You From Another Star: Episode 18

by javabeans

This episode really made my day: So sweet, so heart-twisting, and so full of random hilarity to take the edge off the pain. That’s a recipe for a fantastic episode. More than the one-off jokes, though, I love that the comedy in this show functions narratively as well as to provide laughs, providing character moments and building bonds even as we’re giggling like fools over ridiculous E.T. jokes. (Which, by the way, had me rolling.)

SONG OF THE DAY

Kim Soo-hyun – “너의 집 앞” (In front of your house) from the drama’s OST. Although, when did he even find the time to go off and record a track? Yay live-shoot. [ Download ]

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RECAP: EIGHTEENTH RECORD

On their overnight getaway, Song-yi frantically looks around for Min-joon, shouting his name and starting to panic. I’m guessing this is the moment he decides he isn’t leaving after all, and as he appears behind her, he tells her that he’ll stay. She throws herself into his arms in relief.

And then, we see Min-joon lying in the middle of an empty field, and his body starts to… disintegrate into particles? Fade out of being? Turn into light? OH NO.

It’s one of Min-joon’s visions that we’re seeing, and he reels at the sight while holding Song-yi. Ohhhhh crap. His visions have never failed him before, so this is NOT. GOOD. No, not good at all.

But he brushes aside Song-yi’s concerned reaction and suggests that they go somewhere else—a place with darkness, a roof, some walls, where they can be alone together. Ha, he’s reciting Yoon-jae’s all-men-are-wolves speech. Also, rawr. You’ll note that she is only too happy to oblige him.

Jae-kyung gets ambushed with a meeting featuring his ex-wife and the two investigators, set up by Hwi-kyung. The ex-wife (who has a name, but as Min-joo is awfully similar to Min-joon, I think we’ll do fine calling her ex-wife) glares at the man who kept her locked in a mental ward for seven years, but Jae-kyung feigns ignorance.

Wearing a blank face, he says that he thought she was abroad all these years, offering false concern over her mental instability. He tells his brother this must all be very shocking for him, then directs the investigators to talk to his lawyers.

Hwi-kyung isn’t about to let this go and follows his brother out, demanding a better response than his pretense of being clueless. Jae-kyung levels him with a furious glare and says he has nothing to do with anything, but his face betrays surprise when Hwi-kyung mentions their eldest brother as one of the people Jae-kyung has wronged.

Hwi-kyung says, “This was the last step before I gave up on you. I wanted to give the brother I liked and respected a chance to explain—I wanted to understand even if I had to force myself. But I’ll give up completely now on you.” Furthermore, he will no longer call Jae-kyung hyung, using instead dangshin—a purposely distant way to address him—to say, “You are not my brother now.”

At the vacation house, Song-yi and Min-joon enter the bedroom, and while sharing that bed isn’t a hardship for either one, they go through the motions of saying they ought to use separate rooms. Hilariously it’s Song-yi who keeps shooting down reasonable alternatives: For instance, Min-joon points out that there’s a second bedroom, and she says she can’t sleep in a cold room with a weak boiler. Min-joon offers to take that room, and she says that’s way too inconvenient, sighing, “We have no choice, given this tough fix.”

Min-joon mumbles that it’s not really a tough fix, but Song-yi overrides him to insist on sharing the room. She does instate a no-kissing rule, and he mutters, “I wasn’t going to anyway.” She notes pointedly that he’s blushing.

Song-yi puts his bluff to the test and lies down, patting the space next to her and snuggling up right away. She asks him to turn out the lights, saying that dating an alien has its perks, and Min-joon looks at the light intending to comply.

Only, it doesn’t work. Eeeek. He ends up turning it off the old-fashioned way, saying that he feels tired, then grumbles at her for being so forward. Song-yi just finds his crankypants grandpa ways adorable, as do we all.

Lawyer Jang arrives at Min-joon’s apartment wondering where he is, and sees the wilting plants inside. Min-joon watches Song-yi sleep and narrates for us that he’s realized that despite living for so long, it’s not actually the length of time that’s important so much as it’s the people you spend it with. So now, he will use up the rest of his days with Song-yi.

In the morning, Song-yi wakes up to find Min-joon smiling down at her and asks for a second go at his levitation powers, since she was too surprised to enjoy them the first time. Min-joon focuses his energies to oblige her, only to have them fail again, which admittedly I would be more worried about if it didn’t make me laugh so hard to watch Song-yi lie back expectantly asking, “Are you doing it?” To cover his embarrassment, Min-joon suggests that she weighs too much, and she retorts that he managed fine before.

Min-joon gathers his energy to give it one more try, and Song-yi sloooowly starts to lift into the air… but after a few inches, she flops back down onto bed. “Is that it?” she asks, disappointed. “You can’t do more?”

Min-joon says defensively that his powers are low because he just woke up. Song-yi pats him reassuringly, telling him not to let it get his, um, impotence get him too down.

Min-joon cooks breakfast for Song-yi, and she wraps her arms around him and asks if there’s anything she can do to help regain his powers. Reference to his failed prowess puts him on edge again and he barks that he did lift her, only to have Song-yi say, “But it was so short, and it looked so hard for you.” Dying laughing.

He makes another I was just tired excuse and Song-yi assures him there’s no need to get upset. Hee.

As they arrive in their building, Mom steps out and starts in on the scolding—Song-yi was out all night. Was she with him? Lawyer Jang steps into the hallway in time to hear Mom start in on Min-joon, then jumps in to defend his pal.

Mom huffs at Min-joon, “Are you going to marry Song-yi? Why no response? Did you go away together without having any of those intentions?”

She warns Lawyer Jang to keep his “son” in line, and Lawyer Jang retorts that Min-joon was an innocent young man who’d never dated a woman before (which makes Song-yi smile), then accuses Song-yi of being the fox to seduce him. Mom snaps at her daughter, “Did you seduce him?” Song-yi thinks it over, conceding that she did actually.

Min-joon speaks up to say it takes two to tango, and that he understands Mom for blaming him. It’s hilarious to hear Min-joon speaking in the utmost formal terms, as befits his old-fogey personality, and in her confusion at his antiquated vocabulary, Mom almost forgets to be upset.

Min-joon explains to Lawyer Jang of his decision to stay, and Lawyer Jang takes the philosophical approach, saying that everybody dies sometime. But when he asks about Min-joon’s physical condition, Min-joon decides not to share that his powers are failing, not wanting to worry him.

That night, Min-joon tests his powers and tries to summon a mug, which stays put where it is. “Is it too far away?” he wonders. So he sets it a little closer to help it along, then gives it a second try, which also fails. “Is it too heavy?” he asks… and replaces it with a paper cup. HA, and aw. At least he does manage to move that tiny paper cup, even if it’s really just a few inches.

Next, he tests his time-freezing skills and looks pleased when the clock pendulum freezes in place—and then starts swinging mere seconds later. This is getting really unnerving…

At least his hearing is still good, because he hears Song-yi calling his name from her bedroom. Bursting with aegyo playfulness, she says that she misses him already: “Can you teleport in front of me? Hmm?” As she’s wheedling to a seemingly empty room, her mother and brother poke their heads into the room and wonder if she’s lost her mind.

Min-joon texts that he’ll be right there, and prepares to teleport to her room. It doesn’t work, so he tries harder at attempt number two, which at least yields a successful exit… but he fumbles the dismount, landing himself in the middle of a busy crosswalk. He barely avoids getting hit by passing cars, then takes a call from Song-yi to say he won’t be able to make it.

Hwi-kyung comes home to an irate father, who delivers a mighty slap to his face for calling the authorities on Jae-kyung. Hwi-kyung says that his brother had locked up the ex-wife for seven years against her will, but Chairman Dad snaps that she was just a toy given to amuse Jae-kyung, and must have done something to deserve Jae-kyung’s actions. Wow. That’s… wow.

I give Hwi-kyung major props for standing with his convictions, and he says he had to do it to know what kind of person his brother was. But his father thinks differently, and orders him out of the house: “Jae-kyung is the only son I have.” Good riddance to this crazy family, I say.

By now Jae-kyung has called his attorney to his side, which stonewalls the investigation. The attorney presents hospital records outlining the ex-wife’s history of instability; they’re likely falsified, but there’s no proof of that. Detective Park has a psych evaluation from yesterday that declares the ex-wife perfectly sane, but Jae-kyung takes care to distance himself from the entire hospital issue, saying that he has nothing to do with it.

To that, Seok presents phone records of numerous calls made from the ex-wife at the mental hospital to Jae-kyung, but he says he assumed they were prank calls. So now the situation has hit a he-said-she-said standstill, and Seok requests a cross-examination. Jae-kyung agrees, but judging from his smirk, he and his attorney are confident they’ve got a way out of this.

Seok doesn’t disclose where the ex-wife is staying, though we see that she’s been taken to his home, where Se-mi and her mother wonder at the unusual guest. They both recognize the woman as Jae-kyung’s ex, and Se-mi accepts the explanation that they’re just helping to house the witness who’d been unjustly locked up.

Hwi-kyung heads to the river to brood, and in a flashback we meet his eldest brother (cameo by Yeon Woo-jin). Hyung gives his Hwi-kyung a pen-recorder as a graduation gift, encouraging him to use it as a diary like he does, and congratulates him with an affectionate hand- (and butt-)shake.

The next morning, Min-joon wakes up in bed and tests out his powers on the bedspread, feeling mightily relieved when the cover whisks away. He calls Song-yi to suggest breakfast together, wanting to show her more of his skills, only to have her say she’s out with a friend and hang up on him quickly.

That’s because she’s out trying on bridal gowns with Bok-ja, who wonders if she’s jumping the gun again. Song-yi says that he gave up having to go far away for her sake, so really, they’re on the same page. Bok-ja asks if he just gave in because she whined and cried and pouted about breaking up. Song-yi thinks back to all the times she asked him to stay, and sobers up a little at Bok-ja’s admonitions to wait to get the guy’s agreement before running off to try on bridal gowns.

Jumping the gun runs in the family, apparently, because Yoon-jae heads next door to offer Min-joon his approval, already working on the issue of persuading Mom into acceptance. Aw, his methods are adorably immature: “I think if I write a contract promising not to run away from senior year onward, it’ll work.”

Min-joon has to ask what exactly he’s trying to get approval for, and gapes to hear Yoon-jae’s response: “Your wedding.” LOL. Yoon-jae just asks that Min-joon make Song-yi happy for the rest of her life, since she’s gone through a lot, and declares, “I approve!” Min-joon mutters to himself, “And I wondered why Song-yi always talked without listening. You guys sure are similar…”

Declaring that there’s one more person Min-joon should meet, Yoon-jae leads him to make his acquaintance with Dad. They arrive just as a rich jerk pulls up in his car and orders Dad to park his car, which isn’t Dad’s job. The jerk threatens to have him fired, and just as Yoon-jae darts forward to step in, Min-joon uses his powers to make the car screech forward of its own accord—like a car possessed, it backs up and revs threateningly at the jerk owner.

Min-joon steps in and tells the guy, “If you have so little ability to park your own car, maybe you should rethink driving.” Booyah. The jerk starts to shoot off his mouth, but doesn’t get very far because his tires suddenly pop, all at once.

Over lunch, Dad recognizes Min-joon from their elevator encounter at the hospital. Dad acknowledges that he isn’t in the position to play the Dad role, but has only one question: Is Min-joon healthy? He’s relieved to hear Min-joon’s yes, because he’s learned that health is truly important—it’s what enables you to protect those you love.

Yoon-jae listens silently but attentively as Dad says, “I didn’t know that then. I lost my money and my honor fell to the ground, and I thought I wouldn’t be able to protect my people. I was foolish. I should have stayed with them anyway, and there’s no way I can make up for that lost time now. No matter what happens in life, if only you can stay with Song-yi, I will be grateful. What I couldn’t do, you do it.” Oof, talk about pressure. And all the while, Yoon-jae sits there trying not to be moved, though I’d say it’s a losing battle.

Min-joon has a few drinks with Dad, which means that on the walk home with Yoon-jae, he’s pretty tipsy. Seeing a phone booth, he exclaims, “We’re home already!” and shoves Yoon-jae in first. Seconds later they disappear from the booth and flop onto Song-yi’s couch, and Min-joon chuckles goofily to himself the whole time. I love drunk Min-joon so much.

Yoon-jae tries to make sense of this, just as Min-joon summons a bottle of water to his hand. As he tries to process the sight, Song-yi comes out to see Min-joon drunk and starts to drag him by the arm, grumbling at him for being out of touch all day.

Yoon-jae leaps up and orders noona to stop, because “Our Min-joonie hyung isn’t someone you can treat like that!” Aw, he gets protective and warns, “Don’t ask any more. I won’t answer.” Then he gathers up Min-joon into his arms and princess-carries him to a bed. (That is adorable. Did this actually heighten star-lover Yoon-jae’s hero worship even more?)

Some time later, Min-joon wakes up with a headache and realizes all the ways he’d outed himself to Yoon-jae. When Yoon-jae drops by, he starts to make an explanation, only to have Yoon-jae shush him and whisper, “I’ll keep your secret. I promise!”

Min-joon thanks him, and Yoon-jae asks for just one favor—and then extends his finger, E.T.-style. This episode is just cracking me up. Min-joon tries to protest that he’s not what Yoon-jae’s thinking, but Yoon-jae gives him the puppy dog eyes and whimper, and reluctantly Min-joon reaches out his finger to make the E.T. touch. THIS IS MY FAVORITE THING EVER.

Song-yi cooks for Min-joon and hovers expectantly while he tastes it. “Don’t cook soup again,” he says. Ha.

Song-yi is clearly angling for something, and she starts by mentioning her very high utilities, which drive up her living costs. Ha, is that how she’s going to try to sneak into the cohabitation argument? Min-joon asks if she needs money, and she tries again by saying that they’re neighbors who eat together often, so doesn’t this make their utilities a waste? He can see she’s working up to something but has no idea what, but she drops it rather than spell it out for him.

She cheers up right away when he suggest going to Namsan Tower for dinner, which was on her list of date ideas. She tells him to dress nice, and he heads out to buy a new suit, which is adorable.

Hwi-kyung drops by to talk to the ex-wife, and looks chastened to run into Se-mi, since he’s imposing on her. She waves it off, though, telling him not to worry.

The ex-wife admits that even while married to Jae-kyung, she always felt something was strange about him, as though he were hiding something. And then one day she found something she shouldn’t have—a voice pen in hyung’s room—and got scared. She realizes now that she should have gone to the police, but at least managed to take the pen without Jae-kyung ever knowing it existed.

So Hwi-kyung retrieves that pen from its longtime hiding place, claiming it from the pawn shop that the ex-wife took it to, and settles in for a harrowing listen.

The recording starts out with hyung relating his day, from buying Hwi-kyung a graduation gift to agreeing to go on a drive with Jae-kyung later. Then Hwi-kyung drops by with some juice, sent by Jae-kyung, and by the time Jae-kyung enters the room, hyung is gasping and woozy.

Jae-kyung gives him the same, cold speech he’d given Yura—that it’s not drunkenness he’s feeling but gradual paralysis. He admits openly that he’d long wanted hyung out of the picture, and that hyung will be discovered dead in his car tomorrow. Shudders.

Hwi-kyung listens to his brother begging for help, overcome with emotion.

Song-yi and Min-joon head out for their date, and he asks her to open the car trunk. She guesses a surprise is in order and looks expectantly… and then grimaces when she sees that he just wants her to hand her the mop inside so he can wipe the window. Hehe.

At the top of the tower, Song-yi fastens their couple lock to the fence with all the others, then hands him the key to throw away, symbolizing a forever bond. She exults, “Now I’ve got you.” Next is a romantic dinner, and Song-yi perks up when a waiter wheels in a huge bouquet of roses, expecting them to come to her. Min-joon looks on blankly as Song-yi watches the woman one table over get everything on her romantic wish list, including the diamond ring hidden in food.

Mood broken, she sits back in disappointment and tells Min-joon to hurry up so they can leave. On the drive home, he asks if she’s upset about anything, and she snaps that there isn’t. He starts to say something, but an important phone call interrupts and he drops her off at home. But he softens the blow by telling her to wait for him at his place. He promises to be back soon, saying he has something to tell her.

Song-yi settles in to wait, and finds his journal again. She reads as he describes meeting her, which starts out with descriptions of her obnoxiousness but transition to someone he can’t bear to leave. These are words we’ve all heard before in his interviews, and Song-yi smiles to think back to their earlier encounters… until she comes to the passage where he supposes that not returning home could lead to his death.

Realizing he lied to her when he said he could stay, Song-yi reels. She starts to sob, clutching the journal to herself.

 
EPILOGUE

Min-joon shops for his date outfit, and when asked by the saleswoman what the occasion is, he answers, “I’m proposing.”

This he follows up with ring shopping, and then a series of failed run-throughs at home as he tries to hit upon the right way to propose. Attempts range from calling her Song-yi-ya earnestly to tossing the ring over and saying carelessly, “Wear it.”

Then when he asked her to open the trunk, we see him suffer last-minute doubts and stop time just before she can see the loads of red balloons and the “I love you” poster loaded inside, awwww.

Last but not least, he toys with the ring box at dinner, thinking over the words from his rehearsed proposal: “I don’t know how long I can live by your side. So it may be that I shouldn’t say these words. But I’ll do my best to stay with you a long, long time. I don’t know how much that time will be, but I’ll do my best in loving you.”

 
COMMENTS

Aieeee, lots of good stuff today. I was hoping against hope that we had all just assumed that Min-joon would get sick and die, and that maybe we’d all (including Min-joon) interpreted the signs incorrectly and that he wouldn’t die if he stayed. Maybe his alien powers would die and what remained (ostensibly his human body) would be able to start ticking along like a regular person. But that vision he had sort of puts the nail in the coffin of my hope, because damn if that isn’t a full-on death/disappearance/evaporation scenario we’re dealing with.

And while we could laugh at the comedic bent to his loss of powers today, that sense of humor sure as heck isn’t going to outlive Min-joon’s death. I was pretty uneasy even today, laughing at his amusingly deadpan reactions to his unreliable powers, because the deterioration seems to be amping up at a rate I’m really not comfortable with. Not that I’d be comfortable with him dying an unnaturally speedy death in any case, but we can’t even console ourselves with the idea that he could still have a few great years with Song-yi. In cancer drama terms, we’re talking more along the lines of 90 Days, Time to Love, not the interminably long deterioration process of Thousand Day Promise.

On the darker end of things, I love Hwi-kyung’s arc and how he’s dealing with the investigation’s discoveries. At first I thought the Yeon Woo-jin cameo was to portray Jae-kyung’s formerly warm relationship with Hwi-kyung, but seeing him as the trusting eldest brother hammered in what a loss that was for Hwi-kyung (yes, Yeon Woo-jin has played killers before, but I see his face and attribute to him immediate warmth and pathos).

The cop-prosecutor duo has always been a bit bumbling for me to care what they do, but Hwi-kyung (or Park Hae-jin, really) is really selling his character’s heartbreak and disillusionment, not only with his brother but also his father, who seems mad shady as well. (I do wonder if Dad is merely in fierce denial—hence his “she probably deserved it” reasoning—or if he’s been more complicit in Jae-kyung’s evils, aside from helping sweep them under the rug.)

That said, it’s pretty remarkable that an episode with that much foreboding was as full of heart-warming bonding and goofy comedy. The Yoon-jae hero worship has always tickled my fancy, but seeing him figure out that Min-joon was an alien, and then adore him even more? The E.T. moment killed me, especially considering how much pouting Yoon-jae had to do to get Min-joon to comply. Just the fact that he went along with the finger-touch despite clearly finding it mortifying made me love Min-joon even more. And yes, the sibling resemblance really is starting to shine through, isn’t it? I don’t know how Min-joon’s gonna get saved at this point, but now that we’ve got a bromance and a romance on the line, stakes just got higher. Make it happen, people!

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