You’re Beautiful: Episode 6

by javabeans

Things just keep getting better.

I really love both Shin-woo AND Tae-kyung in this episode. I mean, really. REALLY! (SO sweet.)

What’s best is that neither is bad guy, and neither is Mi-nyeo a bad girl. Nobody’s at fault here — it’s the circumstances that have caused this dramatic tangle. Sometimes drama plots feel like a bunch of strings jerking puppets around to act a certain way that feels forced or untrue. As in, “Time for some jealousy. Now some tragedy. Go, emote!” I love when, in contrast, a drama’s angst comes from a well-plotted conflict that’s organic to its story and world.

SONG OF THE DAY

Mighty Mouth – “Miss U” featuring Baek Ji-young [ Download ]

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EPISODE 6 RECAP

After Mi-nyeo passes out, she spends the night awkwardly sprawled on top of Tae-kyung. In the morning, Hoon-yi walks in and is scandalized to see the two lying in bed together.

He finds the taser, and tries to work out possible explanations for this tableau. His overactive imagination fantasizes in the style of old movies (replete with lips moving off-time to the dialogue — with Hoon-yi voicing both “parts” of this re-enactment), and he first thinks Tae-kyung must have been the culprit.

Hoon-yi imagines that Mi-nyeo had felt threatened by Tae-kyung’s advances, and tased him (bro). After he’d fallen back, she had swooned due to this assault on her delicate feminine sensibilities.

But that doesn’t make sense — she wouldn’t still be around if she tased him. Then… was it Mi-nyeo who…?

In his second scenario, he imagines that Mi-nyeo had made the moves on a nervous Tae-kyung, and tased him to keep him from running away. LOL.

Too bad neither realizes that they spent the whole night sleeping together (snerk), because Mi-nyeo falls out of bed groggily. AUnt Mi-ja finds her sitting by the bed still half-asleep and tells her to come down for breakfast.

To prod a sleepy Tae-kyung out of bed, Mi-ja slaps his ass. THAT certainly gets him awake.

It’s a gesture that increases in shock value the second time around: Tae-kyung comes down to breakfast and starts to outline his guidelines to the chattering aunt. However, he barely starts to instruct her not to touch him when she again grabs his butt affectionately. He’s shocked into speechlessness, and tries to walk away with his dignity intact. (The others know better than to comment while his pride is wounded and put their heads down hastily.)

Hoon-yi is relieved when Mi-nyeo tells him the truth of the taser incident. At least there was no impropriety going on. She’s feeling a little weak and shocked (electrically), so he advises her to drink a lot of water.

Shin-woo is in a better mood today and asks how Mi-nam fared, wondering how her first night rooming with Tae-kyung went. He interprets her honest answer that she fainted as a figure of speech to mean she slept soundly. She answers, “I did make a little mistake, but hyungnim [Tae-kyung] didn’t find out so it was fine. Aside from that, I’m fine.”

This is actually a good sign to Shin-woo, who thinks that if she was so comfortable around Tae-kyung, maybe he doesn’t have to worry (because it implies she didn’t really think of Tae-kyung as a man). He’s also encouraged when Mi-nyeo asks if he’s feeling better about being stood up, because she’d felt bad for him.

Shin-woo: “I did feel upset because she was with another guy, but it seems she doesn’t think of him as a man, so that’s good.”
Mi-nyeo: “That girl will definitely like a cool guy like you.”
Shin-woo: “I’m trusting in those words. You can’t forget what you just said, or cancel them. Promise.”

Smiling, he holds out his finger for a pinky-swear. Mi-nyeo worries that linking pinkies will give him an electrical shock from the taser, but she’s fine. She puts a hand to her heart and comments, “I don’t feel a thing.” It’s a statement that could be misinterpreted, but Shin-woo doesn’t make too much of it.

She runs into Tae-kyung in the kitchen, who notes how close she is with Shin-woo and suggests that she should’ve roomed with Shin-woo instead. Mi-nyeo answers, “But Shin-woo hyung is a guy! Oh, wait… You are too.” He replies drily, “And so are you.”

Although his initial response to Mi-nyeo’s closeness with Shin-woo wasn’t jealousy, now Tae-kyung is annoyed that his gender registered as an afterthought to her. He also wonders why he slept so soundly, but figures it’s just because he walked so much the day before.

Spurred by her interest in Tae-kyung, Yoo Heyi arrives at the A.N. offices to see Sung-chan, using as a pretext some tickets for the VIP screening of her upcoming movie. She gives him the passes as a request to bring some of his stars to her film, and he’s pleased to take them.

We know that she’s really here to see Tae-kyung, and she wrings an invitation from the stylist to drop in on Tae-kyung, who’s at the studio.

He’s at work composing the song “Without words” (on the soundtrack), thoroughly engrossed, as the two ladies watch in admiration. His expression sours when he looks up to see Heyi watching, and she tries to enter the studio, only to find the door locked. He ignores her (hehe) and continues working, so an impatient Heyi writes a note to insist he open the door immediately.

He declines to oblige. More annoyed, Heyi scribbles a second note: “I came to find out who that girl is.” Tae-kyung smirks: “You won’t be able to.” A third note follows: “I’m not going to let this go!”

That gets his attention, and he comes up to the window to face her. She thinks she’s won… but he reads her note — she’s misspelled it! HAHA. (It’s the equivalent of writing, “I’m not gona lett this go!”

He takes out a pen and marks up the window (backwards, so she can read it) with the correct spelling. Frustrated, Heyi starts to throw a tantrum, so he adds underneath it: “CCTV” (security cameras) and an arrow pointing up. At the camera mounted on the ceiling.

Heyi leaves in a snit, while he wonders why she came all this way.

Not about to concede, Heyi next finds Mi-nam (who’s at the dance studio with the other guys) and professes herself to be a fan. She asks for a photo together, then comments, “You don’t seem like a guy.” This is done purposely to unsettle her, and it does just that, but Heyi adds innocently that she only meant it because Mi-nam shrank back when she linked arms.

Hoon-yi takes Heyi’s interest as a positive sign — if Korea’s Fairy is a fan, then Mi-nam is a success. Mi-nyeo says (completely without irony), “I had no idea I was so appealing as a man.”

Hoon-yi muses, “Hwang Tae-kyung likes Yoo Heyi and Yoo Heyi likes Go Mi-nam — that means you’ve beat Tae-kyung.” Mi-nyeo asks, “Hwang Tae-kyung likes her?” Hoon-yi heard from Sung-chan that there’s something between the couple, so Mi-nyeo looks at the pin in Heyi’s hair and says sadly, “She’s really pretty. So Hwang Tae-kyung likes pretty girls like her.”

And then she holds a hand to her chest, because it’s started to act up again. Of course, she’s so inexperienced with romantic emotions that she supposes this is a lingering effect of her electric shock.

While Mi-nyeo is feeling envious of Heyi, she has no idea that Heyi is also feeling envious of her, albeit with a nastier undercurrent. Heyi sees Sung-chan taking the A.N.JELL guys out to eat, and says jealously that Mi-nam is acting like a boy but getting treated like a princess. If Mi-nam is revealed as a girl, she’ll lose it all. Heyi asks herself, “How shall I drop the bomb?”

At lunch, Mi-nyeo overhears Sung-chan asking Tae-kyung when he’s going to break the news about Heyi. Tae-kyung says nothing’s going on, and tells Sung-chan he’s not interested in working with Mo Hwa-ran. Sung-chan accepts that.

Mi-nyeo feels depressed at all this talk of Heyi, and Jeremy notices that she isn’t eating. He’s still uncomfortable around her, but against his own judgment he hands over his plate and says, “Don’t be sick.”

She asks, “Jeremy, guys naturally like pretty girls, right? You do too, right?” Thinking of his own fixation on Mi-nam, he protests (too much), “Of course! Since I’m a guy, I only like really beautiful women! Only women with really beautiful faces and bodies! Isn’t that obvious? Do you think I’d like a guy like you?”

So fixated are they on their respective woes that it doesn’t even occur to them that they’re having two entirely different conversations.

The nosy Reporter Kim loiters outside A.N. Entertainment, asking fans if they’d seen Heyi with Tae-kyung when she dropped by earlier. Sayuri interrupts, instructing the fans not to talk to him: “You’re a reporter, right? We make sure to protect our oppas’ privacy.”

The girls sigh over photos taken at the festival, and the reporter sidles over to steal a look. Spotting a shot of Mi-nam in the lobby (with her face hidden), the reporter starts to realize that perhaps there was another woman involved. He steals the photo and runs off shouting, “It was a different woman! Who is she?”

At lunch, Sung-chan announces that Mi-nam is going to kick off the group’s new round of activities. Before A.N.JELL releases its sixth album, they’ll drum up interest by putting out a single album for Mi-nam, featuring a perfect song — one of Tae-kyung’s compositions.

This certainly makes Mi-nyeo’s charade tougher, so she and Hoon-yi beg Tae-kyung to help them get out of it. She can’t handle the scrutiny of solo activities. Hoon-yi promises that the real Mi-nam will return before the sixth album goes out, so he begs Tae-kyung to prevent this until then.

Tae-kyung is, typically, unsympathetic. He tells Mi-nyeo that if she can sing his song, she can stay: “If you can’t, go.”

Mi-nyeo finds solo work daunting — she’ll have to appear on live broadcasts and perform frequently. Shin-woo asks if she’s nervous and assures her not to worry; they’ll be supporting her. He’ll always be rooting for her.

Hoon-yi begs Tae-kyung again to help out by singing his own song rather than assigning it to Mi-nam. Tae-kyung shakes off the manager and heads out in annoyance, but he stops sharply when Hoon-yi receives a text message. It’s Mi-nyeo, telling him that she’s sorry she didn’t inform him ahead of time, but she has left to find Mother Superior. Hoon-yi freaks out — how could she leave so abruptly? He tells Tae-kyung, “Go Mi-nam has gone. Happy?”

Tae-kyung is upset: “Go Mi-nam left like that?” He peels out in his car and drives aggressively, contemplating the situation. We know the exact moment he makes his decision, because it’s time for the quintessential reckless U-turn! (Just once, I’d like to see this scenario play out with an immediate car crash, you know what I mean?)

Tae-kyung calls Mi-nyeo to ask where she is, then orders her to stay put. When he screeches to a halt at the bus stop, he registers her girl clothing and demands, “You’re leaving just like this?” (Just check out that intense glare on his face!)

At her affirmation, he launches into a tirade: “How can you go without saying anything? Are you leaving me to explain things to everyone? What about your aunt? You have to tell people and wrap things up before you go! Do you think you can just cover up things and leave like that? Do you think I’d let you go like this?”

He orders her into the car. Mi-nyeo asks, “Then… are you giving me a ride?”

Tae-kyung’s expression immediately wrinkles — huh? Mi-nyeo clarifies — Mother Superior is visiting Seoul. She’s going for a visit. LOL.

Eyeing her feminine outfit, Tae-kyung says, “It’s like I’m meeting you for the first time. For some reason I feel like I have to use polite speech [joendaemal] with you.” He calls her Miss Go Mi-nam, so she corrects him, saying her name is Go Mi-nyeo.

Tae-kyung, teasing: “Then did Miss Mi-nyeo cut her hair to become Mr. Mi-nam?”
Mi-nyeo: “Yes. But when I became a male, I ended up a stylish man.”
Tae-kyung: “Still, you must have been sad to cut your hair. After all, you’re a girl.”
Mi-nyeo: “Even though my hair is short, I am a girl.”
Tae-kyung, clearing his throat and taking a moment to respond: “But the Go Mi-nam I know is still a guy.”
Mi-nyeo: “But now that my hair is long and I’m wearing a pin in it, even if I am not beautiful, do I not resemble a girl?”
Tae-kyung, skeptical: “Are you insisting that you look like a girl wearing a pin in fake hair?”

She’s disappointed at his response, and pulls the pin out of her hair, self-conscious for trying something that he thinks looks so unflattering on her. She’s dismayed when the cheap pin breaks, and Tae-kyung feels a tiny twinge at dismissing her so readily.

When he drops her off at the church, he tells her he’ll take her back home, so she asks for two hours to meet with the nun. As she goes, Tae-kyung takes out the broken pin and looks at it: “I didn’t even break it, but now I feel bad.”

Mi-nyeo can’t confide her troubles in the nun, but asks for comfort.

Tae-kyung drives around to kill the two hours, and pulls up to a street vendor and asks for a girl’s hairpin. He has no money aside from large bills, so he essentially gives her $100 for a $3 pin, and says, “This is a $100 pin.”

When Heyi calls, an irritated Tae-kyung hangs up on her because he won’t put up with her games. So when she calls back, she hurriedly blurts before he hangs up again, “That woman! There’s another photo of that woman. One of my staff members took a picture of you running with her.”

To prevent her from going directly to the media, Tae-kyung reluctantly meets with her at a park, where she plays coy and tries to get him to talk about the girl. Is she from his agency? A star, a staffer?

He asks if she’s playing around with him, and she laughs, “Did you just figure that out now? There is no photo.”

When he asks where she parked her car, she taunts, “So you can bash it in? It’s over there, far away.” But to the contrary, Tae-kyung smirks, then grabs one of her shoes — and throws it into the water. HA!

She throws the other one at him in anger, so he kicks it in the water, too. (Double HA!)

Now he’s running late to pick up Mi-nyeo. He calls to let her know, and she tells him she’ll be fine waiting in front of the church.

Fuming, Heyi is ready to call reporters to blab about Mi-nam being a girl — which is when she gets hit in the head with a basketball. (Triple HA!) The guys realize who it is and start snapping photos excitedly.

Heyi is disheveled, upset, and bloody-nosed. Distraught, she asks them not to take pictures, but naturally they ignore her and crowd around her like a frenzied mob. She starts to cry, when suddenly, someone steps in to help.

It’s Tae-kyung! He puts his jacket around her and leads her away. As she waits for her manager to pick her up, she moans in embarrassment, “I’ll have to retire.” He scoffs, “Isn’t it more embarrassing if that’s the last photo of you before you retire?”

Heyi wonders why he helped when it would be bound to raise a scandal. He answers, “Because I know what it’s like to have unwanted pictures taken.”

Tae-kyung anxiously checks the time, thinking of Mi-nyeo, and tells Heyi it’s time to go. She whines that he has to wait with her till her manager arrives, since he threw her shoes away.

The pictures hit the internet immediately, and soon the agency is besieged with phone calls. The management team denies the rumors, and in yet more poking fun at real life, Hoon-yi yells at his phone that “They’re just oppa-dongsaeng! Oppa-dongsaeng!” (This is a common excuse given to refute dating claims.)

Shin-woo is disturbed because he thought Tae-kyung was with Mi-nyeo. If he’s with Heyi instead, what happened to Mi-nyeo?

When Tae-kyung’s phone rings while he’s out of the car, Heyi sees that it’s Mi-nam, and answers. She says, “Oppa can’t come right now. Don’t wait.”

Mi-nyeo’s heart troubles her some more at this news, and she figures she shouldn’t wait for him anymore. She can’t go home dressed as a girl and her things are in Tae-kyung’s car, so she’ll have to buy clothes to change into.

As she wanders Seoul’s Myungdong shopping district, she receives a call from Shin-woo, who offers to pick her up. She politely refuses, assuring him that she’s fine, not knowing that he’s already nearby. (He knew the church was near Myungdong.)

He suggests that she should eat noodles since she’s here, planting the idea and then finding her at the restaurant. He lets her enjoy her meal alone undisturbed, then calls again and leads her to an ice cream shop. He gets the waitress to deliver an extra dessert to her, under the excuse that it’s a free treat, and she enjoys it.

When Mi-nyeo asks for a recommendation for a cheap clothing store, he leads her to a boutique where her purchases are sold dirt-cheap in a “special huge sale.” She’s oblivious of the fact that Shin-woo pays for the difference after she leaves.

As far as pseudo-dates go, this one is adorable. And now for the big finish: Shin-woo tells her that he has a surprise for her, and instructs her to turn around. This is the moment of truth!

He sees her heading toward him, looking around in the crowd, and waits expectantly…

…but her phone rings and it’s Tae-kyung. He’s at the church to take her home. Happily, she rushes away, forgetting about Shin-woo’s surprise. Sadly, he watches her go, saying, “You were almost here. You should have taken just one step more…”

Mi-nyeo is happy to see Tae-kyung and heads to the car to change into her Mi-nam garb.

However, he stops her to ask, meaningfully, “How about just going like that?” What if she reveals the charade and explains everything to Sung-chan? He says, “I’ll help you.”

We can guess the feelings driving Tae-kyung’s desire to end this act, but I think Mi-nyeo feels it as a rejection of her. (This is my interpretation, but since she has no reason to think he likes her, ending the act means getting rid of her.)

Mi-nyeo asks why he accepted her as a group member at the start. He answers, “I liked your voice. Like President Ahn said, it was the voice I was looking for, that best fit the new song.”

She asks him to entrust her with the song, since the voice wasn’t fake, and promises to work hard.

Back to boy Mi-nam it is. As they drive home, Tae-kyung asks if she found “something” in her bag while taking out her clothes, and she finds the hairpin. He starts to explain, but she asks, “Is it Yoo Heyi’s?” Heyi’s name annoys him, but Mi-nyeo says that she knows they were together earlier; Heyi had answered his phone. He’s angry at that, but turns back to the important point: “It’s not hers. It’s yours!”

His bravado-coated-uncertainty is adorable. I love the little sideways glances he shoots at her. He explains, “You looked so crushed that the tacky pin broke, so I bought it while I was killing time.” She’s touched, and he feels proud of himself. Until he wonders, “Why are you just looking at it?” (Meaning: Aren’t you going to wear it?) Obviously she can’t wear it dressed as a boy, so she promises to wear it later when she’s back to being a girl and her hair has grown longer.

He reminds her, “Once you’re back to being a girl, aren’t you going away?” Deflating, she answers, “As a girl, I won’t have any reason to see you, will I?”

Meanwhile, Heyi now feels conflicted: “If I mess with [Mi-nam], Tae-kyung will be hurt too.” Her interest in him has shot up after he swooped in to rescue her, so she decides to let things go this once. But she also sees an opportunity to get what she wants, and heads for the A.N. office — knowing that reporters are swarming — to return Tae-kyung’s jacket.

Of course, her appearance causes a major paparazzi stir. She makes it sound like there’s something serious going on as she tells Sung-chan that she will tell him the truth when “Oppa” (Tae-kyung) gets here.

Tae-kyung and Mi-nam therefore head for the agency (using the back door!) where Tae-kyung faces Heyi with exasperation. She came all the way here just to return his jacket?

She makes her proposition: “People won’t believe us if we say it’s not true, so do you want to make it true?” She’s interested in dating, but he turns her down flatly: “No. I don’t want to say we’re dating. It’s ridiculous. If I go outside and announce that it’s not true, you’ll be embarrassed for coming here. So you go out and explain that it was nothing.”

Hurt and angered, she blurts, “This is all because of you!” She reminds him that she knows who that other girl is. He has no patience for her threats, and tells her to stop playing around.

He leaves. Smarting at the rejection, Heyi grabs her phone, determined to cause some damage.

Heyi sends Tae-kyung a photo of Mi-nam and says, “I told you I knew who it was. See, I’m not playing around.”

Tae-kyung now realizes that she knows Mi-nam is the other girl. She’s on her way to announce it to the reporters, griping all the while, “How dare he reject me!”

Time is short, so Tae-kyung has to decide quickly how to handle this. He turns to Mi-nyeo and asks, “Go Mi-nam, let me ask you again. Do you have to stay? Do you have to remain here as a man, and as Go Mi-nam?”

She nods.

That decides things. He has his answer, so Tae-kyung rushes out to grab Heyi, who’s almost at the lobby. She’s angry and determined to expose Mi-nam: “Do you think you can shut me up now? Let go!”

Heyi tries to wrench free of his grasp, so he does what he can to stop her — he grabs her, and kisses her in front of the reporters.

(Omo omo!)

The flashbulbs go off and the reporters crowd to get their shots of the couple kissing at the top of the stairs…

…while Mi-nyeo watches from afar.

Her heart hurts again. She asks, “Mother Superior, does electricity hurt like this?”

 
COMMENTS

Aieeeee, I love Tae-kyung!

Like I said, huuuuuuge softie. He is so bad at being the badass, because he’s actually quite kindhearted and no amount of curtness will cover that. For instance, he knows that intervening on Heyi’s behalf is probably more trouble than it’s worth, and he’s not exactly happy about it — but in the moment, he can’t help but do the “right thing.” Even if he has to deal with the distasteful consequences, which require him to act enamored of someone he can’t stand.

Speaking of which, I LOVE his last gesture. It’s another kdrama cliche — the fake kiss that is seen by the “real” love interest — but again, I like that it has a stronger purpose in this story. Not knowing how Mi-nyeo feels about him, the kiss is really a sacrifice on Tae-kyung’s part — one that is purely FOR Mi-nyeo’s benefit. I love that he asks with grave intensity whether she absolutely must stay as a man, as a member of the band, because if she didn’t, he could tell Heyi to screw it and let her do her spiteful worst. But because Mi-nyeo has shown that this is important to her, he has to preserve it — even if it makes his life hellish for the foreseeable future. *tear*

(Btw, the actors must have a blast acting out all the over-the-top imagination sequences.)

In another drama, I think it could have annoyed me that the main character is so clueless of her body’s attraction to her man. But in this drama, it works for this innocent almost-nun character, particularly since she did have that whole electrical-shock thing, too. This reminds me of the Hong sisters’ drama Fantasy Couple, which is another instance when I was okay with the lead character’s misinterpretation of her heartbeats, because Anna also had a plausible reason for mistaking them for something else. (In her case, amnesia and the belief that her love interest was actually her boyfriend, when he was not.)

As for Shin-woo… Aw, poor Shin-woo. With Episode 6, he has officially missed the boat. Sure, you could say that it’s his own fault for keeping the secret too long, and as we know, love is hugely influenced by timing. Bad timing just confirms that this wasn’t a relationship that was going to work in kdramaland. He’s in the same predicament as Mi-nam, actually. At first, he had gone on with her lie without the expecation that feelings would get involved. Unfortunately, the longer the lie goes on, the harder it is to manage feelings that are one-sided. I think the actor’s limitations keep this loveline from being as compelling as it could be, but I’m okay with that, because Jang Geun-seok is just killing it. I’m so thrilled that there’s finally a drama where I’m in love with his acting and his character.

Regarding the family situation, here’s my take on it:

Sung-chan tells Mo Hwa-ran in this episode that Tae-kyung has declined to work with her, but she doesn’t want to work with someone else — it must be Tae-kyung. She has picked the song written by Go Jae-hyun (the man we can suppose is Mi-nam’s father), which is her signature song. She explains that it has to be this song, and it has to be Tae-kyung remaking it.

This is speculation, but I think Mi-nyeo may not be the daughter of Go Jae-hyun. Consider:

Tae-kyung was raised by his father, the conductor whose last name is Hwang. Hwa-ran has kept her son a secret and only dropped by occasionally to see young Tae-kyung, leaving him starved for maternal affection. Based on Hwa-ran’s actions, it suggests that Tae-kyung and his father both think they’re blood-related; they’re unaware of a songwriter named Go who may be also involved.

Mi-nam and Mi-nyeo were not raised by their parents, and Mi-nyeo doesn’t recognize her father in the photograph; she just assumes the man must be her father. Therefore I think it’s safe to say that if Songwriter Go raised the twins, it was very early on in their lives. When he died, they were sent to live with Flighty Aunt, who was told that the kids’ mother had already died. Being irresponsible, she dropped them off at the orphanage.

Therefore, I suspect that Mi-nyeo is wrong about the man in the photo being her father, and I think there’s a chance she isn’t the biological daughter of Songwriter Go. Just putting it out there…

 
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