What a delicious mess! Last week’s puzzling behaviors are solved, lighting up the way for new encounters, and dare I say a love square. If you like sleights of hand, halls of mirrors, and other tricks you can whip out at a party, this one’s for you. But don’t forget your hanky because when this drama decides to do heart, it does it right.
EPISODES 7-8
Now it all makes sense! Here I was glum-faced that Se-kyung and Chung-ah weren’t at all chummy last week, but as it turns out, it’s because they don’t actually know each other. Huh? If you’re scratching your head, let me explain. The drama pulled a fast one but the reveal is pretty fun — and the evidence actually lines up.
The person we were calling Se-kyung last week in the 1995 timeline — the one who returned to Korea just days after she moved to New York — is actually OHN EUN-YOO (also Seol In-ah), the daughter of Se-kyung in the 2024 timeline. Eun-yoo looks so much like her mother at 18 that no one in 1995 can tell the difference. Plus, they’re both cello mavens so it’s an easy switcheroo. (Eun-yoo narrates, “You must have suspected this.” Uh, no, I didn’t. Because it’s nuts!)
We learn that Eun-yoo traveled through time in almost exactly the same way that Eun-gyeol did. Each of them got into a massive fight with their parents, noticed a double moon in the sky, and then sold their beloved instrument at the magical La Vida music shop before stepping out the door and into 1995. In Eun-yoo’s case, she finds herself at the airport in Korea — after selling her cello in New York (ohhh that explains the backward flight info on her bag tag).
Part of what we learned about Eun-yoo’s predicament last week is actually true, though. She did run away from home and she is thinking about ending her own life. All the fighting with her parents has been rough on her. In 1995 and with nowhere else to go, she starts staying at her mother’s vacant childhood home until she develops a plan. When Eun-gyeol mistakenly called her Se-kyung in the street last week, the answer came to her: she’ll impersonate her mom and try to change her life. So, now we know 1) why she was acting flighty and 2) why she didn’t seek out Chung-ah.
The other riddle that’s solved is why the heck she’s interested in Yi-chan all of a sudden. To explain this, we learn a sad story about Se-kyung after she left Korea in the original timeline. Basically, she moved to New York, married a doctor, had Eun-yoo, and gave up on cello. She’s regretted it ever since and Eun-yoo has felt the burden and blame of it her entire life.
Se-kyung and her husband divorce, she and Eun-yoo move back to Korea, and Se-kyung isn’t a nice mom. Eun-yoo feels like she has to succeed all the time in order for her mother to love her (which is even sadder because we know Se-kyung is repeating what was done to her as a kid). With all Se-kyung’s drunken craziness and regret, she talks constantly about her first love — who was in a band. She wishes she married him instead of Eun-yoo’s father.
Okay, here’s where Eun-yoo’s plan comes in. If she can get Se-kyung together with her first love, Se-kyung will grow up to have a happy life and never marry Eun-yoo’s father. At the same time, Eun-yoo will never be born. That way, she can carry out her depressive wish to not exist in as poetic of a way as possible.
The problem — because you know there is one — is that she thinks Yi-chan is Se-kyung’s first love. But Se-kyung had a boyfriend when the drama started, who was also in a band. Eun-yoo gets a hint that she’s hot on the wrong trail when the Time Master dude from La Vida lights up her nearest payphone with one of his cryptic calls. He asks if she’s sure she found the right guy. She’s not sure — and when the story really takes off this week, she’s trying to figure out which of the other band members it could be if it’s not Yi-chan (which is just a way for us to have a cuteness parade as she goes on individual dates with them).
The one person she can’t put to the test is Eun-gyeol because he’s still knocked out in the hospital and no one knows where he is. And Eun-gyeol’s story this week is even crazier than Eun-yoo’s. When he wakes up, he’s in the home of the wealthy family that owns Jinsung Instruments – the ones behind the competition that electrocuted him. They’re keeping him at home to avoid bad press, and all the people he deals with there are just plain awful.
On his way out of the house, he passes by Chung-ah as she enters. He spots the name tag on her uniform and starts chasing after her yelling, “Mom!” (Yeah, no one’s going to think you’re loony.) In response, he gets locked up (figures) in a guarded room when he refuses to leave the premises until he can meet with Chung-ah.
To backtrack a little, Chung-ah is fine after her fever last week. Yi-chan rushed her to the ER, apologized for being a jerk before, and then paid the hospital bill and asked her out for noodles — in a friendly way. Chung-ah goes reluctantly, worried that he’s only pitying her, but softens up when he writes nice messages on a notepad for her. By now, he’s realized that she has the same name as the girl Eun-gyeol was screaming he was supposed to be in love with. Too bad Eun-gyeol isn’t around anymore so he can ask what’s up with that.
Back to Eun-gyeol in a guarded room. When he hears Chung-ah being abused outside the door (by the evil chairwoman and her daughter), he headbutts the guard to escape and finds his young mom getting slapped across the face. After grabbing the witchy woman’s hand and protecting Chung-ah, he uses sign language to try to communicate with her directly. (Wow, I cried. The compassion in this scene of Eun-gyeol trying to enter Chung-ah’s dark world, and boxing everyone else out, just got to me).
But Chung-ah doesn’t understand him. Sign language has been forbidden in her house since her mother left all those years ago. She only knows a few words (like “mom” — which he’s still incessantly calling her). In the end — and giving us as little information as possible about this family’s weird backstory — Eun-gyeol convinces the Jinsung Chairman, YOON GEON-HYUNG (Kim Tae-woo), to allow him to teach Chung-ah sign language in secret. Part of the deal is that he’ll attend school with her, and so, we see him suit up in a spiffy new high school uniform.
The other character to discuss is Yi-chan. After their tiff last week, he starts to have a change of heart about Eun-gyeol when he learns that Eun-gyeol was saving to buy him a guitar so he can enjoy his last days of youth. This moves him enough to go out looking for Eun-gyeol alone. He puts up missing posters, offers a reward, and then gets lured into an alley and beaten unconscious for the money.
Chung-ah discovers him left for dead and runs to get help, bumping into Eun-yoo just at the right moment. Chung-ah grabs her, thinking it’s Se-kyung, and Eun-yoo is able to yell for help, which has Chung-ah looking dejected as she leaves. But when Yi-chan finds out Chung-ah is the one who found him (in a funny scene where Eun-yoo learns Chung-ah is supposed to be her friend), he goes to Chung-ah’s family estate to say thank you — even learning how to say it in sign language (aww). Unfortunately, the wicked people she lives with won’t let him see her.
We end with Yi-chan and Eun-yoo both looking for Eun-gyeol. Yi-chan wants to apologize and get the band back together and Eun-yoo wants to know if Eun-gyeol might actually be her mom’s first love. Eun-yoo runs into him first, and it’s clear these two are starting to have eyes for each other. She gets nowhere in her mission to decode if he’s her mom’s ex-beau, and he upsets her by saying he dislikes her because she won’t stay away from Yi-chan.
Finally, Eun-yoo sees Eun-gyeol escorting Chung-ah to school and calls Yi-chan to report Eun-gyeol’s whereabouts. Yi-chan arrives to the school with the rest of the band to play a song for Eun-gyeol and say he’s sorry. He asks Eun-gyeol to rejoin the band. Eun-gyeol glances at Chung-ah before answering that he’ll come back on the condition that Yi-chan stops seeing Se-kyung. Yi-chan is shocked, but not as much as when Eun-gyeol says that it’s because he likes Se-kyung — who’s standing right there to hear it (in the form of Eun-yoo). And just like that, we have a love square!
I love this turnaround! We’re going to have ourselves a 2024 romance between Eun-yoo and Eun-gyeol! I didn’t see it coming but the minute it was introduced I was so onboard. All the setting up and pulling apart we did last week was worth it. Admittedly, I was skeptical of the bait and switch, but there’s nothing like a blooming love to make me feel energized again.
Also, I love the scenes between Eun-gyeol and Chung-ah. She’s my favorite character anyway, but all the heartwarming stuff about giving her world back to her through sign language is poking me in the heart. And Shin Eun-soo is doing a lovely job of conveying her character’s emotions without using any words.
With only half of our story complete, I think we’re in for a lot more surprises. I’m rooting for Yi-chan and Chung-ah, of course, but I’m also really sad about Se-kyung’s life story. I don’t want the future to change — especially not after that beautiful speech Eun-gyeol gave about how his parents communicate with each other and how his mom doesn’t feel alone. But I could get behind changes for Se-kyung. The problem is: is there a way to improve Se-kyung’s future and save Eun-yoo? I’ll be sticking around to see what parlor tricks they drum up to solve that one.