It’s over! But as we’ve learned from our tethered-by-time twosome, it’s never really the end. So, as our leads battle it out for which ending they like best (with a little help from a certain good-looking detective), we get to nuzzle into the fact that love stories like this live long past the last episode. And I, for one, will be watching this beauty again and again.
EPISODES 15-16
So, what exactly are the rules for time travel, crime motives, and fated deaths in this drama? Wait. I don’t care! This is a love story for the ages that I will have on replay until my heart literally bursts from too many feels — and that’s good enough for me. From start to finish, our three leads were immaculate, with writing and directing to match. And I know it’s only May, but I’m calling it now: best drama of the year. Get your abacus ready, ‘cause come December, this show will be racking up the beans.
These last episodes gave us back that grown-and-sexy vibe we had a glimpse of earlier, which pulled our characters a helluva long way from where we met them, and made this finale so fun to watch. It’s all about falling in love — again! — but now our OTP has all the experience of the prior timelines to guide them. Maybe Sol liked the original ending for this story, but I sure didn’t — and this time around, the universe is on my (and Sun-jae’s) side.
We open on the Ferris wheel where we left off last week. Sol is suddenly sick and unconscious with fever, which gives Sun-jae a good reason to truck her to his apartment and keep watch by her bedside. In her delirious state, she holds his hand, calls his name, and weeps — and he’s not going to forget about it anytime soon, even if she does.
In the morning, she’s feeling fine and tries to scamper out the door but runs smack into Sun-jae toweling his tresses (hello, Byun Woo-seok with wet hair). They have a little stand-off where she’s upset he brought her there and he thinks he did her a favor. Every second these two are in the same room from here on out he’s hitting on her, and the confidence is just beaming out of him. (How is this the same guy from the high school uniform days?!)
They have breakfast together (since he’s hidden her shoes so she can’t run away), and he tells her he doesn’t want her to quit her job and give up on her dreams. But stubborn Sol just replies that she wants the person she loves to live a long and healthy life, and so, she’s doing it anyway.
When they get downstairs, Detective Tae-sung is in the lobby, investigating the case of the serial killer cabbie. Sol is quick to make excuses for why she’s with Sun-jae at his place so early in the morning and spits out the half-truth that they’re working on a movie together. Sun-jae figures this means she can’t quit her job, which makes him happy. But when she hitches a ride with Tae-sung and leaves him behind, all that happiness turns to a jealous fit as he remembers how sweetly she held his hand the night before. Not only is he gradually remembering their past timelines together, he’s falling for her all over again.
Afterward, Sun-jae realizes that Sol left her medication behind and he’s desperate to return it to her. Yes, he’s worried about her health, but also, he can’t freakin’ wait to see her again. After practicing the best way to seem casual and cool about why he’s stopping by — and then totally screwing it up — he hands Sol her meds, and she’s really touched. Then she hands him her crying nephew, who throws up all over him.
And if anyone deserves thanks this week it’s that crying baby because throw-up obviously leads to shower scenes. The next shot we see is of Sun-jae emerging from the bathroom at Sol’s house, shirtless, where Sol tells him to hurry up and put his clothes on (and I tell her to just give it a minute). But there’s no time because you can’t have a half-naked celebrity in your house when Mom comes home! And so, she forces Sun-jae into her bedroom to hide “just for ten minutes” — to which he replies, “What should we do for those ten minutes?” (OMG, what a flirt. And she thought Tae-sung was bad?) By the time she sneaks him out the door, holding his hand, he’s so smitten and smiley he can barely contain himself.
It wouldn’t be a finale if we didn’t have at least one more mini-macho moment between our male leads. When Tae-sung meets with Sun-jae to ask for his dashcam footage (to search for the kidnapping cabbie in action), they start bickering about Sol. Tae-sung is insistent on calling her “uri Sol” and Sun-jae prickles every time he hears it. To outdo each other, they drink down their boiling hot cups of tea in one shot, burning their mouths and declaring it’s not that hot. Ah, these two. I’m going to miss them.
Before the movie shoot can begin, there’s another meeting to discuss logistics, and the drama gets even more meta. Sun-jae wants to change the script’s ending (hear, hear!), but Sol maintains that it’s the best ending for the characters (booo!). Sun-jae suggests an alternate ending: the man with memory loss should meet the woman in the future and fall in love again — because he just can’t help it. (And we know where this is headed.)
Sol’s boss agrees that it’s a very romantic ending. But Sol is undeterred. What if the man dies again? She keeps saving him and he keeps dying — isn’t it the worst ending? Sun-jae’s attitude is, “Everyone dies.” In his view, it’s better to live with someone you love, even for a moment. But by then Sol is getting so emotional in her argument that Sun-jae concedes. “Whatever the producer wants,” he says, and the way he looks at her is unreal. Even if he doesn’t understand what’s going on between them, he feels it for sure.
After the meeting, Sun-jae takes his shot, admitting to Sol that he’s interested in her and can’t stop thinking about her. Maybe he already fell in love. And, to shut him down, she says she’s in love with someone and that’s why they can’t be together. (Ugh. What a way to twist it.) She asks him sincerely not to approach her again. And he says, okay. She rejected him enough times, he won’t cling to someone who doesn’t like him. (I hate that she’s doing this to him again!)
She says goodbye to Sun-jae with finality, planning to quit her job after all. And Tae-sung gives her a ride, so we can also say a final goodbye to any lingering hopes for our second male lead. He tells Sol that he’s confused. They’ve been friends for more than ten years, but when he’s around her now, his heart says otherwise. “Should we date so I can find out if I’m mistaken or not?” (Oooh!) But Sol doesn’t take him seriously, and he doesn’t press it further.
And then, inexplicably, Sun-jae gets all his memories back from the prior timelines in one fell swoop. The only reasoning we get for this is that even if your brain forgets memories, your soul doesn’t. (This is the moment to just shrug and keep munching your popcorn.) As his memories come back, Sun-jae appears to be in pain — holding his head and stumbling into traffic. And at that very second, Tae-sung is in an all-out car chase with the crazy cabbie and they’re headed straight for Sun-jae.
As they speed down the street, Tae-sung crashes his car into the taxi before it hits our hero, and I can’t help but interject how much more entertaining this whole killer plotline is now that Tae-sung is on the case. (Also, where did he get such a cute assistant?) Unscathed, Sun-jae collapses onto the pavement anyway, as we get a visual recap of all the moments he and Sol lived together in all their timelines. “Is there such a thing as a predetermined fate? Like an inevitable fate, that we can neither change nor deny? If there is, Sol-ah, my fate, no matter which time we meet in — past, present, or any other — is to fall in love with you.”
As Sun-jae lies still, Tae-sung tries to arrest the killer, but he jets away as soon as he’s pulled from the car. Tae-sung gives chase, hobbling with an injury from the crash, and the killer runs into the road and gets hit by a dump truck — which sends him flying over the guardrail and into the water below (just as we saw happen to Sol earlier). In this case, though, he’s conveniently dead.
Sol hears the news that Sun-jae is in the hospital and starts running in his direction. And when he wakes in his hospital bed, he starts running to find her as well. The two stumble into each other halfway between, where Sun-jae asks her, “Do you still not want to change the ending? I think it changed already.” He marches over and hugs her tight. And as she grips him back, he says he remembers everything. They cry together, now that they’ve outdone fate, and then they kiss under the falling snow.
Cut to: couch cuddling! For our benefit and theirs, the remainder of Episode 16 is all love, dating, cuteness, and making up for lost time. Sun-jae says he doesn’t want to be without Sol for another second, and one month later, he’s still stuck to her side, even as she tries to ditch him once in a while to work on her script. He follows her from a café to a library, adorably annoyingly staring at her and touching her face while she’s trying to write.
Since his behavior is too flirty for public, he takes Sol to his place to finally finish what she’s writing. Except, now that they’re actually alone, Sol wants him to hit on her. (Lol.) But he’s really giving her some space this time — offering to take her straight home once she’s done. Sol awkwardly tiptoes around reasons to stay, until finally Sun-jae kisses her (in a pretty good recreation of that up-against-the-wall kiss they had in her doorway earlier). She stays the night, and in the morning, they’re so happy to be together — worry free — that it feels like a dream.
When Sol heads off to work the next day, Sun-jae heads off to the jewelry store with marriage on his mind. In a series of events that include buying a ring, getting the families together to meet, and botching a proposal on a boat, we end up right back under the cherry blossom trees again, where our OTP is ready to catch some petals and make a new wish. Sun-jae helps Sol catch the falling flowers again, but this time, when the petals blow out of her hands, the engagement ring is sitting in her palm. Sun-jae wants to spend every moment with her from now on and Sol of course agrees. When they kiss, they each have a vision of their wedding — just going to show that campus field trip prophecies can totally be trusted.
I can’t believe it’s over. What are we going to do without them on our screens? The journey has been so monumental that I feel like I’ve actually lived all the timelines, eras, and haircuts with them. The protagonists are so lovely and well written, down to their emotional cores — and the actors played them with such perfection — that it really just decimated the inconsistencies in the story for me. I can’t remember the last time I had this much fun getting to know characters — and now I just want to keep hanging out with them.
Tae-sung and Sun-jae’s petty competitions? More please! Sun-jae and Sol going another round in a time loop of falling in love? Sign me up! Sol and Tae-sung continually reversing positions in their one-sided crush forever? Yes! (Or if no, can I keep Tae-sung?) Not only is this my favorite drama of the year (I’ll be handing out awards for best OTP, best bromance, best kiss, best hero/heroine, and best love triangle — if that’s even a category), but it’s also going on my list of all-time faves. When casting, acting, writing, and directing line up, it’s nothing short of a miracle.
Before this drama began, I would have followed Kim Hye-yoon and Byun Woo-seok anywhere. But their performances here have outshined their prior roles, with Byun Woo-seok showing amazing development and range, and Kim Hye-yoon taking on what seems like a typecast role for her and elevating it into something sophisticated. Plus, I’m adding Song Geon-hee to my watch list, and I can’t wait to get started on that. For everyone involved, in front of the camera and behind, I think I’ll be a forever fan — even if I don’t have the urge to piggyback them and run.