With our reincarnated heroine dropping hints faster than Taylor Swift drops new singles, it’s only a matter of time before people begin questioning her identity. Some are open-minded and their suspicions are surprisingly close to reality, but others worry our heroine has nefarious intentions. Either way, knowing the truth may have unexpected consequences — and I’m not talking about only past lives anymore.
EPISODES 5-6
One of the things I love most about See You in My 19th Life is that the secondary characters — and their respective relationships to the leads — have a lot of substance. For me, one test of a romance’s quality is my ability to stay engaged and away from the fast-forward button whenever the OTP is absent from my television screen. This week I found myself equally — if not more so — invested in the sisterly bond between Ji-eum and Cho-won. There was still plenty of romance to go around, but it was definitely a more sisters-before-misters kind of week as we delve deeper into Cho-won’s grief and how it has bonded her to Ji-eum and affected her relationship with Seo-ha in the past and at present.
Given that she was much younger than Seo-ha when Ju-won passed away, Cho-won’s anguish was reactionary and misdirected. We see via flashbacks that young Cho-won blamed Seo-ha for her sister’s death because — child logic — he was in the car with Ju-won and failed to protect her. Although Cho-won has matured and no longer holds Seo-ha responsible, she only just now realizes how scarred Seo-ha is from the accident and how her own emotional distress and unfiltered words as a child likely contributed to the distance he’s put between them. Well, guess what? It’s time to build bridges and close that gap!
After a nightmare about Ju-won puts Seo-ha in a bad headspace, he retreats to his pool where it’s peaceful, quiet — and much to Cho-won’s worry — away from his cell phone. A panicked Cho-won assumes the worst when she can’t get in touch with him, and then finds him floating in the water. Her tears of relief as she clings to a surprised and bewildered — and very much alive — Seo-ha ease some of the tension between them.
Of course, Seo-ha’s more welcoming demeanor is largely due to Ji-eum, and while a part of him feels guilty that he’s developing feelings for her — especially when she reminds him of Ju-won — there’s no denying the positive effect she’s had on his personality. Both Cho-won and Do-yoon have noticed the changes, which is why Cho-won invites Ji-eum on their spontaneous group trip to the beach. And as we all know, in dramaland a beach trip is either fluffy filler or an opportunity for introspection and revelations. Luckily, we get both this time around.
We start with the fluff. A walk along the beach turns into a serious conversation as Seo-ha hints to Ji-eum that she’s been on his mind. Ji-eum sees it as an opportunity and asks him to date her. He declines, but his hesitation is noticeably long. Unperturbed, and with two confessions remaining, Ji-eum coaxes Seo-ha into dancing with her next to a lighthouse, which K-dramas have conditioned me into believing are peak romance. Seo-ha’s stiff awkwardness gives way to a relaxed and carefree smile as they dance together next to the ocean.
The romantic moment ends when it starts to rain, and our couples-who-aren’t-couples-yet retreat to the nearby beach house belonging to Cho-won’s family. It’s here that Ji-eum’s uncanny familiarity with the house fans the flames of Cho-won’s suspicions. But as Cho-won edges closer to realizing the truth, Do-yoon dashes her hopes with an ice cold bucket of don’t-trust-the-strange-woman-softly-stalking-Seo-ha. Do-yoon’s still leary of Ji-eum, and I can’t say that I blame him. After all, she admitted to having an ulterior motive, and most people would logically assume she’s a gold-digger or corporate spy, not a reincarnated first love.
So with Do-yoon’s words of caution weighing her down, Cho-won drowns in a complex cocktail of hope and doubt, which she then decides to mix with alcohol. In this state, Cho-won confronts Ji-eum, but even as she accuses Ji-eum of using her to get closer to Seo-ha, Cho-won admits she’s crushed and confused by her own instincts. She’d held onto an irrational hope that Ji-eum was, by some miracle, her sister. As Cho-won cries, Ji-eum is struck by the familiar urge to comfort her little sister. Even though she knows it’s a massive risk, she tells Cho-won the truth: she was Ju-won in her past life.
Cho-won doesn’t immediately trust Ji-eum and must first confirm some details with her mother. Once she’s a believer, though, their dynamic instantly changes, and Cho-won cutely reverts to being the younger sister, eager to reveal the truth to their mother and Seo-ha. Ji-eum dashes her hopes of a family reunion, though, and explains the complexities of telling others about her past lives. For starters, experience has taught Ji-eum that people don’t always react positively to the news. And as far as Seo-ha goes, well, he needs a therapist to work through his grief on his own, and Ji-eum worries that she’s already pushing her limits by being around him as Ji-eum. (He’s just too irresistible, though!)
However, that’s not the worst of it! Thanks to some vague conversations between HAN-NA (Lee Hanna), mystery character #1, and KANG MIN-KI (Lee Chae-min), mystery character #2 —who is now a part-timer at Ae-gyeong’s restaurant — we learn that there’s a potentially dangerous (deadly?) consequence facing anyone that learns about Ji-eum’s past lives. We’re left to deduce that Ae-gyeong’s mysterious illness — that she’s hiding from Ji-eum — is directly related to her awareness that Ji-eum was her uncle. So does this mean Cho-won is now in danger?! Eep!
But wait! There’s more! In addition to the two mystery characters we have floating around in the background forewarning of bad things to come, we have loan sharks — but not just any loan sharks. It turns out the boss man BANG HO-SHIK was the hired thug behind the car accident that killed Ju-won — but she wasn’t the intended target. No, someone wanted young Seo-ha dead, and that person is still unidentified.
To be honest, I’m getting a little bit overwhelmed by the frequent flashbacks to the car accident and child death. It’s starting to remind me of Why Her?, which replayed the death from Episode 1 over and over, as if we’d somehow forget that shocking moment. I will acknowledge, though, that See You in My 19th Life is at least making the flashbacks relevant to the present story being told. Last week, we learned that the core source of Seo-ha’s trauma was feeling Ju-won’s body grow cold on top of his, and this week we found out that the driver of Seo-ha’s vehicle was Do-yoon’s father — a fact that Seo-ha just learned, as well.
As I briefly mentioned last week, Do-yoon is a bit aloof and doesn’t reciprocate Seo-ha’s friendship with the same freeness as his younger brother HA DO-JIN (Lee Shi-woo). While some of this can be probably explained by the nature of his father’s death — and the fact he’s been keeping it a secret — Do-yoon is also keenly aware of his social status and how outsiders perceive his friendship with Seo-ha. And — you guessed it — this is largely why he rejected Cho-won, too.
When Seo-ha learns that Do-yoon’s father was his driver who died in the car accident with Ju-won, the two confront their feelings the old-fashioned way: by throwing fists until they’re both too exhausted to avoid talking about the sh*t that needs to be said. Although their verbal and nonverbal communication did not outwardly damage their friendship, Seo-ha still walks away with a cloud over his head. This is why, in a moment of vulnerability and growth, he asks Ji-eum for a hug when he sees her waiting outside his door.
So much progress was made with the story and our characters this week that I’m hopeful the latter half of the drama will cover a lot of ground and wrap up everything satisfactorily — even if, realistically, Seo-ha needs a 100-episode weekend drama to heal from all his trauma. Even without therapy, though, our boy is making slow and steady progress. It’s sweet how each interaction with Ji-eum reminds him bit by bit that it’s okay to smile and laugh and — most importantly — let go of Ju-won. Although, since Ji-eum is Ju-won, the water is a little murky on how much his healing is actually a form of displacement, but I’m just going to go with the happier alternative since I’m still blissfully enjoying this drama.
There was also a little bit of progress with our secondary couple this week, and it amuses me that Cho-won is just as aggressive — albeit slightly less confident — as her sister when it comes to romance. Her little slip-up in the stairwell when she accidentally told Do-yoon that she liked him? Yeah, adorable. And speaking of the stairwell — Do-yoon knows! Well, he overheard Cho-won call Ji-eum her sister, but we know he’s too practical to believe anything they said. I can’t wait to find out what happens! (Well, I know what happens in the webtoon, but I can’t wait to see it play out in the drama!)