Things are winding down during our penultimate week… or they should be! Instead, we no sooner get to the bottom of one matrimonial problem, when new obstacles turn up out of the wild blue yonder and threaten to take down our couple once and for all.
EPISODES 13-14 WEECAP
It’s a week of pranks on Do Do Sol Sol! Some work, and add interest, but others seem like they were pulled out of a hat just to keep us watching. While I’m sure our ending looks the same either way, I was hoping for a little more cohesion at this point — why not address the issues at hand instead of inventing new ones to add to the stack? Let’s explore.
Our first prank is, of course, the wedding ruse. We’re led to believe that Dr. Cha and Lala are getting hitched, even though we all know it’s 100% improbable. Joon turns into a wedding crasher and whisks Lala away (the epicness of this scene outweighs the illogical aspects, for sure). They hop into Juju and go for a ride to the ocean for a heart to heart — and so we can get all the cute coupley moments we need, including a random piano turning upon the sand for Lala to play, a legitimate kiss between them, and a renewed sense of their love for each other (as if we doubted).
Because the story hasn’t dealt with how Joon is going to get his parents to approve of Lala, we’ve just seen him popping back and forth between Seoul and Eunpo. He and Lala are together, but kind of on hold, making his education the top priority — except for when Lala falls off a bike, engages in a wedding charade without telling him, and so on.
This family approval/tension is what we really need to get to the bottom of, but instead we get… competition! It’s Joon’s turn to get a crazy stan this time, when a girl from high school turns up, announces she had/has a crush on him, and continues to impose her will on him in a way that’s not only obnoxious and bossy, but deeply troubling. In his defense, Joon is pretty clear about not being interested in her, but like many second lead female characters (so to speak), she has selective hearing loss.
We’re left out of a lot of what’s going on with Joon after this point, and the narrative focus turns to Lala instead. We see from her perspective now — first, waiting to meet Joon for a date, but he never turns up. Second, going to his house to find the other girl here, bragging about her relationship with him. And finally, when Lala and Joon do meet up after he has been ghosting her, he breaks up with her.
I would be more sad about this if it was actually believable. I know that it’s just another act of noble idiocy/Joon getting steamrolled, but why is Lala so ready to believe Joon when he says he doesn’t like her anymore? All the Eunpo people believe Joon’s heart towards Lala more than she does! I’m confused.
Speaking of Eunpo, there are a lot of fun side stories that continue this week, and I actually enjoyed watching this stuff play out more than I did the pseudo break-up between Joon and Lala. This is also where we hit our second prank. Although last week it was fairly certain that Dr. Cha was Dodosolsollalasol, this week we rewind to that same scene and see that it didn’t end the way we were led to believe. Actually, Dr. Cha said that he is not the benefactor, and actually helps Lala discover who it is (also, it’s confirmed that his pills are indeed vitamins, in case you were worried).
The true Dodosolsollalasol is none other than the adorable and wonderful haraboji, and I am more than okay with this twist, because I love him and how he has so obviously cared for the younger generations around him. But, we’re robbed of any sweet moments when he has heart attack #2, and he’s currently unconscious in the hospital. Also, his son kinda sucks, and tries to sell off the Jin Hair Salon/Lala Land building right from under our characters’ feet. Luckily, Dr. Cha swoops in and buys it.
Our other great side story this week is with Ha-young and Seung-gi who not only get their business rolling thanks to Joon’s wedding crashing, but Seung-gi stages an elaborate confession, and they become an official couple! *Rejoicing*
Our resident soft-hearted, spoon-bearing thug is also put to good use this week, and he helps each of our characters quickly dig to the bottom of their mysteries. Sure, he’s not actually that good at seeing what lies beneath the surface, but we love him anyway (and his crush on Sook-kyung is wonderful to watch).
Yet another fun fake-out belongs to the secretary of Lala’s father. He’s long been hinted as the nefarious baddie who took down her father and destroyed her life. And it even looks like that might be true — until somebody yells, “Cut!” and the whole incriminating scene we’ve just witnessed is revealed to be nothing more than a drama set. Secretary Moon is now an actor, is as warm and loving as ever with Lala, and gives her a chunk of money to cement his honest and fatherly (or is that motherly?) nature towards her.
So, there’s a lot of fun side stories and plots to keep us smiling and to keep the magic of the show continuing — and that’s a good thing, because they are all but suffocating the fun out with their Joon/Lala break-up plot line.
When our episodes close this week, Lala is headed to the airport to pick up her beloved piano teacher when she sees Joon heading out on an international flight with his new “girlfriend.”. Though we have seen Joon crying in secret and know he’s miserable, we’re not given any look into what’s really going on with his side of the story. Instead, we just see him blow past Lala in the airport as if she’s invisible. Yet we all know this is ridiculous, improbable, and inconsistent with everything that we know about Joon.
The question that remains is this: why doesn’t Lala realize this? And to take that even a step further, why do we, as the audience, have to undergo this final parting and fake-out break-up? It’s not serving the story. There was already enough conflict to make our happy ending satisfying.
So why does this final plot arc exist? To get us to watch the final week, surely, but I was going to do that anyway. However, it’s one thing to watch a show’s final week because you’re truly desperate to see how the story concludes. It’s another thing entirely to watch because you want to see how the show is going to resolve the plot traps it’s laid for itself, and how it’s going to stay true to its sweet and sparkly core. I’m in the latter camp right now, but that doesn’t mean I won’t forgive them if they can pull this off. Bring on the sparkles and well-rounded happy ending!