Friendship takes center stage this week as our heroine finds herself in need of support and discovers some friends are forever. But she’s not the only one facing crises. Her sister is left reeling after an unexpected encounter, the littlest family member isn’t feeling at home in her new neighborhood, and someone in the family is hiding a secret.
EPISODES 5-6
This week we dig deeper into relationships both past and present. And, surprising to no one who’s ever seen a drama, we get the start of a love triangle. Sam-dal is quite the heartbreaker, it would seem. We already know Yong-pil has always been completely whipped for Sam-dal and takes care of her needs before his own. He’s the first to apologize, first to make up, first to approach – Yong-pil then and now always takes her side, doing whatever he can to make her happy. While it’s sweet, he should get to be taken care of too!
Yong-pil has to face that while he may know who Sam-dal is at her core and all her habits, he’s missed eight years of her life; there’s a lot about her experiences he doesn’t know. He and Sam-dal both spend a lot of time obsessing over their conversations and recent embarrassing revelations while assuring themselves that this is a totally normal thing to do and does not indicate feelings of any kind.
Then, there’s Sang-do who watches from the sidelines. Even though all the local young women swoon over him – he’s rich, pretty, and kind – he still only has eyes for Sam-dal. And now that she’s back, he’s stepping up and taking his shot for the first time. He brings her medicine, shows up with an umbrella when it rains, and takes her for a spin in his fancy car. This doesn’t go unnoticed by Yong-pil who looks quietly unsettled, especially because he knows Sang-do had feelings for Sam-dal back in the day.
But even Sang-do doesn’t look like he rates his chances high. Yong-pil and Sam-dal have always been inseparable and have so much history. Even after eight years apart, they’ve quickly fallen back into a comfortable rhythm. Plus, Yong-pil even calls her mom “eomma”! She essentially became his surrogate mom after his mom – her best friend – died.
However, things aren’t looking so great for this mom either. We secretly see her taking pain meds, suggesting she’s hiding some illness as drama moms are wont to do. Maybe that’s why she’s so determined to have her daughters pull themselves together. She makes them contribute like good Jeju citizens while they’re home, which is how Jin-dal ends up as a volunteer traffic director.
Jin-dal is not exactly an officer of the peace and ends up fighting with a rude driver and challenging him to a duel. As she’s chasing down the man’s car, she spots her ex-husband JEON DA-YOUNG (Yang Kyung-won) watching her in shock from his car. He’s there for the new theme park his company is building nearby. Da-young’s a rather ridiculous, hapless person who can’t even get through a company event without making a spectacle of himself. (I guess that’s why he fell for someone bossy and confident like Jin-dal.)
At this point, the family is basically single-handedly keeping the neighborhood gossip mill running. Small town gossip is the worst anyway, but the neighbors take it too far when their gossip involves a kid. Little Ha-yul overhears some elderly women talking about how pitiful her mom is and how her father wouldn’t have died if her grandmother had done some ritual they encouraged her to do. Ha-yul solidly but politely puts them in their place by saying her father’s death was no one’s fault. How sad would her grandmother be to hear them blaming her?
Ha-yul then does some brooding by the water, which is how she meets GONG JI-CHAN (Kim Min-chul) who is seemingly being set up to be Hae-dal’s love interest. He’s a little quirky and eager but appears nice – he’s friends with the local dolphins who he knows by name. Mature Ha-yul finds him a bit dim, but harmless.
But things get worse where the gossip is concerned. When a persistent reporter who used to badger Sam-dal shows up to cover the theme park, he hears locals gossiping about how Sam-dal has returned. This shows both the worst and best of the neighborhood because while the gossiping is horrible, the incident gives Sam-dal’s friends a chance to shine.
It’s hard to beat friends who have known you your entire life. While she was in Seoul, the boys all obsessively kept up with her career and were so proud of every achievement. Now, her besties close ranks and go to bat for her. Yong-pil and Sang-do run the reporter off when he corners Sam-dal in her house, and then Kyung-tae and Eun-woo break his camera and ruin his memory card. That lands them in the police station but no fear: Sang-do shows up to pay for damages in cash like a badass.
Sam-dal waits nervously outside until she hears Kyung-tae reaming the reporter out for daring to talk badly about her. Doesn’t he know how incredible she is? It’s sweet but his tirade just gives the reporter more fodder, so Sam-dal steps in to shut it down. She asks to file a complaint with the cop – also a childhood friend – since the reporter trespassed and even looked at her mail.
Just when one crisis is averted, another crops up. Sam-dal’s two loyal colleagues find video evidence that backstabbing assistant Eun-joo stole Sam-dal’s project presentation to use for the gig she swiped after causing Sam-dal’s downfall. Sam-dal finally goes to Seoul to confront her with Yong-pil and Sang-do in tow (they insist on tagging along).
Sam-dal busts into Eun-joo’s concept meeting with the magazine, and her spineless ex (an editor there) basically confirms that this was Sam-dal’s concept first. Eun-joo is as awful and remorseless as ever, still claiming she’s just as good as Sam-dal while not being good enough to use her own concept. Sam-dal just wants to know if she really drove Eun-joo to try to commit suicide – it’s been eating her up all this time. Eun-joo actually smiles when she tells her that it was all a ruse.
This is too much for Sam-dal who starts screaming and has to be pulled away by Yong-pil. After sobbing in Yong-pil’s arms for a while, Sam-dal picks herself up and marches back to Eun-joo. Just like she gave Eun-joo her ex, she’ll give her the concept too. (Her ex is aghast at that wording.) Go ahead and see how far she can go on other people’s work.
Despite her confidence in the room, Sam-dal feels lost. All her hard work and sleepless nights have amounted to this, making it all feel meaningless. Who is she if not a photographer? Yong-pil suggests they try to find Sam-dal the person rather than Eun-hye the photographer. It looks like Sam-dal is going to take that advice because after she gets home to Jeju, she boxes up her photography equipment.
With all those heightened emotions and closeness, both Sam-dal and Yong-pil are forced to face their lingering feelings. Not like it hasn’t been obvious enough for everyone to start to wonder. The neighborhood is so small Mom immediately realizes Yong-pil went to Seoul with Sam-dal, and she puts two and two together. While she asks Sam-dal if she still has feelings for Yong-pil, Sang-do asks Yong-pil the same. We’ll have to wait until next week to hear how they respond.
I’m glad that Sam-dal is facing her situation head-on now and trying to move forward. I would hope it’s only a matter of time before Eun-joo is found out for the lying snake she is, but the world isn’t fair, so who knows? Even if Sam-dal can’t go back to her old job as is, she probably could still be a photographer in some way, so I don’t know that she needs to fully give it up. Still, I think it’s a good idea for her to focus on other aspects of herself and what she wants – what better time to reassess and recalibrate? Maybe this time she can eat proper meals, sleep, keep in touch with her friends, and achieve her goals, whatever they may be.