Cheat on Me If You Can: Episode 12

by quirkycase

We get several reveals this hour about our heroine’s past, the political maneuvering surrounding her and her books, and even about a certain chaebol college student whose life is not everything it seems. A dire situation brings her and our heroine’s husband closer together, but his involvement could get him in more trouble than he realizes.

 
EPISODE 12

A man sneaks into Mi-rae’s room and covers her mouth as she screams. Jae-ha straddles her on the bed and laughs as he notes she seems mad, so he “came to have fun.” Ugh, the abuser begins unbuttoning his shirt, so she slams her phone into his head to get him off her.

Terrified, Mi-rae orders him out of her room. He clucks that she made him bleed and berates her “rudeness” after returning to Korea. His face contorts with rage as he demands to know if she’s seeing someone and screams at her.

He attacks her again, but Mi-rae manages to push him off and run away. He follows her outside and a woman rushes out after him, calling Mi-rae crazy for hurting his precious face. Jae-ha says he wants to take Mi-rae back to the States since, apparently, resisting being assaulted is “strange” behavior to him.

Mi-rae watches from behind a bush and prays her mother won’t give permission, but her mother smiles and agrees with Jae-ha. The whole house mobilizes to search for Mi-rae, so she runs off into the night. Walking down the street alone in her nightdress and slippers, Mi-rae looks through her contacts for someone to call.

Meanwhile, Woo-sung asks Yeo-joo why his jacket was in the trash. When she remarks it has “traces of another woman,” he insists there’s nothing between him and Mi-rae. Yeo-joo knows Mi-rae likes him and that he enjoys the attention.

Woo-sung hesitantly answers his ringing phone. Mi-rae apologizes but before she can explain anything, Jae-ha catches up to her, and she drops her phone. In front of Yeo-joo, Woo-sung pointedly tells Mi-rae that he already told her to stop contacting him and hangs up.

Woo-sung offers to quit politics to ensure he doesn’t see Mi-rae again, but Yeo-joo won’t hear of it. He must win the election. Woo-sung asks if she met with Consultant Nam – he knows she was at the mural event. Yeo-joo won’t talk about it and dismisses him so she can work.

Outside, Woo-sung retrieves his secret stash of cigarettes only to find Yeo-joo has replaced them with a note: no smoking. He sighs in frustration. Elsewhere, a battered Mi-rae walks barefoot down the street.

The next day, Soo-ho does a background check on Yeo-joo and shares with his colleague that Yeo-joo might’ve been married before. The sketchy agent says the groom was Joo Min-jae, a renowned journalist colleague of Yeo-joo’s who stopped writing 10 years ago.

Yeo-joo flips through a scrap book with articles about and by Min-jae. In a flashback, Min-jae was thrilled when Yeo-joo agreed to marry him and wanted to meet her father. She was reluctant since they hadn’t spoken in 10 years. Now, Yeo-joo sighs, “I can’t forgive him.”

While Soo-ho sends Ji-eun to Min-jae’s old paper to gather info, Woo-sung arrives at work. Jin-ho does some very aggressive typing before yelling at Woo-sung for framing him – Yoon-hee won’t even cook for him anymore.

Woo-sung slinks to his office and sits, exhausted. As he contemplates calling Mi-rae because he feels bad about being so harsh, his phone rings. He rushes into the police station. Mi-rae was picked up for loitering, but she refuses to talk and has no ID, so they called the last person she called.

She looks pitiful, huddled in a chair with her bare feet bruised. When she sees Woo-sung, she starts sobbing. He apologizes for hanging up on her and assures her she was right to call him.

He buys her a meal, and she starts to look livelier. Mi-rae smiles and says it’s delicious. Woo-sung can’t help but contrast her reaction with Yeo-joo’s complaining about how the noodles were cooked. Woo-sung looks heartbroken when Mi-rae says she doesn’t usually get to eat ramyeon, assuming she’s too poor to eat. Meanwhile, Yeo-joo gets a notification on her phone about Woo-sung’s location.

After they eat, Woo-sung buys Mi-rae some instant ramyeon and tells her to write a letter to his office if she wants more. Looking down at her bare feet, he also buys her a pair of warm socks. At home, Yeo-joo scrutinizes the credit card charges from the restaurant and supermarket.

Mi-rae wonders why he hasn’t asked her what happened, but Woo-sung doesn’t want to make her remember something uncomfortable. He wants to help, but he’s reluctant to let her contact him. In the end, he relents and agrees she can call him in an emergency.

He nervously takes a call from Yeo-joo and lies that he’s in his office and ordered jjajangmyeon for lunch. Yeo-joo scoffs when he says he’ll call her back and hangs up.

Ji-eun meets up with Soo-ho and shares her findings. No one knew that Min-jae and Yeo-joo were together. He stopped writing 10 years ago because he died in a car explosion. So did the woman in the passenger seat.

Despite being engaged to Yeo-joo, he was living with another woman, and it was public knowledge. In a flashback, we see Yeo-joo scoff as she secretly watches them acting all lovey-dovey.

The cause of the explosion remains unknown, so foul play can’t be ruled out. With a shock, Soo-ho recalls that Yeo-joo’s first article was on car explosions and their causes.

Elsewhere, Woo-sung gives Mi-rae a different number she can call him on. She doesn’t intend to call, but she tells him it’s reassuring to have someone she could call. Mi-rae heads over to where Secretary Choi is waiting across the street.

Soo-ho distractedly helps Ji-eun out at the convenience store as he contemplates the possibility of Yeo-joo killing Min-jae. It doesn’t seem too far-fetched given she considered killing Woo-sung for cheating.

The detectives question Manager Kim about his claims of seeing Soo-jung’s body in the cemetery. In his version, Manager Bae pulled the Grim Reaper into the freshly dug hole, after which Manager Kim helped Manager Bae out of the hole. They ran separate ways.

When Seung-cheol and Se-jin inform him that Manager Bae is still unconscious, Manager Kim mutters “that woman” was right. Yeo-joo had whispered to him that day that, since he was the only person who knows who killed Soo-jung, getting rid of him would make it the perfect crime. “Do you still want to leave here?”

Not only does Manager Kim still refuse to tell them what Yeo-joo said, but he asks to speak with her again. Seung-cheol asks him a final question: why did he have Soo-jung’s trophy?

Soo-jung thought he’d been sent to spy on her and angrily threw the trophy at him, shattering a mirror. When he went to pick the trophy up, he cut his finger and left a bloodstain. “That was the last time I saw her,” he laments. Seung-cheol about loses it as he reminds Manager Kim that he just told them he killed her.

Manager Kim’s attempts to walk it back make things worse since he contradicts his own story again by this time saying he killed her with the trophy. He begs the exasperated cops through tears to meet with Yeo-joo; he’ll tell them everything if they let him see her.

Director Ma reports to his superior that Yeo-joo is writing “The Secret Prayer Room” again, but it works to their advantage since he got the publishing deal. His superior cautions him against underestimating Yeo-joo, reminding him about her fiancé who died.

Director Ma argues she’s been laying low since marrying Woo-sung, but his superior sighs. Consultant Nam has managed to get Woo-sung under his thumb which gives him a means of controlling Yeo-joo.

His superior is ready for this all to be over; all they have to do is wait a few months until they have power. Director Ma respectfully takes his leave and exits into the main headquarters of presidential candidate PARK JAE-GEUM.

In bed, Yeo-joo reaches over the sleeping Woo-sung and grabs his phone. She’s frustrated to see it’s now passcode protected. Woo-sung opens his eyes and thinks back to Mi-rae telling him she sent him a text of the mural, which he never received.

He wakes in the morning to Yeo-joo’s smiling face hovering above him and almost falls out of bed in fright. She asks for his help since her new novel’s main character is a lawyer.

While Woo-sung takes a shower, Mrs. Yeom sneaks into the bedroom and takes something out of the closet. Over breakfast, Yeo-joo details her novel’s plot: a lawyer gets involved in the murder case of a famous actress he knows.

Woo-sung looks up sharply, and Mrs. Yeom drops a tray, shattering a dish. As he helps her clean up, Mrs. Yeom thinks about when she saw him enter an apartment building. She’d followed him up to Soo-jung’s apartment and watched them embrace.

Yeo-joo thinks it’d be interesting for her characters to have been carrying on an affair, but Woo-sung argues a lawyer and actress would make for a poor couple. In the other room, Mrs. Yeom takes a call. She promises to send the money soon and seeks assurance that they’ll handle things properly.

Woo-sung and Attorney Park sit as opposing counsel for the divorce case in mediation and things get heated when Attorney Park accuses the husband of abuse. She slyly asserts you never know what a man is really like and even calls Woo-sung out for being a playboy in front of the mediator.

Once they’re finished, Attorney Park brings up Yeo-joo’s trip to the police station. Woo-sung didn’t know about the warrant and is shocked to hear the charges. He says it can’t be true but looks a little doubtful.

Mi-rae paints at school and ignores a call from Jae-ha, whose number she doesn’t have saved. Jae-ha has a temper tantrum and questions if Secretary Jin really kept an eye on Mi-rae like he was told to. He’s convinced she’s seeing someone.

As Woo-sung grocery shops, a man follows him and takes photos. Ah, it’s Investigator Kwak. Jae-ha and Secretary Jin are waiting for him in his office. He shares photos of Mi-rae with various men Jae-ha sees as a threat.

They dismiss the gay professor, the douchey student who was coerced into applying for leave under the watchful eye of Secretary Jin, and a club member dating someone else. That leaves Woo-sung. Investigator Kwak doubts the “National Husband” is an issue, but Jae-ha is angered by how uncharacteristically happy Mi-rae seems with him.

When he hears Mi-rae bought three cheap houses, Jae-ha goes to investigate. They’re in the neighborhood where the murals were painted. Jae-ha stops at Mi-rae’s mural and laughs that the mermaid seems to be wearing a diving suit.

At home, Yeo-joo asks Woo-sung why he locked his phone. He spins a tale about Jin-ho always using his phone to buy games so Yoon-hee won’t know.

To Jin-ho’s dismay, Yeo-joo shadows Woo-sung for the day, insistent upon seeing lawyers at work for her research. She also gets him to do a favor for her. Since the detectives won’t let her see Manager Kim, she filled out paperwork under Woo-sung’s name so he can be Manager Kim’s lawyer. She sends him in with homemade japchae and some questions for Manager Kim.

Manager Kim is surprised to see Woo-sung who assumes it’s because he looks different than on TV. He’s thrown when Manager Kim says he’s seen him many times in person. We flashback to when he’d watched Woo-sung go to Soo-jung’s place. Manager Kim had even confronted her about it.

“Why did you have an affair with Soo-jung?” he asks calmly. Woo-sung sits stunned for a moment before insisting Manager Kim is mistaken, but he nods vehemently when Manager Kim guesses he’s not supposed to tell Yeo-joo.

Manager Kim supposes she’ll find out soon enough since Woo-sung was caught on CCTV. He saw the footage personally on the USB. Right then, Yeo-joo texts Woo-sung to ask if Manager Kim has the CCTV footage from Soo-jung’s apartment.

When Woo-sung asks where the USB is, Manager Kim beckons him closer and whispers something. Manager Kim seems to have indigestion, so Woo-sung pours him some water. But Manager Kim can’t even swallow it and drops to the floor. He’s barely breathing as the police rush in and pull a panicked Woo-sung away from him.

 
COMMENTS

I seriously doubt that Yeo-joo would’ve poisoned the japchae for Manager Kim and then had Woo-sung take it to him. It would immediately be traced to her, and she’s not that stupid. It seems more likely that someone took the opportunity to get rid of a loose end and set Yeo-joo up to take the fall. Manager Kim must have more evidence than just that USB, unless there’s more to the footage than we’ve seen. Manager Kim remarked earlier that the USB could help get justice for Soo-jung’s murder, but that’s quite a stretch if the only thing on there was Woo-sung going to Soo-jung’s apartment.

We got a lot of information this episode about both the past and the present, and it’s all pretty grim. Now we know that Yeo-joo’s fiancé Min-jae died in a mysterious car explosion around the time that everything went down nine years ago. I imagine it’s all mixed up in the politics that surrounds Yeo-joo and her book. From what Director Ma said, her new book is essentially a rewriting of “The Secret Prayer Room” that takes into account recent events with Soo-jung’s death. Whatever she knows must be pretty damning to an array of people, including Park Jae-geum. If he is her father, as I’m inclined to think, that could explain her initial negative reaction to Woo-sung going into politics. I wonder what made her change her tune on that and start insisting Woo-sung win the election. Did it have something to do with her meetings with Consultant Nam? I figured Consultant Nam had ulterior motives, but it looks like he’s trying to get at Yeo-joo, too. It’s no wonder Yeo-joo doesn’t trust people easily.

Mrs. Yeom seems to be the only person Yeo-joo trusts, and even she’s hiding things. I’m surprised she kept Woo-sung’s affair hidden from Yeo-joo after Soo-jung was killed. I can see her trying to shield her from knowing before that, but a heads up that the police could connect Woo-sung and her by extension to the murder might have been helpful. Mrs. Yeom appears to be hiding more than just her knowledge of the affair, though, since we saw her stealing something from Woo-sung’s closet. Then, there was that talk of paying someone to “handle” something. Of course, it could be nothing, but she was acting shady.

With the arrival of the disturbing Jae-ha, Mi-rae’s story is starting to come together. I knew Jae-ha was a creep from the first moment he was on screen, but wow is he a monster. I had assumed Jae-ha was a relative of Mi-rae’s, but he seems to be her fiancé or possibly even husband. Poor Mi-rae – the whole house caters to that sicko and not even her parents protect her. Mi-rae’s timid behavior makes so much more sense now. No wonder she seems afraid and miserable all the time. I didn’t expect things to go so dark with her character, but it certainly casts her in a different light. Too bad she can’t befriend Yeo-joo who could give her a crash course in standing up for herself and breaking free of her abusers.

Up until now, Woo-sung has been pretty serious about staying uninvolved with Mi-rae, but his boundaries started to break down this hour. He was obviously affected by her plight, although he didn’t even know what happened, and his frustration with Yeo-joo’s coldness and controlling behavior is coming to the fore. I think whether he lets himself get closer to Mi-rae will depend on how much his potential political career means to him, as well as how much he wants to have a child with Yeo-joo … which they kind of seemed to forget about. Whatever the case, now that Woo-sung is on Jae-ha’s radar, I think he’ll be getting involved whether he wants to or not.

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