Goddess of Marriage - Episodes 21 & 22 (KimJiCap)
kakashi: Ah! Finally! Something happens! Boredom is over! Our OTP (if it ever was that) doesn't advance one step further, but at least things start changing around them. If the show continues like that, watching it to the end will not be as painful as I feared.
JoAnne: I hate these people.
kakashi: Oh yes. I do too. But I prefer to hate while not being bored to death.
Episode 21
kakashi: The Snore drinks alone and mopes - while the MUUUSIC plays. Is it the same table she moped on? I'm sure it is. Because, you know, unmyeong and all! Her rebuttal plays in his head. But does he get it? Yes? Finally? You're a measly one-night-stand. Nothing more! Nothing more! Oh my goodness, he even cries.
JoAnne: Oh MY GOD. Would you just PLEASE go sleep with someone else? PLEASE? Reprogram the D, dude. Erase. Imagine that NewP is like a Daalek, and it will 'e-lim-in-ate, e-lim-in-ate' your sad, sad, pitiful OH SO TIRESOME memories of that one night on Jeju-do.
kakashi: The Annoyance waltzes in. She's all: what's the matter, honey-bunny? He is all: nothing. I'm just going to take a leak. You choose dinner. But he obviously lied, because he just goes outside to mope and look up at the sky.
JoAnne: You don't know. Maybe he likes to pee in the garden.
kakashi: Alright! Cause they pee into the gardens on Jeju, probably!
kakashi: At the Little House of Married Bliss, Sourpuss is quasi carried in and deposited on the bed. I hope she didn't drive home?
JoAnne: I hope she did, and the path of destruction* makes front page news. She goes to jail where she learns to appreciate just how 'white girl' her problems were. No offense. I'm a white girl. What's the equivalent in other countries when you want to let someone know they have no clue how unproblematic their problems are? Here, we say 'white girl problem'. Like, oh my gawd, I asked for a DOUBLE-vente latte half-caf mocha drip with STRAWWWWberry swizzles and he gave me - ugh - va-NILLAAAAAA.
*No actual persons were harmed in the making of this daydream.
kakashi: Sexy prosecutor gets home, visibly exhausted and sighing deeply. He finds his wife passed out on the bed, reeking of alcohol. Puzzlement meets disgust on his face.
JoAnne: Maybe she's dead.
kakashi: When Ji-hye runs from the house next, it is bright daylight and she has missed breakfast duty. She should be glad she has missed breakfast, because it's Doom Central once again. DickBrother is kneeling on the floor. He pleads innocence, but his father says the day it is confirmed that he did something illegal, he will be forever banned from this family. He asks Tae-wook
what happened, didn't he tell him to make sure his brother wouldn't go
to prison? (Huh? I thought he told him to find him the most comfortable
prison cell possible?)
JoAnne: I haaaaaaaaaaate these people.
kakashi: Ji-hye is a bit unlucky in her choice of entry. It's one of those "do-not-disturb-if-at-all-possible" moments, but she busts in - and gets yelled at by DragonMother immediately, who is of course glad to have the attention away from her beloved son. But the scolding she gets from NewBiatch is much longer and much more severe. It's what we have heard many times before: watch what you do, because people are watching you now. This is a matter of household dignity. I, personally, don't find it all that hard to understand, but the Sourpuss still doesn't seem to get it. She truly is clueless, I guess?
JoAnne: Actually, NewBiatch had a point. But she's still - oh man, she deserves everything coming to her.
kakashi: At Honey-Bunny Central, Tae-wook wants to know what is going on with her, but she doesn't want to talk to him and is nasty. As quasi always. He wants to know whom she drank with. She drank alone, she says, not lying, but also not being entirely honest.
kakashi: He tells her to stop, he gets it ... and she tells him to not yell at her. There are enough people who do that already. And she storms out.
kakashi: That is already it - no more Tae-wook in this episode. That was about 5 minutes, right? So lame. But some more Sourpuss, when she buys expensive bags and stuff for her niece and sister - who immediately realizes something is wrong, which leads to a sobfest in Ji-hye's old room. Later, CareerWoman drives her home - and says take it easy (in many more words), cause the first year of marriage is always the hardest. Thinks will get better, don't you worry, Sourpuss! And the Sourpuss says: but unni, why do I fear things will not get better? And I know the answer: because you are forever and ever a depressed Sourpuss.
JoAnne: However, this flashes me back to a particularly bad time in my own life where I called my mother sobbing from half way across the country, and my husband took the phone and in a very reasonable tone of voice said to her that I was just emotional because I was pregnant - allowing her to immediately dismiss everything I had just said as crazy talk. I can assure you of several things: he had not been using that tone with me 5 minutes earlier, I was not emotional because I was pregnant, and it was not crazy talk. Goddammit, now I feel sympathy toward her. And I hate her, so that pisses me off.
kakashi: But the next day, she goes back to the broadcasting station - to get a job there again, as a writer. She asks the PD to keep it a secret. And she wants to write under a pseudonym. Hey, I like this! She actually took initiative and wasn't just passive aggressive!
JoAnne: Feeling cautiously like Ji Hye's not the WORST drama sobsister ever, but still suspicious.
kakashi: Yeah. We have at least 11 episodes to go - so there's still a chance for this drama to become the worst ever.
The Rest
There are more than 10 minutes of NewBiatch at the beginning of this episode. Maybe I didn't get the memo and she is the lead now? She seeks out her past love, Nam Sang-hoon, who is a media studies teacher now. Of course, she blames him for the blackmail and is her usual bitchy self, not believing him that it wasn't him etc. When she is finally gone, we see that he is in a wheel chair.
JoAnne: I KNEW it. I KNEW there was going to be a wheel chair.
kakashi: We also find out that indeed, the Nam-woman is his sister, and she wants to avenge the tragedy that has befallen their family because of NewBiatch. But he is a good man and tells her to stop. In a lengthy flashback, we see their sweeeet love - and how the giant teddy bear came into her life. And why she pushed her first sweeeeet love out of her life (misery of a poor family, death of her father, etc.). We haven't seen how yet, though.
JoAnne: Fee fi fo fum, I smell a cliche.
kakashi: She also goes out and gets piss-drunk. She pays the lackey
to keep it a secret. Bitch - not so long ago, she yelled at the Sourpuss for doing the same. Up in her room, she sobs on the big teddy, probably ruining it. Points to
this drama for making me feel absolutely nothing for any of these
characters.
JoAnne: How can you say that? The stoicism displayed on that poor sad face...the depth of feeling in the stillness... that teddy bear is ROCKING his role. Baeksang! Baeksang!
kakashi: Alright, NewBiatch gets some plus points for telling DragonMother to her face that she is to blame for DickBrother's troubles - bringing the Nam-woman and her money laundering, husband-stealing tricks into the house and all. Later, she goes and collects all her husband's things from Nam-woman's house. There, she finds a picture of Nam-woman and her first love. Busted!
JoAnne: Loved this.
kakashi: Little does she know though that her baby-brother has already been swallowed by the enemy. Nam-woman says goodbye to him, she is leaving for Paris. And she leaves him in charge of the gallery. Not good. And before she really leaves, she uploads all the pictures of NewBiatch and her brother onto the hotel website. Alright. Things are moving.
JoAnne: Meh.
Episode 22
kakashi: A stone-faced Tae-wook enters his superior's office, and I'm hopping around some more. Don't tell me you are suddenly getting exciting again, drama? Tae-wook asks for help. Not as a prosecutor, but as a college colleague. How far has his brother's case progressed? Far, he learns.
JoAnne: Run, Tae Wook-ah! Run!
kakashi: I kinda like that her evil plan unfolds so well.
kakashi: Tae-wook shouts at his brother, didn't he tell him to be careful?! His brother still denies everything, but Tae-wook knows now ... this is bad. The household is about to be destroyed. Yay, Tae-wook in poverty! In a small hut, without a shirt. Cause he can't afford one.
kakashi: At home, the DragonMIL is all over her, slapping and screaming and cursing. And kicking her out. The girls witness everything and call their aunt, who is (secretly) working on a script. Ji-hye rushes over to comfort the girls - and takes them over to her house for the night.
JoAnne: Wow an actual positive human action from someone.
kakashi: This is where an exhausted and depressed prosecutor finds them - in his bed. Ji-hye isn't unkind for a change, but he is clearly not happy about the situation - and leaves the bedroom with a deep sigh. I think he just can't take any more bad news.
JoAnne: I refuse to think he's pissed about two poor baby innocents asleep in the bed he was hoping to get some in.
kakashi: She follows him out, asking what is going on. He asks whether she has seen the internet today - that is what's going on. His brother is being investigated and his sister-in-law is exposed to the world as a hussy. What do we do know? She asks him - face things as they come, he replies. And goes to work instead of sleeping. All distressed and helluvalot sexy.
JoAnne: You speak the truth, my friend. But I have a hard time reconciling this with the Kim Ji Hoon I now know to be a compulsive internet shopper and avid buyer of things on sale.
kakashi: When they next see each other, weeks have passed. Or maybe a week. Or one and a half. Anyways, he doesn't look too good. He could in fact play a ghost over on The Master's Sun. He has come to see his father.
JoAnne: Dude looks like death. I think I should go give him a back rub.
kakashi: The Patron is on the phone with the chief of police. Uh-oh. Tae-wook's face and posture reads discomfort. But his father says not to worry. Step back - it's over. What?
JoAnne: Like we didn't know it would happen.
kakashi: He wants to know why she is talking like that. She repeats: She has no expectations - so don't bother. He grabs her arm when she turns away from him, but she continues: "Did you ever act according to your promises? You said you would make sure I can continue working at the broadcasting station, but in the end, I had to quit. It is the same with the States." While she is not blaming him, this is what she has come to accept from this family: no expectations. He has disappointed her.
JoAnne: I mean, it's not like she's lying, though. She's not even exaggerating. It is the truth.
kakashi: What does she mean? he asks, his voice hard. All that has happened this week, Ji-hye says, it maybe could have happened to anybody. But it doesn't. It happens here, in this shitty family. And she is afraid of this family. She doesn't know how much more she can take. She'll try as long as she can, giving her best. But she really doesn't know how much longer.
JoAnne: And I'm left thinking if that's how you think, might as well walk now. It's not like you're doing anybody any favors.
kakashi: And the episode ends with NewBiatch's brother being arrested and her running to the Patron. Who says tell little brother to go to prison for 3 years - and all will be good. He can come work at the company after.
JoAnne: Right.
kakashi: Wonderful perspective, yes.
The Rest
kakashi: The Snore, the unlucky bastard, realizes his business partner, the slimeball architect, is doing dodgy stuff for DickBrother (building stuff far cheaper than what is in the blueprints). That's another really clever way of laundering money! And some lengthy dialogue about rich wives and poor wives and money, money, money.
JoAnne: I hope this man is crushed in the building collapse to come.
kakashi: Next, the Snore is slaughtered by the Annoyance's mother. Delicious. It's about the big house he doesn't want (cause he thinks it's too big ... I mean .... who would turn down a house for being too big??) and about matching their standards. Okay, I like it that he is going through what the Sourpuss is going through - this is gender equality, right there!
JoAnne: When that horrible woman says 'This is what I mean! What do you have to do that! Can you just not have opinions and match us?' I laughed HARD.
kakashi: There is a scene right after, when he rides in his car, thinking about the choices he has made and the life before him, when he hears her broadcast on the radio. What follows is the first touching scene between them (at least for me): they merely text, but the texting is a secret and is about a secret (her working again), which comes with a very sweet intimacy. Yes, there is a connection between them. I felt it.
JoAnne: After more than a year of silence, he can recognize her writing off the bat. That's something.
There is more, but it seems truly irrelevant.
Final Comments, 21/22
kakashi: Well, I guess uri Tae-wook had to hear it at one stage, and I'm glad it's out. The Sourpuss is right in what she said: he promised stuff and didn't keep it. Let's hope the writer doesn't waste this crucial momentum! What will he do now? He must realize at this point that his marriage is not going to last much longer if he doesn't do something very quickly. And I guess the only thing he can do if he truly loves her is what his other brother did: leave the family and go away. Forever.
JoAnne: Giving us another 20 episodes of them setting up house in Boston or something? yeah, right.
kakashi: I want a house in Boston.
kakashi: The other person that faces tough choices is NewBiatch. Will she betray her brother for her new family? The choice seems clear (plus, she hates her husband!), but we have come to know her as calculating and greedy person, that would do almost anything for a comfortable life as rich DIL. If her brother takes the fall, the Kangs will certainly recover quickly - and she may be able to recover some of her previous status in the process.
JoAnne: Not to mention she'll lose her kids, any hope of ever helping her family in anyway, etc etc etc. Brother was stupid. I say let him hang.
kakashi: Finally, on the Snore. I am quite glad Lee Sang-woo got some better lines in episode 22. He is still very annoying though, his character. That passiveness! I want to kick him! His dilemma isn't very interesting either. He can marry an incredibly rich woman, who has a terrible mother, and whom he doesn't really love - or he can NOT marry her. The drama needs to give us a bit more if we are to understand why he would want to go for option 1. He isn't into the money and he also isn't into the woman. So just move on and go to Italy. Forever.
JoAnne: Seriously. This is manufactured drama. I mean, more than normal. It's boring.
kakashi: He could just die at this moment and nobody would miss him. I know there were other characters before, some of them have just disappeared from the drama. Do we miss them? No.
JoAnne: I hate these people.
kakashi: Oh yes. I do too. But I prefer to hate while not being bored to death.
kakashi: The Snore drinks alone and mopes - while the MUUUSIC plays. Is it the same table she moped on? I'm sure it is. Because, you know, unmyeong and all! Her rebuttal plays in his head. But does he get it? Yes? Finally? You're a measly one-night-stand. Nothing more! Nothing more! Oh my goodness, he even cries.
JoAnne: Oh MY GOD. Would you just PLEASE go sleep with someone else? PLEASE? Reprogram the D, dude. Erase. Imagine that NewP is like a Daalek, and it will 'e-lim-in-ate, e-lim-in-ate' your sad, sad, pitiful OH SO TIRESOME memories of that one night on Jeju-do.
JoAnne: You don't know. Maybe he likes to pee in the garden.
kakashi: Alright! Cause they pee into the gardens on Jeju, probably!
JoAnne: I hope she did, and the path of destruction* makes front page news. She goes to jail where she learns to appreciate just how 'white girl' her problems were. No offense. I'm a white girl. What's the equivalent in other countries when you want to let someone know they have no clue how unproblematic their problems are? Here, we say 'white girl problem'. Like, oh my gawd, I asked for a DOUBLE-vente latte half-caf mocha drip with STRAWWWWberry swizzles and he gave me - ugh - va-NILLAAAAAA.
*No actual persons were harmed in the making of this daydream.
 |
| Drunk? I'm not drunk! I only had a few glasses! |
JoAnne: Maybe she's dead.
JoAnne: I haaaaaaaaaaate these people.
JoAnne: Actually, NewBiatch had a point. But she's still - oh man, she deserves everything coming to her.
JoAnne: She didn't drink with Warm Up Oppa. She ran from him and insulted him and lied to him and made him cry. But Taewook didn't say 'who did you emasculate this evening' now did he.
kakashi: He asks the million dollar question: is she like this because she can't go to America? He tries to explain why they can't go right now, but she shouts that that's not it. Why, then! He wants to know - and she says because she is suffocating - suffocating to death. I am sure they had this conversation before? And I guess he is really clueless as well. As clueless as he is sexy.
JoAnne: I feel like...I dunno. I feel like at a point, Tae Wook gets to say to his family that they made their bed, so they have to lie in it. But this is the first time he's been called on to HELP anyone, so how can he say no the first time? How does she not get that? But she's suffocating, oh dear. Because nothing ever ends or changes, does it. This is infinity's endless loop, right? Stupid selfish girl.
kakashi: Yeah, she had two bottles of wine, she says, so what? Did anybody die? Does everybody need to yell at her for that? He says that her drinking isn't really the problem right now, with what she wholeheartedly agrees: Indeed, his mother and his SIL, they are the effin problem - giving her such a hard time just for drinking. And she screams at him when he tries to hold her back. He is always late, she feels lonely and extremely depressed. Go visit your sister then, he says, if she feels so bad - but she says that the MIL and the SIL don't like that either - and they forbid her to say anything about them.
JoAnne: Then effing leave. Jesus on a crossbow, woman. In case you hadn't noticed, NO ONE in that family is happy. It ain't just you having a bad day.
JoAnne: However, this flashes me back to a particularly bad time in my own life where I called my mother sobbing from half way across the country, and my husband took the phone and in a very reasonable tone of voice said to her that I was just emotional because I was pregnant - allowing her to immediately dismiss everything I had just said as crazy talk. I can assure you of several things: he had not been using that tone with me 5 minutes earlier, I was not emotional because I was pregnant, and it was not crazy talk. Goddammit, now I feel sympathy toward her. And I hate her, so that pisses me off.
JoAnne: Feeling cautiously like Ji Hye's not the WORST drama sobsister ever, but still suspicious.
kakashi: Yeah. We have at least 11 episodes to go - so there's still a chance for this drama to become the worst ever.
The Rest
There are more than 10 minutes of NewBiatch at the beginning of this episode. Maybe I didn't get the memo and she is the lead now? She seeks out her past love, Nam Sang-hoon, who is a media studies teacher now. Of course, she blames him for the blackmail and is her usual bitchy self, not believing him that it wasn't him etc. When she is finally gone, we see that he is in a wheel chair.
JoAnne: I KNEW it. I KNEW there was going to be a wheel chair.
 |
| recycle favorite wheel chair gif |
JoAnne: Fee fi fo fum, I smell a cliche.
JoAnne: How can you say that? The stoicism displayed on that poor sad face...the depth of feeling in the stillness... that teddy bear is ROCKING his role. Baeksang! Baeksang!
JoAnne: Loved this.
kakashi: Little does she know though that her baby-brother has already been swallowed by the enemy. Nam-woman says goodbye to him, she is leaving for Paris. And she leaves him in charge of the gallery. Not good. And before she really leaves, she uploads all the pictures of NewBiatch and her brother onto the hotel website. Alright. Things are moving.
JoAnne: Meh.
Episode 22
kakashi: A stone-faced Tae-wook enters his superior's office, and I'm hopping around some more. Don't tell me you are suddenly getting exciting again, drama? Tae-wook asks for help. Not as a prosecutor, but as a college colleague. How far has his brother's case progressed? Far, he learns.
JoAnne: Run, Tae Wook-ah! Run!
kakashi: The prosecutor boss asks him about the gallery connection, but Tae-wook doesn't know anything ... and he also doesn't know about his SIL's latest scandal (too busy, honey, to check the internets?). His face falls when he sees the pictures ... and the prosecutor tells him, he is now investigating her (half-)brother who seems to be deeply involved in this scheme. Oh no. Sweet and dumb brother.
JoAnne: That NamBam Bitch was smart.kakashi: I kinda like that her evil plan unfolds so well.
JoAnne: Too poor to do anything but lie around shirtless. That's the life.
kakashi: People enter the room he is in - and they start looking through tons of documents. Well, I'm not entirely sure what they are doing ... trying to find a way out for the brother? Nooooo! I want Tae-wook in poverty, in his hut!
JoAnne: Oh come on you know Dragon Dad is going to protect his name.
kakashi: NewBiatch lies to her FIL that the photos aren't real and I can't believe that she's such a pathetic liar too?!
At least he's not stupid - he doesn't believe her. And he says it
doesn't matter whether they are real or not. She has shown her weakness.
And that is it for her. Vice President? Forgetaboutit. Back to being a
Houseslave.
JoAnne: She must have whiplash, that trip down is so fast.
JoAnne: She must have whiplash, that trip down is so fast.
 |
| ouch |
JoAnne: Wow an actual positive human action from someone.
kakashi: This is where an exhausted and depressed prosecutor finds them - in his bed. Ji-hye isn't unkind for a change, but he is clearly not happy about the situation - and leaves the bedroom with a deep sigh. I think he just can't take any more bad news.
JoAnne: I refuse to think he's pissed about two poor baby innocents asleep in the bed he was hoping to get some in.
kakashi: She follows him out, asking what is going on. He asks whether she has seen the internet today - that is what's going on. His brother is being investigated and his sister-in-law is exposed to the world as a hussy. What do we do know? She asks him - face things as they come, he replies. And goes to work instead of sleeping. All distressed and helluvalot sexy.
JoAnne: You speak the truth, my friend. But I have a hard time reconciling this with the Kim Ji Hoon I now know to be a compulsive internet shopper and avid buyer of things on sale.
JoAnne: Dude looks like death. I think I should go give him a back rub.
JoAnne: Like we didn't know it would happen.
kakashi: At their house, Tae-wook and Ji-hye greet each other awkwardly - and coldly. He starts to undress (I gulp). They talk. He tells her not to worry about their trip to the States. As soon as the family issues are settled, they'll go. But she says she has no expectations, so not to worry.
JoAnne: Way to cut a man off at the knees.
JoAnne: I mean, it's not like she's lying, though. She's not even exaggerating. It is the truth.
kakashi: What does she mean? he asks, his voice hard. All that has happened this week, Ji-hye says, it maybe could have happened to anybody. But it doesn't. It happens here, in this shitty family. And she is afraid of this family. She doesn't know how much more she can take. She'll try as long as she can, giving her best. But she really doesn't know how much longer.
JoAnne: And I'm left thinking if that's how you think, might as well walk now. It's not like you're doing anybody any favors.
JoAnne: Right.
kakashi: Wonderful perspective, yes.
The Rest
kakashi: The Snore, the unlucky bastard, realizes his business partner, the slimeball architect, is doing dodgy stuff for DickBrother (building stuff far cheaper than what is in the blueprints). That's another really clever way of laundering money! And some lengthy dialogue about rich wives and poor wives and money, money, money.
JoAnne: I hope this man is crushed in the building collapse to come.
 |
| Missing: On slimeball architect. |
JoAnne: When that horrible woman says 'This is what I mean! What do you have to do that! Can you just not have opinions and match us?' I laughed HARD.
kakashi: There is a scene right after, when he rides in his car, thinking about the choices he has made and the life before him, when he hears her broadcast on the radio. What follows is the first touching scene between them (at least for me): they merely text, but the texting is a secret and is about a secret (her working again), which comes with a very sweet intimacy. Yes, there is a connection between them. I felt it.
JoAnne: After more than a year of silence, he can recognize her writing off the bat. That's something.
There is more, but it seems truly irrelevant.
Final Comments, 21/22
kakashi: Well, I guess uri Tae-wook had to hear it at one stage, and I'm glad it's out. The Sourpuss is right in what she said: he promised stuff and didn't keep it. Let's hope the writer doesn't waste this crucial momentum! What will he do now? He must realize at this point that his marriage is not going to last much longer if he doesn't do something very quickly. And I guess the only thing he can do if he truly loves her is what his other brother did: leave the family and go away. Forever.
JoAnne: Giving us another 20 episodes of them setting up house in Boston or something? yeah, right.
kakashi: I want a house in Boston.
JoAnne: Not to mention she'll lose her kids, any hope of ever helping her family in anyway, etc etc etc. Brother was stupid. I say let him hang.
kakashi: Finally, on the Snore. I am quite glad Lee Sang-woo got some better lines in episode 22. He is still very annoying though, his character. That passiveness! I want to kick him! His dilemma isn't very interesting either. He can marry an incredibly rich woman, who has a terrible mother, and whom he doesn't really love - or he can NOT marry her. The drama needs to give us a bit more if we are to understand why he would want to go for option 1. He isn't into the money and he also isn't into the woman. So just move on and go to Italy. Forever.
JoAnne: Seriously. This is manufactured drama. I mean, more than normal. It's boring.
kakashi: He could just die at this moment and nobody would miss him. I know there were other characters before, some of them have just disappeared from the drama. Do we miss them? No.
If you're still too depressed after watching this week's episodes, watch this!