Nothing stays a secret in a small town, which is unfortunate for our heroine who is trying to avoid her problems and stay out of the spotlight. But since her life is more exciting than anything else going on, she’s the talk of the town. That’s bad enough without worrying about running into your ex around every corner. Suffice to say, it’s all keeping our disgraced photographer on her toes.
EPISODES 3-4
After their first awkward encounter that left Sam-dal ready to die of embarrassment, now it’s Yong-pil’s turn. His panicked attempt to “save” Sam-dal from jumping into the river (she wasn’t planning to jump) ends in him needing saving since he somehow can’t swim. It’s been a rough day for everyone.
Embarrassed enough as it is, Sam-dal assures him she’s only back for a visit and definitely not because she couldn’t hack it in the big city. He plays along but can’t help asking her if she’s okay. This almost breaks her, and she only just manages to hold in the tears and lie that she’s totally fine. Of course, Yong-pil has known Sam-dal her entire life and knows she’s lying, but he doesn’t press.
In fact, no one presses Sam-dal about anything. Even after finding out about the scandal, her mom staunchly ignores the issue, afraid that Sam-dal is guilty. The whole town gossips about Sam-dal, wondering if she truly did abuse her assistant. Sam-dal is barely home a couple of days before the whole neighborhood finds out she’s there and sets to gossiping even more.
While Sam-dal runs around hiding from everyone, her friends are just eager to see her. It turns out Yong-pil’s weird friends were once Sam-dal’s too. Back in 2005, Sam-dal, Yong-pil, WANG GYEONG-TAE (Lee Jae-won), and CHA EUN-WOO (Bae Myung-jin) all set off for Seoul together with big dreams and youthful confidence. Ten years later, only Sam-dal remained.
After The Breakup, it’s not only Yong-pil who lost Sam-dal; the boys – including fifth member of the friend group BU SANG-DO (Kang Young-seok) who stayed in Jeju and is now rich – all lost her too. They’re all dying to see her, so Yong-pil convinces her to come for drinks like old times. It goes disastrously wrong when Sam-dal overhears Gyeong-tae say that a part of him is glad she failed and came back.
That finally does it. Sam-dal’s veneer of calm breaks and she lets out all her anger and pain. She sobs that the only people she’d hoped would ask her about the scandal are the only ones who have stayed silent while the world speculates. Since no one has bothered talking to her about it, she’s had no one to tell she’s innocent and wronged. Sam-dal then gets horrifically drunk and ends up passing out in the middle of the street, leaving Yong-pil struggling to carry the belligerent Sam-dal home. (I’m scared by the copious amounts of alcohol these sisters consume. Their livers are going to give out any day now.)
Speaking of the sisters, we learn a bit more about Jin-dal’s ex who is poised to have a bigger role than I initially assumed. JEON DAE-YOUNG (Yang Kyung-won), President of AS Group, still daydreams about the day he met Jin-dal. She was a flight attendant who calmly took down a violent passenger like it was nothing, leaving Dae-young awed. While he grins wistfully as he thinks of her, Jin-dal flips off his billboards for good measure; AS Group has been blocking her from working as a flight attendant again, although I’d be surprised if that were Dae-young’s doing. If she’s that angry at his poster, I can only imagine how she’s going to react when she finds out he’s in Jeju on business.
Meanwhile, done with staying silent, Sam-dal confronts her mom and explains that she’s innocent. That’s all her mom needs to hear to be on her side. The next time the neighborhood ajummas gossip, she marches home and drags Sam-dal with her to take them to task. But she then makes matters worse when she vindicates Sam-dal by announcing that her assistant stole her boyfriend. So now the entire neighborhood is gossiping about Sam-dal’s love life, yet still somehow painting her as a villain. The only thing they’re worried about is how poor Yong-pil will handle being around her. At least the boys are on Sam-dal’s side and trash talk her ex on her behalf.
Making matters worse, Sam-dal learns that the whole neighborhood thinks she dumped Yong-pil, adding to the narrative that she’s cold-hearted. As we learn, there are conflicting stories about The Breakup with Sam-dal insisting Yong-pil broke up with her but him saying she broke up with him. They both seem to be telling the truth from their own perspectives, so there’s clearly more to the story.
The last person to hear the latest gossip on Sam-dal’s love life is Yong-pil, and it fuels the already poor impression he has of her ex. After Sam-dal’s drunken escapade, Yong-pil ended up with her phone. And once again proving he is not over Sam-dal, when her ex calls, Yong-pil answers the phone. He grows increasingly disgusted the more her ex whines about reporters finding him and how Sam-dal should just apologize already. Unlike her ex, Yong-pil believes in Sam-dal wholeheartedly without even needing to ask if the rumors are true.
Everything comes to a head when Sam-dal confronts Yong-pil after learning he talked to her ex. Yong-pil has no excuse for why he answered her phone, so he pivots. He thinks she and her ex are still dating, and he can’t believe she’d stay with a guy like him. (She earlier lied to Yong-pil that she currently has a boyfriend who treats her well.) Sam-dal is on the verge of tears and admits she lied because it’s embarrassing. She should have dated someone better after she and Yong-pil broke up, but she ended up with a cheating loser.
While it’s still not really bringing anything new to the table, the drama is certainly more engaging now that Sam-dal and Yong-pil are in the same space. I’m curious about The Breakup and why they both have such different memories of what happened. It’s clear Yong-pil is still in love with her, and Sam-dal isn’t exactly immune to him either. His gentle care and how well he knows her is affecting Sam-dal – she’s been working non-stop and pretending to have it all together for so long, I think she’s forgotten what it feels like to have someone see you like that.
I’m looking forward to learning more about both sisters in the coming weeks. It looks like Jin-dal is up next seeing as her ex-husband is poking around her neighborhood. I expected some scheming chaebol, but he comes across more clueless and dopey than anything. Then there’s youngest sister Hae-dal who has had very little screen time so far. She comes off more like little Ha-yul’s sister than her mom – in fact, of the two, Ha-yul seems more like the mom. It might be time for some familial self-reflection when the nine-year-old is the most responsible and together of the bunch.