Sly and Single Again: Episode 11

by odilettante

Jung-woo and Seung-hyun step up their game — literally — to try and win Ae-ra’s heart, but she seems more intent on her career than taking any confession of love seriously. Yeo-jin finally begins to be honest about her feelings and intentions, and everyone gets a chance to share their true thoughts and experience a little character growth. Well, nearly everyone. Because sometimes it’s just easier to plan with an act of terror than admit how you truly feel.

EPISODE 11 RECAP

Jung-woo and Seung-hyun meet in front of the Na family restaurant, where they confront each other about Ae-ra. Seung-hyun admits that even though he knows she’s Jung-woo’s ex-wife, he still likes her and is going to pursue her. Jung-woo protests that Seung-hyun can’t, but when questioned as to why not, the only real reason he can come up with is that he’s uncomfortable with Seung-hyun dating someone he used to be in a relationship with. Seung-hyun then cashes in the wish he won in their last judo match and asks that Jung-woo be cool about him pursuing Ae-ra.

Before Jung-woo can respond, Ae-ra and her mother leave the restaurant to go to the jjimjilbang, sending the two men scurrying to hide behind the car. The women don’t notice the men as they pass by, and as Jung-woo breathes a sigh of relief, he notices the wrapped painting Seung-hyun brought to give to Ae-ra for her birthday. When he asks what it is, Seung-hyun cheekily answers, “My heart.” But Jung-woo literally steals the painting and runs away, with Seung-hyun in hot pursuit.

Jung-woo stops to catch his breath and rips open the covering to reveal the painting Seung-hyun had been working on of him and Ae-ra. When Seung-hyun finally catches up to him, he chides his hyung about the childish antics, but Jung-woo retorts that Seung-hyun is just infatuated and doesn’t really know his own heart. When he reminds Seung-hyun that Ae-ra is still unaware of how close he and Seung-hyun are, Seung-hyun asks to keep their friendship a secret for a little longer, just enough time for her to start to see him as a man (and not just a friendly colleague). To his credit, he admits that Ae-ra is the one who will make the decision in the end, anyway.

In return, Seung-hyun confronts Jung-woo about Yeo-jin. Even if Jung-woo doesn’t return her feelings, Seung-hyun tells him he won’t hate him — he just wants Jung-woo to make his position clear so his sister won’t get hurt.

Ae-ra and her mother are ready for bed, and Mom rehashes her confrontation with Jung-woo, pointing out that even if marriage and love ends, the friendship and loyalty from living together means Jung-woo should feel bad about all the debts he left behind. Ae-ra apologizes for how much her mother suffered on her behalf.

Mom makes a teary-eyed confession that she had tried to raise her daughter to have a chance at a better life — especially to not be stuck in the same dynamic of having to take care of a husband, like she has had to do with Ae-ra’s father. Ae-ra: “Is marriage something you’re forced to do? Marriage and divorce are decisions. I’ll take responsibility.” Since it was her choice to get married and then divorced, it’s not Mom’s fault that she had to work all those odd jobs. Which is pretty sweet of her.

The next day, a nervous Soo-cheol meets with Jung-woo for a job interview at Dontalk. Jung-woo first chides him for misusing the alimony he’d given Soo-cheol to give to Ae-ra, before admitting it was his own fault for trusting his ex-brother-in-law in the first place. However, Jung-woo then says he’ll try to see if there’s a job opening someplace for Soo-cheol — but also makes Soo-cheol promise to keep this meeting a secret from Ae-ra.

After overhearing Song-hee and Manager Kam describe Ae-ra as a “sacrificial lamb” for being put in charge of the new high-profile project (that will likely fail), Seung-hyun takes her out for a sweet treat. Ae-ra wants to take their dessert back to the office because she has so much work to do, but Seung-hyun tells her to just slowly do each one by one. Ae-ra says she can’t because she wants to quickly finish her projects, stopping short before adding, “so I can quit.”

However, Seung-hyun figures out her intention, asking if she’s quitting just to avoid him (which she denies), before asking if it’s because she doesn’t like the CEO. Ae-ra says she was joking about that, and besides, the reasoning doesn’t matter — she’s going to quit, no matter what.

Seung-hyun surprises her by saying that he’s going to keep working, and when she asks (in a nice parallel) if it’s because of her, he immediately answers that it is: “I work to see you.” Ae-ra scoffs, asking him why he likes her. Seung-hyun: “Do I need a reason? I like you because I just do.”

Sighing, Ae-ra goes into life-lesson lecture-mode to tell him that he needs to stop and that if he continues, it will only become a burden to her. Seung-hyun latches onto that word, saying that if it’s burdensome, it means she’s started to care, and if it helps, to think of him as her “guardian angel.” He’s there to prevent her from being too sad or depressed.

On the way back to the office, Ae-ra and Seung-hyun arrive at the parking garage just in time to see Soo-cheol saying goodbye to Jung-woo, and as Ae-ra demands to know what her brother is doing there, Jung-woo takes a chance to sidle up to Seung-hyun and give him grief about him being out with Ae-ra. Their verbal pissing contest turns into a honest-to-goodness bet, though, when Seung-hyun says that if Jung-woo loses, he has to acknowledge Seung-hyun and Ae-ra’s relationship as being real.

Cut to the men at the park, jackets off, declaring they won’t go easy on each other… in a chicken-leg fight. Pffft.

Seung-hyun seems the better balanced of the two, but Jung-woo gets Soo-cheol, the totally biased referee, to agree that Seung-hyun lost due to a technicality. Seung-hyun insists on a challenge to see who can do the most pull-ups. When the two men argue over Jung-woo once again trying to win due to a minor technicality, Ae-ra finally steps in and declares Jung-woo the official winner.

Jung-woo’s victory cheer dies out once he realizes that, although he won the competition, Ae-ra is returning to the office with Seung-hyun. Seung-hyun calls off their bet, saying it’s pointless now because “Ae-ra’s heart is what really matters.” (And Soo-cheol leans in to tell Jung-woo that despite his victory, “It feels like you lost, didn’t it?” Hee!)

Later, Yeo-jin gets straight to the point with her brother: “You like Ae-ra, don’t you?” He happily admits that he does, and while she wants the best for him, she warns him to be careful about unrequited love: “In love, the one who loves most is the weaker one.” At the mention of the word “weak,” she rubs her prosthetic knee, and Seung-hyun gently takes her hand in his. The siblings share a genuinely sweet moment as they tell each other they just want to see the other happy.

Jung-woo uses the left-behind cell phone charm as an excuse to visit Ae-ra while she’s working late. Even though it’s clear he’s hoping for some sort of reaction, she calmly thanks him, returning to her work. As he’s dawdling on his way out of the office, she suddenly panics because her computer crashed and the report she was working is gone! Oh no!

But Jung-woo isn’t an IT genius for nothin’, and he immediately takes over, inputting a flurry of computer code — and stuffing a choco-pie in Ae-ra’s mouth to shut her up from worrying. But retrieve it he does and Ae-ra thanks him, marveling at his skill — only for him to start bragging about how awesome he is. Ha!

When he sees what she was working on, he derides the amateur style of her business proposal (and also questions why the team leader would leave such an important project to an inexperienced intern). Although he explains how she can improve it, he just ends up just rewriting it for her. She asks if he’s done this before, and he says he’s done it thousands of times (presumably referring to all the times he tried to convince people to invest in his ideas when they were still married).

Ae-ra offers to buy him dinner as a thank-you, but he refuses, saying it would look bad if the CEO let an intern buy a meal. But he readily agrees to a coffee instead.

On the rooftop with their coffee, Jung-woo apologizes for the debt he incurred and that she worked to pay off. Ae-ra insists that he shouldn’t feel bad about it — she’s the one who didn’t tell him about them in the first place, because she thought he was still broke. But she also didn’t tell him because she didn’t want to see him again:

Jung-woo: “You must have resented me.”
Ae-ra: “Resent? No. I married you because I chose to. I decided it was my price to pay.”
Jung-woo: “Don’t you regret it?”
Ae-ra: “Perhaps. You succeeded, and even if you were to repay all that debt because of it, nothing would have changed for me. Because that money wouldn’t have been able to revive our hope that disappeared. Yes — I think we were only meant to be until that point.”

Suddenly, it starts to rain, the the two hurry downstairs to Jung-woo’s apartment to dry off. Ae-ra shrugs off Jung-woo’s over-eager efforts with the towel (shooting him daggers with her eyes once he gets a little too close to her chest). Despite his protests that she should dry off and even giving her his coat, she chooses to take one of his umbrellas and leave.

The next day, he sees her looking happy with Seung-hyun, which irritates him, and he decides to have Dontalk go through one of their annual “terrorist drills” (like a fire drill). As he lurks around the lobby, keeping an eye out for Ae-ra (who walks behind him unnoticed, ha), the alarms go off and everyone starts rushing out of the building. Ae-ra is in the equipment room gathering supplies, and as she’s hurrying down the hallway, Jung-woo grabs her and pulls her into the boiler room “for safety.”

Ae-ra has no idea that this is just a drill, and huddles with him as he gets sentimental about their early days of courtship — until she hears the announcement that the drill is over and everyone can return to their offices. Thinking he did all that just for a joke, she leaves in a huff (and gives him a well-deserved kick to his shins).

Clutching his stomach, Jung-woo rides in the elevator with Secretary Gil who asks if his stress-induced ulcer has returned. “Is it because of Ae-ra?” Jung-woo gives him the evil eye, but Secretary Gil knows he’s right (because he’s always right), and muses that the CEO must have feelings for Ae-ra again, because the body can’t hide what the heart feels. (Then when Song-hee gets in the elevator after the CEO leaves, Secretary Gil suddenly has a stress-induced ulcer of his own. Ha!)

Manager Kam notes that Jung-woo’s in pain. When he says that the CEO’s pain is naturally a cause for employees to worry, the light bulb goes on over Jung-woo’s head. He plays off his pain like he’s in a Shakespearean death scene, knowing full well that Manager Kam will spread the word like wildfire about the CEO’s ulcer — and that it will definitely reach back to Ae-ra.

As he’s hoping that she shows up to his apartment, he whines over the phone to Secretary Gil that she should be showing more concern, citing her indifference to his previous hospital stay as a point of complaint. Secretary Gil informs him that it was actually Ae-ra who stayed with him all night at the hospital, not Yeo-jin.

Just then the doorbell rings and Jung-woo hurries to answer it, only to discover Manager Kam — who, despite his best efforts, can’t cook porridge.

With some subtle guiding from Jung-woo, Manager Kam calls Ae-ra (who, as per usual, is working late) and demands that she help him make the CEO feel better, for the good of the company. But as she’s waiting for him to finish the porridge (that I assume she made), Seung-hyun arrives with fancy abalone porridge.

As the men continue their pissing contest (and Jung-woo literally clings to Seung-hyun to keep him from sitting next to Ae-ra), the object of their conquest is more focused on the fact that Seung-hyun referred to Jung-woo as “hyung” instead of CEO. The guys hurriedly cover up for the slip by laughing that the CEO feels so friendly that Seung-hyun just felt like he was a hyung figure.

But she’s quickly distracted when Min-young calls to let her know about a fire at home, and Jung-woo, in his concern, drops to banmal instead of the formal jondemal the CEO should be using. That momentarily freaks her out, because she thinks Seung-hyun doesn’t know about their past relationship.

Just as she’s leaving, Yeo-jin enters the apartment, and there’s an awkward four-way stand-off until Seung-hyun grabs Ae-ra and they leave to go check on her apartment.

When Ae-ra discovers that their apartment was nearly burned down by her brother’s effort to help Min-young with her candle business, she’s ready to kill him. But Min-young defends him, saying he’s the one who put out the fire. Realizing that the women no longer have a place to stay until their apartment is fixed, Seung-hyun offers his studio.

As he sets about getting it ready for his guests, Ae-ra gives Min-young tips over the phone on how to talk to the landlord about the repairs and looks around the studio. (I’m not sure if he purchased all those candles beforehand or if they somehow rescued them from the fire, but I’m thinking Seung-hyun is a major factor in the success in Min-young’s candle business.) She sees the painting that he was going to give her on her birthday.

At Jung-woo’s apartment, Yeo-jin tells him that she knows that Ae-ra is his ex-wife. When he starts to apologize for not telling her sooner, she cuts him off, saying she actually liked the fact that he intentionally hid it from her. If he hadn’t hidden it, she would have despaired that he would have just seen her as a colleague and not a woman.

Jung-woo admits that he’s aware she likes him, and just as he’s about to tell her how he feels (or doesn’t feel), she cuts him off, asking him to wait before he says anything: “It feels unfair that I never had the chance to approach you as a woman.”

Meanwhile, outside his studio, Seung-hyun hugs Ae-ra (no awkward back hug this time!), wishing he wasn’t alone in his feelings for her.

 
COMMENTS

I really enjoyed this episode — the pacing was zippy and fun, and the serious moments of honesty were well-placed, useful to the plot, and (most importantly), genuinely moving. If only the show were like this during the first half, I might have been hooked much sooner.

Ae-ra’s mother has redeemed herself to me by confessing that she had hoped that Ae-ra wouldn’t be stuck in a similar marriage, only to have her support what seemed like another dead-beat husband who had all kinds of crazy business ideas to make money that would never succeed. So it’s not just that Ae-ra failed at her marriage, but Mom failed at making sure her daughter didn’t end up like herself.

While I’m still struggling to appreciate Yeo-jin as much as I did at the beginning of the show, I did love that moment between her and Seung-hyun, when they checked in with each other. Of course, she did have to slip in an “are you sure there isn’t someone else in Ae-ra’s life?” just so we can be reminded that she’s got intentions for Jung-woo. But seeing how the two of them really care about each other and genuinely want each other to be happy helped me to truly see them as siblings who have been through so much together. Maybe I just really enjoyed the fact that the families really feel like families now (except for the dads, but that’s a story to ignore for another day).

Honestly, I even wanted to root for the Kook siblings (just a little!), because even though I know they’re there to keep our leads apart for even longer, I’m growing attached to their characters to want them to succeed. Yes, even Yeo-jin, who is still on the borderline of annoying and useless, but I think I liked her in this episode because there was a lot less of her. But it’s easy to wish her the best when I know she’s headed for heartbreak. Or perhaps is already there, since Yeo-jin seems to sense how Jung-woo will answer her.

Even though I know Seung-hyun is the second lead, and he won’t end up with Ae-ra, I still think he’s ridiculously adorable. After being slightly concerned that he’d become the stereotypical stalker who refuses to accept that no means no, I’m pleased that his persistence is fairly low-key and even understandable. Yes, he’s young and still has a lot to learn about love (and life!), but he’s also true to who he is and isn’t afraid to be honest about his feelings — which is a lot more than I can say for the other leads throughout this show. One of the things that has been most attractive his is unyielding optimism (despite whatever life seems to throw at him), and while I assume we’re heading for some serious heartbreak, I really hope that the show lets him stay at least somewhat optimistic.

This episode also somewhat reassured me that he respected Ae-ra’s opinion and boundaries, since he constantly pointed out that despite what efforts he and Jung-woo put into fighting over her, ultimately it was going to be her choice (and unless I’m reading his character wrong, once he has he “proper” chance to show her he’s not just a colleague, I think he’s willing to accept her decision, even if it’s not him).

And I’m falling more and more in love with Ae-ra! I really adore the fact she sees through Jung-woo’s ridiculous tricks, and is even willing to be civil (and forgiving!) about their past. Considering how easily she was swayed by her temper and emotions at the beginning of the show, her character has gone through some serious growth — yet she is still quintessentially Ae-ra. I feel like the show is finally giving her some purpose, and it isn’t just finding her role or identity with a guy. She enjoys her work and despite her inexperience, is actually good at it. Which is why I continue to be concerned that we’ll eventually have Yeo-jin decide the way to get rid of Ae-ra is to destroy her career.

Of course, this episode did have its problems: namely the childish way Jung-woo was trying to keep Seung-hyun from Ae-ra. Stealing the painting and having chicken fights are one thing (and one I’m willing to accept as part of the fun of a rom-com), but deciding to have a terrorist drill for the entire office and then let Ae-ra be convinced they might be in actual danger? Not cool, dude; not cool at all. Especially when it came right after their really awesome conversation on the rooftop.

Jung-woo’s character growth almost seems like the opposite of Ae-ra’s: while she decides to step back from the petty antics of revenge and act more like an adult, he’s regressing to ridiculous pranks just because he’s unwilling to admit his feelings and act like a grown-up. I love that Seung-hyun called him out in the beginning of the episode, saying he needs to stop acting like a teacher when he can’t even figure out his own heart — and when Seung-hyun, the student, knows exactly what he wants and is willing work for it in a straight-forward manner.

Still, I’m willing to accept that Ae-ra and Jung-woo can once again reconcile — provided they have moments like their honest conversations on the rooftop (where were those when they were having their original struggles? It might have saved them the pain of divorce!), and when they’re working side-by-side to complete a goal together.

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