Emotions — of the romantic, jealous, and vengeful variety — are amped up even higher this week, but our deerlings and their antics help us get over the hump of watching our main (and secondary) characters bumble through the ups and downs of their romantic relationships.
EPISODES 9-10
The morning after Ji-hwan’s childish bout of jealousy and his paradoxically manly kiss with Eun-ha, our lovebirds (of the penguin variety, of course) are floating in their own rainbow-filled universe. Eun-ha wakes up to a vase full of sunflowers that put a smile on her face, and both she and Ji-hwan prepare for the day with the meticulousness of individuals who obviously want to look their best for the object of their affection. And their efforts pay off — if their exaggerated entrances into the dining room before breakfast are any indication.
Honestly, the whole slo-mo bit would have been overkill if it were not for the deerlings, who took the drama’s self-referential humor from cringy to hilarious. Watching them reacting to — and puzzling over — Ji-hwan and Eun-ha’s behavior is comedy gold that (mostly) squelched the secondhand embarrassment I was feeling for our OTP. And even more amusing is that only half of our deerlings have high enough EQ to have picked up on the fact that Ji-hwan and Eun-ha are now officially an item. As such, there’s a mixed bag of reactions — especially when Ji-hwan enters the room with an uncharacteristic flair indicative of a man in love… or off his rocker. (In this case, por que no los dos?)
After breakfast, Ji-hwan and Eun-ha go their separate ways, but Ji-hwan is high on love and can’t go long without seeing Eun-ha before he starts experiencing withdrawals. He skips out on work to surprise her while she shops for props to use in her new videos, and in a sugary sweet dating montage full of smiles, couple’s headbands, and references to actor Uhm Tae-gu’s previous acting roles, we see our OTP finally experience the carefree bliss of a new relationship.
Annnnnnnd then the power goes out in the underground marketplace– but don’t worry! Even though they are plunged into semi-darkness and kids start crying, this becomes Ji-hwan’s time to shine and show that he’s just as capable at making children smile as he is unintentionally terrifying them with his stoic features. He puts on a shadow puppet show, and as Ji-hwan’s fingers shift through a series of configurations that mimic animals, Eun-ha is reminded of her childhood friend — an observation that she points out to Ji-hwan on their way home.
Although this would be a good opening for Ji-hwan to reveal his identity, he’s not ready to discuss what happened after they parted ways as children. Instead, touched by Eun-ha’s confession that their old friendship is what inspired her career and desire to create happy and formative memories for children, Ji-hwan reveals indirectly that his own memories of her are what kept him going through the tough times. As much as I enjoy the silly, physical comedy featured so prominently in this drama, I relish the moments like these when our story balances the humor with more poignant moments that show our OTP is connecting and growing as individuals and as a couple.
Unfortunately, the content and pacing of the comedic moments felt a bit off for me this week — often undoing the character development made in previous scenes. For example, after spending the previous day with Eun-ha and solidifying his status as her boyfriend, Ji-hwan went to battle with Hyun-woo in the comments section of Eun-ha’s new video account. As amusing as the boys’ digital pissing contest — and the corresponding on screen animations — was, it detracted from the calm maturity Ji-hwan displayed in the previous scenes. Additionally, even though we all knew it would take Hyun-woo longer than five minutes to get over his crush on Eun-ha, his public display of his pettiness was completely at odds with the self-awareness he demonstrated when he calmly accepted Eun-ha’s rejection. And then, when he and Ji-hwan meet face-to-face again, he tells him that he hasn’t given up on Eun-ha yet. (Come on! She made her choice; accept it!)
I will say one positive thing about the boys — and yes, I’m intentionally calling them boys instead of men after their shenanigans — and that is that their behavior is a nice subversion of a K-drama trope that usually saves the exaggerated love-triangle theatrics for when it’s two women vying for a man’s attention. Instead, of the two love triangles featured in this drama, the one involving Eun-ha and Ye-na is contrastingly more subdued thanks to Eun-ha’s level-headedness. Ye-na is still delusional and annoyingly aggressive, but when she comes at Eun-ha with the lame excuse that she’s better for Ji-hwan because she’s known him longer — Hah! If only she knew — Eun-ha is not shaken. She’s confident in her own worth and in Ji-hwan’s affections. (That’s our girl!)
Since, I’m on the topic of plotlines that were a miss for me this week, I might as well mention the biggest disappointment: Il-young and Mi-ho. While Eun-ha and Ji-hwan have been swooning for each other and fending off their respective love rivals, our secondary couple has been a mess — well, Il-young has been a mess. He knows he’s screwed up, but it takes Ji-hwan reminding him of his own advice — just be honest — for him to realize what he needs to do. But before he gets the chance to apologize to Mi-ho and admit he has feelings for her, Mi-ho learns from Marketing Deerling that Il-young is (supposedly) not interested in ever being a family man. Yeah, that’s exactly what every potentially pregnant woman wants to hear about her maybe baby daddy. (I say “potentially pregnant” because, as far as we know, Mi-ho hasn’t taken a second pregnancy test or met with a doctor, so she’s making decisions based on the possibility of being pregnant.)
In light of this information, Mi-ho rejects Il-young’s request to date, and this is where things go from bad to worse. Il-young gets drunk, shows up on Mi-ho’s doorstep, and then crashes for the night at her place. While intoxicated and on the verge of falling asleep, his sincere words almost sway Mi-ho, but any headway Il-young might have made that night flies out the window when he begins aggressively pursuing Mi-ho — or, more accurately, her parents. He buys them expensive gifts — including a freaking car — and the excessiveness of it all understandably rubs Mi-ho the wrong way because he circumvented her boundaries by meeting her with her parents. Plus, she’s leery of accepting his gifts when she has no idea how he will react to her (potential) pregnancy.
Il-young tells her that he’s going to keep showing up until she accepts him, and although Il-young’s assertion flustered Mi-ho in a way that suggests she’s interested, I came down with a bad case of the ick. I know the drama wants us to believe that Il-young, an orphan, had a (TBD) reason for being anti-family that has thawed since meeting Mi-ho. I also understand that the pregnancy plotline is simply a mechanism to get two characters designed to be together to fall in love faster. But — sigh — it’s not working for me.
His interest in Mi-ho’s parents and the way he poured over Mi-ho’s childhood pictures — like he’s imagining the way his and Mi-ho’s maybe baby might look in six years — makes this “romance” feel more like a lonely man’s one-sided pursuit to join a ready-made family and fill the void of not having parents growing up. Or maybe, because he has no family, he’s adamant that he will be a part of his kid’s life. Either way, Mi-ho, the woman caught in all the middle of this, seems like an afterthought, and it’s extremely unfair for her to be under the false impression that Il-young’s renewed interest is entirely because of her.
Back in penguin land, Ji-hwan realizes that he has bigger fish to fry than Hyun-woo. I’m, of course, talking about Yang-hee. After Ji-hwan’s father was released from prison, he dethroned Yang-hee and started treating him like a second class gangster. Yang-hee, in turn, blames all his problems on Ji-hwan — and not his personal choice to commit criminal acts — and is out for revenge. He’s obviously no match for Ji-hwan in either the brawn or brains categories, so he begins targeting Ji-hwan’s weakness: Eun-ha.
He approaches Eun-ha while she’s working her part-time job, and Ji-hwan intercedes in a violently aggressive manner that unnerves Eun-ha because, from her perspective, Ji-hwan’s behavior is excessive and unprovoked — as though he was jealously attacking a man for giving her balloons. To compound matters, Ji-hwan tells Eun-ha to quit her part-time job because it’s not safe, and Eun-ha responds by explaining he has no right to act overprotective and controlling if he won’t explain to her why she’s in danger.
And so, yet again, Eun-ha is back to icing Ji-hwan out — which means it’s the perfect time for the deerlings to serve up some shaved ice and steal the show with their amusing commentary and facial expressions. Thankfully, this disagreement isn’t a major setback in Ji-hwan and Eun-ha’s relationship, as Ji-hwan acknowledges he owes Eun-ha an apology. One apple — and an honest explanation of why she should avoid Yang-hee — later, and our emperor and empress penguins are lovey-dovey again.
They also happen to have the house all to themselves, but if you thought Ji-hwan’s confidence in how sexy his forearms look while cooking for Eun-ha would carry over into the more intimate aspects of their relationship, then you’d be sorely mistaken. Ji-hwan is still very much an awkward penguin when it comes to physical intimacy, and while Eun-ha likes to play the role of coy seductress with her cutesy videos and teasing words, she’s also easily flustered and hyper aware that they are very alone in the house.
I mean, when a man — yes, Ji-hwan is back to being a man in my book — thoughtfully builds you a filming studio in his basement, who wouldn’t get butterflies of anticipation after accidental touches? Whose thoughts wouldn’t turn to smooching when a steamy kiss scene begins playing on the television? It’s only natural that Ji-hwan and Eun-ha would lean in close… and get interrupted by Il-young. Well, at least Ji-hwan didn’t run away this time, so I call that a win.
And speaking of ways Ji-hwan is winning at dating, Ji-hwan finally has a sit-down with Ye-na and explicitly tells her that the only woman for him is Eun-ha — since long before Ye-na met him (*mic drop*). Even better, he comes away from his conversation with Ye-na realizing how imperative it is that he begins sharing the unsavory parts of his life with Eun-ha. Shielding Eun-ha from his past is not protecting her. It’s only building a wall between them that fosters miscommunication and misunderstandings. So, having come to this realization, Ji-hwan joins Eun-ha and the deerlings at the orphanage where they’re volunteering, and for the first time, he opens up about his father.
The night Ji-hwan protected young Eun-ha, one of father’s underlings kidnapped him. Gangster Dad wanted to set eyes on his progeny, but Ji-hwan wasn’t forced to live with his father at this point. Instead, it was several years later that Ji-hwan bargained his freedom in exchange for the money he needed to pay for his dying mother’s hospital bills. After his mother passed away, Ji-hwan agreed to live with his father and uphold his end of the bargain. (Not that he had much of a choice.)
Although Ji-hwan doesn’t go into detail about the bad things he did as a part of his father’s gang, he acknowledges that he committed them of his own volition. Sensing his shame, Eun-ha acknowledges his past but reminds him that he’s a very different person in the present. She points out all the ways he’s demonstrated that he’s a good person who cares for the people around him, and as long as he’s striving to be a better person, she wants to help him.
As much as I celebrate the baby steps Ji-hwan has taken towards Eun-ha, I fear what will happen next. Gangster Dad has been spying on Ji-hwan, and he seems disappointed that Ji-hwan is smiling and living his best life. Given the fact that this is a man who somehow exited prison with enough power to pull strings and get Hyun-woo booted from his investigation into the Kitty Gang’s drug money, I worry about the kind of mind games he will play to try and coerce his only heir into following in his criminal footsteps. Yang-hee, in comparison, really is just a big ol’ pussycat.
Overall, these episodes weren’t the best this drama has had to offer, but the plentiful interludes with the deerlings did a great job of distracting me from the less palatable bits. I’m going to chalk up the disappointing moments as being an unfortunate casualty of our story transitioning into its final story arc.
We’re at the part of our drama when our characters are finally syncing up and forming alliances in preparation for taking on the final boss. Even Ji-hwan and Hyun-woo are being set up to have a reluctant bromance — just two men bonding over their shared desire to keep their lady love alive and put the bad guys behind bars. Okay, maybe that’s a bit of a stretch still, but seeing Hyun-woo interact with the deerlings this week did give me hope that he might get adopted into the fold.