Heart to Heart: Episode 8

by LollyPip

Ah love, it’s so confusing and painful. And weird. Especially when the guy you like insists there’s a shelf life to your relationship, and the guy you’re trying to break up with digs in his heels and refuses to go anywhere. I suppose our heroine could have worse problems than to have two handsome, eligible men competing for her attention? Good thing she’s a quick study at life, because she’s going to need those skills, dealing with these knuckleheads.

EPISODE 8 RECAP

Hong-do runs giddily through the street, carrying a package and smiling. Meanwhile, ex-girlfriend Yeon-woo faces Yi-seok with tears running down her face, and his own face mirrors her distress. Hong-do arrives at the hospital just in time to see Yi-seok take Yeon-woo in his arms and hold her close.

Hong-do crumples to the ground, her smile disappearing as she takes in the cozy scene. But a pair of strong arms help her to her feet, and with a look of disgust and disappointment in Yi-seok’s direction, Doo-soo leads Hong-do away.

Back in the present, Yi-seok gets Hong-do some medicine (after their hug and kiss) while she waits in his car. Yi-seok wonders where he’s seen Hong-do’s symptoms before, then gets excited as he asks the pharmacist if it’s not the same symptoms as lovesickness. HA, he’s suddenly so happy that she’s sick.

Hong-do calls Doo-soo and they make awkward small talk. Doo-soo picks up that Hong-do is nervous about something, and she says she has something to tell him. Doo-soo hears Yi-seok speaking in the background, but he doesn’t call attention to it — though he gets in the car with Detective Yang and asks if he knows any old, grandmotherly therapists, hee.

Yi-seok teases Hong-do that she’s a two-timer now, and takes her to eat instead of getting the medicine. She picks up on his solicitousness, and tells him she only wanted a hug, not to date or sleep with him. They both insist there’s absolutely nothing they like about the other, and Yi-seok says Hong-do’s a bad kisser because she has no experience, and she’s all, “I can tell if you’re a bad kisser.” Ha, I love how she just gives it right back to him.

But their bravado doesn’t last long, and Yi-seok says seriously that he didn’t want to stop hugging her once he started — and interestingly, Hong-do’s blush actually disappears when he says it. He says that for just a moment he thought she was his woman, but moans that he can’t figure out why he likes her. Hong-do just grumbles, “That’s what I’m saying.” Cute.

Yi-seok drives Hong-do home, and confiscates her helmet until the next day. He shows her a picture of the Mona Lisa, asking what she’d say if this was her friend saying she couldn’t go out because she has no eyebrows. HAHA. He tries with Napoleon and his short legs next, but this sends Hong-do off on a rant, and he snaps a picture of her before she can object.

Yi-seok gives Hong-do homework — to list ten strong points about herself in her journal — but she whines that she doesn’t have any. He laughs at his picture of her, and she screeches and tries to grab his phone, but they’re both laughing and having fun. Yi-seok says that her eyes are one of the strong points (so sweet) and tells her to find the other nine.

Yi-seok points out that nobody is without fault, that we each just have different ones, so Hong-do is the same as everyone else. She asks what his faults are, and he jokes that she listed all of them earlier, and tells her to go in. She lunges at him one last time trying for his phone, leaving him laughing as she gets out of the car. I love these two when they’re silly.

Hong-do gets halfway across the stepping-stones to her door before she hears Yi-seok calling behind her. She waits, and he hops across the stones to fold her into another big hug. They stand there smiling for long minutes, and Yi-seok says he’ll be seeing her often now that he’s gone crazy.

He honestly tells her she’ll be hurt when he comes back to his senses, and warns that her feelings could be the misplaced affection that patients often feel for their doctors. But he says he wants to see this through, and he embraces her one last time (who knew he’d turn out to be such a huggy bear?) and gently tells her to straighten things out with Doo-soo. Hong-do just smiles through all this, and nods her agreement.

It’s so cute how they both stop at the same time to turn around and get one last look, and they wave like kids reluctant to leave each other. Hong-do goes inside to hug herself some more, and revel in the feeling of liking someone who likes her back. Yi-seok drives home wondering over how much he feels like a teenage boy, and even squeals his happiness.

Hong-do works on her list the next morning, completely unable to think of a single good quality of hers and wondering how not one, but two guys could like her. She calls Yi-seok, waking him, to complain that she can’t leave the house without her helmet. He tells her she’d better come to work or else, and hangs up on her. Sheesh, Huggy Bear is more like Grumpy Bear in the mornings.

But Hong-do creeps out with a bare head, and wraps the scarf from Doo-soo around her entire face as a helmet substitute. She slowly inches down the alley, and when she gets to the street she makes a break for it, running right past Yi-seok who’d been waiting for her.

He follows her at a short distance, and Hong-do does pretty well until she’s knocked down and can’t get her bearings because that giant scarf blocks her eyes. She crouches on the sidewalk and answers a call from Yi-seok, not knowing he’s actually watching her from nearby, and he dangles rewards like holding his hand and movie dates as bait to urge her to keep moving.

Se-ro ambushes Doo-soo outside the station and asks a bunch of odd questions about his health and habits, saying that she needs data before she decides on her feelings, and the confused look on Doo-soo’s face says it all. She actually hands him a list of questions to answer as if she’s interviewing for an employee, and tells him she’ll answer his questions when he finishes that. I love how Doo-soo is just all, “Okay, you do that then.”

Yi-seok waits in his car at the hospital to ambush Hong-do when she arrives, fussing at her wearing a scarf from another man as if he hadn’t seen it already. She promises to return it to Doo-soo today, and squeaks with pride that she walked all the way here without her helmet.

They make a house call to Eun-ho’s home, and both twins are in their room looking upset, but it’s Eun-ho they’re here to see. She’s gone suddenly blind, and the hospital says it’s a psychological issue, so her mom called in Yi-seok.

He asks Eun-ho about her Olympiad that was supposed to be the day before, and her mother says she was supposed to go with her but at the last minute, Eun-ho said she didn’t want her there. Yi-seok calls her immature for raising a fuss about her mother not coming, when she’d been the one who said she didn’t want her.

Eun-ho just says that ever since her twin Jin-ho started playing the violin, their mother always favored her. It had rained yesterday, so their mother took Jin-ho to school instead of going to Eun-ho’s event, so that the violin wouldn’t get wet.

Her voice gets angrier as she cries that just once, Jin-ho could have taken a taxi and Mom could have given Eun-ho her attention. Clearly this goes deep, because Eun-ho says that their mother did the same thing once on a trip to Jeju Island. The girls had nearly drowned, and even though Eun-ho was closer, Mom had saved Jin-ho first.

Yi-seok talks with Mom privately, and to give her credit, she’s devastated that Eun-ho remembers those painful events. Yi-seok heads back to talk to Eun-ho but Hong-do stops him, and chides him for speaking to her harshly. She reminds him that he always gets angry when Eun-ho is around, and asks if she and Jin-ho remind him of himself and his brother. Ouch.

Yi-seok lashes out at Hong-do for turning this on him, but she points out that he seems to be taking this all very personally. He tells her angrily to keep out of his work, but she’s not intimidated and says she’ll be watching how he treats Eun-ho.

Yi-seok tells Eun-ho that memory is tricky and can often twist to what one wants to believe. He reveals that he also had an older twin who excelled more than he did, but that his brother died in a fire when they were children. He says he’s always wondered, what if the better brother had lived, and whether his family would have been happier. He says that he hopes Eun-ho doesn’t turn out like him.

Eun-ho tells him that they’d been on a boat, and she and Jin-ho had fought over a fishing pole and fell in the water. She says she remembers it very clearly, and that she’d been closer to the boat. Yi-seok guides her to remember that Eun-ho had been holding a float, but Jin-ho had lost consciousness. Their mother had saved Jin-ho first, not because she loved her more, but because Eun-ho had been stronger.

Yi-seok calls Dr. Uhm about his mother as they drive back to the hospital, and Mom seems to be feeling better after her suicide attempt. Hong-do asks about his mother, but Yi-seok just reminds her what he said about everyone having faults, and gently but firmly refuses to say more.

He asks if she’s settled things with Doo-soo, and he gets flustered when she says she’s still thinking (“Of what, how to two-time better?” HA). She admits that rejecting Doo-soo will be difficult, and Yi-seok tells her that he usually likes someone for three months, so she should just tell Doo-soo to wait three months. Famous last words, from a man who’s already in love and just doesn’t know it yet.

Doo-soo calls Hong-do while she and Yi-seok are at the hospital, and Yi-seok hovers annoyingly while she tries to talk to him (and Doo-soo extends a friendly offer to come whack him in the back of the head for her). Hong-do agrees to meet Doo-soo for dinner after work, and Yi-seok goes to talk to Dr. Uhm.

Dr. Uhm says that his mother is much better, and is even agreeing to treatment, and Yi-seok tells her about how he took Eun-ho’s case a little too personally. He’s worried that he didn’t realize it himself, but admits that when Eun-ho was honest, he felt better himself. Conversation turns to Hong-do, and Yi-seok says he’s worried he’ll get caught (as in, fall for her), which hilariously just tickles Dr. Uhm pink.

Hong-do waits for Doo-soo outside his apartment, and it’s impressive how she launches right into her apology without letting her nerves get to her. She explains that she’s here to reject his heart — even though she was thankful and happy at first, her feelings have changed. She takes all the blame, saying that “that person” makes her heart go crazy, and apologizes again.

Doo-soo knows that “that person” is Yi-seok, but he laughs it off and says her heart is just confused and she doesn’t really like him. Are we telling her how she feels, now? Hong-do ignores this and says that she’s thankful to Doo-soo for being her motivation to come out like this, but that she wants to follow her heart.

Doo-soo finally hears her and accepts her rejection, and asks if they can talk again tomorrow. He sends Hong-do home, and only then notices the scarf she left by his door. He goes inside and sits in the dark, shocked.

The next morning when Hong-do heads to work at the Go home, Doo-soo is waiting for her outside. He gives her scarf back, saying it’s hers in return for all the knitted gifts she gave him. He calls himself a fool, for not knowing he liked her and for assuming he was the only one she could care about, and for taking that for granted.

Doo-soo says that, just as Hong-do has decided to like Yi-seok no matter how he feels, he’s decided to like her the same way. He says that he understands that the world is new to her and she wants to experience lots of things, and he urges her to follow her heart. He says that he, too, will follow his heart, and that he’s willing to wait for her like she waited for him.

Chairman Go calls the housekeeper to his room, where he’s apparently laid his entire wardrobe out looking for a sweater, fixated on trying to look younger. She reminds him that he told her to throw it away, and finds him something else to wear. Geez, this lady is awfully handsy with her boss, I’m just sayin’. She even tries to touch his hair, complimenting him on it when he whines that it’s nearly completely white.

Doo-soo gives Hong-do a ride to work, shocked that she works at Yi-seok’s family home while in disguise. She says she didn’t know until after she’d taken the job, but he slaps on a smile and sends her in. This is so awkward.

Out for a jog, Se-ro is thrilled to see Doo-soo outside her house, and she’s surprised to learn that he knows her brother. She asks if he’s here to answer her questions, but he’s in no mood, and tells her he already likes someone and shoos her away like an annoying little kid.

While helping the chairman set up an online account, Hong-do compliments him on his cologne which gets him all flustered. Aw, he really is crushing on her! She says he looks handsome, sparking more complaints about his white, thinning hair, so she offers to dye it. He insists he doesn’t do that sort of thing, but pretty soon he’s letting her color his hair — but only because she nagged, you know.

The housekeeper walks in on this and freaks out, and the chairman’s eyeroll at her wailing is priceless. He sends her away to make lunch and invites Hong-do on a walk, impressed with her handiwork.

Yi-seok goes shopping for a new helmet for Hong-do, using the photo he snapped to see how each helmet would look on her. Meanwhile Doo-soo chases a suspect who pulls a knife on him, and he manages to catch the guy but gets a nasty cut on the back of his hand.

Yi-seok texts Hong-do to come outside, where he presents her with a pretty new white helmet. She’s so ridiculously excited to see him, it’s adorable. She puts the new helmet on right away but is a bit surprised that it has no visor to hide behind. Baby steps.

That evening, Dr. Uhm notices that Yi-seok’s office light is still on, and catches him studying late. She’s gobsmacked to find him actually working, and she asks after Hong-do. He admits this is a special case, and that she seems to be improving quickly, so Dr. Uhm offers him the use of some of her reference books.

He takes a call from Hong-do, and teases her for getting him excited when she says she was in the shower. He tells her he’s pulling an all-nighter studying her condition, and she offers to pack some food for him. They flirt a bit about her red face, with Yi-seok saying red is a stop sign, but Hong-do is feeling adventurous and says that red reminds her of sexy things. He says he misses her and hangs up, and Hong-do squees like a little girl.

Doo-soo heads to the hospital, having texted Yi-seok that he wants to talk to him. At the same time, Hong-do runs to the hospital with some food she packed for Yi-seok’s all-nighter, excited to see him. She tiptoes to his office intending to surprise him, but she gets the surprise instead as she sees him there with his ex, Yeon-woo, hugging her close.

Hong-do’s knees give out and she sits, too hurt to do anything but watch while Yi-seok holds Yeon-woo. Doo-soo arrives and finds her there, and sees the same thing she’s seeing. Yi-seok looks over to see Doo-soo there with an accusatory look on his face, but he doesn’t notice Hong-do until Doo-soo helps her up and leads her away.

COMMENTS

While I’m sure that we’ll find out that Yeon-woo showed up unannounced, and that this hug was nothing more than Yi-seok comforting her, I can see how Hong-do would jump to the worst possible conclusion. Aside from the fact that Yi-seok is a known player and has admitted that he’s fickle and his feelings are short-lived, she has very little experience with people or how to handle romantic conflict. She’s never been in a relationship before, and her emotions are very close to the surface, and that makes them even easier to bruise.

I do appreciate Yi-seok’s honesty in this episode, and that he genuinely thinks his interest has a time limit and is open about that from the beginning. And I can see why Hong-do would choose to be with him anyway, because she’s just now experiencing real feelings of love, and she wants to explore what that means to be with someone who loves you back. I love how both Yi-seok and Hong-do throw themselves wholeheartedly into this relationship, whatever it may be and wherever it takes them, because they’re so great together when they’re just having fun and being silly. And let’s face it, they’re great together when they’re fighting and angry, too.

Again I find myself wanting to like Doo-soo but being concerned about some of the things he says. Maybe it’s because physically, he’s an intimidating man, but when he tells Hong-do that she doesn’t really like Yi-seok, and that he’s going to like her and do whatever he wants regardless of her feelings about it, it worries me. I want to think he’s just doing the “I’m just happy to love you from afar” thing, but somehow it comes across, from him, as having a bit of a threat behind the words. Especially since he announced his intentions by throwing her own words regarding Yi-seok back in her face. Again, maybe I’m reading into it because of his physicality and because he’s a cop, but I can’t help but bristle a bit when Doo-soo refuses to honor Hong-do’s wishes. It seems to me that the best way to show a lady you care about her is to, I dunno, respect her words? And I don’t think he’s truly taking her seriously, because he says he’ll just wait until she experiences the world and comes back to him. To me, that came across as condescending and dismissive, as if she couldn’t possibly really want to expand her horizons for herself. Regardless of what he says, I almost feel like he’s starting to resent her newfound courage, because it means he’s not the center of her universe anymore, and he’s just waiting for her to become fearful again so he can have her.

But I do appreciate everyone’s honesty, and the fact that nobody is hiding anything or misleading anyone. One of the strengths of this show is that everyone lays their intentions right out on the table. Even Hong-do, when it came down to it, was able to use her words and make her wishes perfectly clear to Doo-soo. She’s definitely learning to take charge of her life, and I don’t think that’s all Yi-seok’s doing. He’s helping her by pushing her out of her comfort zone, but it wouldn’t work if she didn’t have the strength all on her own, and that’s not something anyone else can teach her.

 
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• Heart to Heart: Episode 7
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• Heart to Heart: Episode 4
• Heart to Heart: Episode 3
• Heart to Heart: Episode 2
• Heart to Heart: Episode 1