The First Night with the Duke: Episodes 3-4

by DaebakGrits

When our transmigrated heroine fails to get her favorite novel back on track, she tries a new strategy that proves just as ineffective. Not only is the male lead head-over-heels in love with her, but staying true to her original objective proves difficult once she’s on the receiving end of her prince’s kindness.

EPISODES 3-4

The drama gods must be lurking on Dramabeans, because it feels like they read my recap last week, saw that I had issues with Seon-chaek’s backstory (or lack thereof), and decided to retroactively clarify a few things — namely, what made Seon-chaek so angsty in her former life. Unfortunately, while it’s entirely believable that she would drop out of college and become a hermit after being socially ostracized by her peers, the reason she was bullied by her friends and classmates is, well, dumb. Seriously, her best friend’s boyfriend asks her out, and after Seon-chaek rejects him — publicly, in the university courtyard, with a crowdful of cell phones pointed at them to document the awkwardness of the moment, mind you — somehow she’s painted as a harlot who seduced her bestie’s man. Make it make sense, folks.

This backstory, however, does explain why Seon-chaek is so vehemently against going with the flow of her current circumstances and allowing the story to rewrite itself with her as Yi Beon’s love interest. While most romance readers actively fantasize about their favorite fictional men and would love to be the object of their romantic affections, Seon-chaek is actively opposed to the idea because, to her, it’s tantamount to stealing another woman’s man. And having already been falsely accused of breaking girl-code in the past, she doesn’t want to be an obstacle blocking Eun-ae from her true love.

Yi Beon is really testing Seon-chaek’s devotion to Eun-ae and her personal willpower, though. After she passed out in his arms, he spent the remainder of the night climbing a mountain, fighting a tiger, and freeing a trickster spirit in order to obtain a cure-all herb that will fix whatever ailment caused her fainting spell. When he shows up on her doorstep, herb in hand and with cuts on his face and mud on clothes signifying the great lengths he will go for her, Seon-chaek’s resolve momentarily weakens. Keyword being “momentarily” — because she fights off her undeniable urge to swoon over his gallant actions and refocuses her attention on the task at hand. It’s time to implement a new tactic that will get the story back on track.

Instead of trying to run away from Yi Beon and remove herself from the story entirely, she decides she should proactively play matchmaker. And what better backdrop for a romantic setup than an evening meeting of the Seonmun Club? With Soo-gyeom’s permission, Seon-chaek invites Eun-ae to the next meeting, and she needn’t bother requesting that he also extend an invitation to Yi Beon, too, because Yi Beon had already insisted that he would join the club. So he can be around Seon-chaek, of course.

The night of the Seonmun Club meeting, Seon-chaek intentionally dresses in a drab hanbok, insists on placing Eun-ae next to Yi Beon in the seating arrangement, and excessively promotes Eun-ae’s finer qualities, but none of these not-so-subtle attempts to get Yi Beon to notice Eun-ae work in her favor. He only has eyes for Seon-chaek, and even though he may not realize that Seon-chaek is trying to set him up with another woman, he’s palpably frustrated by her lack of attention and jealous that her unofficial co-hosting duties make her extra chummy with Soo-gyeom. Like, everyone in the room is recoiling from his scary aura, and they’re visibly shocked when Seon-chaek force feeds Yi Beon one of Eun-ae’s desserts and doesn’t get beheaded for the impertinence.

When hyping up Eun-ae’s finest attributes doesn’t cause Yi Beon’s heart to flutter, Seon-chaek tries to use a scavenger hunt as an opportunity to recreate Yi Beon’s meet-cute with Eun-ae in the novel. She enlists the help of her trusted maid, BONG WOOL-YI (Oh Se-eun), to hide in a tree and scatter cherry blossom petals for added effect, but instead of swooning, Yi Beon sneezes. The “achoo” is a far cry from “I love you,” but that’s not the worst part of Yi Beon’s reaction. No, he calls Eun-ae by the wrong name — but not just any name: Do Hwa-seon. (If that ain’t foreshadowing that the novel’s leading lady is about to become its villainess, then I don’t know what is.)

After the manufactured flower petal trope fails, Wool-yi follows through with Seon-chaek’s backup plan and releases a rat into the garden. But this strategy backfires, too, and instead of chivalrously protecting Eun-ae from the rodent, Yi Beon aloofly stands by and watches her freak out. Eun-ae loses her balance, and when Yi Beon does not offer her a hand to steady herself, she grabs for his sword. Gravity does its thing, Eun-ae falls back, the sword unsheathes from its scabbard, and Yi Beon allows Eun-ae to fall unceremoniously into the pond. (Whomp, whomp.)

Does Yi Beon feel sympathy for the drenched heroine? Nope, he’s more concerned about his sword, and while it amuses me that he completely ignores Eun-ae to fish his sword out of the garden pond, it’s also rather odd that he wouldn’t offer a helping hand to Seon-chaek’s friend. Does his kindness for Seon-chaek not extend to her friends? Is this, perhaps, a limitation of his character in that, as the male lead, he’s incapable of being nice to women who aren’t his love interest? Or does he sense — as his earlier name slip would indicate — that he has a reason to distrust Eun-ae? Either way, water-logging his prized sword is enough of an offense that Eun-ae ends up staring down the pointy end of it once she drags herself out of the pond.

Eun-ae is soaking wet and embarrassed when she returns to the party, and while Seon-chaek tries to lighten the mood with her bartending skills and drinking games, things go awry (again) during a truth-or-dare infused round of Jenga. Yi Beon is a bit of a buzz kill, refusing to answer the hypothetical question of whether he would kill or save his love if she was turned into a bug on the grounds that that the scenario is too preposterous. However, when it’s his turn to ask Seon-chaek a question, he inquires about her last kiss instead of reading the text written on his Jenga block (What color is your underwear?).

Normally I’d assume he’s trying to protect her modesty by avoiding the underwear question, but then he reveals to the entire Seonmun Club that he and Seon-chaek have been intimate together when she lies that her lips are still chaste. Publicly alluding to a night of X-rated content with a noble lady is the opposite of protecting Seon-chaek’s modesty, so I can only assume he asked the question so he could lead into his next public announcement: that he intends to marry her.

And, from that point on, the party rapidly declines and devolves into pure pandemonium. While the shocked room reacts to Yi Beon’s wedding declaration, Eun-ae has an allergic reaction to Seon-chaek’s peach flavored brew. In her haste to aid her friend, Seon-chaek knocks over a candle and sets the remaining alcohol on fire, and the epicly chaotic mess sets the stage for Yi Beon to dramatically rescue Seon-chaek from the blaze and make her heart flutter again.

If you thought the night ended there — just wait! There’s more! You see, while Yi Beon was announcing his intentions to marry Seon-chaek at the party, he had a formal marriage proposal delivered to Seon-chaek’s home. So when he escorts an ash-covered Seon-chaek to her doorstep, he’s greeted by her entire family, and her father is not pleased with the proposal. At first, he blames his refusal on the fact that Seon-chaek’s older brothers are still unmarried, but the truth is that Ho-yeol doesn’t want his daughter marrying into the royal family.

Yi Beon had a solid rebuttal for the unmarried sons excuse, but he’s silent when Ho-yeol mentions the royal family because Yi Beon knows all too well the dangers Seon-chaek would face as his wife. His own mother died trying to put Yi Beon’s unwilling father on the throne, and the only reason Yi Beon was allowed to live after his mother’s attempted rebellion is that he swore to be the current king’s sword, killing all who would oppose him.

I was particularly fond of this scene because it featured a Joseon era — albeit a fake Joseon — father who put his daughter before his own political ambitions. When he found out that Seon-chaek slept with Yi Beon, he did not see that as reason enough to marry her off. He’d rather her live with him as a spinster than see her forced into an unwanted political marriage. He also valued Seon-chaek’s opinion and asked her whether or not she wanted to marry Yi Beon, and to everyone’s surprise — including her own — she couldn’t bring herself to outright refuse.

Initially, after being rebuffed by Seon-chaek’s father, it would seem like Yi Beon has taken a step back from pursuing a marriage with his lady love, but given that he tells her brothers they have a month to find brides, it appears he’s only biding his time. While he waits to make his next move, though, rumors of his engagement to Seon-chaek spread from the Seonmun Club to the village, and pretty much everyone knows of their pending nuptials — everyone including Hwa-seon.

The story’s original villainess does what any mean girl does when she can’t win a man’s heart herself: she begs an older, influential relative — in this case, the QUEEN MOTHER (Nam Gi-ae) — to pull some strings. On behalf of Hwa-seon, the queen mother convinces the king to host a formal marriage selection for Yi Beon instead of allowing him to marry whoever he wants. However, even with the marriage selection as an added hurdle between Yi Beon and Seon-chaek, Hwa-seon cannot risk Seon-chaek participating in the marriage selection. No, she’s got to eliminate her biggest competition before the selection process begins. Cue: the random Western character, MARK.

It’s unclear if Hwa-seon hired Mark before or after Seon-chaek took pity on the shipwrecked white man, who (like her) was so lost and far from home, and bought him food and clothes, but I’m assuming it was before, as later evidence would suggest he was faking his poor Korean pronunciation. Either way, Hwa-seon uses the rumor that Westerners carry diseases (well, that checks out historically) to her advantage. Mark somehow poisons Seon-chaek, and when she gets sick with a plague-like ailment, she’s removed from her home and isolated outside the city walls.

Yi Beon hears of her diagnosis and forces his way past the guards blocking him from exiting the city. He’s determined to be with her, and once he’s at her side, he cradles her to his chest and comforts her when she admits she’s afraid to die. (After he uttered the words, “Die if you can. I will chase you to the end,” I swooned.)

The gentle way he cares for her and nurses her back to health is undeniably sweet and romantic, and his attentiveness melts Seon-chaek’s heart. So when the trickster spirit — in possession of a shaman’s body — intentionally shifts the wind and carries one of the flyers announcing Yi Beon’s marriage selection to Seon-chaek’s plague house, Seon-chaek decides to fight for her own happy ending. Even though she’s still weak and recovering from her illness, she runs back to the city in order to meet the marriage selection’s rushed deadline and enter her name into consideration.

What Seon-chaek doesn’t know yet, though, is that Eun-ae is also entering the selection process. It’s still to be determined if she’s doing it entirely because her adoptive father encouraged her to enter, or if — despite her very rocky introduction to Yi Beon — she aspires to be a part of the royal family. Personally, I hope she’s simply doing it to make her adoptive father happy, because now that Soo-gyeom has adorably admitted to Seon-chaek that he has feelings for Eun-ae, I want them to pair off. What a convenient way for everyone — not you Hwa-seon — to get their happily ever after!

Unfortunately, I also can’t shake the feeling that there’s something significant about the way Yi Beon accidentally called Eun-ae by the villainess’s name. Eun-ae appears sweet and vanilla, but I sense an edge to her personality that could either turn her into a villain or prompt her to break away from the novel’s predestined plan and forge her own path towards romance with someone other than Yi Beon — ‘cause we know already know that Seon-chaek and Yi Beon are the OTP of this revised version of the story.

And I’m so very much here for our OTP. I can’t say that I love everything about this drama, as there are certainly some draggy bits and some odd casting choices (looking at you Mark), but it’s still fun. It’s like a romantic beach read: not a lot of substance but the romance and tropes are comfortably predictable and take me to my happy place. Plus, Taecyeon is absolutely nailing the role of the dark-prince-turned-besotted-fool-in-the-name-of-love, and while he alone wasn’t enough for me to finish Heartbeat, he’s certainly working his magic with this script.

 
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