior of Hyo-sun’s uncle. As he broods, he spots Eun-jo through the window, grabs some clothes (he’s in his boxers) and hurries out to find her.

Eun-jo has paused to look up at the empty pavilion, recalling Ki-hoon singing the Spanish song from years ago, his voice ringing in her ears.

She continues walking — just as Jung-woo bursts out of his room and misses seeing her — and heads out the front gate, where she starts to hear Ki-hoon’s voice singing that song again.

Thinking it’s in her head, this makes her angry — until she sees him walking toward her, mumbling the song to himself. Again, these two are in tune with each other, even in their thoughts. Stopping still, they stare at each other for long moments. Then she resumes walking and he continues on as well, widening the gap between them.

Eun-jo takes refuge in the wine room, but today she’s not alone. Another voice calls out from behind a different set of jars — Hyo-sun.

Hyo-sun: “Let’s do it.”
Eun-jo: “What are you saying?”
Hyo-sun: “I won’t let you have everything. Once, I wanted to be like you. You studied hard, and you were smart and proud. And you acted like you didn’t need anyone. Arrogant, like you didn’t care if nobody looked at you. There were times you looked cool. But you always poured cold water over the things I longed for. So let’s have it out. I don’t know yet how, but let’s do it.”

(Her “Let’s do it” has the tone of a challenge, akin to saying, “Bring it on.”)

Jung-woo doesn’t know what the uncle has been up to, but he does know something’s fishy and heads back to the area where the uncle used to go on his shifty errands. He finds a shack in the woods, and brings back Ki-hoon and Dae-sung. Together, they break open the door, and find inside the materials for a sabotage operation. Makgulli was taken from the factory, mixed with bad liquor, then bottled in the Dae-sung bottles.

While Hyo-sun’s uncle is living it up, drinking with bar hostesses and frittering away his cash, the family gathers to discuss options. Eun-jo is focused on the business and their huge losses, wanting to report the uncle to the police so they can clear their name and begin recovery. Hyo-sun, on the other hand, refuses to call the cops on her mother’s brother, who has nowhere to go. (As so often happens in this family, even when the issue isn’t about the sisters’ strife, it becomes about it on a secondary level.)

Dae-sung decides to take their time — he wants to think of a way to save the business without sacrificing the uncle. Eun-jo presses him to reconsider, saying they have no time (which makes Hyo-sun glower at her resentfully), but Dae-sung overrules her. They can go slowly.

Eun-jo has to accept this reluctantly, but she balks at Ki-hoon’s suggestion that they take out a newspaper ad with an apology; her pride refuses to admit fault when they’d done nothing wrong. There are people just waiting for them to stumble or die so they can swoop in and take over at a low price!

He’s the optimist (saying that they can recover swiftly) while she’s the cynic (or shall we say realist?) for highlighting how precarious their situation is and how important it is to act with haste.

Ki-hoon demands to know what she means, pressing her for an explanation. Who wants to buy them up? He grabs her arm, at which point Jung-woo interferes and casts his arm off Eun-jo’s. Ki-hoon swats Jung-woo away like he’s a pesky fly, while Eun-jo storms away.

Already Dae-sung is fielding calls about selling the business, which stress him out. Hyo-sun wishes she could be a help to him, saying with some insecurity, “I want to help, but I’m not anything, am I?” Still, she promises that even if she’s not helpful now, she will become more helpful to him from now on.

He smiles affectionately, and this is the scene Eun-jo witnesses as she arrives at the door. Which Ki-hoon also sees.

In another family business meeting, Ki-hoon presents a new plan to go after the Japanese market, citing positive initial responses. Eun-jo offers to go to Japan on a business trip, to which Ki-hoon announces that he will go. Lest you get excited about them going together, he is proposing to go instead of Eun-jo — and he wants to take Hyo-sun with him.

In light of Ki-hoon’s harsh speech to her, Hyo-sun is just as startled as Eun-jo, but he replies that he’s teaching her how to keep what’s hers. “But you said Eun-jo didn’t take what was mine,” she says. He answers, “When someone — whether Eun-jo or anyone else — challenges you and tries to take something from you, you have to protect it.”

Eun-jo walks in on their cozy scene — it’s not really that cozy, but tell that to her icy stare — to deliver their travel documents. What’s amusing is how she then walks over a few feet and calls out to Jung-woo from outside his room. Dae-sung wants to see him so it’s not like she’s doing this on purpose, but I’m starting to get a kick out of every time she talks to him in Ki-hoon’s presence, ’cause Ki-hoon’s being pretty frustrating with his constant silence.

Jung-woo has his bag already packed, expecting to be kicked out for his part in the uncle’s operation. When she says they’ll be working together tomorrow to track down Hyo-sun’s uncle, an adorable smile spreads across his face as he fixates on the one word in that sentence that interests him: “T…together?”

Jung-woo is really adorable, the way he steals glances at Eun-jo in the car. Since she still has no idea who he is, she clocks his interest but keeps a cool attitude, while he tries to contain his feelings.

But finally even he can’t keep it to himself anymore, and as they stop for lunch, he steals the pickled radish from her and explains, “Way back when, there was this person who used to cut kimchi and I’d grab the kimchi like this, and the kimchi-cutter would hit me. I’m just saying.”

Eun-jo doesn’t react, so then he lapses into his rural dialect to remind her of his childhood words that he’d find her again — and finally she smiles, asking in half-disbelief, “You’re that Han Jung-woo?”

She asks why he didn’t say anything, so he says he was waiting until she recognized him. But she was taking her sweet old time, so he spilled the beans.

She says, “How could I know that that Jung-woo and this Jung-woo were the same?” He teases, “Since I’ve gotten hotter? I make your heart pound, don’t I?” (Ahhh, he’s so adorable!) She plays it off in her understated way, but she’s definitely glad to see him again and it’s lovely to finally see her smiling.

Alas, their trip turns out to be in vain, because the uncle has run from the motel where he was staying. They report this to Dae-sung — who is holding his chest, WHICH CANNOT BODE WELL. Dae-sung heard that the uncle was going to use his money from selling the bad liquor to buy some land, but he’d been scammed, and therefore ran away.

Kang-sook notices her husband’s grimace and urges him to rest, but he has a playdate with his son and insists on going out.

In Japan, Ki-hoon and Hyo-sun (who’s wearing an indecently short dress — I think she forgot the business part of business casual) prepare to meet their Japanese contacts. As fans of Korean dramas, the two Japanese businesswomen speak fluent Korean, and respond positively to their makgulli. Furthermore, they recognize Hyo-sun from the ad that was uploaded on Youtube. One of the women says that her son is a big fan, and makes a request — she’d love to invite her home to meet her son, who’d be impressed with his mom for knowing the CF girl. This is a surprise, but a good sign that the deal will go through.

On their way home, Jung-woo and Eun-jo pause for a break, whereupon Jung-woo hands over his bankbook — he’d scrimped up all his money from being in the Marines, and this is his whole life savings. She asks why he’s giving it to her, and he answers that he’d saved it specifically to give it to her. He asks, “If I said that I’d saved up my first salary, who do you think I should give it to?” (In Korea, children often give their first paycheck to their parents, or at least buy gifts using the first paycheck.)

This makes Eun-jo think of Mr. Jang, and she asks what he’s up to, but quickly rescinds her question, saying that she doesn’t want to know. But Jung-woo doesn’t know, either — he has been on his own since he was 18. Then he adds with a little smile, “To be accurate, I wasn’t alone — since I lived with you.” He means it earnestly, but she tells him not to joke. He lights up when she says she’ll accept his money — until she adds that she’ll return it when he marries.

And then, a horrible phone call.

In Japan, Ki-hoon awakens to frantic pounding on his door — Hyo-sun cries that her father collapsed.


COMMENTS

The romance is taking a backseat in the recent episodes, which I don’t actually mind so much because we are exploring Eun-jo’s relationship with Dae-sung, which is just as touching (if not more). I particularly love the opening scene when she follows Dae-sung out of the hospital, wanting to talk to him but not knowing how to do it. So she just walks, following a few steps behind, not saying anything.

As we know, Eun-jo has never called anyone anything before, so when it’s her turn to reach out, it’s doubly difficult. Eun-jo hardly ever initiates contact, so it’s too much burden to reach out to a person AND decide which defining label to use with him — whether it’s “Father” or “Ki-joon” or “oppa.” (Note that this applies to people older than herself, because there’s no dilemma in deciding what to call someone younger than you; you just use their name.)

As for Ki-hoon…. phew. I’m frustrated with him, even as I want to love the character and make excuses for his behavior. Although he does get points for setting Hyo-sun straight. Eun-jo made her wonder about her empty motivations, and now Ki-hoon is forcing her to be independent. The ones who hurt us the most have the most power over us, and as we’ve seen in their youth Hyo-sun looked up to these two the most. They are therefore the ones with the most influence over her, even if they don’t want to be.

Sometimes you don’t know how you truly feel about something — maybe you’re ambivalent, or indecisive — but ever notice that once you hear an extreme opinion about it, your feelings often sharpen into focus? This seems to be Hyo-sun’s case — she has never been challenged, so she doesn’t really know what she thinks about something, and if she lives her life with somebody leading her all the time, she’ll never learn how she really feels. Now is her time to figure that out.

I sorta feel like the difference between Ki-hoon’s relationship with Eun-jo now and in their youth is because he’s just as wounded as she is, and just as invested. In their youth, she was the one who closed herself off to all pain and lashed out in self-defense, and because he was a warm older figure, he could reach out to her. Now he has returned jaded, hardened, and harboring his own set of issues, and now it’s like they are both too wounded to break through each other’s defenses. Meanwhile, Jung-woo doesn’t have that kind of outlook and he’s like a boisterous puppy dog who gets knocked over but bounces right back up.

As I mentioned up top, the complexity of this drama, and this episode in particular, really comes through in these characters. For instance, is Dae-sung really being honest when he confesses that he knew Kang-sook’s motives? And was Kang-sook 100% honest when she said so callously that she only liked Dae-sung because of what she could take from him? You could take their words at face value, but there’s enough depth of character there that one may wonder if the opposite is true. Kang-sook strikes me as the type of person who would say something for shock value, who would never in a million years say something so maudlin or earnest as “Yes, I have grown to love my husband.” Maybe she’s protecting herself, or preserving her image, or maybe it’s easier for her to believe she’s a golddigger, but there are signs that she does care for Dae-sung.

Ambiguity isn’t always a good thing — it can be downright maddening — but in this case, I think it adds to the discussion.

EPISODE 8 RECAP

Hyo-sun’s a weeping wreck; Ki-hoon is on the phone, trying to keep Eun-jo from breaking. She sits in the stairwell of the hospital, wondering if this happened because of her. Oh, honey. It’s not because of you, but I can see that we’re going to lose you if Dae-sung dies here today.

Ki-hoon blathers on to her about work having gone well in Japan, and Hyo-sun playing a pivotal role, not because he’s clueless and insensitive (in this particular moment), but because he’s trying to say anything to keep her on this plane of existence. She’s hanging on by a thread, and he calls out to her again and again, “Eun-jo ya.”

She wonders if Hyo-sun was right: did my mother and I taint and ruin a good man by entering his life? Oh, the levels of maternal guilt and psychological burden you have under your belt. It’s time for some therapy to empower you to become your own woman, apart from your mother.

The mother in question is standing outside of the surgery ward, staring down the doors as if they were God himself, daring the Powers That Be to try and mess with her. She’s worked too hard and put in too much to lose now, and she’s not going to take any crap from the universe. I don’t care what almighty being you are—I’d be afraid of Kang-sook too.

The team of surgeons comes out and informs her that the procedure was successful and Dae-sung has overcome the biggest hurdle. Kang-sook doesn’t even flinch. She smirks that of course that’s the case. Well, seeing as how the gods are her bitches, I can see why she was never worried. Although this is all her way of posturing to cover up her actual care for Dae-sung and fear of the unknown without him.

But the rest of us? We were really worried. Some of us even watched the entire last episode clutching our hearts for fear of stoppage due to dramatic events. Hyo-sun pouts in voiceover that Ki-hoon’s spending his time comforting Eun-jo when he should be there for her, since she’s unable to be by her father’s side. The fact that you’re more concerned with who Ki-hoon is comforting and how you deserve it more tells me that you’re not actually all that focused on dear old Dad.

We skip forward to when Dae-sung awakes, with Hyo-sun, Eun-jo and Mom at his bedside. Kang-sook betrays only a slight lip quiver, and Eun-jo says nothing either, but looks at him expectantly. Hyo-sun reacts like a child would—flood of tears and asking why he did that to her—a completely self-centric view of the world, and therefore still very much a child. Eun-jo pries her away, insisting that he needs rest—coming from a thoughtful sensibility, where she considers everyone else’s feelings first (sometimes at the expense of her own, but that’s a whole other bag of worms). Kang-sook squeezes his hand under the covers: just a sweet affirmation that she’s relieved and not made of pure evil.

We fast forward a little more, to when Dae-sung is back home and on the mend, enjoying short walks with Kang-sook, who worries for his health and insists he take it easy. She takes it out on him and the staff, but Dae-sung recognizes that she’s been put through the wringer, so he listens to her. Either that or he’s too tired to put up much of a fight anymore.

Hyo-sun goes shopping to buy Dad some hiking clothes, but finds out that Eun-jo beat her to the punch. Gone are the days when you had to force her to give him the presents you prepared, eh?

Ki-hoon fills Dae-sung in on work stuff, telling him about the contracts in Japan. Dae-sung brings up Ki-hoon’s dad (calling him President Hong, so he knows about Hong Ju which is something I didn’t expect). He says that keeping Ki-hoon at his side is fine for him, but he presumes that Daddy Hong’s got his own plans for Ki-hoon. He proposes a meeting so that he can help Ki-hoon smooth things over with his father and discuss his future. Ki-hoon puts the brakes on that, feeling extra guilty for deceiving Dae-sung and taking advantage of the kind ajusshi’s concern for the kind of man he’ll turn out to be.

Ki-hoon says that his father isn’t like Dae-sung (read: a kind and loving father like you), and insists on talking to his father on his own. He grows serious and vague: “Ajusshi, you have to trust me. Even if unexpected things happen…you have to trust me.” Dae-sung, not knowing what nefarious hostile takeovers are brewing in his future, just chuckles at Ki-hoon’s serious face.

Eun-jo comes running out, saying that she’ll have to skip the meeting with the Japanese buyer. She runs off in a hurry, then does a pratfall, pops right back up, and runs off. It’s the same way she fell in front of Ki-hoon when she was a teenager, hilariously undercutting her very serious demeanor. This time it’s a callback for us and for Ki-hoon, who sees it and lets out a little “huh,” like he had forgotten about that girl who used to fall and keep on running, no matter how much she bled.

The reason for the hurried running was a new experiment she’s dying to try out. She tells Dae-sung excitedly that she’s going to try a heat treatment on the alcohol, letting her make a more uniform batch (say, from jar to jar). That way, they wouldn’t have to make a separate batch of crude liquor, cutting down on manufacturing time and cost. Dae-sung warns her about losing the good yeast in the heat process, which she assures she can handle.

Dae-sung stops her one last time, pointing out that he’s wearing the jacket Eun-jo bought for him. He asks cutely, “Is it pretty? Isn’t it pretty?” Eun-jo just looks down, unfamiliar with this level of father-daughter cuteness. Hyo-sun appears just in time, though, to assure Daddy that it’s pretty.

She says that she went to the same store to buy Dad the same thing, but decided against it since Eun-jo beat her to it. Eun-jo tries to play it off as no big deal; she was there anyway, so she picked it up. Hyo-sun pointedly tells her not to explain away the gift if she’s concerned that she’ll be jealous. She declares that she’s not sixteen anymore. And then in the same breath, she goes back to being cutesy with Dad in front of Eun-jo, staking her claim. And the look she gives when Dad isn’t looking…scares me.

Hyo-sun goes with Ki-hoon to another meeting with the Japanese buyers. This time she’s practiced phrases in Japanese and seems to be getting along with them really well. But afterwards Ki-hoon scolds her for agreeing to have a drink with the businessmen, yelling at her for essentially selling herself for the deal.

But their argument is cut short on the drive home because Ki-hoon gets into an almost-accident. Because he has the reflexes of Spiderman, he has time to unbuckle his seatbelt, hold onto it, and wrap his arms around Hyo-sun before bracing for impact. Only there is no impact, so they’re left in that tight embrace, hearts thumping in their ears.

Ki-hoon asks if Hyo-sun is okay, and she can barely speak, finally thinking to herself that her heart is racing. Well, yeah. Dude, you have to stop confusing her. This?

…Is confusing to a girl! Especially one who’s already in love with you. Don’t be THAT guy, please.

The only thing that may be his saving grace is that he’s probably more confused about Hyo-sun than he’s letting himself believe. Don’t freak out, people, and please, don’t cry. But I think Ki-hoon’s finding himself more and more invested in Hyo-sun (his constant pleas for her to grow up, his tough love speeches to make her want to fight for something that’s hers). And now, the physical closeness, no matter how contrived, has thrown him for a loop too.

Let me be clear: it’s a millimeter, a fraction, and is not anything past his oppa love for her at this stage. But he’s choosing to be this role in her life, despite his insistence that he is not hers to have. It’s strange but I’m sort of in Eun-jo’s camp in that he’s pissing me off, not because of his coldness to Eun-jo (let’s be frank; she’s as cuddly as a porcupine), but because he’s going to lead Hyo-sun on and hurt her. That? Annoys the crap out of me.

Jung-woo meanwhile lovingly prepares a lunch for Eun-jo, smiling to himself in anticipation. Macho bravado is cool and all, but a guy who makes me lunch? Winner! He goes to the lab, where Eun-jo has spent yet another night, and presents the lunch as from her mom. Dude, have you even met Kang-sook? Eun-jo says as much, telling him there’s no need to lie about it since her mother’s never done something like this her entire life. Your mother never packed you lunch? I’m so sad for the six-year-old you right now.

She asks if Mom even knows Jung-woo is that Jung-woo, and he simply replies: “How could she have imagined that I’d grow up to be such an ideal man?” All it takes is one look from Eun-jo to shut his giant ego down. Ha.

Eun-jo wants to know how he found her in the first place. We get a flashback to his army days, where Jung-woo sits on the toilet, reading a magazine, and comes across her picture. He says he subsequently called Hyo-sun’s uncle (an army sunbae) twice a day, every day, until he was discharged. That reminds him—Hyo-sun’s uncle has returned home.

He’s on his knees, groveling in front of Dae-sung, and at first he’s very contrite, but the apology devolves into passing blame, making excuses, and it’s clear he’s still a first-rate chump who just ran out of money and came crawling back home. Dae-sung said he would have taken care of him, married him off (as in provide the financial means for him to marry), and helped him build a future for himself because he’s family. He asks, “What will you do if I’m gone? Do you think it’ll be easy for you to stay in this house if I’m not here?” Hyo-sun’s uncle just looks at him blankly, not getting the obvious implication: “Are you going somewhere? Where are you going?” Dae-sung just sighs in exasperation.

Then, everyone hears a commotion outside: it’s Eun-jo, dragging Hyo-sun’s uncle by the arm, shouting for him take responsibility. Jung-woo stands by, not knowing what to do, as she screams that the factory has shut down and he needs to come clean.

Hyo-sun comes running out, and tries to pry Eun-jo off of her uncle, only when she goes to bite her arm, she ends up chomping down on his. Ha. She bites Eun-jo’s hand, now with the three of them tangled up in an uncle tug-of-war. Ki-hoon comes out to join the fun, trying to pull the sisters apart, and ends up throwing Eun-jo down to the ground. Ruh-roh.

Jung-woo, who has pulled Hyo-sun aside, sees this and rushes over to defend Eun-jo…by popping Ki-hoon in the face. Ki-hoon gets ready to swing back, only Hyo-sun has stepped in to defend her oppa…by slapping Jung-woo. This is freaking hilarious! By this time the uncle realizes the fight’s not even about him anymore, and tries to slink away.

But Eun-jo grabs hold of him again. Hyo-sun goes after them, and Eun-jo pushes her to the ground. She gets up and raises her hand in the air…which Jung-woo blocks. Ki-hoon, not to be outdone, comes up and blocks Jung-woo’s hand, blocking Hyo-sun’s. This is like a really angry game of Twister.

Finally, Dae-sung comes out, making everyone freeze. He says nothing, but they all cower in his presence. Eun-jo looks up at him, tears falling, knowing she’s gone overboard, but unable to keep her emotions in check. She takes off running.

Ki-hoon takes a step to follow her, but Hyo-sun grabs his arm and stops him with one look. And come on…if he really wanted to go, he could have gone. Jung-woo sees this, and runs after Eun-jo. I’m not at all surprised with how the love quadrangle is playing out right now, and the scuffle in the yard was a comical way to illustrate allegiances. Now that we’ve gotten physical, heh, it’ll be interesting to see how the lines will cross and spin into a murky web of jealousy.

Eun-jo blazes off in her patented run, trying to shed the pain and the anguish, desperately trying to feel free. Jung-woo chases after her, always her shadow. But this time he lets himself catch up to her. He stops her, saying: “You’re running out of breath. I’ll run in your place. How far do we have to run? Till there?” And he scoops her up in his arms, and takes off running.

He runs and runs, carrying her burden as he carries her, and he can’t help but smile like a fool. Eun-jo lets herself be carried, maybe for the first time ever, and a smile breaks across her face despite herself. The moment is lovely; childlike innocence breaking past the walls of sorrow and pain.

They sit by the river and Jung-woo stares at her. Eun-jo tries to catch him in the act, making her smile. Jung-woo: “You forgot why you were upset, didn’t you?” Eun-jo: “Yeah, I did. So?” Jung-woo: “Your tears went right back in, didn’t they?” Eun-jo admits they have. Jung-woo then asks if it’s okay to do his show now, and leaps to his feet in front of her.

He starts to dance around like a total goofball, and she smiles. At first I’m thinking, that doesn’t seem like the kind of thing to make Eun-jo laugh, but then we see why: Eun-jo pictures little Jung-woo, doing the same dance that he used to do when they were young. We see what she remembers, as the little Jung-woo and big Jung-woo dance, side by side, in such an overload of cuteness that my screen is melting down. Eun-jo laughs, and her eyes sparkle in a way that we haven’t seen from her in a long time, maybe ever.

The main theme song starts to play, and I’m going, oh my god, do the producers want me to think that she belongs with Jung-woo? And then…Ki-hoon appears. Aha!

He watches them from a distance, as Jung-woo dances, and he sees…Eun-jo smile. The look on his face when he sees her smiling at someone else just about kills me. He deserves it. And yet…it rips me up to see him so hurt. It’s the perfect moment—both delicious revenge, since he’s been a royal jackass of late, and angsty goodness for the love he can’t let go.

Back at work, Eun-jo makes a breakthrough in the lab, and makes a test batch of makgulli in front of Dae-sung, Hyo-sun, and Ki-hoon. Dae-sung’s pride and anticipation is evident, as he tells them this might change everything. Hyo-sun takes note of Dad’s pride in Eun-jo, something she can never catch up to, no matter how much of his love she may have.

Later that night, Hyo-sun comes back to the wine cellar and has a standoff with the makgulli jar. She picks it up and shatters in on the ground, only when she looks up it’s back on the shelf. No, it’s not magic…she couldn’t actually bring herself to do it, and is taken aback by her own evil desires. The fact that she doesn’t actually do the thing she wants to do says a lot about her capacity for growth. What she doesn’t see is that Eun-jo is there the whole time, watching over her precious test jar in silence.

We also see that Ki-hoon’s eldest brother Ki-jung is up to something with the Japanese buyers; unclear what, but his smirk tells us he’s up to no good.

Eun-jo comes home one night and catches Mom talking to someone on the phone in the woods just outside the compound. She sneaks up on her, almost giving Mom a heart attack. Dad just had one of those! Don’t be so sneaky! Eun-jo demands to know who she’s talking to, and asks if it’s Jang-sshi ajusshi. It does say something if Mom’s been having an affair with Jang-sshi for eight friggin years, huh? Well, Eun-jo’s done letting Mom off the hook.

Eun-jo: “I could die. Let’s say I have…a hundred tiny jars of tolerance for you. Those jars have broken one by one, and now there’s only one left. If that last one breaks…I’m not planning to live any longer. Even if you don’t have the slightest attachment to Hyo-sun’s father, you shouldn’t be this way, Mom. These things shouldn’t be. If you do something wrong to Hyo-sun’s father…Mom, I…I’ll go to hell in your place. Hell will be much easier to endure…than living with you. I mean it.”

Damn. And she does mean it, too. She speaks of hell like it would be a sunny vacation. Well maybe when you’re the spawn of the devil, hell has its advantages?

She comes home, to find Ki-hoon tutoring Hyo-sun in Japanese (that’s got to sting). Hyo-sun keeps staring at Ki-hoon, so he puts away his books and gets up, saying that he can’t work if she’s going to keep this up. He tells her to stop playing the baby, with her coquettish wiles. She insists she isn’t a child, and that she’s worked her butt off trying to become an adult at his request. She declares that she likes him, surprising him. Really, is that surprising to you?

Hyo-sun says that no matter what he says to her, what mean things he does, she likes him to death. What is she supposed to do? Does he have an answer for that? “If you’re such an adult. Tell me what I’m supposed to do now.” Ki-hoon doesn’t have an answer. “You don’t have one, do you? You don’t know. You wouldn’t. Because it’s not Japanese, or Math or Business.” Haha. Truer words, pupil.

She adds, “…and because…I’m not Eun-jo.” Just then, Eun-jo comes out, telling Hyo-sun not to throw around her name. She claims to have nothing to do with their relationship (yeah, try telling that to the girl who has to watch Ki-hoon look at you). She adds spitefully that she’s not the kind of girl to be heartbroken over men unlike her sister. And for good measure, she adds:

Eun-jo: “The second someone leaves my sight, they become inconsequential to me. I’m someone who’s used to leaving people I’ve been with, suddenly, with no warning. In one instant people I’ve lived with become nonexistent. I’m used to that. To me, that’s the easiest thing in the world. Whether I ate with them, or stood in the rain with them, no matter how good they were to me, I don’t find it the least bit difficult to throw them away. It’s the same if someone threw me away. Even if he left without a word. I think: ‘I’m good at that, so you must be too,’ and I go on. Liking someone to death…I don’t know that from a dog or a cat. So leave me out of it, and Gu Hyo-sun, you like him all by yourself, to your death.”

Hahahaha. This girl is on a warpath. I wish she knew how much she betrays the opposite of her words. We had this cat once that was the biggest ‘fraidy cat ever, and he’d puff himself out and hiss at every little disturbance, which sure, can be frightening to an opponent. But it also betrays just how scared he really was—the ‘fraidier the cat, the poofier he gets. To an outside observer with a little perspective, say human-to-cat, or in this case, Ki-hoon-to-Eun-jo, it’s easy to see the defense mechanism in play.

She goes to the wine cellar and listens to her test jar bubble, coaxing it to ferment well. Ki-hoon finds her there, and says his piece: “I’m like that too. Leaving someone who stole my heart for a moment means nothing to me. I’ve had moments of sentimentality, bringing up memories, thinking that perhaps this is the same girl from the past, but those are just moments. Forgetting you is easy for me too. I may be like that…but you’re not. You lied. Don’t do that. Hating me to death, forcing yourself to forget me easily, don’t do that. Don’t do anything. Just think of me as gone.”

Ki-hoon is right to know that Eun-jo is lying, and he’s pushing her away on purpose knowing what he has to do, but it’s naïve of him to think he’s somehow above it all too. He’s just as wounded by her words and in some comforting way, her venomous hate is proof that she still loves him, deep down.

Eun-jo turns to him, this time with no forced bravado: “I’m someone with a large debt to this house, and I’ll kill anyone who tries to do it ill. If you treat Hyo-sun badly, you’ll die by my hand.” Shivers.

Ki-hoon is probably like, that’s not…what I was trying to get at! But the meaning is of course two-fold for him, since he knows that he’s about to do something worse to this house than make Hyo-sun cry. And he should brace himself for Eun-jo’s wrath on that day. We see that she’s not as tough as she lets on, as she cries herself to sleep.

The day for opening the test batch is here, and they wait in anticipation as Eun-jo opens the jar. It’s a failure, and Dae-sung tells her they can reuse it as a trial yeast, but Eun-jo wants to throw it away. Dae-sung tries to make use of it, but Eun-jo grabs the jar out of his hands in frustration, knocking it to the ground.

Hyo-sun finds her brooding outside, and says, “Dad’s been trying to solve this his whole life; did you really think you could do it? You want to be a hero, don’t you? You want to show up with a new yeast and wow everyone, restarting the factory that my uncle stopped, so you can run around bragging to everyone, don’t you? I guess you’re not the hero.” She drives her victory home with pleasure—she scored a buyer with an order so big they don’t have the money to fill it. Eun-jo asks if that’s true. Hyo-sun: “Why? Does it make you angry that I got it done?” Okay, can there be some slapping now?

Meanwhile, Ki-hoon goes to Daddy Hong and asks to borrow some money. Dae-sung announces that he decided to turn the order down, and Ki-hoon tries to intervene that if it’s about the money…but Eun-jo says that it’s too late; she already took the order. Dae-sung tells her he doesn’t have the money to run the factory to fill such a large order, but Eun-jo says she’s amassed almost enough. She went from town elder to elder, and each of them gave her loans wholeheartedly, because of Dae-sung. Dae-sung is speechless, and Eun-jo has saved the day. Turns out you are the hero!

They reopen the factory, and then Eun-jo hits the books back at home. Dae-sung comes by to chat with her, and Eun-jo tries to figure out what went wrong with her yeast experiment. Dae-sung says he honestly doesn’t know. He takes a zen approach:

Dae-sung: “The wind, the water, the rice straws…the night dew does the job, so I really don’t know. But somewhere in the four corners you’re searching, the yeast you’re looking for is there. When you and your mother became my family, the taste of liquor was better. Really. The liquor became…deeper. That’s because of the yeast that followed you here. You and your mother carried the good yeast and brought it to me.”

Eun-jo asks if he means it, the implication that she and her mother were happy additions to this house, and he of course does. He looks at her expectantly and asks if she won’t call him “father,” just once. Oh, just do it, just once! You’re SO not going to, I know, but would it KILL you to throw the old man a bone? I know you want to!

He looks at her, hoping that she’ll open up, but she can’t do it. She says if he keeps asking her, she’ll have to get up and leave. Ha! You are an impenetrable wall of frost, but we’ll wear you down yet. Dae-sung gives up, thinking she doesn’t want to. So far from the truth. She so desperately wants to, to call him Dad and cling to his love and affection to fill her empty, empty soul. But she can’t. She can’t bring herself to bridge that gap because of her endless mother-guilt and fear of abandonment.

Kang-sook goes to meet Jang-sshi ajusshi one last time, to break things off with him for good. He doesn’t accept it at first, since this is hardly the first time she’s broken up with him, but this time she’s cold and calm. She says she’s going to pledge her loyalty to her husband, like a dog. Well THAT’S romantic. She puts the nail in the coffin by placing an envelope in front of him. He protests, but she tells him to wait till she leaves, then count it; if he can turn that amount of money down, then to come after her, and she’ll live with him. Geez, I wonder how much money! She’s not the type of woman to blow smoke up his piehole either, so I bet it’s a crap-ton. When he takes it out, it looks in the vicinity of thirty thousand dollars.

Kang-sook walks outside, then lingers for just a second, maybe hoping against hope that he runs after her…but he doesn’t. The world is as she suspected, and she is satisfied that the deed is done. She walks toward the street, landing right in front of Eun-jo, who is waiting for her. Yikes. The look on her face pretty much says it all:

Kang-sook starts explaining herself, unprompted: “No..no, that’s not it! It’s not!” Heh, guilty people always talk themselves into a corner. Eun-jo: “What isn’t it?” And she storms past Mom, who’s trying to get her to leave…and heads right for the coffee shop where Jang-sshi ajusshi awaits.

This wasn’t the most eventful episode, as it pretty much brought everyone back to an equilibrium after Episode 7’s hullabaloo. (Didn’t envy you this week, javabeans.) These are all pretty much things we knew about each character already, so not much in terms of revelation. That’s not to say each moment between characters isn’t enjoyable: I’d pretty much watch Eun-jo and Jung-woo weave baskets what with all the cuteness, and I’m happy if she’s even speaking to Ki-hoon, whether or not it’s in any way resembling civil.

Here’s the thing though…Dae-sung should have died. I know, it’s sacrilege. He’s the best, the perfect Dad, so pivotal as the one bedrock of sanity in Eun-jo’s life. But all of that dramatic tension that got built up in Episode 7, it just…petered out. And I feel like we’ve mined all the Dad-Eun-jo territory that’s necessary for her to grow up and be a good person. With him still around, it’s almost an excuse to stunt her growth and keep her closed off to the rest of the world. I feel like we need a jolt—something to send these characters off in new directions, otherwise I’m going to get really tired of the same circles we’re spinning, round and round. Either Ki-hoon needs to grow a pair and start his hostile takeover, or someone needs to be caught kissing in the wine cellar…pronto.


EPISODE 9 RECAP

Eun-jo faces her very guilty-looking mother, who has just emerged from the cafe after buying Jang ajusshi off. Ignoring Kang-sook’s offer to explain, Eun-jo storms into the cafe, glaring at every man in the place. Jang ajusshi had the sense to duck away when seeing Eun-jo’s approach, so Kang-sook can breathe a sigh of relief and Eun-jo finds no trace of him.

Out in the stairwell, Jang counts his payoff and tells himself, “Yeah, this is how low you are,” as though to comfort himself for taking the money. He heads down to leave… which is when Kang-sook and Eun-jo step out of the cafe and run right into him.

Kang-sook had been able to regain her cool after Eun-jo saw that nobody was inside the cafe, but now her eyes widen in shock. What do you suppose the chances are that Eun-jo will believe this is a coincidence?

Voiceover gives us a look into Ki-hoon’s thoughts as he enters Eun-jo’s room tentatively and looks around. He notes that there are no pink curtains, no fancy lipsticks, no frills for this 26-year-old young woman. No sign either of a ridiculous doll he might be able to laugh at.

He thinks back to how she smiled while watching Jung-woo dancing goofily for her, and narrates in that dull, bleak voice: “I thought she didn’t know how to smile… awful girl.”

He goes back to the room he shares with Jung-woo and sees that it’s empty. He wonders, “Where has this guy gone? Is he off making that awful girl laugh?” Jung-woo’s knapsack falls when Ki-hoon sits down, and Ki-hoon sees the childish message scrawled on the baseball bat: “Song Eun-jo is Han Jung-woo’s woman forever.”

Hyo-sun comes in to see Ki-hoon’s gaze fixated on the bat on the ground, and she reads the message. Aside from the fact that this reveals Jung-woo’s feelings, there is also the realization that Jung-woo and Eun-jo must go back a long while if he knew her as a Song rather than a Gu.

Ki-hoon puts the bag back and walks out, silent.

At this memory of the past, Hyo-sun goes into her old trunk of her mother’s things. Inside is the letter she’d never delivered to Eun-jo, which reads differently than the words we’d seen before about Ushuaia. Ki-hoon narrates the contents for us while he thinks back to the day he boarded the train and left:

Ki-hoon’s letter: “Will you hold onto me? If you hold me, I can stop here. Before I get on the train, hold me back, Eun-jo.”

Believing she received the letter and ignored it, Ki-hoon thinks that even though he knew Eun-jo was tough, “I didn’t know she would so simply ignore my earnest request to hold me back.”

Eun-jo et al relocate to an outdoor pavilion to have this conversation. Isn’t it funny how, while in the throes of anger and/or passion, characters still always make the time to relocate to scenic environs?

Kang-sook tells Eun-jo it’s all over, which Jang ajusshi confirms. Eun-jo asks if they’ve been seeing each other this whole time, and it’s hardly any consolation at all when Jang clarifies that there were three years in the middle when they didn’t see each other. After all, that proves that even if Kang-sook were to end it with him today, she may just end up back with him later.

Kang-sook recognizes that Eun-jo won’t believe her no matter what she says, not that Eun-jo has any reason to trust her words. Eun-jo asks her mother if she would believe herself when every word that comes out of her mouth is a lie, questioning whether her mother even knows how to be sincere in anything.

Eun-jo accuses her mother of making a fool of Dae-sung and thinking she’d gotten away with it. Kang-sook retorts that she paid Jang ajusshi off to get him to leave — giving someone money to leave means that you’ve made a decision. At least in her world, where money is always the final word.

At that, Jang levels a stare at her and puts the envelope back in her hand, saying he’ll get lost without taking the money. Like he’s not going to accept this version of himself after all, like he’s better than that. He tells her, “However low I may be, I know what shame is.”

Kang-sook prepares Dae-sung’s hanyak (Oriental medicine) for him, as she has been diligently doing daily. She expresses her concerns like a dutiful wife, but Dae-sung’s reaction is contained, as though her confession about using him for money has made him unable to pretend it away.

Dae-sung is planning to work late, but Eun-jo takes her mother aside to tell her — request, even — to take him home, because there has been a problem with the factory and she doesn’t want to upset him. In fact, it would be best to take him away on a vacation and keep him away from phones, because he’s not supposed to receive any emotional shock in his condition.

The issue is with their rice supplier, which has suddenly decided it cannot sell to them anymore, as they have sold their rice elsewhere. The factory cannot just switch to a different brand, because their product is advertised as solely using organic rice from this particular region.

Eun-jo handles this situation in her usual manner, which is to say badly — her first reaction is to go on the offense and attack the rice company director for breaching the contract with their company. The director points out that they’d never made a contract so he has broken no agreement. He doesn’t answer their question of who bought the rice instead.

He dismisses this meeting, but Hyo-sun steps in to try using her only (known) marketable skill, which is to pour on the cute act. She reminds the ajusshi that she used to come by as a little girl, and he used to buy her candies. Won’t he take a little time to just have one drink with them?

I don’t mean to disparage Hyo-sun’s tactic, because it’s certainly more diplomatic and if anything she’s much better than Eun-jo at managing (some might call it manipulating) people. You catch more flies with honey, and such as.

Hyo-sun drinks makgulli with the director, who has enough wine to turn his nose bright red and ease his stiff demeanor. Once his mood has been softened, Hyo-sun asks whom he sold the rice to. We don’t hear the answer but our characters do, and Eun-jo wants to spring into action immediately.

Ki-hoon argues against it — even if they go to the buyer right now, she’ll probably be confrontational like she was with this director. Hyo-sun wakes up from the backseat — is the timing by chance, or by design? — to ask groggily, “Oppa, I did good today, didn’t I?” He tells her she did.

Ki-hoon says he’ll take Hyo-sun tomorrow to meet with the rice buyer, which means this hurts on two levels for Eun-jo — he’s overruling her decision and also indicating that Hyo-sun is the better facilitator. Eun-jo protests, but Ki-hoon tells her, “She’s much more capable than you. You can’t open people’s hearts.”

His words take on a personal meaning — he’s definitely not just talking about the rice company ajusshi now — as he adds that she can’t figure anything out. His voice has a bitter edge.

Angered, Eun-jo orders Ki-hoon to pull over, then gets out of the car to walk. And Ki-hoon just drives on.

A little part of me dies (the part of me that stubbornly clings to the Eun-jo/Ki-hoon romantic pairing) when he leaves her there, even as a part of me appreciates that a character who makes a big gesture like this is not coddled for it. As with Hyo-sun earlier, by driving on, he forces her to own up to her move. If Eun-jo feels the teeniest twinge of surprise or disappointment — and I’m pretty certain she does — she’s not being honest about the motivation driving her action. Perhaps she wants him to come after her, and to push past her barriers like he used to do. But back then, he hadn’t felt wounded by her, as he does now.

When she finally gets home, Ki-hoon is waiting in front of the gate, with one question to ask: “Back then, before I left this house, why didn’t you come to the train station? Did you not get my letter?” Eun-jo doesn’t betray her shock, and answers evenly, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

He furrows his brow: “I wrote a letter asking you to come to the train station and gave it to Hyo-sun to give you. Did she… not give it to you?” Eun-jo stares with gaze averted, almost like she’s lost in her thoughts. But she answers, “I got it.”

What in the WHAT now?

Ki-hoon asks her if she really did, wanting confirmation. Eun-jo replies coldly that she can’t remember if she ripped it up or burned it, acting like it was unimportant enough to forget. Now his voice betrays his hurt as he asks, “You read it and still didn’t come?”

Now she looks at him wearing a smirk. A big, hateful smirk.

Eun-jo tells him in that taunting voice not to act pathetic, which is a bit like kicking a wounded puppy when it’s down. Ki-hoon has just opened up to you after all this solo brooding — good lord it’s taken long enough — and right away you lie? But even though she strives to sound cool, she gets more and more heated as she yells that she has nothing to give of the past, so don’t beg.

We know she’s acting in self-preservation but Ki-hoon doesn’t, and when they retreat to their own rooms, both are feeling pain over the exchange. Eun-jo seems stunned with her own words, falling to the floor and sobbing to herself.

And see… this is where Eun-jo loses me. Oh, I get why she did this, on a logical level. I just really hate that she did, and that the drama writer is taking her character in this direction. More on this later.

In the morning, Eun-jo glares at Hyo-sun with new anger, now knowing that she interfered with Ki-hoon’s letter.

Kang-sook takes Dae-sung away for a vacation and keeps him from calling the factory, assuring him that the kids will handle it.

Eun-jo waits impatiently for word from Ki-hoon and Hyo-sun, who are meeting with the people who bought the rice. When the call finally comes, the news is not good: they can’t buy the rice back, because the buyer paid triple the price. There’s no way they can match that.

Hyo-sun wants to tell her father, as this has grown too big to handle behind his back. Eun-jo disagrees violently but loses this fight, so Dae-sung gets the bad news and decides to head back to the factory. There’s a nice moment when Kang-sook grabs his arm as they walk, and Dae-sung tells her she doesn’t have to because he doesn’t want to feel like a patient. She answers that she’s not doing it because he’s a patient; she’s doing it because she wants to. For the first time since his big disillusionment, Dae-sung lets out a small smile, pleased to hear this.

Jung-woo plays with Jun-su while casting worried looks Eun-jo’s way, as she seems ready to burst with the tension. He brings her honey tea, lapsing into his country accent and talking in his lightly teasing way to get her to drink it.

He accompanies her to the bank to inquire into taking out a loan. She is told that the answer will come by the following morning.

Jung-woo tells her to use his money, reminding her of his savings that he had given to her — he’ll take responsibility for her life. She smiles; he’s so cute, and also so simple. When I was in elementary school, I remember my mother worrying over finances, and I offered up my piggybank savings — ever-so-magnanimously! — as though that would solve the grown-ups’ problems. I think my mom laughed at me too.

Although they haven’t gotten the loan yet, Hyo-sun disagrees strongly with taking that route. Eun-jo points out that the scandal over the spoiled makgulli was a huge blow, and if they don’t recover now, it’ll be even more difficult for them to bounce back.

It’s an odd sensation to have Hyo-sun be the voice of reason, as she takes issue with Eun-jo acting unilaterally without telling anyone, and demands what’ll happen if they can’t pay back the loan.
Eun-jo is convinced that they can get back on their feet if they overcome this hurdle, but Hyo-sun asks how she can know that.

Eun-jo loses me a little more as she asks her sister snidely, “If I know the answer, how come you don’t? How can you not know?” What, is she psychic?

Eun-jo reminds Hyo-sun that her father’s name is on the line, and Hyo-sun bursts out, “Don’t act like you’re thinking of my father!” She tells Eun-jo not to invoke her father’s name like she knows better than Hyo-sun what it means. Don’t be a hypocrite. She should just be honest and admit that she’s trying to increase her own role in the company. And if not, then declare that it’s not.

Okay, so that accusation of Eun-jo leveraging her position is a little unfair. These ladies are making it mighty hard to choose sides, which I suppose is the point. But it’s a kdrama! I must have sides! How else will I know which one to wish fiery death by volcano upon?

In response to Hyo-sun’s charges, Eun-jo asks, “How can you know my feelings that well when I don’t even know them myself? What are you so afraid of that you keep telling me to reveal my inner thoughts?” Is she afraid Eun-jo will supplant her? Or is she afraid Eun-jo will take everything and leave nothing for her?

I don’t think she’s too far off from the truth — even if it’s not something Hyo-sun is willing to admit aloud, or even to herself — and Hyo-sun’s face takes on a defensive expression. Eun-jo declares that even if she were harboring secret intentions, she’d never reveal them to Hyo-sun, who is “childish and horrible.” Caustically, she adds, “The fact that I’m letting you off this easy is because you’re your father’s daughter.”

This whole argument has been heated, but Hyo-sun takes particular offense at this and ups the temperature even more. She grasps Eun-jo’s arm tightly and orders her to repeat herself. She’s childish and horrible?

Eun-jo bites out that she is — even thinking about the horrible consequences of that very childishness is enough to drive her crazy. Cryptic words belie untold truths here, and Hyo-sun demands to know what she’s referring to. Eun-jo asks Hyo-sun if she really wants to know, if it’s something she won’t regret, already smirking in anticipation of her reaction.

Eun-jo says, “His letter. Why did you hide it and not give it to me?” Hyo-sun swallows, the only hint that she understood the question. With barely contained contempt, Eun-jo continues, “It’s disgusting for me to even stand next to you, who have made me finally say these words, but the reason I’m letting it slide isn’t because of you, but because you are your father’s daughter.”

Eun-jo considers this the end to their little chat, but Hyo-sun’s not done yet and holds her back. Shrewdly, she asks, if Eun-jo is referring to hiding Ki-hoon’s letter as evidence of Hyo-sun’s “childishness,” then what exactly were those “horrible consequences”?

Hyo-sun and Eun-jo both know what the answer is — that her separation from Ki-hoon hurt her more than she wants to admit. Eun-jo would rather cut off an appendage than bare her soul to Hyo-sun, but can’t back down from this challenge. She starts to reply, “The first time that I ever, in my life…”

But that’s too earnest and Eun-jo lets fall a tear. She cuts herself off and says that it won’t change things now; she refuses to be “the main character in the story of step-sisters fighting over one man.” She adds, “I’ve stepped out of that story a long, long time ago. I won’t step back in.”

But now it’s her turn to grab Hyo-sun close, and Eun-jo taunts: “You’ll have to be careful. He seems like he hasn’t been able to forget me. Isn’t that interesting?”

Eek, shivers. This scene made me think that it must be challenging for these two actresses to fake hatred so well, or wonder if a tiny bit of their characters’ antipathy must inevitably seep into real life.

Ki-hoon reports to his father on the health of Dae-sung’s company, deeming it likely to spring back soon. He explains that there is an employee, Eun-jo, who is working on developing a new type of yeast, and as she is determined and smart, it will only be a matter of time before she succeeds. That yeast will be a crucial part of the company, and they must claim that as well.

The one sign that Ki-hoon isn’t as heartless about his takeover as he might otherwise appear is in how he loses himself in thought when talking about Eun-jo, letting out a bitter comment about how she’s so persistent.

He asks his father to find out who bought up the rice, and asks him to fund loans to the company, “Since it’s ours anyway.”

(He’s a double agent, for sure — but for which side? If only he would TALK MORE.)

With his father’s loan (offered through a bank, so the Gu family doesn’t know it’s coming from Hong Ju), Dae-sung is able to purchase the rice and production resumes. The family sighs in relief for the moment.

(Re: the above screencap: I give Hyo-sun full credit for loving her father genuinely, but I don’t think that precludes her from knowing that it can also be a tool to use against Eun-jo. She wields Dae-sung’s love like a weapon.)

Eun-jo wants to hurry back to her lab, but Dae-sung asks her to eat with them. She declines, so Hyo-sun asks her in a sweet voice, keeping up the ruse that they get along for Dae-sun’s benefit.

Under their breaths, however, they mutter to each other. Hyo-sun glares, saying that she won’t stand to see her father being hurt if Eun-jo goes off like this: “I won’t let you go. Eat and go, you bitch.”

(Language note: Ki-hoon often calls Eun-jo “나쁜 계집애” which I have been translating as “you awful girl.” Given his intonation and context, he means it half-bitterly, half-affectionately, so it doesn’t have much sting. Hyo-sun uses the same term here but with spite, which elevates the slur from a mere “awful girl” to “bitch.” In Korean, some words can be turned into swears by their context, and this is one case.)

Dae-sung is in a good mood at lunch, drinking freely. Eun-jo tells him to stop drinking and takes the cup from him, then invites Hyo-sun to drink. She makes the offer with the air of a challenge, and Hyo-sun drinks, then pours a cup for Eun-jo in return. They go back and forth, and the exchange fills the air with tension, particularly when Hyo-sun instructs Ki-hoon to take her father home; she’s got some drinking to do with sister dearest.

Ki-hoon reminds Hyo-sun that Eun-jo can’t drink much, and if anything is likely to goad Eun-jo on, it’s sympathy (over a perceived weakness, to boot).

Some time later, both sisters are drunk. Hyo-sun asks, “Won’t you leave our house?” Her tone is plaintive rather than angry, and Hyo-sun says things like “I hate you to death” in the voice of a child who is upset not to have gotten her way. Eun-jo reminds her that she used to say she liked her to death, and followed her around, which Hyo-sun denies.

Hyo-sun asks again, seriously, for Eun-jo to leave, offering up her old apartment in Seoul. Eun-jo could get a job anywhere with her skills, and if not, Hyo-sun can even send her money. She finds the sight of Eun-jo’s face horrible, which is a sentiment Eun-jo returns.

But Eun-jo says no. Did she just think she’d agree? It was Hyo-sun who wanted to get this sister showdown going and see who won — does she suddenly feel like she’s going to lose? Eun-jo warns, “If you keep this up, I’m really going to steal everything from you.” She’ll take the company, her father, and “him.”

Hyo-sun says, “That was the truth from the beginning.” (Like Eun-jo wanted to prove that Teenage Hyo-sun was no sweetheart, Hyo-sun wants to prove that Adult Eun-jo isn’t a hardworking darling.)

Hyo-sun calls her Song Eun-jo, but Eun-jo corrects her — she’s a Gu now. She adds that even if her last name isn’t a big deal, the fact that Hyo-sun keeps picking at those things makes her want to retort, “Oh, yeah? Then shall I see how much I really CAN take from you?”

They both stagger out of the restaurant in little drunken zigzags, which is mildly hilarious. Even though she’s drunk (or perhaps because of it), Hyo-sun follows her big sis. Old habits die hard. The pair look like two whirly tops making their dizzy way across the floor, all the way to the laboratory.

Hyo-sun passes first, slumping on the floor. Eun-jo tries to pull her off the ground, but falls over and ends up passing out on her sister’s shoulder.

By nighttime, Dae-sung is worried to death about the missing girls and orders the boys to find them. A phone call from Japan spins his worries in another direction, however, with puzzling and unfortunate news: The boat carrying their makgulli shipment to Japan arrived, but somehow their product has not.

Ki-hoon is about to check with the Japanese office, but Dae-sung tells him that there is no such office. He reels from the shock.

It turns out all their business documents were faked. Ki-hoon suspects his father, but President Hong tells him that it was Ki-jung. Hong hadn’t known about it, and has just found out the truth himself.

So Ki-hoon calls Big Bro, asking if that’s how badly he wanted to have the company. He didn’t think Hong Ju would stoop this low — this is cheap back-alley stuff.

And just as he levels these charges against him, he becomes aware of a presence in the room. Dae-sung stands behind him, having heard the whole thing.

Dae-sung asks, angry in his quietly dignified way, “This is your family’s doing?”

Ki-hoon had hung up the call when realizing Dae-sung’s presence, and now the phone rings. Dae-sung picks up to hear Ki-jung launching into a diatribe against his brother, acknowledging that Ki-hoon one-upped him with the rice deal, using Dad’s money to buy it back. He concedes one round to his father and brother, but warns that Ki-hoon had better not relax — how long does he think he can hold out?

Ki-hoon has been standing stock-still during this call, as though awaiting Dae-sung’s judgment. And when it comes, it’s harsher than he was hoping for. Dae-sung says, with difficulty, “How could you do this to me?”

Ki-hoon is stricken to have Dae-sung believe the worst of him — however true the imputation, he never meant it in this way, and perhaps he had convinced himself that his motives were pure and therefore his takeover scheme justified.

But he doesn’t get a chance to defend himself, as Dae-sung collapses.

Jung-woo races to the lab, where he rouses the two sleeping sisters. They run to the hospital, arriving just behind Kang-sook. Ki-hoon has been there from the start, but he feels so wretched that he just stands in the back, numb with shock.

The doctor confirms Dae-sung’s death, but Kang-sook does not accept this and calls out to her husband, preventing the doctor from drawing up the bedsheet to cover his face.

Not getting a response, Kang-sook directs Hyo-sun to shake him, to “make him not sleep.”

Trembling, Hyo-sun calls out to her father. At first tentative, her cries grow heartbroken as she realizes that he’s not going to wake.

Eun-jo stands in shock, recalling all the moments Dae-sung reached out to her, and how he had asked her to call him Dad.

When Hyo-sun breaks down over her father’s body, Kang-sook tries to pull her away from the body. Still in denial, she tells her to be quiet, like Hyo-sun’s grief makes this real. But as she screams for quiet, the truth starts to sink in with her, too.

Jung-woo puts a consoling arm on Eun-jo’s shoulder, but she hardly even notices.

All the while, Ki-hoon watches, frozen in guilt, with his face half-obscured by the wall like he wants to go hide but can’t pull himself away, either. He narrates in a desolate voice:

Ki-hoon’s narration: “I did this. In one morning, I stole away the father of those beautiful girls. I swear to god, I didn’t mean to do this.”

Numbly, Eun-jo turns and walks away. She walks down the darkened stairwell, where she sinks onto a step and starts to cry. Thinking of how Dae-sung had asked her to call him “abeoji” (father), she starts to sob, trying to utter those words that come so easily to Hyo-sun, “A… a…”


COMMENTS

Ever since Hyo-sun started with the voiceovers, I’d been expecting them from the other characters. The fact that they waited till now to give us Ki-hoon’s side of the narrative coin shows a confidence in their pacing — it’s a slow burn, not a race to the finish, which suits this drama. I just hope they’ve got enough left in the tank to make it to the end.

I fear I may be in the minority, but I’ll voice this unpopular opinion:

I am starting to not like any of these characters, except for perhaps Jung-woo, but that’s not really a sterling recommendation since he is so shallowly written as to be necessarily benign. There are aspects I like about everyone, but I need more to go on in order to counter the nastiness that is emerging. The strife does spice things up, but it becomes problematic when the characters’ flaws create frustrating narrative obstacles that are, in my opinion, frustrating for the sake of being frustrating.

Example? Eun-jo lying about never getting Ki-hoon’s letter.

Yes, I can see why she lied. I can even offer a half-convincing argument defending her choice, because she was so pained by the loss of Ki-hoon eight years ago that she cannot bear to re-open that wound. That’s not too far off from her typical M.O., which is to cut her losses and run. Better to cauterize that sucker and walk around with a huge scar than to risk greater injury, even if that way lies potential happiness. In her world, the odds aren’t in her favor anyway and she doesn’t know she’s the heroine of the story so she’s better off, right? Her reaction after she retreats to the safety of her room is one of shock — like the news is just sinking in. This suggests that she’d tossed out her cruel words in a numbed daze, throwing up all of her defenses hurriedly without letting the hurt have a chance to seep in or reveal itself.

So yes, I get it. Still, I’m tired of it. Eun-jo’s traumas have been excellently portrayed by Moon Geun-young, who has done as much as she can to sympathize the character. But her constant pride and anger are starting to make her — dare I say? — predictable. And with predictable comes boring. At some point you sorta want to tell a person that a miserable past is too bad and all, but when are you going to suck it up and move on? You know how it’s tiresome to listen that guy who’s been burned by a girl announcing that all girls are therefore evil/bitches/slut-ho’s? One bad person — or two, or three — doesn’t poison all of mankind. I know, I know, Kang-sook is a toxic presence and Hyo-sun’s a brat, and it’s haaaard, wah wah.

This doesn’t mean I dislike the drama. I just find it perplexing to watch at this point because I have nobody to root for, nobody to hope gets his/her act together.

I can see how some viewers may consider this ambiguity a positive thing, but on some basic level I need to find my characters relatable and/or enjoyable. One or the other will suffice, though both is preferable. This is a good drama, but it’s still a drama with a conventional storytelling format, and that necessitates protagonist-antagonist conflict. When it’s just antagonist-antagonist, it gets a bit painful to watch and I start to check out.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not jumping off this train. But if things continue in this vein, I’ll be watching Cinderella’s Sister for the entertainment value and virtuoso acting, but not so much for the heart-tugging emotion. Dae-sung’s death left me cold, and if I couldn’t cry at HIS death, then what hope have I for the rest of the much-less-likable cast? (Of course, this could be because his death was spoiled multiple times in the comments of the previous recap, which does tend to suck all the fun out of a big event.)

(I can’t wait to see if girlfriday disagrees with me! THAT ought to make for an interesting recapping one-two punch, eh?)

EPISODE 10 RECAP

Eun-jo is busy fielding work calls, even in her mourning clothes. She’s got the thousand-yard stare going on, grasping at anything work-related to keep her busy, and her mind off of reality. Jung-woo tries to get her back in touch with the present—they’ve got a funeral to attend, but she’s clearly not mentally with us.

At the funeral, Jun-su and Kang-sook stand vigil, as Jun-su bows to all the mourners. (In Korea the patriarchal system is very rigid for ceremonies like funerals. The eldest son is the chief mourner, who stands by the deceased night and day for three days, while daughters are relegated to the background, which is why neither daughter is standing here.)

Jun-su is confused, as a child of his age should be, while Kang-sook is genuinely upset. That is, until Auntie Shaman/Priest shows up, out-mourning her, and oh my goodness, are we really going this route for the funeral? To the funny place? I did not expect to be laughing…

But here we are. Kang-sook throws herself onto Dae-sung’s aunt, not to be outdone at her own husband’s funeral. She flails about, half-choking the poor woman, who in return can’t get free from Kang-sook fast enough. They wail side by side, still hating each other, and it’s funny because the whole funeral’s got this dark comedy bent to it, with the wife who’s more concerned with keeping up appearances, and the son who just looks at everyone quizzically.

In Hyo-sun’s room, things aren’t quite so light. She drinks straight out of a large makgulli jar, trying desperately to get drunk. Ki-hoon watches her from a distance, then finally intervenes to try and stop her from drinking anymore. She spits out: “You won’t let me lean on you! Why are you taking away my liquor?!” Damn straight!

Hyo-sun tells him to get out and take Eun-jo with him, blaming her for pushing the deal and causing Dae-sung’s heart attack. Ki-hoon’s heart breaks as he thinks to himself in voiceover: “It wasn’t Eun-jo. It was me. I did that.” But he can’t bring himself to say it, of course. Hyo-sun lashes her hurt towards Eun-jo, as Ki-hoon embraces her, saying, “Let’s send ajusshi off well.” She cries out: “I can’t do that. How? To where? How can you send him off, oppa?” Oouff. I feel like someone punched me in the gut.

Eun-jo and Jung-woo make their way to the funeral, but she can’t bring herself to face it. She turns back around, making excuses about work…but Jung-woo grabs her by the arm, saying, “Noona, get it together!” Love this kid. And here their dynamic has a pronounced shift, if even for a tiny moment. Eun-jo is the vulnerable child, not knowing how to deal, and Jung-woo tells her what she needs to do, every step of the way.

He appeals to her family pride, saying that Gu Dae-sung’s funeral is a mess, which works to give her something to focus on (she’s a taskmaster at heart) and keep her tethered to reality. It also forces her to say the words: “Gu Dae-sung” and “funeral,” letting the truth sink in.

He asks one last time if she’s got it together, and then smoothes the hair out of her face. It’s a touching gesture because he’s calling her noona, but acting like the oppa here, and he’s looking for nothing in return but the chance to be there for her. She looks up at him, but says nothing. She braces herself, and walks inside.

Presumably days after the funeral, Ki-hoon goes to see big brother, and in turn doles out some of the blame onto him. Not all of it, mind you—he still feels very much the one responsible for Dae-sung’s death, but he’s come to tell Ki-jung that his plan was just to stop Ki-jung from acquiring Dae-sung Co., not take it for himself. He knows no one will believe him now, but his plan was to give it back once he had gotten it. Uh…then what’s all that with your father? And does that mean you’re not in hostile takeover mode anymore? Because I don’t think that’s the case…

Ki-hoon then switches gears to blame Ki-jung for his own mother’s death. Wait. Daddy Hong told you that Ki-jung, who at the time was also just a child, made your mother run (when she wasn’t supposed to), causing her to die? Who would blame a child for that? Not that Ki-jung isn’t a baddie now, but how can you hold him responsible when he was just a child? Daddy Hong might be the devil.

But now Ki-hoon knows what that feels like—because in trying to keep Ki-jung from getting what he wanted, he caused the death of a man. He says that he won’t forgive Ki-jung or himself: “Now I really can’t ever go back to who I was before.” Oh dear. I know I’m not the only one who was hoping you’d drop the corporate espionage and black suits and go back to the flannel-shirt-wearing oppa who used to jabber on about your favorite artists. Is he dead now?

Ki-hoon challenges his brother that Dae-sung Co. won’t die like this—it’ll survive, and he’ll ensure that Ki-jung never gets his hands on it. It’s basically like, thank you for the wake-up call; now you’ve awoken a monster. Ki-jung asks what he’ll do if he doesn’t lay off. Ki-hoon: “I’ll take you down with me…and we’ll die together.”

At home, Kang-sook is in the throes of schizophrenic grief. One second she’s rifling through her bank statements and marriage papers, in fear that it’ll all disappear, and then the next second she’s in tears thinking of Dae-sung and feeling all alone.

Eun-jo meets with the town elders who had lent money, and tells them that half the shipment to Japan was sold to another buyer, while the rest got shipped back, and half of that turned into rice wine vinegar, while the rest…she drank. Haha! No one laughs at her joke, not knowing that she’s ever said a humorous thing in her life (this may be the first).

They get upset when she tells them they won’t be paid back right away. She tries to assure them it won’t be too much longer, but they worry what Dae-sung Co. will be without Dae-sung, especially since the whole brand’s distinction is its particular taste, which is something only Dae-sung could produce. Eun-jo tells them that they’ve graduated from lenders to shareholders—now they’ll own a part of the company and reap profits when the company turns back around.

Jun-su has been running from room to room, looking for someone to play with him, and wakes up Hyo-sun. She’s not in the mood to play with him either, until he says: “Big noona doesn’t play with Jun-su. Little noona plays with Jun-su a little. Mommy doesn’t play with Jun-su a little. Daddy plays with Jun-su a lot. When’s Daddy coming home? Why isn’t Daddy coming home?” Aaaack! I think that kid just sporked my heart out. Is there anything sadder? Hyo-sun hugs him close, and agrees to play with him.

On their way out, they run into Eun-jo, and the three of them go down to the river together. Hyo-sun sits down next to Eun-jo and says: “I was under the impression that you honestly liked my dad. But you didn’t cry. Everyone from the cooks to the day laborers…there wasn’t one of them who didn’t cry.” She asks again whether she ever had true feelings towards her father. Eun-jo of course doesn’t answer, aggravating Hyo-sun even more.

Hyo-sun basically blames her for Dad’s death, while Eun-jo goes on the defensive, asking what she’s supposed to do about it. Hyo-sun cries out: “Bring my Dad back!” She slumps down in tears, and Eun-jo’s cold façade starts to crack, as she tears up.

And then Hyo-sun reaches out to her halfway. She gets down in front of Eun-jo, leaning her head on Eun-jo’s knees, saying: “I’m scared, unni ya. I’m scared to death. I feel like I’m standing outside with no clothes on. I’m cold, and I’m scared.” Eun-jo reaches out her hand…oh, she’s not going to do it. There’s no way. No way. Oh my god, she does it!

She pets Hyo-sun on the head, sweetly telling her that it’s going to be okay. She calls her by name, “Hyo-sun ah,” which we know is something she almost never does. She holds her, gently comforting her, and letting her own tears fall as she tells her not to cry. It’s heartbreaking, earth-shattering, and such a tiny ripple too.

I can’t believe it. A breakthrough of monumental proportions…

…and then? They take it all away. NO! I KNEW IT! Gah, why so cruel, Show? Must thou see me dead and bloodied to be satisfied?

It’s all in Eun-jo’s mind, as her hand stops above Hyo-sun’s head, hovering there in the vast space between two sisters, at once an ocean and an inch.

She gathers herself, then pushes Hyo-sun off of her, screaming at her to stop her crying. And here’s where I’ll be in the minority: my heart breaks for Eun-jo in this moment, because it’s such a tragic juxtaposition between what she could be, and what she is. I sort of hate you, Show, for making me experience it, but I love it nonetheless. Like I’ve said before, I’m kind of a tv masochist.

Eun-jo rips into Hyo-sun for crying all day, every day, when there’s so much that needs to be done to try and save the company. Hyo-sun, still on the ground, asks quietly, “Can’t you comfort me, just once? I’m so scared and lonely. Couldn’t you show me a little affection? I think I’d be less frightened.” Oh, you poor lonely girl. I wish that for you so much.

She looks up at Eun-jo, desperate for a tiny morsel of love and affection. But Eun-jo already has her needles raised, in full-porcupine mode. She shouts: “I’m sick and tired of your childish whining! Stop it!” And she turns and walks away.

Little Jun-su, who sees this interaction, runs up behind Eun-jo and throws a rock at her, shouting, “Evil hag-witch! I’m gonna tell Daddy on you!” Eun-jo pauses at the mention of Dad, but keeps on walking.

Eun-jo goes to check on the workers at the winery and finds them all sitting around. She asks them why they’re not working, to which they pretty much say: what’s the point? Eun-jo lays into them, saying that they’ve always been paid, even in the hardest of times, and that they need to keep working. She overreacts, as she usually does, shouting at them to quit if they’re going to be like this. But in the middle of her rant, Dae-sung’s hand comes to rest on her shoulder, calming her down. In that one gesture, she remembers all the times he comforted her all these years, and what his hand on her shoulder meant to such a girl who never had a home or a father.

Out of her reverie, Eun-jo turns around, and sees that it’s Ki-hoon’s hand. Oh, I sincerely hope this is symbolic of the place he will start to take in Eun-jo’s heart because I’m over the petty letter-lying and such.

In her office, Ki-hoon tells her calmly that she needs to take a different approach with the workers. (And with people in general, ha.) He also offers another company’s story as a model for their company’s problems, and assigns Eun-jo to do a write-up about it as a contributing article, for a magazine, I’m assuming. Oh, he’s assigning her homework! Are we going back to the tutoring days?

The winery workers interrupt them, saying they quit, mainly because their egos are wounded by Eun-jo’s lack of respect and all that. Yeah, I know she’s not a people-person and I’d be pissed if my boss yelled at me like that, but be a grown-ass man and consider she’s a young woman who just lost her father. Were your tiny feelings hurt, wittle guy?

Hyo-sun and Jun-su come home, and Mom has a freak out at Hyo-sun for not telling her where they went, and keeping Jun-su out when he has a cold. Hyo-sun doesn’t understand why she’s suddenly being treated so coldly, while we all know—Kang-sook has finally dropped the nicey-nice mom act. And this? Can I tell you…is the ONLY major plot point in the entire episode. Mythology-wise, this is a biggie, as Kang-sook becomes the evil stepmother and Hyo-sun becomes Cinderella, as it were. But it’s kind of the only thing that happens, which you’ll hear me gripe about below.

Kang-sook has her own gripe session with the gods (or as we might find out later, her other personalities) about ending up a widow with but a hundred thousand dollars to her name. Well eight years ago that would’ve meant a whole lot more, before you became the wife of someone with status. Hyo-sun interrupts her to apologize, desperately trying to get back in Mom’s good graces. Her only mode of relating to people is: to be loved, or not to be loved, and this is vexing her sorely.

Mom shakes her off violently, saying she hates her sticky pawing. It dawns on Hyo-sun that Mom might not be mad at her…that this is just how she really feels. She’s been so blinded by her desire for a mother and Kang-sook’s well-honed act, that this is actually a revelation for her. She realizes that she’s all alone in the world. Now that Dad’s gone no one’s in her corner, and her home just became foreign soil.

She lingers in Eun-jo’s doorway for a moment, wishing that her sister would reach out to her, just once. But she’s been hurt too many times to try going down that road again, especially in one day. She looks next for Ki-hoon, who is busy trying to win back the workers with a little drink.

The next morning solidifies what she’s been feeling: Mom dotes on Jun-su and gives pieces of fish to him and Eun-jo, Eun-jo buries her head in work, and Hyo-sun gets squarely ignored.

Ki-hoon looks over Eun-jo’s article, criticizing it openly. But that’s good, because it gives them something else to be mad about than just being mad at each other over their broken hearts…FOREVER. Ki-hoon tells her to rewrite it and to apologize to the winery workers, which she of course refuses to do. She says they can just quit then, while Ki-hoon challenges her to try and find anyone else who’s devoted twenty years to Dae-sung Co. and has as much experience.

Ki-hoon goes to the winery to find Daddy Hong in the cellar, looking over the battlefield thinking he’s won the spoils. Ki-hoon is quick to tell him it’s not his place to be here. Au contraire, son. Daddy Hong fronted Daesung Co. all the money it needed to get back on its feet, so now it belongs to him. He’d like his money back, or he’ll be taking over, thank you very much. Ki-hoon is taken aback by his father’s brazenness (what, are we surprised?) and realizes that now Daddy Hong is as much the enemy.

Ki-hoon tries to reason with him and ask for more time, but Daddy Hong feels like Ki-hoon’s turned his back on him, so he’ll collect the money and cut his losses, or just take over Dae-sung Co. in his stead. Ki-hoon fills the girls in on the issue (without mentioning that it’s his own father, of course), and tells them he’ll figure out a way around it. Eun-jo digs a knife in: “Why would you care? What are you, to us?” She’s basically challenging what his loyalty is to the family, now that Dae-sung is gone. It’s a question I’d like to know the answer to, but only because I know of his backdoor family dealings, and Dae-sung Co.’s place as the pawn in all of it. But Eun-jo is pretty much out of line here, and Hyo-sun tells her as much.

Eun-jo goes straight to Mom, demanding all of the money that she’s squirreled away all these years. Mom denies having any, which Eun-jo knows is a damn lie. There’s no way in Hades she hasn’t got a small fortune to her name, what with all that Dae-sung had, and she shouts at her to hand it over. Mom tells her she’s crazy: even if she had any money, she’s got to think of how to feed herself, Eun-jo, and Jun-su in the future, not hand it over to a failing company. “It’s the money I traded for my dirty fate in life. What right do you have to tell me to hand it over? I won’t give it. I can’t!” She shakes Eun-jo off and storms out…

…Running right into Hyo-sun, who’s been listening the whole time. Kang-sook betrays a moment of shock, but then realizes that she’s got nothing to be afraid of anymore. It’s a nice little beat that plays across her face in an instant.

Hyo-sun looks hurt and utterly betrayed. This is a truth we, even Dae-sung, have all known about Kang-sook, but she has not been privy to. She comes in to ask Eun-jo, even still with a little hope wavering in her voice: “Is that how it was? Mom…is that how she was? It’s a lie, right? I heard it wrong, right?” So sad that she just wants someone to lie to her and keep her worldview from shattering.

Kang-sook kicks it into high gear and begins her tirade as evil stepmother. She fires the kitchen staff, the two nice ajummas who have been working for the family their entire lives. They quiver in fear and plead, but she kicks them out of the house without an ounce of sympathy.

Hyo-sun chases after them in tears, and Eun-jo sees what her mother has done. Hyo-sun kneels before Mom and pleads with her that the ajummas aren’t just workers; they’re family to her. Kang-sook just looks down at her coldly, saying: “Then follow them. You say she’s like your mom; then go follow your mom.” Damn. Ice, ice, baby.

Hyo-sun asks why Mom is being like this all of a sudden. Mom’s like, time to grow up, princess. She yells at her to get out, and Hyo-sun cries her heart out down the halls of the empty house.

Eun-jo comes into her room to give her the only kind of comfort she knows how: she’s moved the ajummas over to the winery, since she needs workers there. Aw. Are you really just a marshmallow? I sense something soft and fluffy under the glaciers! Eun-jo even makes a small fist with her hand, mimicking her movement to try and comfort Hyo-sun earlier, but again she just pulls back and walks away.

Hyo-sun asks her unni why Mom is like this, all of a sudden. Eun-jo disabuses her of any delusions she might have about her mother.

Eun-jo: You are not the princess of this house anymore. If you make a wrong move, you might get kicked out on your bare feet. My mom? Can do that and then some. You think she won’t? My mother? Get it together, Gu Hyo-sun. I’m begging you. Get it together and be smart, for god sakes. Stop crying like an idiot. Find a way to live by your wits in this house where no one will take your side! You got it?

I know it’s no hugs or teddy bears, but it’s a heartfelt plea from Eun-jo, who wants to see her sister be a stronger person and fend for herself. Obviously, it’s like the blind leading the blind as far as her own emotional growth is concerned, but hey, she’s not wrong about her mom here. She yells at Hyo-sun to get up.

Kang-sook continues her reign of terror, kicking out Hyo-sun’s uncle next. Who didn’t see THAT coming? She tells him he’s got balls, living off of her when he’s the one who killed Dae-sung, and when he goes, “What?” She answers with her own hilarious version of: what’s what in the what now? Ha.

Jung-woo is eager to give Eun-jo a shiny bauble that he bought for her, but she’s too busy with Hyo-sun to notice him. Ki-hoon calls his father because he’s come up with a solution: he’ll just sell his stock in Hong Ju to repay the loan; how ’bout that? Well played, Ki-hoon. Daddy Hong freaks out, and Ki-hoon knows he’s won this round.

But now there’s another kink, as Jung-woo has heard the conversation. He asks if Ki-hoon is affiliated with Hong Ju, which Ki-hoon denies vehemently. But Jung-woo’s antennae are up and he knows there’s something not right here.

Eun-jo leads Hyo-sun to the makgulli cellar, asking her to taste from a jar. Hyo-sun does, not knowing what this is all about. Eun-jo asks her whose liquor that is, and Hyo-sun replies that it’s Dad’s, of course. And Eun-jo, stunned, asks if she’s sure. Turns out she’s made it, and she was able to faithfully recreate the taste.

Both sisters are stunned. Eun-jo turns to the jar, repeating over and over: “I…I did it. I didn’t think I could…I thought I wouldn’t be able to…” She shakes, tears brimming in her eyes. Okay, I suppose this is the one other thing that happens in this episode. But did anyone doubt this would come to pass?

Eun-jo, rather than sharing a nice moment with her sister, uses it to challenge her in her usual bristly manner. She says this is going to be the new hope for Dae-sung Co. What will Hyo-sun do to stake her claim and keep Eun-jo from taking it all? Would it kill you to show her ONE tear? Just one teensy one? I know, it would. Gah.

She lays down the gauntlet: “My mother is no joke, and I’m my mother’s daughter. I might even surpass her. I’m a lot smarter than her, you see. Don’t get burned. Even if you do, I won’t save you. You’ve been warned.” Oh, snap. It’s ON, bitch!

Eun-jo hugs the makgulli jar tight and walks out. Jung-woo tries to tell her about Ki-hoon, but she tells him not to follow her. And in a nice lyrical moment, Eun-jo walks through the compound with the jar, going from empty space to empty space, sending Dae-sung off in her own way.

She ends up in his office, placing his picture next to the jar, and putting a bowl of makgulli in front of him. (Offering alcohol to the deceased is a common practice in Korea, but here the meaning is twofold because it’s also an offering of the makgulli she’s made to save the company.) She tells him that she’s gone over it a thousand times, how she could have done things differently for it to not end up this way. Suffice it to say, she blames herself as much as Hyo-sun blames her.

She offers the makgulli to him, saying that she made it. “Hyo-sun said it tastes the same, but I want to be praised by you…” And then, she strains with the first few syllables of “Father,” the thing she couldn’t bring herself to call him when he was alive: “Ah….Ah…Ah…beo…” Tears fall as she searches for the word, and then it comes out: “Daddy.” Ack! Stab. (Appa can be Dad or Daddy, but coming out of Eun-jo’s mouth, consider it the difference between calling your dad “sir,” and then “daddy.”) I knew she would never say “Father” when Dae-sung was alive, and I knew she’d finally say it when it was too late, but I did NOT expect “Daddy” to come out of her blackened heart. She cries, pouring out her regret, asking for forgiveness, calling out: “Daddy, Daddy!” Dae-sung’s death didn’t move me very much, until this moment. Sniff.

The thing I’m struggling with in this episode and the last two, is that I saw all of the narrative elements coming, so the wind was already knocked out of them. This episode, while containing beautiful moments of reverie and sadness, are not at this show’s height of narrative tension, while, let’s be frank, at ten episodes in, it should be.

In response to javabeans’ comments on Episode 9: In general, as I mentioned above, I agree with her frustration in relation to the story, while disagreeing that it comes from the lack of finding anyone to root for. Does Eun-jo frustrate me? Hell yes, she does. When she lied about the letter I wanted to smack her to high heaven. Do I feel like the characters are stunted adolescents who need to grow up? Uh-huh. Do I hate the weenie that Ki-hoon has become? Yup.

But call it the power of the dark side, or whatever, but I’ve always been interested in villains. And in their own way, EVERYONE—Eun-jo, Hyo-sun, Ki-hoon, Kang-sook—is on the road to hell, paved with all manner of self-important good intentions. And while that makes for a much grayer scale on the wheel of morality, it also makes for delicious drama.

The problem? There’s so much drama to be mined that they’re not doing, because we’re still mired in the same one-two conflict between the sisters, and the as-yet-to-be-executed hostile takeover. Just do it already. I want things to move faster—twenty episodes is not an excuse to languish in pace. If I had to fill twenty episodes, I’d cram it full of so much story that moved so fast people got whiplash from it.

Because I feel like the current love story is between the two sisters, I don’t find too much fault with all of the tension and the snowballing angst between them. But just because Ki-hoon/Eun-jo/Jung-woo are the secondary romance, as it were, doesn’t mean that we should just let all the love fizzle out. Why hasn’t anyone been caught making out yet? I mean this in a narrative tension way, not that I don’t mind some smoochies, as you might know. I just want someone to DO SOMETHING. Something crazy. Involving lips would be better, but whatever.

I get why everyone’s guarding their hearts and being all, “I DON’T love you! Really!” But too much of that leads to…people staring at each other meaningfully…which is boring the seventieth time around. If we get one more episode where there is only ONE major plot point the entire hour…I’m going to start writing letters. Because just as javabeans gets angry about characters—I’m a plot-monger. If I feel like the train is at a standstill, I will get my ass off and walk home.

So put me down for both agree and disagree, because I think this show is doing something very interesting tonally (like the funeral, and other moments of oddball hilarity), and something awesome with characterization. The problem for me is that it’s moving at the pace of “It’s a Small World” when I want to be on “Space Mountain.”

As for all of the love/hate of Eun-jo out there…maybe for me, it comes down to this: I’ve been her, or some shade of her, in my youth. And while people say things like, “Eight years…get over it,” this kind of darkness isn’t something that gets washed clean with time—you have to learn to dig yourself up out of it. I think we’ve picked up with Eun-jo as she’s learning this, and for better or worse, she kind of stinks at it. But I love that she’s on this journey, as flawed and twisted as she is, and I would have been sorely disappointed if we had picked up with her eight years later and she was already a perfectly well-adjusted adult. Where’s the fun in that?