Who’s ready for some noble idiocy? Not me. Our penultimate week ushers us into the OTP’s angst era, where self-sacrifice and tears come out to play. Our resident stalker also ramps up his craziness, and the full story of our destined lovers’ past life is revealed.
EPISODES 13-14
This week begins in Joseon, and here, we see that Aeng-cho basically had no choice but to become a shaman. According to an older shaman who saved her life back when she was a child, if Aeng-cho didn’t become a shaman, she was going to die from an illness caused by the spirits.
In the present, while spells and curses no longer matter to Shin-yu, they matter to Hong-jo. And since she’s the one who put the curse on him, she can’t face him with her guilty conscience. Poor Shin-yu tries to gaslight Hong-jo into believing that she’s imagining her visions of the past, but she clearly remembers the moment she was stabbed. Instead of going for couples therapy or something, Hong-jo asks Shin-yu to give her some time. “The memory is so vivid that I cannot see your face anymore,” she says, and I smell something. Ah! It’s the familiar scent of noble idiocy.
Left to Hong-jo, she’d rather disregard the past and live happily with Shin-yu. If she can’t do that, at least she should be able to break the curse since she placed it on him. But according to shaman Eun-wol, only death can break the curse. Hence, Hong-jo’s decision to let go of Shin-yu. And for Shin-yu, being let go of means mindless stares out the window, and brooding shower scenes. There are some benefits to noble idiocy after all! *wink*
An ill-fated relationship? Death? Shin-yu doesn’t care. After all, all men must die at some point. Shin-yu being reckless in love? I love it! But Hong-jo doesn’t feel the same way. “Are you telling me to watch you die?” she retorts. She’d rather they stay apart for a while, and maybe he’ll get better. “If it’s still the same will you stay by my side then?” Shin-yu asks, but Hong-jo has no reply.
What Hong-jo does have is a shoulder to cry on in Jae-kyung. “Why are you pushing him away when you like him this much?” Jae-kyung asks, speaking on behalf of all of us. “If I were Shin-yu and even if [I was sick because of you], I would want you to stay by my side,” he continues. But of course, Jae-kyung is only advising her in a neighborly capacity. “As a man, I want to stop you from going to him,” he says, and he no longer speaks for us!
Our OTP barely gets a breather from their breakup when new problems crop up. The spell items in Shin-yu’s potted plant are discovered, and all roads lead to Na-yeon. Na-yeon tries to deny her involvement at first, but she comes semi-clean in the end.
Na-yeon claims that Garden Man approached her with the anonymous pictures since she was Shin-yu’s girlfriend, and he threatened her into helping him. But Shin-yu isn’t buying her innocent act. “Should I report you two for theft, defamation, and stalking?” he seethes. Please, do! But he doesn’t. Pfft. Instead, he gives her a stern warning not to forget that she’s the mayor’s daughter, and that her actions can affect her father’s position.
At home, Hong-jo does some PPL vacuuming to get her mind off Shin-yu, but the sound drowns out Shin-yu and Jae-kyung’s calls to alert her that their CCTV has caught Garden Man outside the house. Oh dear! When Hong-jo eventually answers the phone, she panics, and begins to lock her windows. She’s about to lock the last one when Garden Man grabs her through the security bars. And though I totally saw it coming, I still screamed! “If I were young and handsome you would’ve opened the door,” Garden Man sneers, and sir, if you don’t step away from that window!
Shin-yu rushes over to Hong-jo’s like a mad man, and thankfully, the cops are already around by the time he arrives. “Are you her family?” an officer asks, and Shin-yu replies with, “I’m her boyfriend.” I know the situation is tense, but Shin-yu dropping the B-word got me blushing and curling my toes. Hong-jo begins to protest when Shin-yu tells her to stay over at his place, but he cuts her short. “I can’t give you more time. Today’s the last day that we stay separated,” he says. And it’s official, Jang Shin-yu is the paragon of swoon-ness.
I cannot believe this man’s rizz made me temporarily forget that we’re sitting on the time bomb that is Garden Man. And you know, it’s not just empty words — it’s in Shin-yu’s little gestures to reassure Hong-jo that she’s safe with him — whether it’s covering her hands with his in the car, or drawing her close when he suspected something fishy in the parking lot. Ugh! Be still, my heart.
But despite all the swoony reassurances, Hong-jo insists that she’s only staying over for one night. “I don’t plan to make you stay only tonight,” Shin-yu reminds her, and I’m blushing again. He excuses himself to buy some nerve calming pills, but Hong-jo doesn’t want to be left alone. “Don’t worry. I’ll be with you all night,” Shin-yu says. All night doing what, sir? Doing what?? Sigh. That’s it @Unit. You’re going straight to the perverted thoughts jail. Do not pass Go, do not collect $200.
When I said I loved Shin-yu being reckless in love, I meant him fighting against destiny and his ill-fated relationship with Hong-jo. I certainly did not mean leaving Hong-jo alone at home to inspect the suspicious vehicle in the parking lot under the guise of buying pills! Sure enough, it was Garden Man’s car, and Garden Man is now in the elevator and headed to Shin-yu’s house. Hong-jo, as well, doesn’t pick Shin-yu’s calls and now she’s going to answer the doorbell. Sigh. Every week, we go through this. Are safety precautions a joke to these people?
This whole scene had me screaming at my laptop like a mom yelling at her toddler to put down a pair of scissors. My goodness! I love our OTP to pieces, but they seriously stress me out. Luckily, Shin-yu gets to his door before Hong-jo opens to let in the big bad wolf Garden Man. Unfortunately, that crazy man grabs Shin-yu, stabs him, and shoves him into the stairway. OMG!
To prevent Garden Man from going back out to meet Hong-jo, Shin-yu holds on to him and informs him that the cops are on their way. By the time Hong-jo bursts into the stairway, Garden Man has escaped leaving a bleeding out Shin-yu behind. It’s the reverse scene of Aeng-cho’s death in Joseon. This time, Shin-yu is the one stabbed and holding his bloodied hand to her face. “Aeng-cho, I’m sorry,” he whispers, before slipping into unconsciousness.
Returning to Joseon, we see that Mu-jin (Joseon Shin-yu) asked Aeng-cho to elope with him, but she refused. These days, all it takes is water to the face and an envelope of money to get a couple to split up. But back then, Mu-jin’s father had people torture the older shaman to pressure Aeng-cho into rejecting Mu-jin.
The star-crossed lovers meet again when Aeng-cho gets a rude invitation to the palace by a concubine who is desperate for a son. When Mu-jin — who’s now a palace guard — sees Aeng-cho, he chases after her and they patch things up. (By the way, did anyone else get a flashback to that historical site scene in week three where Shin-yu ran after a woman in hanbok?)
The sweet relationship continues until the concubine gives birth to a son, and tells Aeng-cho to curse the crown prince. Aeng-cho informs her that anyone who casts a black magic spell will pay the price in blood. And the concubine — who already knows about Aeng-cho and Mu-jin’s relationship — tells her to make a choice between paying the price herself, or making the person she loves pay the price. Damn.
The crown prince is cursed, and the king orders for Aeng-cho’s capture, and for her spell books to be burnt. Aeng-cho denies cursing the crown prince, and warns that whoever kills her will die, and their generation will face early deaths until they all perish. Her cold gaze doesn’t waver, and the king trembles. Nevertheless, he orders Aeng-cho to be locked in a well.
Unsurprisingly, the officer entrusted with this task is a Jae-kyung lookalike. Tsk. This man is always siding with the evil people in authority. He sided with the mayor in the case of Haum construction’s Mount Onju development project, and now this? Yeah, I know Joseon Jae-kyung is just a doppelgänger, but my point still stands. And speaking of doppelgängers on the side of evil, we also have Garden Man — who looks even more sinister with his Joseon beards. Aigoo.
Aeng-cho in the well reminded me of Hong-jo in last week’s pit, and as always, Mu-jin is the one to rescue her. He tells her that the concubine promised to spare her life if she hands over the last surviving spell book. And while Aeng-cho doesn’t trust the concubine, Mu-jin pleads with her to trust him. But when she wakes up the following morning, Mu-jin is gone and so is the wooden box containing the spell book.
On Mu-jin’s way to deliver the spell book, he gets ambushed by Jae-kyung’s lookalike. Officer Lookalike doesn’t give a rat’s ass about Aeng-cho’s curse, after all, what good is a curse if the one who casts it gets dismembered? Gosh! I hate that smug look on his face. It’s Mu-jin vs. a dozen of Lookalike’s men, and try as Mu-jin might, the numbers ultimately win. As Mu-jin takes a slash to his back, Aeng-cho feels it from her shrine. And with the knowledge that Mu-jin is in danger, she makes her escape.
Unfortunately, Officer Lookalike and his men catch up to Aeng-cho as she staggers along the snowy plains, and now we see the all too familiar killing scene in its entirety. Officer Lookalike gives the order to shoot Aeng-cho down, and Mr. Sinister Beards is only too happy to handle the killing. Tsk. “I will do it,” a voice interrupts from behind them, and it’s Mu-jin, looking the saddest we have ever seen him.
A tearful Mu-jin falls into Aeng-cho’s embrace as he stabs her. Why would he kill her when he knows about her curse? There was no way out. Aeng-cho was going to die, and he’d rather kill her like this than allow her to be dismembered. Oh dear! This is some next level kinda love. Mu-jin says he’ll accept her curse gladly. “If there is a next life, let us be happy,” he sobs, as Aeng-cho dies in his arms. Oh, Show, drive the pain further into our hearts with the OST, will you? *Sniffs*
Aeng-cho’s death leads us back to the present where Shin-yu is in critical condition. Naturally, Hong-jo blames herself for the situation and she can neither face his parents, nor stay by his side. Speaking of apportioning blame, Mr. Mayor scolds Na-yeon for getting involved with Garden Man. “I didn’t know he was a freak,” Na-yeon replies, and I can’t even. At the point where he requested the OTP’s clothing items to cast a spell, she didn’t think he was unhinged? I mean, what did she think he was going to do with the clothes? Sell them at a flea market? Smh.
The first thing Shin-yu does when he finally wakes up is to ask for Hong-jo. Screw disappearing from his life in order to protect him. I’m all for putting Shin-yu out of his misery and telling him where Hong-jo is hiding. Then again, maybe that isn’t the best idea since Garden Man is also tracking her down. Garden Man leaves Hong-jo a voicemail to meet him one last time else she’ll never be able to see Shin-yu again, and Hong-jo takes off from her hideout location.
I’m all “here we go again” as a car trails after her cab, but Hong-jo is smart enough to activate a smart watch given to her by the cops. It turns out that the occupants of the car are bodyguards hired by Shin-yu, and I have never been so relieved to see Shin-yu waiting for her. Finally, someone takes their safety seriously!
To Shin-yu’s question about why Hong-jo came out alone, she replies that she thought Garden Man would harm him if she didn’t come. “If I’m so precious to you, why did you want to leave me?” he asks. “Because you’re so precious,” she replies. Shin-yu says there’s no such thing as a curse now since death was supposed to end it all, and he “died.” Yunno, after the stabbing and whatnot. “In this life and in the last life, I love you,” Shin-yu declares, placing Hong-jo’s hand on his cheeks. And I’m not chopping onions, so why am I tearing up?
Jang Shin-yu, the man that you are! Dying to end noble idiocy? That’s a first. And at this point I have to mention how much I love Shin-yu’s hugs. The way he fully leans into Hong-jo’s embrace and pulls her into himself, gives me the butterflies — like he has been doing all week. Anyway, now that we’re done with the angst, I want to see nothing but cute moments as we head into the finale. Our OTP deserves it, and I most definetly deserve it. You hear me, Show? Good! I’ll see you next week.