For an hour and half long show (oi!) Not much happened in this episode, but what did happen hit in all right places. I’m not going to cover every detail because there was a lot of nothing, but that doesn’t mean we can’t make this fun.

 

Here’s the highlights, Ten Things I Hate About You style.

1. I hate the way you make me choose.

Now that Christmas is over, Duk Seon has two pairs of pink gloves. An obvious representation of which boy she’ll choose. Of course she picks Taek’s. But only because she’s conflicted about Jung Hwan. And why wouldn’t she be with his weird actions? This time Duk Seon’s friends are actually right about him liking her, but of course she doesn’t believe it because they failed her so miserably before.

2. I hate the way you make Sun Woo too perfect.

Really, his biggest flaw is liking a girl who has a rough exterior, but he can’t even do that wrong. He guesses right when Bo Ra is lying about meeting her ex-boyfriend.

Instead, Bo Ra goes to meet her best friend, only to find out Bo Ra’s Boyfriend kissed her BF when they were both drunk. Now I hate that I’m screaming “Run to Sun Woo!” in my head.

3. I hate how wonderfully goofy everyone is.

While Sun Woo worries about Bo Ra’s dating life, Dong Ryong informs them that girls act different around the guys they like. In fact, his exact words are:

Cut to, this–

And the adorable way her bad dancing makes Taek smile.

But Duk Seon isn’t the only dork, even though she takes the cake with this face-

Turns out Taek and Duk Seon did get to see that movie, but Taek slept though the whole thing. It’s a good thing Taek shows this side to himself, however, or else DS might treat him as untouchable as his baduk colleagues do. Aw, now I know why he likes her so much.

4. I hate the way you make me worry.

Turns out Jung Hwan’s parents have a good reason for ignoring Hyung’s strange hobbies (besides the fact that he won the lottery for them) A few years ago he was diagnosed with heart disease, and he has a pacemaker. There’s a surgery coming up to change the battery, but Hyung is worried sick.

He even bestows all his hobbies on his little brother.

On top of that, Jung Hwan keeps getting these mysterious bloody noses. Please don’t let anything bad happen to either one of them!

5. I hate the way you make me squirm.

Huge surprise, No Eul has a girlfriend. I didn’t see that one coming at all. And it turns out to be Lee Soo Kyung. I adored her in Ho Goo’s Love.

It would be sweet, if she wasn’t part of some crazy gang. Poor No Eul looks terrified as Duk Seon and her friends approach him and the girls. Duk Seon doesn’t think much of it until one of her friends notices he’s crying. That’s when she breaks out the Noona. The rest of the story is only fitting in pictures.

6. I hate it when you make me want to punch people in the face.

Bo Ra has been ignoring her boyfriend’s calls since she found out he kissed another girl. (Rightfully so) But he corners her at her house and tries to apologize.

She rejects the apology (Rightfully so) and he starts listing everything wrong with her. Someone give this guy a black eye.

7. I hate it when you make Sun Woo too perfect. Again.

After Bo Ra’s Boyfriend leaves, she tries to hold in her anger, rain pounding on her head. Sun Woo comes to rescue with an umbrella and just the right words, “You have a warm heart.”

Here, we get a flashback to the day Sun Woo’s father died, and just like Bo Ra, he has his hands in fists. Bo Ra is the only one who tells him to let it out.

She takes his hand, and he asks why she’s so cold. “It’s because I have a warm heart,” she responds. Awe!

When we get back to 1988, Sun Woo confesses again, and Bo Ra tells him to quit joking. He kisses her on the cheek, then makes a run for it. Too cute!

8. I hate when you make me feel guilty.

Because of the fight between Duk Seon and the girl gang, all of them are being held at the police station. Duk Seon’s mom comes first and immediately judges the girl by the color of her hair. When her guardian arrives with an even more garish shade of red, Duk Seon’s mom assumes it’s because she was raised poorly.

But no. The Guardian is the girl’s Unnie. Both their parents were killed a year previous and the Unnie is going to hair school in an attempt to provide for them.

Yeah, totally been in the position where I judged someone when I shouldn’t have. If that’s all that happened, it would be bad enough. But then Duk Seon’s father enters.

You think the situation can’t get any worse, but DS’s dad has called Dong Ryong’s father in too, since he’s a dean. Oh, the humanity!

9. I hate that you don’t have more Taek in this episode.

‘Nuff said.

10. But mostly, I hate the way I don’t hate you. Not even close, not even a little bit, not even at all.

Just when I think I’m immune to all this show has to throw at me, they give us one of the most heartfelt mom scenes in the world. All this time, Jung Hwan’s mom has been strong for her oldest who’s so worried about his surgery, and even though I could see through her act from the beginning, it didn’t hit me any less seeing her cry in the TV room.

I love that the doctor, who was so stoic before, takes back all his words about no surgery being simple, just to comfort her.

Above all that, I love that even when Hyung is safe and sound, he thinks of his little brother before himself. True love, y’all.

Thoughts:

Although this episode dragged on for me, I have hope that we’ll get a lot more goodness as we go forward. (And it’s probably a good thing production has been delayed, because I want this show to be the best it can be.)

It was super cute at the end how they showed Duk Seon’s ‘little’ brother as an adult.

I’m starting to see hints of our crew growing up to be amazing people. Fun, crazy, and amazing people.