Search Query: WWW: Episode 2

by LollyPip

I really liked the first episode, but this second episode has just cemented my love for this show and all its characters. It’s just so impressive with its strong yet fallible women, devoted yet respectful love interest, and sharp, clever dialogue. Our heroine suffers a serious professional setback, but she manages to turn it into a chance for some very satisfying revenge.

 
EPISODE 2 RECAP

After unexpectedly seeing Mo-gun for the first time since their one-night stand, Ta-mi is so flustered that she accidentally walks into the men’s room, then Mo-gun himself on her way out. She leaves a lipstick mark on his shirt, and he jokes that she keeps kissing him every time they meet.

Ta-mi realizes that he’s speaking in banmal and calls him on it, but Mo-gun says that she must have forgotten that they previously agreed on it. A colleague is approaching, so Ta-mi quickly leaves. The colleague asks Mo-gun if Ta-mi didn’t like his music, but Mo-gun doesn’t take his eyes off Ta-mi’s retreating figure as he says, “No, she’s going to pay me.”

Ta-mi goes to the cafe and sucks down half of her drink before saying to nobody, “Why did I ask his age? The younger the better!” HA. AH-RA (Oh Ah-yoon), the barista, is confused, but glad that Ta-mi’s upset isn’t because of the hearing. Ga-kyung suddenly appears and tells Ta-mi to go wait for her in her office.

While she’s there, Ta-mi sees a diamond cigarette holder in a box on Ga-kyung’s desk. It reminds her of a time years ago, when she and Ga-kyung had agreed that a web portal should never violate its users’ freedom of access to information. Ta-mi had given Ga-kyung the cigarette holder as a birthday gift, joking that she should smoke a lot and die so Ta-mi could get promoted.

Now, a much colder Ga-kyung tells Ta-mi that they need to prepare for the fallout of the hearing. Ta-mi asks if Ga-kyung understands why she did what she did, but Ga-kyung says that what’s important is that Ta-mi seemed confident when she accused Assemblyman Joo of soliciting a minor for sex.

Ta-mi assures Ga-kyung that she verified the ID without violating his personal information. Ga-kyung counters that it only proves he tried to solicit a minor, not that he went through with it, but Ta-mi is incredulous that Assemblyman Joo might sue Unicon because he only attempted to buy an underage prostitute.

Ga-kyung snaps that Ta-mi put the company in danger and offended a congressional hearing. Ta-mi replies that if she’d wanted to be a hero, she would have told the truth — that Ga-kyung fabricated the keyword rankings on behalf of KU Group, her mother-in-law’s company, and that the hearing was a conspiracy.

She says she didn’t do that because she had to take action to protect herself, and between a congressional hearing and a messed-up company, she didn’t want to take either side. Ga-kyung informs Ta-mi that there will be a disciplinary hearing soon.

As she leaves work, Mo-gun follows and asks why Ta-mi isn’t answering her phone. She remembers that when they met, he dialed his number into her phone but left it to her to hit “send” and give him her number. She’d called him, asking cheekily what name he’d save her under (since they never exchanged names), so he’d saved her under “Heihachi,” the character she’d played in their game earlier.

Now he says he’s not surprised that she forgot they agreed to speak banmal if she also forgot they exchanged numbers. Nervous, she offers to pay for his shirt, and he blurts out, “We didn’t have sex.” Ta-mi asks why he’s lying, and he grins that she does remember. HA, busted.

Gathering up the tatters of her pride, Ta-mi offers him some money for his dry-cleaning, and Mo-gun asks if she’s paying him for the sex, hee. He says she can pay him later, but Ta-mi snarls that there won’t be a later.

At his blank stare, she whines that that night was just a drunken mistake. He asks if Ta-mi often sleeps with random men, but she says she doesn’t, which is why she feels so bad. Mo-gun seems happy to hear that she slept with him when she doesn’t normally have one-night-stands, and asks what’s so horrible about it.

Ta-mi stares at Mo-gun incredulously and asks, “What kind of man are you?” With a cheeky smile, he flashes the lipstick mark on his shirt and says, “I’m the man you kissed.”

He heads back to his office, where his friend asks what Unicon thought of the romantic game music. Mo-gun’s answer, “They want to forget everything,” is about Ta-mi. As for the music, he says that Unicon likes it. His friend notices the lipstick on Mo-gun’s shirt, and jokes that he wants to attend the next meeting, ha.

Over at Barro, Unicon’s competitor, Hyun is joined by CEO MIN HONG-JOO (Kwon Hae-hyo) on her way to a debate. He admits that he has no clue what the debate is about, so Hyun tells him it’s about illegal regulations regarding online communities. Ta-mi will be there, and Hyun is looking forward to rattling Ta-mi’s cage a little in an attempt to expose Unicon’s issues.

At the debate, they’re told to form teams and warned that there will be increased regulations due to public interest. Hyun agrees, causing Ta-mi to sneer that she just agreed to government censorship, but Hyun chirps that there should be legal boundaries on such things.

Ta-mi snaps that the internet’s value is in its freedom, and Hyun fires back that Unicon must be scared of those regulations. Ta-mi says that web portals aren’t responsible for users’ actions, and that the government still shouldn’t try to manage their site.

Hyun points out that Barro doesn’t have as many illegal sites as Unicon, but Ta-mi says they don’t have an many users, either. Meow (and LOL, CEO Min just nods). Ta-mi says that thousands of people visit those illegal sites every day, and they’re choosing not to manage those sites — what they need isn’t regulation, but fair play.

Their barbs get personal, with Hyun stating that she’s embarrassed to be in the same field as Ta-mi, and Ta-mi retorting that she’d rather cheat than be in second place. CEO Min finally breaks up the catfight, but a rivalry has been born.

After the debate, Hyun visits a “damned angry room” wearing a helmet and uses a baseball bat to smash everything in the room to bits. Meanwhile, CEO Min takes Ta-mi for coffee and offers her a job at Barro. He says that Barro is looking to reform their services and needs an outside person who’s not afraid to say what they’re doing wrong.

He says kindly that Ta-mi also seems to need a new work environment, and she admits that she’s anticipating a disciplinary hearing. But she says she’s been at Unicon for thirteen years and experienced all of Unicon’s milestones, so she wants to stay.

Ta-mi thinks about the day she interviewed at Unicon, when she’d admitted that she wanted to work there because the front page design was pretty. She’d said that the internet is all about first impressions, and based on that, she’d believed that Unicon would beat Barro.

Now she sits in front of a committee again — a disciplinary committee. She’s accused of neglecting to monitor online groups, and ruining the company’s reputation. She says she thought she’d be disciplined for the hearing, but In-kyung simply tells her that she’s fired.

In-kyung has the nerve to say that they’re being considerate, which makes Ta-mi scoff that firing is considerate. Ta-mi turns to a silent Ga-kyung to say that she once idolized her, but Ga-kyung says that if she’d become like her she wouldn’t be fired.

Ta-mi retorts she has no more reasons to adore Ga-kyung. She slaps a resignation letter in front of Ga-kyung and says she’s voluntarily leaving the company that sides with power, manipulates the press, and blames employees for profit. In-kyung tells her to sit back down, but Ta-mi snaps that she’s no longer her employee to order around.

Chairwoman Jang, Ga-kyung’s mother-in-law, goes hiking with two male politicians who are affiliated with Assemblyman Joo and acts like this is the best time she’s ever had. Out come the bribes, camouflaged as herbal supplements. Chairwoman Jang’s demeanor is much less friendly as she confirms with Ga-kyung that Ta-mi was fired. Ga-kyung says that firing Ta-mi was a risk, but Chairwoman Jang cuts her off, implying that she’s not allowed personal opinions.

Ga-kyung goes for drinks with a club owner who talks about Park Min-kyu, a promising young actor, as a valuable asset. A new host joins them and starts buttering up Ga-kyung, who makes him pour her a drink over and over again. She finally accepts one and makes him pour what he threw out over his head, as a lesson not to judge his clients.

The next morning, Ta-mi jumps at the sound of her alarm before remembering that she’s unemployed now. She goes out for coffee but she’s bored by mid-morning.

A while later, Hyun arrives at Barro and gets the day’s market ranking, which still lists them number two behind Unicon. She goes to see CEO Min (who’s playing a VR game, hee), to complain that Unicon is still at the top even when their public image is trash. CEO Min says he’s thinking of forming a task force to turn things around, and asks how Hyun feels about scouting an outsider.

Ta-mi spends weeks at home watching TV and getting way too emotionally invested in idol groups, hee, but eventually she fears being found dead like this. While she’s cleaning up, she finds CEO Min’s business card, and she doesn’t throw it away.

Later she goes to see her new pianist friend, JUNG DA-IN (Han Ji-wan), who says she was worried when she saw Ta-mi on television. Ta-mi admits that the hearing cost her her job, and says that after weeks of unemployment, she’s decided she’d like to learn to play piano. She asks if being able to play piano would also enable her to play on a tablet keyboard.

DI says that requires a different set of skills, but you have to know the basics first. Ta-mi says there’s a song she wants to learn to play, and gives DI the sheet music to play for her. Just hearing Mo-gun’s song makes Ta-mi tear up, and she says she’s realizing how much she’s missed because she’s been so focused on work.

She wonders vaguely if Mo-gun lost his chance for Unicon’s investment because she wasn’t there to vote for him, sniffing wistfully that she can’t help him now. Mo-gun is actually doing fine at Unicon, as he makes a presentation on his game to the high-ups at the company. After the meeting he asks Ga-kyung her name, and whether Ta-mi will be attending future meetings, which is how he learns that she no longer works at Unicon.

On the night they met, Ta-mi had told Mo-gun about a friend who loves backpacking trips, saying that she does it to spill her secrets to people they’ll only see once. It’s safe to tell them their secrets, mistakes, and weaknesses, because you can be honest with someone you don’t know.

Ta-mi said that there, with Mo-gun, she finally knew what her friend meant. She’d told Mo-gun one of her biggest secrets — she wishes Ga-kyung would stop because she wants to be good friends again.

Mo-gun calls Ta-mi’s phone, but a restaurant owner answers. He finds her at the restaurant, drunk and feeding her fish dinner mouthfuls of rice, ha. When Ta-mi finally notices Mo-gun, she accuses him of following her, asking, “Was I that good in bed??” LOL, Mo-gun’s eyes go round as saucers.

He offers to walk her home, and asks if Ta-mi usually drinks this much, but she reminds him that she wanted to be strangers who never saw each other again. Mo-gun says they know too much about each other for that, but Ta-mi counters that drinking and sleeping together at night, then wondering what their relationship is in daylight, is too exhausting at her age.

Mo-gun says he’s not interested in that, either, but when Ta-mi asks what he wants, he says that he doubts it’s an option right now. He offers himself up to be lead on by her, joking that as long as she tosses some attention his way occasionally, he’ll hold out.

It makes Ta-mi laugh and admit that he’s cute, and he says seriously, “Then you should have me.” Ta-mi admits that having a shoulder to lean on would be nice while she’s jobless, then passes out in Mo-gun’s arms. Oh my, Mo-gun looks shaken to the core as he holds her.

She wakes up a short while later in Mo-gun’s car, close to home, with him watching her from outside. She asks why he’s out there and he says it’s in case she snored, and when she says he should have listened, he says he might have liked it, awww.

Ta-mi asks if she called Mo-gun, and he admits that he wants to lie and say yes, then tells her that he called her because he was worried. She walks the rest of the way home on foot, and finds Ga-kyung waiting at her building’s door. She returns Ta-mi’s resignation letter, saying that she can’t accept it because Ta-mi was fired.

She tells Ta-mi to come pick up her things and return the company credit card, then turns to go. Distraught, Ta-mi says she’d hoped that Ga-kyung was only being mean on the surface but that she would defend her behind the scenes.

Almost crying, Ta-mi says that she still thinks of Ga-kyung foremost as a friend, so when she saw Ga-kyung she thought they were going to reconcile. She asks why Ga-kyung came all this way just to throw her firing in her face and make things worse. All Ga-kyung will say is, “I won’t reproach you, so don’t criticize me,” before she walks away.

Back in her car, Ga-kyung gets a text from In-kyung asking if she took care of Ta-mi, and she sighs.

Ta-mi goes inside to find Mo-gun waiting to return her piano lesson bag, which she left in his car, and he admits that he saw her confrontation with Ga-kyung. She complains that he keeps seeing her at her worst — drunk, sleeping with a stranger, and whining at the boss who fired her.

Mo-gun points out that he’s a man who got drunk and slept with a stranger, whined at investors, and started a company and went broke, so if they’re comparing hardships, she’s got nothing on him. He returns her piano lesson bag and tells her to practice, then leaves.

Once inside, Ta-mi notices that Mo-gun bought her some hangover medicine and slipped it into her bag. Oh, this sweet boy is killing me. She thinks about how she told him her secret then asked him for one, and he’d said he didn’t like their both being anonymous, so he’d told her his name.

Ta-mi is summoned to the prosecutor’s office to answer questions about Assemblyman Joo’s solicitation of an underage prostitute. She runs into Assemblyman Joo, who asks her smugly how it feels to be a star. She says it feels great to put trash behind bars, and he lunges at her, snarling that she’s just a greedy dog. Ta-mi retorts that greed isn’t a bad thing, but that his lust is illegal.

On her way out of the prosecutor’s office, Ta-mi calls CEO Min of Barro and accepts his job offer. Yes! She walks into Unicon with her head held high, and interrupts a meeting with her old team. She announces that she starts a new job at Barro tomorrow, and that her primary purpose will be to see Unicon’s ranking drop to second.

Bong-ki follows her out and says that he didn’t work with her long enough to learn much from her, so from now on he wants to learn from her at Barro. Ta-mi squints at him, then agrees on one condition — that he wipe that annoying smile off his face. Oh, this is gonna be fun.

Before heading to Barro, they make one more stop at the coffee shop to pick up Ah-ra. She’s brilliant, and has been trying to get a job at Unicon, but she never gets hired because her college wasn’t prestigious enough. Ta-mi offers her a job, and Ah-ra screams.

In addition, Ta-mi leaves a post on the company bulletin board — the code of ethics for web portals that Ga-kyung herself wrote, so many years ago. At the end, she writes that she and Ga-kyung wrote these codes together, and that she still agrees with its tenets to this day.

Ta-mi dresses in her best red power suit for her first day at Barro. She leads Bong-ki and Ah-ra into Barro’s building, and all three of them gape — unlike Unicon’s staid and stuffy offices, Barro is filled with people from all over the world, exchanging ideas and looking like they’re having a blast. Even the cafe at Barro is more fun, with comfortable chairs and video games and discounts for the employees.

They run into Hyun, who stops Ta-mi to ask why she’s here. Ta-mi just gives her a beatific smile and says they’ll talk later, and when Bong-ki shivers that Hyun is scary, Ta-mi tells him not to worry — she’s much scarier. Ah-ra notices that the people at Barro use English names (Hyun’s is “Scarlett”), and Ta-mi says they’ll have to play along.

Over lunch, Hyun’s assistant, “Alex,” reveals that Ta-mi was fired from Unicon. Hyun suddenly realizes why Ta-mi is at Barro and rushes back to CEO Min’s office. He gathers Ta-mi and her team, Hyun and Alex, and another girl who goes by Jenny, and tells them that they’re now the Service Reform Team, an elite task force formed to make Barro the country’s best web portal.

Hyun refuses to work under Ta-mi, but CEO Min says they need someone different with new ideas and viewpoints, who will take risks they’ve never even considered because of the way they do things. He says they need Hyun too, so she tells him to choose, because she won’t be part of this team.

She leaves, and Alex quips, “Well, that went better than I expected.” CEO Min agrees, since nobody got hurt, HAHA. Ta-mi decides this is her first task as project manager and goes after Hyun.

She finds Hyun and asks if she hates her because she was hired as team leader after being fired by their rival, because she acts like she has an inferiority complex. Hyun says that’s because Ta-mi is wired to think in terms of inferior and superior.

She says that Ta-mi managed to convince everyone at the hearing that she was right, but all she sees is a weasel who escaped prosecution. Ta-mi just replies, “Work with me. I need that point of view, and someone to say it to my face.”

She tells Hyun that Unicon gave her orders to say that nothing was fabricated, and it was an algorithm error. But she says she didn’t want to lie, and that what Hyun saw at the hearing was was her keeping a clear conscience without admitting or denying anything.

Hyun marvels that all Ta-mi cares about is winning, and Ta-mi says she’s fine with Hyun hating her methods. She admits that what she’ll do to get them to the top won’t be cool, but that unless Hyun knows a way to do that with dignity, then she should follow Ta-mi even if she hates it. She says she’ll take full responsibility, so Hyun issues a challenge — if Ta-mi doesn’t beat Unicon within six months, she’ll resign. Ta-mi agrees, adding, “But I can win.”

They hear angry heels clicking behind them, and Ta-mi turns to see Ga-kyung approaching at top speed. Ga-kyung pulls back a hand to slap her, but it’s Hyun who steps forward to grab her arm. Ta-mi tells her to go ahead and slap her since she already feels the sting.

Ga-kyung says she hasn’t felt anything yet, yanks her arm free, and hits Ta-mi as hard as she can. Ta-mi says that she’s glad her post insulted Ga-kyung, because she felt guilty, but the slap washed away her guilt. Setting her expression, she tells Ga-kyung, “Now it’s your turn to feel a little uncomfortable.”

 
COMMENTS

I’m so excited for Ta-mi’s new job! It’s going to be a huge culture shock as she finds herself in a much looser company culture, and I’m hoping that the lesson she learns is that being number one is a hollow victory when the alternative is to have fun, feel fulfilled, and most importantly, be appreciated for upholding her ethical values in her career. Plus, I feel like the combination of Ta-mi and Hyun will not only be explosive, but will cause a lot of character growth in them both — they have similar ethics but very different methods of execution, and they could both stand to learn not to be so inflexible.

I really felt for Ta-mi when she got fired, because it’s so relatable to want to be acknowledged and valued for being a good person who does the right things. Instead, she’s been held back, and now fired, for upholding the standards that Ga-kyung once also held. But I also felt so proud when Ta-mi quit, refusing to be blamed and vilified for doing her job. I can’t wait to see how things go at Barro, even with the built-in rivalry that comes with the new job.

Ga-kyung let herself be twisted and benefited from it, while Ta-mi still believes in things like fairness and ethics, and has seen her work devalued and tossed out. The only consolation is that Ga-kyung seems miserable — her change in beliefs doesn’t appear to be how she truly feels, but she’s under pressure at work and at home, so she feels she has no choice. At this early stage, I find myself less interested in Ga-kyung because of how she’s treated Ta-mi (and her highly questionable moral decisions) but I’m curious to see if that changes as the plot moves forward.

I find Mo-gun such an interesting character. He obviously likes Ta-mi a lot, and felt a strong connection to her on the one night they spent together, but even though he had her number he never called her in the six months between their one-night-stand and their running into each other at Unicon. He doesn’t even try to hide his attraction to Ta-mi, or his desire to have more between them than that one night, but he’s smart enough to let her make all the first moves. I love how he looks at her, like he just adores everything about her, but he’s trying not to let it show — too bad his eyes give him away. I think it’s significant that, as Ta-mi said, Mo-gun keeps seeing her at her worst and yet he’s already half (if not all the way) in love with her. When a man sees you at your worst and loves you for it, that man is a keeper.

Even without being pushy, he’s gotten into Ta-mi’s head pretty deeply, to the point that she even wants to learn to play music on a tablet like he can. Somehow I find that adorable, and I love this soft, insecure side of Ta-mi. I like how we keep going back to the night they met and hearing more of what they talked about, because it makes sense now why Ta-mi is so flustered to see Mo-gun again — she told him some pretty private things about herself, thinking she’d never see him again. But now he’s popping up being all adorable and liking her even after seeing her worst qualities, and that’s going to be impossible to resist.

I think my favorite thing about this drama will come as no surprise — the strong women. They are the power behind the businesses (even when a man is CEO), the heart behind the relationships, and the soul of the story. It’s nice for once to see the men sit back and let the women be in control, whether it’s in business, marriage, or romance. CEO Min knows the value of his female employees, Bong-ki is more than thrilled to follow Ta-mi just to learn from her, and Mo-gun has flat-out told Ta-mi that she’s running the show when it comes to their relationship, and that he’ll accept whatever boundaries she puts on things. I can’t wait to watch these women evolve, change, soften, harden, and mold their lives and careers into what they want them to be.

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