You're the Best, Lee Soon-shin: Episodes 37-38 [Open Thread]

211 July 14, 2013January 24, 2016

You’re the Best, Lee Soon-shin: Episodes 37-38 [Open Thread]

by javabeans

So much good stuff, finally! Yes, it’s mixed up with lots of annoying stuff, but the ratio is tilting back in our favor, so that’s very exciting.

Episode 37 is pretty much skippable entirely, and I was back into grumpypants mode for all of it, until our leads get stranded together overnight and then all was right with the world. Cuddles and flirting and awkward sexual innuendos galore! Thank you, Episode 38.

Because c’mon, just look at them! Being snuggly!

The gist:

Soon-shin is actually starting to do well for herself, which Yeon-ah cannot abide seeing since she is a small-minded insecure viper. Thus Yeon-ah undermines her at every opportunity. This mostly works, which is infuriating, although it sometimes doesn’t, which is gratifying.

Yeon-ah’s plan backfires when SOON-SHIN AND JUN-HO GET STRANDED ON AN ISLAND TOGETHER OVERNIGHT.

Other stuff happens, but mostly Jun-ho and Soon-shin are adorable together, plus they admit to themselves that they like the other, and are all poised to say so (out loud! To each other!)…

…but Yeon-ah interferes. That brat.

But! Overnight on an island!

Highlights:

So let’s see. All the Jun-ho and Soon-shin stuff happens in Episode 38, which is when they miss a boat and have to spend the night together.

(To give context: The drama goes to an island for location shoots, and Yeon-ah continues to make Soon-shin look bad while pretending to “help” her. I had to mute her scenes often because she was so manipulative, going out of her way to make the rookie look bad in front of the whole crew. Soon-shin therefore has a shitty day, gets sneered at a lot, and then gets into a fight with Mi-ryung and begs her to leave her alone. She broods by herself for a while and misses the notice that a weather warning is cutting off boat service for the day, so everybody hurries to grab the last boat and Jun-ho stays behind to wait for her. All of that very aggravating Yeon-ah terribleness takes up Episode 37, which is why it took till 38 to get to a highlight.)

Jun-ho and Soon-shin get offered a minbak room, which is when a local resident rents out part of their house to tourists. The local ajusshi catches on to the scenario in one glance and guesses that Jun-ho likes her. It’s a good thing he’s only got one room to let! And nobody else is available! Oh well, they’ll just have to spend the night. I’m noticing that nobody seems that upset by the setup.

Ajusshi keeps making wink-wink-nudge-nudge comments to Jun-ho, who keeps snorting and coughing like a dork. It goes a little something like this:

Ajusshi: “Isn’t the room nice? For sleeping? Together?”
Jun-ho: *cough* *gasp*
Ajusshi: “There’s noooooothing to do around here. So you should just go to BED.”
Jun-ho: *choke*

Meanwhile, the rest of the crew heads out to dinner, and Yeon-ah looks sour at the missing couple. Honey, you are your own worst enemy.

In-sung and Chan-mi (are they going to have their own bumbling loveline, I wonder?) gossip, sorta. Their conversation goes a little something like this:

In-sung: “I have a secret. I can’t tell.”
Chan-mi: “Then don’t tell.”
In-sung: “But it’s so good! You’ll regret not knowing!”
Chan-mi: “Whatever.” *eyeroll*
In-sung: “I have to tell. Did you know….”
Chan-mi: “That [Jun-ho] likes Soon-shin?”
In-sung: “GASP! OH MY GOD HOW DID YOU KNOW.”
Chan-mi: “Duh.”

Jun-ho offers to sleep outside. There are tons of mosquitoes. Y’all see where this is going, don’t you?

Soon-shin scares Jun-ho a couple of times, which is adorable since he is so easily scared. They go out for a walk, and then presumably go to sleep, separately, with zero intentions of getting handsy or footsy or any sort of skinshippy.

Their subconscious minds, on the other hand, have better ideas. Way better.

The first time, Soon-shin wakes up while he’s sleeping, has a minor freakout with pounding heart before she lets herself enjoy the closeness, and touches his face.

Then Jun-ho wakes up while she’s sleeping, has a minor freakout with pounding heart, then smiles to himself like a huge dork who loves everything about this moment.

Then the third time, they both wake up at the same time, freeze, and then fly apart all embarrassed and flustered.

Yoo-shin has her own adorable Chan-woo moments now that they’re all set to marry. She does the calm, mature thing by telling Chicken Ajumma that they’ll do as she originally wished and live at that house (no swapping around), and Yoo-shin will do her best to learn from Ajumma about how to run a household. Basically it’s very thoughtful and unexpected, and Ajumma can’t even complain because it’s exactly what she asked for.

So now when she insists on tagging along to buy newlywed furniture, her sourness isn’t even a mood-killer because the couple is just so damn happy together, and it’s all very sweet.

Lowlights:

Bread Man has a few really nice scenes, but I have to put him down here because I fear for his future and his heart. Poor lovely Bread Man.

First, he has this very cute marriage fantasy where his two ladies are adoring and affectionate, and I love that Woo-joo is a part of it, calling him daddy and giving him a kiss on the cheek.

Woo-joo gets sick and Bread Man rushes her to the hospital, and he assures Hye-shin that she’s not a bad mom for not noticing that Woo-joo was sick earlier. He sits at the bedside all night and when Woo-joo is back to her cranky self, he tells her gently that he knows he’s not good enough for her mother and doesn’t have designs on her, and asks for Woo-joo not to hate him anymore.

I do wonder if I see signs of Woo-joo softening toward him, only she gets the very exciting (for her) phone call that her father is moving back to Korea. Aw, man.

At least both Mom and Grandma praise Bread Man and like him so much that they want to set him up with any nice ladies to marry. I really hope this drama takes that in a comic way, not a dramatic one.

Sigh for the impending affair storyline. As of right now these two have done nothing wrong, but you can’t quite say that there’s nothing going on, either. Jun-ho’s mother is getting more and more suspicious, and to his credit Dr. Shin offers to take her on a weekend getaway. I thought that was sweet. But when he adds that he can visit his parents’ graves on the way, she gets mad that he’s using that as an excuse and that he doesn’t really care about her, and she refuses.

Mi-ryung is down at the seaside town because of Soon-shin’s shoot. She has an event in the area and envisions a warm mother-daughter trip, only to have Soon-shin tell her to go away and stop meddling in her career (a valid complaint). So Mi-ryung runs into Dr. Shin entirely by coincidence, and he shows her how to fish.

But Yeon-ah (that bitch!) sees them, and then drops by Jun-ho’s mother’s house to casually mention what she saw, pretending concern when really she knows exactly what she’s doing. Ugh. So Jun-ho’s mother kicks Dr. Shin out of the house with a suitcase.

I fear that the parental storyline is heading toward convergence with this other dormant storyline about Soon-shin’s parentage, which revives when the angry reporter declares his intent to find out who bio-dad is and then reveal it to the world. He’s upset at Jun-ho for outmaneuvering him the last time and vows to reveal Mi-ryung’s true character, and that means finding out who bio-dad is and getting an interview.

Yeon-ah gets extra-bitchy to Soon-shin, who is doing a great job whenever she’s left alone to do a great job on her own. It’s ironic that everyone accuses her of riding coattails and being the object of nepotism, but it’s when those external forces swoop in that she falters. When she’s allowed to do her own thing, she shines, and Yeon-ah can’t stand it.

So after the director praises Soon-shin for her good work and preparation, she snipes and then makes a dig about her mother, and that makes Soon-shin go, Oh. No. You. Di’in’t. The problem is, when Soon-shin demands an apology and Yeon-ah stumbles, she exaggerates the fall, cries, and pretends she was the victim in this violent bullying encounter, all within earshot of the cast and crew. So now Soon-shin looks like the bully and Jun-ho makes her apologize to Yeon-ah.

Soon-shin does, but Jun-ho has to deal with her being hurt and pissed with him in response. Which he kinda earned, I guess. Yeon-ah hates watching how Jun-ho tries to placate Soon-shin and win her favor again, and pulls out the phone to call the media. I really do hate her.

Jun-ho finally decides to fess up about his feelings, and calls Soon-shin out once they’re back in Seoul. Both of them fly into a flurry of cute primping before heading out… and then Yeon-ah calls with an “emergency.”

A story has leaked that they’re dating, and Jun-ho rushes to meet her to deal with the damage. Leaving Soon-shin waiting.

211

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51 KimKas

July 16, 2013 at 2:32 PM

That show is still carrying on ? Despite the absence of an actual script ? Despite Soon Shin being a clueless naive kid lost in the cut-throat drama industry ? Despite Joon Ho being a fake CEO whose naivety borderlines Soon Shin's cluelessness ?

My Mom started that drama, I still cannot get why. I am thinking I will forcefully stop it :). It's so sad because there really was an opportunity to develop an actual story where Soon Shin could have been nurtured by Joon Ho to become a top actress. Instead that headless script-writer threw it out of the window and in came Mi Ryung and Yeon Ah to screw the whole show.

I just read the recaps now, my Mom watches the episode on evenings so even if I don't want to I catch a few glimpses here and there, it just keeps disappointing me. So much so that there is now an inevitability about it being a complete failure. I am in awe of javabeans' commitment to make the recaps despite the show's glaring flaws.

No matter the amount of cuteness between Soon Shin and Joon Ho, or even between the baker and Hye Shin (I find that couple much cuter too, for the record), it cannot cover up the complete mess this drama is. I think that without an actual script that makes sense, no show has any backbone to make it worth watching, yet much better dramas have been cut to pieces (I'm thinking : The End of the World - 세계의 끝). Shame that a "strong" acting line-up can keep a show going when there really isn't any reason to do that. Ah well, gotta take the rough with the smooth, as they say.

I'll stick to the recaps for this one. So far, the show has backed my decision. Thank God I have Heartless City to rely on :)

Thanks for the recaps, javabeans, you have that uncanny sense of delivering the message of a whole episode in just a few lines. I cannot thank you enough for that, it's a lot of work and I am grateful that you and your team are on it, all the time. Recently I know that have been ranting a lot but your work remains awesome, it has to be said.

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thorned sakura

July 16, 2013 at 6:20 PM

I've noticed a lot are saying that they are either watching this with their mom, or their mom watches it...this just shows who the actual target market of this show is. Maybe family dramas were made for housewives and middle-aged women to lament on things other than their own lives?

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KimKas

July 17, 2013 at 12:41 AM

You're right : the drama does seem to target that group. I'm more invested in Heartless City right now, I got my mother to watch this one too, hehe :)

There are way better family dramas than this, YTBLSS is not a fair reflection of what the Korean Drama industry can do.

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thorned sakura

July 17, 2013 at 2:06 AM

Wow! Watching dramas are a great way to bond with the family...I used to do it too back then when I was still living with my parents...it actually got me through a lot of angsty shows--my dad likes jdramas (coz of all the cute girls! Lol) while my mom likes kdramas and I love martial arts films (I'm a girl btw). We would rant at villains and get frustrated together! Good old times! :)

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52 ChanChan

July 16, 2013 at 2:37 PM

You know the writers could be forgiven for all that cliché annoying events , they have been given us since i don't know when.. if they make JH be the ass ,he owe to be with YA , and don't give a flying care about that scandal and just go to SS and confess ..Seriously i need at least 10 episodes of cute stuff , of them dating and learning about each other , of them falling even more in love with each other !!

We all have put up with all those annoying episodes to have some satisfying stuff !! Is that too much to ask for ?!

Don't wanna SS to go through the angst , i really want them to be together next sunday , i can't take more angst ..seriously too much angst kills the angst

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53 Littlehearts

July 16, 2013 at 10:42 PM

Yeon ah is a bitch... Even though ss and jh know it, can't they atleast try to figure out what she's up to??? Heavens... Somebody slap some sense in k drama leads. The villains are so smart, i just don't know what to say. Apart from that, the island thing was so freaking awesome:)

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Lislakia

July 17, 2013 at 2:53 PM

i don't think the villains are smart, it's just that everyone else is really stupid. I mean, I bet most people on earth can think up a better plan than YA.

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54 Mo

July 18, 2013 at 8:55 PM

With this pace, the official first kiss between LSS anf JH will be on episode 50...

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55 EM

October 4, 2013 at 8:17 PM

I cannot stand that b**ch Yeon-ah anymore!

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56 EM

October 5, 2013 at 10:51 AM

I hate that FU****NG B***H Yeon Ah! I cannot stand her anymore, Soon Shin should have slapped her when she had a chance.... this drama is so good!

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