Everyone has to deal with the aftermath of a traumatic accident. The road to recovery may take some time, but with our wacky PD glued to our hero’s side, things are looking pretty bright. Meanwhile, the exes begin to take responsibility for their actions.
EPISODE 29 RECAP
He imagines himself in Hae-kyung’s shoes, but the reality is that he’s no longer the one that Do-hee’s looking at so lovingly. “I’m not the most important person to Do-hee,” he finally realizes.
By now, the couple has noticed Jae-hyuk, and Do-hee’s face falls. Jae-hyuk no longer has the courage to face the world because Do-hee is still the most important person to him.
Hae-kyung gets off a call and approaches Jae-hyuk carefully while Do-hee hangs back and watches with concern. Jae-hyuk blankly states, “Do-hee seems disgusted by me.” Hae-kyung assures him that’s not the case and that she actually wants him to overcome this.
Hae-kyung tries his best to diffuse the situation but Jae-hyuk thinks she’ll be happy if he disappears. “I’ll do anything for Do-hee,” he tells Hae-kyung. After taking one final look at his former lover, Jae-hyuk runs into traffic.
However, Hae-kyung reacts quickly and pushes him to safety, though he doesn’t have time to save himself. The impact of the car knocks Hae-kyung off his feet, and his body shatters the windshield before he’s flung onto the road. Do-hee screams, holding him tight as she calls for help.
Within ten minutes, both men are wheeled to the hospital. Keanu is also there and hesitates before choosing to follow Jae-hyuk’s gurney, since Do-hee is by Hae-kyung’s side. She’s left alone when Hae-kyung is taken into the operating room.
Geon-woo pays Jae-hyuk a visit and tells him that Hae-kyung still hasn’t woken up from his surgery. During the incident, Jae-hyuk hit his head and before falling unconscious, he saw Do-hee running towards Hae-kyung without even sparing him a glance.
“I don’t think I can forgive you this time,” Geon-woo coldly tells his cousin. Jae-hyuk understands, because he can’t forgive himself either. He thought that disappearing would solve everything, and Geon-woo angrily tells him that he’s really gone mad.
No-eul declines Geon-woo’s invite to visit the hospital with him. She realized that it’s not her place to go and tell Hae-kyung how sad she is. She also doesn’t deserve to get mad at Jae-hyuk, because she once wished that he’d do anything in his power to take Do-hee from Hae-kyung. Geon-woo tells her it’s still okay to be sad.
Keanu visits Hae-kyung to apologize, but Hae-kyung says that doctors can’t be responsible for every patient. He’s just glad that nothing happened to Jae-hyuk but reveals that he feels like he’s deceiving everyone.
He only saved Jae-hyuk so that he wouldn’t have any real estate in Do-hee’s heart. If he’d died, Do-hee would have to suffer and remember him forever. Keanu tells Hae-kyung that no matter who it was for, it was a very altruistic decision.
Jae-hyuk is visited by his father, who doesn’t even show an ounce of compassion for his son. He tells Jae-hyuk that he should’ve kept a low profile after he covered for him once. We see that after Jae-hyuk reported on Keanu, he’d kneeled and asked Dad for help.
Dad snidely said, “You were so confident about being a proud son to me. How dare you bring shame to your name by writing a bogus article?” Jae-hyuk explained that he just wanted to be recognized by Dad, but became too greedy. Although he’d wanted to revise the article, Dad told him that it’d just make things worse and ordered him to fly to the States the very next day.
Our sickly psychiatrist is so mesmerized by his own girlfriend that he refuses to be nursed back to health by Byung-jin, an actual nurse. The moment Do-hee finishes peeling her fruit, Hae-kyung pretends that he totally wasn’t staring, pfft.
Do-hee assures Byung-jin that she’ll work hard to take care of Hae-kyung but when her boyfriend grunts in pain trying to get his nurse to leave, Do-hee barks at Byung-jin to go away. She sweetly feeds Hae-kyung an apple once they’re alone, and he has never looked happier.
Jae-hyuk apologizes to Geon-woo. He says that in order for others to be happy, he has to put everything behind and live a good life. Keanu had told him that finding happiness was the only way for him to be forgiven.
Ah-young visits Keanu at the clinic to hear the rest of his stories, starting with how he knows Jae-hyuk. She’s angry to learn that Keanu knew the state Jae-hyuk was in from the beginning, and repeatedly hits him with her purse – what if Hae-kyung died or something happened to Do-hee? She exhausts herself and says that things wouldn’t have gotten this out of hand if he told her earlier.
Keanu finally shares his story about how Jae-hyuk was not only his patient, but also his worst enemy. The one who framed him as a murderer and caused his life to fall apart. He tells Ah-young that if Hae-kyung and Do-hee weren’t involved, he probably would’ve killed him.
She asks, “How have you been holding up with that?” Keanu just says that it’s something nobody was able to prevent. He himself failed as a doctor and as a human.
Do-hee’s mom cooks up a sweat and snaps at Do-hee for ordering her around without telling her what all this food is for. It’s obvious that Do-hee’s lying that it’s for her hardworking team, and Mom’s afraid she’ll end up with someone like Young-dong or Jae-hyuk.
When Mom fumes that she spent so much effort feeding them, Do-hee meekly claims that this time will be different. Mom yells, “If you’re seeing a weirdo again, I’ll go find him and pull out all his hair.”
Hae-kyung’s suspicious of all the food Do-hee brought, but she reassures him that it’s made by her mom, with 32 years of cooking expertise. She claims that he’ll heal up in no time with this medication.
Knowing that Mom would do “whatever it takes” to keep her daughter away from him, Hae-kyung hesitantly asks if she knew who she was cooking for. LOL, Do-hee purposely gives him an ambiguous answer.
Meanwhile, Mom finally gets a moment to herself and receives a text from Do-hee’s dad. He regrets what he did and apologizes, promising to never do it again. Dad asks for forgiveness for being an idiot, and Mom just sighs.
Hae-kyung is pretty impressed by the spread and says it’s his first time having homemade beef bone stew. Do-hee lies that restaurants make it better, but he disagrees. She knows that he’s been cooking for himself since he was ten, which is why he’s so affected by a home-cooked meal.
“The more I get to know you, the more flaws I find,” she tells him. He seems like the perfect guy, but is out here being sad over a regular bowl of stew. Hae-kyung replies that it’s not good to be perfect, so he’s gotta have some flaws. She’s glad he’s eating well and Hae-kyung jokes that she can be a food therapist at the clinic.
When he asks when she’ll introduce him to Mom, she avoids the topic by piling food onto his bowl, and he wonders if her hearing’s gone bad, hah.
There’s a new cast for Have My Heart and today’s topic is about drinks that you can order on a blind date. Everyone’s pretty bored so Jin-kyu calls for a break. He sighs that the screen looks lifeless without No-eul, and Jung-hwan says that it’s dull without Do-hee.
That night, Keanu treats Ah-young to mandoo. She lovingly places a dumpling on his plate, which reminds Keanu of how proactive she’s always been in pursuing the relationship.
While walking through the dark street, he takes her hand and asks if she remembers how he needed to find closure for his resentful heart before moving in with her. He failed, so he can no longer be with her. What?! Keanu tells her to take care of herself and meet someone good, but Ah-young insists that she’ll wait for him, leaving with tears streaming down her face.
The next day, So-ra visits Do-hee at home and notes that she looks pretty depressed. She tells Do-hee that No-eul quit, begrudgingly admitting that she’s not only pretty but also cool. Do-hee will be resting today since Byung-jin will take care of Hae-kyung.
Keanu walks the street alone while Ah-young wallows in her sadness at work. They both think back to the night when Keanu had asked to hear her story. Ah-young told him about being set up with many men with fancy jobs.
The guys had condescendingly dumped her, thinking she was a pretty girl trying to marry rich for an easy life. It’s why she hates arrogant men. Keanu called them idiots and told her that she’s still beautiful. Feeling unsettled, Ah-young heads to the pharmacy and purchases ten boxes of digestive drinks.
COMMENTS
THIS! This is what I’ve wanted all along, and I can’t believe it took a life-threatening accident to get to this point. I feel like the show purposefully uses death/the potential of death to bring our couple closer, which I don’t find to be necessary. It just seems like a convenient plot point to throw in there to explain the sudden changes in behavior in No-eul, Jae-hyuk, and even Do-hee (Writer Lee’s passing is what allowed her to finally take down her walls and put her all into the relationship). It almost seems like they’re cheating, but to be honest, I guess I don’t really care either way because it got us where we needed to be.
I once again just really appreciate Lee Ji-hoon as an actor. Despite hating Jae-hyuk for a good chunk of the show, I’m somehow able to now sympathize with him and really root for him to grow and heal. He was really well written in the sense that before we knew his backstory, he always seemed a little off, though we couldn’t quite put our finger on it. In retrospect, his behavior makes a lot of sense and it’s pretty clear why he acts the way he does. It’s kind of ironic how everyone in his life shunned him, but Keanu stayed by his side to support and comfort him.
Speaking of Keanu, I don’t really understand his decision to leave Ah-young. He’s no longer as resentful towards Jae-hyuk, so I’m not sure what sparked this? Is it just because his name is not cleared yet, and he knows that it won’t be until Jae-hyuk decides to write a correction article? Saving Ah-young from the scrutiny of dating a “murderer” is the only reason I can come up with. It’s clear he loves her, and despite his best efforts, I know she will never give up on him.
As for our favorite couple, I truly enjoyed seeing them interact so freely. Hae-kyung’s advances in the last episode felt a bit pushier (?) than he would normally be, probably because he was fueled by intense emotions. Somehow, it seemed like he reset after his accident and everything he did in this episode felt very him. It’s such a Hae-kyung thing to do, to ask Do-hee to breakfast as a way of telling her to stay the night. It’s been so fun watching these two flirting on-screen. Regardless of how I feel about the plot, Hae-kyung and Do-hee remain one of my favorite couples of the year. Their chemistry is out of this world and there are some moments that feel very genuine and unscripted, as if Song Seung-heon were adlibbing and Seo Ji-hye finds him genuinely hilarious. I am happy to have been witness to such a respectful and mature relationship.