This drama has more villains than a Batman movie, and as they take turns trying to ruin our OTP’s happiness, it’s no wonder that things become a little strained between our time traveler and her husband. Don’t worry, though, there’s still plenty of romance and squees to go around this week, but at least one of these baddies has seriously got to go.
EPISODES 7-8
After Tae-ha’s latest attack, Yeon-woo is feeling pretty confident that Tae-ha’s fate is tied to that of her Joseon husband, and she wants to step in to help him shoulder his burdens and be at his side while he battles Hye-sook, the woman who locked him in the annex and forced him to watch his mother die. Tae-ha, however, choses to draw a line and remind Yeon-woo that he’s not her dead husband. He just looks like him.
Ehhhhhh, while that is not true — we’ve definitely got some reincarnation shenanigans going on — it’s understandable that Tae-ha would be concerned that he shares a face with Yeon-woo’s dead husband now that he’s developing feelings for her. What if any romantic feelings she may have for him are due to the shared resemblance between him and her husband? That doesn’t sit well with Tae-ha, but Sung-pyo — who sees right through Tae-ha’s story about his “friend” — tells him to stop worrying about Yeon-woo’s dead husband. Tae-ha’s opponent holds no real threat since he’s not around to act as a goalkeeper for Yeon-woo’s heart.
Tae-ha takes Sung-pyo’s advice and buys some chocolates for Yeon-woo, but then he chickens out and hands them to Ha-na as she’s passing by. He gives Ha-na explicit instructions to share the chocolates with her team (so that Yeon-woo gets some and is indirectly the recipient of his affection), but Ha-na keeps all the chocolates for herself and tells her coworkers that they were a gift. Of course her coworkers assume that Ha-na has an admirer, and Ha-na smiles sweetly and sneaks a glance at the clueless Yeon-woo. At this point in our story, I’ve decided that Ha-na is a real witch, and I can only assume she needed those chocolates to start constructing her candy house in the woods.
Ha-na can try and run interference between our couple, but after working hours, Sa Wol and Sung-pyo’s matchmaking attempts are much more effective. In fact, their cockamamie plan to lock Tae-ha and Yeon-woo in a room together so they can consummate their marriage was proving effective — until a work emergency has Sung-pyo unlocking all the deadbolts he painstakingly installed on the outside of Yeon-woo’s bedroom.
Sadly, hanky-panky takes a backseat to the machinations of our evil-doers who are determined to see Yeon-woo’s fashion collaboration with Midam crash and burn. To begin, Yeon-woo’s designs are leaked and then put in production by a competitor, which gives Ha-na an excuse to berate Yeon-woo for being careless with her designs. (The audacity!) Yeon-woo, the eternal optimist, rallies herself with a little encouragement from Tae-ha and Tae-min. She moves forward with a new set of designs, but then someone (to be determined) lied to the modeling agency that the date of the fashion show had changed.
Hye-sook swoops in, like a devil about to barter for Tae-ha’s soul, and offers to find a new set of models for the runway. Tae-ha accepts the offer, which doesn’t sit well with the people around him — especially Sang-mo — but at the moment he cares more about the short-term goal of having a successful collaboration with Midam than his long-term war with Hye-sook. And if there’s also a part of him that doesn’t want to see Yeon-woo’s runway debut go up in flames, then so be it.
But the evil mastermind plotting to sabotage Yeon-woo’s fashion show is annoyingly persistent, and on the day the new models are set to hit the runway, Yeon-woo’s show-stopping finale dress is maliciously ripped and torn. It’s a real Cinderella moment for Yeon-woo, who works her magic and transforms the damaged dress into a trendy jumpsuit, but while she’s frantically working a miracle with her sewing machine, both Sang-mo and Ha-na admonish Tae-ha for taking a risk with Yeon-woo.
Now, Tae-ha is willing to be chastised by his grandfather — after all, he’s family and Tae-ha’s superior — but Ha-na, who must think she has legs as long as Byeon Woo-seok, is majorly overstepping. For starters, Tae-ha is her boss, and this is neither the time nor the place for her to be questioning his authority. But for some reason, Ha-na also thinks she has a claim to Tae-ha’s personal life, so she decides at this moment — when the fashion show is on the brink of failure — to diss Yeon-woo and confess her feelings for Tae-ha. (Y’all, the delusion is strong with this one.) Tae-ha puts her in her place, but I wish he’d had more time for a sterner, more satisfying tongue-lashing. Then again, he really shouldn’t spare a lot of time for someone so insignificant — not when there’s a majorly important fashion show going on.
Thankfully, Yeon-woo and her team are able to craft a new look and send it down the runway, and despite the chaos behind the scenes, the show is a rousing success. (I personally made grabby hands at several of the designs featured on the runway.) Once the venue has cleared out and only Tae-ha and Yeon-woo remain behind, the runway becomes the site of Tae-ha’s confession. He feels inferior to the memory of her deceased husband, and before he gives Yeon-woo a chance to tell him her feelings, he admits defeat.
But as he’s walking away, Yeon-woo explains to him that her memory of her husband is mostly sad and painful. Tae-ha, however, is different. When she’s with him, she feels a variety of complex emotions unrelated to her Joseon husband, and when she looks at him, she sees someone entirely separate from her husband — someone who “changed her fate.” Her words are exactly what Tae-ha needed to hear, and he feels emboldened enough to kiss her. (Yay!)
But, of course, because these two have about as much dating experience as an asexual starfish, they are still painfully shy and awkward around one another — in an admittedly adorable kind of way. Right now would be the perfect time for our OTP to take a vacation to Jeju Island for a little romance, don’t you think? Yeah, about that. Instead of traveling as a couple, Tae-ha invites his whole team (plus Sa Wol) to celebrate their hard work and recent success. As a boss, Tae-ha gets brownie points, but as a man trying to woo his woman, I just shake my head.
Then again, maybe Tae-ha does know what he’s doing. He intentionally chose Jeju Island as their destination to show her that it was beautiful and no longer a lonely place, just like her. And perhaps, less intentionally, with his subordinates on the trip, he and Yeon-woo have to maintain the farce of being married which means… they have to share a room. But if you thought this would lead to more swoony kisses, you’d be wrong. Rather than spend the night wrapped in each other’s arms, our awkward couple end up sleeping on the floor — on opposite sides of the bed. (*face palm*) Tae-ha, my man, I know you’re concerned about your heart rate, but surely you can survive a little snuggling.
As much as I like to downplay Tae-ha’s heart condition, the movers and shakers back home aren’t as dismissive. Tae-ha’s doctor is extremely concerned about Tae-ha’s latest test results, and he calls Tae-ha and frantically urges him to return to Seoul for more tests. At the same time, Hye-sook has found out about Tae-ha’s declining health, and almost immediately calls a meeting with the board of directors to dismiss him from his position. With all the focus on his heart condition — an ailment he shares with Yeon-woo’s dead husband — it’s time for Tae-ha to be a noble idiot.
You see, all this time, Tae-ha has been thinking that Yeon-woo loved her husband so much that she jumped in the well and killed herself after he died — because that’s what is written in the history books. Now that his heart condition has gotten worse, he’s worried that she will unalive herself if he meets the same fate as her husband. So when Yeon-woo moves in with Sung-pyo, Tae-ha tells Sung-pyo not to reveal his prognosis or pending job dismissal. The one positive to this little couple hiatus is that Tae-ha uses the extra time on his hands to figure out that Ha-na was the one who sabotaged the fashion show, and he tells her to quietly quit and disappear. (A bit too nice, in my opinion, but I hope she’s gone for good.)
Tae-ha, bless him, isn’t a noble idiot for long. When the reality of how much it sucks to live without her sets in, he goes rushing to her side. At the same time, Yeon-woo is searching for him because she overheard Sung-pyo talking to his sister about Hye-sook’s latest scheme to get him fired. When Tae-ha finds her, he gives her a back hug and emphatically confesses his feelings. Before she agrees to open her heart to him again, Yeo-woo makes him promise to not lie or leave her again. In response, he tells her that he’s going to be selfish and let himself like her even though he worries it’s not fair to her to have to deal with his heart condition — and, let’s be real, his very likely early demise.
Yeon-woo welcomes him back with open arms, and as compensation for having sat through Tae-ha’s noble idiocy, we’re treated to some extra cute scenes. For starters, we learn that Tae-ha has expanded Yeon-woo’s robot vacuum family, and then he takes her to an ice rink where she gets to try curling for real! On top of all that, Tae-ha heads off Hye-sook’s latest power play by preemptively announcing to the company that he has a heart condition, and at the next board of directors meeting he will propose a structural change that opens the door for the company to be run by someone who is not a member of the Kang family. (Hah! Take that, Hye-sook!)
Tae-ha’s plans for the company don’t sour just Hye-sook’s mood, though. Sang-mo (Grandpa) is equally displeased with Tae-ha’s announcement because it does not follow the plan that he charted for Tae-ha. It’s still hard to say how deep Grandpa’s villainous tendencies flow, but it’s safe to say that he is one shady mofo. Just this week we’ve learned that Grandpa faked the illness that pushed Tae-ha to get married, kidnapped Fake Bride #1 and may have caused her harm, and told Ha-na that he’d allow her to marry Tae-ha if she kept an eye on his grandson for him. (Well, that certainly explains Ha-na’s inflated sense of entitlement.)
But is Grandpa a villain in the conventional sense? I think our story wants us to believe he is, especially now that Sa Wol found Yeon-woo’s pocket watch in his possession, which means Tae-ha’s ancestors were probably behind Yeon-woo’s kidnapping and murder. And yet, Grandpa’s obsession with Joseon artifacts and Yeon-woo’s painting make me suspect that he might simply be a man misguided in his methods to right the wrongs of his ancestors and prevent history from repeating itself.
Either way, I end this week’s episodes with more questions than answers, and with so little time left to tie off our plot threads, I’m starting to grow concerned. The drama has developed a bit of a pattern by focusing the bulk of the story on the modern obstacles while all the time-wimey bits have been tacked on to the end of each episode like an afterthought. At this point, Cheonmyeong’s only purpose is to pop in, look mysteriously gorgeous with her green eyes and white hair, and remind us that Yeon-woo has traveled from the past and that there are larger things afoot besides hostile company takeovers.
This is concerning for me because I worry that our story is setting up Cheonmyeong to be a convenient catchall force behind the time travel and other magical bits, and what can’t — or won’t — be explained by logic will fall under her umbrella and the simple explanation of magic (Cue: *jazz hands*). I have this sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach that I’m not going to be satisfied with whatever explanation is given for sending Yeon-woo to the future to solve or end a cycle that began in the past. Here’s hoping I’m wrong, though, because I’m really enjoying this drama, and I don’t want to be burned by another subpar K-drama ending.