Crash Landing on You: Episode 14

by LollyPip

Time is running short and lives are increasingly at risk as the authorities bear down on our hero and his nemesis. Love is a powerful force, but it can’t protect one’s loved ones from harm if someone is determined to hurt them. Luckily, our tsundere soldier is surrounded by friends, who are willing to give their all for the man they love and respect.

 
EPISODE 14 RECAP

After being shot by Chul-kang, Se-ri is rushed to the hospital, and Jung-hyuk and the ducklings miss their bus back home to North Korea. Se-ri is rushed into surgery, leaving Jung-hyuk standing helplessly in the waiting room.

He thinks to himself that when Moo-hyuk died, he’d vowed to live his life in a way that ensured he never lost anything or anyone he cared about again. It had worked for a while, but it had also meant a life without happiness, the piano, or love. Then he’d met Se-ri and had decided he wanted her in his life, even if it meant worrying about losing her, or a broken heart because they can never be together.

Acting as Se-ri’s bodyguard, Jung-hyuk lurks near Se-ri’s hospital room once she’s out of surgery. Her family ignores him, all but her stepmother, who notices him but doesn’t speak to him.

When Jung-hyuk’s father learns that neither Jung-hyuk nor the men he sent to retrieve him returned, he figures that the military director (the high-ranked officer Chul-kang often works with) will be his biggest problem moving forward. He knows he needs to make a plan, but he has no idea what to do.

While Se-ri lies in a coma for days, a detective questions Secretary Hong about the shooting. Secretary Hong finds it strange that Se-ri was shot while in her car, which should have made it easy to escape. Soo-chan is in tears again, and he begs the detective to catch whoever shot her.

Eventually, Se-ri’s sister-in-law Hye-ji notices Jung-hyuk’s constant presence, and Secretary Hong tells her that he’s Se-ri’s bodyguard. Sang-ah overhears and, thinking of the man who’s supposedly staying with Se-ri, orders Secretary Hong to send her Jung-hyuk’s resume. Secretary Hong stands up to her, saying that Se-ri would have it, and that he wouldn’t give it to her anyway without Se-ri’s permission.

The detective approaches Jung-hyuk to act as a witness to the shooting. Jung-hyuk asks if there was another shooting reported, but the detective says there wasn’t. Jung-hyuk informs him that the shooter was also injured but that he can’t seek treatment at a regular hospital, so he suggests they look into unauthorized medical facilities.

In fact, Chul-kang is being treated in some filthy room somewhere, having been saved by Manager Oh. Manager Oh tells Chul-kang to pay him what he still owes and go home, and Chul-kang chuckles that his life was saved by capitalism.

The senior colonel is finally released, and when he goes home, Young-ae bursts into tears and yells at him for not listening when she told him Chul-kang was bad news. She wails that their son got his dumb brain from his dad, and HA, the kid is like, “She’s not wrong.” The senior colonel promises not to think for himself anymore and hugs his family tight.

The ladies hold a party to celebrate, and Young-ae wears the blue dress that Se-ri altered for her. She warns Wol-sook not to drink and run off at the mouth today like she tends to do, because they invited Dan’s mother. Unfortunately, Dan’s mother brings champagne, and soon Wol-sook is drunk and feeling chatty.

She slurs that the marriage between Dan and Jung-hyuk is called off due to Dan having a revenge affair with Seung-joon. Dan’s mother demands to know what Jung-hyuk has been up to, that Dan would want to have a revenge affair. She suddenly remembers Chi-soo getting drunk and talking about the “swallow from the South.”

She staggers to Dan’s apartment, thinking about how determined Dan has been lately to reassure her that she’ll marry Jung-hyuk. She tells Dan not to worry about her and to live her life doing what makes her happy, not what her mother told her to do.

Sang-ah and Se-hyung decide to fire Se-ri’s “bodyguard,” so instead of hanging out outside her room, Jung-hyuk takes to standing outside the hospital looking up at her window. As her brothers argue over who should hire new bodyguards, Se-ri finally wakes up. Her first words are to tell her family, “Get lost,” then she calls Jung-hyuk once she’s alone.

Se-ri weakly complains that Jung-hyuk left her side without permission. He runs back to her hospital room, and as soon as he sees her he bursts into tears. Jung-hyuk fusses at Se-ri for throwing herself in front of a bullet for him, but Se-ri retorts that he did the exact same thing.

She holds out her arms, and Jung-hyuk falls into them. They cry out their fear and relief, until the ducklings excitedly descend on them. Jung-hyuk stops the guys from hugging Se-ri, only allowing polite handshakes (LOL, he’s so overprotective), then he asks how they knew Se-ri was awake.

The ducklings all look at Man-bok, who hangs his head sheepishly. Turns out, he didn’t like the looks of Se-ri’s family, so he’d disguised himself and put a bug under her bed. The ducklings had taken turns listening in, collecting valuable information like the fact that Se-ri’s father is the chairman of the hospital, and that Se-hyung and Sang-ah are nasty pieces of work.

HAHA, at one point Man-bok even acts out an argument between Chairman Yoon and Se-hyung, as the ducklings watch with rapt attention. They’d been eating dinner when Se-ri woke up, and had dropped everything to rush to her side. Man-bok gives Se-ri a file to listen to, saying that it’s something she needs to hear.

Up north, Seung-joon worries about Dan after she walked away crying over Jung-hyuk. He texts that he’ll wait for her on the bridge, and though she grumbles the entire time, she takes the time to fix herself up before she goes to meet him.

She snaps that the State Security Department is still looking for him, but Seung-joon says he was more worried about her than himself. He confesses that he helped Jung-hyuk and Se-ri get together, and he offers to let Dan think of him as Jung-hyuk and hit him. Dan says she wouldn’t feel better after hitting the guy she likes, so Seung-joon says to think of him as himself, and PFFT, she socks him in the gut.

Grinning, Seung-joon gasps that she’s even more attractive to him now. Dan asks if he means it, admitting that she questioned her own attractiveness after Jung-hyuk left. Seung-joon reminds her that he doesn’t lie to her and says she’s a goddess, and that he can’t hate her even though she’s haughty and unfriendly.

He says she makes him want to be a better man, then his brain short-circuits when she starts to cry. Dan grabs him and kisses him, but she makes herself shy and backs off. Seung-joon takes over, and this time Dan doesn’t stop the kiss.

Se-ri listens to the recording that Man-bok left for her, which turns out to be her stepmother talking to her while she was unconscious. She’d cried that Se-ri always treated her like a real mother, but that she’d never accepted that love.

She’d explained that on the day she abandoned Se-ri at the beach, she’d regretted it and gone back, but by then Se-ri had been found by strangers. She’d sobbed that she was sorry, and that the hell they’ve been through was because she was punishing herself by not letting herself be loved by Se-ri.

Jung-hyuk finds Se-ri crying over the recording, but she fibs that she’s crying because now she’ll have a scar and can’t wear a bikini. Jung-hyuk tries to cheer her up by proudly showing her his many, worse scars, preening when Se-ri acts suitably impressed.

He points out a scar on his face, and when Se-ri says she can’t see it, he cheekily swoops in for a kiss. He’s about to kiss her again when the ducklings come in and assume the worst, especially since Jung-hyuk’s shirt is half off at this point (LOL, Kwang-bum covers Eun-dong’s innocent eyes).

Meanwhile, high-level South Korean officials get together to discuss the tunnel that Chul-kang and Jung-hyuk used to enter the country. They’ve found evidence of North Koreans infiltrating South Korea through the tunnel, including CCTV photos of two men exiting the tunnel a week apart, and they suspect the men may have been involved in Se-ri’s shooting.

Jung-hyuk meets with his contacts, then searches for where Chul-kang might be getting medical treatment, but Chul-kang is nowhere to be found. He’s back at the hospital by the time Se-ri wakes up in the morning, and he hovers over her so much the the ducklings can barely watch, hee. They complain that the lovebirds’ display is making them nauseated (Chi-soo: “We haven’t eaten yet…”), but Jung-hyuk and Se-ri don’t even notice them leave in disgust.

A reporter camps out on a rooftop opposite Se-ri’s room, and he manages to get a picture of Jung-hyuk helping Se-ri stand… it’s innocent, but Se-ri looks pretty happy in Jung-hyuk’s arms. When the picture is published, Hye-ji recognizes Jung-hyuk’s broad shoulders. Se-ri isn’t concerned and even likes the picture, praising the reporter for getting a flattering shot of Jung-hyuk’s back.

Later, Se-hyung tries to get into Se-ri’s hospital room, but Jung-hyuk is back acting as her bodyguard and refuses him entry. Se-hyung sics his two bodyguards on Jung-hyuk, who just flips them to the floor then slams Se-hyung into the wall. Se-hyung backs down and leaves, but not before growling that Jung-hyuk will regret this.

From his lair, Chul-kang sends an email to the military director with evidence that Jung-hyuk is in South Korea. He promises to return soon with Se-ri and get rid of Director Ri so that the military director can take his job.

The detective meets with Chairman Yoon about Se-ri being shot, and Chairman Yoon is surprised to hear about the recent incident with Chul-kang in the parking garage. The detective shows him a photo of Chul-kang from the black box of one of the cars, and tells him that Chul-kang came here from North Korea through the tunnel. Since he’s after Se-ri, the detective plans to investigate her, as well.

Se-ri’s stepmother meets with Jung-hyuk and asks him how long they’ve been dating. The ducklings watch them secretly, and Joo-mok says that he’s seen this in dramas — the rich mother will either throw water on Jung-hyuk or offer him an envelope of money to leave Se-ri. The ducklings brace themselves for Jung-hyuk’s reaction, and LOL, Chi-soo hopes that Jung-hyuk takes the money.

But Stepmom only pulls a card from her wallet to give to Jung-hyuk. She tells him that Se-ri has always been alone so she hopes that Jung-hyuk stays by her side, and invites him to call her if he ever needs help. Jung-hyuk asks why Stepmom can’t stay by Se-ri’s side, because he thinks Se-ri would like that, too.

Chairman Yoon goes to see Se-ri with the detective, and he asks if she knows the North Korean man who tried to kidnap her. Warily, she asks the detective if he can catch him if she gives him his name.

Se-ri summons her entire family to her hospital room, along with the detective, where she says she has evidence that will shed light on her shooting. She plays another file that Man-bok caught with his bug, one in which Se-hyung and Sang-ah express their frustration at the news that Se-ri would survive her gunshot wound. They go on to argue about Chul-kang and how Se-hyung pushed him to get rid of Se-ri sooner than he’d planned.

His expression dark, Chairman Yoon orders Se-hyung to resign his position at Queens Corp. and announces that he’s no longer his son. Like the coward he is, Se-hyung blames everything on Sang-ah, then his father for not making him the heir sooner. Stepmom stands and slaps Se-hyung hard enough to shut him up. The detective calmly instructs Se-hyung to tell him how he knows Chul-kang, how much he paid him, and exactly what for.

The military director visits Director Ri and shows him the photos of Jung-hyuk in South Korea that Chul-kang sent him. He threatens to send the pictures to the general unless Director Ri retires. Director Ri laughs in the military director’s face at his threat and informs him that he sent Jung-hyuk to South Korea in a classified operation to bring wealthy businesswoman Yoon Se-ri to the country to boost their economic situation, and that he can check with his higher-ups if he doesn’t believe him.

Meanwhile, Seung-joon gets a call from Dan just as he sees some men pull up to the building and run in. He rightly assumes they’re after him, so he sneaks into one of the apartments near Dan’s and hides while the men break into Dan’s place.

Seung-joon slips out and heads to the roof, wondering if this is how it ends for him and why he’s thinking about Dan at a time like this. Suddenly the door to the roof opens, and whoever steps out makes Seung-joon’s jaw drop.

From his hideout, Chul-kang makes a call, and in North Korea, scary-looking men approach Myung-sook and Woo-pil, Man-bok’s wife and son, saying that Man-bok was in an accident in Pyongyang. Chul-kang also calls Sang-ah and tells her that Jung-hyuk isn’t a bodyguard, but a soldier from North Korea, and she immediately tells the detective.

Jung-hyuk’s contact texts him the location of Chul-kang’s lair, so he gathers the ducklings. He tells them that he has to do something, and that they’re not to leave Se-ri’s side. He adds that if he doesn’t return, then they must go home to their families in North Korea.

The detective and his team follow Jung-hyuk to Chul-kang’s hideout, warning them that these are elite North Korean soldiers. He tells his team to arrest Jung-hyuk and Chul-kang as quickly as they can, but if it’s not possible, to kill them.

Jung-hyuk enters Chul-kang’s hideout alone with just his gun, and he catches Chul-kang as he’s about to leave. Chul-kang says that Jung-hyuk can kill him, but that when he does he’s as good as dead himself, and that his father will lose everything.

They’re surprised by a bright light in the window, and the detective calls for them to drop their weapons and come out. Chul-kang drops his bag and raises his hands, sneering that it looks like the universe is finally on his side for once. Jung-hyuk holds his weapon steady as Chul-kang turns his back, hands still in the air. Then Chul-kang whirls, a gun in his hand, and a shot rings out.

EPILOGUE

As Se-ri settles down for the night, she sees that Jung-hyuk left a recording for her, with a note. On the recording he talks about how she takes medication to sleep, and tells her to listen to this next time instead. He plays the song he wrote for Moo-hyuk on the piano, knowing that it led them both to want to live again.

He had gone to her place and stocked her empty shelves with food, and left a note for her saying that they should start living as if they’ll see each other tomorrow, even if it’s only pretend. The note concludes that even if Se-ri forgets Jung-hyuk one day, he’ll be okay.

 
COMMENTS

Another cliffhanger, but I’m not worried about Jung-hyuk in the same way that I wasn’t worried about Se-ri in the last episode, because we still have several hours of story left (damn you, 90 minute episodes!). But there are a lot of bad things that could still happen to him — Chul-kang could badly injure him, he could be arrested or shot by the cops and separated from Se-ri, he could be deported home and separated from Se-ri, or many other scenarios. Plus, Se-hyung and Sang-ah are still out there trying to help Chul-kang kill or kidnap Se-ri (and why didn’t the detective arrest Se-hyung, when he clearly heard his confession of paying a man to kill his own sister??), so there’s still that to deal with.

I still cling to my wish that there’s a way for Jung-hyuk and Se-ri to stay together, hopefully in South Korea. It would mean parting from the ducklings, but like Jung-hyuk said, they have their own families to return home to. Jung-hyuk doesn’t have much to go back for other than his parents, who are aging and would want their surviving son to be happy with the woman he loves even if it meant letting him go. And once Se-hyung is out of the picture, Se-ri’s family might actually be able to reconcile their differences and get along. Se-joon isn’t bad, he and Hye-ji are just endearingly dumb and mildly annoying. Chairman Yoon is distant but he admires what Se-ri has made of herself, and I think that Se-ri and her stepmother could actually find a way to love each other if they let themselves. Se-ri has a lot of reasons to stay, and if Jung-hyuk can figure out how to stay with her, it would be perfect.

Though I hope for a reconciliation for Se-ri’s sake, I still don’t really understand what happened between Se-ri and her stepmother. Even if Se-ri was the product of an affair, Stepmom was effectively Se-ri’s mother since Se-ri was born. Se-ri was a sweet, loving child, and only the hardest-hearted person would abandon an innocent child who always openly loved them. Even if Se-ri’s stepmother regretted trying to abandon her, she then spent the rest of Se-ri’s life rejecting her emotionally and scarring Se-ri to the point that she tried multiple times to kill herself, so I have very little sympathy for Stepmom. Her birth circumstances weren’t Se-ri’s fault, and her stepmother’s regret for a lifetime of abuse feels like too little, much too late, to me. But if Se-ri is able to forgive her, then I’m glad that Stepmom wants to make things right.

I knew that Man-bok would be a valuable teammate if he chose to switch loyalty to Jung-hyuk, and he did not disappoint! Not only has be been extremely helpful in South Korea in many areas, but his forward thinking in wiretapping Se-ri’s hospital room enabled Se-ri to hear her stepmother’s confession and apology. Hopefully Man-bok’s evidence will help get Se-hyung and Sang-ah put in jail for their crimes, too. I just hope he returns home in time to save his wife and son, because Man-bok has risked as much, if not more, than anyone, and he deserves to go home and live a happy life.

(Also, as the finale has aired at the time of this posting, please refrain from posting any spoilers! I’ll get the last two episodes recapped as quickly as I can!)

RELATED POSTS

• Premiere Watch: Stove League, Crash Landing on You
• Hyun Bin becomes protector for Sohn Ye-jin in tvN’s Crash Landing on You
• South Korean heiress Sohn Ye-jin meets North Korean soldier Hyun Bin in Crash Landing on You
• Hyun Bin, Sohn Ye-jin in new stills and poster for tvN Crash Landing on You
• Kim Jung-hyun to play elite socialite in Love’s Crash Landing
• Hyun Bin, Sohn Ye-jin team up with Legend of the Blue Sea writer for tvN romance