Mask: Episode 8

by LollyPip

Just as Min-woo starts to get honest with himself and with Ji-sook about his feelings, doubts start to creep in about who she really is and what her motives are. She’s going to have to stop being so passive and get savvy if she wants to stick around, especially since her true identity is in danger of being exposed. And it’s more important than ever that she get her family’s debt paid, before Ji-hyuk does something on his own that can’t be taken back.

EPISODE 8: “A Logical Delusion”

Seok-hoon arrives home, and spies Min-woo kissing Ji-sook. Ji-sook pushes Min-woo away and starts to tell him her real name, but Seok-hoon quickly rushes in to interrupt. He says that Ji-sook’s nanny is sick and they need to go to the hospital, and brushes off Min-woo’s attempts to go with them.

Min-woo only gives in when Ji-sook asks him to stay home, and both he and Mi-yeon watch their spouses leave with each other. Mi-yeon wryly says that she’s not even surprised anymore.

Seok-hoon avoids Ji-sook’s questions in the car, and it quickly becomes apparent that he lied and her mother isn’t sick. He nearly drives them off an embankment before he slams on the brakes. Instead of explaining, he tells Ji-sook that his father used to work at a factory when he was young, and lost his fingers in an accident.

The company refused to compensate him, and he fell off a roof while protesting and died. That’s when Seok-hoon realized that those without power get stepped on, and he decided to create a world where those without power and money can be happy. And to do that, he must have the power.

He says that’s his reason for living, and asks if hers isn’t her family. He yells that to do that, she needs to win Min-woo’s heart — but not to give him hers. He demands to know why she didn’t tell him about Jung-tae, assuming she was hoping that Min-woo would take care of it, and he seems jealous that she would look to someone other than him to solve her problem.

Ji-sook turns his words back on him, and says that because of her reasons for living, she’ll never believe his lies again. She warns him not to use her family to get at her again, and actually renders him speechless. Awesome.

Back at home Mi-yeon tells Min-woo that their spouses are more than just in-laws to each other, but that everyone thinks she’s strange for when she tries to tell them. She challenges him to learn more about his wife, and gives him a pen with a painted flower on it as a clue.

At breakfast, Min-woo’s father tells Ji-sook to start working in the main office to learn more about the business. Stepmom wonders if the other employees will feel uncomfortable, but Dad says that Ji-sook is to hide her family connection for that very reason. Stepmom suggests that Mi-yeon should also work there, and Dad agrees, to Mi-yeon’s horror.

Ji-sook wonders what to wear for this kind of job, and apologizes to Min-woo for the previous night. He apologizes in turn for the skinship, since it was against their agreement, and asks what she meant when she said she wasn’t Seo Eun-ha.

Ji-sook pretends she just meant she’s not the kind of person he thinks she is, and Min-woo doesn’t seem to buy it but lets it slide for now. Before she goes he shows her the pen that Mi-yeon gave him, noting the fact that she doesn’t seem to recognize it.

Mi-yeon shows up at the office in an overly-flouncy (and frankly confusing) outfit, and runs into Ji-sook who’s dressed in a sharp, understated suit. They decide to pretend not to know each other at work, and Mi-yeon immediately gets off on the wrong foot with her coworkers by refusing to introduce herself.

Min-woo gets in trouble for firing Jung-tae’s construction company for the new mall, but he stands by his decision and refuses to change it. He gets a call that someone he was looking for has been found, and on his way out of the office, notices that Mi-yeon’s big contribution to the work load is to paint her nails.

The gossipy employees grumble about it, figuring that she’s either nuts, or that someone high-up in the company is protecting her. Stop, you’re both right! They wonder if she’s got something going on with Min-woo (ick) and recruit Ji-sook to try to find out what Mi-yeon’s deal is.

The woman gossip decides to set Mi-yeon straight, and pulls rank on Ji-sook when she asks her not to confront Mi-yeon. The gossip pulls them both aside and fusses at them for playing around on their first day, and Mi-yeon actually laughs in her face. She threatens to see Mi-yeon fired and Mi-yeon wonders if she can, and invites her to bring it on.

Ji-sook is shocked when Jerkface Jung-tae stomps into the office within inches of her, too furious to see her. She hides in plain sight by pretending her coworker’s shoes need to be tied, and Jung-tae makes a scene yelling for Min-woo.

Ji-sook flees to the elevator, but Jung-tae makes it in before the door closes and Ji-sook is forced to turn her face to the wall. But her coworker notices her, then Jung-tae sees her, and when she runs off he asks why the coworker called her “Seo Eun-ha.”

The person Min-woo was looking for turns out to be the pen’s manufacturer, but he says he has no record of the person who bought it. He does remember that a woman had it made specifically, with one of her own paintings as the design. Min-woo shows him a picture of Eun-ha, and the man says she does look like the woman who bought the pen.

Next Min-woo goes to the gallery to look at Eun-ha’s paintings, but none of them look like the painting on the pen. He heads home to look through Ji-sook’s dresser, and finds a note in her diary mentioning Chang-soo, of all people.

Upset, Min-woo confronts his assistant, who starts to stammer and says that Eun-ha asked him not to say anything about this. Min-woo intimidates him into spilling the details, so Chang-soo drives him to Ji-sook’s family’s restaurant. Ah, the note was about the orphanage catering.

Min-woo goes inside, and even sits to eat, but Ji-hyuk enters the room and the two men make eye contact. Min-woo remembers Ji-hyuk from when he crashed the party, and also remembers seeing him outside the ambulance when they were taking Mom to the hospital.

Min-woo quickly leaves but Ji-hyuk follows him out, asking why he came here. Min-woo promises to say why if Ji-hyuk first explains why he interrupted their party. He offers to give him money if he needs it, if he’ll just leave his wife alone.

Min-woo gets back in the car, but Chang-soo’s phone rings with a call from Ji-hyuk. Min-woo hangs his phone out the window to show Ji-hyuk, telling him that their catering sponsor is his assistant, and drives away as Ji-hyuk looks crestfallen.

Min-woo goes to Seok-hoon’s office to asks where Seok-hoon went with Ji-sook last night, since it obviously wasn’t the hospital — he just saw Ji-sook’s “nanny,” making rice cakes and looking perfectly healthy. He now thinks that Mom was Eun-ha’s nanny and her son was Eun-ha’s lover, and asks why Seok-hoon didn’t tell him any of this. Seok-hoon fibs that he just didn’t want to upset him, but insists that the “nanny” really was ill last night.

Seok-hoon pretends to be very concerned that Eun-ha keeps meeting with her lover, and advises Min-woo to straighten things out with his wife. Min-woo stands to leave, and suddenly his eyes widen at something across the room, though we aren’t shown what it is.

The maid and butler get the couch ready with new fancy bedding, though Maid Yeon-soo whines that sleeping all cuddled up is so much better. HAHA, Min-woo’s Are you kidding me? face is perfect. Ji-sook insists that she should keep sleeping on the couch, so Min-woo proposes an honest talk.

He brings up the kiss (or in his words, “that thing with our lips,” hee), and he doesn’t explain it away by saying he was drunk, admitting that he really just wanted to kiss her. He asks her, if something like her nanny getting sick happens again, to please go with him from now on. He says it as if it’s to avoid rumors, but he’s really just jealous.

It’s Seok-hoon’s turn for a broody shower, as he fixates on seeing Min-woo and Ji-sook kissing. Afterward he asks Mi-yeon about her first day at work, and she complains that she doesn’t know what to do there. She gives him something to drink, promising to tell him what it is after he drinks it.

Seok-hoon’s yucky-face shows that it must be nasty, whatever it is, and Mi-yeon says ominously that soon he’ll lose strength, then fall unconscious. But she’s just kidding — it’s earthworm soup. Is that supposed to be better? It’s apparently some kind of male potency aid, to help them make a baby.

Min-woo can’t sleep, and keeps staring at Ji-sook lying in the bed. He finally sits up to ask her a question — what’s her goal? She’s not interested in the company, so what does she want? And, once she gets it, will she leave? Aww, his expression when he asks that last one kills me. Ji-sook only says sadly that she can’t leave because she has nowhere to go, and lies back down.

Things are a different level of awkward in Seok-hoon and Mi-yeon’s room, since the aphrodisiacs he’s been taking don’t seem to be working. He tells her not to believe the salespeople, only to believe him. Even when he lies.

He leans up to kiss Mi-yeon, clearly intent on some baby-making — but his phone rings, and I know he’s the villain but I don’t blame him one bit for that Glare of Doom. He goes out to meet Jung-tae, who wants to know about Min-woo’s wife. He can’t get over how much she looks like the woman he claims he used to fool around with.

Of course the odd thing is, that woman died a month ago. But he keeps running into her, and she’s acting strangely, and now she appears to be working at SJ Group, with the same name as Min-woo’s wife. So Jung-tae figures the two women were switched. This revelation is going to be what kills him, isn’t it?

Jung-tae thinks this is all news to Seok-hoon, and tells him he should look into it. In return for keeping his mouth shut, he wants a promise that his construction company will get all of SJ Group’s business from now on. He gives the bribe to Seok-hoon to deliver to Min-woo, and confirms that he hasn’t told anyone else his theory about Eun-ha.

The next day, Director Shim gives Jung-tae’s photo and a syringe to Ji-hyuk, instructing him to inject Jung-tae with the contents of the syringe tonight. It’s a well-paying job, killing a man, enough to finish paying off Ji-hyuk’s father’s debt.

Shim gets a cigarette but has no lighter, and Ji-hyuk takes out his own. But instead of lighting Shim’s cigarette, he sets the photo on fire, and says that he’ll report them if they ever ask him to do anything like this again.

Ji-sook gives herself a nasty papercut at work, and Min-woo sees and pulls her into his office, yelling about her carelessness. But once there, he just hands her a bandage, forbidding her to thank him. Awww. While she’s putting it on, he asks if she knew Seok-hoon before she met him.

She says she did, but they didn’t meet under pleasant circumstances, and stalls by asking if they can not talk about this at work. It’s sweet how he lets her off the hook, saying she doesn’t have to tell him if she doesn’t want to. And as she leaves, he tells her not to hurt herself at work again, because it hurts him to see.

Ji-sook’s mother collapses at the restaurant and lands in the hospital, where Dad fusses at her for not telling them she’s been sick. She says it wouldn’t have changed anything, and they can’t afford the treatment anyway. Dad asks if she’s rather just die, and this upsets Ji-hyuk enough to leave the room. It’s cirrhosis of the liver, which could be fatal without treatment, and Ji-hyuk only considers for a moment before making a call.

At the office, Mi-yeon takes the call, and hands it over to Ji-sook saying loudly that it sounds like her boyfriend. Ji-hyuk begs Ji-sook to see him just for a minute, but she barks at him never to call again and hangs up. She doesn’t notice, but Min-woo heard the whole thing from his office.

Scar spends a busy afternoon injecting something into cans of beer, which Jung-tae downs in Seok-hoon’s office that evening. Seok-hoon tells him all about his hatred of a world run by money, but Jung-tae is more interested in whether Seok-hoon found out anything about Min-woo’s wife, because he needs this contract.

Seok-hoon tells him to wait a bit and everything will be settled. Soon enough, Jung-tae stands to get more beer and the room starts to spin. He slumps to the ground gasping, and Seok-hoon calmly quotes Crime and Punishment, “A remarkable person changes the world. A remarkable person can rise above good and evil. I am that remarkable person.”

He tells Jung-tae not to struggle and waste his remaining energy, as he snaps on a pair of rubber gloves. He ponders that he’s not sure if it will be suicide or murder, but Jung-tae isn’t going to survive either way. Seok-hoon injects Jung-tae with something, and tells him that his death will benefit mankind.

Ji-hyuk goes back to Director Shim’s office with a resigned expression, but afterward he tries one last time to talk to Ji-sook. She’s not answering her phone and his phone is almost out of power, so he waits outside the gates to the Choi home in hopes of seeing her. A gate guard sees him, and chases him off.

He finds a safer spot and leaves her a voicemail, asking if she remembers the toy gun he took to rob the bank. He says he has to do something worse than that, because Mom is really sick. He gives the address where he’s going, and asks that if she was ever his sister, to please stop him. Oh, that’s heartbreaking.

The gate guard reports to Ji-sook about the kid hanging around outside, so she finds her phone and sees that he left a message. Before she can listen, Min-woo walks into the room with the painted pen, and asks who the man was that she was in love with. Dude, you deserve an answer, but this is the worst possible timing!

He insists that regardless of their promise not to get involved in each other’s personal lives, they’re married and he has to know. He says there’s no way she doesn’t remember the pen, but the sincerity in her eyes when she says she doesn’t, gives him pause. She’s also a little frantic and clutching her phone, so he says he can tell she’s distracted and lets her go.

Ji-sook quickly listens to Ji-hyuk’s message, but when she tries to run out of the room Min-woo grabs her arm. He offers to go with her, then wonders angrily if she’d rather go wherever she’s going with Seok-hoon.

Seok-hoon arrives at the house seeming tired, and Mi-yeon quips that he’s been awfully busy lately. Both of them see Min-woo and Ji-sook leaving the house together, and Seok-hoon looks angry. Mi-yeon asks if he needs to leave again, but he says he finished his business for the night.

Ji-sook tries to call Ji-hyuk from the car, but is unable to reach him since his phone battery finally died. She can’t tell Min-woo what’s wrong, but she does answer his question about her goal. She says that to some people, just living an ordinary life is a dream. And that’s her goal — to live an ordinary life.

They’re rear-ended by another driver, and Min-woo gets out to exchange information. Seeing her chance, Ji-sook runs around to the driver’s seat and drives away, leaving Min-woo in the road.

Ji-hyuk arrives at the address, and he’s so nervous that a passing neighbor startles him badly and he falls over. But he gets back up and uses the keycard to enter the apartment.

Ji-sook is pulled over for speeding, but she doesn’t have her license with her and the policeman isn’t willing to let her go. She’s taken to the station, but the cops want to fingerprint her to confirm her identity. Knowing her prints won’t match Seo Eun-ha’s, Ji-sook refuses, and several policeman hold her while they try to force the fingerprinting.

Min-woo caught a taxi and followed Ji-sook, thank goodness, and he arrives in time to see Ji-sook being manhandled by the cops. He walks to her, but suddenly remembers a meeting with his psychiatrist when he’d been told that he was hallucinating a large portion of his life.

We see Min-woo’s secret room, where he’s got articles pinned to the walls and a board with all sorts of information on his family members. The doctor mentions one theory that his uncle killed his father, and says his theories may all be delusions.

Now we see what Min-woo saw in Seok-hoon’s office — a painting done by Eun-ha, which he’d seen in a gallery brochure in Eun-ha’s desk. While researching this, he’d seen a photo from Seok-hoon’s law school graduation, in which Eun-ha had been giving him the pen as a graduation gift.

Min-woo looks into Ji-sook’s pleading eyes, and his doctor’s words that he can’t count on his memories echo in his head, and he doesn’t know who to trust.

COMMENTS

Well, this looks terribly bad for Ji-sook. Min-woo knows who the man Eun-ha loved was, and it makes things even worse that Ji-sook keeps going off alone with Seok-hoon under suspicious circumstances. Min-woo isn’t going to buy any excuses that she’s got leftover amnesia from her accident, given that she and Seok-hoon still seem to be thick as thieves. And since Ji-sook really doesn’t know that Eun-ha and Seok-hoon were having an affair, she’s not even going to be able to deny wrongdoing with any believability, and could out her true identity just by not knowing a crucial bit of information. She’s going to have to count on Min-woo’s growing feelings for her, and his worry that he can’t trust his own thoughts, to get the benefit of the doubt from him.

Speaking of which… it feels like, now that Min-woo gave in to his urge to kiss Ji-sook, that we’re just inches away from an actual confession. I love that he’s being so open about his feelings, and tells Ji-sook what he’s thinking every step of the way. He admitted that he kissed her because he wanted to and no other reason, which is wonderful proof that he’s fully aware of his emotions, but also takes away her ability to brush it off as a drunken impulse. You can’t tell yourself that the guy doesn’t really like you, when he’s making a point to say that he really likes you at every opportunity.

On the flip side, I’m getting frustrated (and I know I’m not the only one) at Ji-sook’s emotionally closed-off demeanor. It’s such a breath of fresh air to see Min-woo opening up and being honest, in spite of the fact that the real Eun-ha told him in no uncertain terms that his feelings weren’t welcome and didn’t interest her. So as much as I’m enjoying his honesty, it’s making Ji-sook’s reservedness stand out even more. I can understand her motives, as I’ve said before, because she’s got so many other things to be worrying about right now than whether Min-woo kissed her and why. But I’d like to see a little bit of reaction from her other than tucking in her chin and speaking softly.

And I know she’s being written that way on purpose, because even Min-woo asked if he makes her nervous, but why? Does he make her nervous, or is she just afraid to give anything away? Did she feel anything when he kissed her? Does it mean anything to her when he asks her if she plans to leave? That was such a vulnerable moment for him, and I feel like Ji-sook’s continued lack of any response is starting to cut us as viewers off from Min-woo’s growing emotional attachment. We’re being shown so much of Min-woo’s feelings, it’s starting to feel strange that we’re not being shown how Ji-sook feels, too. Heck, we know more about what Mi-yeon goes through on a daily basis, than we do of the heroine’s feelings. It’s probably harder for her to open up, because she doesn’t have anyone to talk to about it while everyone else has at least one person they can go to and say what they’re thinking, but I know this writer is capable of letting us in to her thoughts and feelings. Come on now, I want to know — did Ji-sook swoon even a little when Min-woo kissed her??

Regardless, things are going to get a lot more difficult from here on out. Min-woo’s realizations of his feelings come right when he realizes that Ji-sook (he thinks) has been carrying on an affair with his brother-in-law, right under his nose. It’s going to make the emotional situation a lot stickier to navigate, not to mention undermining Seok-hoon’s orders to Ji-sook to make Min-woo care for her. And I’m glad that Min-woo’s gaslighting is about to come back into play, because I honestly found that the most compelling part of the story in the beginning. Even though I know it’s going to complicate things on all fronts, I’m ready for that ugly situation to rear it’s head again, and breathe some life back into a plot that’s about to be in danger of repeating itself.

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