It’s Okay, It’s Love: Episode 11

by gummimochi

It’s always more pleasant watching this couple onscreen whenever they aren’t bickering over the same argument we’ve heard many times over already. Despite their differences, both Hae-soo and Jae-yeol make continuous efforts to keep their relationship alive and discover that a little breathing room for the other party goes a long way. And while one of them is already imagining a future together that lasts a lifetime, the other is more content to take things one day at a time.

SONG OF THE DAY

Yoon Mirae – “너를 사랑해 (I Love You)” from the OST [ Download ]

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EPISODE 11 RECAP

Nettled by Hae-soo calling herself a woman he’ll eventually break up with, Jae-yeol warns her against using that remark again in the future. They agree to hit the pause button on this argument since it’s nearly showtime.

Tae-yong sends his friend a text to confirm whether Kang-woo’s number Jae-yeol sent is correct. Jae-yeol says it is, even though Tae-yong knows the number doesn’t exist.

It’s certainly troubling, but Tae-yong tamps down his worries when Sang-sook, Jae-yeol’s first love and fellow former schoolmate, drops by to chat. He asks about that guy in her previous letter, the one who looked like Jae-yeol throwing pebbles at her window.

It turns out that Jae-yeol’s request was for Hae-soo to be a guest on his nightly radio program. Asking why she’d choose a movie about a married couple over another in the series (depicting love prior to marriage), he comments that she appears unmarried. She confirms it, then jots something down that also gives us a meta-moment: “You’re pretty good at acting. You should become an actor.”

That’s only the beginning, as Hae-soo replies that she particularly likes the ending. Jae-yeol describes the scene for his listeners: the married couple lies in bed in their underwear, hurling insults at each other like sworn enemies. In other words, the entire scene is a mess, Hae-soo summarizes, and Jae-yeol scribbles down his answer: “Just like us right now?” Hae-soo crosses that out.

What she finds moving is the kind of relationship where two people are in love because they chose to be with that person despite their inadequacies. Though Jae-yeol himself might not know what that’s like, she adds.

He asks if she’s implying if he’s some kind of player who has no interest in long-term relationships or marriage, to which she agrees to readily. The immediate response from the listeners must be positive, since they’re encouraged to keep going, and Jae-yeol tosses back that he didn’t think she’d think of him like that, given that she’s a shrink and all.

But Hae-soo argues that humans are habitual creatures, so Jae-yeol gives her an example that those who are used to breakups must think nothing of it. She says that’s typically the case, but Jae-yeol counters that it could be the complete opposite—could that person be looking for something more substantial and meaningful after so many breakups?

He counts himself among those looking for a meaningful relationship, and she jots down that his sincerity just now nearly had her fooled. It’s hard to tell whether Hae-soo’s smile implies that she’s enjoying this or doesn’t believe him (again), but then they take a music break.

Jae-yeol swings their chairs around to resume their previous argument. Is she mad that he didn’t tell people that they were dating? He doesn’t like dishing about his love life and she said at the airport that he spends too much money, so he acted out of consideration for her.

But Hae-soo scoffs at that—he sounds like someone who’s thinking about marrying her. He points out that she’s the weird one for not thinking about it. It’s natural to harbor serious thoughts like marriage at their age, isn’t it?

Hae-soo shushes him, joking that he’s well on his way to propose to her at this rate. I don’t exactly see what she finds so funny about this conversation, and neither does Jae-yeol. It’s because she’s flattered by the idea that he’d think of marrying her, which just confuses him (and myself) even further.

That’s just who she is, Hae-soo explains. With that, Jae-yeol drops the subject so they can resume the show. She offers her hand under the table, which he takes with a smile. Now that they’ve made up, Jae-yeol tells his listeners that the lead characters making amends in the movie provides hope for those who have seen many breakups like himself.

Hae-soo voices her agreement, saying how she believes the countless memories the characters shared made their passionate reconciliation possible. Jae-yeol hopes that he can find someone to share in countless memories for himself.

Now we hear Sang-sook’s side of the story that night: she’d looked outside and was initially confused by what the man standing outside her house was talking about since she didn’t know of any Kang-woo. She thought it might be Jae-yeol and found it strange that he was talking to an unseen presence beside him.

It’s frankly a little frightening for us to see that replay of Jae-yeol motioning towards thin air, and although Tae-yong stammers in shock when she correctly identifies what Jae-yeol was wearing that night, he assures her that it wasn’t him.

Sunbae Jo leads a group therapy session in his office whose participants exhibit a range of emotions. Things get heated pretty quickly until Sunbae Jo intervenes and calmly reminds his patients to be understanding towards their fellow participants. Soo-kwang can barely suppress a laugh at this speech, but offers a supportive hand to his neighbor.

In the car, Sunbae Jo asks who Tae-yong means by an acquaintance that imagines people who aren’t there and unknowingly inflicts self-harm. He informs Tae-yong that sure, whoever that person is can function like a normal person, though he’d probably advise that friend to seek professional help.

Sunbae Jo arrives at the law school in time to see the lawyer who handled Jae-bum’s case refusing to talk to PD Choi. Apparently the lawyer quit practicing and became a professor because of Jae-bum’s case; he found the verdict absurd and believed that neither Jae-bum or Jae-yeol could be found guilty as the culprit.

In fact, the lawyer believes someone else was responsible for the stepfather’s murder. But that’s all he said, PD Choi explains.

Hae-soo goes grocery shopping with Jae-yeol, who looks half-exasperated whenever she goes with the opposite to his choice. He turns the conversation topic back to marriage, but she says their relationship is still in its budding stage. But like always, that’s followed with her favorite refrain on whether he’s like this with other women too.

She gets scolded for that, though she laughs off his counterargument that she can go and date someone else and then come back to him if she thinks she’s losing out. And then she gives him a kiss because she thinks this moment’s exciting. Or something.

Needless to say, the spontaneous kiss puts Jae-yeol in a good mood. He and Hae-soo spend some time resting at home, where they discuss how many kids they’d like to have (he’d like to have three, she’d have one if she had to). It’s his dream to raise a family since he grew up without a father, but she says having three kids is too much to ask of a woman with a career.

She couldn’t keep working since she’d just have to stay at home with the kids, Jae-yeol casually tosses back. That earns him a glare from Hae-soo, but he says she asked him what his fantasy marriage would look like.

He’ll have an office outside the house and come home to dinner waiting for him, but then he’d take care of the dishes. “And then my wife—”

“—would look at you with an exhausted expression with her sagging breasts and nursing the babies.” She’d be glaring at him with resentful eyes, Hae-soo adds. She says she can’t be his wife if that’s the case.

Hae-soo claims she doesn’t like working professionals like him—why she can be the breadwinner and her husband can be a stay-at-home dad. Covering her eyes, Jae-yeol encourages her to imagine such a man, nagging at her to come home for dinner. Having made his point, he tells her: “I’m perfect for you.”

He goes on to describe how she won’t like men in other professions because she’s afraid they’d waste their money, or find their job stability boring, or won’t like their music, and so on. She giggles that she doesn’t want to get married, to which he points out that he hasn’t asked, but repeats that he’s still perfect for her.

Jae-yeol rises, saying that he has to continue packing. Hae-soo warns that she’ll find a more impressive man than him to take his room, and he learns in teasing that that won’t be easy. She starts a playful water fight with a hose, which includes Soo-kwang when he accidentally gets spritzed.

Jae-yeol packs the last of the moving boxes the following morning, though he’s keeping some things here since he has no room at his old place. Sunbae Jo assures him that he has no need to worry about Hae-soo cheating on him since Jae-yeol’s the only one who can put up with her nasty temper.

Soo-kwang sees Jae-yeol out and shows him a text from So-nyeo asking if they should date… exclusively. Jae-yeol gives him some more words of encouragement about love, which puts a literal skip in Soo-kwang’s step.

Meanwhile, Sunbae Jo follows Hae-soo’s words that the key to lies in Jae-yeol’s bathroom and discovers the camel painting and the bathtub.

Jae-yeol gets into his car, but then furrows his eyebrows when he looks into his rearview mirror.

It’s Hae-soo, who lists the things Jae-yeol must do after he moves via scrolling text: (1) See her every Friday; (2) Make sure that he eats and sleeps in a bathtub, not a chair; (3) It’s embarrassing, but the idea of him moving out saddens her and makes her want to cry.

That’s why she’s saying this in text, and Hae-soo lowers her phone to reveal herself on the verge of tears. Aw, I have to admit that’s a cute surprise.

He tells her to get going, but slowly follows behind her in his car. But then things turn serious real quick when he speeds ahead and sees Kang-woo on his bike. He swerves the car to miss the imaginary obstacle, but now the car is headed for Hae-soo. Oh crap.

He avoids her just in time, but then slams into a pole. I was hoping that car accident from his dream wouldn’t come true, but I guess it just did.

Mama Ok-ja wonders why Tae-yong is hanging around the house instead of going to work. She leaves to take a call from none other than Jae-bum, who asks if he can come to her house once he’s released.

She replies of course, then emphasizes how thankful she is that he called. She promises to be really, really good to him when he comes home. She paints an idyllic homecoming and life together thereafter, which gets Jae-bum’s hopes up.

Hearing her older son’s voice makes Mama Ok-ja’s day, and Tae-yong gives her a comforting backhug before leaving.

But Jae-bum seems to be harboring other ideas, as he tells his fellow inmate that while Sunbae Jo can’t testify for him about his stepfather’s murder case, he can stand witness when Jae-bum stabs his brother upon his prison release. He can ask for leniency since he wouldn’t be Jae-bum’s psychiatrist anymore.

Er, that’s not necessarily how it works, but Jae-bum thinks this idea will work. He’ll be let off due to extenuating circumstances, sue the nation for his wrongful imprisonment, and exact his revenge on his brother.

It sounds like Jae-bum hasn’t turned that new leaf after the amytal interview after all, and assumes the obedient inmate role when the guard informs him that he’s being released next week. Jae-bum tells the prison guard to tell Sunbae Jo that he’ll be released the day after. Uh oh, I’m not getting a good feeling about this.

Instead of heading to the office, Tae-yong swings by Jae-yeol’s place. Neither Jae-yeol nor Hae-soo seem to have sustained any major injuries from the accident, and playfully tease each other before hanging up. Tae-yong has taken note of the phone call though, asking if it was Kang-woo. He’s surprised to hear that Jae-yeol and Hae-soo are dating.

Over at the hospital, Hae-soo discusses the couple with shared psychotic disorder with Doctor Lee, and both agree that there must be a good reason as to why they’ve kept this irrational fear of cockroaches to themselves.

The wife shares how her husband always takes the bus, and would hate how she takes the dangerous, dark path behind the woods to the bus stop. But one night, a pair of unknown men had dragged her away.

At the same time, the husband shares with Doctor Lee how his wife never came to pick him up at the bus stop like she usually did that night. He went looking for her and found her lying in the woods. Oh my god, those men sexually assaulted her. Ashamed by how she couldn’t protect herself and how dirty she felt afterward, the wife breaks down in tears.

The husband insists that he was okay as long as his wife said she was, but Doctor Lee says that what happened wasn’t okay—it’s something to be angry and cry over. Crying angry tears, the husband proclaims he wants to kill the bastards who assaulted his wife.

Jae-yeol can’t get any work done with Tae-yong hanging around, but his friend insists on staying until Jae-yeol calls Kang-woo. He shows Jae-yeol the number saved on his phone, asking again if it’s correct.

When Jae-yeol says it is, Tae-yong calls it right then and there and hands over his own phone to his buddy. This time, imaginary Kang-woo picks up, and Tae-yong leans in to listen in.

We see Kang-woo walking along the road with his mother, both of them looking beaten and bruised. Kang-soo can barely speak with his hacking cough, and tells Jae-yeol that he likes taking that dangerous road Jae-yeol hates so much.

Jae-yeol’s also coughing on his end, which he finds strange. And Tae-yong reels in shock as he listens to Jae-yeol speak into an automated message. One can only imagine how terrified he must be, and Tae-yong chokes back tears before he hangs up and tells Jae-yeol that Kang-woo hung up.

Sunbae Jo agrees to meet Tae-yong’s acquaintance (whom we know is really Jae-yeol), then smiles proudly of Soo-kwang’s intentions to end things for good (no, for realz this time) because So-nyeo is still hanging out with Motorcycle Dude. Just like before, Soo-kwang throws down a few bills for spending money and tells her that she’s fired.

He tells her to learn how to accept people’s love when they give it, citing her father collecting trash for her. Even if her father’s the only family she’s got, she should be grateful because her parents gave birth to her. He still calls his own even though his dad kicked him out because of his Tourette’s.

She has one last chance: will she earnestly date him exclusively? She agrees, and he says they’ll be going clubbing after work.

Hae-soo congratulates her married friends Yoon-chul and his previously suicidal (in Episode 5) and pregnant wife Hye-jin when they come to see her at work about their healthy fetus.

If PD Choi has anything going for him, it’s perseverance seeing how he’s persuaded the lawyer who worked on Jae-bum’s case into discussing the matter with him and Sunbae Jo. Showing them the evidence presented in court, the lawyer says this is a case of a judge that’s usually harsh to juveniles and a prosecutor looking to boost his image.

As for himself, he was a powerless public defender at the time. He believes neither Jae-bum nor Jae-yeol could be incriminated, indicating how the murder weapon held both brothers’ fingerprints.

It was the lighter from a pool hall that Jae-bum frequented that led him to be named the culprit, though any fingerprints were erased from the fire. Furthermore, the wound itself wasn’t that deep and no organ tissue was found on the murder weapon.

In other words, the real cause of death was asphyxiation. “The person who stabbed him wasn’t the murderer, but the person who started the fire.” Wait a minute—does that mean it could have been Mama Ok-ja?

Hae-soo tries to be careful not to make noise while Jae-yeol is working, and her eyes fall upon his board filled with information about the truck accidents on the road Kang-woo usually takes. Jae-yeol’s constant concern for Kang-woo prompts her to ask who he likes better—her or Kang-woo? She smiles when he immediately replies, “You.”

She reads while he continues writing, though she falls asleep while waiting for him to finish. It’s early morning when Hae-soo takes her leave, and when he hastily says he’ll be done soon, she insists that it’s fine—he can keep working.

Hae-soo hangs back to tell him that she isn’t upset, but she needs to get a few winks before seeing a patient later in the day. She thinks they’ll be having sexy times if she stays, but she’s leaving because of work. She’s understanding to his writing process and says they’ll see each other again next week.

But Jae-yeol can’t focus anymore and chases after her. He’s disheartened after seeing her climb in a taxi, but smiles at the remnants she’s left behind all over his apartment. One would think he’d be upset by the mess given his OCD tendencies, but he isn’t.

Sunbae Jo sits in his office thinking back to how the lawyer had told him of how the stepfather’s corpse was cremated before the final verdict was ruled. Jae-yeol had pinned his older brother for the murder, and thus the case was closed; however, on the night of the incident, Jae-bum carried his brother out of the house. Only their mother remained, and the fire started soon afterwards.

Poor Tae-yong starts bawling as soon as he walks in to see Sunbae Jo. He shows Sunbae Jo the video of Jae-yeol fighting nothing but air, and let me tell you, that close-up doesn’t make the viewing experience any easier.

Hae-soo grumbles to Jae-yeol on the phone over how she’ll just have to sleep in the hospital if she can’t see her boyfriend this weekend. But there’s a surprise waiting for her as soon as she walks into the call room: Jae-yeol.

During the car ride that evening, an exhausted Hae-soo tries to get some sleep. He says they likely won’t be able to see together for long at this rate, which prompts her to ask if he’s breaking up with her.

That isn’t what he means, and she tells him to buy some herbal medicine. He says he will, then adds, “…and let’s get married.” Hae-soo’s eyes fly open, and Jae-yeol repeats, “I said let’s get married.”

 
COMMENTS

Given how Jae-yeol isn’t the kind of guy who’d do grand romantic gestures and Hae-soo isn’t one to expect those from him, I’d say this seemingly out of the blue proposal is line with his character. He’s made his intentions towards Hae-soo pretty clear from the get-go, and has assured her on numerous occasions that he’s serious about pursuing a long-term relationship with her. But then again, I’d be pretty floored too if my boyfriend proposed while I was still unsure of whether I loved him or not.

It’s difficult getting a clear pulse on Hae-soo lately, especially within the context of her relationship with Jae-yeol. Inasmuch as we know that she’s still trying to take it slow with him (but then got physical right away), would like to live on her own forever (but then was upset that he was moving out), and once said they were going to take this to the end (but then got upset that she might be someone he’d break up with and not marry), Hae-soo still exhibits some even stranger character reactions: she finds Jae-yeol’s scolding of her behavior and words as amusing or slightly arousing, and once she makes up with Jae-yeol on his radio show, they more or less bicker less or barely at all for the rest of the hour.

But stranger still, it seems like absence did make the heart grow fonder once Jae-yeol did move out, because Hae-soo is now understanding to his writing process again. So I suppose fixed weekly dates and a little distance is a good and healthy thing for them? But now Jae-yeol wants to get married, and I hope he isn’t expecting that fantasy marriage of him because if Hae-soo says yes (which seems unlikely, but who knows given her sudden spontaneity in this hour) she won’t be someone who makes that kind of dream into a reality.

Since we were aware of Jae-yeol’s psychological issues for the majority of the series, it felt like waiting on pins and needles until someone in this dramaverse became aware of them. In that vein, I’m both relieved and worried now that Tae-yong and Sunbae Jo know about the hallucinations and resulting self-harm, because like the sudden car accident in this episode, there’s this wriggling feeling that things are about to get much worse real quick.

It doesn’t help that the progress made with Jae-bum is one step forward and two steps back, because even with the emotional breakthrough on a level of subconsciousness, he’s still dead set on taking his revenge against Mama Ok-ja and Jae-yeol. Discovering the stepfather’s true cause of death adds a wrinkle to the past, if only that knowing that now absolves Jae-bum or Jae-yeol as the murderer in hindsight. It doesn’t, however, erase the fourteen years of pain and suffering everyone in that family has gone through. And while it’s good to correct to acknowledge the past with the truth, it’s better to find ways in the present that change the future.

 
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