Oh! Young-shim: Episodes 3-4

by Unit

Our producer and her nemesis are paired up again after their dating show fiasco last week. And it poses the questions: how real are “reality” shows? And how much honesty is to be expected?

 
EPISODES 3-4

After failing to get a single vote on her own dating show (and with the virality of her embarrassing clips from the show), Young-shim is dubbed the “Zero vote girl” by netizens, and it cannot get any more embarrassing than that. On the bright side, Arrows of Love scores the highest viewer rating in its time slot and that counts for everything as regards the security of Young-shim’s job.

But here’s the thing: Young-shim’s zero votes wasn’t entirely Kyung-tae’s scheme. It turns out that Wol-sook made a deal with Kyung-tae to choose her over the other participants in return for not exposing his childhood relationship with her (and Young-shim by extension) until the end of the show. And to say I’m surprised would be an exaggeration because Wol-sook already gave off selfish vibes when she flat out refused to be on the show until she learned that CEO Wang of Kingvely agreed to it.

Speaking of Kingvely, Soon-shim finishes onboarding at the company and is drafted as Kyung-tae’s new assistant. At work she goes by her new name OH HA-YOON, but Kyung-tae did not spend time as a character on the Young-shim cartoon to not recognize the other character on the show besides the titular Young-shim. Lol. And now that Kyung-tae has reunited with the younger members of the Oh household, it’s time to visit the rest of the family.

Unfortunately, Kyung-tae is mistaken for a creep, and he gets dragged around by Young-shim’s niece LEE JI-YU (Cho Yu-ha). And before he can defend himself, Ji-yu’s mom (and Young-shim’s elder sister) OH JIN-SHIM (Wang Ji-hye) doubles down on her daughter’s attack, sending him to the ground with a flying kick. Poor Kyung-tae.

Kyung-tae gets a reprieve from Dad (who gives him a son-in-law’s welcome). But all that goes out of the window when a drunk Young-shim returns home and Kyung-tae makes an offer for them to forget the past and become friends again. Young-shim responds to his offer with a shoulder throw, and Kyung-tae finds himself on the ground for the second time in a few hours. And that’s payback for throwing Young-shim under the bus on her show! Sadly, the rest of the family are too busy trying to pry the bickering duo apart, and no one notices Chae-dong — who brought his drunk sunbae home. Awww.

The fear of unpaid credit card bills forces Young-shim out of her leave of embarrassment absence, and she returns to work. In the time she has been gone, the Young-shim cartoon has gone viral at work, and with the success of Arrows of Love, the higher ups at the network offer her a new show. This show comes with regular programming (not just a pilot), the promise of a promotion, and opportunity for salary negotiations. In essence, it’s all her hopes and dreams on a platter of gold a show with Kyung-tae. Ha!

It’s bad enough that Young-shim has to do another show with Kyung-tae after she threw him to the floor the previous night, but it gets worse when a secret recording of the deal between Kyung-tae and Wol-sook is leaked and Arrows of love gets flak for the fabrication of results.

Things are just as bad for Kingvely’s image, and Kyung-tae vows to clean up the mess. How does he intend to do that? By apologizing to the public and making an honest reality dating show this time, of course. But the tides have turned and the network is no longer keen on launching the new show, so Kyung-tae offers to cover all the production cost. It must be nice to have all that money.

Coming up with a proposal for the show takes Young-shim to Kyung-tae’s house, and they get into an accident that involves a falling bookshelf and some awkward seconds in very close proximity. As a result, Kyung-tae has a mild concussion and Daddy Oh insists that he stay over at their house to recuperate. But try as he may, Kyung-tae barely gets the attention he badly craves from Young-shim until she trips and falls over him in the bathroom — which is where we wrap up for the week. Heh.

This show is an embodiment of tropes, but you’ll get zero complaints from me. So far, these tropes seem to be working to push the story forward and that’s always a good thing. It’s clear that the years haven’t done anything to dampen Kyung-tae’s feelings for Young-shim, and just like in the past with the other guy and the headphones, Kyung-tae is never alone when it comes to the race for Young-shim’s heart.

I lol-ed when Chae-dong kicked himself for suggesting Kingvely’s CEO as a participant for Arrows of Love in the first place. But I loved how direct he was about his feelings for Young-shim when Kyung-tae asked him about his relationship with her. Chae-dong might be intimidated by Kyung-tae’s history with Young-shim and the latest development between them as housemates. But that didn’t stop him from holding his own and asking to join the Oh family for lunch. (And the family’s huuuge portions of rice and side dishes per meal will never not crack me up! I want to be invited to lunch, too!)

But unlike Chae-dong, Wol-sook is not interested in playing fair. And who needs enemies when they have friends like her? Look how excited she was about the Arrows of Love backlash. “Hate comments are better than no comments.” Hooray for double subscription on my YouTube channel. She totally leaked that recording, didn’t she? Then she goes ahead and suggests an unholy alliance to Chae-dong in order for them to get what they both want. Tsk. Dear Wol-sook, please leave my boy out of your scheming agenda. Signed by the president of the Chae-dong Protection Squad.

 
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