Our heroine learns that doing the right thing comes with its own set of consequences, and our hero wrestles with what her con artist reveal means for their relationship. In the spirit of reveals, we also get the not-so-surprising confirmation about the thirteen-year-old incident — which leaves some of us confused by the show’s time travel rules.
EPISODES 7-8
The good news is: Gwi-ju doesn’t sink back into drunken depression after Da-hae admits to being a con artist. The not-so-good news is: he can’t help relieving — and returning to — their disastrous wedding ceremony. Gwi-ju wonders if everything between him and Da-hae was a lie — but this is not a case of “OMG! The woman I love broke my heart,” it’s more like “The woman who gave me hope took it all away.”
Speaking of dashed hopes, Ms. Popular extends an olive branch to Yi-na, but Yi-na sees past the superficial gesture when she reads her mind. (By the way, am I the only one who hates it whenever Ms. Popular takes off Yi-na’s glasses? It feels like she’s treating Yi-na like a pet or a circus animal. Sheesh!) Hurt, Yi-na blindly stumbles out of the classroom, and without her glasses to block eye contact — and people’s thoughts by extension — the poor girl is swallowed up by everyone’s hypocritical thoughts.
Yi-na ends up at the sauna because Da-hae is the only person she can look in the eyes without being scared, and they go shopping for new glasses. But while Yi-na would like to hang out for a while longer, Da-hae sends her home to protect her from Sauna Mom who intends to use her to get back at the Boks.
Gwi-ju takes an accusatory tone with Da-hae when he comes to pick Yi-na up, and his daughter’s defense of her beloved ahjumma falls on deaf ears. Among other things, Gwi-ju is disappointed that his sunbae died while trying to rescue Da-hae from the fire only for her to end up becoming a con artist. “I will never go back to a moment I spent with you,” he declares, before storming off. But he barely reaches his car when his future self appears to Da-hae who is on the verge of tears. *Laughs in famous last words*
Future Gwi-ju doesn’t seem mad at Da-hae — if anything, he looks relieved/happy to see her. “Don’t let me go,” he says, before wrist-grabbing and pushing Da-hae in front of Present Gwi-ju’s car. Present Gwi-ju is frustrated because Da-hae won’t move out of the way, but she can’t move because Future Gwi-ju won’t let her leave. Yi-na notes that someone seems to be controlling Da-hae, and it dawns on Gwi-ju that the invisible someone might be his future self.
This parking lot scene with Da-hae stuck between the two Gwi-jus was hilarious, but it also reminded me why I’d make a terrible K-drama female lead: I’d have passed out instead of passing on Future Gwi-ju’s “Dong-hee is in danger” warning to Present Gwi-ju. Pfft. Anyway, thanks to the warning, Gwi-ju arrives at the Bok Gym in time to break Dong-hee’s fall — after Grace pushes her off the stairs to get video evidence that she can fly. Phew!
Dong-hee sees Da-hae before passing out, and she reports this to Man-heum when she gains consciousness. Furious that Da-hae “kidnapped” her granddaughter and “hurt” her daughter, Man-heum storms the hospital to slap Da-hae. Ouch! Man-heum’s self-righteous indignation amuses me. She was going to use Da-hae to restore the family’s superpowers, but she has the nerve to be upset that Da-hae had other fraudulent plans of her own? Tsk. In a way, Man-heum is also a fraud for stealing lottery numbers and stock prices from the future, and it gave me immense satisfaction to see Yi-na call her out on that.
Yi-na is not about to let the Gwi-ju × Da-hae ship capsize, so she tells Gwi-ju to save Da-hae from the sauna family. “Do you still not get why she ruined the wedding even after relieving it so many times?” Yi-na asks her clueless father, and this sends him back to the wedding. Gwi-ju sees Da-hae crying alone — before getting slapped and dragged away by Sauna Mom — and it hits him that Da-hae sabotaged the wedding to save him from getting conned.
Gwi-ju then approaches the sauna family with a deal: he’ll help them with money-making opportunities from the future in exchange for spending time with Da-hae. It’s a win-win situation for everyone except for the actual person the deal is hinged on. Da-hae doesn’t want Gwi-ju to get involved with the sauna family — even if his intentions are to save her — but Gwi-ju insists that he’s going to hold on to her and undo the moment things ended for them. That said, Gwi-ju disappears — and this is the “Don’t let me go” Gwi-ju that appeared to her in the parking lot.
Speaking of returns to the past, Gwi-ju goes back to a moment in his rookie days as a firefighter. He was in the hospital for a broken arm, and Da-hae also happened to be at the hospital’s funeral hall for her dad’s wake. Apart from Sauna Mom — who comes to force Da-hae to take over her dad’s debt — time-travelling Gwi-ju is the only other condolence visitor. He pays his respects to Dad, and stays with Da-hae while she grieves. But I’m not sure she remembers this incident. The point is, Gwi-ju’s desperation to save people has nothing to do with a superiority complex like Da-hae thinks; the man genuinely just wants to be there for others. Or for her since their fates are tied to each other.
As Gwi-ju and Da-hae spend time together in the present, she tells him that she can only find happiness by selling her misfortune. Case in point: back in high school, an ahjumma paid for her shoplifted bread and bought shaved ice for her after learning she was one of the students from the burnt school. While Da-hae knows what the fire incident means to Gwi-ju, she admits that she wasn’t grateful she survived. Life post-fire was exhausting for her, and she says she resorted to conning people with the “you look like the man who saved me from the fire” story to spite her savior. Speaking of which, Da-hae tells Gwi-ju that her savior gave her a ring, and the ring is in her box at the Bok mansion. Hmmmm.
In the sweetest of gestures, Gwi-ju hops through time to bring Da-hae her favorite shaved ice — and lottery numbers! Must be nice. Gwi-ju wants Da-hae to use the money to pay off her debt to Sauna Mom, but Da-hae buys the winning ticket — and gives it to Man-heum when the latter offers her a brand new “leave my family alone” car. “Take [ticket] and leave me alone!” Da-hae retorts in a pretty epic comeback. B-but it’s a 2.3 billion won ticket! I’d have kept my ticket and taken the car, too. And this is why I’d be a terrible K-drama female lead. Heh.
The misadventures of our lottery ticket continue in the Bok mansion after Soon-goo steals it from a sleeping Man-heum. Ha! Let’s back up a bit, shall we? Soon-goo sneaks out to unwind at a club whenever Man-heum looks down on him, and he made a platonic lady friend while at it. Unfortunately, the lady friend is married, and her husband blackmails Soon-goo in exchange for not telling his family about his extracurricular activities. Gwi-ju almost catches his dad in the theft, but he doesn’t pay much attention because his mind is on the ring Da-hae talked about.
Gwi-ju eventually learns that the ring from Da-hae’s box is the “stolen” family ring, but he’s not sure how she’d have broken into their safe to steal. He unlocks the safe to see the empty box with his own eyes, but what does he see? Why, the family’s ring sitting pretty in its box, of course! Haha. Like we need any more confirmation that Gwi-ju was the one who saved Da-hae, Man-heum’s hazy dream featuring Da-hae and the family’s ring finally becomes clear: she sees Gwi-ju putting the ring on Da-hae’s finger in the burning school building!
Man-heum would have mentioned if the family’s ring was a pair, so I doubt there were two separate rings originally. But things have taken an interesting turn with Da-hae’s ring from her savior, and the ring in the safe existing in the same timeline! When Man-heum mentioned that the mutation of the family’s superpowers always comes at a price, maybe the price she was referring to is my sanity because I am so confused right now. Then again, if Present Gwi-ju and Future Gwi-ju can exist in the same timeline, how much more a ring?
This is my favorite week so far in terms of humor and story progression, and I’m enjoying the show a lot more now that the sauna family and the Boks have all their cards on the table. I’m still biased against the sauna family, and while I can accept Da-hae falling for Gwi-ju since she’s trying to do right by him and his daughter, I don’t appreciate the drama’s attempt to make me warm up to the other family members. Sauna Uncle saving Yi-na from being harassed by Ms. Popular’s underlings won’t make me forget that he stalked her. (Although it was satisfying to watch her flick the hell out of his forehead after reading his thoughts to win their guessing game. Heh.) And him being a little defensive of Da-hae won’t change the fact that he locked her up — storage room PTSD and all — under Sauna Mom’s instructions.
But I’d sooner warm up to grumpy Sauna Uncle — and his Cupid activities — than I would to Grace. She’s way too hyped about using the Boks’ superpowers to exploit them, and whatever sismance the drama tried to establish between her and Dong-hee died the moment she shoved Dong-hee off the stairs. Dong-hee could have been seriously injured or worse! It’s bad enough that I’ve not seen a glimmer of remorse from Grace, but the show had to do a disservice to Dong-hee by making her collaborate with Grace to get back together with her scumbag fiancé. Come on, Show, Dong-hee deserves better.