Woohoo Waikiki: Episode 18

by LollyPip

One of the fun things about this show is that although the Waikiki housemates are constantly learning life lessons, they never run out of ways to get themselves into strange situations. Between their careers and their love lives, there’s no shortage of opportunities for embarrassment.

 
EPISODE 18: “Stalker/Dancing with Elizabeth”

At the end of the day’s drama shooting, Joon-ki is nearly flattened by a screaming mob of his costar’s fans. At the house, Seo-jin notices that Joon-ki is a bit down, and he admits that he thought he’d start to amass some fans when he got this drama role. Awww.

Dong-gu, Yoon-ah, and Sol return from grocery shopping. Seo-jin remarks that they look like newlyweds, and Joon-ki asks if Dong-gu is Sol’s daddy now. They say that’s not true, but all three of them (Dong-gu, Yoon-ah, and Sol) break into huge grins.

Joon-ki gets a package from an unknown sender, which is full of photos of him, with Oppa I love you! and FOREVER written on them in what looks like blood. He gets a call from an unknown woman who asks if he got her gift.

She says that her name is Jin-joo and gets very upset when he doesn’t know her, sobbing that she watches him on TV and thinks about him constantly. She hangs up, leaving Joon-ki wondering what just happened. Seo-jin worries that Joon-ki has a stalker, but he just chirps happily, “I have a fan!”

While playing video games, Soo-ah gets angry with Doo-shik for beating her, then uses his apology as an opening to win. HA, she’s so devious. She sends him to make ramyun and tells Seo-jin that she doesn’t know why she’s always making fun of Doo-shik, but that it’s fun.

Joon-ki calls Seo-jin from the police station — they caught his stalker. Jin-joo (cameo by Ryu Hye-rin) moans that she’s very sorry, but he’s so handsome and she likes him so much that she couldn’t help herself. She bursts into tears, sobbing that she didn’t have any bad intentions, so Joon-ki takes pity on her and doesn’t press charges.

On their way out, he asks Jin-joo if she really likes him that much. She says that she really does, listing every one of his drama roles. Joon-ki is so excited to have a true fan that he invites Jin-joo to call him or even come visit sometimes, but it’s worrying that she already knows his address and even knows which bedroom is his. Joon-ki doesn’t see the red flag and invites her to have ddukbokki.

Doo-shik takes photos of a new model, Ah-young, for Soo-ah’s online shopping mall. By the besotted expression on Doo-shik’s face, I’d say he’s fallen in love again. Soo-ah can hear his heart pounding and when Ah-young comes back from a break, she asks Ah-young out to a movie on Doo-shik’s behalf.

The next morning, Joon-ki wakes up to find Jin-joo sitting beside his bed, watching him sleep. She says that he invited her to come over, so she’s been there since midnight. Okay, that’s a big fat NOPE.

Joon-ki realizes that she’s cropped herself into all of the photos on his nightstand, covering up whoever is really in the pictures. Jin-joo says that she hates seeing him with anyone but her, and her face goes scarily blank as she asks if he doesn’t like what she did, so he says nervously that it’s fine.

Dong-gu wakes, wondering who the stranger is. Jin-joo gives him that same eery expression and asks why it’s his business, so he wisely pretends to go back to sleep. She runs downstairs to make breakfast, and Dong-gu and Doo-shik both pop up out of bed, freaking out over the scary lady. They’re even more alarmed when Joon-ki says that Jin-joo is the same person who sent the bloody photos, but he insists that she’s just a fan who likes him a lot.

Ah-young shows up for her date with Doo-shik in a pretty dress and notes that he sure likes sweatpants. She’s in a bad mood after the movie, but all she says is that she’s disappointed in Doo-shik before storming off.

Back at home, Dong-gu tries to teach Sol to say “daddy,” without much luck. Doo-shik arrives depressed and tells Dong-gu about Ah-young’s strange behavior after the movie, but he can’t figure out what he did wrong. He also tells Soo-ah, who immediately knows why Ah-young got angry — he wore sweatpants on their first date.

Doo-shik pouts that he wore his very prettiest sweatpants, and Dong-gu agrees that he looks spiffy. Soo-ah sighs that they don’t understand girls, and she advises Doo-shik to be careful because Ah-young is sensitive.

Doo-shik is dressed a lot more nicely when he goes to apologize to Ah-young for not putting enough care into their date. He preens for her, making her giggle, then takes her for some cake. She tells him that she’s been stressed at work because a sunbae makes her do all of his projects, and he vents to her about his annoyance with demanding online mall customers.

She suddenly stands to leave, upset again. She doesn’t tell him why this time, either, she just leaves angry. But later Soo-ah explains that it’s because Doo-shik talked about his own problem instead of sympathizing with Ah-young about hers.

Joon-ki is happy to see Jin-joo again at the end of his shooting day, until he notices that she’s actually there for her favorite idol group’s concert. He gets a little jealous, though she assures him that he’s her very favorite actor — then she actually shoves him aside when her idol oppas show up, lol.

He goes home to set up some snacks for Jin-joo, who promised to come to the house to watch tonight’s episode of his drama after the concert. Soo-ah is horrified that he’s doing all this for his stalker, but he snaps that she’s his fan, okay? He calls her when she doesn’t shown up, and he gets upset that she’s avoiding his calls. Is he about to become his stalker’s stalker?

LOL, yep. Jin-joo is startled to find Joon-ki waiting outside her house the next morning, acting just as creepy as she did when she asks how he knew her address. She explains that the concert ended late and she hasn’t watched last night’s drama episode yet, and she nervously accepts Joon-ki’s offer to watch it with him at the guesthouse later.

Doo-shik apologizes to Ah-young for being insensitive and talking about himself, and she softens up when she realizes that he knows what he did wrong. He asks if she wants to do something, and she immediately calls him terrible because he didn’t have anything already planned.

Thinking fast, Doo-shik says he’s sorry and invites her to walk in the park to see the cherry blossoms. Again Ah-young snaps at him, this time for not noticing she’s wearing heels and that a walk in the park would hurt her feet. Okay, she’s being a bit too sensitive.

Joon-ki texts Jin-joo while she’s waiting to see her idol oppas, asking why she hasn’t come to watch his drama then getting more upset that she’s not answering. She grumbles that he’s too persistent and turns off her phone when he calls again, only to have him creep up right behind her. Geez, don’t do that!

He’s annoyed that she’s here to see her idols, so she stammers that she was just about to head to his place. He drags her off, and at the house he gives her a gift — matching t- t-shirts with his picture on them and a ginormous Joon-ki lightstick. Jin-joo pretends she likes it just to avoid his wrath.

During the show, Joon-ki catches Jin-joo nodding off and growls at her for not waving the lightstick. She awkwardly waves it while yawning, which also gets his attention, so she fibs that she was just sooo impressed by his acting.

Soo-ah sees Doo-shik and Ah-young playing video games, and she wilts a little to see another woman in her place. Ah-young pitches a fit when Doo-shik wins, forcing Doo-shik to profusely apologize for the millionth time.

Doo-shik sees Soo-ah standing there holding a new game, and he says he’ll play it with her later. She decides she can play alone, but she quickly realizes that it’s no fun without Doo-shik. He comes back to get her advice on confessing to Ah-young, and at first she refuses to help him, but then she gets an awful idea.

Later, Doo-shik shows up at Ah-young’s workplace, wearing a bowler hat, suspenders, and tap shoes. He does an adorable little dance for her, drawing a crowd of her coworkers. Then a clown on stilts (is that Dong-gu?) shows up to throw confetti on them as Doo-shik kneels and asks Ah-young to be his girlfriend.

She takes a bouquet of flowers from him… and smacks him upside the face with them. So much for that confession, and also, Soo-ah is an evil genius.

Jin-joo has another mountain of texts from Joon-ki when she checks her phone, asking if she’s been with her idol oppas. She mutters that he’s a total stalker, then finds him sitting in her living room waiting for her. He says ominously that he’s here because she’s not answering his calls and he’s worried.

Next thing you know, they’re at the police station, but this time it’s Joon-ki protesting that he’s not a stalker. Jin-joo looks terrified, and she tells the detective that she wants him punished. He ends up with a restraining order against him, but he’s mostly upset that he lost his first and only fan.

Doo-shik and Dong-gu arrive home looking depressed (and HA, the clown was Dong-gu). After hearing the story, Seo-jin and Yoon-ah tell Doo-shik that any girl would hate a confession like he performed today, and Doo-shik lights into Soo-ah for saying that girls love that sort of thing. She gives him the most insincere apology ever, then heads to bed looking smug.

Dong-gu meets Yoon-ah for another date, and he uses the excuse that he just wants to warm her up to hold her hand. Yoon-ah sees right through him, but she indulges him.

Doo-shik is still angry with Soo-ah for advising him to put on an embarrassing public confession, but she says oh-so-innocently that she just loooves tap dancing. Joon-ki arrives home, and Seo-jin complains that they haven’t been on a date in ages. He invites her to see a movie with him tomorrow, since he’ll be finished shooting early.

In their room, Joon-ki tells Doo-shik that he’s exhausted, but he feels lucky to be pursuing his acting career. Dong-gu bursts in, in a great mood after his romantic date, and the guys assume that he’s getting some kissing action. Dong-gu says that they kissed at the wedding, but Joon-ki decides it doesn’t count, which means they haven’t had their first kiss yet.

He asks if they’ve even held hands, making Dong-gu yell that of course they have (“We hold hands every day. We hold them really hard!” LOL). He gets teased, so he argues that you can’t measure love with skinship. He deflects by asking Joon-ki if he’s been kissing his sister, and Joon-ki flops helplessly while Dong-gu throttles him.

Later, Dong-gu gets ideas when he wipes something off Yoon-ah’s face and feels how soft her lips are. His mind goes blank except for the repeating thought, “I want to kiss her… I want to kiss her…”

He snaps out of it and heads to work, but he’s so distracted that when the director asks him for an idea of a secret signal for the movie characters, he blurts out, “Kiss!!” The director loves it, and the guy who’s been jealous of Dong-gu’s accidental brilliance quits on the spot.

Joon-ki has coffee with his drama costar, Sung-bin (cameo by Kwon Soo-hyun), who learns that Joon-ki doesn’t have a management team, and does his own scheduling and styling. He offers to arrange a meeting for Joon-ki at his management company, one of the heavy-hitters in the business.

He leaves, and Joon-ki is brought a copy of the revised script, which contains a new scene where his character cries while staring at someone named Elizabeth. Elizabeth turns out to be his character’s new pet, a turtle, her shell meant to symbolize his struggles.

Back on the set, Joon-ki has a hard time figuring out how to relate to this change in the script. He does his best, but he can’t manage to emotionally connect with the turtle. LOL, he’s so befuddled, it’s hilarious.

On their date last night, Dong-gu keeps staring at Yoon-ah’s lips and thinking about kissing her, until she notices that something is bothering him. He sits her on a bench and tells her that he’s having a hard time between his movie and the guesthouse’s low income, so he needs something to keep him going.

She tells him to cheer up, but he says that’s not enough and mumbles a request for a kiss. He insists that it’s not that he really wants to kiss her, it’sonly to cheer him up. Yoon-ah laughs at his puppydog pout, but she agrees and closes her eyes. Dong-gu slowly slides his hand to the back of her neck and leans in… and Yoon-ah busts out laughing.

She explains apologetically that she’s incredibly ticklish, so Dong-gu tries again, this time putting a hand on her waist. That’s no better, so for his third try, he lightly places his hands on her shoulders. Unfortunately, she’s even ticklish there, and Dong-gu watches his chances at a kiss go flying away.

Soo-ah is still looking smugly satisfied as Doo-shik whines that Ah-young won’t answer his messages. Seo-jin gets dressed up for her date with Joon-ki, but he comes home carrying Elizabeth’s tank and tells Seo-jin that he can’t go to a movie because he has to connect with the turtle. He promises to take Seo-jin to a fancy dinner and a movie tomorrow.

He spends the evening trying to create a bond with Elizabeth, asking her questions about herself like her favorite book and where she was born, ha. Dong-gu wants his advice, but he frames it as if there’s a character in his movie whose girlfriend is so ticklish that he can’t kiss her. Joon-ki knows he’s talking about Yoon-ah, and his advice is to just not use his hands.

His suggestion to hold Yoon-ah’s hair instead sounds ridiculous to Dong-gu, but he’s desperate enough to try it. He ends up grabbing double handfuls of her hair, which looks silly, but he says it’s the only way. She lets him try, but just as he’s about to finally do the deed, she starts laughing again – his breath is ticking her face. But holding his breath just results in Dong-gu running out of oxygen and blowing air in her face.

In the morning, Joon-ki is so frustrated that he’s just yelling at the turtle, unable to make an emotional connection with a creature that’s not giving him anything back. He tells the others that he has to do a dancing scene with Elizabeth, but Seo-jin is more concerned that he doesn’t stand her up for their date again.

When it’s time to film Joon-ki and Elizabeth’s dancing scene, he tells the director nervously that he’s done his best to connect with the turtle. He turns on the music and starts to dance, but Elizabeth ignores him and almost crawls off the bed. The director blames it on his lack of connection and tells Joon-ki to try again.

Joon-ki gets nose-to-nose with Elizabeth and asks her what’s wrong. He begs her to help him out, then starts the scene again, but she keeps running away every time he dances. Eventually she just hides in her shell, and the director gets fed up. He yells at Joon-ki and orders a break until Elizabeth reemerges.

Meanwhile, Seo-jin’s mean sunbae gives her a huge pile of work to finish before she can leave for the day. Seo-jin works like a fiend until it’s all finished, so Sunbae lets her go. She arrives at the restaurant on time, wondering why Joon-ki hasn’t called her yet.

He’s still on the drama set, begging Elizabeth to come out of her shell. He answers a call from Seo-jin and has to tell her that he’s running late, but she says she’ll wait. When he hangs up, Joon-ki whines to Elizabeth that Seo-jin is waiting for him. He threatens (in poetry form) to eat her if she doesn’t come out, and miraculously, it works.

Joon-ki wonders if Elizabeth actually understood his words, and she seems to answer him. He realizes that they finally made a connection, and when they resume shooting the dance scene, Elizabeth actually dances with him and the director pronounces it awesome.

Doo-shik is giddy with happiness, having convinced Ah-young to see him again, but when he calls to ask her on a date, she turns off her phone. Soo-ah crows that Ah-young must be avoiding him, and when Doo-shik insists that she said she’s not upset, Soo-ah informs him that when a girl says she’s not angry, it means she’s furious.

Dong-gu runs upstairs to find Yoon-ah, excited that he’s solved their kissing problem. But she’s not keen on his solution to wear a diving mask so he won’t breathe on her. He feels bad that he can’t solve the issue, but Yoon-ah points out that he’s not ticklish, so there’s no problem.

She grabs him and pulls him down, kissing him soundly. When she eventually lets him go, she says that when he wants a kiss, he can just ask, and she’ll kiss him. It takes him a few seconds to regain his wits and follow her downstairs yelping, “One more. One more!”

As Joon-ki is getting ready to meet Seo-jin, Sung-bin tells him that he talked to his agency, and the CEO wants to meet with him. Unfortunately, he’s only available tonight. Sung-bin tells Joon-ki that this is a rare opportunity, and he warns him not to throw away a chance at a contract with a major agency for a woman.

Joon-ki calls Seo-jin, and he tells her that he can’t make their date tonight because an agency CEO wants to see him. He asks her to be understanding, and she agrees, saying that she’s not upset. But after they hang up, she tells herself that she’s really okay, obviously not okay at all.

 
COMMENTS

I’ll just get this out of the way first – I’m really unhappy about the whole Joon-ki-as-stalker story in today’s episode. It didn’t sit well with me, because his turning stalker on his stalker didn’t play as funny, but just creepy and disturbing. It’s the first time I’ve been unhappy with any of the vignettes since the show started. Maybe it’s because Joon-ki didn’t really learn anything from violating a young woman’s safety, and even if we know he wouldn’t harm a fly, she didn’t know that. Or maybe it’s because I’ve seen Lee Yi-kyung play several actually dangerous/disturbing characters and he’s just really good at it. And yes, he was only doing the same things she did to him, but it’s a lot more menacing coming from a man than from a tiny little woman. Joon-ki cornered Jin-joo alone in her apartment, while she watched him sleep with two other men in the room, so Joon-ki was never in real danger (neither was Jin-joo, but again, she didn’t know that).

But it also felt wrong because it doesn’t jive with what we know of Joon-ki as a bumbling but ultimately sweet and insightful guy. He was acting like a dangerously jealous boyfriend over a virtual stranger, which I can’t reconcile with the man who so recently stood up to his best friend and offered himself up for a beating because he loves his sister so much. He’s not the same guy who helped Seo-jin get her interview and saved her job. Why is he out there breaking into a fan’s home instead of spending time with the woman he loves? But given that this is the one (and hopefully, only) time the show has let me down, and because Joon-ki turned his focus back to Seo-jin and his career in the second half, I’m going to try to forget the stalker thing never happened.

I just can’t get over how cute Soo-ah and Doo-shik are together – or will be, if they can ever figure out that they would make a great couple. They already match well personality-wise, and now Soo-ah is subconsciously grooming him into the perfect boyfriend through his dates with other women. She’s got him dressing nicer, fixing his hair better, and learning how women think and what they want in a guy (I still think she’s missing her calling and should be a life coach, or at least a dating coach!). Soo-ah has already noticed that Doo-shik is a very handsome man under the glasses and sweatpants, and he’s a really great friend to her despite their constant bickering. She’s even picking up some of his hobbies like gaming, which I can’t imagine her doing before, and she actively sabotaged his confession to Ah-young. Now she just needs to realize that she has feelings for him and let him know that they’re meant to be a couple – because you know that once she’s worked it out, she’s just going to inform him and that will be that, hee.

Now I see why Dong-gu and Yoon-ah haven’t kissed yet – so that we could enjoy today’s adorable smoochy dilemma. I confess to being confused at how a woman who’s that ticklish could get pregnant, but I loved Yoon-ah’s solution of just being the kisser and letting Dong-gu be the kissee. Aside from elevating their preciousness even further, I like how much Yoon-ah takes the reins in their relationship… she kissed Dong-gu first and now every time, and she was the one who decided that they would date. I think it’s awesome that in fact, all three ladies in the Waikiki house are the unspoken bosses of their relationships, and that it’s such a non-issue for the guys that they don’t even notice. And it’s good for them, because goodness knows the Waikiki boys need these ladies to bring some common sense and stability into their lives. Plus, there’s just something wonderfully sweet about the image of Dong-gu having to ask for his kisses from now on.

As curious as I am about Yoon-ah’s past and how she ended up a single mother so desperate that she would leave her baby with strangers, I’m starting to think that we may not get those answers. On the one hand, I have so many questions about her life before the Waikiki guesthouse, especially about where Sol’s father is and how Yoon-ah decided to abandon her baby. On the other hand, we have been given answers, even if they aren’t very fleshed-out (she’s an orphan with no trustworthy family, and the father doesn’t know because she wants to raise Sol herself). But if you think about it, we don’t know a lot about the other housemates’ pasts either, other than basic information such as Joon-ki’s father being a famous actor, and Dong-gu and Seo-jin’s parents being deceased. And I don’t recall anything at all about Doo-shik’s childhood. So maybe it’s not important to know any more about Yoon-ah and Sol other than that they’re here now, and they belong and are loved.

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