The Spies Who Loved Me: Episode 4

by LollyPip

Until now, we’ve only seen the surface problems that our spy and his ex-wife suffered that caused them to split, but it’s time to learn the reason reason for their divorce. Even well-meaning secrets can do harm when a couple isn’t communicating, but they find out that it’s not too late for an honest discussion. They’ll need to work together to right a terrible wrong, and the only way to do that is to try to heal some of their old wounds.

 
EPISODE 4 RECAP

After confronting a suspicious man at Sophie’s funeral and ending up in the ER, Ah-reum saunters coolly into Areumdam Dress like she’s not banged-up and limping. In her office, she tells Du-rae what happened, and how Ji-hoon is still pestering her for a loan. She tells Du-rae to kick Ji-hoon out if he ever comes back to the shop. Du-rae is confused that Ah-reum isn’t more scared for her life, but Ah-reum sighs that she needs to help Sophie.

Jin-min shows up at the Interpol team’s hideout to yell at Ji-hoon for letting the thief from the funeral get away. Seo-ra returns to report that Doo-bong is back in Seoul after being kicked out of Felix and holed up at his aunt’s restaurant, Dongpoomloo, which is really a front for money-laundering.

Turning the discussion back to Sophie, Jin-min asks about the wedding guests, and Ji-hoon says that most of them have already returned to their home countries. Ji-hoon asks Jin-min to stop treating Ah-reum like a suspect, but Jin-min is impressed by Ah-reum’s investigative skills. She’s got a good instinct of where things may happen, and Jin-min jokes that she only had bad instincts once — when she married Ji-hoon. Snerk.

He tells Ji-hoon to bring Ah-reum to them so that they can protect her. Seo-ra predicts that Ji-hoon is going to be in a world of hurt when Ah-reum learns that he lied to her about his job. But Jin-min orders Ji-hoon to come clean and start working with Ah-reum to find out who killed Sophie.

Poor Ji-hoon retreats to the roof, where Seo-ra joins him. He’s being morose about his marriage, so Seo-ra snaps at him for looking like a teary-eyed chipmunk whenever someone mentions Ah-reum. Hee, Ji-hoon just gives her an aegyo chipmunk face. Seo-ra tells Ji-hoon to confess everything to Ah-reum so he can get over his guilt.

He can’t help remembering the day Ah-reum had come home with a cake for their first anniversary, only to catch him on his way out the door to another assignment. He’d just returned from being away for two months, but he’s only been able to offer a vague apology. Ah-reum had complained that she’d married him so he would be by her side, but now she feels like she has to beg for him to stay home. Ji-hoon had promised to talk when he got home, and he’d left, even though Ah-reum had warned that he’d regret it.

Ji-hoon had missed his flight to Baghdad, but when he spoke to Tae-ryong, he’d been ordered to get there as soon as possible. His informant, Shasha, was hiding there and using local protests as cover. While in Baghdad, Ji-hoon had been caught in a bombing and ended up in the hospital back in Korea, where Ah-reum had rushed to his side.

He was unconscious, and Ah-reum had cried that her father died in the streets, like Ji-hoon almost did. Her father had been a heavy drinker and had died in an alley in the middle of winter, and although she thought she didn’t care about him anymore, she’d still felt crushing guilt.

Later, Tae-ryong had met with Ji-hoon outside the hospital. He’d relayed that Shasha, Ji-hoon’s informant, was dead and that his sister had been kidnapped. Ji-hoon says dejectedly that the day he left was his anniversary, and that Ah-reum was in bad shape, so on the plane he’d decided to be with Ah-reum. He’d said he wanted to be a normal husband with a normal job, then he’d broken down crying.

But when he’d learned that Shasha’s sister was locked up in a secret prison, wrongfully accused of being a spy, Ji-hoon had vowed to save her himself. Seo-ra had asked him about Ah-reum, and he’d said his marriage was a mistake and that he wanted to end it for Ah-reum’s sake.

Seo-ra had told him to just quit his job, but he’d said that he couldn’t live with himself if he let an innocent woman die in prison. And if he went and didn’t return, Ah-reum would be grief-ridden forever.

While alone with Seo-ra, Young-gu gives in to curiosity and asks Seo-ra if it’s true she was involved in Ji-hoon’s divorce. She says she wasn’t, but that she started the rumor, though she doesn’t say why. He asks what she first notices about a man (his crush on her is so cute), and she shocks him by saying she looks at a man’s wrists first, because she’s attracted to men she wants to handcuff. HA.

Derek lurks around Ah-reum’s office at Areumdam Dress, and he sees the notes she’s taken on Sophie’s death. He sees that she has Sophie’s purse, but Ah-reum returns before he looks inside. Derek notices that she’s injured and asks if she’s a gangster, and he watches cagily as she quietly hides anything having to do with Sophie.

He asks her if there’s something going on, so she comes clean about how she’s been investigating Sophie’s death. She tells him that she’s a witness to Sophie’s death and to whoever attacked her today, so Derek says that she needs to be under protection.

He continues that he understands why she feels responsible, but that she can’t handle this by herself, so he offers to help. He makes her promise not to lie anymore and asks if there’s anything else she’s hiding. Ah-reum admits that there is, but she says that even in marriage people need some secrets respected.

Ji-hoon is waiting outside when Derek leaves the shop, and he follows him to his garage, where Derek tells Tinker to recover the lost files from his broken black box. A flashy car zooms up — it’s Kim Dong-taek, the half-brother of Ah-reum’s prickly client. Dong-taek is angry with Derek for messing something up, but Derek reassures him that it was a small mistake and leads him inside to talk.

In the morning, after sleeping at the office again, Ji-hoon shows Young-gu the photos he took of Derek talking to Kim Dong-taek. they both find it suspicious that Derek would be meeting with a known shady character.

While looking through Sophie’s purse, Ah-reum notices that for someone who rarely wore makeup, Sophie had a lot of fancy products. The purse is still unusually heavy after she empties it, so she keeps looking and discovers a hidden compartment. Inside are a burner phone, and an e-ticket. Turning the phone on, Ah-reum finds the last text Sophie sent to the “sheriff,” and she remembers Sophie mentioning a sheriff who would save her.

Ah-reum gets a call from Tae-ryong summoning her to Jin-min’s office. He talks to her about how Sophie was engaged in industrial espionage, so she shows him the burner phone and e-ticket and says she’s not that surprised. Excited, Jin-min explains that Sophie was trying to turn herself in to them, and Ah-reum asks who this sheriff person is.

Looking uncomfortable, Jin-min starts to say it’s someone she knows… cue Ji-hoon, entering in his dress uniform (that Jin-min insisted he wear, but didn’t tell him why). Ah-reum and Ji-hoon are equally shocked to see each other, and Ji-hoon yanks Jin-min into the hallway to ask what on earth he’s trying to pull.

Jin-min says that Ah-reum is their witness and in need of protection, and that he couldn’t sit and wait for Ji-hoon to reveal the truth to Ah-reum himself. Besides, he argues, this way Ah-reum will believe him because everything is all official. He tells Ji-hoon that he’s made mistakes but he’s a good cop, so to go in there and show Ah-reum that.

Bracing himself, Ji-hoon goes back into the office and tells Ah-reum that he’s assigned to the Foreign Affairs Bureau, but has been working as an Interpol agent to investigate industrial espionage cases. At first Ah-reum can’t process it, so he explains that his travel writer cover story is so that he can travel to gather information.

As it sinks in that he’s telling the truth, Ah-reum realizes that this means he lied to her the whole time they were married. Ji-hoon apologizes, confessing that he was planning on quitting the job back then, so he couldn’t tell her anything.

He asks if she ever noticed anything amiss while they were married, but Ah-reum retorts angrily that there wasn’t a chance because he was gone twelve of the eighteen months they were married. Then she stops herself, remembering once when he came home and she’d seen some pics of a woman in his camera, as if he were following her. She had woken him up, and he’d leapt up in his sleep and pointed the remote at her like a gun.

She marvels that she never would have known and that he should have been an actor, and Ji-hoon admits sheepishly that it’s a necessary skill for the job. Ah-reum asks sarcastically if he’s ever played the role of “caring husband,” and Ji-hoon hangs his head as he says he hasn’t.

He confesses that he was in Jeju because he was supposed to meet up with Sophie at the bachelorette party. He says he stayed with her in Jeju because he was really looking for Sophie, and hearing this, Ah-reum sighs sadly, “I’m relieved… for a minute I thought it was fate.”

Ji-hoon continues that Sophie gave them information about Helmes dealing in corporate secrets, but that she wanted to escape that world. Ah-reum knows he’s telling the truth, since Sophie had said the same thing to her. Ji-hoon officially asks Ah-reum to help their investigation, which irritates Ah-reum after he lied to her for years.

She’s tired of hearing his weak apologies, but all Ji-hoon can do is apologize again. Ah-reum says it’s not her he owes an apology to, but Sophie, for not protecting her. Oof, talk about hitting him right where it hurts. She storms out, leaving Ji-hoon with his head bowed in shame yet again.

Ah-reum is mad all the way back to her office, where she takes a soju from a fridge full of them and takes a few gulps. She recalls telling Ji-hoon when they were married how she couldn’t get through a day without a drink, and she’d blamed him for being a bad husband and bad provider.

She’s drunk by the time she gets home, and when Derek turns on the bedroom light, for a moment she thinks he’s Ji-hoon. She sobers up a bit and blames her confusion on the alcohol, then stumbles to the bathroom. While she’s gone, Derek checks her phone and sees the call from Tae-ryong.

At the office, Seo-ra asks Ji-hoon if Ah-reum was angry to learn the truth. She says that Ji-hoon did the worst possible thing to Ah-reum by making her reach the wrong conclusion, so now she’s probably feeling conflicted about her decision to divorce him. Seo-ra tells Ji-hoon that it’s useless to wonder if things would be different if he’d told the truth, but he sighs that he likes imagining them still together.

The next day, Ah-reum and Du-rae look at the window display of two male mannequins in tuxedos and a bride between them. Ah-reum notes that it reminds her of her weddings — both Ji-hoon and Derek wore the same tuxedo. She says that she always thought a tuxedo was just a second fiddle to the bride’s dress, but now she realizes that most men only get to wear a tux once in their lives, and they want to look their best at their wedding, too.

Made up and in a slinky dress, Seo-ra stakes out a restaurant until Doo-bong shows up for a private mahjong game. She arranges to be coming out of the bathroom as Doo-bong enters, and he finds a fancy watch she left behind. Seo-ra lets him put it on her wrist, and it’s hard to tell which is making him salivate more, her or the watch. She starts to leave, but he asks if she has a watch… oops he means time.

Ji-hoon finds Ah-reum at the shooting range, and she tells him that she started coming here after their divorce. Ji-hoon quips that at least she could shoot better, thinking of him, ha. Ah-reum asks if he feels better now that he’s told her the truth, and he says honestly that he doesn’t.

She asks why he didn’t tell her when they first started dating, when she’d have accepted anything. She says that now she feels like all that effort to stay with him, then divorce him, was for nothing, but Ji-hoon says she didn’t do anything wrong. She asks why he’s telling her now, and not when her love was unconditional.

He admits that he couldn’t trust himself, and that she’s right that he wasn’t ready to settle down. Agreeing, Ah-reum says that she’s been thinking of their wedding day, and how he had no family or friends there. She believes he was worried and nervous and probably lonely, but Ji-hoon tells her that he never felt lonely from the day he met her, because he had her.

In a little flashback, we see the two of them at the shooting range. Ji-hoon had told Ah-reum that he quit shooting because he couldn’t afford the bullets after his dad died, and he lost interest.

Ah-reum asks what Ji-hoon’s work means to him, if it’s something he wants to keep even if he has to hide it from her. He says that at first, he had pride in his job because he felt like one of the good guys, but later he found out how hard it was to be a good guy.

He confesses that he was planning on quitting after he met her, but Ah-reum says it wouldn’t have mattered since she caught him cheating anyway. She forbids him to say sorry to her anymore, and she asks for his promise to catch the killer, while he easily promises.

Despite their being divorced and living very different lives now, Ah-reum agrees to help Ji-hoon with the case. Ji-hoon thanks her and asks her to keep his secret, and she promises but admits that it won’t be easy to lie to her husband. Ji-hoon says that he won’t interfere with her private life, and let her return to it as soon as the investigation is over.

Deal made, they shake on it, then go have some fun shooting. After, Ah-reum discovers that her car has a flat tire, so Ji-hoon gives her a ride back to her shop on his motorcycle. Moments after the arrive, Derek pulls up with a bouquet of flowers for Ah-reum.

They stand outside the shop, a bride and her two grooms just like the mannequins in the window. Derek gives Ji-hoon a pleasant nod of recognition, then the lights in the window explode in a shower of sparks, as if to predict something malevolent on its way.

 
COMMENTS

Derek is really starting to make me nervous, ironically because he hasn’t done anything yet. He’s being so careful, watching and waiting and taking his time. I agree with @TeriYaki that he’s probably the top agent from Helmes that Interpol is chasing, and it’s very likely that he’s the one who killed Sophie. But Derek didn’t get where he is by being careless or taking dangerous risks, so he feels like a viper in a tree, just waiting, so still and so patient, for his prey to come just a little closer…

And with Ah-reum going to so much trouble to learn what happened to Sophie, and now that she’s going to be working with Ji-hoon, I’m scared that she’ll end up as his prey. I think that Derek may have married Ah-reum on purpose, knowing she’s the ex-wife of an Interpol agent (it’s just too coincidental for me to believe that she accidentally married two spies), and hoping to keep a close eye on her in case that connection opens up again. He jumped on that “you need protection” claim so fast, I’ll bet he’s planning to use her collaboration with Ji-hoon to observe Interpol’s movements. I feel like Derek may have genuine affection for Ah-reum, but as Ji-hoon said, being a good actor is necessary to being a spy. Derek may seem like a harmless businessman, but I’m scared that he’s a very real danger to Ah-reum and Ji-hoon, and waiting for him to make a move is giving me serious anxiety.

While spy dramas are really not my thing (I don’t like mysteries, I want to know what’s going on now!), I can’t help but feel like the characters in this show fully make up for that. I love how strong and smart Ah-reum is — she’s got two men hovering around her, yet she’s fully prepared, and prefers, to look into her friend’s death alone. MEanwhile Ji-hoon is very capable, yet when Ah-reum is involved, he turns into a total and complete mush. And I adore the whole Interpol team, especially Seo-ra who is a full-on badass, and Jin-min, who at first I found sketchy but now I think he’s just really that weird (I love how he giggles and uses the wrong words when he’s excited). I honestly couldn’t care less about Helmes and nuclear fusion or whatever all that is about — I still don’t understand it — but I love watching these people interact so much that I don’t even care.

But it’s Ji-hoon who’s really got me hooked in, as Eric Moon’s characters always do (for me) in his dramas. Ji-hoon clearly still loves Ah-reum and always has, and learning that he let her divorce him for her own happiness, rather than tell him about his job and let her continue to live in fear for his life, is just about the most selfless thing a person can do. I don’t blame him for feeling that way, and it kills me when he ducks his head and stifles himself for her sake. But neither do I blame her for her feelings about being left alone by her husband to fend for herself. Assuming it’s a normal thing in this drama’s world for a spy to disclose their true work to their spouse (because in reality it feels very bizarre to me to just tell your wife you’re a spy and recruit her without any sort of training or briefing), Ji-hoon’s big mistake was not telling Ah-reum about his job before marrying her so that she could decide if she was willing to wait and worry every time he left. But at least she knows now, and they’re working together, and more of Ji-hoon and Ah-reum being together for any reason can only be a good thing.

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