Who Is She: Episodes 7-8

by Dramaddictally

With the love triangle heating up, our heroine takes pains to keep the boys apart. But at the same time, she’s also trying to hold her family together. It’s a balancing act that’s tough to manage alone, so she gets some help from our mystery woman — whose identity is finally revealed.

 
EPISODES 7-8

It’s her sister. I’m putting it out there right away so we can start including this character in the family dynamic that’s unfolding in this drama. We learn this week that Mal-soon has a sister, KKEUT-SOON, who went to live in the U.S. when the girls were young. It was a point of contention between them (the fact that their mother took up with a U.S. military man, which allowed the move) and Mal-soon doesn’t consider her sister family.

Well, that explains why they look so much alike, and also why this woman is all up in Mal-soon’s business. Kkeut-soon has decided to move in with Mal-soon’s family and pretend to be Mal-soon. When Mal-soon (as Doo-ri) asks why she’s there, Kkeut-soon says that she sees the tough life her sister has led and she wants to give her the chance to enjoy being young again. She’ll fill in at home, Doo-ri should go live her life.

The thing is, Doo-ri is still living in the family house too. So as Kkeut-soon gets started on trying to improve the mother/daughter relationship, Doo-ri is there to hear every negative thing that Ji-sook says to her “mother.”

At one point, with Ji-sook, Min-seok, Kkeut-soon, and Doo-ri seated around the table, Ji-sook says that she and her husband (and Ha-na) are moving out. They’ve lived together for too long, and she finally has the money to leave. Kkeut-soon protests, and Ji-sook responds, “Just because we live together doesn’t mean we’re a family.” Ouch. It’s pretty brutal and Doo-ri gets up and leaves with tears in her eyes. But Kkeut-soon can see how much pain Ji-sook is in to say something like that.

While Kkeut-soon urges Doo-ri to talk to Ji-sook honestly, Min-seok urges the same from Ji-sook. Actually, Kkeut-soon has recruited Min-seok to help her figure out what’s up with Ji-sook these days and why she’s moodier than usual. With that task in mind, he follows Ji-sook to the hospital and learns that her father is there (close to death). And he’s even more startled when he hears that Mal-soon kept the dad a secret all these years.

With all that sadness happening at home, more exciting things are heating up next door. As you’ll recall, the end of last week’s episodes gave us Mr. Park in his young-again form. He’s now PARK JUN (Yoo Jung-hoo) — a man who’s signing with an entertainment agency and bristling the feathers of our UNIS director.

The jealousy begins when Jun shows up at the guesthouse (which, technically, he owns. But no one knows that). Daniel is still staying there, and now, Jun is too. And the fact that Jun already knows Doo-ri sends Daniel into a quiet tantrum, where he refuses to shake Jun’s hand and walks away irritated.

Daniel tells Doo-ri not to get into a relationship because it’ll cause a scandal pre-debut (right, that’s the reason). But she says that she and Jun are childhood friends and he should calm down. Of course, this information isn’t given until after she has to break up their almost-fistfight.

Separately, both boys have their own intentions. We see a letter that Jun is writing to Mal-soon, his dear old friend, laying his heart on the line. He writes that even though they’ve loved each other for over fifty years, they were never in a relationship or able to marry. Even if he took the long way around, he’s waited long enough.

However, he’s yet to give her that letter and she’s spending quite a bit of time with her boss. She and Daniel have become close and easy friends, and he’s turning on the charm big time. Doo-ri realizes that he and Emily were dating during their time in LA, and he’s raring to get back to that. But she’s trying to hold a bound.

Still, when she can’t sleep, he plays songs from his idol days featuring his “tranquilizing” voice, and his moves are starting to hit her in the chest. She feels a need to stand up for him, telling him that if she ever saw his stalker, she’d rip her hair out. He smiles, “Are you protecting me?” — and reaches over to the passenger seat to touch her arm. They both laugh and look at each other, and their flirtatiousness is quite fetching.

In the background of all this, Ae-shim has started to investigate Doo-ri. She’s bothered by this young woman, who reminds her too much of Mal-soon. But after last week’s viral video, the execs at UNIS have decided to keep Doo-ri and Ha-na in the group, even though they scored lowest in their evaluations.

Ae-shim discovers that there’s nothing to find on Doo-ri — in fact, “it’s like she doesn’t exist.” (Well, because she doesn’t.) She learns that Doo-ri and Daniel are living next door to each other and hanging out at the guesthouse, so she goes there to locate them. She tells Doo-ri flatly to get out of her company.

Then she turns to Daniel and says that she’s disappointed he trained someone like her. Her name and identity are all fake. She’s clearly there to bring down UNIS and draw a scandal. But before Ae-shim can leave, Daniel speaks up and says that he doesn’t know what’s going on, but from what he knows of Doo-ri’s character, she’s not one to bring people down. And then he basically tells Ae-shim: if she goes, I go.

That’s where we end this week, with things looking like they’re going in Daniel’s favor as far as Doo-ri’s heart is concerned. Of course, we’ve gotten plenty of hints that this whole turning-young-again business is only temporary, so what’s going to happen when Doo-ri goes back to being Mal-soon? Will she and Mr. Park decide to give it a go in their golden years? Will Emily reappear and just step in for Doo-ri?

While the young relationships seem a bit superficial because no one is who they say they are, I really like the messiness that exists between Mal-soon and Mr. Park (young or old). It wasn’t clear to me if their feelings were mutual (as he proclaims in his letter), but for sure, the timing was always off for them. She got pregnant, then he married and had a kid, and later, living next door to each other with both of their partners gone, they just never made it further than friends. Maybe that’s the way things will stay. Or maybe being young again is less about gaining extra time, and more about getting the right timing.

 
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