It’s our hero’s turn to deal with his baggage this week as the conflict in his own family reaches a painful crescendo. However, this might just help him and his love next door finally get together…
EPISODES 11-12
Okay guys, we’re back after last week’s galling episodes and when we open this week it’s the day after the airport scene. As expected, Seok-ryu’s horrifying/traumatizing/upsetting cancer arc has been put to bed. Her family now accepts her dream to cook, and the family is overall supportive and wonderful.
For issues that were so deeply baked into the make-up of this family and its members, I find it hard to believe they’re completely resolved. But for the sake of the argument, let’s say they are. If the lesson we got from Seok-ryu’s story is that you need your loved ones around you to support you in this life, then Seung-hyo’s story also confirms that same message… except all his family gets is a two-episode story arc that unpacks 30+ years of baggage in as many run-time minutes.
Seung-hyo’s dad has witnessed his wife’s “affair” one too many times, and despite the fact he was swooning over her like crazy a few hours ago, now tells her he wants to divorce. Seung-hyo’s mom agrees without any sort of argument, and tells everyone she’s going to Africa on a new assignment. Except we all remember that she was actually forced to resign (huh?).
Seung-hyo is enchanted to have a family dinner for once, but when he realizes it’s just a stage for his parents to announce their divorce, he gets up and leaves. Poor boy goes through all the feelings here and cries like he should have as a kid (instead of just pressuring himself to be perfect). But Seok-ryu is there for him during all this — dragging him home when he’s wasted and patting his back when he’s crying — and sure their reciprocity is nice, but does everything have to be so extra in this show?
At first it seems like Seung-hyo’s mom was going to pretend to go to Africa as a convenient way to escape the pain of a divorce and leaving her family, but when she packs a suitcase and heads to the airport, things don’t add up. We follow her for a bit only to learn that she’s been very forgetful lately — like the spoon that shattered the washing machine glass. When this new development reaches a fever pitch, Seung-hyo’s mom has sent her suitcase and cellphone somewhere but she’s at a temple with no idea what’s really going on. What the ever-loving Alzheimer’s is going on here, Show? I confess I was about ready to throw in the towel right then and there. Mom has been hiding this, and that’s what’s going on? Really?!
While Mom is stranded/missing, her husband confronts the ambassador character who he thinks has been her lover all these years. But Dad learns that his wife is actually retiring, and both men then realize something is wrong, since she can’t remember actually doing this…
Cue: Seung-hyo and his dad — with Seok-ryu in tow — on a rescue mission to the mountain temple to save Mom, who’s fallen in the woods somewhere like all the many heroines before her. By some miracle they find her, and she’s okay. Dad’s like a college boy in love from here on out, and this is also the scene where Seung-hyo gets to cry his eyes out (aw his sad cry face though!) and unload all of his parental/family baggage. It’s not unlike we’ve seen Seok-ryu do a few times now: all the pain and misunderstandings and unspoken things over the last 30 years come tumbling out. Mom apologizes for the hurtful things she’s said and done in the past, Seung-hyo explains how unloved he’s always felt, and with that out of the way, his family is pretty much put back together.
Seung-hyo’s parents have Mom assessed, and don’t worry — it was only a red herring meant to torture us — she’s fine. The doctor says it was just stress. Stress? That made her forget she quit her job? I don’t get it, but I’m glad she’s okay. Seeing these two all giddy over each other was the cutest thing I’ve seen in a while, and I’m all for it. (By the way, the affair was another red herring — they were “just friends” and the guy is gay. Talk about a 25-year misunderstanding.)
Speaking of cute, now that everyone’s health and family situations are good (*dusts off palms*), it’s time to get to the meat of the story: Seung-hyo and Seok-ryu getting together. I wish I could say it was satisfying, but it wasn’t. Seung-hyo goes on site to a beautiful location for a project he’s working on, while Seok-ryu stays home and cooks, listening to a recording of Seung-hyo translating her French cookbook. In that recording, Seung-hyo snuck in a “my love for you will never expire” while she was sleeping. And suddenly, hearing it, something clicks for her. Seok-ryu can’t stay where she is for another moment and drives a million miles to said location, and finds Seung-hyo standing in a sea of sunflowers. She tells him it was boring without him and asks if he wants to drink some banana milk with her. And because this sounds like a confession, Seung-hyo walks over. He takes her head in his hands and gently kisses her. This is picturesque and everything, but I did not just go through 11 episodes of what I did for a sweet kiss in a photogenic field.
We open up Episode 12 with our OTP having kissed. They sip their banana milk and discuss how they’re not friends anymore, and Seung-hyo says that it was the hardest thing he ever did (aww). Unfortunately, we don’t get that much cuteness between them because 1) like every good heroine, Seok-ryu wants them to keep their dating a secret; and 2) they don’t really know how to transition their relationship from friendship to romance.
Now, you’d think that the latter part — having a friendship turn romantic and physical — would be the lifeblood of this story, right? You’d think that we’d be able to enjoy lots of episodes of the mounting tension between these two, and all the hesitations of acting on their new feelings. At least, that’s the show I came to watch. Instead, what we got was whatever those first 11 episodes were, and now, in Episode 12, their total awkwardness together as a dating couple.
Don’t get me wrong — this is an important next phase of the story and a realistic one for their relationship — but I don’t feel like we ever got that first phase we needed. And since we never got that first phase, watching them being awkward in their Trying to Date stage didn’t get me very excited, since nothing felt at stake. (Side note: Bottom of the 9th with Two Outs is probably still one of the best friends-to-lovers dramas for me that actually picked up on the tension of that relationship evolution.) Anyway, in a convenient plot move, both their sets of parents go on a trip together, and Seung-hyo and Seok-ryu are left alone in her house. When they go to her bedroom to retrieve a stack of manhwa, Seung-hyo gets super uncomfortable LOL. But Seok-ryu gives him permission to “think bad thoughts” and the two sleep together under the millions of plastic glow-in-the-dark stars he glued to her ceiling. Oh, K-dramas.
Moving on to our other romance arc — Mo-eum and Mudflat Man — now that Mo-eum’s mother is Yeon-du’s new afternoon babysitter, their families are getting awfully close. Mo-eum is still avoiding Dan-ho after their kiss-with-headbutt encounter, but they agree to ignore it. After this, they go back to their previous comfortable relationship… until Mo-eum starts overreaching again.
She plans a full day of camping with Dan-ho and his daughter, and the three are acting like a happy little family. Mo-eum is thinking what I’m thinking, and she blurts out to Dan-ho that she knows she’s moving fast but she’d really like to be Yeon-du’s mom. Oh, and her heart goes crazy whenever he is around. But this time, it’s Dan-ho’s turn to flip out, and he exits out of that conversation before the confession is barely out of her mouth. *weeps in frustration*
Wrapping up, we’ve got a lot of progress with all of our relationships and lovelines this week — Seung-hyo’s parents, Seung-hyo x Seok-ryu, and Dan-ho x Mo-eum. But something feels like it’s missing. I’m not squeeing over any of this, and it’s all supposed to be very squee-worthy. I think it’s because I feel like my emotions have been mishandled by the show for so many weeks. Now that they want to deliver as promised, I’m not really sure I can believe them. No amount of sunflower field kisses can rebuild our broken trust, Show. And with no real signal as to what’s going to happen plot-wise in our final two weeks, I’m more concerned about what they’re going to invent than excited to see how it plays out.