Mask: Episode 12

by LollyPip

Seok-hoon’s carefully constructed lies are being torn down left and right, making him feel more uncertain and more likely to lash out in desperation. Luckily, love is blooming despite Ji-sook’s attempts to keep her distance from Min-woo. And once the two of them become true partners in every sense of the word, there’s going to be nothing and nobody capable of tearing them apart.

EPISODE 12: “Unhappy Happiness”

It’s one year ago on Eun-ha’s twenty-sixth birthday, and she and Seok-hoon celebrate privately with a cake. Eun-ha urges Seok-hoon to sing “Happy Birthday,” but he looks like it’s killing him and he can’t do it, ha. He gives her the diamond necklace we’ve seen on her previously, and as he puts it around her neck, she says she’ll let him know in one year whether she’ll go along with his plan. He smiles and says they can do it, since it’s the only way they can be together.

In the present, Seok-hoon is no longer smiling as Ji-sook reminds him of his promise — leave Min-woo alone, in return for the video of him murdering Jung-tae. He shows her the smashed watch, and now we see that as Mi-yeon sat trying to decide if she should watch or delete the video, she’d realized her period was a week late.

She’d gone straight to Seok-hoon with the news that they’re going to be parents, and said that she chooses to believe his lies. Seok-hoon tells Ji-sook that this is proof that God is on their side, and wishes her a happy birthday.

Mi-yeon tells the family her conception dream, and Papa Choi proposes a party in celebration of the baby and for Ji-sook’s birthday. Gifts are delivered for Ji-sook, and the maid tells her that they were sent one year ago, from herself. Hmmm. She opens them and finds two dresses and a purse, and a card with a locket attached to a key. The card asks, “Will you comply or rebel?”

Min-woo remembers the night before when he’d smashed his pills after finding out he was tricked into taking hallucinogens, and Ji-sook asks him which of the dresses she should wear to the party. He simply tells her that she’s pretty, and to wear whichever dress she likes.

Seok-hoon watches this on hidden camera, remembering one year ago on Eun-ha’s birthday when she’d said she didn’t know which dress she should wear next year. But she’d reminded him that the dress was a signal — white meant she’d go along with his plan, and red meant she wouldn’t.

Mi-yeon demands that her celebration cake be larger than Ji-sook’s birthday cake, then she, Seok-hoon, and Stepmom go shopping. Seok-hoon seems less diabolical than usual as he sighs his way through the ladies’ shopping spree like any bored husband, and he’s almost cute with his long-suffering expressions.

Ji-sook’s former coworkers go through some old papers and find her resume, and when they take the papers out for disposal, they crash right into Mi-yeon and her mom. Papers go flying, but Mi-yeon catches sight of Ji-sook’s resume and takes it.

Min-woo can’t stop thinking about his medication which turned out to be hallucinogens, but on his way to confront Dr. Kim, he gets a call that the doctor’s been arrested. He goes to the prison for answers, but Dr. Kim just claims he was trying to cure Min-woo through special methods. He urges Min-woo to keep getting treatment, no matter what.

Min-woo leaves with no more answers than when he came, and soon after, Seok-hoon also visits Dr. Kim. He promises to get him out soon, reminding him that they share a common purpose. Later, Dr. Kim is in the news for being sued by a patient for performing illegal clinical trials, using non-approved medications to treat depression. Well, at least Min-woo wasn’t the only one.

Ji-sook goes to the address written on the key, and finds what looks like a secret apartment that Seok-hoon shared with Eun-ha. Behind a (very good) painting of Seok-hoon she finds a cache of photos of the two of them, and a diary.

It’s full of photos of Eun-ha and Seok-hoon’s courtship, but contains ominous written warnings such as “Love paralyzes the soul.” The messages get more frightening and more specific, culminating in one terrifying question: “Could I really kill Choi Min-woo?”

Ji-sook runs straight to his office and finds Min-woo there, and she lays her forehead on his back. “No matter what, I’ll be by your side. I’ll always be by your side,” she tells him quietly.

Mi-yeon and Stepmom exclaim over how much Ji-sook looked like Eun-ha — they could even be twins. Mi-yeon is ready to dismiss the matter as coincidence, more concerned about staying calm for her baby, but Stepmom knows this information could be very valuable. She orders Ji-sook’s coworkers to bring Ji-sook to meet her, but they sadly inform her that she passed away.

Min-woo asks Ji-sook what that backhug was all about, but she just mumbles that they’re married, it’s no big deal. Awww, Min-woo looks disappointed. To cheer him up, Ji-sook tells him a trick she uses when she’s upset — she hums a song in her head and it keeps the bad thoughts away.

He rejects her suggestion, then promises to try it when she pouts, since it’s her birthday and all. She requests a smile from him as her birthday gift, and he gives it some thought.

Mi-yeon finds Ji-sook’s family’s restaurant from her resume information, and she and Ji-hyuk recognize each other immediately. Mi-yeon still thinks Ji-hyuk was Eun-ha’s lover, since he made a scene at the company ball, and she covers her presence here by claiming to be worried he’d pull a similar stunt on her birthday. Ji-hyuk tells her firmly never to come back here, but he stops in his tracks when she asks about Ji-sook by name.

He admits she was his sister, and that she’s dead, but Mi-yeon says that she feels like she’s still alive. She remembers him calling Ji-sook “noona” at the ball, wondering why he’d be looking for his noona if she were passed away. Ji-hyuk repeats angrily that his sister is dead.

Director Shim is arrested for trespassing and theft — of a woman’s underwear. HAHA. He swears he didn’t do it, but there was a pack of cigarettes in her house with his fingerprints all over it. Seok-hoon is behind it, and tells his contact at the police station to keep Shim locked up until further notice.

The boys brainstorm birthday gift ideas for Ji-sook, but Min-woo shoots down all of Chang-soo’s dorky suggestions, until he finally just says to get her something from his heart. Chang-soo pretends to be Ji-sook so Min-woo can practice his moves, and I can’t even. Dying over here. Min-woo waves the doofus away so he can think.

Ji-hyuk meets with Ji-sook to talk about Mom’s treatment, and he says he knows it was her who made Shim get on his knees to her family. She tells him that the poor have to kneel, but the rich can make others kneel. Ji-hyuk won’t ever have to kneel again. The family (minus Ji-sook, of course) meets with Mom’s doctor, who tells Mom that she’ll most likely need a liver transplant. Her best bet for recovery is to find a donor within the family.

Shim is let out of jail, and before he can even take one step from his cell, Scar shows up to warn him never to do anything like this again (meaning, attempting to steal the watch). He takes Shim to see Seok-hoon, who is not amused by his big show of throwing his weight around. Seok-hoon says that when you feed a dog it treats it’s owner like God, but when you feed a cat, it thinks it IS God. Too bad Shim isn’t a dog.

Shim says that he knows about Ji-sook pretending to be Eun-ha, and that Seok-hoon killed Jung-tae for discovering it. He claims to have proof, and that if anything happens to him, the whole country will know. He wants half of whatever Seok-hoon is getting from this. Sir, you may be a dog, but you are a very small dog, better watch yourself.

It’s time for the birthday/baby celebration party, and HAHAHA, Mi-yeon had ordered a one-tier cake for Ji-sook versus a five-tier cake for herself. So the staff just made Ji-sook’s one tier reeeeeeally tall. That’s awesome.

Min-woo tells Papa Choi and Stepmom that his pills were hallucinogens, and dad seems furious. He swears to get the maximum sentence for Dr. Kim and promises to find Min-woo a new doctor soon.

Min-woo goes out to the party and sees Butler Nam-chul pouring wine, which triggers a memory of the day of Eun-ha’s accident. He suddenly remembers gulping the glass of wine and collapsing, and seeing Eun-ha fighting with Mi-yeon just before he passes out. He shakes it off and tries Ji-sook’s trick of humming in his head to chase away the bad thought.

Inside, the maid tells Seok-hoon that she can’t help him anymore, so he offers her triple pay to drug Min-woo’s wine again. She reluctantly nods agreement.

Mi-yeon tells Stepmom that she checked out Ji-sook, and the resemblance to Eun-ha turned out to be coincidental. She says that she feels like something interesting could happen at the party tonight, and both women smile nastily.

Seok-hoon takes a private moment to look at Eun-ha’s diamond necklace and remember her, and Mi-yeon walks in and smiles, assuming it’s a gift for her. She suggests the name Sa-rang-hae (it means “I love you”) for their baby, and Seok-hoon agrees it’s a good name. She asks him to try saying the baby’s name, and when he does, she responds, “Me too.” She promises to be the best wife and mother ever once the baby is born, full of excited plans for the future.

Mi-yeon had invited Eun-ha’s parents to the party since they happened to be in town, which makes Seok-hoon visibly nervous. He greets them, and of course they ask about Eun-ha right away.

Ji-sook joins the party looking like a vision in the red dress, and Min-woo practically has to pick his jaw up off the ground. She’s studied Eun-ha’s photo album, and gracefully navigates all of Eun-ha’s friends and acquaintances easily. Min-woo leads her to her cake, whining that his eyes hurt, she’s so stunning. How are you so cute?!

He takes it up a notch when nobody seems inclined to sing the birthday song, and so Min-woo starts it himself. It actually looks painfully embarrassing, hee, but he grits his teeth and sings alone until everyone joins in. Mi-yeon threatens Seok-hoon that he’d better sing for her like that on her birthday.

Papa Choi laughs that Ji-sook must have done something to Min-woo to make him sing, and Eun-ha’s mother asks what she’ll do for him in return. Eun-ha’s father suggests she play piano, which makes Ji-sook looks extremely nervous. But she walks over to the piano, and Seok-hoon’s maid uses the distraction to slip a pill into a bottle of wine.

Ji-sook actually can play the piano, and she bewitches the party guests with a lovely classical song. Mi-yeon looks flustered, what with her suspicion that Ji-sook isn’t Eun-ha, but Seok-hoon is relieved. Chang-soo whispers to Min-woo that his wife is beautiful, and gets threatened in response. HA.

It turns out that Ji-sook has always been good at the piano, practicing on the department store’s piano every night. Her coworkers asked why, and she’d said that one day she would be able to show her future husband that she can do more than cook and clean.

Min-woo looks likely to bust with pride, but Seok-hoon glowers at Ji-sook angrily. His maid pours her a glass of wine, and she downs it in one gulp. She casually knocks her purse off the table and asks Seok-hoon to pick it up, and when he does, she leans down to whisper under the table that Eun-ha’s answer is No. He remembers his promise from one year ago to accept her decision, and that the red dress is her code for rejection.

We see that a few minutes ago, the maid had poured out the bottle of wine she’d drugged, and Ji-sook had thanked her. The maid said she didn’t do it only because Ji-sook paid her debts, but that she just wants to live a good life now.

Min-woo and Ji-sook talk after the party, and he asks if she wants to do a duet with him on his violin on their anniversary. He gives her her birthday gift, a small flowering plant for them to take care of together. Okay I knew you were cute, and now you’re also this sweet? Kill me now.

Ji-sook is enchanted, and says she never knew a flower could be so beautiful. He says she’s been too busy with life to notice, and asks if she likes her present. She responds that the best present was him, and he looks like you could knock him over with a feather.

She teases him with his own words that she just gets sentimental at night and goes to wash up, and Min-woo can’t get past her comment about him being her best gift. He pulls her real gift out of his pocket, a ring, and smiles at it.

Seok-hoon finds Mi-yeon in bed already, and notices that she’d bought baby clothes during her shopping spree earlier. He takes out a tiny onesie and looks at himself in the mirror, then takes out Eun-ha’s diamond necklace again. He grips it in his fist, then leaves the room with one last look at Mi-yeon, who wasn’t asleep after all.

Min-woo hides the ring in the sofa, and when Ji-sook is ready for bed, he grouches that sleeping on the sofa hurts his back too much. She offers to trade places with him, so he tells her to lay down and just see for herself how uncomfortable it is.

She sits and feels the ring box, and when Ji-sook just stares at it, Min-woo takes her hand. He tells her not to drop this one in the water, and puts the ring on her, saying that it’s their wedding ring. Ji-sook beams at him, and Min-woo preens over his successful gift.

Seok-hoon drives to Eun-ha’s resting place, and leaves her necklace on the shelf in front of her photograph. A tear falls, and he softly says one word, “Eun-ha.” He doesn’t notice Mi-yeon behind him, witnessing the whole thing.

Mi-yeon shakes violently, as she remembers handing the bottle of pills to the maid to drug the wine bottle on the day of Eun-ha’s accident. Min-woo had downed her glass for her in anger, but Eun-ha had already had enough to make her stagger as she tried to leave the pool area.

Min-woo had passed out, and Mi-yeon had come back out to speak to Eun-ha again, but instead Eun-ha had gripped her by the shoulder, but when she tried to grab Mi-yeon’s hand, Mi-yeon let her slip into the water. She’d stood by and watched Eun-ha struggle, then had turned and walked away while Eun-ha drowned. She’d also been the one to have the footage of the accident erased.

Back in the present, Mi-yeon looks again at Ji-sook’s resume, and the pieces come together. She starts to realize that she killed Eun-ha, and a woman identical to her must have taken her place. Seok-hoon cries for Eun-ha, and Ji-sook smiles at her new wedding ring.

COMMENTS

Well, now we know the truth. It seems as though Eun-ha’s death truly was an accident, though Mi-yeon drugged her on purpose. There are still a lot of questions around the accident such as, what was Mi-yeon’s intent in drugging the wine? Did she mean for Eun-ha to get hurt, or was she just being vengeful to the woman she hated for loving her husband? My guess is that she was only playing a cruel joke, but that she didn’t mean for Eun-ha to be seriously harmed. Mi-yeon doesn’t seem that evil, and she appears genuinely horrified that Eun-ha actually died.

That said, I’m glad that someone has discovered (or nearly so) the Eun-ha/Ji-sook switch, because I think they’ve about milked all the drama they can out of it at this point. With only Ji-sook and Seok-hoon knowing the truth (I don’t count Ji-hyuk, because he’s not really doing anything with the knowledge, or Director Shim who is loud but ineffectual), there’s not much more the story can do until someone else learns the truth. I was hoping Min-woo would find out first, but Mi-yeon is my second choice and I look forward to the fallout of her realization. I really like her as a character — as I’ve said, she’s devious without being truly evil, which means that if we can get Seok-hoon’s nasty little paws off her, she could even turn out to be an ally to Ji-sook. After all, Ji-sook is not her enemy and never has been. That was Eun-ha, and Eun-ha is gone. If I were telling this story, I would find a way to get Mi-yeon on Ji-sook’s side, if only for the uncharted waters you could explore by having the antagonist team up with the protagonist for once.

I said it already, but I really love seeing the progression of Ji-sook’s character as she steps up and takes her place as Min-woo’s wife. I never feel like she’s trying to emulate Eun-ha, which would be impossible anyway since she never knew the woman. But she knows that Eun-ha was strong and capable, and luckily she left enough information in her photos and diaries for Ji-sook to be able to pass as her, if not act exactly like her. I love the woman that Ji-sook is becoming — a combination of the old Ji-sook who would do anything for her loved ones but was weak and powerless, and what she knows of Eun-ha as a woman who took no shit from anyone. The woman who is emerging now is better than either one was alone, and she’s amazing. She’s confident and capable, not to mention fearless, but keeps her spirit of generosity towards those who have less. No wonder Min-woo is in love with her.

And I have no doubt now that he’s completely and fully in love with Ji-sook. She’s still holding herself apart from him a bit, attempting (in my opinion, which is certainly up for scrutiny) to hold onto her own heart since I’m sure she thinks that if/when her true identity is revealed, she’ll lose everything she’s only so recently gained. I think she knows that Min-woo cares for her, but she’s probably uncertain that he’ll keep caring for her once her deception is revealed. So I don’t blame her for not opening up to him completely.

But I also think it won’t be long before she’s unable to resist, and his birthday gifts and her reaction to them are a perfect example. Min-woo proved how well he understands her with the plant and the ring — the plant especially, was his way of saying he wants to be with her for the long haul. Giving her something they could share was not just a gift for her, but a declaration of his love. And by Ji-sook saying that the best gift she’s ever been given is him, the wall she’s kept between them is starting to crumble. I don’t think it will be long before it comes down completely, and she can’t help but allow herself to love him.

RELATED POSTS

• Mask: Episode 11
• Mask: Episode 10
• Mask: Episode 9
• Mask: Episode 8
• Mask: Episode 7
• Mask: Episode 6
• Mask: Episode 5
• Mask: Episode 4
• Mask: Episode 3
• Mask: Episodes 1-2
• Two Su Aes, one Mask
• Diamonds and mirrors hide hidden agendas in Mask