Sly and Single Again: Episode 2

by purplecow

Hi everyone! I’m purplecow, and I’ll also be covering Sly and Single Again. We’ve had two episodes to introduce the characters and set the mood, and while I can’t say I’m completely hooked, I’m looking forward to good things ahead. In Episode 2 we learn a little more about how Jung-woo went from spurned ex-husband to Chaebol of the Chiseled Jaw, and said chaebol has a few chances to rub his ex-wife’s nose in his newfound good fortune, which he takes with great gusto.

 
EPISODE 2 RECAP

Episode 2 starts where we left off, with Ae-ra stuck in a holding cell, sporting crazy-hair and severely smudged lipstick. Who should stride in through the front door but Jung-woo, looking sharp. Take it from a guy who knows: this is the dream of every man who’s been dumped. Showing up to bail out your ex, while looking fabulous and knowing that you’ve become the kind of man she never thought you’d become… let’s just say, Jung-woo’s tasted revenge, and I’m guessing it tastes good.

Best friend Min-young pushes Ae-ra to say a few grudging words of gratitude to Jung-woo, who is about to drive off with his adorable secretary GIL YO-HAN, played by idol star L.

Jung-woo coolly says that he would prefer not seeing each other over something like this again, which drives Ae-ra to retort that she feels the same way, thank you very much. Her rudeness is refreshing, because it shows she’s not overawed by his new status.

Jung-woo drives off with Secretary Gil, who fishes for more information by saying that he had thought the boss’s ex-wife would be really pretty. Jung-woo replies that she was pretty, which prompts a flashback to their restaurant days. Bowl Cut Jung-woo awkwardly responds to Ae-ra’s questions about why he eats alone, and what exam he’s studying for — this is a different Jung-woo, insecure and naive, and he’s a goner the moment Ae-ra winks at him from across the restaurant.

Jung-woo says that Ae-ra believed in him more than anyone else… until he started failing at his business, and her personality seemed to change. The flashbacks continue, showing the night Ae-ra locked Jung-woo out of the apartment. He crouches by the window and calls out to her, but she’s not having it. The next scene is the real kicker, when Ae-ra looks Jung-woo in the face and coldly tells him to get out of her life. She refuses any kind of alimony, which says something, but she certainly doesn’t pull any punches when she tells him to get lost.

In the present, Secretary Gil reflects that marriage sure is scary, but that Ae-ra must have regretted her actions when she saw how cool Jung-woo was earlier. Jung-woo doesn’t say a thing, grinning like a cat that’s got into the cream.

Meanwhile, Ae-ra and Min-young take a taxi home, and Ae-ra is still miffed about the rumors floating around about her. Min-young says Jung-woo probably didn’t have anything to do with them, but Ae-ra insists that where there’s smoke, there’s fire. She then asks how Min-young contacted Jung-woo, which is how she learns that he hasn’t changed his number.

This intriguing piece of information cheers her up, until she catches a glimpse of her reflection in the window, looking like the Joker.

Back in his apartment, Jung-woo protests that HE isn’t the one who should have to change his number, and gets affronted when Secretary Gil teases him about having feelings left. Jung-woo declares hotly that Na Ae-ra was his life’s greatest mistake — methinks the chaebol doth protest too much, and from his knowing tone, Secretary Gil agrees with me.

Ae-ra, on the other hand, gets miffed when her friend doesn’t automatically take her side. Min-young points out, quite rightly, that Jung-woo is no longer the man who came running when Ae-ra crooked a finger. Ae-ra takes offense that Min-young isn’t consoling her like a best friend should, and when Min-young brings up the icky Skin Doctor from the dating show it’s the last straw. Ae-ra walks out in a huff.

Her wounded pride won’t let her apologize or forgive, so she spends the night at a jjimjilbang. I’m not crazy about Ae-ra’s prickly side, but I have to say, she knows how to rock the jjimjilbang orange.

A quartet of ajummas give Ae-ra hope by gossiping about a Dry Cleaner Ajusshi who struck it rich and got back together with his ex-wife. The light bulb goes off in Ae-ra’s head, and it isn’t long before she decides to look up Jung-woo on the Internet.

She begins to understand just how much she stood to gain if she hadn’t thrown Jung-woo away, and she vents her frustration by headbutting the wall. She ruminates on how cold Jung-woo acted at the police station, only to realize that the ajumma lying nearby can hear her every word. Ae-ra’s exaggerated facial expressions really make this scene — she goes from outrage and scorn to embarrassment without missing a beat.

Jung-woo prepares for the day, while Secretary Gil continues to needle him about alimony. He claims that Jung-woo is being hypocritical by saying that Ae-ra never contributed anything, because in his interview earlier he said that Ae-ra was the person who made him determined to succeed (Jung-woo didn’t mention her by name, of course, but Secretary Gil made the connection). The point is well taken, and Jung-woo rushes off immediately. Secretary Gil allows himself a little chuckle, enjoying his ability to manipulate Jung-woo with his words.

I have to say, I’m loving the interactions between these two, and I hope we see much more of them. These moments keep Jung-woo from veering too far into the Cold Chaebol archetype, since his earlier innocence shines through when he’s being pushed by Secretary Gil to be a better person. Ae-ra may not have fallen in love with Bowl Cut Jung-woo, but I certainly did, and I’m going to be very sad if there’s no remnant of the adorkable buffoon hidden somewhere under Jung-woo’s emotional scar tissue.

At the jjimjilbang, Ae-ra receives a text from Jung-woo saying, “We need to talk.” She lights up and prepares to reply immediately, only to reword her text so as not to appear as though she was waiting for him to contact her.

They agree to meet at Jung-woo’s workplace later that day, which means Ae-ra has to hustle to get a makeover. Not sure there’s much Ae-ra can do to erase Jung-woo’s memory of the Prison Debacle, but I’ll give her credit for trying.

At the hairdresser’s, Ae-ra calls in sick to work and really hams it up. The hairdresser ajumma compliments her on her acting and her good looks, and Ae-ra makes a pretty terrible impression by agreeing and talking about how difficult life was when she couldn’t even walk around without talent scouts trying to recruit her.

The ajumma’s expression is priceless, and as far as I’m concerned it conveys exactly what we ought to think of Ae-ra at this point in time. She’s sassy and headstrong, which I love, but she’s also got an ego the size of an elephant.

Ae-ra takes a taxi and arrives at the Dontalk headquarters, which is a kind of futuristic cross between an egg and the Starship Enterprise. The obvious wealth makes an impression, but Ae-ra only shakes her head and flounces into the waiting room. She brushes past our second lead Kook Yeo-jin on the way to Jung-woo’s office.

Jung-woo sits down across from her, and then proceeds to lose most of the respect I had for him by oh-so-casually asking his gorgeous secretary what time he’s supposed to give his guest lecture at Seoul National University. Ae-ra gives the secretary dagger eyes, and as petty as our heroine can be sometimes, I find myself cheering her on.

Now it’s time to get down to business: Jung-woo offers Ae-ra an envelope full of money. He tells her that even though she refused compensation when they split up, he wants to give her money now so that he can feel at ease. He asks her to sign a contract agreeing not to use the compensation matter as an excuse to contact him in the future. He’s clearly loving this, and Ae-ra is visibly upset at being treated like a gold-digger, though she makes a heroic effort to compose herself.

She tears up the contract, throws it in his face, and stalks out. She turns back to say that she only came to thank him for helping her yesterday. If there’s any hope for Jung-woo, then he’s not enjoying his moment of petty revenge as much as he thought he would.

Ae-ra’s brother, NA SOO-CHEOL (Kim Yong-hee), calls to ask whether Ae-ra knows her ex became a chaebol, displaying an extraordinary gift for bad timing. He hangs up after Ae-ra starts screaming into the phone, and complains to Mother that she and Ae-ra really dropped the ball by not contacting Jung-woo after he became rich. Mom asks him why he returned from Vietnam if his business was doing so well, and Soo-cheol hedges in a way that spells trouble.

Ae-ra’s father makes an appearance next, returning from a health club wearing a salmon suit jacket that just brightened my day. Ae-ra’s mom listens to her husband’s complaints about getting old, then calmly tells him she has no money for treatments to soothe his vanity. I like how she handles the two layabouts in the family, putting up with them in spite of their (numerous) faults.

Ae-ra finally makes it back to the apartment, sneaking in because she still hasn’t made amends with Min-young. Instead of apologizing, she casually drops the fact that she met with Jung-woo, using the resulting gossip session as a way to repair the relationship. It’s good that she wants to reconcile, but seriously, Ae-ra, would an apology kill you? Min-young says it’s a shame she didn’t see how much money was in the envelope, but agrees that Ae-ra was right to stick to her guns. They trade apple slices while fighting back sniffles, friends once more.

Uh-oh — Mustache Oppa (ok, Soo-cheol) has gone to see Jung-woo, which can’t be a good thing. Jung-woo gives Soo-cheol the money he tried to give Ae-ra, and this time he meets with no resistance. Soo-cheol waits until he’s alone in the bathroom to count the bills and can’t believe his luck.

The scene changes to a private stable, where Yeo-jin rides a horse around an indoor track. Her old college roommate arrives just in time to see Yeo-jin tumble from the horse. Yeo-jin snaps at the attendant who tries to help her up, showing that she hates any appearance of vulnerability.

The newcomer acknowledges that Yeo-jin was right about Jung-woo — he responded exactly as Yeo-jin said he would in rejecting her advances. The friend is ready to give Yeo-jin the horse as the bet’s prize, but Yeo-jin declines the winnings, saying that she was extremely curious to know how Jung-woo would respond to her friend. The answer is what she wanted, not the horse.

Next we see a new member of Yeo-jin’s family: her younger brother KOOK SEUNG-HYUN (Seo Kang-joon), who has just arrived at the airport. He is met not by his father but by DIRECTOR OH (Lee Byung-joon).

Seung-hyun knows that his father must be really angry at him for changing his major, and that Director Oh has been tasked to bring him home. Unfortunately for Director Oh, Seung-hyun decides to make a break for it in a crowded intersection, leaving Director Oh to face the CEO’s wrath alone. Seung-hyun promises to come home later with his sister, in an attempt to avoid a paternal beat-down.

Back at Ae-ra’s workplace, trouble arrives in the form of the wife of Creepy Rich Ahjusshi from Episode 1. Apparently she got her hands on a photo of Ae-ra and her husband together and misunderstood the situation. She returns the wallets ordered earlier and slaps Ae-ra full across the face, telling her that she shouldn’t run around tempting married men just because she’s divorced.

To top it off, the wife is friends with the president of Ae-ra’s company, so her boss has no choice but to fire her then and there. Ae-ra’s brother calls and drops broad hints about “something good” that happened, and says he wants to meet her. He reminds her how she said she wanted to quit her job and open a store, and promises to make that happen for her. As she’s hanging up, Ae-ra drops the box with her belongings and has to stoop down to gather them up.

Who should come along but Seung-hyun, who helps Ae-ra pack up her stuff and gives her a kind smile. Hardly any words are exchanged, but I’m thinking that was our heroine’s first encounter with the Second Male Lead, who has considerable puppy-dog charm.

He tries to exercise said charm when he returns home, to no avail. Seung-hyun has just enough time to see Director Oh kneeling in penance with a bruised face (HA!) before his father unleashes a flurry of mostly ineffectual punches and kicks.

Seung-hyun suffers the blows without complaint, except for asking dad not to mark up his face. He’s saved from further punishment when his sister comes in. They go upstairs together, leaving poor Director Oh wondering whether he’s allowed to stand up yet.

Seung-hyun shows Yeo-jin some pictures from his time abroad, one of which sparks a memory. It’s just a brief moment, but it shows Yeo-jin in a car, wearing a wedding dress. She leans over to kiss the man in the driver’s seat, but we only catch a glimpse of his face.

Now I understand why Yeo-jin seems so mopey all the time: she has a Tragic Past. I wish I could muster up more sympathy, but her character is coming off a little flat for me — but more on that in the comments. Yeo-jin shakes off her moment of bleakness and asks how their mother is doing. Seung-hyun tells her that she’s improved since moving to Paris, and that Yeo-jin should call. Yeo-jin wonders if their mother would even want to hear from her. Seung-hyun changes the subject by asking after Jung-woo.

Seung-hyun and Jung-woo drink together in a classy establishment. Seung-hyun reproaches Jung-woo for caving to his father’s demand to hire him into the company, but Jung-woo replies that he only agreed because Seung-hyun has potential.

After some reminiscing, it comes out that Jung-woo was the tutor who introduced rebellious Seung-hyun to alcohol back in his middle school years. Then Seung-hyun calls Jung-woo’s attention to the hottie at the bar, boasting that she’s been checking him out. Jung-woo corrects him: “She was looking at me.”

They make a bet about who’s right, and then Seung-hyun sidles up to the bar to show off his slick moves. Too bad the woman at the bar is, well… isn’t Seung-hyun’s type, let’s say.

He tries to pull a fast one by telling her that Jung-woo wants to have a drink with her, but Jung-woo stays a step ahead by escaping before she sees him. Seung-hyun is well and truly trapped, and as he looks helplessly around the bar, Jung-woo gives him a gloating thumbs up before slipping away.

I have to say, poor form from Jung-woo – you never abandon your wingman or wingwoman! That’s the Golden Rule, and you shouldn’t break it… not even if it’s funny.

Now comes the moment we were waiting for since Ae-ra’s brother took the money envelope from Jung-woo. He’s walking along the street in a snazzy new suit, when a trio of thugs intercept him and start beating the living daylights out of him. He thought he could evade them by running away from Vietnam, but he underestimated their reach. They take him out to the middle of nowhere and literally make him dig his own grave, then fill it up until only his head is aboveground.

The head gangster delivers his threat, saying that there’s nowhere Soo-cheol will be safe unless he repays the money he owes. I find it hard to dredge up much sympathy for the brother, but I do feel sorry for Ae-ra. Not only did she lose her job for something she didn’t do, but now her brother has accepted — and lost — the money she rejected out of pride.

Back at the Dontalk office, Yeo-jin asks Jung-woo why he changed the date of the company’s inception, since it was originally some other day. Jung-woo replies that he changed the date to the night heaven turned to hell, triggering a flashback. Jung-woo sits by the bank of the Han River in the dead of winter, finishing his third bottle of soju.

He stands up to scream his frustration into the uncaring night, which is when Director Oh drives by and, understandably, thinks he’s witnessing a suicide in the making. He runs over to Jung-woo, shouting at him to reconsider, but his actions only startle the inebriated Jung-woo, and into the river he goes.

Director Oh makes up for his bad timing by jumping into the river after him, and somehow neither of them dies from hypothermia. Cut to President Kook’s house, with Jung-woo swathed in blankets and shivering uncontrollably, and a dripping wet Director Oh explaining the situation to a ticked-off CEO.

Yeo-jin comes stumbling down the stairs, looking like a zombie, probably still in recovery from whatever tragedy separated her from her Mystery Husband. She locks eyes with Jung-woo, but instead of his face she sees her husband. Thinking she saw a ghost, she collapses to the ground.

In the present, Jung-woo smiles and reflects that on that night he and the company were both reborn, which is why he felt he should change the memorial date. Yeo-jin replies that it was also the day they first met.

Meanwhile, Ae-ra meets her brother in a cafe. He’s sporting a fresh black eye, and we know this isn’t going to end well. Ae-ra shrewdly guesses that he’s come because of the Vietnam venture but lights up when he hands her an envelope with some money in it, until she finds out that he got the money from Jung-woo.

Outside in an alley, Soo-cheol claims that he was only acting to protect her, since she was too proud to take the money. But this doesn’t mean much in the end, because it comes out that he took the vast majority of the money as a “handling fee.” (Jung-woo gave 300 million won, about $300 grand, but oppa only passed along 5 million, or about $5,000 US.) Ae-ra demands the rest so she can return it, but of course he no longer has it.

It’s just one blow after another for Ae-ra, and it’s no wonder that she sinks to the ground in despair. Maybe for the first time, Ae-ra loses control and really rips into her brother. She tells him to get out of her life, echoing her words to Jung-woo, and screams that he’s as bad as their father, who always wasted the hard-earned money brought home by their mother. Ae-ra sobs and sobs, and Soo-cheol can only watch, knowing how monumentally he has screwed up.

But Ae-ra is too stubborn to stay down for long — possibly the trait I like most about her — and she dusts herself off to confront Jung-woo at his office. He agrees to meet her at the nearby park, and as she heads there Ae-ra sees a banner celebrating the anniversary of the company. The date makes her pause.

Jung-woo speaks brusquely, saying he doesn’t have much time. She scolds him for offering money to her brother after she refused it. But she says that she has ultimately accepted it, that she had no reason not to accept it, and now they have no reason to see each other again. They will go their separate ways, each living well without the other.

But she can’t walk away without asking him one more thing — why is the anniversary of his company the same as the date of their divorce? He responds that a huge investment came in the day she divorced him. When Ae-ra asks why he never contacted her, he says he was only following her request.

Jung-woo: Don’t you remember? Valentine’s Day. The day we broke up. “Don’t use alimony as an excuse to contact me, and leave my life quietly.”

He’s quoting her words exactly, and as he speaks, Ae-ra remembers that day. Now it’s time to make her regret those words: Jung-woo leans in close and says, “Just leave my life quietly… Na Ae-ra.”

Then he turns and leaves her speechless behind him. He thinks, “If you came back for the money, it probably wasn’t love.” As he walks away from Ae-ra a gigantic grin spreads across his face — but for Ae-ra, who’s still shaking with rage, this is only the beginning.

“I’m going to crush you, Cha Jung-woo!” she vows.

COMMENTS

I like the way the show is going — both leads are charismatic and fun to watch, and the show doesn’t take itself too seriously, despite several sincerely emotional moments. It’s a nice blend of cuteness and angst so far, with some great supporting characters, especially Secretary Gil (can we just call him Secretary L?) and Director Oh.

I’m a little skeptical about Yeo-jin’s family, because at first blush they seem contrived for plot reasons. The father exists because his patronage allowed Jung-woo to launch his business, and Yeo-jin’s only purpose so far seems to be to inject the show with some obligatory angst. I see a love triangle shaping up, for example, but I’m not nearly as invested in it as I could be, because so far Yeo-jin doesn’t seem as interesting as the main couple.

If there’s hope for this family, I think it lies with the younger brother, whose comfortable relationship with Jung-woo ought to make for some quality shenanigans once they start butting heads over Ae-ra.

As far as the main couple is concerned, I’m not all that worried about figuring out who’s “more at fault” for the failed marriage, because the way I see it, both of them made mistakes. Jung-woo fell for Ae-ra without actually getting to know her or what she wanted. Then he decided to quit his job without telling her, and while I applaud his determination to follow his passion, I’m not at all thrilled about the lack of communication. Marriage is hard enough without throwing away your sole source of income – here’s a piece of real-life wisdom, folks: talk with your spouse prior to all major financial decisions!

I can completely understand how Ae-ra might become disillusioned and bitter, and if her sickness during the first episode was a miscarriage, as I suspect it might have been, then she has even more reason to feel wronged. That doesn’t mean she was necessarily right to act like she did during the marriage, but I don’t think most of us are in any position to judge her.

For me, the bottom line is that they both hurt each other, and neither really knows the other. That’s why I’m looking forward to next week’s episodes so much – once the intrigue begins and our leads start their elaborate dance of seduction, their relationship will be stronger than it ever was because this time, they began knowing each other’s faults. If they come to reflect, just a little, on their own mistakes rather than their partner’s, I’ll be behind this drama 100% – and if Jung-won brings back the Bowl Cut to Rule Them All, make that 110%.

Although Sly and Single was a little slow getting out of the gate, I think it has all the ingredients of a great romantic comedy – if it can avoid the pitfalls we all see looming ahead. I’ll be waiting for next week!

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