Come Back, Ajusshi: Episode 6

by odilettante

How is it that each episode just gets better and better? I’m certainly not complaining, since the show manages to give us a well-balanced mix of humor and the heartfelt. Hae-joon’s bumbling hot-and-cold behavior towards Da-hye continues to confuse her, and he even gets dangerously close to revealing his true identity. Meanwhile, Hong-nan is the dashing hero who causes everyone to swoon.

EPISODE 6 RECAP

In the stairwell, a tearful Da-hye admits that she didn’t know her husband very well, or at all, really, and that’s why it makes her so angry. On the drive home, Hae-joon grumbles about she’s driving him crazy, but when he sees Da-hye waiting at the bus stop, he yells at Ji-hoon to pull over.

He holds out a canned beverage, and Da-hye thinks it’s a gift. But really it’s just for her to put in the trash. Oh, what a jerk. But those candy wrappers stuffed in the can are identical to the ones Young-soo would eat, and Da-hye thoughtfully watches the car drive away.

The press conference for Yi-yeon’s film is beginning, and the announcer calls for the female lead to approach the stage. Except as she politely makes her way through the mass of photographers and journalists, everyone seems surprised to see her there. She carefully makes her way up the steps to the stage, as gracefully as she can in her tight skirt.

Hong-nan brings Young-chan to the press conference so he can see his mother. Aw, they’re both awe-struck when they see Yi-yeon smiling and waving gracefully waving from the stage. But the crowd starts chanting Joo-yeon’s name, and she greets Yi-yeon brightly as she steps onto the stage, asking her why she’s there. Oh no.

It turns out that Suk-chul convinced the director to go with Joo-yeon instead of Yi-yeon, and purposefully didn’t tell her. The journalists clamor for an explanation from Yi-yeon as the cameras continue to flash. Joo-yeon is willing to try and cover by slipping her arm through Yi-yeon’s and smiling for the camera, but a stunned Yi-yeon shakes her off which causes Joo-yeon to fall to the floor.

Joo-yeon’s many fans angrily start to pelt the frozen deer-in-headlights Yi-yeon with cream-filled bread (while the journalists continue to shout their questions and demand pictures). Hong-nan reassures Young-chan that she’ll save the day, and when her first attempt to break through the journalist barrier is denied, she launches herself up on a camera crane and swings heroically over to the stage.

Landing on her knees, she holds out her hand to Yi-yeon, telling her that from now on, it’s an action scene. With a grateful nod to her savior, the two women hold hands as they leap out into the crowd and find safety in their van.

Hae-joon sits in his car outside the mall, impatiently watching for her Da-hye, wondering if perhaps she’s so late because she’s with Ji-hoon. He gets a call just then that the video tape has been restored.

Turns out, Da-hye is actually at the hospital, taking care of the mother of the department head who’d originally given her the rice cakes at the funeral. She knows that her husband delivered them back to him — in his mother’s name. She begs him to help her, knowing that Young-soo isn’t the type to accept a bribe. He tells her to leave him alone and never come back.

Between the time Hae-joon received his phone call and arrived at the video repair place, it was somehow destroyed. The video guy wonders if perhaps someone has a grudge against Hae-joon, who immediately thinks of Jae-gook.

Hong-nan has her own enemy to confront — Suk-chul. She’s tracked him to a Japanese restaurant, and hides in one of the private rooms next to his so she can eavesdrop on his conversation with the film director. She finds out that Sunjin Group is behind Yi-yeon losing her leading role — they threatened to take away their funding if she was cast.

That’s not the only meeting Suk-chul has, because as soon as the director leaves, the doors open to reveal Jae-gook, imperiously sitting at the head of a table, sipping his tea. He chides Suk-chul for not reporting in, and then stands up to walk on the table, getting momentum to kick Suk-chul in the chest.

As Suk-chul writhes in pain, Jae-gook leans down, warning him that Yi-yeon is his toy to play with. A nervous Joo-yeon is there, too, watching this, and just as Hong-nan looks like she’s about to burst in and break up the party, Jae-gook leaves — and Suk-chul starts to laugh.

Looks like he just pretending to be hurt to appease Jae-gook, and he cackles as he tells Joo-yeon that Yi-yeon is still useful for something. From her hiding place, Hong-nan balls her hand into a fist.

Dejected that the video was destroyed, Hae-joon returns to the mall just as the other salesgirls are leaving, and they all squeal in fear as they walk past the place where Young-soo’s body was found. Da-hye silently just silently watches them go by.

As Hae-joon scans his ID to enter the building, he’s reminded of all the the late nights he used to spend here. He follows his (imagined) exhausted Young-soo body through the employee hallways, stopping when he hears the familiar song of his alarm.

It’s coming from his locker, and Da-hye opens it to reveal that was a reminder he set for her doctor’s appointment with the OB/GYN. She pulls out his mall uniform jacket and candy wrappers fall out. As she bends down to pick them up, she begins to weep.

Young-soo remembers all the times that he would come here to cry, and quietly leaves to let her cry alone. She’s not the only one crying, as Yi-yeon tries to stifle her sobs as an unnoticed Hong-nan looks on.

In the morning, Hong-nan and Hae-joon have figured out they’re after the same guy — Jae-gook. She’s convinced they need to work together to bring him down, and they’ll start with the fashion show (and Hong-nan proudly models her terrible cat-walk skills).

A customer is yelling at Da-hye, offended that she accused his wife of stealing. She quietly stands there as he berates her, telling her if she feels wronged, she should call her husband. Just as Da-hye is getting down he knees to apologize, Hae-joon storms up and drags her back to her feet.

The customer asks if Hae-joon is Da-hye’s husband, and just as he’s about to retort that he is, Hong-nan steps him and kisses him to shut him up. Through gritted teeth, she reminds him that he can’t reveal who he really is.

Ha, she’s got quite the grip on his lip, but it’s the image of Gi-tak kissing the struggling Young-soo that’s extra hilarious.

Potential disaster averted as Hong-nan drags the bewildered and sputtering Hae-joon away, but Ji-hoon is the one who saves the day as he reveals that the customer did indeed attempt to steal from the store. As he comforts her with a cup of tea, Da-hye tells Ji-hoon about visiting the department head’s mother yesterday, convinced that she has the rice cake bribe.

In the security office, they study footage of the post office. Just as Ji-hoon is about to make his move and put his hand tenderly on her shoulder, she spots Young-soo. Confirmation that he did, indeed, mail it out.

Young-soo’s father is at the mall to deliver lunch to Da-hye, who actually went to lunch with Ji-hoo, so Hae-joon convinces him to share the kimbap with him. He tells Hae-joon that he makes the best kimbap. He made some for Young-soo to take on his first date with Da-hye, and she fell in love with him at first bite. Aw.

Hae-joon is shaking in his shoes as he stands before Chairman Cha. Thanks to the viral videos of their “kiss,” it’s now presumed there’s a relationship between him and Hong-nan, who seems unaffected by the chairman (and nearly forgets to introduce herself in a feminine way). Hahaha, Ms. Wang trumpets out Hong-nan’s pertinent details (age, schooling, where she was born), but they’re all “unknown.”

Pffft, Hae-joon tries to discreetly get Hong-nan to sit more elegantly and stop picking her nose, but she just grumbles at him. Hae-joon scrambles to explain how they met, and he lands on the excuse that when he was getting his MBA, she was in fashion school. Hong-nan agrees, except she heard it as “NBA” and says he’s a great basketball player. Snort.

An envelope of cash is tossed onto the table, and Hong-nan marvels — it’s just like in a drama! At any rate, they’re now in a business relationship, and Hae-joon awkwardly runs with the explanation that their kiss earlier was just promotion for the fashion show. Ms. Wang translates that the chairman has now bestowed all fashion show tasks to Hae-joon.

Afterwards, Hae-joon whines about wasting time on a fashion show when right now Ji-hoon could be doing who-knows-what with Da-hye, but Hong-nan tells him that this is important to her. She needs to use Yoo Hyuk as bait to catch the tiger.

Speaking of the tiger, Jae-gook strolls up just then, condescendingly marveling at the news of the fashion show. Inwardly, both men are aware there’s more than just fashion on the line. Jae-gook starts to speak, but Hae-joon sees Da-hye and walks off mid-sentence, which leaves Jae-gook facing a snarling Hong-nan.

Hae-joon stalks after Da-hye, demanding to know what she did with Ji-hoon. She politely tells him that they had lunch together, and he’s offended when she names a meal that she doesn’t normally like.

She’s barely able to hold in her urge to roll her eyes as he tells her that he’s worried about her, because she looks like a young woman, but is actually an ajumma. She cuts through his nonsensical words to demand if he’s interested in her, which he denies, so then she politely but cuttingly takes her leave.

Yi-yeon is sitting her dark apartment, ripping up pieces of paper. Hong-nan barges in and flings open the curtains. It’s not time to be depressed — she needs to learn Yi-yeon’s secret to stealing men’s hearts, ASAP!

It’s the perfect distraction, and Yi-yeon shows off her sex appeal skills in a variety of ways. It’s also some great bonding time as Hong-nan tries to faithfully follow her examples (but failing, of course). Aw, the long-suffering Seung-jae just silently cleans up after them.

Exhausted from their work-out, they collapse on the sofa. Worried about the sound of Hong-nan’s rapidly beating heart, Yi-yeon presses her head against Hong-nan’s chest. Yeah, like that will help, considering close proximity to Yi-yeon is the cause of that rapid beating.

Pffft, Hae-joon and Hong-nan practice their modeling poses and they are delightfully terrible. Hae-joon even continues practicing his cat-walk strut to Da-hye’s section of the mall, where he tells her she’s now his assistant for the fashion show.

Her duties include measuring him for the clothes, and he’s totally loving how close she has to come to his face in order to measure his shoulders, neck, and chest. Hong-nan comes out of the makeshift dressing room in Hae-joon’s office, annoyed by the strange outfits. But Da-hye is scandalized to see Hong-nan wearing just a slip and using the dress as scarf, and hurries her back into the dressing room.

Ji-hoon is not at all pleased that Hae-joon has stolen Da-hye as his personal assistant, and the two men get in each other’s faces. But just then Hong-nan (properly dressed this time) emerges from the dressing room, along with Da-hye, looking gorgeous in one of the dresses.

The men’s jaws practically drop at the pretty, but Hae-joon recovers (especially once he sees Ji-hoon staring) and yells at her to get out of the dress because it doesn’t suit her — the skirt is too short. Hong-nan gives him the “you’re being a jerk” glare. Hear, hear.

Reporters are camped outside Yi-yeon’s apartment building, and Hong-nan plays her role as the manager by buying them all lunch. But it’s also a ruse — the food delivery man is actually a PD of a television show, who Hong-nan is able to sneak in without suspicion to Yi-yeon’s apartment.

Hong-nan is thrilled that Yi-yeon has an offer for a TV show. But when Yi-yeon learns that it’s for a segment about people thrown away by the rich, and that they want to interview her about Sunjin Group sponsoring (and then ruining) her career and lovelife, she politely refuses. Seung-jae drags the protesting PD out of the apartment while Hong-nan expresses her bewilderment.

Yi-yeon explains that she just wants to live quietly. But Hong-nan is furious — she should reveal the truth. It was Yoo Hyuk who lied, not her! But Yi-yeon angrily points out that she’s an actress — she wants people to aspire to be her, not pity her.

Fine. If she doesn’t want to do it due to her pride, then what about her son? Yi-yeon turns on Hong-nan, telling her it’s not as simple as that. She orders Hong-nan to stop playing around with her life so casually. Hong-nan quietly asks if that’s really what it looks like.

Hae-joon is effusively polite as he heaps on the compliments and praise to Yoo Hyuk, eventually getting to sign the contract with Sunjin Group. Afterwards, he collapses in exhaustion, having used up all his energy being the best salesman he could.

Hong-nan pops out of the makeshift dressing room, furious that Hae-joon got Yoo Hyuk to sign instead of giving her a chance to use her new-found seductress skills. He wearily points out that she can’t seduce anyone, and the more she tries to show him, the more he has a point.

She’s also got an issue with the leather pants — they won’t zip. Hae-joon agrees to help her out, and the their efforts in the makeshift dressing room, which sits in the middle of Hae-joon’s glass enclosed office, sound exactly like fun sexy times. Everyone gathers around to stare at the shaking dressing room and the cries coming from it. I’m dying.

Da-hye opens the dressing room to deliver more outfits, and is freaked-out by seeing a disheveled Hae-joon and a partially undressed Hong-nan. She flees the room as Hae-joon chases after her, sputtering out that it’s not what she thinks, no, really!

He follows her to the elevator, and she tries to fend off his advances by screaming but he covers her hand with his mouth. Once he realizes what he’s doing, he steps back and apologizes, then follows her line of sight to the security camera in the elevator. Kneeling down, he peels off the bandaid on her leg — and she responds instinctively by slapping him! Ha!

But it’s so he can cover up the camera with the bandage, so no one can watch them. He sits down on floor of the elevator and sets out his jacket for her to sit next to him, telling her she should take this chance to rest her feet.

Da-hye just stares at him in bewildered terror as he babbles on and on, and even he realizes he doesn’t make sense. But his babbling words remind her of when she was an elevator girl and was stealing a moment to grab a snack, just when the doors open with a VIP guest that Young-soo was escorting.

He quickly realized that her mouth was full of the hastily hidden snack and hopped on the elevator to cover for her. Ha, and she even spit her snack all over his face when he made a cute little “we’re going up!” motion, but he just ignored it.

Once the VIP guest exited, the elevator got stuck, and Young-soo hurriedly confessed that even though he wished this moment would stop in time, he didn’t actually want the elevator to get stuck. He continued to reassure the anxious Da-hye as they waited for the elevator to start working again, and his babbling is exactly the same kind of babbling as Hae-joon’s. Aw, Da-hye and Young-soo were so cute back then, the first time they met.

Back in the present, Da-hye admits that Hae-joon is a strange man. She’s not sure who he really is — one moment he’s mean, the next moment he’s kind. Hah, and he agrees with her, but he mutters that she’s the one who made him this way.

Then she asks him about Young-soo and what kind of person he was. The Young-soo his old coworkers talk about isn’t the same Young-soo she knows. Hae-joon is the only one who seems to believe in him — so who is the Young-soo that Hae-joon knows?

But he turns the question around on her, and she confesses that the Young-soo she knew was a kind push-over, so much so that he was a bit of an idiot. Inwardly, Young-soo agrees that he was definitely an idiot. Da-hye admits she’s trying to clear his name, and when Hae-joon discovers that the rice cake bribe he sent the department head’s mother might still be there, he surprises her with a hug.

Late at night at a driving range, Hae-joon watches as some businessmen exchange locker keys. Clearly a bribe is going down. Hahaha, he’s terrible at golf, but he tries to be natural as he spies on the lockers, wondering who will open one of them. He waits in hiding until the driving range is closed, and watches in disappointment when someone just gets a golf club from the locker. But then a figure arrives and retrieves something from a locker — it’s the rice cake bribe! And Hae-joon is shocked to see that the man is none other than Ji-hoon.

COMMENTS

Ooooh, I didn’t see that twist coming. Is it still too much for me to hope that Ji-hoon will actually be a good guy? I just want Da-hye to have someone dependable, and who clearly loves her, to be a part of her family now that Young-soo is dead. Then again, I’m sure there’s more to the story, especially since it looks like, just based on the brief flash-backs this episode, that Young-soo wasn’t always the stressed-out workaholic that he was in his last days.

I feel like Young-soo, the true Young-soo, is a bit of an enigma. We originally saw him in the last few days of his life, when he was clearly not at his best. He was a sad-sack, and not much of a sympathetic character, making it was easy to side with Ji-hoon in wondering why she put up with him. But it looks like we’re only scratching the surface, and maybe Young-soo’s mission to reveal the truth of how he died is actually to discover what he really was like, since no one seems to know. He compartmentalized himself so much during his life that perhaps, in death, he’ll finally discover his true nature.

Also, I’m pretty sure this is one of the funniest episodes I’ve seen in a long time. The humor in this show is so spot-on. It’s ridiculous and over-the-top, of course, but ridiculous in all the best ways. It’s the kind of show where I want to try and explain just how much physical comedy there is every moment, but it’s too impossible. Just know that any scene involving Hong-nan means I’m probably howling with laughter.

Honestly, I want a spin-off sitcom all about Hong-nan and Yi-yeon, and their long-suffering body-guard/house-keeper/nanny Seung-jae. The three of them (plus cute little Young-chan) make up this family unit that seem so perfect, somehow. I’m rooting for a “happily-ever-after” despite knowing that the clock is ticking and heaven is waiting.

At least Gi-tak seems to be making progress in his mission, and actually making Yi-yeon’s life better as he gets closer and closer to revealing the truth behind the scandals that ruined her life and career. I’m not so sure about Hae-joon. He’s still acting like a big baby, and I’m more than ready for the truth to be revealed just so he can stop harassing his wife, who, due to her position and need to continue working, has to put up with it whether she likes it or not. At least she’s starting to snark back at him, though.

I do wonder how long it will be before she starts to make the connection. Maybe she’ll just brush it off as weird coincidence, but those little hints keep dropping that Hae-joon and Young-soo are somehow related (the candy wrappers, the same way of speaking). Not to mention Hae-joon nearly outing himself in the heat of the moment. But that just makes me remember what I’ve affectionally dubbed the “piranha kiss.” Thank you, drama gods, for giving me a cast who doesn’t care about their pride so they can continue give me hilarious physical comedy. As much as I want the truth to be revealed, I also want the body-possession shenanigans to continue as long as possible.

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