Woohoo Waikiki: Episode 14

by LollyPip

Every success comes with its share of setbacks, though it feels like the Waikiki crew gets more setbacks than successes. But at least they keep trying, never giving up on their dreams. You have to admire their commitment to do whatever it takes to get what they want, whether it’s personal or professional.

 
EPISODE 14: “The morning dew in Columbia/No matter how much I think about it”

Joon-ki shoots a tense scene for his drama with his costar, Jae-hyun (cameo by Song Jae-hee) that culminates in Joon-ki throwing a hard punch. Once it’s over, Joon-ki apologizes for being overly enthusiastic, but Jae-hyun reassures him that it’s fine.

Someone brings Joon-ki his phone, which has been ringing nonstop. Stunned, Joon-ki tells Jae-hyun that he just got his first offer to film a commercial, and not only that, but it’s for a coffee brand. Jae-hyun marvels that even he hasn’t gotten a coffee CF yet.

Later, Joon-ki makes the whole house watch the punch scene multiple times until even Seo-jin is nodding off. Dong-gu asks why anyone would give Joon-ki a coffee CF, which are usually the domain of top stars, and when Joon-ki starts to re-enact his punch scene, Dong-gu points his cane in his face and stops him in his tracks.

Soo-ah asks for borrow Joon-ki’s car, Rebecca, to practice her driving. Joon-ki agrees, since Rebecca is so sturdy, though he tells Soo-ah not to open the right-side window, remembering Seo-jin’s arm getting stuck and slapping someone in the face. Joon-ki asks who will teach her, and she voluntells Doo-shik for the job. She drags him out without even giving him time to put on socks (even high-fiving his foot, ha).

Once they’re in the car, Soo-ah slips on some lacy gloves as she explains that she hasn’t driven since getting her driver’s license eight years ago. She asks Doo-shik which pedal is the brake, and he tries the broken seat belt.

Panicking, he can’t even get out of the car because of the broken door, so he crawls out through the back seat. He makes some signs for the back window warning other drivers: “Can’t tell brake from accelerator,” “Beginner driver, future murderer,” ha.

Someone grabs Seo-jin on her way home from work, and she beats the tar out of him until he shows her he’s Joon-ki. He’s still terrified that Dong-gu will find out about their relationship, but he cheers up as he tells Seo-jin how proud his dad is that he’s doing a coffee CF. They hide again when they spot Dong-gu searching for Seo-jin, determined to catch her dating Joon-ki.

As she’s driving, Soo-ah uses both hands to rummage through her purse, causing Doo-shik to lunge over and grab the wheel. She puts on her sunglasses and primps, as Doo-shik yells at her to pay attention to her driving.

Meanwhile, Sol watches Dong-gu hollowing out several huge leaves of bread for the spy hero of his movie to hide his weapon inside. Yoon-ah wants to practice at Hyun-joon’s bakery again, so he thinks of some repair projects that need doing, but she’s already fixed everything. She leaves, and Dong-gu tells Sol that her mommy can even weld now, hee.

Joon-ki gets some bad news — the advertisers decided to also consider Jae-hyun for their CF because of Jae-hyun’s famous smile, a “smile as fresh as morning dew.” Jae-hyun claims to feel bad about possibly taking away Joon-ki’s first commercial, but he starts flashing that smile at the advertisers even when he hurts himself.

Guessing that Jae-hyun is showing off, Joon-ki pretends to get a call saying that Dong-gu is in the hospital, just so he can beam a smile of his own through his supposed pain. Jae-hyun looks alarmed, so he emphasizes words with the “ee” sound so he can smile, and Joon-ki follows suit.

Doo-shik is a nervous wreck with Soo-ah behind the wheel, yelling at her for fixing her makeup and ordering her to slow down. The brake pedal actually falls off while they’re on a hill, as does the hand brake, and unfortunately Doo-shik can’t call for help because he left his phone on top of the car.

He sticks his arm up through Rebecca’s cracked window to reach for his phone, but it closes on his arm the same way it did to Seo-jin. He tells Soo-ah to aim into a construction site and has her drive in circles, hoping to stop the car’s forward momentum.

At lunch with the advertisers, Joon-ki and Jae-hyun continue to compete for reasons to smile. Jae-hyun asks about the commercial’s concept, and he’s told that in addition to their smile, they should have a facial expression “as rich as a rainbow.” What does that even mean?

Whatever it means, Jae-hyun gives it his best shot, though he ends up looking a bit demented. Joon-ki tries to keep up, eating spicy peppers and drinking his soup to encourage his own expressions.

While circling the construction site aimlessly, Soo-ah starts to realize that she needs to fart. When it happens, she honks Rebecca’s horn to mask the noise, but there’s nothing she can do to keep Doo-shik from smelling it. She’s forced to admit it, but she lectures him that he’s supposed to pretend not to know when a lady farts.

She snaps that this is why he’s never dated, and he objects to her making fun of him. They continue to drive Rebecca in circles, bickering loudly and occasionally honking the horn.

Joon-ki and Jae-hyun are told that the advertisers will also choose between them based on their voice, which should be “like coffee powder melting in hot water.” Jae-hyun orders more soup, making his voice sound dramatic and smooth. Feeling threatened, Joon-ki fakes another phone call and breaks into song, explaining that his friend Dong-gu is having surgery and wanted to hear him sing. HA, actual Dong-gu would probably hit him.

In the circling car, Doo-shik is now also having stomach issues, and they both start to wonder if there was something wrong with the pizza they eat earlier. Soo-ah keeps honking the horn to hide her farts, and eventually Doo-shik blows up at her, yelling that he’s about to have an accident.

As Yoon-ah practices her baking skills, she notices that Hyun-joon looks happiest when he bakes. He says that he always wanted to be a pastry chef, but Yoon-ah admits that she had a different dream, that she had to give up.

She tells him that she wanted to be a rapper, but that people don’t get her swag. She performs an impromptu rap about Hyun-joon’s dream to be a pastry chef, and the look on his face is every bit as hysterical as you can imagine.

While Joon-ki and Jae-hyun wait for the advertisers to make a decision between them, Jae-hyun fake-grumbles that he has no intention of taking a coffee CF so they’re wasting his time. Joon-ki steps out to take a call from his father, and he accidentally overhears the female advertiser on the phone, offering to cast Jae-hyun in return for a designer handbag.

Soo-ah’s stomach situation grows desperate, so she asks Doo-shik to hold the wheel and threatens to jump out of the car. As he’s begging her not to do it, Rebecca runs out of gas and sputters to a stop. They wail and hug each other in relief, then break apart again when their stomachs rumble ominously.

Luckily there are some baby wipes in the glove compartment, but when they realize there’s only one left, the air grows tense again. Doo-shik refuses to hand it over, calling it the “last bastion of my humanity.” Soo-ah breathes that she understands and will try to get through this somehow.

Realizing that he’s stuck anyway, Doo-shik holds out the wipe with a shaking hand. The theme song from Titanic swells in the background as he tells her dramatically that it’s too late for him, as his hand flutters weakly in the air. She asks him for one last favor, which he performs under protest — honking the horn to a cover the unladylike noises she’s making in the weeds.

Dong-gu waits nervously for Yoon-ah to return from the bakery, and he glowers when Hyun-joon accompanies her into the house. Hyun-joon watches as Dong-gu chastises Yoon-ah for neglecting her duties and sends her to clean the kitchen, then it’s Dong-gu’s turn to gape when Hyun-joon gives Yoon-ah a mini oven in return for her rap.

After she leaves, Dong-gu tells Hyun-joon that it impacts their business when Yoon-ah comes home late like this. Hyun-joon just chuckles that seeing Dong-gu so nervous makes him feel better. He leaves Dong-gu gnawing his fingernails, muttering that he’s not one single bit nervous.

When Joon-ki shuffles home, he forces a smile and tells Yoon-ah and Seo-jin that he failed to get the coffee CF, just like he always fails auditions. He tells them about the advertiser taking a bribe, mumbling that he should just accept his lack of money or connections (that he’s willing to exploit). He sighs that he’s fine, but he’s worried about disappointing his father.

When Doo-shik and Soo-ah arrive, they both look pale and sickly, and Doo-shik is wearing Soo-ah’s dress. He tells the others in a haunted voice not to ask them what happened. He promises Soo-ah he’ll return her dress tomorrow, but she says he can keep it, and he gives her a beatific smile. Doo-shik also tells Joon-ki that it would be best if he scrapped Rebecca, refusing to give a reason why. EWWW.

Joon-ki is still depressed when the coffee commercial is aired, but seeing it makes him feel a bit better. Jae-hyun’s smile is superimposed on coffee beans and coffee powder, which looks ridiculous, and Joon-ki grins at the fact that Jae-hyun went to such lengths and ended up looking stupid. He’s instantly back to his old self, to everyone’s relief.

In their room, Joon-ki finds Joon-ki holding a memorial service for his camera, Olivia, the one Joon-ki broke. Joon-ki calls Dong-gu crazy, but he offers to buy him a nicer camera when he gets paid.

Doo-shik shows Joon-ki an exciting game he invented — indoor skeleton, where they ride dollies down the hallway for the best time. Seo-jin kicks Joon-ki off his dolly, calling him childish, then reminds him that they’re meeting with her friends today.

Her friend Ji-young finds Joon-ki handsome and funny, and calls Seo-jin lucky to have found such a great boyfriend. Ji-young’s boyfriend is a potter, and he invites Joon-ki and Seo-jin to his studio sometime.

But Joon-ki goes a bit too far with his humor, embarrassing Seo-jin. She leaves the restaurant angry that he was being so silly in front of her friend, and she asks why he never acts like an adult. He says he’ll be careful, but she wants him to stop with all the silliness. Joon-ki looks unsure, but he promises.

When they get home, Doo-shik is ready for another indoor skeleton match, but Joon-ki tells him that he isn’t going to do things like that anymore. Poor Doo-shik is upset, but Seo-jin looks triumphant.

While Yoon-ah is making muffins at the bakery, Hyun-joon brings her her cut of the muffins’ earnings. She looks stunned, and she feels like she doesn’t deserve it, but she eventually takes the money.

Yoon-ah uses her first pay from her muffins to buy everyone a gift, but they’re all bizarre. Doo-shik’s is an elephant hat, Joon-ki’s is a dumb clown tie, Soo-ah gets a kiddie mirror, and Seo-jin gets a brush to apply shaving cream.

Yoon-ah also bought Dong-gu a sweater with a yellow chick on it, which he gives the hairy eyeball, but he perks up when she asks him to lunch tomorrow as thanks for everything he’s done for her. Eager to make her happy, he shows up wearing the chick shirt. To his horror, she’s invited Hyun-joon to join them, and he’s wearing an identical chick shirt, lol.

When they get to the restaurant, Dong-gu pulls Hyun-joon aside to tell him that they may be enemies, but they should play fair, like men. To accomplish that, they both sit across from Yoon-ah at the table so that neither of them gets the advantage of sitting beside her. She steps away to take a call, leaving them sitting together, drawing looks from other diners who obviously think they’re a couple in their matching shirts.

Seo-jin and Joon-ki visit Ji-young’s boyfriends pottery like they promised, and poor Joon-ki looks simply miserable. He can’t resist fooling around once, but Seo-jin swiftly orders him to be serious. Meanwhile, back home, Soo-ah offers to play indoor skeleton with Doo-shik, but she’s pathetically bad at it so he tells her that she doesn’t have the same sense of fun as Joon-ki.

After lunch, Yoon-ah notices a lot of people on bikes, so Hyun-joon offers to rent one but Dong-gu beats him to it. He rents one single bike and one tandem bike, and the guys argue over who gets to ride with Yoon-ah.

In the spirit of fair play, they’re forced to let Yoon-ah ride the single, leaving them sharing the tandem bike, again looking like an adorable couple. HA, Hyun-joon tries to hide his face in Dong-gu’s back, which only looks like they’re cuddling.

Poor Joon-ki is pretty deflated over tea with Seo-jin and her friends, but he can’t resist pretending that a pine from his tea is a tooth falling out. Ji-young and her boyfriend crack up at his dumb joke, but then Seo-jin asks him what’s wrong, and he realizes that he was just daydreaming. He just sits there with the nut in his hand, defeated.

Hyun-joon and Dong-gu snarl at each other under their breath over beers with Yoon-ah, each preferring that the other weren’t there. While she’s in the restroom, the owner of the bar announces a special couples’ event to celebrate the bar’s one-year anniversary, and Dong-gu’s eyes light up at the sight of the grand prize — a new DSLR camera.

Desperate to win that camera, Dong-gu fidgets when the owner invites couples up to compete and Yoon-ah hasn’t returned. Hyun-joon says it would be cheating for Dong-gu to pretend to be a couple with Yoon-ah, so, realizing that they look like a couple anyway in their shirts, Dong-gu begs Hyun-joon to be his partner.

Hyun-joon resists, until Dong-gu offers to trade Hyun-joon the advantage with Yoon-ah — getting to sit beside her and riding the bike with her — for his cooperation, but only if they win. The competition involves Hyun-joon standing on Dong-gu’s knees, while Dong-gu has to balance both of them. Yoon-ah returns to see them roaring encouragement to each other, suddenly working as a team.

When they get home, Seo-jin wants to share some ramyun, but Joon-ki says he’s not hungry in a dead voice. He shows some life when Doo-shik waves the helmet and dolly at him, then he remembers his promise to Seo-jin and slumps off to his room. He and Doo-shik think about how much fun they have together, and they both cry, missing their friend.

Hyun-joon piggybacks an exhausted Dong-gu home like a toddler after a day at the amusement park, and yay, Dong-gu won the camera! Hyun-joon carries Dong-gu to bed, and when Dong-gu slurs sleepily for him to leave, Hyun-joon reminds him that he helped him win that camera.

He says Dong-gu should be thanking him, but Dong-gu retorts that Hyun-joon ruined his first date with Yoon-ah. Hyun-joon gasps that he feels the same way.

When Yoon-ah and Seo-jin come in to bring them some water, they find the guys fast asleep in a tangled heap like a basket full of puppies. Seo-jin grumbles that they look like newlyweds, but Yoon-ah just smiles.

Dong-gu and Hyun-joon are still asleep when Soo-ah says at breakfast that they’ll never become friends. Yoon-ah asks why, but Soo-ah doesn’t explain. Joon-ki comes in looking like he hasn’t slept a wink, and when he tries to talk to Doo-shik, Doo-shik walks away angrily. Joon-ki says he’s fine, then he clutches his chest and collapses on the table.

Seo-jin takes him to the hospital, where tests show that he’s very sick, but the doctor can’t figure out what’s causing it. He asks if Joon-ki suffered a bad shock lately, so she tells him about how Joon-ki got quiet after being told not to joke around. The doctor says that being able to joke must be critical to Joon-ki’s life.

Seo-jin goes back to Joon-ki and tells him that he may die, but that he’ll get better if he jokes around more. She admits that he’s sick because she wouldn’t allow him to be silly, so she gives him permission to play as much as he wants. He says there’s something he’s always wanted to try, and he grabs a nearby mirror to horse around with his reflection.

Doo-shik is also depressed and refusing to eat, but he tells Soo-ah that he doesn’t know what’s wrong. Joon-ki runs to him, wearing his skeleton helmet and begging Doo-shik’s forgiveness. They share a dramatic bromance reunion, then they run off to play an even better game — indoor skeleton bowling.

Seo-jin and Soo-ah watch the two goofs, back to their old selves and behaving like four-year-olds. They don’t understand the guys, but they figure they may as well give up trying.

COMMENTS

Awww, I hate when Joon-ki is sad, and we had to see it twice in one episode! Being an actor requires the ability to take a lot of rejection, but it does get to you eventually, and Joon-ki finally hit that wall. Seeing Joon-ki so beaten by loosing the CF to someone else was difficult, because he’s usually so positive even when he bungles an audition or just doesn’t get cast for whatever reason. It was particularly difficult because he only lost the commercial because the other guy had a connection he was willing to exploit, when it’s so important to Joon-ki to do this without his famous father’s interference or money.

He knows that it means nothing to get something you didn’t earn through your own hard work or talent, and he desperately wants to become a successful actor for his abilities alone. So to continually lose out because someone else is willing and able to pull strings must be so disheartening. That’s why I’m hoping that nothing happens to screw up his role in this drama, because so far he’s doing great and it could lead to bigger things. And best of all, even though he tugged a tiny thread to get an audition, he landed the role solely on his talent.

I was so glad that the commercial turned out to be humiliating and that Joon-ki got his mojo back. But then Seo-jin turned around and squashed it, forbidding him to be silly, and all the light went out of him again. You can’t take a guy like Joon-ki and tell him to be serious all the time, and expect him to be happy. People do this all the time — they get into a relationship, then try to change the person they’re with. I don’t get it, because then they’re no longer the person you fell for. Especially in Joon-ki’s case, when his effervescent personality is so crucial to who he is as a person. I can understand Seo-jin wanting him to have a better sense of when it’s appropriate to act up, but completely crushing his personality was cruel. I wish she’d learned that what she was asking of Joon-ki was wrong because it was wrong, not because it made him sick, but at least she backed down and let him be himself.

Watching Dong-gu and Hyun-joon fight against each other, then for each other, was my favorite part of this episode. I really like both of the guys, and although I usually get annoyed when two people jockey to win someone’s affections as if the person in question has no say in the matter, I genuinely enjoy Hyun-joon and Dong-gu’s little competition to win Yoon-ah’s heart. What makes it interesting is that they may argue and trade barbed remarks, but they never really sink to true nastiness, and they don’t cheat or sabotage each other. Dong-gu won that gonggi tournament fair and square by good honest practice, and while Hyun-joon used his bakery to gain Yoon-ah’s favor, it wouldn’t have worked if her muffins weren’t genuinely good. On their trio date, both guys repeatedly sacrificed their dignity in order to make sure neither had an unfair advantage. And when it came down to it, they made a pretty good team while trying to win that camera for Dong-gu. They’re downright adorable together, and I keep hoping that they will eventually become fast friends rather than let a woman come between them.

I know I keep saying this, but how does Woohoo Waikiki manage to just get better and better every week? From the original descriptions and promos, I expected it to be cute and fun, but it’s so much more than that. It’s just a perfect storm of writing, directing, and performance, and honestly I think I could watch these silly people forever. Generally, by this point in a drama, I’m ready for things to be wrapped up and finished because the story has pretty much been told, but with Waikiki, there’s still so much story left to tell. I’m going to be very sad to see the Waikiki crew go in a few weeks, especially Dong-gu, Joon-ki, and Doo-shik. But I have a feeling that this is the drama that will catapult Kim Jung-hyun, Lee Yi-kyung, and Sohn Seung-won into top stardom (if they choose their next projects right), so I think we’ll be seeing a lot of them in the near future.

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