Good Job: Episodes 5-6

by DaebakGrits

Good Job continues to do what it does best and deliver laugh-out-loud comedy, but this week we also see a slight uptick in the romance department as our leading lady goes undercover and enters the lion’s den. Her close proximity to our suspected evil doer causes our chaebol detective’s protective instincts to kick in, and the caring glances he gives her when she isn’t paying attention are just plain squee-worthy!

 
EPISODES 5-6 WEECAP

Even if I wasn’t covering Good Job, it would be at the top of my current watch list. Far from perfect, this drama is unabashedly cheesy and fun, and the delivery is so on point for my particular brand of humor that I don’t care if parts of the story are so overly simplified that they defy all logic. Case in point: our motley crew’s plan to rescue the kidnapped Soo-ah and her friend.

I mean, if you really want to stop and think about it, their little sting operation to lure out the drug dealers that abducted Soo-ah was unnecessarily complex and time-consuming. But who am I to question the effectiveness of a sh!t-ton of money? Especially when we got to see our favorite quartet dress up in high school uniforms and slow-mo walk through a crowd of teenage extras — it’s almost like they’re 30-something actors playing the younger versions of their characters in a K-drama flashback.

I was definitely waiting on someone to call them out for being narcs, but it turned out everyone else in the club — besides the real drug dealers — was on Sun-woo’s payroll. Not only did he rent out the teen nightclub for the evening, but he and his team also recruited 50+ teenaged actors to pose as partying, drug-buying students.

So when Soo-ah’s kidnappers revealed themselves, the crowd of undercover young adults armed themselves with airsoft guns, backed the drug dealers into a corner, and rounded them up with a literal fishing net. And the baddies remained tied up until Gwang-ki, who still isn’t aware that Soo-ah was ever kidnapped, discovered them and all the incriminating evidence that Sun-woo served up on a platter.

Although this little story arc detoured away from the mystery of The Queen’s Tears necklace, it progressed our romance plot and created a visible shift in the way Sun-woo perceives Sera. As she fawns over the rescued Soo-ah at the hospital, Sun-woo looks on with admiration and perhaps even a bit of envy that she has such a loving found family. And afterwards, when our quartet celebrates their successful mission over dinner and drinks, Sun-woo orders Sera to avoid using her ability recklessly. Clearly her earlier fainting spell and trip to the hospital shook him, and he doesn’t want to see her go through that again.

Buuuut, he’s not so concerned about Sera’s wellbeing that he doesn’t want to send her undercover as Tae-joon’s new administrative assistant. Which is more dangerous, Sun-woo? Sera using an ability she’s lived with and adapted to her whole life, or putting her in close proximity to an abusive butt muffin who’s still seething that Sera not only nominated him for the ALS ice bucket challenge but also compared him to monkey testicles?

When Sera realizes who her new boss is going to be, she is understandably worried that he will recognize her, but Sun-woo assures her that Tae-joon’s beer goggles were exceptionally thick the night she first met him. There’s no way he will recognize her — especially not without that smoking hot pink dress, he thinks to himself. He further coaxes Sera into compliance by explaining that Tae-joon was Ah-ra’s mystery lover — and likely the one who gave her The Queen’s Tears. Sun-woo needs Sera to plant a bug in Tae-joon’s office so he can keep an eye on his number one suspect.

Hiding the camera is a fairly simple task, but it comes as no surprise that Tae-joon is a tyrant whose reputation precedes him. Luckily, as Sun-woo predicted, he fails to recognize Sera, but she finds herself scrambling to meet Tae-joon’s demands and cover for his sloppy work ethic. Although her first day on the job is stressful, she’s able to unwind after work with the rest of the administrative staff, and they are all extremely willing to gossip and commiserate with her.

But (unknown to them) their meal is cut short when Sun-woo invites — more like summons — Director Hong and their welcome party for the new interns to a fancy bar. This isn’t a simple invitation put forth by a chairman wanting to share goodwill and improve company morale, though. No, Sun-woo followed Tae-joon to this particular bar to eavesdrop on his conversation with Min-ji, which was all about Tae-joon trying to identify the mystery woman (Sera) that insulted him so severely that he’s still feeling the burn of her insults.

Sun-woo worries that Tae-joon is looking into Sera’s identity, but his concerns take a back seat when Tae-joon spots Sun-woo at the bar and accuses Sun-woo of following him. Sun-woo denies the accusation, but Tae-joon doesn’t believe him — not until Director Hong and his posse of administrative assistants show up and seemingly corroborate Sun-woo’s story. He’s simply being a good boss and personally sponsoring his employees’ drinks and appetizers. Nothing to see here. Move along, Tae-joon.

Except Tae-joon fails to read the room (or just doesn’t care) and chooses to join them, which makes everyone feel extremely awkward. Tae-joon suggests that they all drink more alcohol to loosen up, but that only exacerbates the situation. The administrative assistants, pressured to accept the offered drinks from their superior, grow excessively intoxicated and fail to censor themselves. Meanwhile, Sun-woo sits back and watches both amused at his employees’ nickname for his nemesis and worried about Sera’s increasing intoxication.

When the party finally breaks up, Sun-woo lingers just long enough to see Sera choose to head home on foot. Concerned — but totally in denial about it — Sun-woo follows her, and when she curls up on a bench, fully prepared to spend the night at a bus stop, he steps in and escorts her home. Sera is so drunk that she mistakes Sun-woo for Na-hee, and I nearly died when she grabbed Sun-woo’s face and smooshed his cheeks. Why are they so adorable?!

Sadly, the cuteness is interrupted by Gwang-ki, who has stopped by to check in on Sera, and Sun-woo — like many chaebol leading men before him — has to hide in a closet to avoid being seen by our leading lady’s family. Once Gwang-ki sees that Sera is safe (albeit more tanked than, well, a military tank), he leaves.

Because — thank you, drama gods — he does not have a crush on Sera. I’m so over the trope of the brother figure being the second lead who has a crush on the leading lady. Had this been a K-drama from 2010, Gwang-ki would have creepily and longingly watched her while she slept, so I’m glad we weren’t subjected to that. Yay, for platonic adoptive brothers!

Sera wakes up with a slight hangover, regrets, and a new task from Sun-woo: clone Tae-joon’s cell phone, a task that’s easier said than done because Tae-joon’s phone never seems to leave his hand. But after Tae-joon’s latest screw-up prompts an office visit and a physical beating from his father, Sera finds the opening she needs and chases Tae-joon onto the elevator so she can apply some ointment to his bloody lip.

Sun-woo, who witnessed (via his spy-cam) the various physical altercations and arguments that went down in Tae-joon’s office, decides to run interference between Tae-joon and Sera, but his presence ruins Sera’s plan. So when he tries to force his way onto the elevator, she stomps on Sun-woo’s foot. Her little act of defiance endears her to Tae-joon, so he invites her to join him for lunch.

Sun-woo and Jin-mo follow in the bat-van, and as they stake out the restaurant and wait for Sera to find the opportunity to clone Tae-joon’s phone, Jin-mo teases Sun-woo over the fact that Sera had the audacity to step on him. But is Sun-woo’s pouting because of his injured foot and pride, or the fact that Sera and Tae-joon were looking awfully cozy in that elevator? Hmmmm…

After Sera successfully clones Tae-joon’s phone, they discover that Tae-joon’s lunch meeting is with a gifted programmer from a rival company. It seems Tae-joon is planning to steal the other company’s secrets and take all the credit for them. Well, not on Sun-woo’s watch!

Cue another ridiculously elaborate heist that the trio seems to execute in the time it takes to cook instant ramyeon. Sera, dressed as a member of the waitstaff, directs the computer programmer to a private room where a disguised Sun-woo is waiting. Sun-woo tells the computer programmer that he’s part of the team from Eunkang Group that’s doing an internal investigation on Tae-joon. He promises to ignore the reason the programmer was meeting Tae-joon if the programmer agrees to never contact Tae-joon or pursue the matter further. In a nearby room, Jin-mo meets with Tae-joon and gives him a similar story.

They successfully thwart Tae-joon’s shifty business plans, but unfortunately Assistant KIM JAE-HA (Hong Woo-jin), who seems inexplicably loyal to Tae-joon, saw Sera and Sun-woo together. And he’s figured out that she’s secretly working for Sun-woo — probably not for the reasons he suspects, though. Unless… what if Jae-ha is the real bad guy? Just throwing it out there because Tae-joon totally feels like a red herring.

Sun-woo takes off his detective hat for the day and swaps it for his chaebol obligations, starting with a blind date with JANG YOO-MIN (Na Eun-saem), the daughter of Seho Group. Sun-woo is not pleased to have been lured under false pretenses to the restaurant by a very apologetic Director Hong, and he almost immediately texts Jin-mo for help. I can’t say that I blame him because Yoo-min turns out to be a vapid princess who’s completely undeterred by Sun-woo’s disinterest.

What Sun-woo doesn’t know, though, is that Jin-mo is currently out to dinner with Na-hee, and he doesn’t want to leave. You see, after the team rescued Soo-ah, Jin-mo and Na-hee hit the alcohol a little too hard. One thing led to another, and sexy times were had. Na-hee seems keen to put their one-night stand behind her and continue crushing on Gwang-ki, but Jin-mo is smitten. So when Sun-woo sends out the SOS, Jin-mo comes up with a Plan B: Sera.

She crashes Sun-woo’s date, playing the role of his girlfriend and dialing the aegyo up to eleven. If Sun-woo’s reaction to her over-the-top behavior wasn’t so amusing, I’d vomit from her overly sweet performance. Sun-woo awkwardly settles into the role of her equally doting boyfriend, and eventually Yoo-min leaves. But not before tossing out a comic book inspired threat: This is not the last you’ve seen of me! Mwahahah!

Yoo-min’s departure doesn’t mean that the coast is clear, though. Not only did Jae-ha snap a picture of them together and report to Tae-joon that Sera is spying on behalf of Sun-woo, but Director Hong, who lingered to spy on Sun-woo’s blind date, saw the whole exchange from afar. When Sera spots Director Hong peeping on them, Sun-woo decides there’s no time like the present to quell any future matchmaking schemes, so he escorts Sera up to his room at the hotel, which is his primary residence when he doesn’t want to go home to a big, empty house.

Once they’re alone, Sun-woo orders some tteokbokki for Sera. He turns his snobby nose up at the snack, but when she brings some to his lips as an offering, he opens wide… only for her to pull it away teasingly. The flirty banter continues until Sera falls asleep on the sofa, and having learned his lesson from their overnight stay as a fake-couple at the hospital, Sun-woo carries her to the bed.

He grabs a pillow and falls asleep on the sofa, but that’s not where he wakes up. Nope, when Sun-woo opens his eyes he’s in bed next to Sera, looking extremely confused as to how he got there. Director Hong starts to call him, and the sound wakes Sera, who mistakes it for her alarm. She reaches across Sun-woo, trying to shut it off, and that’s how we end this week’s episode with our leading couple staring doe-eyed at each other, their lips inches apart.

Y’all, I love it. I know this isn’t the greatest drama in the history of K-dramas, but it is exactly what I need right now: a laugh-out-loud romance that aims to do nothing more than entertain. I want an excuse to turn my brain off after work, and this is it. Admittedly, I didn’t laugh as much this week as I have in the past, but I think part of that is because some of my chuckles were replaced by squees. Sun-woo is developing feelings for our spunky heroine! Even though he’s still in denial about it, his actions and secret glances tell a different story. I live for subtle details like these that only the audience — and Jin-mo — notice, so I’m glad that this drama is handing them out like candy on Halloween.

Unfortunately, I can’t say I’m as happy about our second couple. Since the beginning, they’ve felt thrown together, not because they suit each other but because they’re both leftover pieces that are being paired up solely for the sake of symmetry. This is probably one of the few instances where I don’t want the constantly bickering couple to fall in love, so it’s especially disappointing for me that they hooked up so quickly. Jin-mo, my favorite character, has now lost some of his flavor. He’s so much funnier when he goes toe-to-toe with her, and I can’t say that I like the version of him that titillatingly flexes his forearms to knead dough. It also doesn’t help that the bromance between Jin-mo and Sun-woo has set the bar for on-screen chemistry extremely high, and Na-hee can’t seem to reach it.

 
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