Cinderella at 2AM: Episodes 5-6

by DaebakGrits

Another challenger — and trope — has entered the ring, and our poor leading lady finds herself not only struggling with her post-breakup emotions but caught in the middle of a very heated love triangle. At this point, our Cinderella probably wishes she had two evil step-sisters instead.

 
EPISODES 5-6

In a classic you’re-probably-wondering-how-I-ended-up-in-this-situation situation, our drama rewinds to the moments leading up to the comedy of errors that was last week’s cliffhanger. It all began when Yoon-seo’s coworkers found out her younger brother was studying for his college entrance exams, and despite Ji-seok’s enthusiasm, his obviously low aptitude for math was going to hold him back. After work, on the night of The Incident, Jang-hee — a supposed math genius — and Ye-young — wanting food and socialization — invited themselves over to Yoon-seo’s apartment so they could help tutor Ji-seok and have dinner together. And, well, y’all know what happened after that, but the craziness doesn’t end there.

You see, after Yoon-seo and Joo-won excuse themselves to have a private conversation, Jang-hee, Ye-young, and Ji-seok have a nice little gossip session, speculating on all the juicy, unknown details of Yoon-seo and Joo-won’s relationship. Like, how exactly did they become a couple? Was Joo-won attracted to Yoon-seo because he has a thing for dominating women, or did he like that she introduced him to the simple ways of commoner life? Each scenario plays out on screen like one of the satirical episodes of Be Strong, Geum-hee — my favorite, of course, being the farcical reenactment of Chairwoman Kim shoving her sassy stilettos in Yoon-seo’s face while demanding that Yoon-seo break up with her son. (Sidenote: if those shoes were product placement, it would have worked on me if I had chaebol money.)

While everyone back in Yoon-seo’s apartment is letting their imaginations run wild over her relationship and breakup, she and Joo-won have a private conversation outside. She’s shocked by his declaration that he’s left his family in order to spare her from quitting her job, but she doesn’t waver in her conviction. They’re still broken up, and she will hand in her resignation as planned after wrapping up their last project and tying up all the loose ends.

Yoon-seo optimistically tells Ji-seok that her work life would be unaffected even though her coworkers are aware of her breakup, but she is wrong — woefully so. Both Jang-hee and Ye-young unnecessarily run interference between the former couple and become masters at misinterpreting the simplest things as signs that Yoon-seo is struggling with her emotions and — thanks to a serendipitous encounter with a balance-impaired cleaning woman who left a nasty red handprint on Yoon-seo’s cheek — Chairwoman Kim’s wrath.

Ironically, Chairwoman Kim is rather subdued the day after Joo-won came to her and begged her to be his mother rather than the chairwoman. She realizes she underestimated the extent of Joo-won’s feelings for Yoon-seo, and she’s a bit shaken by Joo-won’s decision to move out. Shi-won, however, is amused by his brother’s rebellion, and his giddiness increases when he checks Jo-won’s schedule and realizes his younger brother snubbed their mother’s invitation for tea. Chairwoman Kim serves up some nasty side-eye to show she’s not amused by her eldest’s gleefulness.

Still, Shi-won does his brotherly duty and checks in on Joo-won. He even tries to convince Joo-won to move out of the fancy hotel suite he ran away to and move in with him and Mi-jin — because what better way to break up the awkwardness between Shi-won and his contractual wife than by having his younger brother come be their third-wheel-in-residence? Yeah, it’s a hard pass for Joo-won, who’s surprised that Shi-won didn’t get a heads up that Mi-jin was returning. Shi-won explains the unannounced return of his wife on the fact that Mi-jin is very work focused — to a point it’s almost like he married their mother!

When Joo-won returns to his office, he interrupts Yoon-seo begging Jang-hee and Ye-young to stop being so annoying. Joo-won, hoping to spare her from the workplace awkwardness, takes Yoon-seo aside and offers to move offices, since he simply picked the one that was closest to her in proximity as part of his plan to woo her back. Yoon-seo, however, is annoyed by his offer, having grown exasperated by his gallantry. A man giving up an adoring family and wealth in order to be with the woman he loves? That’s not romantic; it’s a burden, and she’s pissed that he doesn’t see how selfish he’s being.

As her words rip into Joo-won, he counters by asking if she ever loved him. He knew that their romance wouldn’t be easy, but instead of holding his hand and navigating their obstacles together, she let go and saved herself — you know, similar but less deadly vibe as Rose, who could have totally scooched over and let Jack lay on that door next to her at the end of Titanic. He explains to her that he’d lived his whole life knowing that what was “his” had never truly been earned — except for her. He’d won over on his own, which is why he was able to easily sacrifice all his privileges to be with her.

Oof! It’s one helluva argument, but what I like about this scene is that Joo-won has been given a little more depth. Up until this point, I sympathized more with Yoon-seo because I understood the psychology behind her reasons for breaking up with Joo-won when faced by the double-roadblock of his wealth and his disapproving mother. However, her decision to end the relationship was based on the assumption that these obstacles were insurmountable — a belief that was perhaps fueled by the very K-drama tropes that this story is subverting. She gave up before even attempting to climb over the hurdles blocking her path to happiness. Joo-won may have been a little too persistent in his post-breakup pursuit of Yoon-seo, but he has a very valid reason for being hurt that she ended their relationship without trusting him to help her navigate his chaebol world.

After Yoon-seo’s argument with Joo-won, she wonders if she can survive her work environment for another two months. Jang-hee, who seemingly reads her mind, offers to introduce her to a headhunter (cameo by Kwon Yul), and Yoon-seo accepts, not realizing Jang-hee was actually setting her on a blind date. (Because, you know, the best way to get over some is to get under…*cough*).

Anywho, while on the accidental blind date, Yoon-seo can’t help but to compare Mr. Headhunter to Joo-won. Before dating Joo-won, Yoon-seo would have considered Mr. Headhunter a good match because they have similar philosophies for navigating unaligned preferences and interests while in a relationship, but Yoon-seoo realizes that Joo-won changed her perspective on what a harmonious relationship would look like. She’s not the realist she thought she was, and instead her pragmatism was a defense mechanism.

When Yoon-seo returns from her lunch date, she’s reached her breaking point with her co-workers’ meddling — and pained by the look of hatred Joo-won gave her after hearing about her blind date. She decides to leave work early and go off-grid. Of course, it is the absolute worst time for her to power off her phone because the dung hits the fan.

The artist collaborating with her team on their hanok project is involved in a scandal, and while Yoon-seo is off cursing shitty drivers and fielding phone calls from her unwanted anonymous dialer, her team scrambles to find a replacement in her absence. Joo-won steps up and proves he’s deserving of his new director status. But when Yoon-seo reads the backlog of text messages and joins them, Joo-won is cold and unnecessarily stern — that is, until he meets their substitution artist LEE SEONG-MIN, who is — holy K-drama coincidence, Batman! — the mystery painter who has been texting and calling Yoon-seo.

This is one crazy coincidence, even for dramaland, but at least Seong-min shares everyone’s surprise when he explains that his initial text to Yoon-seo really was a mistake. It wasn’t until Joo-won reached out to Seong-min and asked him to be their replacement artist that Seong-min took another look at their business proposal and recognized the random number he’d been texting on Yoon-seo’s business card. Well, of course, given the serendipitous nature of the whole thing, Seong-min accepted the proposal so he could meet his mystery woman, and from this point on, our story takes a rather predictable turn. Cue: love triangle trope.

Seong-min is interested in Yoon-seo, and even though he quickly picks up on the fact that Joo-won is her ex-boyfriend, it doesn’t change his desire to know her better. In fact, he’s annoyingly assertive, inserting himself into situations where he has no business being and creating new opportunities to hang out with Yoon-seo — like an impromptu team dinner that Joo-won can’t attend because he has to accompany Shi-won on a business trip to Jeju.

Joo-won’s heart sinks further when he sees a group photo from the dinner posted to social media. Seong-min is, of course, seated next to Yoon-seo. Shi-won sees how much Joo-won is hurting and decides to go all in and support his younger brother, even if that means they’re teaming up against Chairwoman Kim. Shi-won calls for a helicopter to take them back to Seoul, and Joo-won arrives just in time to join his team for round two at a high-end bar, where our characters order bottle service and get absolutely shit-faced on expensive whiskey.

The next morning, Yoon-seo and Joo-won wake up in Seong-min’s studio. Equally embarrassed about their behavior the night before, they quickly go their separate ways, but Yoon-seo accidently left her wallet at Seong-min’s place. He catches up with her at a nearby convenience store and returns her wallet, but Yoon-seo uses one-on-one time to scold him. She’s having a hard enough time getting over her breakup with Yoon-seo, and the last thing she needs is to be caught in the middle of their pissing contest. Gotta hand it to Yoon-seo for being a rare female lead who takes the initiative to remove an angle from her unwanted love triangle.

And speaking of interesting female characters, Mi-jin has finally gotten enough screen time for us to get a better sense of her personality. She’s fiercely independent and driven in her work, but when it came to her arranged marriage, she chose to be with Shi-won because — out of all the potential candidates — she was attracted to his caring and gentle nature. This, of course, bodes well for this secondary romance, which seems to be speeding through all the classic contract marriage tropes, like accidental full-frontal nudity.

Mi-jin’s biggest flaw seems to be her communication skills, as she’s prone to leaving out important details under the false belief that they are implied when they are, in fact, not. Case in point, when she tells Shi-won that she had the maids prepare a family breakfast, she thought it was obvious that “family” included Chairwoman Kim.

As flustered as Shi-won was to have his mother over for breakfast, he was more baffled by Mi-jin’s emotional IQ. Because she’s spent a good deal of time alone, Mi-jin correctly assumed that the great Chairwoman Kim, who was just as much a mother as she was the figurehead of a major corporation, was lonely after Joo-won left home. Mi-jin then advises Shi-won to avoid teaming up with his brother against their mother. (Insert “monkey puppet meme” here.)

Just when you thought all was semi all right for our characters, a new scandal rocks Yoon-seo’s hanok project. This time, AL Group is accused of nepotism because Seong-min is the son of a high-ranking politician. Obviously, this isn’t the case. Seong-min earned the position with his skills as an artist, and Joo-won had to beg to get Seong-min to give their proposal a second glance. Not to mention, Seong-min been estranged from his family ever since he dropped out of law school to pursue his art career — a fact that his father’s publicity team later corroborates and, presumably, dispels the false nepotism rumors.

However, conveniently redacted from the public statement is the fact that Seong-min’s father was physically abusive, and he once fired his aide who encouraged Seong-min to pursue his dreams. It was that very aide who once possessed Yoon-seo’s phone number. Come to find out, Seong-min has been going through a low point in his career and has lost sight of his self worth. He reached out to his fathers’s former aide, but he got Yoon-seo instead.

Yoon-seo, however, appeared in his life at just the right moment. Seong-min was — literally — on a ledge, prepared to end his life when Yoon-seo accidentally answered his phone call during her road rage incident. Her passionate soliloquy inspired him to step down, and when he saw her phone number attached to the project proposal, he got caught up in the romanticism of the coincidence.

He apologizes for getting swept up in the moment, and in return, Yoon-seo admits that she’s been struggling to get over her breakup and took her emotions out on him. Seong-min suggests that they engage in a little art therapy to try and clear their minds, and I like how relaxed they are around each other now that they’ve opened up about their individual struggles. However, as they paint and giggle over Yoon-seo’s nonexistent artistic ability, we pan out and see Joo-won, who wears a sad, kicked puppy expression while he watches them.

I still don’t know what to make of Seong-min’s character. I initially found him obnoxious because he was instigating pissing contests with Joo-won and making Yoon-seo uncomfortable, but after he mellowed out a bit, I found him to be a nice foil for Joo-won. The two competitors vying for Yoon-seo’s affection both come from affluent families, but Seong-min gave up his family connections to follow his dreams and escape a violent home — a trauma he has in common with Yoon-seo. On paper, it certainly makes him a more viable candidate for Yoon-seo, especially when taking into consideration Yoon-seo’s reasons for instigating her breakup with Joo-won.

However, after this week’s episodes, I find myself rooting more for Joo-won — especially since I’m growing fatigued by this long, drawn out breakup. Sure, it’s realistic that our characters are battling the emotional ups and downs of ending their relationship. After all, breakups are rarely “easy,” but Yoon-seo’s reasons for instigating the breakup no longer seem as insurmountable as she believed. It’s like she’s pushing forward, despite her regrets and mixed emotions, out of sheer stubbornness, and I’m growing impatient that she hasn’t even entertained the thought of reconciling — under the stipulation that they can only be a couple if they can persuade Chairwoman Kim to approve of their romance, of course.

Yes, Joo-won is immature and foolishly persistent, but I can’t help but like his character and the fairy tale he’s meant to represent. He is the Prince Charming archetype, and if anyone deserves to be pampered and doted on, it’s the hardworking Yoon-seo. So yeah, I appreciated the initial subversion of the envelope full of money trope, but I’m at the point where I need this story to be a little less real and more befitting of its titular fairy tale. After all, a large part of why I watch K-dramas is so I can live vicariously through their Candys and Cinderellas.

 
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