Our lovers might be leaning on each other more these days, but with their affair made very public, new troubles rear their heads. Getting a divorce is not as simple as our hero expected, and as his friend says, they’re in for a messy fight. And worse still, messy just might mean violent.
EPISODES 13-14 WEECAP
It’s starting to feel like our characters are caught in a bit of an impasse. Though Jae-hyun and Ji-soo are “seeing each other” they’re really just going for walks, providing emotional support, and being there for each other. While falling in love again is making a big difference for their happiness, external scenarios continue to spin in circles around them with no relief in sight. How is the situation ever going to change?
Seo-kyung is still out to get Ji-soo. Though she’s rather catty and mean about it, she doesn’t pretend to be otherwise — and in a way, she’s in her rights, and furious when the divorce petition is made official. So whether it’s the battle over demolishing Ji-soo’s new house, or using the release of the Ji-soo/Jae-hyun kiss footage to tarnish her professional reputation, Seo-kyung fights on.
Even as Ji-soo’s world continues to get beat and battered it’s nice to see the people in her life helping her out. Dong-jin, while protesting that he’s a divorce attorney, actually helps her with the real estate problem. And ever-faithful Young-woo goes in a rage to Jae-hyun over how much he’s letting Ji-soo suffer. I actually enjoyed his outburst very much — perhaps it’s because I’m starting to feel (as a viewer) like a side-liner in this story, too. Like Young-woo, I’m tired of the suffering, and would like some decisions and choices made that transition our characters forward.
This is when it’s nice to have a heroine who isn’t afraid to fight back. Ji-soo is fierce — it just takes a lot to get her riled into action. This week, she flips the table on Seo-kyung by getting gussied up (she’s so pretty!) and marching over to the fancy hotel where Jae-hyun is officially living now. It’s all a ploy to enrage Seo-kyung and fight back — and it works. Except how long can they keep doing this back and forth? Someone must lose, or someone must forfeit.
Just when it looks like that might happen, and Seo-kyung tires of trying to break the star-crossed bond between Jae-hyun and Ji-soo, Ji-soo’s nasty ex-husband starts interfering again. Talk about a sower of discord! This man admits he doesn’t want his wife back, or his son — all he wants is for Ji-soo and Jae-hyun to suffer. It’s pretty unbearable that he’ll lie to and manipulate his own son to make this happen. (Someone save my little Young-min!)
In the midst of all this love and war there is, of course, Jae-hyun’s secret battle against the company that destroyed his father. But we learn that he doesn’t just want to destroy it, he wants to own it. He sees it as “his revenge and his reward.” As one might expect, this creates a bit of a breach between Jae-hyun and Ji-soo — especially considering a friend of hers (wrongfully terminated as revenge against her) is merely seen as collateral damage.
We didn’t get that much backstory this week, which was a shame, but what we did get framed an early fight between our young lovers — and then Jae-hyun’s apology with white and red roses, and some aegyo. Sure enough, our drama is circling back to that moment. Present-day Jae-hyun knows he owes Ji-soo an apology for his greed over the company, as much as for how his mindset has shifted over the years. She’s stayed more true to his ideals than he has.
But instead of cute scene of reconciliation part two, Jae-hyun (with his apology bouquet in hand) is stabbed right in front of Ji-soo. It’s rather a horrific stabbing by the elder who’s been protesting the wrongful death of his son for the entire show. He doesn’t know that Jae-hyun isn’t really the bad guy, and he’s pressed into violent action by Ji-soo’s horrid ex-husband.
And so, with one week to go in our drama, we’ve got a burst violence to shake up the impasse we’ve been at for the last few weeks. It also strikes me that we haven’t learned much about Ji-soo’s own crime and imprisonment, so I wonder if that will also come into play before our story ends. If there’s anything that we can expect of When My Love Blooms, it’s the story coming full circle.
