It’s a good day to travel back to Joseon! Our modern-day romance takes a backseat as we dive into the past life story this week, and our brooding agent of gloom (a.k.a. the tiger mountain spirit) finally gets his place in the spotlight.
EPISODE 10
We resume with Bo-gyeom holding a sword to Seo-won’s neck, and naturally, Seo-won is dazed because WTF is going on here? But leave it to Bo-gyeom to speak in parables as usual — “A piece of iron that has once tasted blood keeps wanting to taste blood again, so it continually attracts blood” — and to slice off a leaf hanging from a nearby branch for added effect.
Bo-gyeom retrieves his sword and tells Seo-won to leave. And I’m thinking: why all the theatrics? If he so badly wants to get revenge, why not just kill Seo-won right there and be done with it? Why postpone the revenge only to be annoyed with the vice principal — who cautions him that mountain spirits are supposed to watch over humans, not punish them. Bo-gyeom insists that he has left the mountain, hence, he’s no longer a mountain spirit. But he’s still using his mountain spirit powers to cause chaos. Tsk.
I’d have gone to the police straight away if someone pointed a sword to my neck, but Seo-won merely files away the incident in the “Bo-gyeom hyung has been acting strange recently” folder. You think!? But that’s not the only strange incident happening around our OTP. Unlike their previous attraction to Hae-na, dogs have begun to actively avoid her. Seo-won and Hae-na chalk it down to a side effect of her curse being lifted — and speaking of which, there are so many dating activities to embark on now that there’s no curse!
Unfortunately, Hae-na comes down with a cold before a date with Seo-won. Hmmm. Does Bo-gyeom control the weather, too? I actually don’t mind this because it leads to the nursing the sick girlfriend trope which I love. We don’t get a spoon-feeding porridge scene, but we get the snuggling together and falling asleep scene — which is even better! And Seo-won ends up contracting Hae-na’s cold because there is love in sharing. Heh.
The school goes on a field trip to the museum, and it’s a great way to take us on a trip down memory lane to Joseon — as seen from Ji-ah’s eyes. The Joseon tale starts with nobleman and government official, SOO-HYUN (Joseon Seo-won), meeting MAK-SOON (Joseon Hae-na) for the first time as one of the servants in his teacher’s house. An already married — and pregnant — Cho-young was the young miss of the house, and that’s how all three of them were connected.
It was kinda love at first sight for Soo-hyun and Mak-soon. But Mak-soon would rather Soo-hyun treat her coldly in public because Cho-young was once scolded for treating her like a friend rather than a servant. (It was pretty hilarious when Mak-soon cosplayed the modern-day tsundere male lead with her “I picked up the ointment on my way here” illusion of how coldly she expects Soo-hyun to act towards her.) These two make shameless flirting with each other cute.
Things went south when Cho-young’s husband was executed for plotting treason, and Soo-hyun was tasked with arresting Cho-young. Soo-hyun disobeyed the order to help her escape to the mountains along with Mak-soon. With a promise to Mak-soon that they’ll meet again, Soo-hyun stayed behind to fight off the soldiers, giving the ladies time to escape. But in the process of fleeing, Cho-young lost her footing, hit her belly (nooo!), and it was lights out.
Bo-gyeom found the unconscious Cho-young and nursed her back to health, but she lost all will to live when she woke up to the unfortunate news of her miscarriage. “Why did you save me?” Cho-young asked, when Bo-gyeom pulled her back from — her first of many — jump attempts at the Cliff of Doom. “If you wish to jump to your death, do it elsewhere. There’s nothing I hate more than the smell of a rotting corpse.” Ah!
Bo-gyeom might have been curt and abrasive, but it worked because Cho-young did not off herself. Later on, Bo-gyeom gave her a puppy which he claimed contained the soul of her dead child, and in raising this puppy, Cho-young regained the will to live. A puppy, huh. Now the dog curse is making sense.
Three months went by with Mak-soon, Cho-young, and the puppy hiding out in the mountains. And while Mak-soon popped into the village from time to time looking for Soo-hyun (who had been captured and tortured to reveal Cho-young’s location), Cho-young and Bo-gyeom developed a friendship.
As a mountain spirit with a long lifespan, Bo-gyeom had watched the people he cherished in the past grow old and die — which is why he naturally became so jaded. Afraid of forming a new attachment, Bo-gyeom told Cho-young to leave the mountains, but she insisted on staying. “Even if someone dies, the memories remain.” Memories are nothing to Bo-gyeom, but Cho-young promised to leave him with good memories of her. So from hanging out together, they became friends. And from friends playing house, romance snuck in on them. Bo-gyeom didn’t even realize that he was in love with Cho-young until she kissed him. Yunno, while playing house.
But in the midst of everything going on, Bo-gyeom and the vice principal — who’s actually a fox mountain spirit — had reservations about Mak-soon. They thought she’d eventually rat Cho-young out to the authorities to save herself, Soo-hyun, and their baby. Yes, Mak-soon just so happened to be pregnant. Soon, the mountain spirits’ thoughts manifested, and the soldiers caught up to Cho-young in the mountains. Although, we don’t know yet if Mak-soon or Soo-hyun were the ones who snitched.
Remember that scarf in the wooden box at Bo-gyeom’s lair in the present-day timeline? Bo-gyeom gave it to Cho-young in preparation for a couple’s trip. Unfortunately, it ended up being the landmark to signal that she was in danger. At the Cliff of Doom, Bo-gyeom witnessed last week’s ending flashback scene where Soo-hyun wielded a sword at Cho-young. The shock was distracting enough to make Bo-gyeom forget his surroundings, and the nearby soldiers used the opportunity to stab him. By the time we panned back to Cho-young, the sword was already thrust into her stomach, and she fell off the cliff.
Beneath the cliff, Bo-gyeom mourned a dead Cho-young — whose last thoughts were for him to forget about her in the event of her death. But trust Bo-gyeom to retrieve the sword from her belly, and swear revenge on Soo-hyun and Mak-soon. We end the week back in the present, with Bo-gyeom finally making good on his revenge oath. What does he do? He steals into Woo-taek’s vet clinic, and puts Hae-na’s dog uncle to sleep. Permanently. Woosh!
I can almost bet that the Cliff of Doom incident was an unfortunate misunderstanding. A misunderstanding that might have been cleared up if Bo-gyeom, Soo-hyun, and Mak-soon had a roundtable conversation afterwards. But no, the mountain spirit had to lay a curse and keep malice for hundreds of years. *Rolls eyes* We finally learn why Bo-gyeom is dead set on revenge, but as “touching” as it is, this backstory doesn’t interest me one bit. In fact, it’s rather annoying that Bo-gyeom didn’t channel his anger at the overlords who executed Cho-young’s husband and sent her into hiding in the first place.
At least we got Hae-na and Seo-won crumbs this week, but what about Yul? It’s unfair to relegate his character to the background now that we no longer have the Dogvengers hijinks. Come on, Show! Yul is my ray of sunshine amidst this curse nonsense, and I’d appreciate it if you can take Bo-gyeom away and give me back my Yul.