My Daughter Seo-young: Episode 31

As you all know, I’ve been keeping tabs on the show via headlines, and today’s were pretty shocking, so I decided to give the episode a watch.  Talk about a doozy.  I haven’t decided yet whether to go back and watch all the episodes I missed and recap them…  I’m just so behind, and I’m afraid I may never catch up in time – that is, before the show ends altogether.  So for today, Episode 31.  For those who haven’t been watching the show – raw or subbed or whatever it may be – or just need a refresher, please refer to the Motley Collection post for an uber quick update on all the bamboozlin’ that’s been goin’ down.

 

Episode 31

Sang-woo and Ho-jung tie the knot, but what should be a joyous occasion is distinctly overshadowed by heartache.  Seo-young watches from afar, just as Papa Lee did three years ago, and Papa Lee is lost in his turbulent thoughts.  Sang-woo and Ho-jung finally say their goodbyes and head off for their honeymoon, but awkwardness abounds for this couple.  Seriously, awkward turtle.

Woo-jae is off on a business trip, and he recalls the conversation with his friend: He’s intentionally sending Seo-young to Sang-woo’s wedding as a last ditch attempt to save their marriage.  If she still refuses to tell him the truth about her family, then he won’t ever be able to forget that she lied to him to the bitter end.  Neither of them would want to stay with each other simply for the sake of staying together – that’s not why they got married.  His friend asks what he’ll do if Seo-young refuses to fess up even after the wedding, and Sang-woo responds – but more as a reassurance(?) to himself – that Seo-young will tell him for sure.  Uh… this doesn’t bode well.  And dude, from all accounts you’ve been a jerk-o-butt the last several weeks.  She ain’t gonna want to tell you something so important when things are rocky as is.

Seo-young sits by the Han River – where else, right? – and bawls her eyes out.  Yeah, I agree, your life ain’t fun.  She thinks back on her decision to leave her family, on happier times with Woo-jae, on the miserable current situation.  And bawls.  Yeah, I would, too.

Papa Lee breaks down the pink bed frame he had made for Seo-young long looong ago – my goodness, so much has happened since then! – and burns the wood pieces.  Sad panda.  He imagines Mama Lee standing beside him, and she asks if he feels it’s time now to get rid of the bed.  He answers that Seo-young won’t be coming back, and she shouldn’t, either.  Sad panda.  He thinks about Woo-jae, marveling at how intertwined their lives were – dramaland does that to you – and wonders what happened with Woo-jae’s dilemma.  (Woo-jae met up with Papa Lee and asked for advice on how to deal with a person who had told a biiig lie to him, aka Seo-young.  Papa Lee, though, still thinks Woo-jae is in the dark about him being Seo-young’s father.)

Ho-jung makes up excuses to sleep in the next room over for the night, and she wanders downstairs, which is where Sang-woo finds her.  He overhears her telling a couple of kids that she skis quite well and even figure skated when she was younger.  Earlier, when Sang-woo admitted he’d never been to a ski resort, Ho-jung had quickly answered that she didn’t know how to ski, either.  Sang-woo tells her he’ll teach her how to ski, and Ho-jung emphasizes that she’s reaaaally bad at this stuff.  Hehehehe and awww.  He gently pushes her down the slope and comments that she’s quite good – which prompts her to quickly fall down in a show of ski-suckiness.  LOLOL.  He asks what’s up with the Hollywood-worthy stunts and reminds her that he hates lies more than anything else.  But he’ll forgive her if she teaches him how to ski.  Awww.

Mi-kyung gets drunk and sings her lungs out at a noraebang where Kim Jong-kook’s MV plays on the screen.  What do you mean that detail wasn’t important?!  It totes was!!  Yuck Sun-woo comes and asks what in the world is going on with the boozin’ and singing.  Tears trickle down Mi-kyung’s face as she tells Sun-woo, “Why didn’t you ‘catch’ my brother?  It’s all your fault.  If you had married my brother, I wouldn’t have broken up with Sang-woo.”  Yikes.  Sun-woo takes Mi-kyung home and sees Seo-young sitting in the dark, lost in thought.

The next morning, she takes out a super secret spy mini trunk that holds an assortment of things, among which is her savings book and mysterious pills.  Mysterious, judging by the music playing.  Uuunfortunately, she forgets to lock the box in her hurry to answer Mama Kang’s summons.  This is no bueno.  Seo-young goes to work and Yeon-hee asks if everything is okay, if things are still bad with Woo-jae.  Seems like the two became buddies while I was napping.  Sun-woo has noticed, too, though, and wonders what’s going down.  To add insult to injury, she asks Lawyer Go to solve the riddle: Because Sun-woo didn’t catch Woo-jae, Mi-kyung broke up with Sang-woo.  What could possibly be the connecting bridge between the two events?  Uh, lady, stop right there.

Sung-jae coaches now former Director Choi on the acting front, and the two get a facial together.  Hahahaa.  Also getting pampered are Mama Kang and Mama Choi.  Mama Choi marvels at how well Mama Kang and Sung-jae get along, and Mama Kang says she’d rather have Sung-jae than ten daughters.  Heee!  She says Sung-jae was a gift from heaven – when they first saw each others, sparks flew.  Hahahahaa.

We get a flashback to how Sung-jae came to be adopted.  Someone left a baby at the Kang’s residence with a letter detailing the baby’s name and the mother’s appeal that her son be raised well.  I knew it!  Mama Kang fell in love with the child — how could you not fall in love with that smile — and he came to fill the gaping void left courtesy of President Kang.  Though their marriage had been arranged, Mama Kang had fallen in love with her husband.  He, however, didn’t return the feelings.  Poor Mama Kang.  She goes home and takes out Sung-jae’s baby clothes and the letter his biological mother left behind, reminiscing on that day.  Just then, Secretary Yoon arrives with a speech Mama Kang needs to memorize.  Oh my gollies, is the big reveal gonna happen?!

Seo-young meets up with Sang-woo and puts up a brave front, assuring him that she’s still happily married.  He was worried because he had no idea the Kang and Choi family were so close.  When asked how long he dated Ho-jung, Sang-woo answers that it’s been a while – he’s known her for over three years.  Seo-young says it’s good he knew her for a long time – it’s best to marry someone you knew for a long time.  Sang-woo replies that knowing someone a long time doesn’t mean you actually know everything about them, and there are those who learn about each other throughout their marriage like Seo-young.  Gah, too much twisty twistiness going on here.  He tells her that Dad has changed a lot, and it makes him sadder over the broken father-daughter relationship.  She tells him not to worry about it – she was always a tough cookie.

Papa Lee makes a delivery to *drum roll* Mama Sung!  Drats, wrong drama.  To Mrs. Bang, who owns a carpentry store (I think?).  They get into a little tiff but Mrs. Bang is soon impressed by Papa Lee’s knowledge of wood.

Ho-jung and Sang-woo return from their honeymoon and Ho-jung tells her family that the newlyweds will be going straightaway to their own home and Papa Lee.  Traditionally, newlyweds usually spend a night at the bride’s family’s home upon returning from their honeymoon before going to the groom’s.  (That more modern tradition stems from an older Korean custom where the marriage took place at the bride’s home and the newlyweds lived there for a month before moving permanently to the groom’s home.  Permanent as in no return.  Ever.)  Mama Choi, of course, is upset beyond measure, but Ho-jung refuses to budge.  Later that night, the newlyweds and Papa Lee move into their new home, but it’s all bittersweet for Papa Lee.

Mama Kang practices her speech but turns pale when she sees the edits Secretary Yoon made.  The writing looks all too familiar…  Woo-jae and President Kang return from their business trip, and Woo-jae accidentally knocks down Seo-young’s super secret case.  Oh nooooes.  He picks up all the stuff and sees her packet of pills, wondering what it could be.  During dinner, the topic of Seo-young’s pregnancy comes up, and she vehemently denies that she’s pregnant.  Mi-kyung comments on her vehemence and how strange it is that such a loving couple still doesn’t have a child.  Oh noooes.  After dinner, Woo-jae looks up the pills he had found… and learns they’re birth control pills.  YIKES.  He recalls the times he had told Seo-young he wanted a child, the times that she went to the OB/GYN to make sure everything was okay…

Woo-jae waits for Seo-young in their bedroom, and when she finally comes in, he resignedly asks how the wedding was.  She freezes a moment before saying that she wasn’t able to go.  Gaaaah this is just painful.  He asks if that’s all she has to say, and she hesitates before apologizing for missing the wedding.  She turns to leave, and he says, “Let’s break up.  I just can’t live any longer with you.  I don’t want to live with you.”  Aaack.  He holds out the BCPs and asks how long she’s been taking them, realizing that there was no need to go to the OB/GYN in the first place.  That’s why she had never been concerned.  She apologizes, saying she’s not taking them now, but that angers him further – does she always make decisions for herself, does everything revolve around her?  Didn’t she know he was waiting for a child?  She explains that she hadn’t been ready yet, apologizing for not having been able to discuss it with him.  He can’t get over the fact that she went to the doctor with Mama Kang and also with him while on the Pill.  What kind of person is she, how far was she willing to take it?  Her apologies are too little too late, and he tells her, “Let’s finish things now quietly amongst ourselves before things get ugly once my parents find out.”  Nooooo.

Downstairs, Mama Kang gets up, still bothered by the resemblance between Secretary Yoon’s writing and that of the letter Sung-jae’s biological mom wrote.  She compares the two… and they’re identical.

 

Thoughts

Talk about a doozy of an episode.  Seriously, is this the end of the you-know-what going down?  Or is there more you’ve got up your sleeve?  Ay carumba.

I feel bad for Sang-woo, but I feel bad for Ho-jung, too.  It sucks that Sang-woo and Mi-kyung were forced to break up, and Ho-jung got what she wanted, but no one is happy right now.  It’s not Ho-jung’s fault that Mi-kyung is Woo-jae’s sister, and I feel the poor girl is bearing the brunt of the nastiness.  Sang-woo doesn’t resent her though, at the least, and there is a glimmer of hope for these two.  It’ll take some time, but I know these two are gonna end up happy together.

Seo-young isn’t getting a break episode after episode from all accounts, and today’s was just a stinkers for her.  I really liked an article I recently read on a Korean news site, in which the journalist commented on how uncomfortable it was watching Woo-jae be such a bad guy.  S/he asked: Where did the loving Woo-jae go?  Who is this person so completely transformed?  The Woo-jae we had seen throughout the drama would certainly have felt angry and betrayed, but he would have tried to understand Seo-young.  After all, he loves her so much.  The journalist offered an opinion on the 180-degree change: Woo-jae’s character is being so nasty so that viewers will feel sorry for Seo-young and rally behind her.  A lot of people were divided when Seo-young decided to lie about Papa Lee and marry Woo-jae.  Even we here at the Patch were divided.  But now, though some may say Seo-young brought it on herself, everyone agrees that it’s “oh no, poor Seo-young,” not “that evil, ungrateful, vindictive Seo-young.”  I guess the writer succeeded in that respect, but she lost quite a bit of cred from me.  I knew going in that I should be wary – after all, she penned The Great Inheritance and 49 Days – but I was won over by the first ten episodes.  Then… things got ugly, and now things are just wacked.

A part of me hopes the next couple of episodes just get down and dirty in the pit of nastiness so that we can spend the rest of the series watching Seo-young grow, repair her relationship with Papa Lee, and win Woo-jae back.  I don’t want to watch eighteen episodes of nasty and one episode of people finally starting to reconcile.  (Assuming we’ll still end with 50 episodes.)  And by reconciliation, I mean eeeeveryone on this show of brokenly broken twistily twisty relationships.  Mi-kyung needs to get the 4D virus and be happily weird with Kyung-ho.  Sung-jae needs to find some kind of space for the scarily possessive and ambitious Secretary Yoon, since she is his biological mother, but he also needs to remain as devoted to Mama Kang as he is now.  He’ll go through a rough patch, but I know the adorable mother-son pair will come out the other end stronger than before.  President Kang needs to get his act together and give his wife the love she deserves.  Mama Choi needs to accept her husband for who he is, not what she wants him to be.  You married him because you were madly in love, after all.  And last but certainly not least, Sang-woo and Ho-jung need to find happiness and make adorable babies.  Did I get everyone?

What did you think of Episode 31?  What did you think of all the episodes I haven’t quiiite gotten around to?  Please share! 😀

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