You know what’s great about this hero? He swoons more than we do. And you know me—I just can’t get enough of a boy who wears his heart on his sleeve. It’s a sweet, character-building episode this time around, with some time for moral dilemmas to simmer and rise to the surface. It sort of feels like we’re all taking a spin in Hye-sung’s revolving door for an episode, which hey, I never mind as long as Su-ha’s along for the ride.
SONG OF THE DAY
Melody Day – “Sweetly Lalala” for the OST [ Download ]
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EPISODE 14: “Having to be silent in memory”
Su-ha tells Hye-sung the truth—that he’s recovered his memories and his abilities, since the day they found out Min Joon-gook was still alive. She takes a step back in horror, thinking: “Then he knows how I feel? He knew all this time and pretended not to?”
He reaches for her hand but she backs away from him and runs into her room. He stands outside just staring at her door, waiting and waiting.
As he looks over at the living room, he flashes back to the first time his uncle came to see the place, wowed by how nice it was. Uncle asks happily if they should all move into this house together, and Little Su-ha happily agrees.
He hears Uncle thinking that between this apartment and his life insurance payout, Dad’s turning out to be a blessing, and Little Su-ha says there’s even more, like his retirement and stuff. Horrified, Uncle asks how he read his thoughts, wondering to himself if Su-ha is a monster.
Little Su-ha swears he isn’t a monster, and reaches out to Uncle, who backs away screaming: “Don’t come any closer!” He runs into the room Hye-sung is in now, and Little Su-ha pounds on the door crying, “I’m not a monster! I’m not a monster!”
Su-ha watches his younger self pounding on that door and sighs as he thinks in voiceover: “I couldn’t hate Uncle. It was undeniable. What a monster I must have seemed, always looking in on his inner thoughts?”
He walks up to the door and raises his fist to knock, but can’t bring himself to do it, and just rests his hand against the door. Inside, Hye-sung is crouched just on the other side of the door, head in her hands.
He leans against the other side and thinks: “Telling the truth is always painful.”
Kwan-woo gets treated at the hospital after his bloody encounter with Min Joon-gook, and has his arm put in a sling. He was knocked unconscious at the end, so he didn’t see where Min Joon-gook ran off to.
He tells the cops that Joon-gook came to find him because he had something to say. Flashback to the fight, where Joon-gook gets the upper hand and gets the chance to speak. He assures Kwan-woo that he won’t kill him: “You were the only person in the world who took my side.”
Kwan-woo says that’s not the case anymore, but Joon-gook doesn’t care. He thought that someone in the world ought to know his story, “because I’m going to see this through to the end.”
Kwan-woo asks what that end is, but Joon-gook says he’s not here for that—he’s here to tell him about the beginning. Kwan-woo tells the cops that it was like a last will and testament, the way he was talking, and he’s pretty sure that seeing it through to the end involves going after Su-ha and Hye-sung.
In the morning, Su-ha makes breakfast and gets a call from Kwan-woo. Hahahaha. He’s saved Kwan-woo’s number as “White Socks.” Hahaha. He doesn’t say much other than to make sure Su-ha will keep Hye-sung safe.
Su-ha finally goes to her door and apologizes: “I won’t ever look at your eyes again, ever. You can just use my eyes in court. And if… you don’t want that either… if you never want to see me again… I’ll do that too. Just let me stay by your side until Min Joon-gook is caught.”
He tells her he’ll wait outside, and then she finally comes out to see the table set with food for her and sighs. On their way out, she stops to ask if that’s it—are there any more lies? Oh noes. He immediately thinks of the big one, about Dad starting this whole chain of events…
He swallows the thought and says there’s nothing else. Ack. I don’t know which is worse. Okay, lying is worse, but I get why he’s treading lightly right now.
She’s silent the rest of the way to work, noting how careful Su-ha is being about not looking her in the eye. He literally stays two steps behind her the whole way, stopping when she stops, always keeping his distance. Could he be any more of a puppy right now?
Thankfully for them, the bus driver is a fan of skinship. When the bus lurches at a stop, he falls onto her lap, and he’s forced to look her in the eye for a split second. Mostly he’s just mortified, and she busts out laughing. Hee.
He stays behind her the rest of the walk to work, and says he’ll come to pick her up at night. She starts to walk away but then whirls around, and he hilariously spins around to face the other way so as not to look at her.
She’s finally had enough of it and stomps over to him and makes him turn around. He does, but stares at the ground, “I didn’t look, really.”
She reaches up and grabs his face in her hands to make him look into her eyes. “I like you, Su-ha-ya. As a dongseng, as a friend, and… as a man.” Eeeeeeeee!
She admits, “Ever since I started to like you, I disliked and feared your ability. I have so many thoughts now that I don’t want uncovered. I feel like every time they’re found out, I’ll resent you. And then when I think about that resentment hurting you, that’s horrible. And beyond that, there are all sorts of reasons why we don’t work, and I think that at some point we have to get over these feelings…”
He starts to protest, but then she adds: “But I still like you anyway. A lot. So let’s not think about the end and spend our days like this. Let’s look at each other and laugh, and say the things we want to say honestly.”
The way his face changes as she says those things, gah. He can barely contain his excitement as he agrees and turns to go. He walks away with this giant shit-eating grin on his face, and then stops.
He whirls around and goes running back… and then he just throws his arms around her waist and picks her up so high until he’s looking up at her. “Thank you. Thank you!”
He leans in to kiss her and then runs away, grinning like a fool. Melty puddle of goo, I am. Hye-sung watches him go with a smile, and then the reasonable side of her brain kicks in: “What the hell did I just do? Is this okay?”
Lawyer Shin meets with Hwang Dal-joong to tell him that they’re looking for his daughter Ga-yeon, to prove that his ex-wife is the death-faking, hand-chopping woman they know her to be, but can’t prove.
He asks Dal-joong what it is that he wants to gain from this trial, which is a good question to ask of a man with a terminal illness, facing an attempted murder charge against a woman he supposedly already murdered. Dal-joong: “An apology.”
Do-yeon pleads with the chief prosecutor to be put back on the case, which he can’t allow but also can’t defend—he’s doing it as a favor to her father, which they both know.
Hye-sung comes by Judge Kim’s lunch table (there’s a funny beat where he’s badmouthing her for causing more trouble with another jury trial and he realizes she’s standing right behind him: “She’s standing right behind me, isn’t she?”) and asks what he’d do if he hypothetically sent a man to jail for murder and then the victim turned up alive.
Judge Kim says he’d overturn the verdict because that’s the right thing to do. She asks if there was a judge who found that out but didn’t, is he breaking any laws? Judge Kim says no—he’s not punishable by law. Damn.
Hye-sung sits outside and goes through this great inner monologue as she thinks over the case. That bastard Judge Seo ruined an innocent man’s life but can’t be held responsible by law. So what can they gain from this trial?
She worries about revealing that Do-yeon is the daughter—won’t it just turn her life upside-down? And then she immediately wonders why she’s worrying about that girl, ha.
Su-ha comes by on his break to walk her back to work, and she remembers to give him back his old cell phone. She just smiles as he leads her away by the hand. That is, until the detectives (on the Min Joon-gook case) show up, and she immediately wriggles her hand out of his grasp.
They tell her about Kwan-woo being attacked by Min Joon-gook last night, and insist on following the two of them wherever they go. Aw man, cockblocking cops around 24/7? Can’t you people come back when the romance is on a downswing?
Kwan-woo is back at work, and Pretty the Paralegal signs his cast: “Hurry up and stick, bones!” He sighs that Kwan-woo isn’t at the age where bones reattach very well either, and Kwan-woo just scowls at the misguided attempt to cheer him up.
He asks about the new public defender in the office, who’s apparently a superstar. They’re calling him Lawyer Eom, so I’m guessing we’re in for a cameo soon?
Hye-sung and Su-ha come by to check on Kwan-woo, but he says with a bright smile that he’s okay, and that Min Joon-gook came by to say something, but there wasn’t time for words with all the fighting going on. But Su-ha hears him thinking: “They probably don’t know anything about Min Joon-gook and Su-ha’s father…”
Hye-sung is so distracted by thoughts of Min Joon-gook that she can barely hear a word Lawyer Shin is saying, and excuses herself for a moment. Pretty the Paralegal is used to this behavior and tells Lawyer Shin to cover his ears.
From the conference room we just hear Hye-sung screaming: “Min Joon-gook! If a cow has a baby it’s a calf, and if a dog has a baby, it’s you! Min Joon-gook, you bastard, I’m not afraid of you anymore!” And then she comes back out with a hair toss, calm as you please, like that didn’t just happen. HA.
She asks Lawyer Shin if they hypothetically knew who the daughter was, but she grew up thinking her adoptive parents were her biological parents—isn’t it wrong to drop this on her? Lawyer Shin doesn’t think so, but Hye-sung points out that he’s only thinking about this from Hwang Dal-joong’s perspective, but what about the daughter? I love that she’s genuinely concerned for Do-yeon right now.
Meanwhile, Do-yeon skips along, having finally convinced her boss to let her back on the case. She heads to the hospital to see the victim, and catches a glimpse of Dad leaving. It’s just from behind though, and she brushes it off like she must be mistaken. He’s just been there to find out that Bio Mom is unconscious and hanging on by a thread, which he totally smiled at, by the way. Creepy.
Su-ha comes by Kwan-woo’s office that evening, and asks what Min Joon-gook said. He hears Kwan-woo wondering how much he knows, so Su-ha tells him that his memory has returned, and he knows about all of it.
Su-ha wonders to himself if he should plead with Kwan-woo not to tell Hye-sung, convinced that he’s going to let the secret out at any moment. But Kwan-woo sits down and tells him not to tell any of this to Hye-sung.
He says that he doesn’t believe Hye-sung would treat him differently if she knew, but he does believe that there are some truths not worth knowing in this world. “The person who started all of this is Min Joon-gook, not your father.”
Aww, Kwan-woo, pullin’ me back in with the sincere good guy underneath it all. Slow clap. I don’t agree that she doesn’t need to know the truth, but your heart’s in the right place. Su-ha gets up to go, and Kwan-woo tells him not to berate himself with useless guilt, and Su-ha brusquely tells him to cut it out because it’s annoying. That kind of kills me—he knows Kwan-woo’s being the bigger man, and that in and of itself drives him crazy.
Kwan-woo gets a call from a Choi sunbae, and asks how Meahri is doing. Hee. I like all the plants for cameos to come.
Su-ha paces up and down the hallway, fuming in frustration. He finally sighs at Kwan-woo’s knack for always turning him into a childish, pathetic fool. He takes out his old cell phone charm and ponders what to do.
Hye-sung and Lawyer Shin go through a speed round of arguments to test out what they can achieve without the daughter’s DNA, and as expected, the win goes to the prosecution. Lawyer Shin is hilariously glad for a moment, until it has to be pointed out that he was role-playing for the other side.
He asks if Hye-sung knows who the daughter is and is holding back out of concern for her, and though she denies it, he offers his opinion that if she’s ever torn about what to do, telling the truth is the best option.
Kwan-woo goes to dinner with his sunbae, who turns out to be Choi Yoon (cameo by Kim Min-jong). Yoonie oppa!
Yoon offers Kwan-woo a job at his firm, promising that there’s lots of pro bono work he can do there, and that it’s better than failing the public defender’s interview. He’s stoically unhelpful when it comes to Kwan-woo and his one-handed attempts to eat slippery sushi, but then when Meahri calls on his way out, he turns into a sweet teddy bear, of course.
At home, Hye-sung goes through another round of Truth or Not, and asks Su-ha what she should do about Do-yeon. She tells him what Lawyer Shin said about picking the truth if she’s undecided, and of course Su-ha is stuck wondering the exact same thing.
He thinks back to Kwan-woo’s words that some truths are better left unspoken, and tells her not to tell Do-yeon. She’s shocked, and points out that Su-ha’s been all about truthiness since Day 1.
There was Sung-bin’s trial, and the twin trial, and he said that the truth was won in court, and called her the worst. “You always told me to tell the truth, and relentlessly at that.” She pauses to add that she really is very understanding person, to have overlooked all that. Heh.
It clearly niggles at him, but he tells her to just bury it if she wants to, and she wonders aloud, “Well if you say it, then it must be the right thing to do.” Aw. But she slams her head back down on the table and sighs that it still feels like she’s wiping her ass with curry paper. Uh, callbacks are one thing, but we’re not actually going to recycle ALL the dialogue to cover our extended asses, are we? Just checking.
Hwang Dal-joong’s condition starts to worsen while in jail, and he begins to write some things down on paper.
Hye-sung runs into Do-yeon at lunch, and is shocked to hear that Do-yeon is back on the Hwang Dal-joong case. She warns Do-yeon to stay away from it, which just raises her ire—everyone from Dad to her boss, and now Hye-sung, all warning her to stay away from Hwang Dal-joong with no explanation. Hye-sung doesn’t tell her anything, and just says she doesn’t want to keep going up against her in court.
Back at the office, Hye-sung wonders why she still hasn’t seen the new public defender, when he finally appears. Eom Ki-joon! He bursts into the office in a flurry of activity and chatter, and he’s kind of like Kwan-woo on speed—all earnest and hardworking, but revved up to impossible levels of enthusiasm.
He seems exactly like Kwan-woo in fact, until he starts handing Pretty the Paralegal all his receipts for his expenses while on the job. Pretty just stares at them, all What am I supposed to do with these?
Lawyer Shin has to explain that they cover their own expenses, and in fact have to pay for the paralegal’s salary out of their own pockets. Eom Ki-joon explodes that he can’t work this way, and Hye-sung points out that he just declared he’d do anything for the people. Eom Ki-joon: “But… my money!” Haha.
And that’s how Cha Kwan-woo, second place interviewer, returns to the public defender’s office. Yay. He dodges another hug from Pretty, but shakes Hye-sung’s hand as she welcomes him back. She can’t resist snarking that he must not have anyplace else to go, which he just lets her believe.
Su-ha arrives at his tutoring academy, and Sung-bin and Choong-ki run up to join him. Is… Choong-ki wearing glasses? He looks at them in confusion, and they say that he doesn’t remember, but they used to give him answers in school all the time. Pffft.
He has to tell them that he recovered his memories, and Choong-ki grumbles that he knew this was a bad idea from the moment she told him to put on the glasses. Ha. Sung-bin says she’s going to join anyway to keep up with him, and Su-ha hears her worrying in her head about how he’ll react.
He tells her to register upstairs, and then hears Choong-ki thinking that she’s at it again, digging her grave. He reads Choong-ki thinking that Su-ha shouldn’t give her false hope, and then adding with scorn that he was nice to the orphan because he felt sorry for him. Ouch. This bromance does so much better when Su-ha can’t read minds.
Hye-sung overhears Judge Kim apologizing to his friend about Kwan-woo turning down the offer to join his firm, and asks him about it over lunch. (She’s really sweet about helping him eat with the one hand.) She says that if he came back because of her…
But he quickly cuts her off to say that he does like her, but he didn’t choose the job because of her. He’s more interested in his dream, not the job specs. She asks if he didn’t even consider the big law firm, and he says no—the decision was easy. “I always decide based on the choice that I think is even one percent more right.”
She wonders if he still doesn’t regret it, but he says that’s why that one percent is so important: “Because if I had chosen the other thing, I’d regret it that one percent more.”
Something clicks for her, and she smiles. She thanks Kwan-woo for everything. As she takes a spin in her revolving door, she thinks to herself: “I’ve always chosen the side that I thought was one percent more right, just like Cha Byun… and I’ve always regretted that choice. I still regret opening that door to the courtroom that day. Because if I hadn’t opened it, none of this tragedy would have begun. But…”
She flashes back to Do-yeon’s drunken confession about how much she regretted that same moment. “It occurs to me now, for the first time ever, that if I had made the opposite choice that day, would I regret it more? Just one percent more?”
She makes a decision and walks ahead. She storms into the office and tells Lawyer Shin that she’s going to face Judge Seo and win this fight, and hilariously asks for a high-five. She tells him not to ask how she found out, and then tells him about the daughter.
As Hye-sung and Su-ha walk home that night hand-in-hand, he spots a car following them and switches around to her other side like a good bodyguard. She says it’s the detectives, and he immediately lets go of her hand.
She fishes his hand back out of his pocket, and he asks if she isn’t concerned about other people. She says she’s decided not to care anymore because that one percent is more right, and doesn’t explain what that means.
So then he just wraps his arm around her and pulls her in close: “What, you said you don’t care.” Kyaaa.
In the morning, Su-ha hears her pep-thinking herself before meeting with Judge Seo, and you have to hand it to her for not being embarrassed that he can hear her think: “I’m perfect.” Lol. He thinks she seems pretty nervous, and suggests a wardrobe change. She takes one look in the mirror and rolls her eyes, “Dammit,” and scurries in to change.
She goes to see Judge Seo and marches right up to him, head held high. She says that she’s discovered some interesting things about Hwang Dal-joong’s case twenty-six years ago. He denies that he did anything wrong, and she says it wasn’t the verdict that was wrong, since the victim orchestrated false evidence.
“But knowing the truth and pretending not to isn’t something I can forgive.” He counters that he hasn’t done a single thing in the courtroom that he’s ashamed of, and she scoffs that he sure is consistent, if nothing else.
She thinks back to what he said to her as a teenager when he was waiting for her to confess to her crime, and repeats the exact same words to him now: “I’m not listening to you because I believe you. I’m waiting, for you to acknowledge your faults, repent, and apologize.” Okay, that was delicious payback.
She tells him that she’ll give him the chance to apologize to Hwang Dal-joong and admit his wrongdoing, and if he doesn’t, she’s going to see this through to the end. He doesn’t budge, which she expected, so she points out that she did give him a chance.
She turns to go and then swings back to add that in case he’s thinking of taking drastic measures, she’s got a police detail on her around the clock, and nods over at the detectives so he can see. Nice.
And then she walks away in a full-on self-congratulatory strut down the sidewalk: “Jang Hye-sung, daebak. Mom, did you see that? Isn’t my charisma the best?” So great.
Su-ha shows up to nag that she came here all alone, and she asks if he read Judge Seo’s mind. He did, and there isn’t going to be an apology. She figured as much, and sighs that Do-yeon is next.
While Hye-sung goes to Do-yeon’s office, Su-ha stands in a public plaza and purposely listens to the chatter for a moment, and zeroes in on two schoolgirls who commiserate about doing badly on a test, each thinking to herself that this might be her chance to score first place.
Su-ha: There are more times when the thing that makes the world and relationships between people more peaceful… is lies rather than truth. Lies can suture discord and calm insecurity for a short time. Truth is more uncomfortable than lies, so most people ignore the truth. I am the same. Telling the truth is often more painful. And so often when faced with truth… I close my eyes.
As he says the last words, he takes out his cell phone charm. It’s a locket, and inside are pictures of his mother.
Hye-sung tells Do-yeon that they’ve found Hwang Dal-joong’s daughter, and that they’re going to run a DNA test to prove that his wife is the same woman who faked her own death. Do-yeon asks why she’s telling her this.
Hye-sung: “Because I need you. You’re Hwang Dal-joong’s daughter, Hwang Ga-yeon. I’m sorry, Do-yeon-ah.”
Su-ha finishes his narration: “But one day, my Jjang D’Arc was—more than me, who sees the truth—chasing the truth.”
COMMENTS
I’ll be honest—the show does feel slower since the extension happened. The thing is, I don’t actually mind the character-building stuff in this show because it’s done so well, and I love these characters, so we could have endless bits of cute character interactions and I’d be happy with that. And the romance of course just makes my day. What does suffer is the pace of the plot, which used to move at breakneck speed. This show was always a step ahead of expectation when it came to reveals, and now it’s starting to draw everything out.
The addition of Su-ha’s backstory with Mom seems to be a step in the right direction, though even with his dad’s secret, it’s already starting to feel more manipulative. By the time he was talking to Kwan-woo about it, I was screaming at them to tell me, and felt like they were milking the secret and holding out on me, which this show is normally so good at NOT doing.
That said, I adore where we’re at with Hye-sung’s character, whose growth is so satisfying to watch, especially because she never loses her charm. Who ever said you had to be modest while becoming a better person? Her confrontation with Judge Seo was so satisfying, but coupled with her concern for Do-yeon, it really felt like she was growing up rather than just standing up for what she thought was right. The one percent idea was a nice way to bring her back around to that initial choice to testify against Min Joon-gook—the choice and the regret that had defined her as a person. When it was just Do-yeon confessing that she regretted her choice, it didn’t sink in, but I love that what Kwan-woo says gives her a new perspective. She always just considered her one-sided regret, and not the fact that the opposite choice wouldn’t have been regret-free. Because there’s no such thing. If regrets are a given, then it’s the choice that feels that tiny one percent more right that has one percent less regret attached.
What’s great about it is that her problem was never not doing the right thing—it was the fact that the ONE TIME she did do the right thing, she spent the rest of her life regretting it. But now that realization makes her a person who seeks out the truth, even when she knows it might hurt. It’s of course in perfect contrast to Su-ha, who sees the truth despite not wanting to, and is now trying his damnedest to hide from it. I don’t want him to keep the truth from Hye-sung much longer, but the shift in their dynamic works on a thematic level, and I like that he’s retreating as she’s becoming braver.
I never get tired of exploring Su-ha’s abilities and how they both show him more of the world (to an intrusive degree) and cut him off from the world (by making him different). Any time we get to be with him as he faces his worst fears—being seen as a freak or a monster by that one person he has left in the world, whether Uncle or Hye-sung—is Such. Great. Stuff. It pangs my heart in such a good way, because the answers aren’t clear and because he’s right to think that fear and horror is the normal response to having your innermost thoughts invaded. It’s true, and perfectly understandable.
But you still just want Hye-sung to say she loves him anyway, because you think that if there’s an ounce of good on this earth, there has to be someone in this world who doesn’t think he’s a monster, and wants to hold his hand in public, and is willing to look him in the eye even if truth is harder to face than lies. And that’s why she wins the bucketfuls of puppy love—because when others ran away, she took his hand.
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