Age of Youth 2: Episode 8

by chocolatte

Are we really past the halfway mark already? I can’t get over how quickly time flies when we’re hanging with the Belle Epoque girls—just like great friendships in real life, our time spent with them is an amazing combination of laugh-out-loud shenanigans, petty bickering, and moments of deep understanding and connection. Life has really thrown some curveballs at each of these girls, so it makes me happy that at least they have each other to rely on, in good times and bad.

 
EPISODE 8: “I deny myself” #confession

Jang-hoon spends a stormy night watching a horror movie at home. When a clap of thunder coincides with a freaky reveal in the movie, Jang-hoon yelps in fright, then hightails it upstairs to the girls’ apartment.

Eun answers the door with a stoic “What?” Jang-hoon pretends that he’s there to check up on them—you know, in case their lights were out, or if they were scared by the thunderstorm. As the rest of the housemates shuffle into view, Eun smirks and asks if it’s Jang-hoon who’s scared.

Of course, he denies it, so Eun starts to close the door on him. Desperately, he holds the door open and offers multiple excuses to hang out with them, but gets shot down. Eventually, Eun shuts the door in his face, and Jang-hoon scurries back downstairs.

The housemates gather around the kitchen table to stare at the defaced photograph of Ye-eun and Doo-young. The girls react to the photo in the same way as they did to Ye-eun’s nasty text: Eun-jae, Ji-won, and Jin-myung all think to themselves that it’s Doo-young, while Eun thinks it must be the person who wrote the letter.

Unlike last time, Ye-eun’s on the same page as her housemates: Covering her face, she squeaks out that it must be Doo-young. Despite what everyone’s thinking, the girls reassuringly remind Ye-eun that he’s locked up. Even Eun speaks up, telling Ye-eun she shouldn’t be afraid just yet.

When Jin-myung wonders if Ye-eun’s heard any recent news about Doo-young, Ji-won encourages Ye-eun to call her lawyer to find out. As Ye-eun makes the call, Eun grabs the letter from her room and brings it back out.

After hanging up, Ye-eun blankly tells the girls that Doo-young was released on parole three months ago. Noooooo! The housemates look horrified at the news, and Jin-myung tells everyone to be careful, reminding them that in addition to Ye-eun, the rest of the girls could be targets, too.

Clutching the letter, Eun tentatively tells the girls that she’s not sure how to say this, or whether this is related to Ye-eun’s harasser. Just as Eun places the letter on the table, the doorbell rings, causing the girls to shriek in fear and huddle around Jin-myung.

On the intercom screen they can only see the back of a man’s head, but no one’s willing to move any closer to the door. To the group’s horror, Eun peels herself away to open the door, where she finds Jang-hoon—bringing us back to the opening of the episode.

After all that excitement, the girls disperse for bed soon after Jang-hoon leaves (and Ye-eun wonders how Eun knew it was Jang-hoon by the back of his head), and a disappointed Eun retrieves her letter from the table.

The next day, Ye-eun, Ji-won, and Eun-jae go their separate ways on campus, exchanging words of caution. As Eun-jae’s heading to class, she spots Jong-yeol and pulls him away to fill him in on the news of Doo-young’s release.

Eun-jae asks him to let her know if he happens to see Doo-young around. Looking stricken, Jong-yeol agrees, then calls out to Eun-jae and tells her to be careful. Eun-jae watches him leave, then breaks out into a hopeful smile.

In the newsroom, Ji-won makes a beeline for Sung-min to ask, “You do hapkido, right?” She wants him to teach her a few self-defense moves, and Sung-min wonders what mess she’s gotten herself into now.

Ye-eun sits with Ho-chang at his usual spot in his usual café, where she looks at him expectantly. She asks if he doesn’t have anything to say, questioning if he even understood what she just told him.

Ho-chang affirms that he got the whole just-released-from-prison ex-boyfriend story, then leans in to ask, “Does he fight well?” He tells Ye-eun worriedly that he’s a terrible fighter, and Ye-eun asks him disappointedly if that’s all he has to say.

In response, Ho-chang asks Ye-eun how fast she can run. When it turns out she’s a tad faster than him, he says that if the two of them happen to run into Doo-young, she should run away first. Ye-eun asks if he’d run away first if he was faster, and he says he would, so that he could get the cops for her. Ye-eun can’t help but laugh at that.

Sung-min sneaks up behind Ji-won in the hallway, grabbing her in a headlock. He tells her to try out the move he showed her earlier, but Ji-won just smiles blissfully, caressing his arm. LOL.

Then, she smashes her foot down on his. Crying out in pain, Sung-min threatens to stop the lessons right then and there. Ji-won protests that she really needs his help, as she’s the most vulnerable: In the movies, she explains, it’s the friend of the girl being stalked who always ends up dead.

Sung-min assures her that she won’t die: “The annoying character doesn’t die that easily.” At that, Ji-won delivers a hard kick to Sung-min’s knee, so he grabs her ponytail. When he heckles her, telling her to escape, Ji-won kicks at him helplessly, complaining that he hasn’t shown her this move yet.

As the newsroom staff watch the spectacle, the jilted hoobae mutters, “And they still say they’re not dating.” That’s what I’m saying.

In class, Eun-jae catches Jong-yeol looking at her, but he looks away when she returns his gaze.

At night, Eun-jae’s just about home when a figure in black jumps out at her from around the corner—ack, it’s Doo-young! He grabs Eun-jae and demands to know where Ye-eun is, but thankfully, Jong-yeol’s voice rings out, shouting Eun-jae’s name.

Doo-young takes off immediately, leaving Eun-jae to crumple onto the ground. Jong-yeol rushes over to take her in his arms, but his face goes ashen when he realizes that his hand is covered in her blood. Wait, what??

In tears, Jong-yeol tells Eun-jae that he’s sorry and that it’s all his fault, saying she can’t die like this. Looking weak, Eun-jae raises her hand to his cheek, asking if he knew she liked him. And just like that, she closes her eyes, and her arm falls limply to the ground.

Holding Eun-jae tightly, Jong-yeol screams into the night…and then we go back to reality, where Eun-jae’s in class, her imagination running wild as she stares at Jong-yeol with tears streaming down her face. Pfft.

After quickly wiping her tears away, Eun-jae has another thought that makes her face light up.

She imagines herself walking home again—but this time, when Doo-young charges after her, Jong-yeol throws himself in Doo-young’s path, getting stabbed in Eun-jae’s place.

In a reversal of the earlier scenario, Eun-jae cradles a dying Jong-yeol in her lap. Jong-yeol tells her he’s never forgotten her, and before taking his last breath, he confesses, “I like you, Yoo Eun-jae.”

Back in reality, Eun-jae glances back at Jong-yeol again, grinning like a loon, only to have the smile wiped off her face when she gets called on by her professor.

Jin-myung’s about to head out to retrieve Heimdal’s termination contract when she and her team get tasked with a more pressing crisis: a dating scandal involving one of their idol members.

In his dorm, Heimdal stares down at his contract, pen in hand. Just as he’s about to sign, he gets distracted by the filthy kitchen table and wipes it down instead. Afterward, he proceeds to clean every inch of his messy place, leaving the contract unsigned.

At home, Eun tells Ye-ji over the phone that though it doesn’t seem like Doo-young wrote the letter, it could still be possible. Eun says that’s why she’s planning on looking into it herself, but hangs up quickly when Ye-ji starts to nag at her in concern.

Ha, Ye-ji enlists Jang-hoon for help on keeping tabs on Eun—Jang-hoon intercepts the housemate on her way out, telling her that Ye-ji threatened to kill him if anything happens to her. Eun cracks the tiniest of smiles before brushing past Jang-hoon, and he smiles too, before chasing after her.

Eun tells Jang-hoon that she’s on her way to meet with Doo-young to find out if he sent the text to Ye-eun. Gaping at her fearlessness, he reminds Eun how dangerous Doo-young could be, then tells her that she shouldn’t be so confident in dealing with men just because she’s tall.

When Eun ignores him, Jang-hoon grabs her wrist and tells her to try freeing herself. Eun tries a few times to pull her arm away unsuccessfully, and looking satisfied, Jang-hoon starts to lecture Eun about the differences between men and women.

That’s when Eun suddenly lets out a high-pitched scream, causing Jang-hoon to drop her arm like a hot potato. “That’s good, right?” Eun asks, giving Jang-hoon a grin before walking ahead. HA.

At Doo-young’s school, Eun and Jang-hoon ask around about Doo-young, but no one seems have any news on him.

As Ho-chang walks Ye-eun home, he grabs her wrist tightly to shield her from a passerby, then doesn’t let go. Ye-eun’s surprised at first by his protective response, but then she smiles to herself.

Once they reach the Belle Epoque, Ye-eun thanks Ho-chang before turning to head inside. Ho-chang calls out to her (and she turns around awfully quickly, heh) to ask if he visit her place for a few minutes. Ye-eun smiles bashfully and says boys aren’t allowed, but her face falls when Ho-chang reveals the reason why: He really needs to pee.

That evening, Eun and Jang-hoon disappear into a high-rise building, just as Ji-won and Sung-min drive up in a car. Ah, it looks like they’re at Doo-young’s old apartment, and Ji-won tells Sung-min that it’s horrifying to be back.

In the lobby, Ji-won employs an old tactic, rifling through the mailbox to confirm that Doo-young still lives there. Together with Sung-min, she heads for the elevator.

Meanwhile, Eun and Jang-hoon are already at Doo-young’s door, looking nervous. Jang-hoon suggests that Eun ring the doorbell, rationalizing that a girl probably will elicit a better response from Doo-young.

To pretty her up, Jang-hoon takes off Eun’s cap and fixes her hair. He then instructs her to show him a cute expression, demonstrating what he means by widening his eyes and pursing his lips. It takes a minute, but Eun gives him her cutesy face—only to have him burst into laughter.

When she threatens to abort their mission, he quickly tells her that she looks super pretty. She finally rings the doorbell, making her cute face, but no one answers. A few minutes later, though, they hear the chime of the elevator, and Eun sees Sung-min get off.

Sung-min startles at the sight of people in front of Doo-young’s door and quickly turns around, hiding around the corner with Ji-won.

Of course, this raises Eun’s suspicions, and she and Jung-hoon wonder if that guy could be Doo-young. At the same time, Sung-min tells Ji-won about the two “guys” in front of Doo-young’s place—one tall, one short—and asks Ji-won to detail Doo-young’s physical traits, in case one of them matches the description.

Ji-won grabs Sung-min to warn him to be careful. “If something happens to you…” she trails off. Sung-min’s expression wavers, looking expectant and hopeful as he waits for her to finish her thought. But she concludes, “…I’d have to take the bus home.” And poor Sung-min deflates, giving a little bark of frustration.

At the other end of the hall, Jang-hoon tells Eun that he’ll go check out the mystery visitor. The two guys start strolling toward one another, humming to themselves and trying to look casual (but failing miserably).

As the boys approach each other, Jang-hoon notices Ji-won peeking out from around the corner and points at her in recognition. Interpreting Jang-hoon’s move as a threat, Sung-min immediately attacks, and fists start flying.

Ji-won is hilariously slow to make her way toward the boys, unsure of how to break up the fight. Upon spotting her sunbae, Eun rises up from her hiding place and calls out to Ji-won.

Still unaware of the situation, the boys gasp out to their respective ladies to run away. At that, Ji-won just kind of waves her arms around and tells them to stop: “We’re on the same team.” That gets Jang-hoon and Sung-min to pull apart, and they stare at Ji-won in confusion.

No one says much on the car ride home, though Ji-won keeps looking at Sung-min (and his bloody nose) with an amused expression. When they arrive at Belle Epoque, Sung-min “apologizes” for hurting Jang-hoon with his moves, and Jang-hoon tries to act like it was nothing and expresses his own concern for roughing up Sung-min.

Jin-myung and her team are finally able to call it a day after an article goes live with an official denial of the idol dating news. And in his now spotless dorm, Heimdal sits down in front of his contract once more.

At home, Eun-jae grins at the memory of Jong-yeol telling her to be careful earlier that day. Ye-eun smiles too, thinking of Ho-chang protecting her on their walk home, while on the couch, Eun gives the faintest of smiles as she recalls Jang-hoon telling her she’s pretty.

Ji-won bounces out of the bathroom in a great mood, singing SISTAR’s “Shake It.” When housemates start singing along, she gets weirded out, wondering what everyone’s so happy about.

When Jin-myung gets home, Ji-won gathers everyone around the table to share the intel she and Eun dug up today: Doo-young hasn’t shown up to school, but he still seems be living in his old apartment.

Eun-jae mentions that she saw Ye-eun walking home with Ho-chang and warns her to be careful, lest Doo-young get angry about her new boyfriend. The rest of the housemates are shocked to hear that Ye-eun’s dating, but Ye-eun says they’re not in a relationship just yet.

Still, Eun-jae chides Ye-eun to take her time before dating Ho-chang, telling her, “Don’t date just anyone.” Ye-eun protests that she’s not going out with random guys, but Eun-jae points out that Ye-eun herself said that Ho-chang was strange.

Just then, Ye-eun receives a call from her lawyer with some surprising news: Doo-young’s in Canada, having moved there after he was released. Perplexed at this development, the girls try to figure out who might be harassing Ye-eun, if it’s not Doo-young.

As Eun disappears into her room to retrieve the letter, Eun-jae prods Ye-eun to think of another suspect. Ye-eun bristles at Eun-jae’s wording, telling her that she’s making it sound like these things are happening to Ye-eun because she’s indiscriminate with guys.

Eun-jae thinks Ye-eun’s twisting her words, but she adds fuel to the fire when she wonders how Ye-eun wouldn’t know who might hate her enough to harass her. Ye-eun blows up that she doesn’t know: “I’m a bad person, so I’m hated by everyone. That’s why I don’t know who it is. Are you satisfied?”

After Ye-eun stomps off, Eun-jae tries complaining to Jin-myung, but Jin-myung quickly tells her to stop. Jin-myung then notices Eun hovering by her room and asks her what’s going on. Crumpling the letter in her hand, Eun says it’s nothing.

The next day, Eun tells Ye-ji all about the fight between her housemates and confirms that Ye-eun’s harasser isn’t Doo-young. Ye-ji sides with Eun-jae, wondering what Ye-eun’s doing to be hated so much, but Eun defends Ye-eun, saying she’s been traumatized.

Scoffing, Ye-ji says a text and defaced photo can hardly be described as traumatic. She counsels Eun to move out quickly, in case she’s targeted by Ye-eun’s harasser too, and Eun replies that she’ll leave after telling the girls about the letter.

Ye-eun unloads her frustration and anger onto Ho-chang, wailing at how hurtful Eun-jae’s words were. Ho-chang can only nod and say “uh-huh” in response, so Ye-eun loses her temper, asking him if that’s all he can say.

Seeing Ho-chang lower his head, Ye-eun instantly looks regretful. Quietly, she tells Ho-chang that he could have been mistaken about her—she might not be a kind person. Ho-chang quickly reiterates that she is a kind (and pretty) person. But Ye-eun asks sadly, “Then why do people hate me so much?”

Heimdal approaches the Oh & Park building and parks himself outside, holding up a homemade sign in protest. The sign reads:

“Oh & Park needs an awakening! Carry out the seven year contract! Only five years have passed! It was an unfair termination of the contract! The agency is abusing its powers! Do not crush our dreams!”

He’s starting to attract some attention when Jin-myung confronts him, looking horrified. She tells him that he should have told her if he’d had any demands in regards to the contract, then calls him out for protesting without any kind of notification.

He laughs at the notion of “prior notification,” telling Jin-myung that neither she nor the company notified him of their decision to terminate his contract. Before Jin-myung can respond, she gets a call to come back to the office—the company has gotten wind of Heimdal’s protest.

Ji-won spots Sung-min on campus and jumps on him from behind, crowing at him to try to escape. Sung-min ignores her for all of two seconds before he pushes her off and twists her arm behind her back, causing Ji-won to dramatically cry out in pain.

Luckily (?) for her, Sung-min lets go quickly when he notices someone approaching—it’s Ye-eun’s friend Kyung-ah, who tells Ji-won they need to talk.

Kyung-ah confirms that Doo-young’s not in Korea, then asks if there are any other suspects, and whether Ye-eun’s planning on filing a report with the police. Hmm, suspicious much?

Ji-won looks confused by her questions but answers her—there are no suspects, and Ye-eun doesn’t want to involve the police. When she asks Kyung-ah why she’s not asking Ye-eun directly, Kyung-ah vaguely says that there are reasons.

At work, Jin-myung’s boss chews her out, telling her that it’s a skill to be able to tell the difference between something you can do and something you can’t do. He takes her off the Asgard project, and when Jin-myung sits back down at her desk, she looks like she’s on the verge of tears.

Heimdal’s still outside with his sign when Jin-myung leaves work. After a moment of hesitation, she walks right by him without a word.

Back home, things are noticeably frosty between Ye-eun and Eun-jae. Their passive-aggressive squabbling puts Eun squarely in the middle, making her super uncomfortable. Eun practically flies out of her seat to greet Ji-won when she gets home, and Ji-won reassuringly tells her everything will return to normal soon.

Eun gathers her housemates together in an another attempt to tell them about the letter. She starts to tell them her reason for coming to the Belle Epoque… only to be interrupted again by the doorbell.

To Ye-eun’s surprise, it’s her mom—and she’s not happy. After pushing her way inside, Mom sharply tells Ye-eun that she’s moving back home. She says she knows about Ye-eun’s malicious text, and she reminds Ye-eun about their promise to bring her back home at the next sign of trouble.

After Ye-eun gets dragged into her room to pack, the housemates huddle outside her door in worry as Ye-eun’s mom continues to yell. Mom essentially puts all the blame on Ye-eun, telling her, “These things don’t happen to other girls! What’s wrong with you?”

Looking pained for Ye-eun, the housemates are unable to escape the horrible conversation between Ye-eun and her mom. When Ye-eun protests that she didn’t do anything wrong, her mom says Ye-eun’s too boy-crazy, and reiterates that all the things that happened to her are her fault.

Finally, Mom stomps out, telling Ye-eun to come downstairs with her stuff. When Ye-eun emerges from her room, she apologizes to everyone, then says that for now, she should probably leave with her mom.

Eun-jae seems most affected by what she’s heard, and she’s unable to bring herself to help Ye-eun carry out her things. She doesn’t even look up at Ye-eun when she stops in front of her, and Ye-eun just looks at Eun-jae sadly before heading out the door.

Eun-jae does make it outside to see Ye-eun off, and just before Ye-eun turns to get in the car, she grabs Ye-eun’s hand but still can’t say a word. Ye-eun does her best to smile at Eun-jae, asking, “It was uncomfortable because of me, wasn’t it?”

Eun-jae bursts out that it was uncomfortable, but tells Ye-eun not to go. “Why can’t you say anything?” Eun-jae asks angrily. “You’re someone who always says what you need to say, and you’re good with words. You’re able to say mean things to other people—so why aren’t you say anything now?”

She continues that it was Ye-eun’s mom who was in the wrong, and that it wasn’t Ye-eun’s fault: “You’re the victim. Why is she blaming the victim? Tell her to apologize!” Who else thinks Eun-jae’s not just talking to Ye-eun’s mom at this point?

Ye-eun’s mom gets out of the car, telling Eun-jae to speak to her directly if she has something to say, then yelling at Ye-eun to get in. Now sobbing, all Ye-eun can do is hold onto Eun-jae’s hands tightly and choke out her name.

Calmly, Jin-myung speaks up, telling Ye-eun that she thinks it’s a good idea for her to stay. This makes Mom even madder, and she asks the girls what they think they’re doing, and if they’re ready to take responsibility for Ye-eun.

“No,” Jin-myung answers. “We can’t take responsibility. How can we be responsible for someone else’s life? No one can take responsibility—and that applies to you too.” She says that Ye-eun’s going to be responsible for her own life, then turns to Ye-eun: “So, you decide.”

Ye-eun looks at her housemates, then turns around to look at her mom. When her mom’s car pulls away a few minutes later, it’s without Ye-eun inside.

When the girls get back inside, Eun sees the letter sitting on the table and sighs, but doesn’t bother to pick it up.

As they’re lying in bed that night, Ye-eun asks Ji-won if she’s really seen as someone mean, referring back to Eun-jae’s words about her ability to say mean things to others. Sleepily, Ji-won agrees that she is, leaving Ye-eun troubled.

The next morning, Ye-eun picks up Eun’s letter as she’s cleaning. Before Eun has a chance to react, the doorbell rings—and this time, it’s Eun’s dad.

Outside, Dad tries to introduces Eun to her half-sister, but Eun cuts through his small talk and asks him point-blank what he wants. Dad admits that he needs Eun’s help in convincing her mom to agree to a divorce.

At first, Eun icily asks why she’d do such a thing, but she switches course after glancing down at her sister. Eun says she’ll help Dad, but only if he answers a question: “If you find someone better later on, will you throw away everything and leave again? Will you leave her, and leave her mom?”

She repeats her question a few times, but her dad doesn’t answer, instead telling Eun that he’s sorry. Numbly, Eun watches her dad walk away from her, holding tightly onto his young daughter’s hand.

Eun doesn’t even notice when Jang-hoon pulls up on his bike a few seconds later, ringing his bell at her for being in his way. Still staring in the direction of her father, she says, “Why am I like this? Even I don’t like myself.”

And in voiceover, she says, “That’s why I can’t ask someone else to like me.” Oof.

She continues in this same vein, saying one thing out loud and finishing her thoughts in her head. “If I was going to be mean, I should have been mean until the end, but I couldn’t go all the way,” she says out loud.

Internally, she adds, “Hate that’s awkwardly in between. Regret that’s awkwardly in between. Hope that’s awkwardly in between.”

As Jang-hoon stares up at her in confusion, Eun says that it would have been nice if she was simpler and more honest. Then, to herself: “Maybe, there could be someone out there who could like a person like me…”

But when she looks over at Jang-hoon, she thinks, “It’s useless. He’ll laugh at me.”

As she walks back inside, Eun narrates that it’s better to be lonely than to be made fun of. “If I don’t like anyone, then I won’t get hurt. If I don’t want anything, then I won’t be sad. Don’t have hope that will amount to nothing. Don’t wish for anything. Close the door tightly.”

At home, Ye-eun hands Eun the (unread) letter, returning it to her. Eun looks down at it and continues: “If I pretend not to know, I can go back to the way things used to be. If I don’t show interest, then other people won’t be interested in me, either.”

Finally, Eun tells her housemates why she’s at the Belle Epoque. “It’s because of this,” she says, pulling out the letter. “The reason I came to this house. It’s because of this letter.”

Epilogue

In a lingerie store, Eun-jae gravitates to a rack of pastel-colored bras and underwear, only to be told that she’s looking in the juniors section. Eun walks in next, and she immediately takes a liking to a racy, all-black leather ensemble on the mannequin.

Ji-won goes straight for color, picking out a bright red bra that looks way too big for her. The sales associate delicately asks Ji-won her size, and when Ji-won says she’s a D-cup, the associate offers to measure her.

Ye-eun brings Ho-chang to the store and asks for his opinion on a lacy chemise, but he keeps his eyes shut in embarrassment. And finally, Jin-myung heads straight to the sale section, efficient as always.

 
COMMENTS

Eun continues to break my heart with every new piece of information we learn about her—in addition to having to deal with her angry mother, we see this hour that Eun’s worst thoughts about herself are being reinforced by Eun’s father, who seems to care much more about moving on with his new life than about being any sort of a parental figure to her. It’s no wonder the girl has such trust issues!

It’s funny—I was so turned off by Eun when she was first introduced, but it didn’t take long for me to come around, and now I find her fascinating. I’ve really enjoyed watching Eun warm up to her new roommates (and to Jang-hoon, of course), so it bums me out that just as she’s starting to open up and acknowledge that she could actually care and be cared for by others, her terrible relationship with her parents is bringing her back to where she started from. I can only hope that our Belle Epoque crew won’t let Eun push them away that easily, and that Eun will slowly start to see herself for who she really is: a sensitive, sweet soul who’s definitely lovable, no matter what she thinks about herself.

I can’t tell you how thankful I was that Doo-young made his reappearance only through Eun-jae’s crazy daydreams and not in real life. Though the threat of Doo-young’s return made for some great comedy (that whole sequence at Doo-young’s old apartment had me in stiches), the show’s been so thoughtful about handling Ye-eun’s post-trauma journey this season that it would have been jarring to have Doo-young come back into the picture to seek out revenge. I much prefer the route that the show seems to be taking, since there’s so much to mine from Ye-eun’s continuing recovery.

I like that we’re spending some time on how others are reacting to and affected by Ye-eun’s experiences, and how that in turn informs Ye-eun’s road back to a normal life. There’s Ho-chang and his undramatic but protective responses to Ye-eun’s experiences; Ye-eun’s suspicious friends are also showing us how a close friend’s support can quickly turn into something negative. And though there’s nothing good I have to say about Ye-eun’s mom, her awful response to the newest threat in Ye-eun’s life gave us insight the kinds of obstacles that Ye-eun continues to face as she attempts to move forward with her life.

But what surprised me most about Ye-eun’s storyline this hour was her conflict with Eun-jae. I have to admit, I almost forgot that Ye-eun’s kidnapping had traumatic associations for Eun-jae too, and that she’s coming out of that experience with physical and mental scars of her own. I still didn’t love that Eun-jae’s reaction to Ye-eun’s budding relationship with Ho-chang was negative from the get-go, but I understand where she might be coming from. It was good to see that hearing the harsh words from Ye-eun’s mom actually helped Eun-jae see what she was doing to Ye-eun, and in turn, apologize in her own way by helping Ye-eun stand up to her mom.

Like all great slice-of-life shows, the best parts of this series are underscored in the little moments our housemates have with one another and with others. I especially love that the girls remain true to the characters we’ve come to know over the course of a season and a half: Eun-jae’s still in her head, self-absorbed, and sometimes unpredictable in the things she does or says. Jin-myung continues to be the steady head of the household, all the while keeping a tight lid on the external pressures she’s facing at work. And Ji-won, oh Ji-won. She may be the funny mood-setter, but when it matters, she’s fiercely supportive and loyal. Now, I’m getting a little worried that something dark’s on the horizon for her, given last episode’s epilogue and her reference this hour about being the supportive friend who gets killed first. But I’m going to wave those bad feelings away and just hope that we’ll get more scenes of her and Sung-min annoying one another, because really, there’s nothing better than that to make me feel like all’s right in the world.

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• A new housemate and a new mystery for Age of Youth 2
• Spot the odd one out in character posters for Age of Youth 2
• The Tall One stares down naked Kim Min-seok in Age of Youth 2 teaser
• The housemates of Belle Epoque pair up with their partners for a dance