Now that divorce is on the table it’s up to our heroine to stick to her guns — no matter how much her husband pouts or tries to fight it. But a new patient arrives to the hospital this week, shaking up her emotions and testing her resolve. It’s not all grim, though, because our dreamy doctor sitting on the sideline hasn’t lost hope of racing into our heroine’s heart.
EPISODES 13-14
Well, for better or worse, In-ho was not seriously injured at the end of last week’s episodes. The nosebleed and fainting turned out to be nothing — so, while the good news is we don’t have to hang around his bedside feeling bad for him, the bad news is that he’s still around.
But we do have a sick family member this week, and that’s Jung-sook’s eomma, Deok-rye. She’s the glue that ties these episodes together, pushing the plot forward and pulling our characters into new and uncomfortable situations.
After Jung-sook announces that she wants a divorce, In-ho makes it clear that he doesn’t, and he won’t make it easy for her. He’s broken up with Seung-hee and gotten on his knees to apologize — what more could Jung-sook want from him? He decides that pastries and poetic text messages are what’s missing and starts bombarding her with those.
For her part, Jung-sook tells him it’s too late. It doesn’t matter what he does, she’s already made up her mind. But wait, what if he puts her name on the deed to the house like she asked for months ago? No. Even that will not win her over. Take your flowers and your deed and go away, In-ho.
Just because Jung-sook is standing firm in her decision, it doesn’t make it hurt any less. When she’s alone, she has her crying moments and we see her start to neglect her health. So, when her mother’s chronic pain becomes unbearable, leading to a depression, Jung-sook is stretched to the extreme, worrying about her mom and trying to get her proper care.
Jung-sook takes Deok-rye to the hospital to get a full workup and, hopefully, a correct diagnosis. There, Seung-hee is Deok-rye’s assigned doctor, which obviously makes Jung-sook uncomfortable. Jung-sook hasn’t told her mother anything about In-ho or the divorce yet, and she doesn’t plan to until her mom is feeling better. (Which surprises me given that Jung-sook didn’t like being the only one in the dark. She should know her mom won’t like it either.)
In-ho, trying hard to be a good manipulator, uses Deok-rye’s illness as a means to keep Jung-sook close. He takes the whole family to an expensive dinner and tries to woo his mother-in-law — by shooting cash into the air over the dinner table. Nobody finds this charming, but Deok-rye appreciates his efforts.
Moments later, everything goes up in smoke when Ae-shim spots the man she’s been dating having dinner with another woman. According to the woman, Ae-shim is the interloper and this shady old man belongs to her! She grabs Ae-shim by the hair and starts screaming that she’s a cheater just like her son. Uh oh.
The woman knows the whole story about Seung-hee and Eun-seo and yells it out for everyone to hear. Deok-rye, stunned, breaks up the fight and asks her to repeat what she just said. When it’s crystal clear what’s going on — and that Deok-rye is the only one who didn’t know — she becomes scarily quiet with anger and tells Jung-sook and In-ho they need to report to her house right now. Once at home, they sit on the floor in front of her and get scolded.
For Deok-rye, this is painful on a few fronts. She’s hurt for her daughter, who has kept all this bottled up and not shared it with her, and she’s also shocked that Jung-sook and Seung-hee have been working together. Deok-rye really liked Seung-hee as a doctor and thought she was a great mentor for Jung-sook, but now she realizes how hurtful it must have been when she said those things out loud. The worst part is that now she feels like she can’t stay at that hospital and wants to get care somewhere else. It’s really heartbreaking because she was finally receiving appropriate attention after so many misdiagnoses and botched treatments.
As it turns out, she doesn’t change hospitals because as soon as they return, Deok-rye has to go into emergency surgery. Jung-sook is so choked up when her mom tries to leave, she can barely get her words out when she says, “I don’t want you to be sick somewhere without me. I don’t want to even imagine it. Mom, I can’t fix your illness, but at least I can be here with you.” (Oof. I’m crying almost as much as she is.)
But it’s also a good thing Deok-rye doesn’t leave because Seung-hee is determined to get her the correct diagnosis. We see her research late into the night and call a doctor she knows in the U.S. until she comes up with the right treatment and Deok-rye is finally out of pain. We saw in the beginning that Seung-hee was competent and professional when it comes to her job (in contrast to her personal life) and I don’t think she’s doing this to win any points. She liked Deok-rye as much as Deok-rye liked her.
After her mom is released and feeling better, Jung-sook thanks Seung-hee for what she did. Seung-hee confides that Yi-rang has been to see her. Yi-rang apologized for what she did to Eun-seo and tried to bargain, saying that she’s scared to fully lose her dad and she will give up on art school if Seung-hee will leave In-ho alone. Seung-hee tells Jung-sook that Yi-rang should go to whatever art school she wants and adds, “We hurt our kids too much.”
This has a significant effect on Jung-sook, who marches straight to In-ho’s office and hands him divorce papers. She says the divorce has become the most important thing to her right now, pointedly stating, “Your daughters are suffering.” In-ho replies that he won’t give mutual consent to divorce so she’ll have to take him to court — but he’ll spend all his money to make sure a divorce doesn’t happen. Undeterred, Jung-sook files a petition for divorce and sends him the papers.
In the background of our main story, a few other things are going on. First, Jung-min is let off the legal hook when his patient’s family decides not to sue. Emotionally, though, he can’t let the patient’s death go. He decides to put his residency on hold and enlist for military service while he thinks about what field he really wants to go into. He only signed up for surgery because of his dad, but his feelings have changed since then.
The only good thing about this is that it helps him and So-ra go public with their relationship. When he tells her the news about the military and adds that she doesn’t have to wait for him, it sounds like a breakup. Obviously, he’s doing what he thinks she wants, so she makes it clear what she really wants, saying, “Tell me to wait for you!” Then she hugs him in front of a group of their colleagues who stare in disbelief. These two are adorable — even when Jung-sook accidentally catches them making out in a closet.
The other interesting thread is Dr. Kim’s search for his birth parents. He was raised by adoptive parents in the U.S. and we learned early on that one of his principle reasons for coming to Korea is to locate his birth family. He registers his DNA in a database and it turns up a match. But he’s so nervous about the meeting, he asks Jung-sook to accompany him. She goes, but waits outside as he meets his relatives.
They’re awful. And it seems the only reason his three siblings have contacted him is because their father is in need of a bone marrow donor. He comes out crestfallen but doesn’t tell Jung-sook the details. Since she and Dr. Kim are in a jogging club together, she tries to pep him up by suggesting they jog back to the hospital. He’s not wearing the right shoes, so they go buy matching sneakers (first couple item?) and blow off steam by running the 9K back to work.
Our cliffhanger this week takes us down a notch, though. We know Jung-sook has been stressed and running herself ragged, and as we close these episodes, she’s going about her day at the hospital when she gets dizzy and coughs up blood.
Oh no. I don’t want that to be the epicenter of our finale! Can’t our heroine get a break? Well, in any case, I’m happy to see that things are picking up between her and Dr. Kim just as I was starting to give up hope. Seeing him with his biological family was one of the most heartbreaking scenes, only to be surpassed by the moments with Jung-sook and her mama.
I’m loving the way things are mostly falling together and everyone is having their small turning points (except In-ho and his mother, but that’s expected). This has been quite a journey so far for a show that seemed simple, with clearly defined good and bad, in its opening episode. I was prepared for old-school tropes with some girl power tossed in for laughs, but had no idea it would end up being so all-encompassing.
Focusing on the kids’ perspectives and never wavering from showing Seung-hee’s side along with Jung-sook’s has been the strength of this drama. I think in the final episodes we may see a turnaround back to the uncomplicated vibes of the premiere week, but I have no problem with that. It’s already far exceeded my expectations.