What a non-angsty episode 13! Enjoy it while it lasts because forces are aligning and change is afoot. It’s an episode about growing roots. (Not the hairy kind!)
Chul Soo tells Sang-shil he’ll come find her no matter where she goes or how far she goes. “What?” Sang-shil turns around to face him. He coolly walks past her and is about to get on the bus when she grabs his jacket and asks: “Why would you come to find me?”
He turns to look at her with this serious face and says: “Why do you think? To get my money back!” AgGGGGh!
Drama BLUE BALLS,
Drama BLUUEE BALLS,
Why ARE you torTUring us?
*to be sung to the melody of Smelly Cat*
Sang-shil scampers after Chul Soo inside the bus and sits next to him. He’s all blasé and so not interested in the conversation while she’s dying to knooow what he meant. “Come on out and SAY it!” she demands. Ha! Yes, SAY it, you back-pedaler. He passes her a long-suffering glance and orders her to move over to the opposite seat.
AHAHAH, she complies but sneakily steals glances at him while it’s his turn to sleep on the bus. “Does he really have only money on his mind?” she wonders. Her imagination kicks into gear.
Scenario 1:
Sang-shil rushes out of the house with a suitcase, ready to leave. Chul Soo runs after her and threatens to come looking for her. He rattles off all the expenses he incurred because of her: 100 bowls of jajangmyun, countless bottles of makgeulli, phone bills, bus fares etc etc. AHAHA. The same line that made me go *thud* is comic fodder now. Evil!
Scenario 2:
Sang-shil thinks that Chul Soo said those lines earlier like he wanted to tell her something more than just a threat to come collect his money! Yes! Anna-radar ON! This scene plays out straight. It’s the one Sang-shil wishes were true. She’s about to leave, and Chul Soo rushes out pleading her not to go because he wants her to stay.
Smug and thinking that this must be the real version, she thinks: “Finally he’s started to feel for me.” Hehehhe. Her smirky face.
She’s angry he can coolly sleep while she’s all stewed up. When he catches her watching him, she pretends to be fast asleep but Sang-shil can’t fool Chul Soo. He tells her to get off as their stop is here. Once out of the bus, when she starts pestering him to explain what he said earlier, he cuts her short.
“Yes, I’m going crazy, too,” he tells her as she listens, all eyes and ears. “I told a lie. Since then I haven’t been able to think clearly. It wouldn’t be fair to you if I just went with what I’m feeling right now.” Oh, here I thought all’s fair in love and war. “You don’t remember a thing. The way we fought like enemies… how you hated me… how we were so at odds.”
“So?” she doesn’t see his point. Ha!
“So…” he half-smiles as he places the palm of his hand on top of her head like a big brother would, heh. “Let’s wait until you get your memory back.”
Sang-shil still doesn’t see his point, hahahah. So she sums it up for the all of us: “So… you’re crazy about me, but you’re scared I might hate you once I recover my memory?” Ha.
He’s exasperated by her bluntness. He turns around to walk home with a “No beating around the bush with you.”
Ahahahahha! The gleeful look on Sang-shil’s face! In Sangshilandia, if love were a game, that’s the face of a winner. She struts up to Chul Soo and passes him by, saying: “Chul Soo, I feel sorry for you. I’ll soon forget you. Pwa ha ha.” Hehehehhe. He can only mutter, ”I’m the crazy one for liking someone like you.”
Tucked in her bed that night, Sang-shil thinks back to how scared Chul Soo looked when she said she’ll soon forget him. She suddenly grins and then giggles. Heheheheh. You, player, you. She covers her face with the blanket, blushing at the thought but then grows solemn as she thinks: “But still, I will have to leave at one point.”
Billy holds up the picture of Sang-shil smiling and compares her to Anna’s stern face. “Na Sang-shil is not Anna. Anna will come back. She’ll forget Na Sang-shil,” he says.
The next morning Sang-shil wakes up to some strange noises coming from the yard. She walks out to find the 3 kids jumping ropes with Chul Soo looking over their practice. The kids have a skipping competition at school. She tut tuts over their poor performance and grabs the littlest kid’s rope to try her hand at skipping. She sucks.
The kids run around Chul Soo and Sang-shil, and somehow Sang-shil gets tangled up in their rope and falls into Chul Soo’s arms. Ehheheh. How very contrived! The kids start a singsong-y chant: “Ajumma’s hugging samchoon!” ehhehe. Sang-shil’s flustered.
She thinks Chul Soo masterminded the entire thing and is mad at him. Chul Soo shows her how ridiculous her accusations sound and goes out for the day’s work. But, once outside, he gathers the kids and thanks them. Ahahhahah. He may not have masterminded the intricate rope hug, but he sure doesn’t mind that it happened. I find Oh Ji Ho’s smiley face adorable. Love this jacket and hoodie on him. Green suits him.
Sec Gong arranges a project for Chul Soo at a Busan resort. Chul Soo’s hesitant to take the job as Busan’s too far off and he has to be away from home for a week. But Sec Gong insists it has to be Chul Soo who takes this job.
Billy tucks Anna’s wedding ring into his coat pocket. He’s thinking of giving it back to her once Chul Soo’s out of the picture. He toys with Sang-shil’s phone and gets offended Chul Soo’s #1 on her speed dial.
Sang-shil calls just then and Billy accidentally answers the call. He’s forced to meet her to return the phone. Sang-shil agrees to feed him insta-jajangmyun so she takes Billy into the house. Little does he know that Kang-ja’s also in the house playing housekeeper. Muahhaha.
Billy’s so happy Anna’s cooking for him! Sang-shil orders Billy to cut onions while she cooks the noodles. We get a flashback to the past when Billy had asked the chef to take the day off so he could cook Anna a heartfelt meal. She’d mocked his effort and he was crushed. Aw. Now that we’re so familiar with Sang-shil, the flashbacks to the past with Anna make her seem crueler than before. Hm.
Billy cries at that pathetic memory and gets jolted when he hears Kang-ja ask from his side, “Why are you crying?” hehehhehe. “What are you doing here?” Billy blubbers. “Unni, I know him,” tattles Kang-ja. Billy’s so jumpy Kang-ja will let the cat out of the bag.
“Me and unni – friends. Ajussi and unni –” Billy interrupts, drawing attention to the now boiling pot of noodles. He touches the pot with his bare hands and burns them and jumps around in pain. Kang-ja and Sang-shil watch the Billy Circus. Kang-ja thinks ajussi’s dancing, and Sang-shil explains that he’s in pain. Heheh, poor Billy.
Now that he’s dropped the noodles, Sang-shil says he’s lost his share and he’s forced to say goodbye. Before he leaves the house, Anna’s ring quietly falls out of his coat pocket. Uh oh. That’s a prelude to a future dundun moment, I bet. It’s extra sad for Billy to hear Sang-shil offer the kids jajangmyun when they come home from school. Billy’s at his pathetic best in front of Anna/Sang-shil. To add to his misery, Kang-ja chases him all the way to his car, hehehehe.
Meanwhile, Yoo Kyung has found a job as a PR manager at the local resort. Uh oh. You see where this is going, don’t you?
And in another hysterical tangent: Sec Gong and noonim’s fledgling love gets nipped in the bud because, horror of horrors, they are related! Bwahahahhahahah. They find this out when they run into each other at a relative’s wedding. They are so distraught; it’s unfair that it’s so funny. That evening, Sec Gong tells Billy, “Love is very difficult.” Billy pats the lovelorn bald man.
Noonim ajumma (Is there such a term?) also shares her broken heart with Sang-shil over makgeulli. “Don’t open up too easily, Ms Na. It’s scary,” ajumma advises. I think she means how vulnerable you end up being when in love. “Love’s not easy. You’re at the mercy of fate,” she adds.
Sang-shil vows she’ll never love so fate can never play games with her. Huh. “I wish I was as strong as you. Stay just as you are now, even after you leave, okay?” ajumma asks Sang-shil. Ajumma sighs and says this is why Chul Soo didn’t build Sang-shil a room because she’ll soon be leaving. Sang-shil perks up at this, but ajumma continues: “Don’t leave your feelings behind once you leave. Make a clean cut.”
Saying she’s strong and has not grown attached to anyone, Sang-shil leaves. Right. That the next few scenes are a counterpoint to that insightless sentence is awesome.
Sang-shil’s huddled with the 3 kids boiling some gooey yellow stuff in a ladle. The thing caramelizes and hardens and the kids eat it like candy. Sang-shil advises them to bury the burnt ladles and the kids cackle and say it’s been fun having her around. Thinking she and the kids better not get used to this, Sang-shil cuts the Operation Caramel short, and leaves the kids to play alone.
She meets Kang-ja on the road. Kang-ja hands Sang-shil an invitation for a birthday party at her house. Sang-shil says she can’t come. “It never snows and now you’ll miss my birthday party too?” Kang-ja sulks.
Sang-shil forces herself to walk away from Kang-ja who just stands there, still, and watches Sang-shil walk away. Sang-shil turns around for a look at Kang-ja.
Suddenly, Sang-shil changes her mind and ruuuns towards Kang-ja. Tears. This is beautiful.
Sang-shil snatches the card from Kang-ja’s hand and says, “Not sure I’ll come but I’ll keep the card.”
“Oh, do come,” cajoles Kang-ja. “And please wear a dress. Should I lend you one? I have a dress with ribbons. And I have one with polka dots…” The two girls walk together. Cute.
Billy’s worried Anna’s changed. She now has friends; she even talks to kids. “I hope she didn’t get attached to them,” he says. He admits that she never opened up to him. He talks about the time when he first learned this: It was his first birthday with her and she wired money into his bank account as gift. When he pointed out how he expected a more heartfelt gift, she’d scoffed at his sentiments.
“Do you really want my heartfelt gift?” she’d asked. Because, in her past experience, each and every person she’d met was far happier to get money than any kind of heartfelt gesture from her. She’d then asked him not to expect too much from her. Ouch. “I could never get through to her. This scares me because she seems happy now.”
Sang-shil finds Chul Soo wind-proofing the living room windows when she gets home. Aw, isn’t he the sweetest. She finds that he rigged her sofa with heating pads and changed the upholstery. Woot! “You’re awesome, Chul Soo!” she tells him. “They call me the South Sea Mr. Do-it-all,” he puffs up. Ha!
She lies on the sofa and loves that it’s so warm and thinks, “I like it so much. I don’t want to leave.” Her eyes wander to where Chul Soo sits, fixing the windows, and she mutters, “It’s warm…what should I do?”
In an unexpected turn of events, Billy learns that Anna left her entire fortune to him – the only family she had!! He calls his lawyer to verify this and finds that she didn’t really change the initial will.
Billy was supposed to get the fortune a year after her death, but, due to some legal mumbo jumbo, he is eligible to get the fortune now. Billy wonders why she sent that CD saying he wouldn’t get the money without her alive. Sec Gong suggests it’s just like Anna to test him till the end. Sec Gong says Billy’s free return to America now.
Kang-ja’s parttyyy! Apparently, it’s an annual town event! Most of the village is there busy eating. Sang-shil arrives with Chul Soo with a bunch of flowers she picked from Chul Soo’s garden. This from a person who hates flowers because she knows how much Kang-ja loves them. Kang-ja’s family welcome Sang-shil and I lol-ed at Kang-ja’s two thuggy looking brothers.
Once everyone’s seated, Kang-ja’s dad, the mayor, tells Chul Soo and Sang-shil he’ll set up a wedding for them. Sang-shil’s about to say something pert when Kang-ja interrupts with a resounding, “NO! Sang-shil unni’s already married!” Uh-oh. Is this how the truth will come out? With the entire village listening?
Everyone’s shocked by the nonsense Kang-ja speaks, and they soon ignore her. Phew! Kang-ja starts singing and everyone forgets what Kang-ja said. Everyone except Sang-shil. She’s disturbed.
Billy has another existential crisis: “Anna, I abandoned you for money. I wanted you back for money. But now, I don’t need to bring you back for money. Are you really testing me?”
Back at the party, everyone’s clapping along to Kang-ja’s awkward singing. Everyone except Sang-shil. “You could at least clap along,” prods Chul Soo. She says her palms hurt. Ha? “Then they’ll ask you to sing,” he lies. Alarmed, she starts clapping and laughs: “It looks like we’re crushing bugs!”
Her mood suddenly brighter, Sang-shil looks at the people around her: Kang-ja with her crazy singing, Duk Goo and his mom busy chatting with their neighbours, the kids stuffing their face, and Chul Soo being Chul Soo. She looks happy. Aw. “I like that you’re happy. Keep smiling,” he tells her.
Out of the blue, Sang-shil gets another memory flash: She remembers telling someone at a party that smiling is not as easy as that person makes it out to be. “I guess I don’t smile much because I’m unhappy,” she hears herself say.
Some drunken person at Kang-ja’s party crashes a bowl to the floor, and the loud clatter triggers another memory: Sang-shil remembers walking into a huge ballroom where a maid cowers on the floor with a shattered glass. She sees how everyone leaves the room and only she’s left standing. She then hears herself order somebody: “Don’t go.”
Thoroughly disturbed, Sang-shil walks out of the party to sit outside, away from all the noise. Chul Soo watches her go. “Everyone left. Everyone. They hate me. They left me behind. I was all by myself,” she says, cowering out in the yard. Aw.
Chul Soo comes to sit beside her and he asks, concerned, “Does it hurt? Are you okay?”
“Everyone hated me… I only remember horrible things… I think I was a bad person,” she tells him.
“It’s not like you remember everything. Maybe you saved the best memories for last.” Aw, he’s such a sweetheart.
“What if I don’t have good memories?”
“Well, do you remember sailing around on your yacht?”
“No.”
“And what about your cat? That really expensive cat you own?”
“No.”
“See, you just don’t remember the good stuff,” he tells her.
“You’re right,” she says as her mood lifts up again. “It’s not like people hate me now. And why should I care what they think of me, anyway?” She gets up to rejoin the party and Chul Soo drags her in to sing. They’re made for each other.
The gang walks home from Kang-ja’s party in a good mood. They’re such a family! Sang-shil clutches two bottles of makgeulli and says she like parties. Ehehe. Chul Soo carries two of the littlest boys on his shoulder and Sang-shil smiles a very content smile.
Once they reach their home, Sang-shil pauses for a bit to look at the house. The kids file into the house. She calls out to Chul Soo and walks up to him: “I was thinking… and… well, I shouldn’t fix something that’s not broken. I’ll reconsider getting over you for your sake.” Ahahahah.
She walks past him to the house, still somehow managing to look dignified, with those makgeulli bottles ridiculously clutched to her side. Chul Soo smiles at her ridiculousness.
Oh no! Once they walk inside the house, we see Billy standing out there having seen all that just passed. He looks like a lonely shattered soul. Pathetic Billy and his crappy timing.
Bundled inside her toasty new bed, Sang-shil smiles a happy smile, and says: “Even when I recover my memory, I’ll want this. It’s so warm.”
The shot of Anna’s wedding ring lurking in the shadows of the same room does not bode well. Back in his home, Billy resolves to not run away. “I’ll bring her back,” he vows. The next day, when Sec Gong asks Billy why he wants Anna back, Billy replies that he’s finally figured her out. “I want to start over,” he says.
Yoo Kyung has to go to Billy’s house to deliver some paperwork and Sec Gong asks her to take some other paper back with her. So she hangs around Billy’s house. Uh-oh. We all know what’ll happen now. It’s inevitable that Yoo Kyung ends up seeing Billy and Anna’s wedding pic. Dundun.
Chul Soo and Duk Goo agree to leave for Busan that day. Chul Soo gives Sang-shil a week’s allowance before he leaves. “Don’t you have something to say to me after what I said yesterday?” she shamelessly fishes for declarations. Heheheh. “Well, I’m grateful you’ll reconsider,” says a non-commital Chul Soo. He walks out with his suitcase.
Sang-shil’s pissed. Ahahha. “You WUSS!” she runs out, shouting at him. “The least you can do is tell me I can stay whether or not I get my memory back.” YESS!
“I don’t want to keep you here when you get your memory back. … You should return to your place when you remember.”
“What?” she deflates.
“I feel bad enough that I lied to you. I couldn’t possibly try to keep you here,” says the noble wuss. “So… that’s why I told you I’ll come after you; that I’ll look you up.”
“Then tell me what you’ll do once you find me!” says Ms. Blue Balls. She’s so frustrated, hehehhe. It’s adorable. “Why ask when you already know,” says Mr. Blue Balls Generator.
“I don’t know anything! You WUSS! When you don’t tell me anything, how will I know?” she shouts and turns to leave, saying, “I’ll go so far away, you’ll never be able to find me.”
Then the not so noble, the not so wussy Chul Soo walks up to Sang-shil, cradles her face, and plants a kiss on her lips.
AWWWW YEAAAH!
Thoughts:
They kissed! Finally! And high time, too. Aaand in the middle of a spat, too. Heheh. So very Sang-shil/Chul Soo. I guess it wasn’t a writerly decision to be politically correct that was postponing the kiss. When you write a heroine like Anna, I guess sociopolitical correctness is at the bottom of your priority list. I think the delay was because of Chul Soo the noble doofus waiting for Sang-shil to say she was willing to stay.
Or maybe I got that all wrong, but now I don’t care for the whys and hows of the kiss and I’m just happy that they kissed. No, I take that back. I do care about the how—a leetle bit: If a kiss is a conversation, then this kiss is Chul Soo saying, “Oh, you aggravating woman, I love you! There!” But I doubt Sang-shil would have gone: Blink blink blink. Heheh. I’ll chalk it up to her being caught off-guard. So I guess this is Sang-shil going: “Whhhaaaa?!”
Though I love Chul Soo’s hands cradling her face. And that she’s on her tip-toes. But dramas from 2000-era, WHY don’t you let the heroine kiss the hero back? Why? Don’t you know that makes all the difference? Look at the exceptions: MNIKSS, Coffee Prince.
Moving on: Sang-shil is so brazen in love! I love it. There’s no hiding any emotions with her. I loved the way she smirked in the bus when she tells herself Chul Soo’s finally fallen for her. It’s extra funny because that’s a conclusion she bull-doggishly arrived at single-handedly after pricking and prodding him to death.
I also have to comment on how the Hong sisters mocked the sentimental, romantic sentence of Chul Soo’s from last episode and turned it into a joke here. Aren’t they sneaky? Can’t let it get too gooey schpooey, eh?
This episode explored Sang-shil’s attachment to the people around her. Whether she likes it or not, for better or for worse, either consciously or unconsciously, though I think it’s mostly unconsciously, Sang-shil has grown roots. She has a place called home here. She has people she can call family if she so chooses. She has people she can call friends if she wants to.
So when they keep talking about her having to leave when she regains her memory, I want to petulantly ask: “Why?” But I know it won’t be as simple as I’m wishing it will be. I can’t imagine what it’ll be like to forget who you used to be, to learn to live as another version of yourself, to grow attached to people, and then remember who you used to be. The tragedy here is finding who you used to be isn’t who you would have wanted you to be. “I must not have been a nice person,” she worries and I wonder how she’ll deal with the reality of her past life.
But she’s so stinkingly happy here. I’m pretty sure Anna, once she returns with the memory, will choose her home based on where her heart is. And we all know where her heart is.
© dramababble 2015
This entry was posted by Maybee in 2015.
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