Warm and Cozy: Episode 12

by javabeans

It’s amazing (…or is it?) how, when a character stops acting stupid and turns on the decisive swoony switch instead, my general dissatisfaction with a show can make the flip over into satisfaction, even when the plot continues to be silly and illogical. Warm and Cozy isn’t a drama with an outright WTF plot, where things happen out of the blue or for no reason—it does have an internal logic. It’s just that the logic is often dumb. At least now, in the absence of a sharp plot, we have characters being heartfelt and sincere (finally!), which goes a long way to delivering some warm fuzzy feelings (and even some heart palpitations). That said: Is it progress if someone goes from being an outright idiot to a noble one?

SONG OF THE DAY

Hyukoh – “위잉위잉” (Wiing wiing) [ Download ]

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EPISODE 12 RECAP

Gun-woo’s sweet pinky-swear and finger-kiss gets replayed in Jung-joo’s dream, but when she wakes up in the morning, she thinks it was only in her fantasy. Finding the contract taped back up, she assumes it was her own doing.

Gun-woo asks if she remembers how she got home last night, only to have her say she took a taxi. In her memory, she imagines herself drinking very responsibly with the mayor, calmly settling the bill, and arranging a cab ride home. She credits her “perfect homing instincts” for getting her home safely, like a salmon. Gun-woo asks, “Then was what I saw yesterday a carp?” (A carp, in Korean, is often invoked to refer to someone lacking in the smarts department.)

He refreshes her memory with his version of events, in which Jung-joo tries to take a cab home (by yelling out into the open for a taxi and wandering off) and he pays the bill. She mistakes him for the mayor the whole time, and insists that he go home first while she waits for her taxi.

So Gun-woo calls Jung-joo pretending to be the taxi driver, and asks why she didn’t call the man she likes—surely he would come to get her. Jung-joo mumbles that she couldn’t do that: “He’s not even mine, and all this while I’ve been too shameless with him.”

Back in the present, Gun-woo says he’s pretty sure she was a carp and not a salmon, and announces, “Yesterday I renewed our contract.” Jung-joo declines the renewal, saying that she knows he helped her mother, but doesn’t want to be a shameless person with him. So they can consider that money taken from her deposit on the restaurant, and now the contract is void and they’re free of each other.

But Gun-woo says they struck a new contract last night. Appalled at the idea that she accepted something further from him, she declares that she won’t take anything from him anymore. He, on the other hand, refuses to take anything back.

Hae-shil wakes up in Jung-geun’s suite and smiles to see him sleeping next to her (fully clothed). She quickly shuts her eyes when he stirs, pretending to sleep when he tells her he kept his promise to be here when she woke. He sighs that he has to go to work but doesn’t want to leave without exchanging words, and asks her to wake up.

He leaves the bed and Hae-shil gets up, only to find him watching her from the other side. Anticipating that she’d want to get home right away, he admits to wanting to raze her house while she was sleeping so she couldn’t leave. She replies that she still has a workplace to return to, and he’d be hard-pressed to dry up the entire sea.

Jung-geun’s worried about her returning to diving, but she says a diver’s boyfriend has to be prepared for possible risks. She asks, “Will you try dating a diver?” He likes the sound of that, and agrees to be her boyfriend.

Jung-joo wonders what Gun-woo means about a new contract, then recalls that Wook was there—perhaps he’ll fill in the blank spots. But then a memory floats to the surface, filling her with dread to recall how she asked Wook to seduce her so she could marry him.

Wook is still reeling from last night, dully recalling how Jung-joo lit up to see Gun-woo there in his seat. He regrets leaving to get medicine, and says bleakly, “It hurts to death.”

Jung-joo shows up at the mayor’s office and hears that he’s out sick today. His employees lay on the sympathy thick to get her to drop by and check on him, although when she arrives, she finds him heading out to work. She apologizes sincerely for the night before, feeling bad that she poured salt in the wound while knowing how he feels about her. To make her feel better, Wook says he doesn’t remember much after drinking.

Jung-joo notices a button on his shirt dangling by its thread, and he yanks it off before realizing that just makes it worse. So he asks for her help putting it back on, and proceeds to fidget awkwardly while she sews the button to his shirt. Uh, are you so sure working a needle that close to his heart is a good idea? Then again, maybe it’s meant to be symbolically relevant. (Then again, with this drama, maybe not.)

Wook asks if she’s going to run Warm & Cozy with Gun-woo now, confused when she says their contract is over. He thought something happened after he left, but she admits blanking out. She asks if something happened, and Wook briefly remembers how Gun-woo claimed her as his girlfriend before saying noncommittally, “Nothing much.”

Welling up with hope, Wook says he thought it was all over, but sees that the knot hasn’t yet been tied. She thinks he means the button, which she finishes sewing. Wook asks if there’s still a chance for him, just as the moment is broken by Mr. Gong and two diver ajummas, who cluck knowingly at the cozy scene (and snap photos for good measure).

They leave so the couple can continue their romancing, and Jung-joo wants to clear up the misunderstanding. But Wook holds her back and says he doesn’t care about rumors because it’s true he likes her—does she want Gun-woo to know how firmly he’s in her heart, to know just how much of a fool she is for always losing to him? He reminds her that she was the one who asked Wook to chase Gun-woo out of her heart, and that using a fake is another stratagem (of war).

Wook offers to be that for her, and urges her not to fall for any of Gun-woo’s tricks or let her determination shake. Jung-joo agrees that she can’t trust a confession from Gun-woo, and considers Wook’s words.

At the restaurant, Poong-san’s confused to hear Gun-woo declare firmly that Jung-joo won’t be leaving for that other restaurant with the mayor: “I won’t send her away. I like her so much I can’t send her away.” He picks up his spade and says calmly that Poong-san had better not mention the mayor to him anymore, lest Gun-woo lose his calm.

So naturally, Gun-woo is flabbergasted when Mr. Gong comes running up with the scoop—and the picture—proving that Wook and Jung-joo are finally dating. He asks for Gun-woo’s cooperation in leaving Jung-joo alone today to be with Wook, and Gun-woo snaps that he won’t cooperate because he likes Jung-joo.

Mr. Gong goes to Poong-san for clarification, but neither can be sure of how the feelings actually stand. If Gun-woo likes Jung-joo, are those feelings returned?

Gun-woo waits outside as Jung-joo arrives in Wook’s car, and shoots dark glances as Wook gives her one last reminder not to shake in the wind. Inside, Poong-san tries to figure out how the relationship stands (dude, get in line) and asks whether Jung-joo was with Gun-woo last night. She, on the other hand, hears that Ji-won dropped by last night and draws the conclusion that Gun-woo went out with her.

Meanwhile, outside the rivals share some snappish words: Gun-woo says pointedly that he brought Jung-joo home last night, and Wook says blandly that he didn’t see him. It’s basically a round of “Fine” and “So there” and “Hmph” between them, and I find it amusing how Wook is dismayed at his own pettiness, while Gun-woo has no such qualms.

Gun-woo takes issue with Jung-joo going to see the mayor and calls her a carp for misremembering last night—he was there. But she doesn’t believe him, especially since Wook confirmed not seeing him. Gun-woo grumbles, “So because of how I acted before, you’re seeing this as a joke.” WELL DUH, boy who cried Ji-won.

So he decides to tell her seriously, straightforwardly, what happened: Last night he went looking for her out of concern, found her, and renewed their contract because he didn’t want to send her away. “Yesterday, I gave all of me to you. You’ll accept, won’t you?”

She asks if she really asked for the restaurant, and he bursts out, “Not the restaurant, ME! I gave you me! Lee Jung-joo, I like you.”

Jung-joo gapes, gobsmacked. Then she marvels, “Wow, I almost lost again just now!” Now it’s his turn to gape as she declares that she won’t fall for his trickery anymore: “I’ve chased you from my heart. Now someone else will come in.” Muahaha, I have to say this is really satisfying. You can’t say he didn’t earn that.

Gun-woo sighs to Poong-san that she doesn’t believe him, and now understands the boy who cried wolf. Poong-san warns that the story doesn’t end well for the boy (Gun-woo: “Didn’t he receive forgiveness later and live well?”), who ended up eaten by the wolf.

Meanwhile, Mr. Gong has overheard the exchange and interprets it to mean that Gun-woo harbored a one-sided crush and has been rejected. He tells Gun-woo to give up like a man and help out when Wook’s family members drop by to see Jung-joo.

Which leads to a parade of cameos (ish), with Kim Sung-oh playing Wook’s reserved doctor hyung, and then also his free-spirited rancher younger brother. Oh, please tell me there’s a sister in the mix.

Lucky for us, there is: Noona the teacher comes by last and looks approvingly at Jung-joo. Wook explains that they all take after their father—played, of course, by Kim Sung-oh. Jung-joo says all the siblings misunderstood their relationship, but Wook says he didn’t clear anything up. Jung-joo took the same approach with Gun-woo.

She asks Wook whether Gun-woo came by last night to pick her up, and Wook hesitates before answering that he didn’t see him. He tentatively asks her to come with him to buy his niece a gift, saying she could consider it a date. She replies that she’s not good at pretending anything, making his head sink in disappointment—then revives his spirits by adding that that’s why she’ll try to treat it as real. He replies, “I’m happy with even that.”

In the wine cellar, Jung-joo tenses up when Gun-woo joins her to ask if she truly doesn’t believe that he came to get her last night. Her back turned to him, she says that the contract was her last bit of pride, tied up with her entire life’s savings. That’s gone now, and she has nothing. Even if he says he gave her something, she doesn’t remember it, and she has no intention of accepting it.

Gun-woo replies that he has no intention of taking it back, and he’s okay to take his time showing her. He holds up something and says it’s a freebie, which triggers her memory of the dream pinky-promise. She stares wide-eyed, and he leans in (rawr) to ask if she remembers. She stammers that she doesn’t, and he disappointedly calls her carp again.

After he goes, she starts to look for the freebie he left, but stops herself—she knows it’ll shake her resolve. She tamps down the urge to steal a glimpse at the necklace he won for her, which she’d tucked away in her shell.

Gun-woo’s noona storms up to have some words with Hae-shil, determined to get rid of her with an envelope of money. Satisfyingly, Hae-shil refuses the payoff, saying that she’s lost her head over Jung-geun, but not because of money. Instead, it’s his good-looking face that won her over, elegant like a black pearl, and she’s quite partial to handsome faces. And while Jung-geun’s looks will fade and her affections may wane, that’ll be for her to deal with later. When noona reaches for a glass of water to fling in her face, Hae-shil slams her hand down on the glass, saying that she almost died in the ocean—a tiny glass of water is nothing.

Jung-geun’s faithful secretary eavesdrops and reports back to him, and of course Jung-geun takes her words literally and beams at the thought of his face winning Hae-shil’s heart.

Noona vents about her brother’s girlfriend to the Nosy Novelist, who has by now put together the whole family drama and clucks over their crossed fates. (A refresher: Gun-woo’s father killed Hae-shil’s husband, and Jung-geun’s mother is somehow to blame.) But curiously, she pretends she was barking up the wrong tree and advises noona to forget about it all. Does Nosy actually have a conscience?

Gun-woo pouts to hear that Jung-joo’s going out with the mayor and guesses she’s doing it just to show him. She tells him to think whatever he wants to (literally, “according to your heart”), to which he replies that he can’t because he already gave his heart to her. He says he’ll do as she wants, then—but she says she wants him to let her go, which makes him huffy. If she remembered last night, he says, she wouldn’t treat him like this. She huffs back that she’s a carp, remember?

He leans in close and stares in her eyes, saying that her instinct is more like a blood-sucking carp—and he’ll let her eat him up. (So many jokes, none of them appropriate.) He waggles his fingers in her face, telling her (instinct) to wake up. But she just sees more joking and slaps his hand aside, to his frustration.

Jung-joo goes on her shopping date with Wook, picking out clothes for his niece’s birthday. He asks her to wait while he drops off the gift, and it turns out she runs into the girl first when she taps on Jung-joo’s car window. Jung-joo agrees that she looks just like Wook, though the show keeps her face purposely hidden.

Gun-woo fitfully waits for Jung-joo to return, and is disappointed to see Ji-won arrive instead. Ji-won begs Gun-woo not to change, shedding a few tears as she offers to wait for him in the meantime. Gun-woo isn’t fooled by her tears, saying he knows her well enough to know they’re fake, and she actually rolls her eyes to be called out.

He tells her that the reason he worked to keep his feelings constant wasn’t because he wanted to keep liking her—it was his decision to only like one person. Ji-won surprises him by honing on the matter: It’s to prove he’s not his father, who promised he’d never stop loving his mother, only to betray her. Ji-won tries to convince Gun-woo that he’s only confusing his feelings for Jung-joo, but he replies “Does it look like I’m confusing my feelings? I truly like Jung-joo.” He sends her away.

Time for Gun-woo’s father to make his reappearance, and he’s recognized by Mr. Gong right away. Dad hadn’t intended to return here, but he saw news of Hae-shil’s accident at sea and wanted to repay his debt to her after killing her husband. He served his full15 years in prison, but the emotional burden continues to weigh on his mind. He asks for Mr. Gong’s help, anticipating that Hae-shil won’t want to accept anything from him.

Hae-shil walks home with Jung-geun after a date, and tells him the concert was frankly a little boring. He liked it, but says it’s too bad he couldn’t find something to suit her tastes better. Then she invites him in for ramyun using a famous line from 2001’s One Fine Spring Day, and they’re cheered to find they both like the same movie.

Gun-woo perks up when Jung-joo finally comes home, but is pouty to hear that she met Wook’s entire family. She offers him rice cakes Wook’s mother made, and he shoves it aside, accidentally knocking the whole thing to the ground. She thinks he meant to do that, and he tries to ease her anger with food offerings.

He presents her with a plate of carp-shaped buns and apologizes for messing with precious food made by somebody’s mother. He admits that hearing her talk of someone else’s parents makes him feel small, because he can’t compete in that quarter.

Mollified, she says consolingly that he has his siblings. Gun-woo says that growing up, they each lived with their respective fathers’ families, and he wasn’t well-received because nobody liked his mother. She suggests that he’d feel better if he met his father, since she was glad to meet hers despite everything. At that, Gun-woo starts to confide in her before stopping short. Instead, he just says that he doesn’t want to meet his dad.

Dad, meanwhile, is asked about the woman thirty years ago who was pregnant with his child. Did she wait for him? Dad doesn’t respond.

Hae-shil describes to Jung-geun how it felt to lose her husband, and how she spent every day as though it were the day after his death. Ten of those years were spent sad, ten years wronged, and ten years at a loss. She’d thought it was her fate to live the rest of her life in one day, but after meeting Jung-geun, the days started to move on. Jung-geun promises that she won’t have to return to that day anymore, and will clear away everything that might take her back. Uh, foreshadowing alert?

Gun-woo advises Jung-joo to not be as mean as he was in letting someone else’s feelings drag on, and to wrap things up with the mayor. She agrees that she’s not good at leading people on and is giving the relationship sincere effort, but he knows that won’t work, and draws an analogy with the tools in his kitchen. He’s so in tune with it that he knows just how hot his oven is, or when his water is about to boil.

Holding up two fingers to Jung-joo’s forehead, he says, “You’re boiling, like always. You haven’t cooled in the least. Jung-joo-ya, I’m not just nice and warm-and-cozy with you like I used to be.” He places her hand on his heart so she can feel the beating, and says, “Right now, I’m hot.” That you are.

Jung-joo’s clearly rattled, but she says she can’t trust what he says and tries to shy away. He pulls her closer and holds both her wrists, saying wistfully how hard it is for the boy who cried wolf to clear the air. “I’ll end up eaten by the wolf,” he says, and asks her to cut him some slack, patting her face lightly before letting her go. She slumps, totally turned upside-down and all around.

Mr. Gong approaches Hae-shil about a potential buyer for her house, saying that he really wants the land and is prepared to pay ten times her asking price. She’s thought of moving and considers it, though even Jung-geun says he wouldn’t pay ten times the price, even though he likes her.

With that in mind, he says he wants to introduce Hae-shil to his family, and drops in to Warm and Cozy to tell Gun-woo that she’s his girlfriend.

Mr. Gong calls in the novelist couple to confirm something, having figured out that the woman in the photograph had a child who would have been born shortly after the accident. He asks for information, and that leads to Gun-woo, who explains to Mr. Gong that he knows the basics of his parents’ relationship.

But he doesn’t know about the Hae-shil connection until Mr. Gong tells him, and his immediate decision is to keep it from his brother, who is, after all, unconnected to Gun-woo’s father. If Gun-woo leaves, there’s nothing to link them together.

But Mr. Gong informs him that Dad has resurfaced, and it’s not likely this’ll blow over uneventfully.

As diving class wraps up for the day, the others gather around to ask Jung-joo about meeting the mayor’s family, all wink-wink-nudge-nudge about the budding romance. She remains quiet but uneasy about their assumptions, and when Wook shows up, they scatter quickly to allow the couple to be alone. Wook congratulates her on her catch today and invites her to drink with the others, since he’s treating. She agrees, but touches her forehead to note with dismay that she’s not “hot” for Wook.

Jung-geun introduces Hae-shil to his sister (formally, at least) over lunch at the resort. Noona is grudging but goes with it, while over a few tables away, Gun-woo listens to the friendly bickering with a heavy heart, feeling burdened. He’d been invited to the meal but can’t bring himself to join them, and while the others wonder at his lateness, he gets up and leaves. The only one who notices is Ji-won, who sees through a window inside.

And thus leads to the predicted outcome: Gun-woo decides to leave Jeju. He’ll leave Warm & Cozy behind and return to his wandering lifestyle from before, and asks Mr. Gong to convey a message to his father, who happens to be listening around the corner: “Don’t appear.” Even hearing that Dad means well, Gun-woo says not to approach the people he loves, and Gun-woo will enable everyone to cut that unlucky tie.

Gun-woo returns home in a heavy mood, not responding to Poong-san’s invitation to join the villagers for drinks. Poong-san argues that they’ll all be rooting for the mayor to win her over and he can’t counter that alone, and Gun-woo should make sure to go to be with Jung-joo.

Gun-woo does make his way down to the party, though he keeps out of sight and at a distance, watching with forlorn eyes. He thinks of everything they’ve been through and how he awakened to his feelings for her, and says, “Jung-joo-ya, I have to run away from here. Will you… go with me?”

 
COMMENTS

To answer my question from up top, I do actually think it’s better to be a noble idiot than a plain ol’ garden-variety idiot, because even though we’ve long established around these parts that noble idiocy is ineffectual and aggravating, at least one’s motives are understandable. When Gun-woo was mocking Jung-joo’s feelings or dangling for Ugh or weirdly tonedeaf to his own heart, it was actively difficult to understand him as a character, as a person born of this earth, as someone we were meant to like and root for.

So with his recent turnaround, I’m not only glad because it kicks the romance up a notch (and wow, did Yoo Yeon-seok turn up that sizzle to scorching), but because I’m relieved to have a character whose motivations I understand. Even if they’re misguided and simplistic. I’ve been bored out of my mind with this parental storyline all series long, but at least now it affects our characters directly, and as an added bonus, there’s no twin-incest misunderstanding. (Funny how that’s a valid concern in a Korean drama, eh?)

For what it’s worth, I did appreciate the exploration of Gun-woo’s family issues—namely, his lack of family and rootedness that spills over even the parts of his life that aren’t readily obviously connected to it. For instance, the discovery that his devotion to Ji-won was more of an intellectual decision (…however without intellect that decision was). I don’t doubt that he did genuinely like her at one point, and maybe their long history made him able to overlook all of her (many, many) obvious flaws, because there’s at least a long-standing fondness there. But if he was determined to preserve his feelings out of a deep-seated, perhaps unconscious, desire to prove his worth, to show that he’s a better man than his father… well, things make a lot more sense.

It’s a shame, of course, that this wasn’t revealed earlier while I still had a shot of giving a damn about the Ji-won angle, or at least early enough to preempt a lot of my internal tirades against Gun-woo’s poopyheadedness. Family and loneliness and feeling lost in the world—those are powerful things, and would that the drama played them out to greater narrative effect. I would have given up so many Ji-won scenes (ALL of the Ji-won scenes! I know, it would be such a sacrifice) to have spent more time exploring how Gun-woo’s peripatetic adulthood was actually born of his childhood loneliness, and not just, you know, because he’s a lazy scamp with lots of charm.

In fact, I do wish the whole angle with Wook’s family in this episode had been played out longer, because (1) it enriches the themes I just outlined, and (2) it would even the rivalry a bit, giving Wook an edge in one aspect that really mattered. And I did feel my heart pinch when Gun-woo said he couldn’t offer Jung-joo the family she’s always yearned for, that he loves her enough to want that for her sake rather than seeing it as a point of similarity between them.

In any case, I’m super relieved that Gun-woo stepped it up big-time this week, not just because it allows me to connect with him, but also because it allows me to connect with Jung-joo. Kang So-ra has been noticeably great all series long in grounding this character and making her relatable (which is so important, because if she didn’t have that talent, I’m sure I’d have been beyond frustrated with Jung-joo on top of everyone else), but only now do I feel like Gun-woo is ready to match her. Obviously they were adorable before too, but emotionally I get that spark now—and with Yoo Yeon-seok turning up the heat full-force, I feel invested in a way I could only hope for earlier. I know we’re in for a stretch of pain and sacrifice and probably separation and that’s going to drive me nutso, but if we’re going to have to live through that bout of frustration, I’m glad that I at least feel that the romance is on the same page now, and that the connection is strong enough to outlast the dreaded angst. Though really, would it be so terrible to have everyone decide to live their happiest lives and just be adorable and cheery for the last couple episodes?

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