Memories keep playing tricks on people as feelings stir and secrets are almost revealed. It’s an episode of food, makeshift family, and loyalty. Also, makgeulli!
Chul Soo’s surprised to find a weak and teary Yoo Kyung in his arms. He offers to take her home, but Sang Shil, who’s been watching the two, pops up to sort things out. Someone who wasn’t weak enough to get all the way to the lighthouse is surely not weak enough to go back home alone, Sang Shil reasons.
This is the first I’m thinking that Yoo Kyung put up a wilting delicate flower act just as Chul Soo bristles to defend the weak. He scolds Sang Shil for being mean, and drives off with Yoo Kyung. Sang Shil’s left to paint the lighthouse on her own. “I can see right through her. Why can’t he?” she mutters.
Back in the car, it’s Yoo Kyung’s turn to think about “what if…” but Chul Soo immediately shuts that line of thinking because he still thinks Yoo Kyung’s about to be happily married.
Yoo Kyung lets the assumption stay. Chul Soo’s too busy worrying about Sang Shil left alone to paint the lighthouse, so he hurries back only to find the lighthouse door vandalized. There’s a painted graffitti which reads: Chul Soo’s a bastard. Hahahahha. Jealous and angry Anna + red paint = profane calligraphy.
Meanwhile, Billy is loving all the sympathy he’s being showered from the female hotel staff who’ve collectively romanticised his widower status as that of a mourning, appetite-less hubby. Thoroughly milking the attention, he nibbles at his juicy steak just to keep up appearances.
He soon finds this faithful hubby image is a bit too hard on his tummy as it growls with hunger. In the toilet, he overhears two of his male staff who gossip about the possibility of Billy having killed Anna! Ahhaha. Two opposing rumours – one a pining lover, the other a guilty killer! I love Kim Sung Min so much in this role!
It seems Sec Gong got rid of Princess the Cat in his get-rid-of-all-thing-Anna campaign. But now Billy’s desperate to get the cat back just so the rumours about his murderous intentions die down.
It just so happens that Sang Shil sees Princess as she walks by the pet store and immediately connects with the cat! Aww! She then sees Billy buy Princess back and places him as the weird guy who came to her house the day before. Princess must have sensed Anna’s around because she escapes from Billy and finds Sang Shil! Aww. Sang Shil gives the cat back to Billy and says: “A cat won’t come back to you once you abandon it.” Aw. We flashback to the time Anna had first got Princess and had said the three of them were ‘family’. Aw.
Chul Soo’s ecstatic and oh so proud his nephew Joon Suk placed second in the local art competition. His painting will be displayed at the culture centre and the governor himself will award the prize. But Sang Shil’s unimpressed.
The gang goes to the art centre and Sang Shil bursts everyone’s excited bubble by eyeing the boy’s painting critically and pronouncing it sub-par and lacking. When Joon Suk sulks in his hurt, Sang Shil tells him that he should be able to handle constructive ciritcism. She softens the blow by conceding that his use of colour is fine and that he has potential. Ha! The kid grins a mile wide.
The 3 kids get accosted by the art teacher who happens to be Yoo Kyung’s friend. She grills them about Sang Shil and Chul Soo’s relationship and later tries to hook up with Duk Goo thinking he’s rich.
Later, the boys ask Chul Soo if he’ll end up marrying ‘ajumma’ Sang Shil. Ha! From the mouth of babes. Sang Shil’s eavesdrops on the conversation from the nearby toilet but fails to hear Chul Soo’s answer: “We don’t love each other.” So now the kids think ajumma won’t end up with their uncle.
It’s already dark as the gang walks home and they are the picture perfect family they misguidedly think they aren’t. Chul Soo carries two of the boys on his shoulder looking every part the daddy as Sang Shil hangs back, trying not to like what she sees. Heh. When the littlest of the boys gooses her, she chases the kid and the family picture becomes perfect-er.
Billy has a newfound love for Princess the Cat. He hugs it and almost seems to repent having let Anna go. Yoo Kyung’s teacher friend now prods Yoo Kyung to find out if Duk Goo’s really wealthy. “All the good guys seem to be taken,” she alludes to Chul Soo’s shacking up with Sang Shil.
Sang Shil feeds an eager Ggotsoon and tells the 3 kids she’s going out for a bowl of jajangmyun. The kids say they want to tag along, and she concedes. It’s adorable to see Sang Shil lead the troop as the ducklings trail behind because their short legs can’t walk as fast. When they tell her to go slow she grumbles, but she allows the little one to hang on to her skirt. It’s adorable.
They meet Yoo Kyung on the way who lures the boys away with promises of pizza. The fickle boys happily switch ajummas and Sang Shil trudges to the jajangmyun shop alone. There, she notices everyone else sharing their meal and decides to eat at home. Aw.
Just as she’s halfway through her bowl, the boys limp back into the house. Apparently Yoo Kyung dumped them as she had a previous appointment with her teacher friend. The kids eye the single bowl of jajangmyun with so much hunger, but Sang Shil munches on without missing a beat. HA!
When the kids ask her to share, she tells them she doesn’t have enough and that this bowl is hers. “You passed up the chance to have jajangmyun. The jajangmyun you let go can’t come back.” Amen!
This is too cruel for the kids who start crying just as Sang Shil licks off her bowl. Chul Soo drops by just then and is enraged to know she ate alone while the kids starved.
“I hate people being stingy with food,” he shouts at her and doesn’t give her a chance to explain. Not that she was about to. She walks off angry with Chul Soo who later finds out the truth from the kids: “We betrayed ajumma and later got betrayed by Yoo Kyung unni in turn.”
Sang Shil passes by Kang-ja on the street who is frozen in an awkward position. Kang-ja greets Sang-shil moving only her eyes and asks her to unfreeze her. Her ‘friends’ had forgotten to undo her freeze before going home for dinner.
Sighing at the lack of loyalty among people, Sang Shil frees Kang-ja who then happily tags along.
The two girls find a shady spot with a view of the sea. Kang-ja sings and collects more flowers while Sang-shil, in a rare pensive mood, watches Kang-ja. She asks if Kangja knows her name (Lee Kang-ja), her age (20; bday: Jan 3), her family (dad, mom, 2 bros, uncle, and Spot the pet).
Sang Shil sighs that Kang-ja’s far better off than she is. Kang-ja asks if Sang-shil doesn’t know who she is and Sang Shil sadly agrees.
Chul Soo’s helping Duk Goo’s mom haul in her hay. Mom comments that Chul Soo seems down. He seems determined not to worry about the absent Sang-shil, but is quick to defend Sang-shil from being labelled as ‘cuckoo’ as Kang-ja.
Kang-ja and Sang-shil happen to walk by just then with flowers in their hands and looking suitably spacey, so Mom declares that the two are peas in a pod. Heh. Sang Shil volunteers to help cut the hay. When Chul Soo tries to help her, she’s thoroughly curt and abrupt and manages to prick and prod and throw him off the tractor as she works.
Later that night, all the villagers sit down to taste Duk Goo’s mom’s homemade makguelli. Sang-shil says she’s a picky drinker, and the next thing we see: She’s licking and smacking her lips, thouroughly plastered and on her nth bowl. Ha!
The others are amused by her drunken antics. Chul Soo warns her the hangover won’t be pretty but she likes it so much she even steals his drink.
Look at her! Ha! Aaaand she burps. Repeatedly!
She grows serious for a bit and says:
“Jang Chul Soo, I know I can’t remember how we used to be… but I can sense you’re not taking care of me now because you like me. I have nowhere to go… I don’t remember anything… I can tell you’re doing me a favour… Still, you’re a pretty nice guy… Keep being nice, okay?”
Anna. So astutely perceptive even when a blank slate. Chul Soo tries to say he’s not that nice, but she won’t have it. Heh. You can tell he’s touched.
Back home, Yoo Kyung drops by with a pizza as an apology for today but the kids refuse to eat it saying they should wait for uncle and ajumma because “a family eats together.” They add: “We won’t betray ajumma anymore.”
Back at the makguelli party, Sang Shil starts cursing in English! Haaaa! She gets a splitting headache and her vision blurs. She gets a flashback to her dancing with Billy in a formal ballroom full of foreigners!
But she doesn’t see Billy’s face! Well done, show! The villagers gawk as Sang Shil enacts the same dance filtered through the haze of amnesia, and somehow Chul Soo, who’d gone to get her a bottle of water, gets included in Anna/Sang-shil’s awkward dance. “Does she have a drinking problem?” Duk Goo’s mom wonders. Ha!
Billy’s nursing another drink with Sec Gong and he shares that he had loved Anna at the start. Oh, see, I knew it. How serendipitous that Billy now thinks back on the same ballroom dance as his treasured memory of Anna as classy, graceful, and beautiful.
Chul Soo has a hard time getting a very drunk and staggery Sang Shil home. She’s a very proud and combative drunk, so she refuses his offer of a piggyback ride. She sways and bumps into walls and falls down flat on the ground. Still, she insists she can walk home.
She’s so hammered, she mistakes the local bus-stop hut for her ‘home’. Solemnly, she shuts the glass door and bids Chul Soo goodnight. She then takes off her shoes and lies on the bench.
He smiles at her drunken silliness and walks into the space. He tries talking her out of this foolishness but she’s fast asleep. So he sits down in front of the bench, as if shielding her, then covers her with his sweatshirt. She nearly falls off the bench and he braces her fall with a “Nice catch”.
But then he grows solemn, and looking at her asleep face, says: “I don’t think I have the energy to keep up with this. I think it’s time I take you home.” Aw, is he giving up on his revenge? Does this mean he’s letting Anna go? Yoo Kyung sees them this way. She quietly walks away.
Aaaand, we’re back to square one in the morning: Chul Soo’s seething at Sang Shil for having vomited all over his bed, her sofa, and a floor mattress (in that order) after getting home yesterday. He’s busy washing the soiled bedding and shouts at the hungover Sang-shil that she must have done it to drive him nuts.
Later that day he tells Duk-goo about letting Sang-shil go. He plans to follow the lead off the yacht and the phone number Anna had used to contact him. Buut, our capable Sec Gong has managed to tie all loose ends by selling the yacht and getting rid of the phone without a trace.
The 3 boys share their beloved pizza with Sang-shil, having resisted the temptation to gobble it up yesterday. Aw, they’re making amends for yesterday!
Chul Soo drops by just then with a serious face. When Sang Shil asks him what’s wrong, he keeps repeating: “Sorry for having to do this”. Don’t tell me he’ll tell her to go out into the world alone without a sense of who the frack she is!! You’re not an abandoner, Jang Chul Sooooo!
Thoughts:
I loved Anna’s breaking through Sang-shil time and time again. As I said in my previous recaps, her baseline personality is very much intact as is her razor sharp instinct about people. It’s so endearing to see those mini-breakthroughs, which I’ll call muscle memories (for lack of a better phrase) of her past life: Like how Anna as Sang-shil still was drawn to Princess (and vice-versa). Like how she still has the hardnosed art critic side somewhere in her. And how she danced to that old tune like Anastasia danced to “Once upon a December…” I really loved that scene. How she couldn’t make out it was Billy in her memory and only had Chul Soo’s face as the makeshift dancer. But sometimes makeshifts become permanent… But I get far ahead of myself.
Another thing I loved about Anna this episode, was her sense of justice and loyalty. She keeps teaching the kids life lessons that are so curt yet deep: “The jajangmyun you let go won’t come back.” And it’s the same woman who cannot (or maybe is too proud?) to grasp the concept of gratitude and apology. Ha!
Aaand there’s Chul Soo the doofus and his unexplored feelings. It started with major irritation and hatred, moved on to grudging acceptance fueled by dreams of righteous revenge, got tinged with occasional worries about her minor hurts and odd absences, and is now slowly creeping to insistent worry and care about her welfare.
I loved that scene in the bus-stop which starts off as a quirky fun situation but soon turns sweet until it becomes oddly sentimental. Pensive Jang Chul Soo thinking he has no energy left to go about his revenge is sweet.
Which brings me to Yoo Kyung: This was the first I felt like she was being disingenuous. You can tell she really wants to get back with Chul Soo and is really curious to dig up if Chul Soo and Sang Shil are an item. I hope she’s not using the kids for that. I also hope her wanting to spend time with them and gifting them pizza come from a genuine place inside her.
I see Yoo Kyung as more misguided than actively antagonistic. Curiously, she’s molded after a regular heroine — one who suffers silently, who is frail, pretty, and virtuous. She made a decision to let Chul Soo go after he got saddled with the boys and the show repeatedly points out this episode that you don’t always get things you let go back. Both Yoo Kyung and Billy abandoned Chul Soo and Anna, respectively; and however tangled the motives and however regretful their present states, they did make that choice.
There was also a thread of food and family and loyalty in this episode that I found really touching. From Billy’s flashbacks of his past days with Anna, I gather that she had craved a family more than anything else. So I find Sang Shil’s need to be counted as Chul Soo and gang’s family really touching.
The way the kids simplify the meaning of family — people you eat with; people you live with — is sweet and I loved that they saved the pizza overnight just so they could share it with Sang Shil. That moment Sang Shil finds it lonely to eat her jajangmyun alone was also touching. And so was her moment with Kang-ja!
This show’s adorable.
© dramababble 2015
This entry was posted by Maybee in 2015.
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