Angel’s Last Mission: Love: Episodes 21-22

by SailorJumun

The more our hero Dan loves Yeon-seo, the more it feels like he’s losing her. He’s doing everything he can, fighting to stay by her side and to keep her safe, but his efforts only seem to put her — and their relationship — in greater danger. He’s running out of options, out of time, and, frankly, out of strength. This is just too much for one angel to bear.

 
EPISODES 21-22 RECAP

We start off with Luna darkly narrating that Yeon-seo’s regained eyesight was more of a tragedy than a miracle — if she’d stayed blind and away from the stage, she wouldn’t have to die now.

Luna’s minion Black Cap then pushes Yeon-seo off the roof of Fantasia, and as she’s falling, she helplessly thinks about Dan and all the things she hasn’t seen with him yet. She calls to him in her mind, which is when he swoops down from the night sky and catches her.

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It’s me

Once they’re safe on the ground, she’s staring at his wings and trying to comprehend what the heck just happened. “It’s me,” he gently assures her. “So relax. It’s okay now.” She reaches out to touch his face, wondering if it’s really him, and then passes out in his arms.

A panicked Kang-woo comes running around the corner and, as soon as he sees that Yeon-seo is still alive, he breathes a sigh of relief. He calls off the ambulance he’d called earlier, saying he made a mistake, and hangs up to call someone else.

Meanwhile, Black Cap exits Fantasia and is confused to see the ambulance leave without a body. He calls Luna to report this, confusing her as well. He tells her that he’ll figure it out and finish the job.

Dan gets Yeon-seo home and into bed, quietly apologizing for arriving late — and for revealing himself in that way. In her sleep, she calls out for her parents and for him, so he grasps her hand and lies next to her.

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A not so ideal reveal

While Dan watches over her (and kisses her hand like a sweetie pie), the power suddenly goes out. Dan slowly gets up and reaches the door, and we see that Black Cap is on the other side. When Black Cap sees the door knob turning, however, he makes a quick escape. Looks like he’ll have to call it a day on the murder attempts.

Kang-woo goes out to meet the person he called — Luna. He shows her the suicidal text that Black Cap sent with Yeon-seo’s phone and dismisses her obviously feigned concern. He knows that only she or her mother would do such a thing to Yeon-seo. Luna actually smiles and says that her family’s resentment towards Yeon-seo doesn’t automatically make them murderers.

“There are people who commit murder just because they disliked the way someone looked at them,” Luna points out. Having had enough, Kang-woo leans in and gives her his final warning to stay away from Yeon-seo.

Later, Black Cap meets with Luna, who chides him for impulsively sneaking into Yeon-seo’s house when they’re supposed to make her death look like an accident. She orders him to lie low for a while.

Once Black Cap is gone, we see that Luna had actually been Hoo in disguise. Hoo marches over to the church and demands to know why the deity is being so cruel; he asks Him to show Dan and Yeon-seo some mercy.

The next morning, Yeon-seo wakes up to the sight of Dan, still by her side. He nervously brings up last night, but she interrupts with, “What happened? I don’t… remember.” (Huh? Why?!) He’s surprised to hear that the furthest she remembers is going to the park with him.

She asks him to fill her in, but before he can, they hear Chief Jung calling from downstairs. Although Dan is reluctant to leave her alone, he gives her some time to get ready. And that’s when she notices the marks around her wrists (from being tied up).

She goes downstairs to find a huge group of newly hired security guards. She tells Jung and Dan that they’re overreacting and that she remembers what happened — she fainted at the park, right?

Dan’s eyes widen, thinking to himself that it sounds like Yeon-seo was given different memories. But it couldn’t be… Yeon-seo breaks his train of thought to say that she only needs him, but Jung is adamant on keeping the guards.

Yeon-seo tries to leave for practice, but Dan insists on her resting at home. He then gets a phone call from Kang-woo, who wants to speak to Yeon-seo. Kang-woo tells her that he’ll investigate yesterday’s incident, and she tells him to forget it since she only fainted.

She hangs up on the confused Kang-woo and tells Dan to help her find her own phone. He suggests she just buy a new one, but she blurts out, “No, I have to find it!” She flashes back to several instances where she secretly took pictures of Dan, hee.

Dan sits Yeon-seo down and says that he’ll find her phone as long as she promises to stay at home. And seeing how worried he is, she does.

At Fantasia, Kang-woo barges into Director Choi’s office as she’s talking to Luna. He brings up Yeon-seo’s kidnapping again, assuming this was a mother/daughter operation. However, this is the first Choi is hearing about the kidnapping. As she gives Luna the side-eye, Kang-woo confidently states that he knows what they want.

He brings Nina in, making Luna nervous. But he just looks at Nina and declares, “Your audition yesterday was excellent. You were the Giselle I imagined.” He turns to the others and explains that he’s saying this in front of them because he understands how much they love her — so much that they’re willing to do anything for her.

Poor Nina doesn’t know how to react as Kang-woo smiles and leaves the room. And meanwhile, outside the building, Dan finds Yeon-seo’s phone in the bushes. He turns it on and is shocked to read the fake text.

That night, Dan is storming mad as he approaches Director Choi’s home. But Hoo stops him and teleports them over to the church. Dan starts ranting that Yeon-seo’s own family tried to hurt her, and Hoo warns him to behave himself.

Still angry, Dan asks why Hoo erased Yeon-seo’s memory. Dan was going to tell her everything, whether she accepted him or not, but now Hoo has ruined it. Growing angry himself, Hoo argues that Dan showing his angel form will only end his relationship with her.

Besides, Hoo continues, angels are supposed to be bystanders. Hoo: “If it is Lee Yeon-seo’s fate to be murdered, then you must accept it.” Dan: “How can that be? If I can save her, then I should. That’s a good deed. That’s what angels do.”

Hoo blows up, yelling that people die, sometimes unfairly, as is their fate. But Dan shakes his head, unable to accept that God and angels could sit back and watch such unfair deaths. Hoo throws back that Dan is being selfish and that the only unfair death that concerns him is Yeon-seo’s. This stuns Dan silent.

The next day, Dan finds Yeon-seo’s room empty. He leaves for Fantasia, where Yeon-seo has already arrived. Choi and Luna approach her, and they’re taken aback to see that she’s completely fine. Luna steps away to call Black Cap, asking how Yeon-seo is up and about after falling off a ten-story building.

And hiding around the corner, a horrified Choi can’t believe what is coming out of her daughter’s mouth. She runs off to the bathroom, crying that it can’t be true. In another part of the building, Black Cap (dressed as an employee) passes Yeon-seo, but she calls him back. He panics, remembering that she’d seen his face on the roof, but when he turns around, she merely says that he dropped his cigarettes.

Black Cap fakes a smile, picks up the cigarettes, and hurries off. He disappears just as Dan comes in, looking worried sick. He scolds Yeon-seo for leaving the house and for not even calling, and she reminds him that she doesn’t have a phone. He hesitantly says that he found it but that it’s broken. Thinking he threw it away, she argues that he can’t tell her what to do if he can do whatever he wants.

Furthermore, she wants to know why he’s treating her like a baby and being angry all the time. He tries to turn away, but she pulls him back and asks what she did wrong. “You didn’t do anything wrong,” he says, his expression softening. “I’m not angry with you. I’m angry with myself.”

Smiling, he takes her hand and tells her to wait for him after practice. He makes his way out, only to pass Kang-woo, who’d been eavesdropping. Kang-woo coldly asks what happened to Yeon-seo, and he’s annoyed to hear that Hoo messed with her memory.

Kang-woo blames Dan for this, saying the angels wouldn’t be running around trying to fix things if Dan had only disappeared. Dan still doesn’t understand what Kang-woo has against angels (dude, catch on), but even so, he asks him to watch over Yeon-seo when he’s not around.

Kang-woo joins the dancers as they get their costume fittings, which is when Nina tosses her dress aside and announces that she won’t play the character Myrtha (the queen of the Wilis). She insists on doing Giselle’s dance, so she’d rather be Yeon-seo’s understudy. Skeptical, Kang-woo asks if she’s really okay with the possibility of not performing on stage.

Giving Yeon-seo a hard look, Nina replies yes and walks out. Kang-woo follows her to ask why she’s doing this, and she says that her audition as Giselle was the first time she truly felt empowered as a dancer. We also see in flashback that her instructor Elena had convinced her that being an understudy was worth the risk. So, Nina tells Kang-woo, she’s going to appear on stage as Giselle.

Dan waits in front of Director Choi’s office to confront her, but he sets sights on a new target when he sees Black Cap hurry down the hall. He chases Black Cap all the way down the basement, until he’s able to tackle him down to the ground.

But when Dan demands answers, Black Cap acts as if he’s an employee who has no idea what he’s talking about. Several other maintenance workers find them and tell Dan that there’s no way the culprit is Black Cap, referring to him as Joon-soo.

Dan is sure this Joon-soo person is the right guy, but he’s forced to let him go for now. Dan later catches Joon-soo having a secret meeting, and seeing Luna, he finally realizes who the real mastermind is.

As Luna leaves in her car, Dan coolly steps in her way, making her slam on the brakes. She gets out to question him, but he’s the one to throw the first question: “How long have you been scheming to hurt Yeon-seo?”

He, of course, doesn’t buy her feigned ignorance and warns her that she won’t hurt Yeon-seo again — not while he’s around. He walks away, with Luna silently watching. Ugh, bad, bad feeling.

After practice, Yeon-seo waits in the lobby as Dan asked. She adorably wishes for Dan to appear, and like clockwork, he does. He comes marching towards her, and she worries he might still be angry, but he surprises her by embracing her.

“I’ll protect you,” Dan states, determined. Yeon-seo assures him that she’s fine, but he only holds her tighter. His behavior sticks in her mind all day, and later, while examining the wounds on her wrists, she grows more curious as to what actually happened to her.

In his room, Dan pulls out his angel report log for the first time in a while. He writes that he wanted to reveal his identity to Yeon-seo and that his selfishness might’ve messed things up. “I might fail my mission,” he continues with a heavy heart. “I might turn into dust. But before that happens, please allow me to keep my promise of protecting her.”

The next day, Dan fills Chief Jung in on Luna and Joon-soo. Jung then gets a call about identifying a body — Moon Ji-woong. After confirming that it’s him and learning that his death had been ruled a suicide, Jung is left shaken; her only witness is gone.

Meanwhile, Yeon-seo calls Dan in and asks him to clean her practice room. And while he’s there vacuuming (wow, I’m seeing this PPL everywhere lately), she uses this chance to sneak into his room and snoop.

She looks for any signs of explanation, eventually finding her phone in his desk drawer. Once she turns it on and read what’s on the screen, her face falls. She numbly walks over to the practice room and angrily throws gloves at Dan.

“You don’t… really like me,” she says, tears in her eyes. “I trusted you until the end. I wanted to trust you.” He doesn’t know what she’s talking about, but she doesn’t care to explain when he won’t explain anything to her. He tries to go after her when she walks out, but he gets a call from Kang-woo saying that he’s at the gate.

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You don’t truly love me

Dan meets Kang-woo outside, wanting to expose Luna, but Kang-woo states that he already suspected her. And he didn’t tell Dan because he didn’t trust him with him being an angel. If anyone’s going to take care of Luna, it’ll be Kang-woo, since he doesn’t care for God’s judgement anymore.

At that, Dan finally confirms that Kang-woo was, in fact, the angel that turned human. “Wait.” Dan suddenly has a thought. “How did you become human?” Kang-woo just stares at him, unwilling to answer, when Yeon-seo comes out. She orders Dan to stay at home while she talks to Kang-woo.

Yeon-seo and Kang-woo get settled at a bar, where she shows him her phone with the suicidal text and demands an explanation; she’s tired of everyone hiding things from her. Kang-woo smiles and decides to explain from the very beginning — he shows her the picture of the friend he’d told her about, who had died in front of him.

Yeon-seo is shocked to see her look-alike pictured with him, and she asks if this is why he wanted to work with her. He admits that it was the reason at first, but now he truly loves her dancing. “And I love you, Lee Yeon-seo,” he says, “as a person.” Because he loves her, he wants to take care of what happened to her without her knowing. After all, he doesn’t want to lose her like he lost his first love.

Since Kang-woo won’t talk either, Yeon-seo goes to the park to get her memories back herself. She calls Dan, giving him one last chance to explain himself, but he asks that she wait where she is so he can tell her in person. She tells him that it’s too late and hangs up.

As she walks through the park, she remembers Dan waving to her from across the street. She visits the store where he bought the umbrella and shows the owner a picture of him, asking if she remembers him. And to her surprise, the owner tells her that she saw Dan running around and calling for his girlfriend after she went missing.

Dan drives as fast as he can to the park and searches all over until he finds Yeon-seo sitting on their bench. Out of breath, he starts to say that he can explain and that she may be surprised, but she holds a hand up to his mouth.

“Kim Dan,” she says, “are you an angel?” His eyes widen, and she tells him to answer truthfully, knowing he can’t lie to her.

Dan hesitates, remembering Hoo’s warning that his relationship with Yeon-seo would be over as soon as she knew his identity. But then he remembers Yeon-seo’s face when she said that she wanted to trust him. “Yes,” he finally answers. “I’m an angel.”

   
COMMENTS

For me, there comes a point in every drama where I get teary-eyed for the smallest things. A gaze, a sigh, a handhold — they’re so simple, but they never fail to get me choked up. It’s like my heart knows what’s coming and it’s trying to get the tears out little by little before the huge waterfall comes. I definitely reached that point with this episode. It hit harder than I expected when Dan wrote in his angel report and pretty much accepted his fate. Though I was frustrated with him (on Yeon-seo’s behalf) most of the episode, his stress was so tangible that I was able to be understanding. On top of worrying about his own disappearance, he has to worry about Yeon-seo’s safety. And it looks like his anxiety is getting worse, so I hope that with Yeon-seo’s discovery he’s able to get some of the weight off his shoulders.

I’m with Yeon-seo all the way — all the secrets and lies have to stop. I think she and Dan could figure everything out, from the angel business to the Luna business, if they just worked together. They could figure everything out if they worked with Kang-woo. If only Kang-woo would forget his stupid rivalry with Dan and see the big picture. I’m honestly done feeling sorry for him, because if he really cared about Yeon-seo, the rivalry wouldn’t even matter. Not when lives are at stake. A part of me is glad that he told Yeon-seo about Seol-hee, but… what was he expecting? That her desire for a professional relationship would suddenly change? That her love for Dan would just go out the window? And why wouldn’t he tell her about the kidnapping? “Because I love you” is not a proper excuse.

The memory wipe was incredibly unnecessary on Hoo’s part, but I understand his reasoning behind it. I even understand Dan feeling a bit of relief when he realized that Yeon-seo couldn’t remember his wings. But I just don’t get why everyone would hide the fact that she was almost freaking killed. For Dan, I’m guessing it was because her surviving the fall wouldn’t make much sense if he didn’t mention the wings, but still. The girl needs to know these things. I don’t know exactly how Yeon-seo figured out he was an angel, but it’s about time. That confession was taken away from Dan, but he can still tell her about the kidnapping incident. He can still tell her that he’s Sung-woo, too (which, gyah, I’m not ready for). I wish that Director Choi would step up and speak up as well. It’s a long shot, but seeing her not only surprised but genuinely horrified with Luna kind of gives me hope.

As you guys know, I’ve been very interested in Hoo the past few episodes. Because Hoo has been our senior angel all this time, I assumed that he was all knowing. That he was the one character — next to God, of course — that had the most control. But lately, he’s been acting pretty human, running around and trying to figure things out, trying to set things right. And now, he doesn’t even know what his deity is trying to do. I like this vulnerable side of him, because he only ever shows either his goofy side or his strict side. This reminds me a lot of the angel character Castiel in the American series Supernatural. Castiel’s entire existence is dedicated to following God’s orders, but his meeting and eventual bond with main character Dean changes everything. I see something similar here with Hoo and Dan.

There’s something so fascinating about the debate over God and his actions, or lack thereof. About angels being bystanders. It makes me, and probably Dan, wonder why it can be wrong for humans to be bystanders but okay for angels. It’s truly frustrating, having to ask why things must be a certain way and for the answer to simply be That’s fate. Whataya gonna do? And again, this is coming from an agnostic perspective, but I like to believe that maybe God stands down because he wants humans to fight for their own fate. Yes, He may be all powerful, but what would life be if we didn’t do things for ourselves?

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