Cheat on Me If You Can: Episode 10

by quirkycase

The police receive some damning testimony about our heroine that again firmly places her in suspect territory. While the detectives try to uncover the truth, our heroine decides to directly confront her husband and his bestie about a certain pretty college student. Finding herself the interloper in someone else’s marriage forces the student to examine her feelings and how she got herself in this predicament.

 
EPISODE 10

Seung-cheol and Se-jin rush into the hospital looking for Manager Kim. He’s shaken up but doesn’t appear to have any major injuries. Back at the restaurant, a group of men had come searching for him and dragged him out. As gang types do, they’d taken him to an empty warehouse and beaten him. After he puked, they’d taken him to the bathroom, and he’d escaped through the window.

Manager Kim had never seen his assailants before, but he assumes they were hired thugs. He hesitantly names Yeo-joo as the one most likely behind the attack.

At Woo-sung’s office, Mi-rae literally runs out and leaves Woo-sung and Jin-ho to face an eerily calm Yeo-joo. She cuts off Woo-sung’s stammered explanation and gets angry when he fixates on how she knew Mi-rae’s name. She doesn’t tell him that she’d matched Mi-rae’s handwriting from the note with her name on the attendance sheet for Woo-sung’s lecture.

Yeo-joo declares to both Woo-sung and Jin-ho that they’ll discuss this rationally over dinner and marches out. Well, that should be fun dinner party. Woo-sung and Jin-ho both collapse once she leaves.

In her car, Mi-rae ducks down when Yeo-joo walks by and wonders why she feels so anxious and guilty. Secretary Choi is exasperated by Mi-rae’s cowering – she’s at the top of the food chain and can have whatever she wants. “Buy it or take it away,” she advises.

While Soo-ho ruminates on what he knows about Yeo-joo and Director Ma, Yeo-joo attends Soo-jung’s funeral. She thinks back to their meeting in the café where Soo-jung had gloated that she’d steal Yeo-joo’s happiness. “Why did you make such a foolish choice?” she asks Soo-jung’s portrait.

As Yeo-joo leaves, CEO Yoon calls out, “Are you Yeo-joo? Park Yeo-joo?” Ooh, so a name change. CEO Yoon asks if the police are bothering her and offers to help if she needs it. Yeo-joo stays still as stone.

We briefly flash back to 25 years ago when CEO Yoon (then an actress) had made the teenage Yeo-joo smile brightly by giving her an autograph. Coming back to the moment, Yeo-joo’s only response is to correct her: she’s Kang Yeo-joo.

Yeo-joo holds her composure until she makes it to the bathroom and begins vomiting. She strides out like she wasn’t just puking her guts out, but Soo-ho notices from afar that she doesn’t look well. She even stumbles when she reaches her car and sits resting her head against the steering wheel once she’s inside.

Soo-ho calls Yeo-joo using the excuse that he has materials for her and asks where she is. She freaks him out when she says she’s behind him. Soo-ho whips around but relaxes when he realizes she’s messing with him. Yeo-joo orders him to help Mrs. Yeom if he has the free time to call and bug her.

At work, Woo-sung laments that he shouldn’t have let her leave like that. Jin-ho thinks he means Mi-rae and agrees that she looked pale. Woo-sung gets even more worried, saying she’s been stressed lately about her novel. Jin-ho can’t believe he’s so worried about the indomitable Yeo-joo who Woo-sung calls “tenderhearted.”

During a meeting, Mi-rae is distracted and texts Woo-sung, hoping she didn’t make things difficult for him. She smiles when he texts back not to worry, and she thinks of how he covered for her with her club president by saying he was the one who threw the paint.

Mi-rae anxiously awaits his response after she texts to ask if he’s going to paint murals again the next day and jumps up when he calls. She runs out to take the call in the bathroom and is disappointed to hear he’s not going.

Woo-sung hesitantly tells her that Yeo-joo has been “sensitive” lately, so it’d be better if she stopped contacting him. He thanks her for the shoes. Mi-rae hangs up and immediately deletes his number, although she looks depressed about it.

At home, Mrs. Yeom fusses over Yeo-joo and gossips about Soo-ho. She thinks all his “slacking off” and frequent trips out must mean he has a girlfriend. When he returns shorty thereafter, Yeo-joo chides him for coming and going as he pleases.

She hands him the envelope (sans invitation) and instructs him to find out who sent it. When he hesitates, she asks if he has plans with his girlfriend, but he claims he doesn’t have one. “What about that girl from the convenience store?” Ah, so she’s seen Ji-eun. Soo-ho is adamant he’s not involved with her.

Woo-sung and Jin-ho prepare the grill outside while Yeo-joo and Yoon-hee prep the food inside. Yoon-hee complains about how Jin-ho doesn’t ever lift a finger at home and wishes he’d go on more business trips. What if he has an affair with a younger woman? Yeo-joo poses. Yoon-hee can’t imagine a younger woman being interested in him, but if she is, she can have him.

Yeo-joo asks if she’d divorce her husband over an affair, but Yoon-hee is disinclined, especially since they have Dong-ho. Yeo-joo supposes the only way, in that case, would be to “get rid of the troublemaker.” They walk over to their husbands, and Jin-ho can barely muster up a smile as he thinks about his promise to lie to Yeo-joo for Woo-sung.

At the station, Manager Kim explains what happened with Manager Bae. The Grim Reaper had approached Manager Kim claiming to be a cop. After he showed him a badge, Manager Kim agreed to drive while he “apprehended a suspect.” Something seemed off, and the Grim Reaper even pulled a gun on him when he tried to leave. Once they arrived at the cemetery, a woman met them there: Yeo-joo.

While Woo-sung grills, Yoon-hee laughs and warns him never to have an affair; Yeo-joo just said she’d bury him somewhere remote if he did. At the station, Se-jin is skeptical about Manager Kim’s testimony, but Seung-cheol seems inclined to believe anything about Yeo-joo.

Woo-sung and Jin-ho try to remain calm as Yeo-joo shares a list of good places to bury cheaters with Yoon-hee. Jin-ho is jittery, but Woo-sung plays along and tells Yoon-hee a cemetery would be the safest place to bury someone.

Meanwhile, Manager Kim relays how Yeo-joo said she’d kill him if he returned to Korea, but after seeing posts on Soo-jung’s fan site that claimed he was the killer, he had to come back. He insists through tears and sniffling that it wasn’t him – he could never kill anyone, least of all Soo-jung. Seung-cheol decides to go check on Yeo-joo this minute and leaves Se-jin to handle Manager Kim.

At the table, Yeo-joo asks Yoon-hee if she’s ever opened a closet to find a pretty young girl hiding there. Yoon-hee scoffs at how unbelievable that would be, so Yeo-joo suggests they all have some tea and discuss the feasibility of this situation.

As Yoon-hee puts Dong-ho to bed, Yeo-joo confronts the guys about hiding Mi-rae. Woo-sung is scared to drink the tea she poured knowing about all her poisonous plants. Yeo-joo continues that she’s never seen a live person in a cabinet before.

Jin-ho tries to smooth things over by saying Woo-sung barely knows Mi-rae; he just hid her so Yeo-joo wouldn’t misunderstand. Yeo-joo prompts Woo-sung: they met at Seoyeon University, right?

He’s banking on her not knowing all the details, so he makes it a sob story about how he’s been having trouble collecting his fees lately. The money from the lecture would help him buy her a nice wedding anniversary gift. Even Jin-ho looks astounded at his shamelessness.

Yeo-joo smiles derisively and notes that he somehow had time to play on a boat with political figures while working so hard. She dares him to spin his political ambitious as being for her. Woo-sung swears he told Consultant Nam no more politics, but Yeo-joo even knows that he went to paint murals with Mi-rae the previous day.

Woo-sung changes tactics and insists nothing is going on with him and Mi-rae. She’s not even his type. “Then why’d you give her a ride?” Yeo-joo persists. We flash back to that long hair she found in the car. Jin-ho blurts out, “You gave her a ride?”

Woo-sung doesn’t deny it and goes with the truth: she was limping and hurt, but he still shouldn’t have given her a ride. He encourages Yeo-joo to check the CCTV footage if she doesn’t believe him. Next, she brings up the pen and how he lied to her that a student wrestler returned it.

He looks over at Jin-ho and says that’s what he was told. Yeo-joo guesses Jin-ho has a thing for Mi-rae too which leaves him speechless. Yeo-joo gets that there could be momentary attraction but cautions them both against getting carried away.

Jin-ho desperately wants to shout out that he was trying to prevent further cheating from Woo-sung, but he holds his tongue. He looks like he’s about to cry from the unfairness of it all as Yeo-joo says she won’t tell Yoon-hee. She invited him today to say he needs to snap out of it.

“Let’s go,” Yoon-hee says from the doorway. It’s clear she overheard, and they fight all the way down the street as they leave. Woo-sung thinks Yeo-joo was too harsh, but she says they’re at the age when men most often cheat. She warns him to stop seeing Mi-rae to which he enthusiastically agrees. Elsewhere, Mi-rae finishes fixing her mural and wonders when her feelings started.

At home, Yeo-joo further surprises Woo-sung when she knows that Mi-rae spilled paint on his shoes. Ah, she was the one that hired that suspicious person who took pictures of them that day. Yeo-joo claims she read it in an article, but Woo-sung asserts there were no reporters that day.

She’s spared from an explanation by the doorbell. Woo-sung goes down and meets Seung-cheol at the gate. He assumes he’s there for him and asks if he has more questions about the Pilates thing. Yeo-joo pops up behind him and asks when he started taking Pilates.

Seung-cheol makes a big to-do about how it must’ve been a secret, so Woo-sung fibs that he didn’t want her to worry since the instructor is female. But he quit anyway.

Woo-sung is confused when Seung-cheol says he’s there to speak with Yeo-joo. In her office, he shows her CCTV pictures of her car at the cemetery and informs her that Manager Kim is accusing her of being the culprit. She scoffs when he pulls out his handcuffs.

Yeo-joo isn’t the least bit intimidated and mocks his old, poor-quality handcuffs, saying she’ll consult with an attorney while he waits for a warrant. Running out of options, Seung-cheol takes Se-jin’s advice and asks Yeo-joo upfront if she’ll come in to give a statement.

She agrees to cooperate if she gets to meet with Manager Kim. Woo-sung waits outside nervously until they come out, but hearing Yeo-joo is going to the station does nothing to ease his anxiety.

At the station, Yeo-joo asks why Manager Kim was beaten up and is surprised to hear she supposedly ordered it. Manager Kim won’t look at her as she sarcastically says her memory must be getting bad to have forgotten that.

Yeo-joo wants to speak with him alone, but they won’t allow it, so she just walks out. Seung-cheol grabs her arm in the hallway, and she says she’s thinking she could be in the hospital for a couple of days from this undue force. He rolls his eyes but removes his hand.

Woo-sung gets a call from a colleague reminding him they’re supposed to be having drinks. Attorney Park is there too and listens interestedly when the colleague says Woo-sung’s wife is at the police station. Woo-sung asked if his colleague had any contacts there, so he checks with Attorney Park. When she says she may know someone, he leaves it to her. Uh-oh.

Yeo-joo gets her way and talks with Manager Kim alone, although Seung-cheol and Se-jin watch on the other side of the glass. Yeo-joo finds it odd that Manager Kim supposedly escaped through a bathroom window when they’re typically quite small. And how did he evade the five people he claims she hired?

Manager Kim starts to breathe faster. “Who ordered you to do it?” Yeo-joo asks. She smiles up at the cameras and leans in to whisper in Manager Kim’s ear. Seung-cheol rushes in and asks if Yeo-joo threatened him.

Manager Kim denies it and instead drops to his knees and confesses to Soo-jung’s murder. Yeo-joo’s smile infuriates Seung-cheol who grabs her wrist again. Se-jin comes in and tells him to let her go. Yeo-joo walks out without a backward glance.

Woo-sung runs to her when she comes out, and she assures him everything is fine. She was just helping with an investigation. Yeo-joo tells him to go home first – she has someone to meet.

Woo-sung follows behind her taxi, worried about her going around alone at night. They arrive at an apartment building. Woo-sung lurks around the corner while she knocks on someone’s door and apologizes for being late. There was an incident she had to handle. She’s let inside.

The plaque by the door reads “Shinho Publishing House.” Woo-sung manages to find an open window and peeks inside. In the dark room, Yeo-joo sits across from a man – is that Director Ma with his hair down? – and smiles.

 
COMMENTS

Between the dim lighting and his casual appearance, it took me a minute to realize the man in the room was Director Ma. Maybe Yeo-joo really was the woman who returned the ring years ago. I wonder if she meets with him regularly or if this is unusual. Does she know he’s NIS? So many questions. Now we know Yeo-joo even changed her surname from Park to Kang, so who knows how much is hidden in her past? In the couple of flashbacks we’ve seen, Yeo-joo looked bright and happy as a teenager. There is seemingly no resemblance between that girl and the serious, cold woman she is today. I’m guessing the change in her is linked to whatever happened to her mother, which we still haven’t touched on. Yeo-joo seems to have entirely erased her past (except for Mrs. Yeom) and started over, but between the cops and Soo-ho, I don’t imagine it’ll stay buried for much longer.

It’s rare to have a protagonist who is so opaque and whose past is still shrouded in mystery this far into the story. Keeping her mysterious yet not creating too much distance between her and the audience is a fine balance, but the breadcrumbs they give us about her and her past are just enough to keep things engaging. Plus, Yeo-joo is intriguing enough of a character – and portrayed strongly enough by Jo Yeo-jung – to make this work. I’m excited that dramaland has given us so many refreshingly unique heroines in recent years, and Yeo-joo definitely belongs on that list.

I didn’t expect Yeo-joo and CEO Yoon to know each other. It was even more surprising that CEO Yoon didn’t at all suspect Yeo-joo of harming Soo-jung. I’m assuming she knew of their enmity since she asked Yeo-joo if the police were bothering her. Given that she asked her gangster friend to find and off whoever murdered Soo-jung, she’s obviously serious about getting revenge, yet she immediately offered to help Yeo-joo with the police. Unless she was putting on an act, something has made her very confident in Yeo-joo.

The way everything is pointing to Yeo-joo as the perpetrator is almost too perfect. I don’t trust Manager Kim’s story at all. From the start, it didn’t make sense that he escaped so easily, especially since he’d just been beaten. Speaking of that, how did he only have cuts and bruises? You’d think he’d have some broken bones at least if he were ruthlessly beaten by professionals. And why would the Grim Reaper involve him anyway? It makes no sense for them to need a civilian driver – I’m sure there are people in their circle who can drive and are trained for this stuff. It didn’t take much for Yeo-joo to put an end to the accusation, though. I’d love to know what she said to Manager Kim to get him to not only defend her but confess to a murder he had just so vehemently denied being involved in. Girl does not play around.

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