Master’s Sun: Episode 16

by javabeans

We’re almost at the end!

Even though I’d never argue that the one-episode extension did this show (or any show) good, I did find myself pleasantly surprised with how the show seems to feel on track with its pacing as we head into the finale. Granted it wasn’t exactly a fast pace and I do wonder how the writers had intended for the story to unfold given the original episode count, but in a situation where they had to fill up one more hour, I think what we have generally works. Then again, I’m also used to the (in)famous Hong Sisters Finale Week Slowdown, so I’m just glad this is one of the better versions of the scenario. (Fingers crossed. I didn’t just jinx us for tomorrow, did I?)

SONG OF THE DAY

Kim Ji-soo – “Black Skirt” [ Download ]

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EPISODE 16 RECAP

Gong-shil makes her pained departure from Joong-won, who accepts her decision to leave despite feeling crushed by it. She gets sent off by her sister while he sits in the terminal dumbly after she’s gone, where Secretary Kim finds him.

Joong-won says that he thought everything would be fine if he shouldered the burden for the relationship, but she’d said she was hurting and scared: “Thinking about it, I don’t think I have once tried to understand her position or take it into consideration.” Secretary Kim asks rather incredulously if that’s what he’s doing now, sending her away out of consideration and understanding.

But Joong-won scoffs, “Are you crazy? Send Tae Gong-shil away? Why would I do something I’ve never once done in 34 years of life at this crucial moment?” He bolts up, saying that he has no intention of letting her go all nicely and thoughtfully and stalks off with purpose. Yaaaaaayyy! Also, walk faster!

Joong-won calls her repeatedly while walking toward her gate, and misses her just as she passes through. Aaaaarrrrrrghghghghhghhdaskjf;lfajkdf. He keeps calling, but gets no response.

On the plane, Chun-hee asks whether she was able to settle things well with Joong-won, and she sighs that no, she had to force herself to leave. It’s a different story for Yi-ryung, who’s on the same flight and clinging to her phone as long as possible, grumbling at Kang Woo for not calling.

Joong-won decides to follow on the next flight to LA just as Kang Woo storms up to chastise him for letting her go, then barks that he’s going to get her back. Secretary Kim worries that he’ll lose her in the interim, and Kang Woo hands over a handheld device—a satellite tracker. He’d slipped its mate into Gong-shil’s bag earlier just in case, which is hilarious but also really nice of him. Kang Woo basically orders Joong-won to get her back, and Joong-won breaks offers to rehire him with double pay.

Yi-ryung spots Gong-shil on the plane and has a brief chat, while also givin gChun-hee the narrowed-eye once-over. Is it too much to hope that she’s a Gong-shil-Joong-won shipper too?

Ha, and then she calls Kang Woo to inform him that Gong-shil is on her flight. It hasn’t taken off yet… muahaha. Joong-won takes over the call and instructs Yi-ryung to act her little heart out. Oh, I hope this is good.

So Yi-ryung collapses in the aisle, gasping loudly in pain, bringing Gong-shil to her side. She grabs onto her like a leech while moaning ohgodithurts, and Chun-hee actually chuckles, catching on. Thankfully Gong-shil is totally suckered by the act and gets dragged along in the ambulance (thanks to Yi-ryung’s death-grip, ha).

Watching with satisfaction, Joong-won says, “I never knew there’d be a day where I’d be moved by Tae Yi-ryung’s acting.” And now that he’s managed to ground Gong-shil here in Korea, it’s time to turn to the understanding and caring part of the deal.

He asks Secretary Kim to stay with him and help with that, which, aww. We all knew he wasn’t going to cut him loose, right? Omg, and then he bear-hugs him. Adorable.

In the hospital, Gong-shil notes suspiciously how healthy Yi-ryung seems, and Yi-ryung chirps that she was just putting in some acting practice—oh, and also Joong-won asked her to. She says that she actually can’t stand the idea of Gong-shil’s relationship with Joong-won going well, but it has to (I presume so that Kang Woo will be able to let go peacefully). I’ve been liking Yi-ryung more and more, and I have to say this is my favorite version of the antagonistic second lead—she says she doesn’t like Gong-shil, but she totally does! She just doesn’t want to admit it, like a reverse frenemy. Enefriend?

Gong-shil says that Yi-ryung’s stunt was misguided since she was leaving in order to seek happiness, but Yi-ryung tells her to stop playing Candy—as in, don’t push him away thinking she’s not good enough while hoping he holds her back. Gong-shil informs her that there’s something Yi-ryung doesn’t know, and leans in close to share her secret: “I see ghosts.” She nods to one in the corner and leaves Yi-ryung cowering in fear at the idea of ghosts. Ha, she’s almost as big a scaredy-cat as Kang Woo is. Maybe they really are perfect for each other.

Outside, Gong-shil is confronted with a familiar ghost: the dead boy Woo-jin. Oh, right, that case still has a few loose ends. He leads her to a room where his grieving mother sits, still clinging to her missing child flyer.

But today, seeing the boy is too painful a reminder of Joong-won dying to save her, and she leaves the room despite his plea for help. Secretary Kim finds her outside and guesses that she’s avoiding Joong-won, but she says that people must be misunderstanding her actions as Candy-esque. Candy’s the girl who would nobly (-idiotically) push away her suitor for his own good, but Gong-shil defines her trip as something she’s doing for herself. She says that she can’t be as pure and sweet as Candy, which at least makes her much more interesting. I definitely do like our main couple better than the traditional sacrificing rom-com archetypes, since they’ve got enough selfish motivation in the mix to make them seem real.

In the hospital, Joong-won gets called by name by Chun-hee, who introduces himself as the person Gong-shil was going to leave with. He explains his hunch that in tracking down Gong-shil’s memories from the time she was a ghost, she may be able to accept her talent without fear or perhaps lose it entirely. And then she won’t have any more need for Joong-won and his shelter.

Joong-won and Gong-shil come face to face inside the hospital, where she asks why he held her back, saying that she was going to do the Candy thing and let him go because she wasn’t good enough. Gratifyingly he rejects that out of hand, saying that he prefers her being clear and shameless, and that her sun is better than “that moon that always changes its faces.”

So she gives him the frank version: She was leaving for her own good, not his. She explains how it was nice way back in the beginning when she could just cling to him, having no room for thought other than fear. But once she started to care for him, she started to hate her own fear of ghosts, even though he offered to “lower” himself to meet her, because she felt too pathetic for being so low on her own.

That’s why she wants to take charge now and do something about it, and maybe even rid herself of this skill. Joong-won points out that she could come back to him afterward, but she says she can’t make that promise, and that if she can’t change things for herself, she won’t be coming back—she can’t be the unlucky sun at his side.

Joong-won asks her to wait until he can find something else with which to renegotiate, but she says she intends to leave as planned. He threatens to have her arrested if she tries to leave, citing—of all things—sexual harassment. HA. He lists all the times she’s felt him up without permission and clarifies that while he understands the situation, he has no intention of being considerate, haha. He refuses to let her go easily. I love it.

He heads to his office for a brainstorming session, pleased with himself for admitting his true feelings. Then he worries over his more troublesome comments, like how he’d once referred to his “I love you” confession as “the worst scenario” or how he told the matchmaker he had no intention of resuming their complicated relationship. He grimaces to himself, dismayed to have so little in his arsenal of, you know, nice things he’s said.

Aunt Joo hears about Hanna’s capture and hurries to Joong-won’s side to check on him. Ha, I love that he’s already moved on to his next emotional crisis but Aunt and Uncle VP assume he’s hung up on the last one. He dismisses them, and Uncle VP keeps talking up Gong-shil as having been a key figure in Hanna’s arrest and how she may be the warm presence Joong-won needs to soothe his nerves. Aunt doesn’t like to hear it, of course, but when he adds the bit about Joong-won chasing her to the airport in a heartbreaking display, she looks like she may be starting to unbend.

Gong-shil is a bit bummed when even her unni suggests that maybe she accept Joong-won now, since he knows about her ghost-affliction and still wants to be with her. Guess everyone’s always going to see a Candy in a rich-poor scenario like this. Then blabbermouth Han-joo tells unni that he’s glad things worked out well, because he was worried there for a while that he’d chosen the wrong side in the power game… which makes unni gape, “You were on the VP’s side?” He blabs yes, outing himself as the loose-lipped gossip. I’m just amazed he lasted this long.

Gong-shil gets called in by Aunt, who says she will be removing herself from the situation for now, because it appears her interference has only made the couple more ardent to be together. Lol, are we really going whole hog in reversing the Candy setup? Now Gong-shil finds Aunt asking her not to leave and further upset Joong-won, though it’s mostly because believes that if she lets things run their course, Joong-won will eventually return to his senses.

But Gong-shil replies that she doesn’t have the frame of mind for an ardent, heartbreaking love right now. As if to underscore the point, the ghost boy reappears in the room. Gong-shil says she’ll step back and let him go, so reasonable in her manner that Aunt wonders whether she’s playing reverse psychology or acting out of spite.

Chun-hee finds her to sympathize with her troubled mood, and she says that everyone seems unable to understand why she wouldn’t accept Joong-won when he’s all but begging her to stay. Chun-hee suggests that she could try staying with Joong-won and share the burden with him, because he thinks Joong-won is prepared to do that for her. Aw. But it’s not enough for her, even though the thought of being without him is heartbreaking.

The boy comes back, and Chun-hee asks why she won’t help this ghost. She says it’s because that’s how Joong-won almost died, and this is why she wants to leave with him. He tells her he’ll be at the airport tomorrow, and leaves the decision to her.

Kang Woo shows up at Yi-ryung’s hospital room with soju and finds her sleeping. He muses aloud that she let go of a big movie, and then adds that Yi-ryung seems quite all right when he sees her like this. At which point her eyes fly open (ha, faker) and she pops up to kiss him on the lips, then immediately hides under the covers.

By now he knows how to deal with her and he smiles that he was prepared for an attack of this kind, which is why he’s not upset with her. In fact, he’d been prepared for a much stronger attack, so it’s nice that she left things on such a mild note. At that, she pops back up to ask eagerly, “So I could’ve done even more and you wouldn’t have been angry?”

She starts to go in for a hotter kiss, but he stops her with the reminder that there are reporters outside. He leaves, and she pouts mightily to herself, regretting her lack of attack.

Gong-shil comes home to find Joong-won waiting for her, armed with a new grievance. Now that he’s thought on it, he notes that they’ve been so occupied with thoughts of how they’ll end their relationship that they’ve never properly started one—they’ve never eaten out or held hands without a ghost standing in as excuse. He holds his hand out and urges her to take it—because she wants to, not because she has to—and she tentatively does.

She agrees to a meal, and takes him to her favorite udon restaurant. He prefers cold naengmyun noodles, though his favorite place changed its recipe when the owner died so he hasn’t had any since. She offers to drop by and see if she can talk to any ghosts before she leaves, but he tells her not to do him a favor on her way to leaving him. He tells her to eat up and prepare to miss him every time she thinks about udon.

They talk a walk holding hands afterward, and aw, it really is bittersweet to see them on a normal date, talking about mundane things like favorite foods and sports and hobbies. Of course, he finds every chance he can to point out how unfair things are to end this way, like how she could’ve recommended all her favorite books that he hadn’t been able to read till now, and he could’ve taught her all his favorite sports.

Then it’s music in the park, and as the day wears on both moods grow heavier. She fights her tears as he asks her not to leave.

Unni drinks at work, fuming over Han-joo’s loose lips and how she fell for all his excuses to get info out of her. Then Han-joo shows up to steal her glass and drinks them (for courage?) before planting a kiss on her lips. He says that that’s the only kind of excuse his lips can make, and unni says, “Your excuse… is short.” LOL. So he offers a longer explanation, and they continue drinking in preparation for more kissing.

Joong-won does some roundabout talking of his own, saying that he now sees the appeal of Gong-shil’s apartment because it’s perfect for drinking beer on the roof. He asks hopefully if it would be okay to stock her fridge so he could come back for more, asking whether he ought to stock just one can for tonight, or as much as he likes for the future?

Gong-shil gives him the go-ahead for one pack—six cans—with the somewhat ambiguous explanation that since she’ll have one with him (holding his hand, of course), it’s enough to drink all in one night. Or save some for later. Well, he takes that as a good sign and goes to the store to pick up a pack, happy that he just bought himself six more days.

Gong-shil flinches when dead Woo-jin shows up again pleading for her to help his mother. She turns away and orders him to leave… but when Joong-won returns to the car, she’s gone. Oh no. You couldn’t, like, leave him a Post-It or something? Then she ignores his call while taking a taxi with the ghost boy.

Joong-won remembers the satellite tracker Kang Woo gave him and activates his end.

Gong-shil stops the car just under a bridge and sees Woo-jin’s mother preparing to jump, intending to join her son in death. Gong-shil grabs her before she can leap, and Joong-won runs up as she’s comforting the mother.

He joins her in the hospital room as she watches the mother being sedated and treated. She tells Joong-won of the boy being in this room, and how he asked her to help his mother even though she doesn’t know if that woman will try the same thing again. He tells her that she can’t be responsible for her life, but Gong-shil says that seeing the things she does keeps her in a state of confusion. Breaking down, she cries, “I can’t even handle myself, so how could you?”

So later, as they sit holding hands, Joong-won asks if her trip abroad will be able to take away her ghost-seeing abilities. She doesn’t know for sure, but thinks that she might be able to know how she came to be this way.

He accepts her decision now, and pulls his hand away, saying, “Okay, this is the end.” He declares that they’ve eaten one meal and held hands once, which makes their relationship a light, easily forgettable one. “I will forget you,” he says. She tells him to feel free to curse her if he wants to, but he says stiffly that there’s no reason he should feel the need to curse a woman he’s only dined with once. Aw. I know why he’s saying it, but it still brings an ouchy feeling nonetheless.

He leaves, and she breaks down in sobs. Joong-won stops at a fair distance and notes with some pain, “Even to the end, she doesn’t say I love you.”

Then, we fade in on a bright new morning. Joong-won wakes up in bed and the first thing he does is note that today is the 375th day since his sun has left. On one hand, that’s the first thought of his day. On the other hand, he declares, “I was not destroyed.” With that, he gets up and readies for his day.

He goes to work, conducts his business with his usual alacrity (competing, as ever, to beat Giant Mall), and plans to relocate to Shanghai next year. Aunt Joo is intent on marrying him off before he leaves, even though Uncle VP (soon to step into Joong-won’s shoes as president) suggests that Joong-won is still waiting.

Joong-won confides as much to Trash Can Ajusshi (aww), saying that he’s waiting for his sun to rise again. He even asks for a sign from the ghost that he thinks it’ll happen, and ghost man gives the trash can a whirl.

Secretary Kim checks with the other secretary about a meeting for today, coughing and shaking off a headache as he apologizes for getting the details wrong. Thus Joong-won arrives at the new meeting locale, only to find that he’s too early. Figuring Secretary Kim must have gotten that detail wrong too, he dismisses his assistants and puts in a call… and we see in the background that Gong-shil walks by, sits down, and pours herself a drink.

She’s approached by a man who asks to join her, and she declines stating that she has company. “But you’re alone,” the man says.

Gong-shil asks to be seated outside, and speaks aloud to her companion (whom we can’t see, though I presume it’s a ghost). Behind her another man asks to have a drink together (eeee!) and she all but rolls her eyes as she declines. She dismisses him with back turned and insists she has company, and he guesses, “A ghost?”

At that she turns to face him… but why does she look so blank-faced? Joong-won, on the other hand, confirms, “I was right. You are the Tae Gong-shil who bewitched me and left. The bitch.”

 
COMMENTS

That last line definitely sounds harsher written in English as “that bitch,” though it technically is what he says—it’s meant to be an echo of what he called Hee-joo early on. (It’s also a contradiction of his false promise to forget her and that she meant little to him, since he resorts to swearing at her after all.)

As to the separation: Yes, it’s a classic Hong sisters maneuver, and by “classic” I’m being nice. I’ll be a big ol’ apologist for some of their early instances, and I think they have written dramas where it makes sense, and dramas where it doesn’t quite so much. I actually like the emotional reasoning behind the split in this episode, which works quite well with the mythology built into the show and feels like it was a consideration the writers built in from the start. As in: It doesn’t feel like they shoehorned it in last-minute because they didn’t know what else to do.

In that regard I find the trajectory of Master’s Sun really very well-done. On the surface it feels a familiar rom-com, but at least the internal logic holds up with these specific rules and trappings. Gong-shil starts out practically delirious in fear, and therefore is giddy with relief to find her shelter.

Her explanation to Joong-won really ran true for me (which doesn’t always happen in these cases—so many dramas have me twisting my brain around to follow separation logic). It’s one thing to play a self-sacrificing Candy who decides unilaterally that her decision is best for everybody and robs the hero of the ability to have a say in the matter. (Or for a well-meaning hero to do the same for his heroine.) But it’s quite another for Gong-shil to not like herself very much, to have things about herself that she fundamentally needs to change in order to live as a normal person, not just girlfriend. And when Joong-won accepts that, there’s a heart-twisting moment of understanding for why he doesn’t fight it. (Although I will agree with him on her whole failure to say “I love you”—couldn’t you throw the man a bone? I suspect that saying the words might actually break her and therefore the need to hold back, but still. It feels so withholding.)

And all those ghost-seeing explanations feel like they were thought out and planned for, which I really appreciate. In fact, I really wish they’d brought in the Chun-hee character much earlier, so that her choice/dilemma had a chance to land with us. It’s a great dichotomy, pitting this man “from her world” against the one from the other world—Chun-hee’s the guy who not only knew Gong-shil in her other form, but acts as that link between her two lives. So you can’t just dismiss him, no matter how much I’m sure Joong-won would love to. It’s just too bad that I can’t deal with his character with any sort of tension or suspense, to the extent that I’m calling the character Chun-hee instead of whatever fleeting name they gave him and have never used.

Well, we’ve got one more episode to go, and I’m feeling cautiously optimistic. Not that the ending will be happy—the ending will be happy—but that it’ll come about in a satisfying manner. It had better be good! I’ve got my threatening fists out and everything.

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