Do Do Sol Sol La La Sol: Episodes 9-10 Open Thread

by missvictrix

Our sweet, bubbly world is in danger this week when a stalker and a big reveal collide. Plot lines, characters, and long-kept secrets all come together, and leave a giant mess – and a lot of heartache — in their wake.

 
EPISODES 9-10 WEECAP

As our drama hits its climax, everything starts to converge in a way that makes a lot of sense. In other words, the pesky stalker that’s been hanging around Lala finally decides to make his move, and this has a huge ripple effect. For everyone. Even little Jae-min!

Jae-min’s little plot arc is so precious that I was literally up in arms when our stalker dude AHN JUNG-JO (Kang Hyung-seok) chooses him as a part of his evil plan. Beyond being a piano prodigy, Jae-min is 100% adorability, and seeing him in his little tuxedo, all excited for his recital, was enough to make me tear up. But when Jung-ho yanks/assaults him, dislocates Jae-min’s arm, and this poor boy goes on the stage whimpering in pain and tries to play the piano with one hand… I’m not crying, I swear! I’m just sweating through my eyes.

Dear Lala lives up to her sweet nature, and thinking of her own recital and her father’s proud support (that fatherly “Bravo!”), she does the same for the distraught Jae-min. And then Joon, Dr. Cha, Sook-kyung, and the rest, do the same. *Still not crying*

This group of characters form such a delightful and loving group of support, and it’s especially sweet to see them all at a celebratory dinner afterwards. Joon is given this great characterizing moment as he watches everyone around him, and takes it all in. Without even having to say a word, it’s clear that Joon is receiving from this new “family” what he never got from his own. And of course, Lala is at the top of that list.

They’re kinda officially a couple now, after that wonderful cable car confession last week. I love them together so much. But it just gets cuter! Lala articulates to Joon how he’s always protected her and that if she brought joy back to his life, he brought happiness back to hers as her “lucky charm.” They also have one of the most squee-worthy piano duets in all of dramaland. It’s light and sweet, but there’s this deeper current going on too, watching their hands overlap across the keyboard.

But there’s a threat lurking nearby our happy characters, and his name is Jung-ho. As he starts to show his true colors, everyone gets bad vibes separately — they’re cautious, but they definitely underestimate his willingness to do harm. So, after the post-recital dinner, when Jung-ho drugs and kidnaps Lala, it’s the equivalent of setting off a bomb in our warm and happy world.

Dr. Cha finally makes himself useful, and not only tends to Jae-min (who’s assured a swift recovery), but also gets the truth out of him — that Jung-ho was the one that tried to grab him. This information collides with clues around Lala’s kidnapping, but by the time Dr. Cha, haraboji, and everyone else put it together, Joon is already five steps ahead, and in beast mode. He tracks down Jung-ho’s hideout, uncovers his true stalker identity, and has one heck of a fight with him. And that fight ends with Jung-ho falling and smashing his head.

Joon is beyond traumatized at this point, and his quick transition from fearless “superhero” (to quote the TWD ladies) to frightened boy made me gasp for a second. Thankfully, this whole thing is dispatched quite quickly. Jung-ho is fine after surgery and in police custody, Lala is recovering in the hospital, and Joon is released — except now his identity is out in the open. And it doesn’t take long for his mother to come flying onto the scene.

After I got used to our show being so sweet and relatively plotless, the burst of action this week was a little head-rattling — but in a way I like that, because that’s actually the way our characters feel, with their world all shaken up. As Ha-young says, the handsome guy whose hair her mother cut actually turned out to be a psycho!

Joon is not happy to be caught by his mother, but then he gets worse when he learns that his father doesn’t even know he ran away. It’s like his one act of rebellion has been rendered lifeless.

Our drama goes all-in with this Joon plot, and things get dramatic pretty fast. He’s no sooner captured and shoved in a car than he is tricking them and running away again, desperate to contact Lala. Seung-gi assures Joon that they’ve kept his secret for him (gosh, I love Seung-gi and Ha-young together even more now!), but Lala discovers the truth from our hilarious thug when they accidentally meet in the hospital. There are so many overlapping meetings, phone calls, and characters seeing and/or recognizing each other at this point in the story that it’s almost funny.

But it’s not funny, because Joon is betrayed by Lala. Yes, I just wrote that. He calls her, desperate to meet according to their plans that night, but when he gets there, it turns out to be a trap. His mother — and worse, his father — appear on the scene and drag him away from her again (and literally).

In Lala’s defense, we see in the epilogue that she was strong-armed by Joon’s scary mom. Also, she’s befuddled after learning that Joon is actually a high school runaway. Her confusion is so well-depicted, with Lala saying she doesn’t know whether to be angry with him, or to comfort him.

Damn you, Show! Even though I should have fully expected this, I’m so annoyed that Joon didn’t get a chance to tell Lala the truth himself, as he had promised to do that night — you know, before stalkers and lighting and bloodshed and chaebol mothers got in the way.

And so, at the close of Episode 10, our couple is parted in quite a Romeo and Juliet fashion. Well, maybe not that dramatic, but Lala is crying while Joon is trying to tear out of the grasp of the thugs and steal one last look at her before he’s taken back to Seoul. It’s all very epic. And I’m buying every moment, just because I want to.

Admittedly, I would have rather had a romantic embrace here, and a lot of confessions, and maybe even another kiss, but yeah, our show has to deal with this pesky high school runaway plot first. So, we’ll have to wait for all this drama to shake out before our cuties can actually have the heart to heart they so sorely need.

Even though things got crazy this week, I continue to get so much warmth and sweetness from this drama that I’m willing to go along on this ride. I can’t help but think the stalker plotline existed almost solely to cement the awesomeness of Joon as legitimate hero material, to contrast the reveal around his age, so I’m ready and willing to see where we go from here.

In the meantime, I’ll just be rewatching that adorable scene where Joon and Lala act out haraboji’s own romance when he met his wife in the 1950s while working as a shoemaker. The sweetness nearly killed me.

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