Warm and Cozy: Episode 4

by girlfriday

I felt some real flutters in this episode, though naturally I also felt spewy anger, because our manchild of a hero can’t seem to do a good thing without also doing a bad thing, like there’s some kind of precarious balance in the universe that must be maintained by boneheadedness. But jealousy starts to fuel some unexpected reactions all around, perhaps giving us the start of something more than a simple friendship.

 
SONG OF THE DAY

LONG:D – “따뜻해줘” (Be Warm) [ Download ]

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EPISODE 4 RECAP

Gun-woo wakes up with a big grin on his face, only to open his eyes to a wall of boxes propped up like a barricade next to his cot. He stomps downstairs ready to pick a fight with Jung-joo over room proportions, and argues that he might not deserve fifty percent, but she should allot space for his long legs.

He doesn’t actually have a leg to stand on here, since he’s totally freeloading; he knows it, and it cracks me up how quickly he backpedals: “Seventy-thirty! Okay, okay, eighty-twenty! I can’t go any lower!”

Jung-joo sits him down to ask what on earth he’s doing here, and Gun-woo tries to act nonchalant as he says that he might have had more debt than he let on, and maybe his hyung paid it off, cut off his credit cards, and seized all the rental income from his building in Seoul. Basically he’s homeless and penniless. Yunno, for a rich guy.

He says he has nowhere else to go, since his hyung told him not to come to him, and noona isn’t answering his calls. Aw, he does sound extra pathetic when he puts it that way. Jung-joo harrumphs that she won’t be taking him in either, but Gun-woo is quick to remind her about allllll of the nice things he did for her when she first got to Jeju.

When he mentions loaning her Warm & Cozy at a steal, she stammers nervously and asks if he means to take it back. Gun-woo assures her that he’s not THAT petty a guy, then says cheerily, “I’ll just stay here for a while.”

Her jaw drops, but he points out that she already made the blockade upstairs, which means she’s prepared for this eventuality. She protests that she can’t afford his wages, but he says he’s not expecting a paycheck—he’ll just help her out as she gets settled, and only needs some spending money.

Before she can even recover from the shock to argue, he gets up and says they have to go shopping for their fresh ingredients for the day. He bows deep at the waist, hands folded demurely, and calls her boss. This is gonna be fun.

At the market, Gun-woo spends Jung-joo’s money like it grows on trees, buying only the best of each ingredient and insisting on the priciest seafood. He’s fixated on developing a new abalone dish, which he doesn’t admit is really for Ji-won. Jung-joo stops to admire an apron, and Gun-woo calls it tacky without thinking, though he notes her huffy reaction as she walks away.

Back at the restaurant, he tests out the abalone dish he’s working on for Ji-won. Poong-san loves it and Jung-joo can’t argue, but she says they have to work on cheaper options for their restaurant. She suggests sea snails, and insists on getting them herself to save money where they can.

Gun-woo doesn’t see why she’d do something so difficult when they could just go to the market, but follows her out to give her an apron. Aw, it’s the one with the horsies that she was admiring at the market.

He insists on tying it on for her, and she stands there holding her arms out stiffly, like she doesn’t know what to do with her hands. Poong-san watches with a cocked eyebrow as Gun-woo ties her apron and tells her sweetly not to do anything too taxing.

As Jung-joo heads out, Poong-san asks outright if Gun-woo likes her. Gun-woo just answers vaguely that she’s great, and warns Poong-san not to let her do any of the hard work. Poong-san mutters to himself that he already does all the work around here, but he’s even more confused about Gun-woo’s relationship with Jung-joo.

Jung-joo discovers right away that harvesting sea snails is really difficult, and two diver ajummas pass by the shore with Mayor Wook and sigh that she’s doing it all wrong. Wook is worried enough to go down and help her, and shows her what to do. The ajummas delight in the perfect match.

Wook is quickly frustrated by how much Jung-joo struggles with this simple task, and she has to drag him back down to show her again. When she finally gets the hang of things, he encourages that picking turtle hands (a type of sea barnacle) isn’t easy. She looks down in confusion: “Wait, these aren’t sea snails?” Oh no, they’ve been picking the wrong shellfish this whole time?

He grouses his frustration in Jeju dialect, and Jung-joo peers at him curiously when he puts his hand on his head, in a very familiar pose. She wonders again where she’s seen him before because he’s so familiar, and Wook drops his hands in alarm.

He yells that people up in Seoul might throw pickup lines like that around all the time, but down here, if you say things like that, you have to get married. Ha. He warns her to stop saying things like that, and walks away feeling unsettled.

Jung-joo’s old co-workers at the underwear company happen to follow the Jeju blogger who wrote about Warm & Cozy, and they sigh over Gun-woo’s picture. They’re surprised when they recognize Jung-joo on the same blog, looking every bit the country ajumma while harvesting sea snails, and they suggest Jeju for their team workshop this weekend. What, to rub your employment in her face?

The blogger is currently updating her site as she sits there snapping endless unflattering pictures of Jung-joo, and it takes a while before Jung-joo notices the kooky woman who keeps smiling at her and taking more photos.

Gun-woo makes the sea snail noodle dish that Jung-joo wanted, but he looks over at Poong-san quizzically when Jung-joo announces that they’ll be selling this dish all weekend. Gun-woo: “You want to work… on the weekend?”

Clearly this is a new concept to him, and the boys share uncertain looks as Jung-joo describes how she’ll collect the sea snails and they’ll cook and serve, and they’ll make a boatload of money.

They watch her hard at work washing the sea snails, and Gun-woo wonders if maybe they really can sell a hundred bowls of noodles a day if they open on weekends. Poong-san is more of a realist and says it’s not a tourist locale and they’ve never opened on weekends before, so he wouldn’t know.

On Saturday, their only visitor is Mr. Busybody Gong, who also moonlights as a deliveryman whenever he’s free. Jung-joo deflates when he drops off a package instead of ordering lunch, and he tells her that he also does signs and flyers, if she needs help promoting the place. Of course he does.

Gun-woo gets decked out to leave, and not only is he skipping out in the middle of a workday, but he actually takes money out of the cash register to spend. I’m beginning to see why this place made no money.

Jung-joo tries to stop him, but Gun-woo tells her that Ji-won arrives today and he has to go to the airport. When she complains about how expensive gas is, he misses her meaning entirely and says that’s why he grabbed some money.

He shows up at the airport to give Ji-won a ride to the resort, and she tells him to prepare something good and she’ll come to his restaurant. Why he wastes any of his cute on her, I will never understand.

Ji-won greets the marketing team that she’ll be working with, and when she’s told that Gun-woo’s hyung Jung-geun is in a meeting, Ji-won calls him oppa faux-accidentally, just to make it clear that she’s got a personal relationship with the boss.

Jung-geun sits in his meeting just thinking about his rescue diver mermaid Hae-shil the entire time. He realizes what’s going on and tries to shake thoughts of her out of his head, only to start hallucinating her in full diver gear, sitting across the table. To punctuate the obsession, the Secret Garden OST begins to play.

He’s all, “See, I’m a black pearl! Why didn’t you give me your phone number? Don’t you regret it now?” The vision fades, and he’s startled to be brought back to his boring meeting.

Mayor Wook stops by to see Hae-shil, who runs the local diver school. He gives her a list of new applicants to choose from, and tells her to find some pearls. She smiles at that and muses that she plucked a black pearl the other day but let it go, and sighs that if he learned a trade like this now, he might have a reason to go on living. Hee.

Ji-won goes to see her new boss Jung-geun, and she seems a little disappointed when he tells her that he brought her here because of her skills in the industry, not their personal connection. Any sane person would take that as a compliment, but whatever.

She invites him to dinner with her and Gun-woo tonight, but he says that he’s fighting with Little Bro right now and going to the restaurant would be tantamount to giving in. Ji-won says that none of his staff seems to know what a kind and loving brother he is, and Jung-geun scoffs that even Gun-woo doesn’t know that.

Much to his horror, Gun-woo is greeted by a giant dancing blow-up doll outside of Warm & Cozy, and Jung-joo is painting low-rent signs for sea snail noodles. He can’t believe she’s making the place look so cheap, but she asks what that matters if it brings in more customers and makes them more money.

She tells him to give back the change from the money he took out of the register, but Gun-woo has the gall to ask for MORE money because he needs to buy abalone for Ji-won’s dinner tonight. Jung-joo realizes that the practice run and all of this is because of a girl, and Gun-woo doesn’t even have an ounce of shame when he confirms it. Ugh.

He calls her handmade sign embarrassing and kicks it, knocking a can of paint all over her (and her horsie apron!). She yells that she’s going to sell noodles whether he likes it or not, but he argues that he doesn’t want to make just one dish all the time: “That’s no fun! I cook because it’s fun to make something I like that makes other people happy!”

Jung-joo shouts back, “It must be nice to live for fun like you. But I can’t do that!” She asks what it matters what he thinks when the place is hers, and Gun-woo says that he lent it to her because he felt sorry for her, and she can’t go changing everything about it.

That stings her pride, so she tells him to come up with the money and she’ll just give it right back to him then, calling him a beggar. And of course that wounds his pride, and he screams that he’ll return her money and she can take her dancing balloon and go.

The fight leaves them both feeling hurt, and Gun-woo goes to check in at Hyung’s hotel. Hyung hears from his secretary that Gun-woo has been staying with Jung-joo (Hyung calls her Miss 100-won, which is cute since the whole coin bit is what made him respect her), and he decides to stick to his guns and tells them to turn Gun-woo away.

Jung-joo tries to wash the paint out of her apron to no avail, and Poong-san asks what they’re going to do with the giant tub of sea snails that they haven’t sold. Jung-joo refuses to throw them away, and carries the tub on her head to take them to Mr. Gong’s restaurant.

Gun-woo is down in the hotel lobby when he overhears two of Hyung’s managers talking about him, mostly worrying about whether Jung-geun means to give him one of their jobs. They gossip about his mother and how all three siblings are from different dads—his noona from a movie star father and Gun-woo from an unknown father, which is why he took his mother’s last name.

There’s all sorts of speculation about his biological father, from a baseball player to an artist to a chaebol. Gun-woo just listens to it all with a grim look on his face.

Gun-woo’s noona buys her boyfriend an expensive watch, and he’s surprised to learn of her connection to her hotel CEO oppa. He asks the same thing about all their fathers, and she says glibly, “One was the richest man in the world, one was the best-looking man in the world, and one was the worst man in the world.” Yikes.

Jung-joo doesn’t get very far carrying the tub of sea snails on her head before she starts spilling them everywhere. She drops her phone while trying to rest and ends up answering with her foot when Poong-san calls. He tells her excitedly that they have three customers in the restaurant, but he’s alarmed when she gasps that it hurts and she’s dying.

Mayor Wook happens by just then, so she hangs up without clarifying and leaves Poong-san confused. Wook grabs the tub from her head and gapes as she stoops down to pick up every last sea snail that she dropped.

With Wook’s help, she manages to sell the sea snails to a restaurant. Wook isn’t satisfied with just a thank-you, and insists that she buy him a bowl of noodles then. She complains that she’ll have no money left after buying him lunch, and he tells her that it’s not about the money, but developing connections.

She sets him straight that she doesn’t want that kind of connection with him, and he rolls his eyes and says he didn’t mean between them—he meant between her and the restaurant ajumma, to forge a relationship as a new business owner. Oh. Well that’s nice. Jung-joo feels sheepish and does as he advises, managing to make friends with the ajumma, who says she’ll stop by Warm & Cozy for a meal sometime.

Jung-joo learns from Wook that this is a busy and successful restaurant despite the fact that it’s off the beaten path, and she wonders how, when Gun-woo’s version of the same dish tastes better.

Wook scoffs that there’s no way that lazy good-for-nothing cooks anything that’s good, but Jung-joo finds herself ardently defending Gun-woo’s cooking. She says that Wook should’ve been more welcoming to someone like Gun-woo who’s new here, and points out that he’s never even tasted the food, so how would he know?

Another townsperson spots them together and immediately asks Wook if he’s on a blind date, and Wook so vehemently denies it that Jung-joo asks why he had to be so insistent to the point that it embarrassed her.

He leans in close and says that around here, if people misunderstand your relationship, you have to get married: “Do you want to marry me?” She shakes her head no, so his point is made.

Wook says he’ll take her admonishment about his mayoring to heart, and promises to stop by to taste Gun-woo’s cooking. Jung-joo sighs that there might not be a chance, because they fought today and Gun-woo said he was leaving. Yeah but he says that like every other day.

She asks where she can get some abalone, so Wook takes her to Mr. Gong’s restaurant, where she picks out a few small ones to buy. Hae-shil comes by with the really huge expensive ones that only deep-sea divers find in the wild, and Jung-joo can only gaze longingly because she can’t afford those.

Jung-joo heads to the hotel looking for Gun-woo, and just misses him as he’s walking out. Poong-san calls to tell him that Jung-joo went looking for him, and urges them to make up because Jung-joo isn’t feeling well. He tells Gun-woo about the call earlier when she said she was dying of pain, and Gun-woo worries that her cancer is getting worse.

Jung-joo searches the grounds and ends up waiting at the same elevator with Ji-won. When her phone rings, Ji-won reaches for it and spills her coffee all over both of them, and then she has the nerve to act mad like somehow it was Jung-joo’s fault for, I don’t know, standing there?

Jung-joo stoops down to help mop up the mess, and Ji-won just steps into the elevator without lifting a finger. Jung-joo calls her out on it, and Ji-won says that the maids will get it. She acts like she’s going to help clean just to get Jung-joo out of her hair, then shuts the doors on her with a smirk. Oh, what. Before you were insipid, but now you’re just a bitch.

So now Jung-joo is left alone with a mess she didn’t make, but she can’t just leave it there in good conscience. She tries her best to sop up the coffee, and of course that’s the exact moment when her old co-workers walk up and spot her—they’re here for their company workshop.

They don’t hide their derision at all when they ask if Jung-joo works here and if she’s spending her days collecting sea snails. It’s that horrible kind of awkward where no matter what you say, it sounds like a pathetic lie, and Gun-woo walks up just in time to witness Jung-joo’s mortifying moment. He hangs back and watches from afar, understanding and sympathy dawning on his face.

They walk out to the front and offer Jung-joo a pity ride in their company bus, which Jung-joo declines. I just want to scream at them to hurry up and leave, but then Gun-woo pulls up in his red convertible and calls out her name. Aw, you’re going to be all swoony and sweet, aren’t you? Bah.

Gun-woo runs up and takes the tub of seafood out of her hands, chiding the boss for doing the heavy lifting. He introduces himself as the chef of the restaurant that Jung-joo owns, and mouths drop.

The mean girls even recognize Gun-woo as the chef they wanted to see while they were down here, and Gun-woo tells them that Jung-joo is his boss. Suddenly they’re all impressed and asking if they can stop by, and Gun-woo graciously invites the boss’s friends for dinner.

He does everything right, from opening her car door to treating her like she’s really the boss, and Jung-joo looks over at him gratefully. After driving for a while in silence, Gun-woo asks if she was sick earlier, mentioning the call with Poong-san.

She assures him that it was nothing and that she’s fine now, and Gun-woo looks visibly relieved. She starts to say hesitantly that the stuff she said during their fight was harsh, and he cuts in, “So you’re sorry?” She skips over answering by telling him that she bought abalone, and he tries not to smile.

He pouts and asks if he’s really supposed to just make the one noodle dish from now on even with her co-workers coming, but she defers to him since he’s the chef. She says that he already showed off with his sports car, so he might as well show off with his cooking too. He’s adorably pleased at that, and says he’ll make sure that she can save face.

Gun-woo slaves over the stove and has fun preparing new dishes for the big dinner, and Jung-joo shows the group in as they bring plate after plate of yummy food. Gun-woo brings over the main dish himself, and opens the lid to a pot of abalone rice.

Eeeeee, he made it out of her apology abalone! Dammit, why can’t I stay mad at youuuuuu? Jung-joo looks over at him, genuinely shocked, and Gun-woo winks at her.

She returns to the kitchen to find him cooking yet another course, and takes in the sight of him smiling away as he cooks. She remembers the way he talked about cooking and what made it fun for him, and asks now if he’s happy. He beams and says that he is.

Wook passes by two ajummas taking home a big load of seafood that some Seoulites left behind, and he remembers Jung-joo’s longing look at the wild abalone earlier and asks if they’ll share some with him.

He heads over to Warm & Cozy to drop it off and taste Gun-woo’s cooking as promised, and Jung-joo asks if he’ll take a group photo for them as she joins her co-workers. At the mention of her old company, Wook goes pale, but he’s forced to follow her and pick up the camera.

Her co-workers say that Wook looks familiar, but no one can figure out why until he lifts his hand to his head. The manager shouts, “Hwangto Man!” after the hwangto panty he used to model, and everyone’s jaws go slack.

Wook is adorably awkward as he walks out with Jung-joo, and he explains that he went up to Seoul for a short time when he was young and took ONE modeling gig, but those pictures seem to somehow still be in circulation.

Jung-joo says that he happened to model the one brand that remains their bestseller to this day, hence the giant poster her co-workers would’ve seen on a daily basis. Wook mumbles that the townspeople don’t know, and Jung-joo assures him that she can keep a secret.

They make lips-sealed gestures at each other, and Gun-woo spies them from a distance, looking all chummy and secretive.

He asks what all that was about once Wook is gone, but gets pouty when Jung-joo says he doesn’t need to know. He huffs that he warned her not to get entangled with the mayor, and she laughs that Wook said the same thing, about how if she does, she’ll have to marry him.

Gun-woo only hears that as a come-on and gets all riled up: “He said what?! He’s so shameless, asking you to marry him. Don’t talk to him anymore!” She ignores him and suggests making the next course with the seafood that Wook brought over, and Gun-woo throws a tantrum: “I’m not gonna do it! I’m not gonna make it with that!”

And then… he comes back to stick his tongue out at her! Hahahaha, did he just really blow a raspberry at her like he’s five?

Ji-won unpacks and thoughts drift back to earlier that day, when she saw Gun-woo leave the hotel with Jung-joo. Augh, please don’t tell me you’re going to be interested now that you think someone else wants him.

Poong-san drives Jung-joo’s co-workers back after the dinner, and Jung-joo thanks Gun-woo for everything he did tonight. She worries about him using up all the abalone he wanted for Ji-won, and he says it’s fine—there’s no telling when she’ll ever come anyway.

He even suggests cooking up the wild abalone that Wook brought over, the sweet grilled way that Jung-joo likes it prepared. (He notes her childish taste buds, as if he has the right to call anyone childish ever.) She’s shocked that he wants her to have the last abalone, and they happily make plans to have a drink.

He doesn’t even let her help clean up since she’s not feeling well today, and chides her for wearing such a thin jacket. He nags her about it sweetly as he zips it up for her, suddenly seeming very boyfriendish.

Jung-joo heads up to grab a jacket while Gun-woo cooks and cleans (best deal ever), and she pauses to consider a pretty sweater instead of a big jacket, and primps in the mirror. She sets the table with wine glasses and wonders if it’s overkill, but Gun-woo agrees to wine, though he jokingly warns her, “I may have given up this store over a bottle of champagne, but don’t expect me to give up anything else tonight!” Challenge accepted.

He even sets out candles while she picks out a bottle of wine, and Jung-joo catches herself looking in the mirror to primp some more. She stops herself and tries to shake the expectations away.

Gun-woo finishes setting everything out when he hears a car pull up, and DAMNIT ALL, it’s Ji-won. Of course it’s you. You have the suckiest timing in all of time! And of course, to dig the knife in deeper, Jung-joo runs out with the bottle of wine and expectations fluttering in her stomach to find Gun-woo and Ji-won sitting at the table she set, and Gun-woo offering up her abalone to the other girl.

 
COMMENTS

URG. *raspberry* That girl just has a way of bringing out the worst in Gun-woo, and it drives me nuts that he goes from being so wonderful and sweet with Jung-joo to suddenly losing his marbles as soon as Ji-won is near. It’s like all of the blood in his brain floods to his unmentionables and he becomes a walking moron, which I wouldn’t even fault him for if Ji-won were interesting in any way whatsoever. I mean, the mayor is prime example of how you can make a funny, quirky second lead work for your story, where he’s kind and well-meaning and so bumbling that you actually want him to have a chance. He doesn’t, but the misunderstandings are hilarious anyway, because Gun-woo is reading everything the wrong way. It’s not even full-fledged jealousy, but I love that their petty hatred for one another feeds Gun-woo’s overreactions about Jung-joo marrying him.

He certainly deserves that and worse for how much grief he’s caused over Ji-won’s abalone dinner, not that this is the end of it by a long shot. Though it lacked the usual punny oomph, the whole abalone-as-romantic-currency thing was great, and it felt a little more like a familiar Hong sisters drama to have all our characters running around to offer up abalone as a gesture of their feelings. It’s a little unimaginative, in that it really is an expensive delicacy of the region, but I love the way it was used differently by each character. Jung-joo sacrifices her precious money to buy it as an apology, Wook brings some by because he’s thinking of Jung-joo, and Gun-woo is extra swoony when he serves up Ji-won’s abalone to Jung-joo’s guests. Of course he then counteracts his own gesture by stupidly offering up Jung-joo’s abalone to Ji-won, the dolt.

I like that we’re starting to get signs of fluttery feelings and confused expectations, because this drama doesn’t have much else going on besides the romance. That’s really all there is, sometimes to the point that it feels like a drama void of plot entirely, except I guess the romance IS the plot, and I do really like this couple. It was nice to get a little more insight into Gun-woo today and have Jung-joo contemplate his happiness, because now it’s clear that starting a restaurant wasn’t a total waste of time for him, and that he has talent as a chef. And more importantly, he genuinely loves making people happy with his food, and she seems to respect that. Sometimes it’s shocking how immature he can be, but more and more, there’s as much good about him as there is bad, or at least as much cute as there is frustrating.

But c’mon, that save at the hotel? That was so perfect. I love that that wasn’t about making her some Cinderella—he didn’t need to pretend to be her boyfriend to make her look better than she was. He was just salvaging her pride with the truth, delivered in the snazziest way possible in front of the people who rejected her. It’s in moments like this that Gun-woo seems very different from standard dramaland heroes—he’s not prideful in the least, and doesn’t think twice about lowering his own stature to make her look good. At times like this, he’s amazingly thoughtful and selfless, and it strikes me that from the start he’s always treated Jung-joo like she was smart and pretty and his equal, and encouraged her to think more highly of herself. That’s the kind of unconditional support that makes their friendship so great, and I don’t mind taking our time with the romance if we can get more of that.

 
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