The Third Charm: Episode 4

by SailorJumun

Wow, these two waste no time. Now that they’re finally able to be a full-fledged couple, Joon-young and Young-jae make up for the lost years and savor every minute of it. They’re so lovey-dovey that they’re making everyone around them cringe, but naturally, they don’t care. The only problem is that the more time they spend together, the more light is shed on their contradicting personalities.

 
EPISODE 4 RECAP

Following their emotional kiss, Joon-young walks Young-jae home and asks if today is their first day of dating. To be more technical, it’s their second day of dating, after seven years. They laugh at that, not realizing that Soo-jae can see them from his window above. He’s narrating their interaction like a screenplay, even doing their voices (I love him so much), though he gets flustered when he sees them kiss goodbye.

When Young-jae walks in, she finds Soo-jae smiling by the window and she knows she’s been caught. Though he’s happy for her, confirming her new boyfriend is the police officer he met, Young-jae can sense the tinge of sadness in his voice.

The next day, Joon-young bursts into the station with a cheerful greeting, and his sudden attitude change startles his co-workers. He then receives a call, straightening up when he realizes it’s Soo-jae.

He later calls Young-jae to tell her that Big Bro wants to meet with him, which has her feeling nervous. She reveals that Soo-jae had been studying to be a police officer before his accident, so she can’t help feeling sorry. Joon-young assures her she shouldn’t feel that way.

Joon-young meets Soo-jae at his coffee truck, eager to answer any and all questions. So Soo-jae speeds through a whole list of questions from Joon-young’s family background to his hobbies to his police exam scores. Like a pro, Joon-young answers them all just as speedily.

Finally, Soo-jae has one last question—if someone killed a police officer’s lover, should that police officer get revenge? Joon-young is taken aback, but Soo-jae clarifies that it’s for a script he’s writing. (Why do I feel like there’s more to it than that?) He gives Joon-young the script, saying he should give it a read to get on his good side.

Elsewhere, Joo-ran starts her manhunt by joining a cycling class. She flirts with one of the cyclists, thinking he’s perfect, but once they actually get to cycling, she ends up being the slowest one. She gets so far behind that she loses the group and gets stranded somewhere in the country. To make things worse, she has to hitch a ride in the bed of a truck while it’s pouring rain.

Joon-young and Young-jae make plans for a movie date, though it all depends if Joon-young can catch the suspect he’s staking out in time. Luckily, said suspect appears sometime later and Joon-young practically flies as he chases after him. He catches up to him easily and kicks him down to put him in handcuffs. He gives his team a million dollar smile and leaves for his date.

He makes it just in time for the movie, but upon meeting Young-jae, she points out a teeeeeny little scratch on his forehead and he freaks out. He drags her to a pharmacy to purchase a superfluous amount of first aid supplies, making them miss their movie. But when he gets a text from Mom saying everyone will be late tonight, he figures date night doesn’t have to be ruined.

They head over to Joon-young’s place, where he prepares a nice dinner. He impresses her by testing the pasta’s completion, flinging a noodle at the fridge and making it stick, ha.

They’re eating their food while watching Mission: Impossible II when Joon-young suddenly bolts up and runs to another room. He comes back to explain that he had to fart and he didn’t want to do it in front of her.

She calls him cute and ruffles his hair, which just annoys him. “By any chance,” she says, “Is your scalp your erogenous zone?” She goes on to say that a lot of customers get turned on when they have their hair washed.

Joon-young doesn’t like the sound of that; he tells Young-jae not to wash male customers’ hair. She tells him not to handcuff female criminals then, but he’s serious; he makes her pinky swear not to do it. She swears since her students are the ones who wash the hair anyway.

But now Young-jae wants to know where Joon-young’s erogenous zone is. She tickles him and he grabs her to stop, making their eyes lock. They start making out and all seems well until the doorbell rings, followed by Joon-young’s mom’s voice.

They jump off the couch in a panic, Young-jae scurrying off to hide and Joon-young getting rid of the evidence. When Mom and Dad walk in, they find Joon-young sweating and eating alone. He figures they’re off to bed, but Mom notices Mission: Impossible playing, a movie she’s been dying to see.

Joon-young has to sit through the rest of the movie with his parents, while Young-jae is trapped in his room desperately needing the bathroom. Once the movie ends and Joon-young thinks they’re in the clear, Ri-won comes home early from work. Pffft, Joon-young’s look of absolute horror kills me.

And his horror is justified because Ri-won sees that he rented an action movie and instantly knows that something’s wrong. In true Mission: Impossible style, she inspects the house for clues, finding the noodle on the fridge and a strand of Young-jae’s hair. She has her parents on the edge of their seats hoping their son is actually hiding a girl.

Just as Ri-won backs Joon-young into a corner, Young-jae bursts out of his room, gives a quick greeting, and escapes to the bathroom. There’s no hiding it now, so when Young-jae returns, she introduces herself and smiles alongside Joon-young.

On the car ride to Young-jae’s, the two laugh over the whole ordeal, with her saying she already loves his family. “I usually don’t miss my mom and dad,” she tells him, “but today, I kind of missed them.” At that, Joon-young takes her hand, and she accepts the warm gesture.

Meanwhile, Sang-hyun is off doing what he does best—flirting his head off—when his father calls him into the bar for a stern lecture. Dad is tired of him using the bar to meet women and regrets not selling the building for other purposes.

Surprisingly, Ri-won defends Sang-hyun, saying he actually runs the place well. And as a business major, she believes it’s best that they keep it as a bar. Dad is satisfied with her input, at least for now, so he leaves with his current girlfriend.

Sang-hyun grumbles that Dad’s womanizing lifestyle is why his mother left, and Ri-won says that he’s not one to talk. Joon-young and Young-jae then arrive linking arms, and Sang-hyun is upbeat again. He congratulates his buddy as Young-jae sits Ri-won down to give her a gift. She tells Ri-won that her brother’s ex-girlfriend always treated her well and she wants to do the same.

Joon-young joins them, as well as Sang-hyun, who presents them with a little cake to commemorate their relationship. Joon-young and Young-jae blow out the candle, thus initiating their love, as well as the mushiest montage you’ll see today.

Joon-young narrates that they made up lost time by meeting every day, and we see them together before work, during lunch, even during one of his stakeouts. They do every possible thing couples do—feeding each other food, holding hands in the park, kissing under the stars. It’s so unbearably cheesy, but I also can’t look away.

“While spring became summer,” his narration continues, “we ran towards each other as if we had found an oasis in a desert. Now, summer is about to begin.” Now, it’s their one-hundredth day together, and Joon-young gifts Young-jae a homemade lunch and a new pair of couple shoes (which she totally flaunts in front of her students).

Joo-ran is jealous of her friend, having just had another manhunt fail at a billiards club. However, she has hope since she hired an arranged marriage professional who has already found her a date. She gets all dolled up to meet him at a fancy Korean beef restaurant and oh my god, is that Joon-young’s crabby team member Officer Gong?

Needless to say, Joo-ran is disappointed, and she just gets more and more embarrassed as Officer Gong talks way too loudly about their expensive arranged marriage applications. The date ends abruptly when he argues with the waiter and a piece of coal causes her shirt to catch fire.

Young-jae meets her old high school buddies for dinner (minus So-hee, of course). It turns out that So-hee became a big celebrity and the other two friends never kept in contact since they never got along in the first place. Joon-young then surprises Young-jae at the restaurant, and the girls are shocked to see him again, especially without his braces. They decide to give the two lovebirds some alone time.

However, Young-jae and Joon-young get phone calls from Joo-ran and Officer Gong and have to part ways to console their respective friends. Joon-young meets his partner Officer Jung and a very drunk Officer Gong. After Joon-young calls Young-jae to make sure she got to Joo-ran’s safely, Officer Gong slurs that he’s lucky to have met his ideal type. But Joon-young says that Young-jae wasn’t his type at all.

Over at Joo-ran’s, she tells Young-jae all about the date and how no matter how she tried, she couldn’t find a single charm in Officer Gong. She then asks Young-jae about Joon-young and how she can date someone who’s the opposite of her ideal type. Young-jae hadn’t really thought about that, but it starts to sink in.

She brings it up to Joon-young when they talk on the phone that night, asking why he likes her when in reality, they’re not really suited for each other. She asks a bunch of questions about preferences and their answers differ every time. Either way, Young-jae says that doesn’t change the fact that she likes him.

Joon-young smiles and says that opposites can have great relationships too. He then starts rambling about the science of attraction, unaware that Young-jae has fallen asleep. He hears her snoring and laughs, saying, “You snore and I don’t snore. We’re definitely suited for each other.” Aww, stahp.

The next day, Joo-ran tells Young-jae that the famous Designer Hong wants her on his team for a fashion show, which could be a big step for her career. Young-jae is ecstatic to join, that is, until she meets the runway model they’ll be working with: So-hee.

Designer Hong gushes over So-hee, explaining that she requested Young-jae herself. Despite Young-jae’s surprise, she handles the rest of the meeting in a professional manner. But it’s hard with So-hee constantly putting down her suggestions.

Young-jae lets off steam by visiting a ddeokbokki place and calling Joo-ran, loudly stating that So-hee is as awful as ever. At a table behind her, a young man gawks as she says she could just smack So-hee.

Young-jae leaves the shop with her food, the young man close behind, and she comes across a halmeoni who’s dropped all of her apples. Young-jae doesn’t hesitate to help pick them up, ordering the young man to do the same.

After gathering the apples, Young-jae thanks the young man and heads back to work, while he watches her with a rather smitten expression. We later learn that this is plastic surgeon CHOI HO-CHUL (Min Woo-hyuk).

After his day at work, Ho-chul is told that he needs a haircut if he wants to look good for his upcoming broadcast. He’s looking at his reflection in the window when his eyes go across the street and find Young-jae sitting in her salon alone.

Ho-chul goes over to the salon, and Young-jae recognizes him from earlier. Since her students have already left, she gives him the haircut herself. As she does, Ho-chul innocently flirts with her, though she doesn’t pay it much attention. She just urges him to stand up so they can wash his hair.

Meanwhile, Joon-young decides to visit Young-jae since they haven’t seen each other for a couple of days. He picks up a late night snack, making sure it’s extra spicy for her, and happily drives over to the salon.

His smile drops as soon as he sees Young-jae with Ho-chul, washing his hair when she promised she’d never do so. He turns to leave, not knowing how to feel, but stops after a second thought.

He calls Young-jae and asks if she wants him to drop by, watching her reaction. She tells him that she’s busy and that she’ll call later. He then catches Ho-chul trying to flirt and is instantly filled with jealousy.

 
COMMENTS

Oh, here we go. No matter how sweet and scrapbook-worthy their honeymoon phase was, it had to get disrupted sometime. (Also, I guess the flashbacks were in the fall and the honeymoon phase was in the spring; my mistake.) I know a lot of beanies in the comments strongly believe that Joon-young and Young-jae are not right for each other, and it was interesting to see how the show introduced this problem.

Joon-young was right in saying that opposites can work really well together; it creates the yin-yang effect in platonic and romantic relationships. The balance can vary depending on the people, but if there’s some genuine effort put in, they can compliment each other in the right ways. They can inspire each other to step out of their comfort zones and try new things together. Though it challenges people positively, it also carries a higher chance of challenging them negatively. Once they’re out of “spring” and settling into what could possibly be the long haul, these negative challenges could make or break them.

Maybe I’m too optimistic, or maybe this couple has me wrapped around their little finger, but I want to believe that the whole “opposites attract” thing can work beyond the “attract.” That it can work with Joon-young and Young-jae. But now that they’re moving onto the next phase of their relationship, they need to start discussing these things. They need to figure out how their dynamic works and how they can make it work better, starting with disagreements.

If an action movie makes Joon-young uncomfortable and a tear-jerker makes Young-jae roll her eyes, they could meet in the middle. If Joon-young calls Young-jae too often and she calls too little, they could (you guessed it) meet in the middle. Compromises aren’t always easy, but they are fundamental in any relationship. And it’s better that they’re established before communication is completely lost. I hope these two find some kind of strategy because I really don’t like that they gloss over certain things. With the second lead Ho-chul finally making his entrance, our couple will have to talk things out, right? I enjoy the cuddles and kisses, but they can’t solve everything.

Other than the romance, the family dynamics still have most of my attention. Ri-won continues to be awesome, and Soo-jae continues to be… well, intriguing. With the hints the show is sprinkling throughout, I’m just dying to know what happened to his ex-girlfriend. He also needs more screentime in general because after that cheesy scenario narration, I wanted him narrating the entire episode.

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