Descended From the Sun: Episode 4

by LollyPip

The aftermath of conflict can be as dangerous as the conflict itself, as Shi-jin knows and Mo-yeon is about to discover. As a doctor she’s used to making decisions based on one thing only — saving her patient’s life — but out here in a war zone those decisions can affect people in unexpected, and often unwanted, ways. Mo-yeon can’t just think of her own wishes anymore, and that’s going to be a painful lesson for her to learn.

EPISODE 4 RECAP

With the Abu Dhabi prince dying on the table, Mo-yeon swearing she can save him, and the prince’s people and Shi-jin’s commanding officer, ordering him to stand down, Shi-jin has to make a fast decision. Unwilling to let the man die and Mo-yeon take the blame, he confirms that she can save him, and pulls his gun.

Every weapon in the room comes out, and the President’s man tells Mo-yeon one more time to get her hands off him. At the same time, Shi-jin tells his men that the safety of the doctors and their patient are their top priority. The men form a line in front of the medical team, and Shi-jin gives them permission to fire if necessary.

The President’s man says to Shi-jin carefully that he’d better know what he’s doing. With a gun inches from his face, Shi-jin returns that he’ll protect what he needs to protect. The medical team start to wheel the patient to the operating room, with Shi-jin and his men shifting their line as they go. It’s a tense moment, but Shi-jin turns to watch Mo-yeon just as she steps out of sight.

The word goes out to Lieutenant General Yoon, Mo-yeon’s boss, Director Han, and their respective teams, and everyone is of differing opinions on whether Mo-yeon is doing the right thing. If she saves the patient she’ll be a hero — but if he dies, it could mean war.

Mo-yeon prepares to begin surgery, while Shi-jin and his men maintain tense aim at the President’s men. They can all hear their commander Lieutenant Kwak yelling at them through their coms, but not one of them moves a muscle to answer.

To make things even worse, Special Forces teams descend on the base prepared for combat. Lieutenant Kwak growls to anyone who can hear to order Shi-jin to stop the operation or he’ll shoot them all personally, but still, nobody moves.

Mo-yeon notices a previous surgery scar on the patient’s abdomen that wasn’t noted on his chart, which just makes this surgery even more dangerous. But Mo-yeon declares that as doctors they must do what they can to save their patient, and makes the first cut.

The doctors are forced to make decisions based on what evidence they find inside the patient, and things are complicated by the amount of surgical scar tissue in the patient’s abdomen. His blood pressure drops and Sang-hyun suggests they just stop the bleeding and close him up, but Mo-yeon isn’t interested in taking the easy route.

They stop the bleeding just as the President’s doctor arrives, and he declares the surgery a success — once the President wakes up. He tells Mo-yeon that she still has cause to worry, but she counters that if she’d focused on worrying instead of acting, they’d have a dead body on their hands right now.

She fiercely stands up to the angry doctor, though as soon as he leaves the room, she flops to the ground in exhaustion. Chi-hoon asks what will happen if the President dies, and Sang-hyun deadpans that they’ll have an aneurysm case report… and a slight change in world history.

Lieutenant General Yoon meets with the hospital bigwigs, where they discuss the results of the surgery. Even though the surgery went well, they need to prepare some sort of diplomatic statement, and the person in charge will be disciplined. That means Shi-jin, so Yoon is not happy about it, but he makes the call.

He’s connected directly to Dae-young, and orders him to detain Shi-jin to the barracks for insubordination. He softens enough to tell Dae-young that they did the right thing, but an order is an order. Shi-jin knows just from his men’s faces what’s happening — he hands over his gun, and Dae-young officially dismisses him from duty. Shi-jin even respectfully switches to English to tell the Arab leader that he’s not taking off, he’s been… summoned.

Chi-hoon and the nurses sit to eat, and Min-ji worries that she counted the gauze wrong after surgery — they didn’t leave one inside the patient, did they? The older nurse, Ja-ae, picks up on her panic and starts to worry, too.

Shi-jin is detained in a storage room, which is where Lieutenant Kwak comes for him. Shi-jin apologizes for his insubordination, but Kwak is too furious to accept, especially to see such a promising soldier ruin his career. Shi-jin finally meets Kwak’s eyes at that, and tells him that he has no regrets, and will take full responsibility.

Mo-yeon wants to talk to Shi-jin, but first Lieutenant Kwak demands to speak to her. He sneers at her confidence when she tells him that she made sound medical decisions, unimpressed with her fame. He tells her that she just single-handedly ruined Shi-jin’s career — even if things go well, he’ll never be promoted again, and if the President dies, he’ll rot in prison. He does ask her to make sure the patient wakes, since the least they can do now is save their own careers.

Dae-young assumes his transfer is delayed, since he’s now the officer in charge of the unit, but Lieutenant Kwak disabuses him of that notion and orders him to proceed as planned. He adds that, if anyone in Korea asks, Shi-jin offered to take full responsibility.

Dae-young tells Shi-jin that he’s leaving, but Shi-jin declines to hear his report since he’s no longer in charge. Dae-young says, with respect written all over his face, that every decision Shi-jin made today was right and justified, and honorable.

Dae-young lets Mo-yeon know that she has ten minutes to see Shi-jin, and she stands outside the door to speak with him. She apologizes, though he says it’s not necessary, and tells Shi-jin that the patient is still sleeping. Ha, he jokes that she has too many men to worry about — she should stop flirting and just worry about him.

His bravado only makes Mo-yeon well up with tears, and he continues that he realized that she was right before, that she looks sexy in the operating room. Mo-yeon asks why he backed her up like that, and he reminds her of his rule that the elderly, children, and beautiful women must be protected. Today he protected an old man, and a beauty.

He tells Mo-yeon that she was brave, and that starts her crying in earnest. She asks if he needs anything, and he jokes again that he’d like some explosives. He was fine, but now he really wants to break out because of her.

Before she leaves, Mo-yeon passes a mosquito coil to Shi-jin through the vent, saying that he might need it. He thanks her, and doesn’t mention that he’s in a supply room with hundreds of them. Aww, that’s terribly sweet.

The President begins to wake, and practically the entire camp slumps in relief. His own doctor takes control and he’s airlifted out, and the leader of the men nods thanks to Mo-yeon as the helicopter takes off.

Staff Sergeant Choi, who was left in charge, calls Dae-young in Korea to update him. Sweet Ki-bum cries into the phone at Dae-young for leaving him without saying goodbye, and Dae-young tells him that he left a dictionary to help him study for his GED.

Dae-young runs into Myung-joo unexpectedly on the tarmac, and his face goes intensely blank like it does wherever she’s concerned. She asks if he’s running away again, and when he starts his formal report, she slaps his face, hard. He looks at her for just a moment, then carefully trains his eyes past her again and finishes.

With a shaking voice, Myung-joo tells him to say it’s a tactical retreat, or to tell her to wait, or that he’ll do whatever he can to come back. She punctuates her words with thumps to his chest that don’t even faze him, and he simply tells her to watch out for the bugs.

She grabs his wrist when he starts to walk past her, and instead of shaking her off, he uses the leverage to pull her in for a one-armed hug. Myung-joo shakily asks what this means, and Dae-young simply says to take care of herself. He salutes and walks away, while she yells after him, “Why hug me? Why touch me? Take ownership of your actions!”

She keeps yelling as he goes, that he said seeing her makes him sad and he’s so nice to other women, so “why not to me?” Oof, everything about this scene just kills me.

We flash back to the wedding they crashed together, when Myung-joo had asked Dae-young how much he loved this woman… you know, just so she knows exactly how much revenge will be needed. He said that he once promised to make her happy, and Myung-joo pointed out that no bride would be happy to have her wedding ruined.

He’d said that you can’t be happy when you have regrets, and Myung-joo figured out that this wasn’t revenge, it’s to give her comfort.

The bride had been pretty well horrified to see him, scared he might talk to her groom, and Myung-joo had waltzed in to link arms with Dae-young and introduce herself as his girlfriend. Dae-young had held Myung-joo’s hand and told the bride that he wouldn’t miss her, so she can go live a happy life.

Over drinks later, Myung-joo made sure to remind Dae-young of his promise to pretend to be her girlfriend in front of Shi-jin. At a later date, she’d been less composed as she complained about a rumor going around that they’re sleeping together. HAHA, caught in her own trap. Myung-joo had asked if Dae-young thought this was funny, and he’d cracked a tiny smile: “It’s not boring.” Oh, I adore him.

Another time skip and more drinks, and Myung-joo is still upset. Dae-young explains that for men, “dating” means sleeping together — it’s not a slight to her honor, it’s just how men think. He’d accidentally slipped and mentioned sex, and Myung-joo crows that he’s the same as all men, one-track mind. Then she makes the same slip, HA.

Another evening, and Dae-young tells her there’s one way to make the rumors stop — turn them into fact. Oh really now? That had earned him a well-deserved beating.

Back in the present, Lieutenant General Yoon is informed of Myung-joo’s arrival in Uruk, as well as Dae-young’s departure. He takes a call from the Blue House with a special request from the Arab League, to make it as if the incident never happened. As for Shi-jin, whether he’s punished or commended is left up to Yoon. He orders Shi-jin released, but that his disciplinary hearing is to proceed as planned.

Shi-jin gives the stink-eye to table hilariously covered in tofu dishes… looks like Chef Ki-bum got a little excited that his Captain was being released, hee. And I love that Shi-jin’s men know him well enough to offer him candy to temper his, well… temper. He thanks them all for their work during the emergency alert, and promises to treat them to barbeque later to make up for all this tofu.

Mo-yeon comes running but stops short at the sight of the entire platoon staring at her, and offers to come back later. Shi-jin wants to talk now and leads her out, but they both grow adorably shy once alone. He breaks the ice with a joke that she really is a real doctor, but Mo-yeon is here to thank him for trusting her.

She admits that she was scared, but Shi-jin says that he’s used to those sorts of situations. He has something else to say, and apologizes for saying that some doctors are only fit for broadcasting.

Mo-yeon allows that he wasn’t wrong, but he gives credit where it’s due — not many doctors would perform life-saving surgery with a gun pointed at them. She asks if they really would have shot her, and Shi-jin’s serious expression is all the answer she needs.

A voice calls out, and they see the men that led the Arabs that night, summoning them to a car. He takes them to meet President Mubarat, who seems to be well on the mend. He thanks them sincerely, and Mo-yeon warns him to avoid stress due to his heart condition. Shi-jin comments that war is easy and peace is difficult, and the President jokes that doctors always nag, and he prefers soldiers.

He gives them a gift — his business card, which they’re told can save them in any situation in which there are Arabs present. Mo-yeon asks for another one, since there are two of them, which makes the President belly-laugh at her cheek. It gets her the second card, though.

Shi-jin takes one card, and immediately cashes it in for the use of the President’s car for the day. He just grins as Mo-yeon whines about the waste of a good get-out-of-jail-free card. He says that they have two hours, and he wants to use it to go on a date. (Mo Yeon: I didn’t say I’d go on a date with you! Shi-jin: I didn’t ask.)

Over drinks, Shi-jin asks Mo-yeon why she became a doctor, but he doesn’t buy her easy answer. She admits that doctors are paid well, saying he can call her materialistic if he wants. But Shi-jin just looks at her searchingly, then asks why she keeps pretending to be a bad person.

She just says that a lot happened after he left, and she’s changed a lot. She says that he doesn’t look any different, and he quips that she should have noticed how much more handsome he got. That makes her smile, and he adds that her smile got prettier, but he’s definitely not joking now. In fact, that was damn intense.

Shi-jin takes a call, and all Mo-yeon hears is that it’s something about the UN. He starts his familiar apology but Mo-yeon cuts him off, and she snaps that their dates always end the same. She asks if she’s not allowed where he’s going… but he says that she’s not prohibited, it’s just that taking her wouldn’t be to his advantage.

Mo-yeon asks why he’s always trying to gain the upper hand, and he’s honest when he says that his job naturally gives him the lower hand in this relationship. Mo-yeon asks, what if she still wants to go, and Shi-jin can’t refuse her.

It’s a funeral for a fellow soldier, and we see a flashback in which Shi-jin is serving with soldiers of several nationalities. He poses for a photo with a friend, and oh no, that’s the same man who was leading the gun smugglers. He’s there at the funeral, but watching from a distance, and leaves before anyone sees him.

Shi-jin and Mo-yeon return the car, and she asks about the deceased man. He’s vague, just saying that he died trying to maintain peace, and it seems to be the first time that Mo-yeon realizes that Shi-jin could also die. He doesn’t want to discuss it, and just says that this is why he’s got the lower hand.

Mo-yeon is surprised to hear that Shi-jin is at his disciplinary hearing the next morning, and it’s clear that his men blame her for getting their captain in trouble.

Shi-jin isn’t disciplined for the incident with the Arab President, but the committee needs to punish him for something, so they decide that his discipline will be for not following regularions in regards to the bomb disposal. He’s given a three-month reduction in pay, and he’s also no longer eligible for promotion.

He’s so distracted as he leaves the meeting that Myung-joo manages to trip him. She teases that she’ll get her star before he does, based on the things that she’s been hearing, and he jokes back that she must already know that Dae-young was transferred, since she’s not looking for him.

Shi-jin grows alarmed when he sees Mo-yeon burst into the committee meeting, and he finds her arguing that the incident was all her fault, and that he shouldn’t be punished. Lieutenant Kwak retorts that military laws are different, and Shi-jin yanks her out of there before she can say anything else.

He tells her that this is not because of her, that he wouldn’t make such a decision just because of a woman. He reminds her of the gunshot wound she asked about when they first met, and tells her that soldiers always live with a shroud on. When you die in a nameless land for the sake of your country, that place becomes your grave and your uniform becomes your shroud.

Soldiers are expected to carry this mindset whenever they wear their uniform, and to be honorable at all times. One of his superiors told Shi-jin that, and he got that gunshot wound in service of that superior. When he makes a decision, he takes into account his fellow soldiers and their honor.

But regardless, he still violated military law. The military will handle it internally, and she’s to stay out of it. With a steady voice, Mo-yeon apologizes that her concern got in his way. She drives away, leaving Shi-jin stricken, and only lets herself cry once she’s alone

Shi-jin talks to Dae-young for company as he walks back to camp, and gets his feelings all hurt when Dae-young says he deserves his discipline. He has to defend again that he didn’t make his decision because of a woman, he did it because his job is to protect people (Dae-yong: “Yes, and ‘people’ is pretty.” HA).

But Dae-young really called to ask if Shi-jin has seen Myung-joo, and Shi-jin gets some petty revenge by throwing his words back in his face, that he sure is going through a lot just for a woman. And then hangs up on him.

Shi-jin barely arrives back at camp before he runs into Mo-yeon in the kitchen, but he asks her to stay when she looks like she’s going to go right back out again. She can’t even make eye contact, and says he looked like he wanted to be alone, but he corrects her: “I want to be with you.”

He offers her some of the cooking wine he was about to dig into, and his bemused expression when she drinks straight from the bottle is adorable. She offers him a drink, but technically he’s not allowed — he was going to sneak some but got caught.

She asks how he got back and he lies that he ran, only to have her say that she saw him getting out of the car. He asks why she asked then, and she smiles, “I wanted to hear your joke.” Aww.

She compliments Shi-jin in his dress uniform, admitting that she knew what it was because girls always fantasize about men in uniforms. Shi-jin nods sagely — that’s why he became a soldier.

His expression goes soft, and he says wistfully that he wanted to go see a movie with her. He asks if she stayed and saw the movie the time he had to leave, and she says that she didn’t, but fibs that it was because she wanted to see it with someone.

She says that after that night, she kept seeing ads that it was the perfect date movie, and now it always makes her think of him. She misinterprets his intense stare as meaning that he wants some of the wine, holding out the bottle, and his voice goes all deep and growly as he says that he can find a way to taste it.

Then he swoops in for the kiss.

COMMENTS

I need a minute, give me a minute. I will be able to form cohesive thoughts again. Eventually. Okay, I got this.

While Descended From the Sun isn’t perfect by any means, in my opinion it’s a solid show with a lot to offer, in terms of wonderful characters and intricate, layered relationships. Something I haven’t mentioned yet, that really is one of my favorite things about this show, is the friendship between Shi-jin and Dae-young. I can’t even really call it a bromance because it feels like so much more than that — more like true brotherhood. It’s interesting, since Shi-jin has been Dae-young’s superior since they met, and yet the admiration and respect between the two men feels so mutual and equal. They don’t treat each other as anything but the closest of friends, and the most loyal of brothers. It honestly makes me scared (and gives me flashbacks) that one of them is going to be in some serious danger at one point… this is Dramaland after all.

Speaking of Dae-young, I think he’s an amazing character. He’s so hard to read and so careful about what he lets slip, so when he does reveal some information about himself, it feels like a huge burst of insight. Again, he reminds me of a certain Earnest Bot, who to this day is still one of my favorite drama characters ever. I can see Dae-young becoming the same type of man — deep, loyal, just plain good. I loved how we got to see that see his real purpose for going to his ex’s wedding wasn’t selfish at all, and in fact was probably very painful for him. He knew she still had feelings for him and wanted to keep his promise to make her happy, so the only way he could do that was to set her free for good. That tells me pretty much all I need to know about him as a man, and it’s nothing but positive.

Shi-jin is a much more layered character, and I really appreciate how he’s so honest and open. When he makes a mistake he owns it and apologizes, right away, without excuse or explanation. His dry, sarcastic sense of humor is fun, and he uses it well to diffuse tense situations, for the most part. It’s nice to see Mo-yeon starting to enjoy that facet of his personality. His silly side is cute but he does take it too far at times, and I like that he’s not too big to admit when he screws up. That honesty carries over to serious topics too, and he doesn’t hold back from speaking his mind and his feelings, which is great because we as an audience (and Mo-yeon as his love interest) never have to wonder what he’s thinking. And since she’s much more of a closed book, I think Shi-jin’s tendency to just say things right out will keep drawing her out of her shell.

And she needs it — I see Mo-yeon as the one who has the most to learn and the furthest to grow, regarding herself and life in general. She tends to tell herself lies to comfort herself (like that she became a doctor because of money), yet she’s so transparent to Shi-jin. She makes quick and often wrong decisions, and acts out without thinking. It’s gotten her in trouble at home, and it’s getting her in trouble now in the field. But I like that Shi-jin doesn’t tell her how to be, he just holds up a mirror so that she can see how her behavior affects others. It embarrasses her, and she puts a wall up to protect herself, but hopefully Shi-jin is just the man to help her break that wall down again.

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