Trouble is on the horizon as our hero sets his heart on changing his father’s future. But while he bends over backwards to protect his teenage dad, all Dad wants to do is hang out with his crush. With tensions rising all around, our fish out of water has some hard work ahead — especially if he wants to get back to 2024 and be able to recognize it.
EPISODES 5-6
When we left off, Eun-gyeol had just realized that his father was missing a very significant scar. We could already see the wheels in his head spinning with thoughts of altering the future. And sure enough, we find him this week trying to change Dad’s fate. If Eun-gyeol has a say in it, his dad will never become deaf.
Most of the action in these episodes is focused on that singular goal, with both endearing and not-so-endearing consequences. For one, the band is finally off the ground when Eun-gyeol decides that playing together is a way to stay by Yi-chan’s side 24/7 to keep an eye on him. Eun-gyeol rounds up a second guitarist, faces off with him, and wins his admiration so he’ll join their group. With that, they’ve got the five members they need to become official, plus Ma-joo as their manager.
The only problem is that the band doesn’t want Yi-chan to be the leader. If he thinks he’s good enough to be a front man, he’ll need to audition. That means he has to learn to play an instrument and bring his A-game on vocals. Eun-gyeol uses this as a chance to seat Yi-chan in front of him as a student and teach him guitar (in addition to being his dad’s tutor). Unlike with school subjects, Yi-chan is a quick study, using his feelings for Se-kyung to add passion to what he sings. By the end of the audition, the new band is practically begging him to lead.
Things go awry when Se-kyung moves to the U.S. with her family. At first, Yi-chan is unaware she’s gone and Eun-gyeol and Ma-joo decide to keep it a secret. She was the whole reason Yi-chan wanted to start a band and without her, he might toss all his hard work out the window. Right now, things are going so well: the band is practicing, they’re scheduled to be the closing act at an upcoming festival, and Yi-chan is studying his heart out. They can’t risk all that.
Plus, Eun-gyeol thinks they have nothing to worry about in the long run since he already learned from Future Se-kyung that she left Korea in 11th grade and didn’t return until Harabeoji’s funeral. So, uh, what is she doing back in Korea only a few days later? It seems she’s run away and she’s ready to stop playing the role of abiding daughter. She cuts her hair short (because we all know that means trouble) and hawks her frilly recital clothes in the street for some quick cash.
When Eun-gyeol stumbles into her, he’s shocked. While his main goal now is to stop Yi-chan from getting into whatever mysterious accident caused his hearing loss, he also needs his parents to get together so he can be born. Se-kyung being the object of Yi-chan’s affection is pretty problematic on that front, so he tells Se-kyung not to see Yi-chan.
Now, normally — at least, the last time we left her — this wouldn’t be an issue. The old Se-kyung couldn’t get far enough away from Yi-chan. But this new Se-kyung has had a sudden and unexplained change of heart. She goes to Yi-chan’s work, where he scoops ice cream part time, and sits him down for a lemonade so she can apologize for how she treated him. She wants to get to know him better and she’ll take their band-making bet seriously.
Later, she shows up at band practice like she’s his girlfriend, throwing around tickets to an amusement park (where Eun-gyeol tags along to keep Yi-chan away from any scary-ride accidents). By this point, Yi-chan is convinced that Se-kyung returned to Korea just to be with him.
This whole thing is confusing, to me, and to Eun-gyeol for a couple of reasons. First, when Se-kyung gets back to Korea and Eun-gyeol finds her in the street selling her clothes illegally, she tells him that she ran away “to die,” but that she’s still deciding on it, so if he tells anyone she’s there, she’ll “really die.” Now, aside from the fact that the story is using a suicide threat to drum up mystery, this is perplexing because after this conversation, she goes straight out to meet Yi-chan.
When Eun-gyeol asks her to explain herself, she says she did it because he told her not to. He accuses her of toying with Yi-chan’s feelings, but she swears she’s not — she just changed her mind about him. Yi-chan, in the meantime, is so smitten that it ends up causing a big blowout between him and Eun-gyeol, where Eun-gyeol quits the band and leaves the boarding house — he’s done trying to take care of his immature dad! Cue crying with mouth full of food.
The second confusing thing — and this is the part Eun-gyeol gets stuck on — is how Se-kyung can be in Korea when he knows that’s not how the future plays out. An answer arrives when he gets another payphone call from the timekeeper guy who runs that mystical music store. The truth is, Eun-gyeol started changing the future the minute he arrived to 1995. Remember when he impersonated the Godfather of Rock and the real Yoon Dong-jin got left behind? Yeah, that’s a problem. Everyone Eun-gyeol has encountered there might now have a changed future.
After the phone call, Eun-gyeol still doesn’t know why he’s in the past or what he’s supposed to do — but he’s starting to get hints. There’s a competition the next day to celebrate the release of a new guitar and he joins it believing he’s supposed to win. The audition is outside, it starts pouring rain just as Eun-gyeol is taking the mic, and he’s electrocuted immediately and rushed to the ER.
Now, this is where the episode ends, but there’s a whole thread running alongside that we still have to discuss. Chung-ah’s backstory is revealed this week and it’s another tearjerker like Se-kyung’s. We see her as a child, born into a wealthy household, with a seemingly loving mom who taught her sign language.
Suddenly, her mom is in the backseat of car, looking like she’s being dragged away, while an abandoned Chung-ah cries in the road. A woman arrives (whom we’ve already seen is the head of the arts school that Chung-ah and Se-kyung attend) and she becomes Chung-ah’s “parent.” The woman is evil, refusing sign language and trying to force Chung-ah to make sounds — and even locking her in the attic when she can’t. As the young Chung-ah turns into the teenager we know now, we see she’s still being locked in the attic.
With that kind of life, Chung-ah’s crush on Yi-chan is rooted in how he made her laugh the first time she saw him — and how he made her heart pound the second time (when he saved her from the falling books). By the time they met again in the storage room, she had already been trailing him, only to realize he liked Se-kyung. And that’s how she ended up giving him the concert ticket last week.
So, that brings us up to speed for their meeting this week — when Yi-chan berates her for humiliating him in front of Se-kyung. He went to the concert thinking that Se-kyung invited him, but he made a fool of himself. He wants to know if Chung-ah did it on purpose to make fun of him. Chung-ah is frazzled by his anger and starts to walk away. Yi-chan — still not knowing she can’t hear — thinks she’s just being rude, and even yells, “Are you deaf?!”
Chung-ah goes to cry alone behind a phone booth as Yi-chan learns from his boss that she is actually deaf. Yi-chan feels guilty and steps out of the ice cream shop to find her — right at the moment Se-kyung arrives to have that lemonade and get all girlfriend-style. To his credit, he tells Se-kyung to wait and goes after Chung-ah, but Chung-ah gets in a taxi and leaves. He then picks up a keychain she’s dropped with the words “Viva La Vida.” (This seems like a clue since the mystical music store is called “La Vida” and Harabeoji’s music shop was called “Viva”).
Meanwhile, Eun-gyeol remembers that his parents met at a sign language class. That means if he stops Yi-chan from losing his hearing, his parents won’t meet. But, rather than go back on his goal, he decides he can still try to stop Yi-chan’s accident as long as he can figure out where his mom is and get his parents to meet some other way beforehand.
It looks like fate might be on Eun-gyeol’s side after all because, later, when Yi-chan goes to see Chung-ah at school to return her keychain, she’s sick and feverish, almost collapsing in his arms — and it’s up to him to piggyback her to the ER. It also just happens to be at the same time that Eun-gyeol is carted in on a stretcher after his electrocution. Phewf. Now we’re really caught up to the end.
Well, these episodes had a little less heart and humor than the prior weeks, but we’ve set up a lot of tensions that will rearrange all the relationships going forward. Yi-chan and Eun-gyeol are not on speaking terms as we close this week (and Eun-gyeol might not be able to speak at all when we meet him next). Yi-chan and Chung-ah had a falling out but are now thrust together in a fateful way. And Eun-gyeol really seems to dislike Se-kyung at this point — not only because she’s the third wheel on him trying to be born, but because what is with her attitude?
The missing connection this week was between Chung-ah and Se-kyung and it feels like a gaping hole. I was really loving the developing friendship between these two women. This week we get one lousy letter from Se-kyung to Chung-ah, but then Se-kyung never contacts Chung-ah when she’s back in town. Worse, when Se-kyung goes to the ice cream shop to surprise Yi-chan, Chung-ah sees them together and thinks that she missed her chance with him. It definitely seems like a way to put a wedge between the two friends.
I have a ton of questions, but it’s still early so I’m confident they’ll be answered as our story unfolds. For now, I’ll just distract myself with counting the Back to the Future nods as they roll out. This week: loud electric guitars at school band tryouts, skateboarding, and maybe even accidentally hitting on your teenage mom (I mean, giving your umbrella to a crying lady in the rain definitely seems like a way to make her accidentally swoon).