Gu Family Book: Episode 14

by girlfriday

It’s an episode of reveals, as practically every single character drops a bomb or gets one dropped on them. One daddy goes postal—no, make that two dads, both postal—and start wrecking lives. We’re gonna put those Father’s Day cards on hold until you guys stop killing, maiming, and/or crushing the hearts of young women who just want to date the half-human boy of her choice, okay?

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The One – “Are You Well” for the OST [ Download ]

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EPISODE 14 RECAP

Wol-ryung greets his old friend matter-of-factly, noting how much he’s aged. So-jung says that time isn’t something humans can cheat, and Wol-ryung wonders (almost with pity for the tiny ants) why humans live those measly hundred years as if they were a thousand.

So-jung asks carefully if he came back a thousand-year demon, which uh, can’t you tell by the eyeliner and spiffy black duds that he’s eeeevil? Wol-ryung has his own questions first, and demands to know about the half-human half-gumiho he saw in the woods tonight.

He saw So-jung’s bracelet on him, so there’s no backing out of an answer. “Who is he?”

Meanwhile, Kang-chi races through the lantern festival and runs right into Yeo-wool without recognizing her, so she calls out to him. He goes slackjawed at the pretty girl and finally manages to say, “Dam Yeo-wool?”

She gets a little bashful, and he just continues to stare. Man, that was just as good the second time around.

We take a sharp cut to the party at the Hundred Year Inn, in honor of our Mystery Woman. Soo-ryun plays the drums as requested, just as she did twenty years ago.

Back at the festival, Kang-chi slowly takes a few steps toward Yeo-wool, and she waits expectantly for a response. The thing he says: “Why… did you come looking like this?” *facepalm*

That’s not the reaction she was hoping for, but she soldiers on as casually as possible: “I dress like this sometimes. Why… is it weird?” Kang-chi just stares and stares, still totally dazed, and nods, “Yeah.” Augh. BOYS.

She starts to get self-conscious and asks what’s weird about it, and he just digs his grave even further: “Just… all of it.” Doofus. She gets mad, of course, and stalks away muttering that she’s going home so he doesn’t have to be with a weirdo, and he hurriedly chases after her, insisting that’s not how he meant it.

She whirls around in his face, making him even more flustered, if that’s possible, and asks how he DID mean it then. Just tell her she looks so pretty it makes you feel all weird inside! Instead, he just blinks and stammers and finally says it’s because she doesn’t look like herself.

She grumps, “This is me too!” Kang-chi: “Okay. Don’t get mad.” It’s infuriating, but cute. She sighs at herself this time, wondering what she was expecting from him.

She turns to go and he grabs an inch of her clothing to stop her, which cracks me up—this coming from the guy who tackles her at every opportunity when she’s wearing pants. She snaps that they have to go buy wishes for their lanterns, and wriggles free.

They hang up a wish, and Yeo-wool asks if he likes what she wished for. He looks over at her, confused—this wasn’t his wish? Yeo-wool: “That you’ll find the Gu Family Book and become human. That’s my wish.” Awwwwww.

He just looks at her without a word, and she finally jokes that he’ll stare a hole right through her head. And then they just stand there, doing the staring dance back and forth, stealing glances and being adorable.

But someone is watching them from afar—it’s Wol-ryung, and Kang-chi can feel his presence. But when he looks up, no one’s there.

Soo-ryun finishes her performance, and Jo Gwan-woong asks his esteemed guest what she thought. Mystery Woman says in Japanese that it was terrible and gets up to leave. Soo-ryun apologizes, and Chung-jo gets all fired up in her defense, demanding to know what she found so wrong with it.

This time the woman answers in perfect Korean, that the performance had no soul. Jo Gwan-woong stops her to comment that one could almost say she was from Joseon, but her assistant simply says he taught her the language. It doesn’t convince him, because he’s a suspicious bastard.

Soo-ryun comes to apologize, and he tells her to come back tomorrow to regain some favor with his guest. He warns that her days as the head gisaeng are numbered.

Chung-jo walks through the street, reminiscing how different last year’s festival was with Kang-chi and Tae-seo. When she looks up, there’s Kang-chi standing right in front of her, but her face falls to see Yeo-wool by his side.

She turns away first, but when a drunken man starts to harass her, Kang-chi steps in, leaving Yeo-wool behind. He walks Chung-jo back home, and asks if she’s still afraid of him, thinking that’s why she can’t look him in the eye.

She asks if Yeo-wool knows what he is, and her heart sinks to hear that she does. She turns around to address him formally, and says she’ll repay him with a drink for escorting her home. He tells her to stop pretending that she’s someone else, and to stop talking that way: “No matter what you wear, no matter where you live, to me you’re just Park Chung-jo!”

Chung-jo bites back: “So you’re saying that a gisaeng shouldn’t live as a gisaeng, like a monster not living like a monster, pretending to be human?” Ouch. Her eyes fill with tears as soon as she steps foot inside.

By the time Kang-chi wanders back to the street where he left Yeo-wool, it’s nearly dawn. He finds her standing there still, waiting for him, back in her regular clothes and holding her new hanbok in a sack. Why does that break my heart so?

She puts on a smile when she sees him and comes bounding up: “You’ve returned!” Kang-chi: “You’ve returned too, to the person I know.” Her face falls as she says yes, and then asks, “She’s the most important person to you, isn’t she—Chung-jo—the meaning of which won’t ever change, will it?”

He’s stunned by the question and doesn’t answer, so she immediately retracts and starts walking away. He suddenly runs after her and whirls her around…

They look into each other’s eyes and he finally opens his mouth… “I’m hungry.” Pfffft. That’s all you’ve got to say?! He covers up the awkward moment with a smile and says they might as well eat, and she laughs.

Back at the school, Teacher Gong and Gon are just finding out that the pair of them have stayed out all night… together. Gon has a meltdown of epic proportions, which I could watch all day.

He screams that he’ll kill Kang-chi, and Teacher Gong has to hold him back so that Master Dam doesn’t find out and kill the both of them. Of course Master Dam walks right up looking for Yeo-wool, and Teacher Gong lies that he sent the both of them on an errand early this morning.

Teacher Gong: “Isn’t that right, Gon?” Gon can barely get out a yes through his gritted teeth, but it’s enough to appease Master Dam and they sigh in relief.

But then another student comes running up in a panic screaming someone’s name. They follow him out to the back woods to find one of their students sucked dry and hanging from a tree. Eep. Master Dam asks Teacher Gong where he sent Yeo-wool and Kang-chi. Double eep.

They’re having breakfast in town, when a couple of guys at the next table over loudly cancel their order, refusing to eat near the bastard who killed his own benefactor. Kang-chi ignores them, but it’s Yeo-wool who gets upset, wondering how long he’s going to keep letting people think he killed Lord Park.

Kang-chi tries to stop her, and says he’s responsible for his death no matter how you look at it, so it’s not worth fighting. But the idiots keep mouthing off, so Yeo-wool kicks him down.

Just as the fight is about to break out, local thug Ma Bong-chul arrives with a few boys in tow and puts a stop to it with a threat. Everyone assumes it’s aimed at Kang-chi, and so they’re all flabbergasted when he directs it at the other guys, and coos at Kang-chi that if anyone messes with him, he’s got his back.

He barks at his boys to call Kang-chi hyungnim from now on, and says he’s not the kind of person who wouldn’t repay the person who saved his life, and winks. Twice. Kang-chi and Yeo-wool cringe in unison. Hee.

Gon tracks them down, and Yeo-wool immediately panics—did Dad find out she was out all night with Kang-chi? They both panic, and Gon gives Kang-chi the side-eye, but there are more urgent matters at hand, and he tells them about the student who was found dead.

Kang-chi returns, wanting to see the body for himself, but the other students start in with an interrogation instead, demanding to know where he was last night. Yeo-wool faces the same question from Dad, and she tells him the truth. It doesn’t go well.

He says that she’s always done the right thing her whole life, and that’s why he’s trusted her and let her do as she wanted until now. Yeo-wool: “But when it comes to Kang-chi, you can’t trust me?” He cuts her off, not wanting to hear the rest.

Tae-seo sees the way the other students are treating Kang-chi, and tells Master Dam that he’s ready to be an undercover agent. He thinks Jo Gwan-woong is staging these murders to make it look like Kang-chi is guilty. So you’re going to play the mole to clear his name? That’s sweet. Dangerous, but at least he’s motivated by something good this time.

Soo-ryun goes to see Mystery Woman to give a formal apology for her performance, but the woman admits that she loved it and lied, because there was no other way to get a meeting with Soo-ryun. Innnteresting.

She asks to come visit the gisaeng house, but Soo-ryun turns her down flat, and says that there are only two ways for a woman to enter the gisaeng house—become a gisaeng, or become the owner.

Jo Gwan-woong can’t get it out of his head that he’s met the mystery woman before, but can’t figure out where…

Mystery Woman gets undressed for a bath, and though we’re still not shown her face, her bare back shows a gisaeng’s tattoo, and scars… from claws digging into her shoulder. Dude, they totally went there. It’s Seo-hwa.

Master Dam sits the kids down to tell them about Tae-seo going undercover, and then announces that once it’s done, Yeo-wool will marry him. WUT. Daaaaaaaaad. Can’t you just ground her for a thousand years?

She protests that it’s so sudden, but he says it’s long been promised between the fathers, and declares that from now on she’ll drop everything and start learning her future wifely duties. Ack, somebody stop him.

He leaves all four kids stunned speechless. (And really, did we have to invite all three guys who are in love with her for this conversation, or was that the point?) Yeo-wool and Kang-chi look up at each other, while Gon has another silent fit. Teacher Gong follows Master Dam out to ask if it’s really necessary to go that far, but he won’t be talked down.

Yeo-wool runs out of the room with Gon chasing after her, leaving Kang-chi and Tae-seo sitting there. Talk about your awkward silences. Aw man, and we just got this bromance back. What the frak are they gonna do now?

Gon follows Yeo-wool to her room, and finds her huddled by her new hanbok. She tells him she wants to be alone, and as soon as he shuts the door she erupts in tears.

Chung-jo practices the drums with fierce determination, thinking back to the moment she pulled away from Kang-chi when he came to get her, when she threw rocks at him in fear of the monster he had become, and then seeing him with Yeo-wool that night.

She collapses to the floor covered in sweat, and says aloud: “You said you didn’t want him, Park Chung-jo. You called him a monster.”

She gets called out to see Jo Gwan-woong, and receives her old maidservant as a gift. She’s not impressed though, and says he’d have to give her the Hundred Year Inn before she felt any kind of satisfaction.

Today she settles for him kicking Wol-sun out, which he does at the drop of a hat, in front of all the other girls. Chung-jo sits down and pours him a drink, and he notes that she’s enduring well.

She says he’s the one who taught her to do anything to survive: “So I decided to do just that—I will do whatever it takes to live till the end, and stab you through the heart with my own hands.” Excellent. He’s surprised by the answer, but the bastard likes it, and says he’ll sit by and watch over her until she does.

Kang-chi goes back to bean counting, and jumps out of his skin when he finds Teacher Gong sitting there watching him. The old fogey teases that he’s lost his mind because of Yeo-wool’s impending wedding, which Kang-chi denies.

He asks how many beans he’s up to, and then asks, “How many have you counted without your bracelet on?” Kang-chi flips out at the question, swearing up and down that he promised Master Dam he would never take his bracelet off around people.

Teacher Gong: “Is that so?” Kang-chi: “It is!” Teacher Gong: “Is it?” Kang-chi: “That’s what I said!” Teacher Gong: “Okay.”

He hobbles away, and then turns back, “Was it Yeo-wool? The reason you don’t turn into a beast even without your bracelet on.” Kang-chi just stares wide-eyed, and the old man wonders aloud, “How is that possible?” like he’s leaving Kang-chi his next riddle. Ha, I love him.

Flashback to his last bean-counting session, when Yeo-wool had fallen asleep on his shoulder. Kang-chi carefully pulls his bracelet off and shuts his eyes, and when he opens them… he’s still in human form.

And then again at the festival, while she looks up at the lanterns, he puts his hands behind his back and squeezes his eyes shut. A wind blows through, and he looks over at Yeo-wool, who just smiles back at him like normal.

He looks down and breaks into a smile. Behind his back, he’s holding his bracelet in his hand.

Kang-chi narrates: “I honestly don’t know why—how those things happen when Yeo-wool is next to me.” Back in the present, he looks down at his bracelet with another smile.

But suddenly he can feel someone standing behind him, and he turns around to find Wol-ryung smiling back at him. Omo, did he come knowing that Kang-chi is his son?

Kang-chi asks who he is, and bolts up to confront him. But he sends his beans spilling everywhere in the process, and in the split second he looks down, Wol-ryung disappears.

Master Dam takes Gon, Teacher Gong, and Tae-seo to introduce to Lee Soon-shin, and this time they introduce themselves formally as the Men of Honor. Oooh, ooh, was Gon one of them? Where’s the fourth?

Eeeee! It’s Soo-ryun! Is that what her sash was code for?

So the four have finally been uncovered, along with their secret-agent symbols: Gon (apricot blossom), Teacher Gong-dal (bamboo), Tae-seo by way of Lord Park (chrysanthemum), and Soo-ryun (orchid). They bow and pledge their allegiance to Lee Soon-shin.

The first mission is for Tae-seo to return to Jo Gwan-woong, who’s been waiting for him to find out how Lee Soon-shin is spending Lord Park’s silver. Tae-seo tells him he’s building a new kind of ship, and shows him a drawing of the turtle ship plans.

Flashback to the secret meeting, where Lee Soon-shin says they have to give Jo Gwan-woong enough of the truth for him to bite, and tells Tae-seo that his job is to find out if he simply sells secrets to foreign countries, or is in deeper.

So-jung wakes up… on the floor in his library? Wait, has he been knocked out all this time? This is bad. Very bad.

We go back to the conversation that opened the episode, where Wol-ryung asks who Kang-chi is. So-jung says he’s Seo-hwa’s son, and Wol-ryung’s. His reaction is strangely nonexistent, as if he can barely remember who Seo-hwa is.

He asks what happened to her, and when So-jung tells him she died, Wol-ryung says, “That’s too bad. I wanted to snap her neck myself.” Whoa.

He continues, “You asked why I returned? I came to destroy everything.” His eyes glow red, and he throws So-jung into the wall, knocking him out. Back in the present, So-jung struggles to get up, “No, Kang-chi…”

Yeo-wool finds out that Kang-chi is missing, and when one of the students mutters that he must be off in the woods killing someone else, she puts him in his place. He whines that everyone’s taking Kang-chi’s side when he isn’t even human, but she makes it clear there are no sides here, and she’d defend him the same way if everyone started accusing him of murder. Touché.

It’s nightfall by the time Master Dam and Gon hear that Yeo-wool ran off into the woods alone to look for Kang-chi, which is more dumb than brave, I’ll give you that. Gon goes after her. She runs further and further into the woods, calling out to Kang-chi. But that’s not where he is… crap crap crap.

He’s just arriving at So-jung’s house, and he runs down to the library when he hears someone down there. He finds So-jung struggling to stay conscious, and he just keeps telling Kang-chi to run as far away as he can.

Kang-chi asks why he’s saying these things, and So-jung ekes out, “He’s here… to kill you… Wol-ryung… your father.” Eeeee. “Run. Run far away, where he can’t find you, Kang-chi-ya. Hurry!”

Yeo-wool hears a rustling nearby and calls out to Kang-chi. But it’s Wol-ryung’s red eyes that glow back at her. She draws her sword, and he starts to run around her in circles, like he’s taunting his prey.

She takes off running, and he gives chase, just as Kang-chi runs out of So-jung’s house. Please tell me that other time wasn’t a fluke and you can smell her or something.

Yeo-wool trips and falls, and Wol-ryung steps out from the shadows, sans red eyes. She looks up at the imposing figure and thinks in her head, “Kang-chi-ya, help me!”

Kang-chi stops in his tracks. “Yeo-wool-ah!” Wait, can you hear her??

Wol-ryung steps closer and crouches down. He puts a hand to her chin to lift her face up, and then smiles at her. Well that’s ominous.

 
COMMENTS

Okay, so lots of reveals in this episode. I guess the Seo-hwa twist wasn’t too far-fetched after all. Sigh. I hope there’s going to be a good explanation for her character—that she’s alive, I can buy, but why she’s been hiding away for twenty years without ever looking for her son is the thing that’s going to need a good excuse. While I’m curious about her plan to get back at Jo Gwan-woong, I personally would prefer Chung-jo to get her revenge, because I’m far more invested in her character. I do like that Seo-hwa is Jo Gwan-woong’s weakness as much as she is his obsession, so that should come in handy down the line.

And even though we all knew Wol-ryung would come back evil, it still shocked me just how cold and unfeeling he was with So-jung. Do thousand-year demons not have that paternal instinct, even if it’s to groom a son for an evil empire? I guess he really is just here to destroy everything, though the fact that he’s smart about it rather than just your smash-kill-kill kind of villain is great. It seems he’ll take his time to hunt Kang-chi (and Yeo-wool) and enjoy toying with them. Creepy.

Even though it’s not a huge plot point, I’ve been waiting for the reveal of the four Men of Honor. I didn’t expect Gon because of his age, so that was a nice surprise, but I totally did a fist-pump when they panned over to Soo-ryun. Hers is a backstory I’m dying to know. I love the slow careful reveal of tiny bits of her humanity that began with her sympathy for Seo-hwa and Chung-jo, to her work on behalf of Master Dam, and now this. I hope they take these four someplace interesting, storywise.

The marriage wrench does feel like a maneuvered obstacle, but I actually don’t mind it. It makes perfect sense that Park Mu-sol and Dam Pyung-joon would have promised their children to each other, and given their ages and the time, Yeo-wool would be facing this very problem no matter who the fiancé was. It’s just mean because you know Dad’s reacting to her growing attachment to Kang-chi, and is doing the only thing he can. It’s actually a good thing for the story, because now maybe Mr. I’m-So-Hungry can stop deflecting his feelings and do something. And I love to watch Yeo-wool defy expectations at every turn, and I’m sure this won’t be any different. I mean, does Dad really expect her to put down her sword and pick up needlepoint?

The best reveal of course was the bracelet, especially because I never expected Kang-chi to test it out like that. I was waiting for another emergency situation where she has to talk him back to his human form, but I love that he’s learning on the same curve we are, and testing himself to see if it’s true. So now we know that she really is his human bracelet, and his tether to humanity. Teacher Gong has all the right questions, of course: How is such a thing possible, and why only her? Yes, WHY?

 
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