Hello Angst! You’re here, finally. Rather than a choppy sea, this Angst is more of a lake that’s numb and frozen and dying to thaw out. So bring out your mittens and marshmallows and campfire gear.
Maybe some tissues, too, should numb lakes make you weepy. And pray for the sun.
The sight of Sang-shil and Chul Soo cosying up on the beach throws me off, because, the last we left them, Anna had returned and she was in a pool!
Sang-shil leans on Chul Soo’s shoulder. They watch the sun set. “So warm,” she comments. “Isn’t it strange? It’s almost winter but it feels like spring. I feel like winter won’t come…”
Chul Soo tells her she cannot doze off here. “Wake up!”
“Why? I like it here,” she says.
“This isn’t where you belong. Wake up!” he repeats.
She opens her eyes. “Your memory returned,” he reminds her. A teardrop rolls down her face as she still sits there with her head on his shoulder. “It’s time for me to go back,” she admits.
Anna opens her eyes to a bright white light. She’s now on a bed at Billy’s villa. So that beach scene was a dream. Or more like Anna’s subconscious. Just like the time Anna came to prod Sang-shil to return a few eps back, this was Sang-shil saying goodbye. Nice!
Anna sees Billy standing near the window with his back towards her. He asks her if she’s okay. “I’m okay, Billy. I’m Jo Anna. I’m back.” Billy’s happy. She says she remembers everything! Yes! I would have gone on a %$#%#%$% tirade had they pulled that trick of her not remembering Sang-shil.
Oh! Chul Soo’s still hanging around outside her room! He then walks out of the house. It’s like his entire body sighs. Poor baby.
Yoo Kyung’s still outside! Some patience! “That woman’s back where she belongs. Oppa, you should come back too,” she says. Chul Soo just walks off without a word.
Later, Billy finds Anna staring at her wedding pic out in the hall. He cautiously approaches her. She comments that he changed houses. “I couldn’t stay there after what happened to you,” he half-lies. He assures her all her stuff is here.
“Nothing’s changed,” she says as if she finds everything’s different. He asks if she remembers what he’d told her not to forget. I think he means that time when he went to ask for the ring. Sec Gong rushes in just then and is shocked to see Anna alive. He gawks so long and hard, Billy has to drag him out.
Sec Gong worries if Chul Soo will tell Anna about all their devious schemes. But Billy assures Gong he’s already taken care of Chul Soo.
Billy had talked to Chul Soo when Anna was still recovering from her pool misadventure. This is how their meeting went: Billy admits to having committed a crime. He knows what he did was wrong. “I regret it all. I wish I could turn back time,” he says.
Chul Soo looks at him and asks, “Why don’t you try being honest?”
Billy grows defensive. He tells Chul Soo how Chul Soo doesn’t know how cold and scary the real Anna can be. “If she finds out, it’ll all be over,” he says. You’re still saving yourself, Billy? He pleads with Chul Soo not to reveal the truth to Anna. Billy even goes so far as to say Chul Soo’s partly responsible for what happened. Say what?
“You’ll never know how much I regret what happened,” Billy tears up. “I’m begging you to lie for me. That should tell you how much I want to start over. This is where Anna belongs. Please help her.”
That evening, Chul Soo drives out to the dock and tries to voice out Anna’s name. It feels strange to him. Aw. “What a weird name. I guess it’s better than Sang-shil,” he consoles himself.
Anna now stares at Sang-shil’s clothes which are in a heap in front of the sofa where she sits. Billy explains to her how it was Billy who had called Chul Soo to the villa yesterday and how Chul Soo only knew about the truth today. Thanks for not lying on that point, Billy. But then Billy has the gall to muster righteous indignation and lie about wanting to sue Chul Soo but how he doesn’t want the villagers talking. Right.
Zombie-like Anna defends Chul Soo: “He tried hard to locate my family.” Billy’s not impressed. Instead, he says Chul Soo is the reason for all this ‘misunderstanding’. Agh, Billy, you turned worm, you.
Anna still looks to be in a trance. She gets another headache. “I can’t make decisions right now. It’s like I’m still asleep. I feel numb,” she says. Billy eagerly encourages her to think of her Sang-shil interlude as a ‘fantasy’. Ahhhh! Hence the title Fantasy Couple!! *lightbulb*
“If that was fantasy, then reality feels weird to me,” she says. “Maybe because what I experienced then felt more real…”
“You’ll get used to reality,” Billy says. “This is where you belong.” He then orders a maid to throw away Sang-shil’s clothes. Anna just watches the maid stuff the phone and the clothes in the trashcan.
Back at Chul Soo’s, the three kids are delighted Uncle Chul Soo came home before the week was up! “Should we call ajumma?” they ask.
“Don’t,” he tells them. “Even if you call, she can’t come.”
“Why?” Every K-drama conflict needs to be asked this question by a panel of 5 year olds. *bangs gavel*
“Ajumma went back home… she lives pretty far away so she can’t come to visit,” Chul Soo explains.
Anna’s out on the balcony and Billy sneaks in to hang out with her again. She asks what he did with her yacht. He tells her he sold it. “If the yacht was still around, maybe things would have resolved sooner,” she points out. Smart cookie, Anna. “It took too long…” she says. Aw, long enough for you to let Chul Soo into your heart and make you vulnerable.
Billy suggests they return to the US. “Billy, don’t misunderstand,” she warns. “I came back to where I belong. That doesn’t mean I came back to you.” Yes! She still has that astute instinct to sift through people’s motives. “No amount of misunderstanding changes the fact that you didn’t bring me back,” she reminds him. Ow. “I’m still piecing myself together. It’s not time for you to come to me with excuses or ask for forgiveness.” YES.
The next day, in her bedroom, Anna stares at herself in the mirror, looking like a bed-raggled Sang-shil. “I’m Jo Anna. I’m back,” she tells her reflection, as if saying that makes her feel more comfortable in her own skin. She then puts on makeup as the Anna of yore would have done. She puts on Anna’s clothes and Anna’s jewelry. “This is me,” she announces.
Anna struts down the hotel lobby while her staff bows down, more in fear than deference. She talks to her US contact and assures the person everyone’s in for a nasty surprise to know she’s alive. Call over, she mouths, “IDIOT.” Haaaa. Somebody’s back!
Ha, full circles galore! Just like in ep 1, Sec Gong is busy preparing the villa to Anna’s tastes. Anna walks in and the staff is scared stiff she will explode. Instead, Anna notices the vacuum cleaner and asks the maid if size matters in how good a vacuum cleaner cleans. If the maid weren’t stunned enough, Anna’s “Cleaning’s hard. Good job!” makes everyone drop their jaws. Anna doesn’t even scold a jittery staff for breaking a glass cup. Someone’s back, but that someone’s a taaad changed.
Billy brings Anna her favourite wine. He asks if she remembers that Christmas when he spilled this wine on her favourite couch and how angry she’d been. He talks about having spent the entire Christmas day searching for a replacement wine. She snaps at Billy that she remembers it all so could he please stop pestering her with his “Do you remember?”-s.
She says, “I also remember you asking for a divorce.” He explains how Solomon’s death triggered that reaction. She says she understands and relates how she’d have been as angry had something similar happened to Princess. Ha! Look who’s become wiser! “If I had only apologized then, nothing like this would have happened,” she admits. That’s a major leap for Anna-kind! Billy’s so happy, but she’s quick to say, “This doesn’t mean I forgive you.” Ha!
When alone, she stares at the bottle of fine wine and it somehow makes her miss makgeulli more. She tries to tell herself Anna wouldn’t have liked cheap makgeulli but then she admits that Anna wouldn’t have liked anything…
Yoo Kyung and her friend gossip about Anna and Chul Soo’s fate. Yoo Kyung then tags along with Chul Soo’s boys to share a special meal Chul Soo promised because Joon Suk stood first in his class.
When Chul Soo comes home, he finds Yoo Kyung playing with the boys. He brings home pizza and the kids think of Sang-shil: “It tastes better when we eat it with ajumma.” Even when Sang-shil’s absent, she’s everywhere.
Later, Yoo Kyung again reminds Chul Soo that she’s there for him should he ever need her. “I’ll wait for you,” she says. He tells her not to. “You’ll just get hurt,” he adds. She watches him go inside the house, tears up and says, “I can wait… Please don’t tell me to go.”
Noonim and Bbangoo’s tragi-comic breakup time! Hehehe. I have no idea what that phone booth is doing out there on the pier. Noonim returns the love-manga to Bbangoo and tells him to “take his heart back”. She suspects he used her to get info on Chul Soo and calls him an enemy. Heheh. A tearful noonim leaves while Bbangoo promises to wait there for noonim’s forgiveness.
So Bbangoo nee Yong-goo waits and waits until it is dark and he gets a nosebleed. He waits until the wind blows sharp and painful. He waits until his bladder’s about to burst so he can’t help but pee into the sea. What timing then for noonim to come back to check on him and see his weewee. Hahahah. Why do the women in this show get to see their men’s ding-a-ling-a-lings? Noonim runs away again while Bbangoo shouts: “Why? Why? Why? Why now?” hehehehehe.
That same night, Sec Gong and Billy share a bottle of wine and chat. Gong says life’s all about timing. Billy admits that he’s late, but that doesn’t mean it’s over. “At least she’s with me,” he consoles himself.
Sec Gong wonders why Anna hasn’t once mentioned Chul Soo’s name. “I wonder what she’s thinking,” he says. Me too, Sec Gong.
Billy confidently repeats: “Her days as Sang-shil were a fantasy. That fantasy’s over. She will forget all that soon.” Were it ever so easy, Billy.
Aw, Anna’s sleeping on the sofa!! She wakes up cold. Miss your toasty rigged-up nest back at Chul Soo’s? On an impulse, she looks for the clothes the maid threw away earlier. Finding the trash can empty, she walks out and asks the maids where they throw the trash.
Oh, she really digs through the trash until she finds the phone! She even thanks the very confused maids. She remembers the day Chul Soo gifted the phone and how he told her to always keep in touch.
Back at Chul Soo’s HE’s crying too. Oh, you two doofuses!! The poor sad sack’s sitting on Sang-shil’s sofa. *Hug* She’s staring at her phone while he’s staring at the switch for Sang-shil’s electric sofa.
She turns on her phone and he turns on the heater switch so that it glows orange. She changes her mind and doesn’t call and he puts out that switch and the orange light dies. YOU TWO! It’s as if that orange glow were the hope of their reaching out to each other. Why you two go around killing hope? Let. Hope. Liiiiive!
Billy, who’s grown into a sort of Anna-stalker, watches Anna be sad. See, Billy, she’s sad here. Give her a way out.
A colleague tells Yoo Kyung how Anna used to be a Class A Witch before she disappeared. Anna runs into Yoo Kyung then. Yoo Kyung stiffly bows and congratulates Anna.
And Yoo Kyung has some passive aggressive pearls of jabs to dispense: “You advised me to let go of the past. So no wonder you seem to have made a clean cut of everything so soon. I understand,” she hazards. “This life must suit you more.” She implies that Anna’s cut off Chul Soo and gang because Anna likes being rich. “Now I understand why you were so arrogant,” adds Yoo Kyung, as if wealth gives one license to be an ass. “I heard you’re leaving. Be happy!” Yoo Kyung walks off.
All this time Anna’s silent, unlike Sang-shil would have been. Anna then calls out to Flower Girl by her full god-given name: “Ms. Oh Yoo Kyung. I think you implied I’m arrogant because I’m rich. I think you missed out one point. All the money is mine, not my husband’s.” Then Anna walks off and chides herself for trying to show off to Flower Girl. Hee.
Later, Anna tells Billy most of the employees avoided her. He assures her they’re happy to have her back. “I doubt there’s anyone happy to have me back,” she points out. He again suggests they return to the US where she has friends. But she quickly replies: “I have no friends there too. I know fully well what I was like.” She then tells Billy to stop trying so hard. Aw. For both your sake, Billy, stop trying so hard.
Back at Chul Soo’s, Duk Goo’s mom comes to pack up Sang-shil’s clothes. What a lovely, thoughtful detail! The kids are traumatized Sang-shil ajumma won’t return. Duk Goo’s mom tells them to forget Sang-shil and to never mention her to Chul Soo. “Why?” they ask. ”Because it will break his heart,” she tells them.
Awwwwww, even Ggotsoonnie misses Sang-shil. It’s the sweetest thing. Of course Kang-ja waits for her unni. She even lets the bus she chases every day just pass her by because she needs to wait for unni right there just in case her unni returns. This show has the adorablest characters. “Even if ajussi’s crying, come back,” Kang-ja tells the sky, hoping Sang-shil hears. “Chul Soo oppa’s crying. And I’m crying too,” she adds.
Bbangoo goes to stare at his noonim for one last time before he leaves for the US with his boss. What, he can’t face her now that she’s seen his peepee? Hehhe. Fatefully, the cow moos to warn noonim about Bbangoo’s presence and noonim finally calls him by his correct name and the two embrace. Hehhe. Their love story: Faux-cest to PeePeePeep.
Chul Soo refuses to talk about Sang-shil and whether there might have been foul play when no one came to look for her. Duk Goo advises his hyung to erase her memory and pretend that she never existed. Then, without meaning to, Sang-shil’s name slips by Duk Goo’s lips. Without a word, Chul Soo drives off. Duk Goo wishes Chul Soo would rather get drunk and act out than go about like everything’s fine.
Chul Soo cannot drive as he thinks back to the time Sang-shil told him over the phone she loved him. So he parks the car and berates himself for not having told her then he loved her too. Agh. Regret. He’s reminded of Sang-shil everywhere he goes. Since jajangmyun is ubiquitous, he complains: “Why did you have to like jajangmyun of all things? I can’t seem to get away from you…”
Meanwhile Anna keeps telling herself it is Sang-shil who is hurting and that she is Jo Anna. Aw, you cannot split off the part of yourself that feels and dissociate from your hurty feeling and assign them all to Sang-shil. When Billy asks her to come in from the cold, she says she’d rather be cold than think about warmth.
Billy arranges a top chef to cook fancy jajangmyun for Anna. Oh, Billy, why do you always get things wrong? Anna takes a dainty bite of the food and puts her chopsticks down. “It doesn’t taste the same,” she says as she tears up. Billy and the staff leave the room. Billy stands outside listening to her quiet sobs while she thinks of Chul Soo. Poor Billy tears up too.
Anna browses through the collection of pics of Kang-ja, Ggotsoon, the kids, and Chul Soo that’s on her phone, much as Billy had done days earlier. Billy walks in and asks if she dug the phone out of the trash.
Quietly, Billy begins to talk: “Seeing you there — looking so happy — it made me nervous. I thought you had changed so much.” He then says in a much upbeat tone, “But, Anna, that wasn’t the real you. Your life as Na Sang-shil was only a fantasy. A fantasy based on Chul Soo’s lie.”
“No. If it was just a fantasy, I wouldn’t be so hurt now. Billy, I’m hurting a lot. My heart hurts so much, I can’t breathe,” she says.
When Billy suggests they leave this place, she tells him: “I can’t go back with you.” YES! When he looks confused, she tells him she hurts so much because she opened her heart.
“But Jo Anna’s never done that,” he objects.
“I’m sorry, Billy,” she says with such sincerity and she starts to cry. Aw. Poor Anna. Poor Billy. Billy tears up too but he says sternly, as if angry, “Don’t cry. Jo Anna doesn’t cry. No one could make Anna cry. The one crying is not you.” Then he adds a hurt, “Is sorry the only thing you can tell me?” Aw. Poor guy.
Softly, Anna repeats through her tears, “Sorry. I’m really sorry.” Billy gets up and turns his back towards her like he can’t bear to watch her face as he asks, “Then, will you return to where your heart is?” AW. You asked! Good man. But then she says a confusing, “I can’t do that either.”
Billy comments on the irony: “Na Sang Shil cannot do what her heart wants. Jo Anna cannot be with me. Is that it? Then who are you? Really, just who ARE you?”
“I am both Jo Anna and Na Sang-shil,” she says. YES!!!! “It’s really strange that I’m not really comfortable with either of them.”
Duk Goo’s mom waits at Chul Soo’s house until he gets home. She says the kids are in bed and she’s packed all of Sang-shil’s stuff. Ajumma tells Chul Soo how Anna will leave for US tomorrow. Chul Soo mutters how the “far” part of their separation really turned up to be pretty far.
Ajumma talks about how Bbangoo told her Anna’s hubby turned out to be a real romantic who waited for her all this while. Chul Soo knows better but he remains mum. As if to cheer Chul Soo up, ajumma says, “That woman who was here — the one who was Kang-ja’s friend — she’s completely changed. Forget her. Let go of your memories.”
Long after ajumma leaves, he just stands there watching Sang-shil’s sofa. Oof. What about your promise to go get her, Chul Soo-ya? Then, across time and space, Chul Soo and Anna carry out a conversation:
Anna: “I’ll go somewhere really far away.”
Chul Soo: “If you go far away, I won’t ever run into you anymore.”
Anna: “It’s okay if you cannot keep your promise of finding me.”
Chul Soo: “You’d be so far away. You’d be out of my reach.”
Anna: “But I’m still here…” YES.
Chul Soo: “I wish I could get to somehow see you before you go.” ACT on that wish!
Anna: “You were always so good at finding me.”
Chul Soo: “If the heavens allow, please come somewhere where I can see you. Then I can find you one last time…”
AW. He wanders to their bus-stop. He remembers the time she slept there, drunk. He remembers his promise to her about how he’d come find her.
Anna’s at the bus stop too! But she finds it empty. “What was I expecting? He won’t come here,” she lectures herself.
Eep. Chul Soo’s right across the street from her. A bus blocks his view. He tells himself the same thing: “What was I expecting? She won’t come here.”
He then SEES her. Aww, I love that he has no clue what he’s supposed to do now that she’s really there! “What should I do?” GO to her, silly.
Now SHE sees him. They keep staring at each other. She then gets up. He slowly walks towards her.
“Jang Chul Soo, did you really come looking for me? Did you know I was here waiting for you?”
“I didn’t come looking for you,” he lies.
“Will you say you were just passing by, again?”
“Uh. That’s what I’m going to say,” he lies again.
“Then you shouldn’t have stopped at all,” she says. He tells her he should have but he’s not quite there yet. “To me, you’re still Na Sang-shil.” Aw. So true.
“That’s not my real name. My name, which you don’t know, is — ”
“Don’t tell me — I‘d rather not know. You should forget about the ridiculous name I gave you, too. It’s better to forget things that are no good for you. Pretend it never happened.”
“You think that’s possible?” she asks. “Hearing this from you, I think I can be happy. Bye, Jang Chul Soo.” She then extends her hand.
He refuses to shake her hand in farewell. “Just go,” he says and walks away. Oww! “Bastard!” she mutters, just like old times. “Dirtbag!”
Chul Soo walks away from her, trying to squelch whatever it is he’s feeling. “I can’t let go of your hand if I hold it now. Just go,” he pleads under his breath as he walks away from her. Very Roman Holiday of you, Chul Soo.
But then, she RUNS out and hugs him from the back! Yay! Every noble Chul Soo needs a brazen Anna. She cries with her face against his back as she hugs him tight and says, “I’ll forget everything. I’ll forget this too. So… just give me a moment. Just stay this way a while.”
Then, “It’s okay now. Now I feel like I can get over you. Annyeong, Jang Chul Soo.” She then whispers, “My name is Jo Anna.” GAH!
Thoughts:
Aw, man. The way she whispers her real name…
I finally figured out, this episode, why the drama’s titled Fantasy Couple.
Like Billy so wants to believe, Anna’s bout as Sang-shil was a strange fairytale where a nasty Princess became a no-name chamber-maid, but, in the process, she learned to love and was loved. Billy is partly right in saying it was a fantasy but Billy’s wrong to say that the fantasy was not real, because to Chul Soo and Sang-shil, and now to Anna, it was — it IS — very real.
At the risk of sounding repetitive and silly, Chul Soo and Sang-shil/Anna ARE a Fantasy Couple! He knew nothing about her except that she’s rich and rude. She came to know everything about him as Sang-shil. The irony is she didn’t know everything about herself. I bet both of them didn’t expect she’d end up married. What a shocker! Especially for poor Chul Soo.
Chul Soo’s so frigging noble. I wish he’d just say to heck with it and just grab her hands and run off but he’s not the kind to run away. He’s rooted to this place. He has a home, 3 kids to raise, a community of people who care about him. And then there’s that promise Billy extracted from him. Not that Chul Soo owes it to Billy to keep his word, but then again Chul Soo wouldn’t be Chul Soo if he didn’t. He’s the kind to take up his dead brother’s 3 kids. He’s the kind to bring home a stray amnesiac woman, granted he did it for revenge, and end up falling for her. And he’s the kind to try his best to let that woman go when he’s told that woman’s place is not with him.
Now when I think back on the show, it surprises me to think how everyone has kept lying to Sang-shil throughout, and even now they’re keeping the truth from Anna. It could have be oh so frustrating, but then we have Sang-shil, now Anna, or should I say our new hybrid heroine — Sang-shil/Anna — who digs up her own truths no matter how deep they’re buried.
I love how this episode dealt with the issue of identity regarding our heroine. I loved how we started with that dream sequence where Sang-shil wanted to prolong her stay with Chul Soo not wanting to face reality as Anna.
I loved how Anna was almost shell-shocked and numb as she tried to adjust to her new life. But I also loved how she was constantly thinking, her mind’s wheels still spinning, and asking Billy sharp questions. I loved that she knew she needed space to deal with it all and how she told Billy to not pressure her.
I loved how she readily accepted her role as Anna: That scene where she puts on her Anna-armour and struts about the hotel very much like the old Anna? But then we get to see how she’s the same yet she’s not the same.
I loved how she struggled, and is still struggling, with not accepting that part of her which she calls Sang-shil. The part of her that remembers Chul Soo and all that he represents. The part of her that hurts so bad because she wants to go back to that life yet doesn’t know how; the life which Billy calls fantasy but which to her is very real yet which she wishes were just a fantasy. It’d hurt less then.
I also really loved the scene where she finally acknowledges to Billy she is both Anna and Sang-shil. Were we to accept her as just Sang-shil, we’d be ignoring the past 20+ years of her life. Were we to accept her as just as Anna, we’d be ignoring the past few months — months which are significant to her because she learned to love and be loved then.
I also loved it when she apologized to Billy and how she kept saying sorry when he asked her if that’s all she can say to him. I can see why Billy is so desperately trying to keep her by his side. And it’s really not about the money, to me. He wants to try his hand at making her happy. But happiness is not something that you can order with designer jajangmyun. It just doesn’t work that way. It makes Billy so pitiful, despite his recent shiftiness; but I like that he can clearly see how Anna’s so unhappy here with him.
Just like the fancy jajangmyun that didn’t quite taste the same, Anna’s new life won’t ever feel quite the way her life with Chul Soo did. After Anna’s ‘death’, just as Billy was haunted by Ghost of Anna, it seems the people Sang-shil left behind are haunted by the Ghost of Sang-shil now. She’s present in her absence, and it hurts. That fantasy interlude she spent as Sang-shil now haunts Anna, too.
I love that she clearly told Billy she cannot ‘go’ with him, but then I wonder why she said she cannot go to where her heart is, either. She says she’s still not comfortable as either Sang-shil or Anna, and I guess she needs time to adjust. But then again, never not the one to give in to an impulse, I loved that Anna/Sang-shil went to the bus stop hoping Chul Soo would find her — for that one last time; how he went looking for her — for that one last time; how they found each other yet — for that one last time; and how they told themselves they were okay with not being together. That’s until he couldn’t bear it and walked away, and she couldn’t bear it and ran to hug him. And then she whispered her name…
Get back together, already, you two.
Note: Compared to other eps, this one ran for almost 1 hr 10 minutes. They could have edited out some silly bits, but then again, I don’t mind the indulgence. This recap ends with a message from Ggotsoon. Her woofs have been painstakingly transcribed into a message for a certain someone.
© dramababble 2015
This entry was posted by Maybee in 2015.
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