Bad Couple: Episodes 3 & 4

by javabeans

Aie, dilemma, dilemma. I wasn’t going to recap Bad Couple because I just don’t have the time to do more than two series at a time (and even then it’s pushing it). But I’m liking Bad Couple so much (so cute! so fun! and the main couple are great together) that I really wish I could keep writing about it. I don’t intend to drop Air City, but two series airing on the same day is too much. Maybe I’ll do shorter, simple summaries for either, or both.

SONG OF THE DAY

Bad Couple OST – “달콤한 당신” (sweet you) [ zShare download ]

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EPISODES 3 & 4

Dang Ja, stuck on the island overnight with Gi Chan, is about to succeed in seducing Gi Chan when a wild boar interrupts. Dang Ja, overmotivated by the need to defeat the pig and get her groove on, fends off the animal with the help of Gi Chan. However, she exerts herself too much and winds up exhausted, while Gi Chan marvels at her bravery.

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A few days later, Gi Chan calls Dang Ja and invites her to go with him to some gardens. Dang Ja sees this as a chance to make another move, and this takes us back to the sequence that kicked off Episode 1, where she pretends to feel ill near a hotel, forcing them to stop and rest. This time, she succeeds in luring him to bed, and we can trust those Koreans to even make sperm look cute.

Dang Ja’s ecstatic when pregnancy test results turn out positive, and figures she can now cleanly cut ties with Gi Chan. However, Gi Chan’s been feeling guilty; he sends her flowers and says he wants to take responsibility for his actions. Dang Ja acts as though it was nothing — nobody in this day and age feels the need to “take responsibility” over one night. Plus, it’s not like it was their first time… and Gi Chan admits it was, for him.

Dang Ja can’t believe it, and laughs that if all the men she’s been with decided to “take responsibility” for her, she’d have a truckload of them. Gi Chan imagines this uneasily. Although he seems hurt, he gets Dang Ja’s message loud and clear. Dang Ja feels sorry for using Gi Chan, but a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do. She prepares for her pregnancy joyfully.

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Meanwhile: One good thing about the divorce storyline between Dang Ja’s friend Young and her cheating husband is, it’s easy to recap because I don’t care for the story and therefore have no need to linger on it. Basically her doctor husband Yoon Seok is leaving her for the other woman, despite her pleas for him to stay.

She’s frightened of being alone, raising their son Chan alone, of having to support herself after being a housewife for 10 years.

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The one cool part is seeing their awesome friend, Dol Soon, stick up for Young when they meet with the Other Woman, Sae Yeon. Unfortunately, the gun’s only in her imagination. Young’s story is pretty bleak this episode.

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But back to Dang Ja, whose doctor informs her she’s not actually pregnant. Some women want a baby so badly they have phantom pregnancies, even experiencing physical symptoms. Dang Ja’s crushed, but decides to try rekindling things with Gi Chan. If this doesn’t work, she’ll give up and take it as a sign that she isn’t fated to have children.

Since she rejected him so coolly, she guesses Gi Chan won’t want to see her — and she’s right — so she devises an excuse to drop by. She takes in a dying plant, supposedly left to her by her mother before she died, saying it means the world to her. She begs him to save it. Gi Chan treats her coldly, having felt the sting of her rejection, but she makes such a fuss that the agrees, just to get her to leave.

When he brings the plant back restored, Dang Ja thanks him profusely and treats him to drinks in gratitude. Gi Chan suggests a round of the “truth game,” where you either tell the truth or drink. Dang Ja asks first: “Why haven’t you married yet?” He answers that he just hasn’t met anyone yet who really draws him in. Gi Chan asks Dang Ja why she lied about the plant being her mother’s, and Dang Ja asks how he knew. Gi Chan says her plant was so damaged it couldn’t be saved. He thought she’d recognize that he brought a fake because it was so precious to her, but she didn’t. Dang Ja admits she lied so she’d have a reason to meet him.

Gi Chan asks why she wanted to see him again, and she drinks to avoid answering. He asks if she was telling the truth about having a truckload of men in her past, and she drinks again. Enjoying putting her on the spot, he smiles as he asks a third question — was it really coincidence that they met the first time, the day they fell into the lake? Dang Ja objects, saying it’s unfair that he’s asking multiple questions.

Passing by a woman dressed in traditional hanbok dress, Gi Chan admits that he doesn’t find miniskirts or bikinis particularly sexy, but to him, for some reason, hanboks are. Dang Ja laughs at his peculiar taste. Drinking some more, Dang Ja promises she’ll put on a hanbok fashion show just for his sake, but he tells her not to: “Dang Ja, don’t ever wear a hanbok in front of me, especially not when I’m drunk like I am now.” (Because he wouldn’t be able to resist! Aww.)

The next thing she knows, Dang Ja wakes up in bed, perplexed at the presence of an extra hand. She’s shocked and horrified to find Gi Chan in bed next to her.

She fakes sleep as Gi Chan wakes up, equally shocked, and he remembers Dang Ja in hanbok the night before. He smiles as she sleeps and leaves her a note: “I’ve found a woman who draws me in.” Aww.

Dang Ja can’t believe she let this happen, knowing how seriously he takes marriage and responsibilty. She wasn’t intending on seeing him again, so this makes things messier. She has to cut things off with him for good.

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Meanwhile, Dol Soon and her husband decide that Young should try to incite jealousy in her husband — and if he doesn’t respond, she’ll know she should give up on him. They suggest a passionate romance (real or fake) with a younger man. There’s a guy who’s happy to go along with the favor, a younger guy who used to be in love with Young years ago. Unfortunately, he’s an idiot, and tries to lure Dol Soon and Young into some pyramid scheme. The women leave.

Dol Soon’s husband suggests a suitable, handsome, decent model friend, Joon Soo (played by hot young thang, Yoo Gun). The only hang-up is that he might not be willing, which turns out to be true because Joon Soo doesn’t want to get involved in other people’s personal lives. Dol Soon’s husband accepts his response and that’s the end of that.

Joon Soo encounters Young floating face-down in the pool and thinks she’s drowned. He yells at her, saying if she’s going to kill herself, do it somewhere else. Young defends herself, saying she wishes she could die — she feels awful and can’t stop crying, so she was just taking a moment to escape. Joon Soo feels bad for lashing out, and apologizes over a drink. Young tells him not to worry, she won’t really kill herself, and she has a child to raise.

Young decides to compromise with her husband, and tells him she’ll allow the divorce, but she needs time. Her conditions are that they can separate, but live in the same house; she won’t interfere with what he does outside the house. She wants one year — but at the end of the year, he can do whatever he wants. He agrees.

You know who’s not happy about the year delay? His mistress Sae Yeon. You know who doesn’t care? Me.

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Gi Chan drops by to see Dang Ja, with the happy intention to keep seeing her. She, on the other hand, wants to end it, and does her best to repel him by eating sloppily and without manners. Gi Chan, however, likes seeing her eat with such a good appetite; “I never knew that peeling away and getting to know a person’s onion-like layers would be so fun.”

Dang Ja tries a stronger repellant, telling him she just seduced him because she was curious about what a man like him was like, but frankly she was a little disappointed. In the sex. Ouch.

Gi Chan protests: “I’d only done it twice. Who’s good at it right from the start?” He goes on, “It’s a little embarrassing to hear you were disappointed because of that, but I really have the confidence to try harder!” He even bought books on sex to read up on it. Dang Ja tells him to stop, she doesn’t want to hear it, and walks off. Gi Chan shouts out that he doesn’t believe what she says anymore. The truckload of men was a lie, the plant was a lie, their first meeting wasn’t coincidence.

Dang Ja says it wasn’t a whole truckload, but he’s her seventeenth lover. And Gi Chan imagines a line of men, all counting off, “One two three four five…”

In fact, to convince him, she takes him to meet number sixteen, a dance instructor, and dances closely with him while Gi Chan watches uncomfortably. In the bathroom, she tells herself, “If he has any pride, he’ll come to his senses. Please, go away.” She walks out, relieved to see Gi Chan gone, and thanks the dance instructor for helping out. But she doesn’t see Gi Chan come out of the restroom after her, having seen (and heard) everything.

Gi Chan talks to the dance instructor to find out why she’s not interested in marriage. Number Sixteen tells him that she’s a “gold miss,” a woman with money, career, and success — she has no need for marriage. Those women don’t want to be confined.

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Thinking over those words, Gi Chan takes Dang Ja out again, which Dang Ja is determined to make their absolute last meeting. He takes her to the Monkey Village, asking if she thinks the monkeys are happy, and she answers yes. Even if they’re in captivity? They could be living freely in the jungle. Dang Ja answers that the jungle’s harsh, and here they can enjoy people’s affections. I love that Gi Chan is using Monkey Village as a metaphor for people’s relationships.

She asks what he wants to really say, and he tells her she seems to have it all as a gold miss, but for some reason he feels like she’s in her own splendid cage.

Gi Chan: “I really want to make you happy, Dang Ja.”
Dang Ja: “Did you bring me here to persuade me because you feel some sense of responsibility? I know you’re a good person. You’re bringing up marriage because you feel responsible—”
Gi Chan: “Not just because of responsibility.”
Dang Ja: “Anyway, I won’t marry. I don’t the confidence for both marriage and work. I like work better, and I have dreams to pursue.”
Gi Chan: “I can put wings on your shoulders.”
Dang Ja: “Please don’t do this. I want to end things. I don’t want to meet you anymore. I’m sorry.”

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Dang Ja starts feeling morning sickness and goes to the doctor again, this time confirming that she IS pregnant. At first, she’s worried because it was conceived while she was completely drunk, and is afraid it harmed the baby. Upon the doctor’s assurance that the baby’s condition is perfectly fine, Dang Ja rejoices.