At the halfway point and back in the present, our leads are all grown up. We’ve traded high school uniforms for designer duds — and cutesy crushes for otherworldly intensity. While our heroine does her best to outsmart fate, it seems to have a way of sneaking up on her. But that doesn’t mean she and our hero can’t kick up some excitement before it does.
EPISODES 7-8
Woooow. How is this drama pulling off the emotional whirlwind it’s producing in me? All this time I thought the adorable high school timeline, with its little heart hiccups, was all I wanted out of life. And now I see that the adult versions of these characters in the present day were the sexy surprise I didn’t know I needed.
Phew. While I’m fanning myself, let’s get back into the 2008 action and sort out what the heck happened by the reservoir that awful night. We start out by witnessing the events in the original timeline. Sol and Sun-jae are on a bus together, he’s crushing hard, she doesn’t know he exists, and when she gets off the bus, she’s kidnapped by the crazy cabbie and tied up in the backseat of his taxi.
When Sun-jae finally follows her, she’s escaped the car and is running away, but before he can reach her, she’s smashed into by the taxi and tossed in the air before landing in the water. It’s brutal and Sun-jae is in slight shock. But he regains composure quickly, dives in after her, and pulls her up — in a way that’s impossibly delicate for how frantic the scene is.
On land, Sun-jae fights with the crazy cabbie until the police arrive and haul away the criminal. And all of this information suddenly comes back to Sol when she’s in the new 2008 timeline that she’s currently creating — just at the moment when she’s kidnapped again. Luckily our heroine is not a pushover and this time when she escapes the car, she takes the keys with her.
But you know how crazy dudes are — they always seem to have another vehicle laying around somewhere — and so, she’s chased down anyway. In this version of the timeline, Sun-jae arrives again, in a re-creation of the earlier scene, but another car intervenes before Sol is attacked. Crisis averted! She’s managed to change her fate and assure she’ll be able to walk when she gets back to 2024. And 2024 is exactly where she’s headed the minute the past changes.
Back in the present, she works for a film production company (the one that rejected her earlier when she was in a wheelchair, but this doesn’t seem to fluster her). And in 2008, we see Young Sol re-enter the picture with no memory of what happened, which can only mean heartbreak for Sun-jae.
2024 Sol checks the news to see if Sun-jae is alive. He is! And it’s perfect timing because they’re supposed to open the time capsule together right now. But when Sol goes to dig it up, the tree they buried it under is gone. Disappointed, she stands outside Sun-jae’s apartment building and looks up at it.
Just then, a sasaeng gets into Sun-jae’s building and right up to his door. It turns out she’s a repeat offender and security is quickly on her tail. But in the mayhem to chase her down, Sol is mistakenly apprehended as the trespasser (same coat, obvi). This leads to a whole debacle where the police and Sun-jae’s manager think Sol is a stalker (but Sun-jae doesn’t know the stalker’s identity).
There are a few changes in the future. One is that Sol is no longer an Eclipse fan (ciao Sun-jae merch) — and that means she no longer has that watch that was controlling her time travel. The second is that Sun-jae’s acting career seems to be going well, but he and In-hyuk are still besties. (Did I miss something? Didn’t they have a tussle because Sun-jae was leaving the group to pursue acting?) Plus, we get some clues that Sol is not remembering important events between 2008 and 2024 that might come out to haunt her.
With everything seemingly on the up and up, Sol tries to settle into this new existence. But it’s bittersweet. Sun-jae is alive, but they’re no longer in contact. She thinks back on all their sugary moments in high school (where he looks soooo pretty), including when he confessed that he really likes her. And then she thinks about how she rejected him and hurt his feelings and decides there’s no sense in trying to reach him. Buuuut, we also see him looking at the photo booth pic they took together, smiling, and thinking of old times, so we know where this is headed.
Sol changes her mind about reaching out to Sun-jae when she learns that the December 31 Eclipse concert was postponed until later in January. That means that Sun-jae could still die after his last concert — it just hasn’t happened yet. No! She needs to see him now! Oh, but that damn restraining order. If only she hadn’t been mistaken for a stalker.
Instead, she leaves a bouquet of flowers at his show with her business card tucked in the top. She waits outside the venue as the concert plays — and everything is just like it was in the original timeline. This gives her confirmation that things won’t end well for Sun-jae and so she runs to the bridge where they met after his show the first time around.
She’s standing in the snow with her umbrella when she gets a call. “It’s me.” And she turns around and he’s there. (Squeals!) She puts her umbrella over his head and it’s a repeat of that original encounter, but with a few changes. He’s as cool as ever, asking if her car is broken down. She replies, “No. I was waiting for you.” (Ohhhhhh. I can’t take it.) His face softens and they chat, until his manager says he needs to go to the afterparty.
She grabs him, “Don’t go.” She’s frantic and will say whatever to stop him: “Let’s be together tonight.” (Heavy pause) “Let’s be together tonight you and me.” (Omo, omo, omo.) He asks what she means, “You and me, just the two of us?” And she responds, “Yes. Don’t go. Stay with me.” And with that, they get in her car — he’s driving.
Independent of the real intent behind these words, this is so not a high school drama anymore. So much loaded tension! And it only increases from there when Sun-jae takes Sol to a hotel where they can be alone without the public eyes on him.
As they walk into the lobby, Sol suddenly worries that she gave him the wrong idea. So, she clarifies: when she said “be with him” she didn’t mean it in a sexy way. Not that there’s anything wrong with two consenting adults wanting to do that! I mean, they’re not strangers, they did have a thing together in the past, no judgment — it’s just that she’s too conservative for this (as she wraps her coat around herself). Sun-jae lets her talk (looking startled, then confused, then amused), but afterward he takes her to the hotel bar — which was his intent from the beginning.
I have to interject to acknowledge the refreshing undertone here. Sol is clear, direct, and non-judgmental, normalizing the idea of consenting adults. And Kim Hye-yoon is the perfect person to carry this out because she’s both cute and comical and nothing about it comes off as squeamish or undercutting. Really, nice writing and delivery.
At the bar, they discuss the time capsule. We already learned that Sun-jae dug it up six months prior — and he was there on January 1 when they were supposed to meet. He waited for her, she never showed, and he opened the capsule, where he found a small clock and a note from Sol containing the line, “Thank you for being alive.” This is what he said to her on the radio show in the original timeline (which he shouldn’t have any recollection of now, but somehow seems wistful about). He doesn’t admit any of this to Sol, though, and both say they weren’t there that night.
Rumors have already started that Sun-jae entered a hotel with a woman, and so, he tries to leave Sol behind to avoid the press. But she’s not having it. She sneaks him out and into her car, where she buckles him into the passenger seat and then lays it down flat (making him gulp). At his place, she’s determined to come upstairs — you know, to stop him from dying, not to hit on him. But that is not at all how Sun-jae takes it.
Inside his apartment, Sun-jae overhears Sol on the phone with her mom saying she’s with a man and she’s not coming home — to which Mom gives full permission. (High five, Mom.) His heart is beating out of his chest as he tries to act nonchalant. Sol wants to see around his ginormous digs and he takes her on a tour, where she kills as much time as possible by acting overly excited about every detail.
When she needs to stall further, she gets flirty. Isn’t he hungry? Shouldn’t they have some ramen? She’s smiling innocently but nothing he’s thinking is innocent. So, he makes her some noodles, which she eats before feigning sleep in order to stay and keep watch over him. He knows she’s faking and gets very close, sitting next to her at the table, looking at her intently, with his arm on the back of her chair. “Are you really going to stay over?” (My god his powers of seduction.)
Finally, she fesses up. She’s worried he’s going to die tonight, that’s why she’s there. He remembers her premonitions from high school, but tells her not to worry. He’s not depressed at all. And then, after a thread of events that lead to her spilling sauce on herself, needing a change of shirt, and finding a sexy cardboard cutout of a woman in Sun-jae’s room (it belongs to In-hyuk! He swears!), they find themselves jokingly tugging on a blanket while standing on opposite sides of his bed.
As they pull back and forth, she loses balance and falls on the bed, where he lands above her. They look into each other’s eyes from a narrow distance, and then Sol suddenly looks at his lips. (Yes!) But In-hyuk walks in and ruins everything (*shakes fist*).
Before Sol leaves, she finds the time capsule and realizes that Sun-jae did go to meet her that night after all. And so, after he drives her home, she admits she was there too. She was late, they must have missed each other. She goes on to tell him that she liked him too back then and apologizes for hurting him by not telling him. “If I ever saw you again, I wanted to tell you that I liked you, that I missed you. I really desperately wanted to see you too, Sun-jae.”
She goes into her building clutching her heart and after a pause he follows her inside, dashing up many sets of stairs in a breathless hurry. At her door, he wants to confirm: She liked him? She missed him? And now? The tension is rising as they lay out the truth until a neighbor opens a door and Sol drags Sun-jae inside. Except now, they’re alone in her house with that same terrible tension.
He can’t take his eyes off her. She’s gripping at his coat sleeves. And then there is some very grown-up kissing action where Sol is the one that leans in to seal the kiss. The PD has not forgotten about filming hands here, but we also see the kisses from every angle — on and on for well over a minute — until they’re tastefully pressed against the wall. How are these two so pretty?! (And there are no words for how I feel about Byun Woo-seok right now.) When they finally pull back, they smile sweetly at each other, and the whole scene is just natural and beautiful. Well, and hot. Totally hot.
And now, they’re dating! Both stricken with stupid smiles that they can’t wipe off their faces, they go about their days in a flashback-filled daze thinking about each other. But all excitement is wiped clean when we see Sun-jae on that hotel balcony where he was in Episode 1. There’s a ring at the door, just like there was the first time, and next thing we know, Sol is hearing on the news that Sun-jae was attacked and is in critical condition.
The suspect is a convicted murderer, who Sol recognizes as the crazy cabbie that kidnapped her. “Why?” she asks. “Why Sun-jae?” And, honestly, that’s what I’d like to know.
On one hand, noooooo! Poor Sun-jae! But on the other, we’re talking about time travel and we’re only halfway through. My optimism is outweighing any deep-felt emotions at the moment. We’ve seen fate change before and I have full confidence in our female lead to save the day. I’ll hold off on my tears until we know for sure.
In the interim, holy crap what just happened with the change of tone and affect the drama was able to deliver? These actors are so impressive. They’re totally believable as cute teens and even more believable as seductive adults. I’ll admit that during some of the high school scenes, I sensed it was getting a bit spicy, but I tried not to read too much into it. Now I see where we were headed the whole time!
The buildup of their bond has been so well crafted that it just hits seeing them together after so long. I mean, fifteen years go by and all Sun-jae says on the bridge is, “It’s me”? Gah! I’m buying anything they’re selling. Can we stay in the present please?! And also can the serial killer leave so we can get back to the kissing?