I’ll Find You on a Beautiful Day: Episode 5

by quirkycase

Family matters come to a head as our protagonist’s mysterious mother makes a surprise trip to her hometown. There’s so much unresolved in this family where each member tries to silently deal with their own problems to everyone’s detriment. For our heroine, her years’ worth of simmering anger over her mother’s lack of communication finally bubbles to the surface. Is it too late to mend such a fraught relationship?

 
EPISODE 5: “Noblewoman from the West”

Standing face-to-face with her mother SHIM MYUNG-JOO (Jin Hee-kyung), Hae-won recalls walking down that same path as a child with her mother. We flash back to when Myung-joo was questioned at the police station. An officer asked if her husband’s death was an accident. Myung-joo sat there with a battered face and freely admitted it was intentional.

At her sentencing, the judge only gave her seven years as her crime was considered impulsive and the result of habitual abuse. As Myung-joo was led away, she took one last look at Hae-won. Hae-won attempted to visit her in prison, but Myung-joo refused the visitation and the letters she sent.

The next time Hae-won saw her was at her grandmother’s funeral. Myung-joo had paid her respects amid the gossiping attendees and walked out without sparing her daughter a glance. In the present, Hae-won silently walks behind her mother down the path. Meanwhile, Eun-seob wakes to an empty bookstore and goes searching for Hae-won. He gets a phone call.

Myung-joo and Hae-won arrive at Hodu House as Myung-yeo is giving instructions to the crew working on the house. She stops short when she sees her sister. Myung-yeo explains about the damage to the house, saying it’ll be fixed in two weeks. Myung-joo orders her to fix it in three days.

Myung-yeo is uncharacteristically acquiescent and meekly agrees to talk to the contractors again when Myung-joo asks if she should handle it. Myung-joo asks where they’re staying. Before Hae-won can intervene, Myung-yeo says that she’s staying with Soo-jung while Hae-won is staying with Eun-seob.

Myung-joo pauses at that, and Myung-yeo offers up, “Eun-seob is a man. Soo-jung is a woman.” Ha, she just sells Hae-won out without hesitation. Hae-won quickly clarifies that she has her own room. After a brief silence, Myung-joo wonders where she’ll stay. Myung-yeo is sure Soo-jung will let her crash with them for a few days.

Myung-joo chides her for shutting down the guesthouse. How will she make money? She walks off. Well, it’s clear who’s the boss in this family.

When Hae-won gets to the bookshop, she tells Eun-seob her mom is in town. Inside, she shares that she only sees her mom twice a year: once in summer and once in winter. They go out to eat and have tea, sitting mostly in silence.

Seeing as her mom’s never been overly concerned about her family, Hae-won wonders what she’s doing here. Hae-won finds it strange since Myung-joo hates visiting her hometown and claims it reminds her of her husband.

Over at the high school, Hwi hides behind a bush and waits to “coincidentally” meet her crush Yeong-soo, which she apparently does each morning. She chatters at him while he sighs and keeps walking. Hwi energetically plows on until Yeong-soo reiterates his rejection and asks her not to talk to him anymore.

Hwi laments her misfortunes to Hyun-ji and thinks back to Jang-woo’s assertion that top students like Yeong-soo aren’t interested in dating. Hwi takes comfort in the fact that it’s dating and not her that’s the problem. Right then, a group of girls pass by gossiping about Yeong-soo’s supposed new girlfriend.

At the bookshop, Myung-yeo rants to Hae-won and Eun-seob about the number of aspiring authors she came across in university who fancied themselves one of the greats, the next big thing in literature. She outs herself as the craziest of them all who was only topped in weirdness by her big sister Myung-joo.

Myung-yeo lists all of her sister’s flaws like being mean, scary and having poor communication skills. Hae-won wants her to get to the point. Myung-yeo stands and says resignedly that Myung-joo wants to meet them for dinner. They hop to do her bidding.

While they have a tense family dinner, Eun-seob peruses a bookstore in the city. The owner wants to know if the rumors that Myung-joo is back are true. Eun-seob confirms it, saying everyone’s been asking him.

The owner comments that, in high school, she was beautiful and cold, which was her charm. All the boys liked her. He’d assumed Myung-joo would live a happy life after she married a devoted man and got pregnant.

Hae-won calls Eun-seob after dinner, but he has somewhere to be and tells her to go back without him. Her mom and aunt head off, leaving Hae-won to make her own way back. She stops to get some flowers and, of course, sees Eun-seob through the glass sitting in a café. Is he meeting Min-jung?

Oh, he’s meeting Bo-yeong. Hae-won doesn’t look thrilled to see them together as she waits for her bus. She thinks back to high school where a rumor started that she stole Bo-yeong’s crush Eun-seob. Ooh. We see her sit next to him while Bo-yeong looks on. When they were still friends, Bo-yeong had told her that she had a huge crush on Eun-seob.

At Hodu House, Hae-won finds Myung-joo looking around her room. Hae-won finally asks her mom outright what she’s doing back. It can’t be to visit her or Myung-yeo, and it’s not anyone’s death anniversary. If she left something at the house, Hae-won could’ve had it delivered, although she pointedly acknowledges she doesn’t have her mom’s address.

Myung-joo tries to leave the room, but Hae-won persists. Her mom says her trip back doesn’t have anything to do with her, making Hae-won laugh derisively. She says bitterly she’s heard that dismissal from her so many times. It’s usually something a kid says to a parent, not the other way around.

Hae-won casually reminds her that she’s said that to her whole family over the years. Myung-joo looks bothered as Hae-won asks, “What do we have to talk about? I’m really curious.” What can she even ask?

She gets increasingly emotional as she details exactly what she’s never asked her mom. She’s never asked where she lives or why they only see each other twice a year. Or why she always refused her visits and ignored her letters. Or why she did that to her father.

Myung-joo tells her to stop, but Hae-won continues. Or if she really killed him on purpose and whether she went to prison out of guilt. She never asked any of that. When Myung-joo again gently tells her to stop, Hae-won blocks her way.

“It was hard for me too,” she shares. Even if it was less than what her mom went through, she felt like dying, she says through tears. She didn’t have anyone to ask why she had to go through it all. Myung-joo closes her eyes as Hae-won says accusingly she was left to deal with it alone.

That’s why it makes her anxious when her mom comes so suddenly. She tells her to leave tomorrow and call in advance next time. She leaves her mom fighting back tears. Meanwhile, Eun-seob gets back and sees the flowers Hae-won bought and placed on his desk.

The following morning at Soo-jung’s, Myung-joo is nowhere to be found. Turns out she headed over to Eun-seob’s. To his surprise, she asks to talk to him.

At Hodu House, Hae-won tells her aunt she didn’t find out why her mom’s here, but Myung-joo will be leaving the next day. Myung-yeo is just as baffled as Hae-won as to why she showed up with no warning. Before heading inside, Myung-yeo informs Hae-won the repairs will be finished the following day.

Eun-seob brings Myung-joo a cup of tea as they go out back to talk. He stays standing as she asks if he and Hae-won are friends. She starts to ask him if Hae-won ever … but she stops. She changes topics and says she heard from Myung-yeo he knows someone named Park Hin-dol. She asks him to return a bunch of letters, claiming she can’t do it herself since he didn’t give a return address.

He agrees to return the letters but won’t pass along a message since it’s likely not good news. She agrees it isn’t. He walks her out, and before she leaves, she asks if they’ve met before. He admits they have. “It’s you, then,” she states. She says he’s all grown up now. Hmm…

As she heads to the bookshop, Hae-won sees her mother leaving. Eun-seob catches her eye as she looks on suspiciously. They sit to chat, and Eun-seob tells her he met her mom at a bus terminal when he was around 10 years old. He’d been staring, so she asked what was so fascinating. “You’re pretty,” he replied, and she had cool sunglasses. She’d responded it’s what fashionable people wear (same excuse her sister gave).

He asked if she was a “pretty person.” She smiled and said she was. Did he want to see her with the glasses off? He did. He thought she’d have pretty eyes. She took off her glasses to reveal a black eye. She’d asked if he still thought she looked pretty.

Eun-seob tells Hae-won he thought she was beautiful and doesn’t mention the bruise. Hae-won says she was in a bad mood the day before and admits to being unhappy seeing him with Bo-yeong. Yay for communication!

Myung-joo treks alone through the woods until she reaches a particular tree. She places a hand on its trunk. “Hello. Have you been well?” she asks the tree like she’s Crysta in FernGully.

Myung-yeo pauses while cleaning the floor at Hodu House when she spots a vase of flowers. She realizes something and sighs as she looks at the calendar.

At the tree, Myung-joo lays a bundle of flowers on the ground. “Here are the flowers you like. I got them for your birthday.” They’re camellias like Hae-won bought.

Myung-joo looks over at the spot where her husband had carried a little camellia tree up the mountain and proposed. She’d smiled brightly in response. Myung-joo tells the tree/her husband, “But I still hate you. And I hate this day since it’s when my troubles began.”

At the house, she packs a bag full of clothes. Myung-yeo says she could’ve had them delivered. She tells Myung-joo to call next time so she can go shopping. “I often forget his birthday since it’s on the Lunar Calendar.” They never celebrated it anyway. Myung-joo gets angry when Myung-yeo mentions he never forgot Myung-joo’s and Hae-won’s birthdays.

Before she leaves, Myung-joo notes, “Hae-won seems angry at me.” Myung-yeo replies it’s been that way for 30 years. She tells her she can resolve it if she just does one thing: write Hae-won a letter like she did for her. Myung-joo leaves without responding.

Eun-seob and Hae-won take a walk, and he explains that Bo-yeong called and asked to meet out of the blue. When they met, she’d asked for his help with Hae-won since she wouldn’t listen and kept getting the wrong idea. Seriously?! You have got to be kidding me. She sweetly goes on about how she wants to be friends with Hae-won again like she’s some long-suffering saint who’s been falsely accused.

Hae-won tells Eun-seob she doesn’t like people who don’t take no for an answer. Some think it’s romantic to push, but she thinks it’s selfish to ignore someone’s feelings. Preach, sister. Even if she chooses not to accept someone’s apology, her decision should be respected.

Eun-seob agrees and suggests doing something that’ll make her feel better. They go back to the bookshop where he projects the film The Classic onto a blanket hanging from the rafters. He gazes at her as she watches with a big smile on her face.

As Son Ye-jin and Jo Seung-woo dance on screen, Eun-seob envisions dancing with Hae-won. He smiles at their imaginary figures twirling through the room. Just ask her to dance, Eun-seob! Instead, he goes back to staring at Hae-won some more. Gah.

While Geun-sang reads the poem “Something Small and Trivial” by Ahn Do-hyun, we see a young man from out of town driving to meet his grandfather. Hwi gets into an altercation with a girl at school, and Yeong-soo intervenes when the girl goes to strike her. The bookshop owner recalls rushing to get on the bus and standing next to the popular Myung-joo.

As the book club disperses, Jang-woo notices something is up with Hwi and asks Eun-seob about it. Eun-seob doesn’t know what’s going on either. Jang-woo finds her extreme moods terrifying, and Eun-seob agrees.

When Hae-won says goodbye to Hwi, she gets a dejected response. Jang-woo notes again how scary it is, claiming his mom has given him a phobia of angry women. He goes to leave, and Hae-won wonders what’s been keeping him so busy.

He reminds them he’s heading up the Hyecheon High School reunion in celebration of its 50th anniversary. It’s in two days, and he orders them to both show up. To their amusement, he speed talks through his woes and exhaustion since he’s doing this all by his lonesome.

After Jang-woo leaves, they hear the door again. The man on the way to his grandfather’s pops his head in. He starts to ask something and stops when he sees Hae-won. We flash back to high school when he’d seen Hae-won standing outside the gym. “Wait, you’re Mok Hae-won,” he’d stated to her surprise.

In the present, he utters that same phrase. We get a three-way staring contest as the man stares at Hae-won, Hae-won stares at the man, and Eun-seob stares between them. Looks like we’re in love triangle territory, my friends.

 
COMMENTS

Poor Hae-won has kept so much bottled up for so long, although her mom didn’t exactly give her a choice. I was surprised to see that Hae-won tried so hard to have a relationship with her mom before being rebuffed one too many times. I assume Myung-joo was trying to distance herself from Hae-won to protect her as much as possible from public ire, but she did so in such a cruel way. If that’s what her intentions were, she could’ve told her that. At the very least, she could’ve met with Hae-won once or written her—like Myung-yeo suggested—so Hae-won didn’t feel abandoned and unloved. How is what she did supposed to help her? She not only got ridiculed and ostracized by the world, but her mom cut her out.

Their dynamic is interesting. Like Hae-won pointed out during that emotional conversation with her mom, their relationship is perfunctory at this point. They meet, have a civil meal and part. No wonder Hae-won carries so much anger. She never got an explanation or apology for what she’s been through as a result of her mother’s actions. I’m glad she finally let it out and didn’t hide her pain.

With Hae-won’s personality, I’m a little surprised she hasn’t completely given up on her mom. As we saw with Bo-yeong, Hae-won doesn’t let people get away with doing her wrong. It goes to show how desperate she is for family. Even though she has her aunt, both Myung-yeo and Myung-joo have colder personalities. I don’t doubt that Myung-yeo cares for Hae-won, but she’s not adept at showing it. Hae-won craves warmth and affection which it seems she only got from her grandmother.

As I suspected, Myung-joo was abused. I get the feeling she’s hiding something about the situation, though. Even Hae-won suspects that things went down differently than how her mom said they did in court. And then there’s Myung-yeo’s comment about how Hae-won wouldn’t be angry if Myung-joo explained things to her. It’s all pretty strange. I’m curious about Hae-won’s dad whom we’ve heard little about. We’ve only gotten those flashbacks that showed him acting caring and sweet, as well as the accusations of later abuse. Hae-won doesn’t talk about him, but she did buy those flowers for his birthday. I wonder what her relationship with him was like.

Okay, Bo-yeong was infuriating this hour. Hae-won was extremely clear with her when they talked, yet Bo-yeong accuses her of not listening? I loved Hae-won’s calling out disrespect in the form of someone ignoring your wishes and not listening when you say no. I’m not even sure why Bo-yeong is so set on being friends again when Hae-won wants no part of it. Is it just about Bo-yeong’s need to be right? I’m inclined to think so at this point. Her playing the victim was on full display when she tried to get Eun-seob on her side behind Hae-won’s back. And given that reveal that she’d had a crush on him in school, I’m worried she’ll try to interfere in their relationship now. Not that it will make any difference; Eun-seob is too far gone to be swayed.

I think the same is true of Hae-won, so I doubt the arrival of this new guy will change anything for her. Hae-won isn’t exactly open, but she shares quite a bit about her family and painful past with Eun-seob. It’s obvious she trusts him and feels a connection, and I don’t think that’ll be threatened easily. That being said, maybe this new guy’s interest will light a fire under Eun-seob’s butt. He keeps missing his moments! I hate love triangles a solid 99% of the time, but if it helps Eun-seob make a move, maybe I could give this one a pass.

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