Episode 13 had a couple real comedic bright spots: First, Our FL’s drunken mom being carried home by the man she now calls “Baldy”- the Brewery Manager. But even funnier was the Blind Date at the end of the episode. The last time we had such a wonderful attempt by the FL to sabotage a blind date was in the first episode of BUSINESS PROPOSAL. Of course, our ML overhears the whole thing. I am looking forward to tomorrow, when we will get the other two blind dates.

Gyul is coming to see Seri and her parents- and thanks to Bom Seri is now on notice the Gyul is serious about proposing marriage. Seri is not happy.

This forming bond between Eagle Brothers and Gwangsuk is for me one of the strongest elements of this weekender and it was touching to see all of them gather and come to visit Gwangsuk and apologise.... and share some troubles.

We have consequently witnessed another quarrel between Mom and Gwangsuk (and I call them love quarrels). Mom very well sees the love Gwangsuk has for Eagle Brothers and that she is ready to share whatever she has with them (as was later confirmed by Gwangsuk offering sharing profit with Ungrateful Wife). And that's exactly what upsets Mom, I think. She wants Gwangsuk happy and she is worried that Gwangsuk is burying herself in Eagle Brewery and losing her best years... she doesn't want Gwangsuk to end up lonely as herself. She wants her to start anew and that's why she arranges the blind dates....

...which start spectacularly. 😂
Gwangsuk has definitely no intention to start a relationship now and her strategy made me laugh loudly (I think she was also testing the guy and had fun with his sweating 😁... Uri Mr Hedgehog witnessing this all was a comedy cherry on top. 😄)

The other thing is, Gwangsuk looks really happy making makkoli... and I hope Mom soon understand it as well (Baldy will help her 😁)... and I also hope for some scenes between Mom and Eagle Brothers (let's start with Maknae!) when they start bonding and Mom realises that they may become HER family as well.

Btw, anyone else also getting excited whenever Gwangsuk waits for the hotel elevator?? 😄
(Expecting Mr Hedgehog scene, of course.)
(And I again enjoyed Mr Hedgehog NOT interested in Gwangsuk's story... nope, not at all... 😄 )

Episode 13 is about Dreams and Nightmares. It is fitting that on St. Patrick’s weekend, snakes are the key metaphor. St. Patrick is that he stood atop an Irish hillside and banished snakes from Ireland—prompting all serpents to slither away into the sea. Snakes, as a Biblical reference, generally connote evil.

There are plenty of vipers in full hunting mode: So Yeon who still wants the brewery sold; Ok-Boon who is shocked when told she is a stalker; Mi-Ae is slithering to make sure Gyeol proposes to complete her golden wedding plans; and Young-Eun is still waiting in the weeds to strike Boem-Soo if he lets his guard down. CEO Han truly believes Gwang-Sook is a gold digging snake, now after a blow up about inheritance, to blind date fangs about getting out of debt with a new, rich husband. (Again, Han does not know the full story on why Gwang-Sook is acting this way . . . to scare off suitors so she can run her business.)

I was surprised that So Yeon and Gwang-Sook had another talk. GS wants to clear the air and apologize, which should be mutual. Final clarification is GS is 100 percent owner of the brewery and has taken on 100 percent of the massive debt. But GS believes her brothers-in-law are moral partners in the family business so she will share profits with them when the debt is resolved. But So Yeon only hears an “admission” of inheritance so she presses for an immediate sale. But GS gently pushes back to tell her Chun-Soo is a good man and that she should give him a chance. But SY has made up her mind and strikes back at any marital advice.

We are getting a more dream-like aura of Seri coming to fantasize about the “concept” of marriage with a partner like Beom-Soo, but not necessarily him directly. She is clearly stunned by the news Gyeol will propose to her next weekend, and she pulls back by telling Bom he may change his mind (meaning she may change her mind.) Part of the problem is her mother is pushing, scheming and demanding that she take over and inherit the hotel while Seri’s current feelings about marriage drift toward being a wife and mother.

Han is right. He has no interest in Gwang-Sook’s personal life or explanations. GS’s TMI may stem from being an only child. She now feels she has a big family of four brothers, and that makes her happy, purposeful and secure. The arguments with her mother are getting more intense, but they are both manipulate compromise thorough acts of kindness.

Joo-Sil tempers her kindness with unfiltered truth. She speaks her mind undiplomatically when she shouts the Eagle Bros are leeching off her daughter (it could be read that way) but Gwang-Sook counters that it is her position as the de facto head of the family to look out for them. Joo-Sil now has a cheeky nickname, Baldy, for our Brewmaster . . . of all the relationships on the racing form, this one that has had the most skinship.

The last snake in the episode is Silla CEO. His R&D team can make an acceptable premium liquor...

I'm starved of a Bom × Maknae interaction, and I don't like it.

Gwang-sook's cameos in LX chairman's snake documentary was so funny. She gets under his skin in the best of ways, and I love it!

Episode 14 gives us a Maknae with the cast off. Thank goodness.

The stadium organ music as our FL declares each suitor ‘Out!” was a nice touch. Only her wiles did not work on number 3. Mom finds out, of course. And then Date #3 appears at the Brewery. There was a really fun scene with mom present. Followed by a date- our fine suitor is a golf pro (and lo and behold our ML is there at the driving range for a group outing with VIPs).

We and Seri got to spend some serious time with Hani- who was delightful until she was sick.

Things are getting strained between Se-ri and her mom- and Seri was definitely not acting excited to have Gyul at the dinner table. She was pleasant and hospitable but not excited.

In very stark contrast was Bom who lit up like a lightbulb at the news that Lieutenant Oh was going to be invited to dinner at her house. It looks like their story is about to get back on track.

We ended on another comic note: Our ML doing a faceplant at the driving range (to the tune of “Dido’s Lament”, I believe) and the sound of our FL’s laughter.

Episode 14
Gwangsuk worrying about Second Brother and then comforting him and listening to his pain... 😭... (why was Wife so unnecessarily cruel??).

This was luckily balanced by a lot of cute Hani 😍 (yay! @Unit ...and we also got a promise of a meeting between Maknae and Hedgehog family! 💃)

In the meantime, Mr Hedgehog is leaving some important guests to check something even more important, yes, the progress of Gwangsuk's blind dates. 😁 (And then he spends some time by listening to classical music to calm his mind 😄, a thing his children notice.)

Mom is also checking Gwangsuk's progress and soon discovers how Gwangsuk sabotaged everything. So when the third suitor appears at the doors of the brewery, Gwangsuk has no choice but to leave with him, for a golf lesson, with VIP guests from LX Hotel, with uri Mr Hedgehog around, of course. And he is so distracted by the beautiful gold-digger (who turns out to be a very good golfer by the way, yay!) that he manages to make a laughing stock of himself by missing the ball completely and diving to the ground... and Gwangsuk does laugh... and so did I. Sorry Mr Hedgehog, it looked really funny... and you sort of deserved to be a bit knocked down from your pedestal. 😁

Episode 14- Maknae has the cast off now.

The stadium organ music as our FL declares each suitor ‘Out!” was a nice touch. Only her wiles did not work on number 3. Mom finds out, of course. And then Date #3 appears at the Brewery. There was a really fun scene with mom present. Followed by a date- our fine suitor is a golf pro (and lo and behold our ML is there for a group outing with VIPs).

We and Seri got to spend some serious time with Hani- who was delightful until she was sick.

Things are getting strained between Se-ri and her mom- and Seri was definitely not acting excited to have Gyul at the dinner table. She was pleasant and hospitable but not excited.

In very stark contrast was Bom who lit up like a lightbulb at the news that Lieutenant Oh was going to be invited to dinner at her house. It looks like their story is about to start moving forward again.

We ended on another comic note: Our ML doing a faceplant at the driving range (to the tune of a classic aria) and to the sound of our FL’s laughter.

Episode 14 shows us sabotage speed dating with Gwang-Sook teaching a master class. CEO Han is both cringed and intrigued by the three blind dates. But victorious Gwang-Sook forgot about the feedback loop: her mother would hear from her friends what had happened. Joo-Sil was not amused by her daughter’s behavior. But in another clever twist, the gregarious Golf Pro shows up to have an unannounced second date at a screen golf event. Of course it is sponsored by Han so cue another award interface. (This was a script perk for Uhm Ji Won, who is an avid golfer in real life.) Han gets his private lesson but is totally distracted by GS’s presence that he wildly flails with his tee shot, sliding down the grass. Only GS laughs at the slapstick result which puts her in a different realm than Han is used to.

Speaking of taking a dive, Chun-Soo’s wife So Yeon is definitely hiding a major secret. Her memorized script of insults and demands is masking something else that happened in the US. When Chun-Soo asks if she has a boyfriend, she denies; when he touches her she cringes and is repulsed (which made me think did she get abused in the States to the point she hates all men?) Koreans loath to discuss or get mental health therapy, but Chun-Soo having a breakdown reaching out to his dead brother was a sad repudiation of his life.

I have come to realize the Zumba Brother story line is just a place for the writer to dump all the standard k-drama misinformation into one trash heap. Prime example, hiring a private detective with 15 years of police certification? Totally false. Private detectives were illegal until 2020. Under the law, PDs are severely restricted in services. Contrary to public perception, private investigators will still be prohibited from collecting evidence in criminal and civil cases and locating the whereabouts of fugitive offenders, the agency said. They will also be banned from collecting evidence on cases under investigation or trial and from gathering data to prove a spouse's cheating or tracking down the whereabouts of runaway debtors or spouses can run counter to the Personal Information Protection Act.

I still believe Seri’s pull to Ha Ni and the Professor is not love but her fantasizing about the concept of love and marriage instead of her mother’s business blueprint. It comes to harsh reality when Ha Ni is sick and she panics because does not know what to do. Despite all the writer’s clues, I still don’t think the two are a realistic or compatible couple.

Bom and Gang-Soo are much more in real chance of love category. Bom likes his traits of strength and kindness so she feels safe around him. That is a good starting point to explore mutual feelings for each other. Her brother is about to set them back up. About time.

We do get the worn childhood fate flashback of Chun-Soo comforting young Mi-Sook. I think it is a fine memory for her, but I also think she was sincere in her advice to Chun-Soo to fight for his marriage...

Some people have noted that we actually know very little about Gyul (or Gyeol-I believe that both spellings are permissible). At this point we know that he is a doctor, a nice guy, a loving Oppa to Bom, thinks well of our Maknae and has feelings for Seri which she does not at this point reciprocate. Perhaps we did not really need to know up to this point as his only purpose in our tale has been to explain why Maknae had to leave Naval service against Maknae’s wishes and as the object of the ambitions of Seri’s mom. He is also the reason we know that Maknae is romantically inexperienced and shy around women (I still think of their story as Maknae and the Princess and that this will be a really fun romance- please do not let me down, writer-nim).

Unless the writer wishes to use Gyul as little more than a cardboard cutout this will now have to change. I doubt that Se-ri’s lack of romantic interest cannot be hidden for much longer and that should come as a shock to Gyul. He no doubt thinks that he is quite a catch (which is true) but will have to wake up to the fact that ‘being quite a catch’ is not all there is to forming a deep and lasting romantic relationship. Dramawise the Education of Gyul is rich with potential (and good thing that this is a weekender so that it can be told, assuming that is the story writer-nim has in mind).

Of course, then there is the story of Se-ri, Hani and Professor Brother. Se-ri just got a wake-up call about motherhood: There are moments when being a parent is simply terrifying. She still adores Hani but perhaps now has a more realistic understanding of things.

One thing I do know for sure is that I much prefer a love triangle (of sorts) of Seri, Gyul and Professor brother (with Hani) than the story of Zumba Brother and his two women.

Jo Seung-Yeon as Gwang sook's third blind date is quite hillarious! The self proclaimed Macho Man! 😂 I'm used to see JSY in serious characters, so seeing him in such a funny character is a good change!