Fated To Love You: Episode 8

by HeadsNo2

Fated To Love You is a fairytale come to life, one that gives grand romantic gestures the kind of magic we didn’t even realize we’d been missing until now. Watching Gun and Mi-young navigate the ups and downs of their relationship never ceases to amaze, even when a blast from the past comes to shake things up. Whoever said romance was dead has clearly never seen this show.

As for ratings, Fated finally broke into double digits with 10.6%, almost an entire point higher than last episode. Joseon Gunman stayed in the lead with 11.9%, while new kid on the block It’s Okay It’s Love clocked in at 9.1%.

SONG OF THE DAY

INFINITE – “Diamond” [ Download ]

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

 
EPISODE 8 RECAP

Gun pulls Mi-young back into his arms when she moves to leave, and a long moment passes where Gun looks pained, physically pained, as he resists every urge to kiss her. All the while we hear the sound of their hearts racing: Ba-bum, ba-bum, ba-bum.

Then, finally, Gun grabs her into a closer hug that lets him bypass her lips as he claims through clenched teeth that this is a breach of their contract, and that they should just sleep.

Of course, he’s the one who looks like a convulsing inchworm as he struggles to stay on his side of the bed. A little while later, he leans over Mi-young, amazed to find her snoring happily in dreamland.

“You worry-free snail,” he remarks with a small chuckle before cuddling up next to her. She remains asleep and unaware as Gun watches over her with one hand gently massaging her shoulder. Aww.

After grinning at the wedding band on his finger, Gun soon finds he’s not the only one taking a morning jog when Daniel passes him on the trail. Not one to be outdone, Gun tries to prove his alpha status by out-running Daniel… only to end up huffing and puffing trying to keep up.

“Why… are you… in my neighborhood?” Gun asks accusingly, all while pumping his arms like a marathon runner. Daniel dismissively says this is his neighborhood too, but that doesn’t mean he’s taking the high road—they take their competition off-road, leaping over shrubbery and other obstacles like gazelles.

When Gun starts to lag behind, he calls for them to give up. Daniel: “There’s no such thing as ‘giving up’ in my dictionary.” Gun: “I’ll buy you a new dictionary!” Hahaha.

They both end up stopping due to leg cramps, leading Gun to agree to contact Daniel about their business collaboration while Daniel apologizes for the whole not-a-priest thing. You’d think this would mean a truce, but Gun proves the fight’s not over when he literally pranks Daniel instead of helping him up. Hah. Boys will be boys.

Daniel invites Mi-young to his art exhibit in order to apologize and gain forgiveness, but judging by her happy expression as she looks over all the installations, she’s not holding it against him.

But when the paparazzi start filing up the stairs to take his picture, Daniel hurriedly pulls Mi-young into his arms so he can keep his back turned to them. In order to preserve her identity, he asks her to crab walk with him to the nearest hiding place.

Waltz music accompanies their awkward dance as Daniel ushers her to the nearest exit, promising to follow her soon. When she asks if he’ll be okay facing the mob by himself, he replies that it’s the least he can do for his new dongsaeng as her honorary oppa. Aw.

Mama Yong and Son don’t get a warm welcome from the head elder when they try to make light of the possibility that Gun could lose his position at Jangin Chemicals, since the elder is tired of dealing with their crap—enough to warn them that if they don’t clean up their act, he’ll make them disappear.

We find Gun and Mi-young leaving another prenatal class, this time about making baby food, and it’s extra adorable how Gun knows when to expect Mi-young’s tummy to growl. He promises to take her wherever she wants to eat…

…Which turns out to be a joint for fermented skate fish. Hah. Gun toughs out the stench while Mi-young chomps down happily, her smile brightening even further when she notices that Gun is wearing his wedding band.

After she tries and fails to feed him some of the potent dish, she asks him if he’s thought of a nickname for the baby. She suggests something quite off the wall: “Keddongie” which kinda-sorta translates to “dog poop,” but without such a negative connotation.

Gun, of course, is completely against this nickname no matter Mi-young’s reasoning that the old-fashioned and countrified nickname would mean good luck, but warms up to the idea once she mentions that she was called the same thing growing up—and look how healthy she turned out!

He thinks back to when she outran him during the dog chase, and agrees to nickname the baby Keddongie for now. It’s cute how he even addresses the baby when he gets dropped off for work: “Keddongie, I’m leaving!” So. Cute.

Gun seems loathe to leave Mi-young for the office, so he decides to just take her with him. And he’s so happy to show her off too. Gun takes stock of all the eyes on them and ignores her request to stay behind by taking her gently by the wrist: “Kim Mi-young, you’re not a post-it anymore. Don’t hide behind me, and walk proudly next to me.”

Taking her hand properly this time, Gun proudly leads her all the way to his office, only to find someone sitting at his desk…

“Surprise!” Se-ra says as she spins around to face him. Before Gun can react, Se-ra jumps to her feet to engulf him in a hug. “I missed you, Gun!”

When Mi-young turns to leave, Gun stops her. Se-ra looks confused as she asks who she is, and Gun’s expression is serious as he says, “Se-ra… That person—…”

“…I’m [Grandma] Wang’s secretary.” Mi-young purposefully interrupts, which is probably the first time in this series I’ve ever wanted to shake her by the shoulders. Let him speak!

Gun’s face falls as Mi-young continues the lie, which Se-ra totally buys. When he gets a private moment with Mi-young outside, he asks her the same question we’re all wondering: Why did she stop him?

But Mi-young is thinking from Se-ra’s perspective, and doesn’t want Gun to hurt Se-ra’s feelings by telling her the truth. Everything about Gun, from his face to his voice when he asks, “What about you?” is so incredibly tragic. She’s being so selfless that he’s having to remind her to think about how she feels, not just about how Se-ra might.

After Mi-young leaves, Gun spends a long time outside his office collecting himself before he lets himself in with his trademark laugh. Se-ra pulls him into a chokehold as she asks whether he’s soooo happy to see her that he could die from happiness.

“Yes, I’m going to die from happiness,” Gun parrots back, with a smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes. After bringing up how Gun hasn’t been as devoted to her as he normally is, Se-ra tells him that she’s here on holiday for five days.

She doesn’t seem to notice how his smile fades when she kisses him on the cheek, and instead insists that he not work for as long as she’s visiting.

After watching Mi-young zombie her way out of the office building, we find Se-ra giving Gun a tour of her hotel room. Just when she starts to tell him how hard it was to be away from him, Gun takes her by the hands like he’s about to tell her the truth, but Se-ra keeps talking about how much she realized she needs him.

Mi-young tries to hide her sadness as she reads to Keddongie from the children’s book. She’s not as obsessive about checking her phone as Gun was, but she still sighs to find no missed calls or messages.

Gun stays with Se-ra until she falls asleep (no funny business), but before she dozes off, she says, “You know the only person I can lean on in this world is you, right? Let’s get married. I’ll marry you.”

His expression is pained as he takes in these words—if only she’d said them sooner. But he leaves a note on her bedside telling her that they need to meet tomorrow because he has something to tell her. Good for you, Gun.

The next morning, Mama Yong finds Mi-young chopping onions for a side dish alone, and doesn’t hide the fact that she knows Gun didn’t come home last night. “Do you think he’s cheating on you?” Mama Yong asks, clearly hoping to get some good gossip.

But Mi-young, of course, covers for Gun by claiming he was at the office. Mama Yong takes this chance to prey on Mi-young through pretending to commiserate with her as a fellow mistress—after all, they’re both “the other woman,” aren’t they? And “other women” always have to be prepared to leave, because that’s their fate.

Unbeknownst to Mi-young, news of Gun’s affair has spread in that passive-aggressive way most loved by Korean media, where they give every detail of the story without specific names. But Mi-young, aka Employer “B”, is being portrayed as a woman who purposefully approached CEO “A” with the intention of getting pregnant.

When she steps outside to take a walk, she’s hounded by members of the press who snap photos and ask invasive questions based on the rumor that’s been spreading. They follow an increasingly-nervous Mi-young down the street, until Daniel spots them passing by the cafe and roars at them to leave her alone.

Of course, they’re intrigued by the handsome man who steps in front of Mi-young protectively, and start hounding him with questions. They don’t seem to buy it when he tells them that he’s Mi-young’s neighborhood oppa, and he even spells it out for them: “Neighborhood PLUS oppa! Neighborhood oppa!”

Once Daniel escorts Mi-young inside the cafe, he gets the good-for-nothing media junkies to make like a tree after he threatens them against taking oooone step onto his property.

While Gun waits for Se-ra to finish her interview so he can talk to her, his thoughts inevitably drift to Mi-young when he finds a stray post-it note on the floor.

But he’s forced to leave early when Doctor Moon calls him with urgent news (about his mother?), so he leaves Se-ra a text saying that they’ll have to talk later.

Mi-young apologizes to Daniel for causing him trouble, but he brushes it off by saying that he’s always available anytime she wants to go for a walk in the future. He’ll protect her. (Aww.)

Gun rushes through a hospital and bursts through the doors to find “Mom,” aka Mi-young’s mom, in an exam room. Awwwwww, that’s who he was so worried about? What a perfect son-in-law.

Even though they’ll need to operate on Mom’s kidney stones, Doctor Moon and Mom have to reassure Gun that everything is going to be okay when he almost has a panic attack. Mi-young is the last one to the hospital room party, even though Mom didn’t want her to know she was there—it was her unni Mi-sook who spilled the beans.

Gun drives Mi-young home from the hospital, and an attempt to ease the awkward silence with the radio fails when literally every station he turns to happens to be talking about bad relationships.

He tries a CD next, and freaks out when the song “Que Sera Sera” comes on (because of Se-ra, get it?) so much so that he has to beat the dashboard to get the darn thing to turn off.

Finally, Mi-young breaks the tension by sincerely thanking Gun for today. He’s left a little confused, and more than a little guilty about the Se-ra issue still hanging over their heads.

It’s sad when Mi-young says goodbye to him outside Lee Manor, knowing that he’s going to meet Se-ra… but they’re both surprised when Se-ra meets them outside the house with gifts for him and Grandma Wang.

But when Mi-young tries to duck out of the situation, Gun stops her. Se-ra knows something’s up as Gun holds Mi-young in place, and he looks into Mi-young’s eyes all but pleading for him to not do what he’s about to.

“Se-ra,” Gun begins. “This person… is not my grandmother’s secretary. The truth is…” Mi-young desperately whispers for him not to say it, all but shaking in fear.

But despite Mi-young’s protests, Gun turns back to Se-ra: “I got married. This woman… This woman is my wife.” Yiiiiiiiiiiiikes. Here we go…

Se-ra reels in shock and disbelief, and it’s only when Mi-young sincerely apologizes that the truth really sinks in. She drops her umbrella and almost faints on the spot, but Gun grabs her before she can fall.

“Tell me it’s a lie,” Se-ra chokes through her tears. “Please… please tell me it’s a lie. You were the person that would do everything I wanted, weren’t you?”

Gun can only tell her he’s sorry, and can’t help but follow her when she runs off in the rain. When he catches up to her, she tears into him about deceiving her like this—how did it feel to see her face again after he’d gotten married secretly? Was he always this cruel?

But before she can continue, Gun interrupts, “I’m having a baby. That woman… she’s the mother of my child.” Se-ra stops, completely stunned into silence.

Later that night, Gun watches his home videos with Se-ra and opens the gifts she dropped outside the house. He starts laughing when he reads the note that accompanies the cufflinks she bought especially for him, before his laughter devolves into wretched sobs of grief.

Mi-young, left all by herself, curls up in the corner of their bedroom and cries.

After fielding more gossip-mongering from Mama Yong the next morning, Mi-young puts a smile on her face as she follows Gun to the gate to see him off for work. He’s wearing the suit she set out for him, along with the cufflinks Se-ra gave him. Oh no.

Her smile immediately fades, not just at the cufflinks, but because Gun completely ignores her. It’s like she may as well not be there at all, which makes it all the more tragic when Mi-young waves after the car anyway.

Grandma Wang seems to know something about yesterday’s events as she sits Mi-young down to invite her to an upcoming party, where she’ll represent herself as Gun’s wife. “In this household, you are the one and only daughter-in-law,” Grandma stresses.

She apologizes to Mi-young for how she’s been treated since marrying into the household, since she knows it hasn’t been easy for her. But Mi-young claims that she’s under no such stress, only that she’s worried about not being able to help Gun more.

After taking a long look at a picture of him and Se-ra he’s kept on his desk for years, Gun decides to hide it in a drawer. He seems to have forgotten that he also put Mi-young’s heart-shaped lollipop there, and flashes back to the moment she gave it to him in Macau.

Manager Tak comes rushing in with all the papers that have been publishing hateful rumors about how Mi-young forced her way into the family/company, and seems at a loss when Gun demands that he block the articles.

Grandma Wang takes Mi-young to the formal gala, proudly introducing her as Gun’s wife and the new madam of Jangin Chemicals. Things start to go downhill the moment Mi-young is left alone, not only because she’s unaware that her douchey ex-boyfriend Lawyer Min is in attendance, but because all the well-to-do ladies are spewing vitriol about her based on the rumors.

Poor Mi-young hears all their insults and swallows her pain, but seems dangerously close to breaking. To make matters worse, her attempt to leave is foiled when she runs into that friend of Se-ra’s she and Gun saw outside of the prenatal class. The one who treated her like dirt.

Things are no different now, since the girl chucks her drink in Mi-young’s face as she calls her an embarrassment to her gender. Lawyer Min is right there to rub it all in, whine, and gloat at the same time.

But when tough-as-nails Mi-young doesn’t fold under his harsh words, Lawyer Min takes to the podium to publicly embarrass her in front of everyone in attendance by pointing her out as the woman from all the rumors. You inconceivable douche. I can’t even.

He’s relentlessly hateful, and just when you wish Mi-young would just turn tail and run, we hear a familiar slow clap…

…It’s Gun! I never thought I’d be so happy to see him. And Lawyer Min couldn’t look any unhappier to see him. Serves him right.

Gun takes over the microphone to address what’s on everyone’s mind: his relationship to Mi-young. He loudly announces that the crowd is right about them getting married because of the baby, along with Mi-young having been a contractor at a law firm, and soundly puts those rumors to rest as he sarcastically praises the audience for being so astute.

“There’s one thing you all don’t know about her, though: That woman is… a very strange woman,” Gun says. After living together, there’s this peculiar reversal about her. The more you look at her, the prettier she becomes. It’d be boring if she was just pretty, but on top of that, she’s cute, adorable, and extremely kind. Because I’m so sorry to know such a strange woman all to myself, I’m going to say it here in person.”

He snaps his fingers, and one of the musicians begins to play a tune on a traditional haegeum familiar to anyone who’s ever seen Chuno. I will never get tired of these throwbacks to Jang Hyuk’s past. Keep ‘em coming.

As the song plays, Gun saunters toward Mi-young while telling everyone the same thing her mother proudly declared when all the factory workers were pressuring her into the marriage: Mi-young isn’t the smartest, she wasn’t good at her studies, and she was especially horrible in math.

Gun:“But that woman… she really knows how to be sincere to others. And that woman takes good care of someone who’s hurting and knows how to sympathize with them. So she might be plain, but she’s very special and precious—my lovely wife, Kim Mi-young. Everyone, I introduce you to that Kim Mi-young.”

After that mic drop moment, the audience applauses while Gun leans in to tell Mi-young that a diamond like her doesn’t belong with rocks like these. And then he winks at her. (Quick, bring me my smelling salts!)

He gets her the hell outta there and takes her to a scenic spot where he plays a classic tune as he asks her for a dance, seeing as how they’re all dressed up with nowhere to go.

Mi-young finally smiles as she places her hand in his outstretched one. He pulls her close for their dance, and uses his fingers to count down from 3…2…1…

Then with a snap of his fingers, the sky around them suddenly lights up with fireworks. They both smile and laugh as they dance, while Manager Tak heaves a happy, relieved sigh nearby. (I’m not crying… it’s just been raining on my face.)

Gun asks if things have been difficult for her lately, before clarifying that he wasn’t avoiding her because he disliked her—he was sorry because he wasn’t yet ready to go to her.

“Thank you for waiting for me,” he adds as he looks into her eyes. “And for being by my side now.” It’s this last line that has Mi-young in tears, and Gun’s reaction is to simply brush them away with his fingers as he tips her face toward him to kiss her…

…Just as we flash back to Mi-young telling Daniel: “The better he treats me, the more afraid I become. The better he treated me, the more he made efforts for my sake… the more afraid I became. That I might depend on him too much… that he might be mistaken in liking me. That, on the day we promised, I might not be able to send him away.”

 
COMMENTS

To preserve the integrity of this recap, I made a conscious decision to leave out any incoherent fangirling I might’ve been experiencing at any given moment because it would’ve taken over like a cancer. But now that we’ve reached the comments section, I can finally say: THIS SHOW WINS AT EVERYTHING.

I’m so enraptured with Gun and Mi-young’s romance that it isn’t even funny at this point, especially since this episode took their relationship to so many extremes—and all without giving us emotional whiplash. I’d been dreading the day Se-ra returned because I was worried that whatever Gun felt for Mi-young was so fragile and new that it would undoubtedly shatter when his six-year flame showed up. And as much as I love Gun, I was a nervous wreck thinking of how much of a jerk the show could make him while getting away with it, even if that would fly in the face of the man we’ve seen him to be thus far.

And the very reason why this show remains such a rewarding watch is because Gun and Mi-young are so fully realized that they’re not just going to act and behave the way other dramas have conditioned us to believe they would. It’s like magic, the way those two interact. Whether it’s just one look from Gun asking Mi-young to think about herself for once, or the way she cares for him so much that she would rather suffer and be miserable just so he can be happy, they share a connection that’s palpable to those of us on the other side of the screen. That’s the stuff true romances are made of, and this episode proved that Fated is destined to be one of the greats, the kind of drama we’ll find ourselves revisiting whenever we need to remember what being this in love with a story and its characters felt like.

But what am I saying all that for now? We’re still lucky enough to be living this as it happens, which is both a blessing and a curse when the future is still such an unknown. Even if dramaland laws mandate that happiness like this can’t possibly last for twelve more episodes, I can still love Gun and Mi-young just as they are, right in that moment. I don’t have enough superlatives for the way Gun stayed true to himself and told Se-ra everything, even though we know how hard that was for him. All he wanted was to hear the words Se-ra said to him this episode, but it was too late—and the fact that Gun knew that, grieved for it, and moved past it is what makes him so unbelievably endearing that coherency becomes impossible when describing him.

This was also a wonderful episode for Mi-young, and even if it’s been stated before, it’s worth repeating: Jang Nara is absolutely killing it in this role. My heart broke for her when she tried so desperately to stop Gun from telling Se-ra about her, and again when she stood in the midst of all those people refusing to let herself break, even though it’s hard to even imagine how alone she must’ve felt. Which is what made Gun’s save all the more poignant and perfect—but it wasn’t enough just for him to swoop in and carry her away from all those vultures. No, he made sure that they knew just how special Mi-young is.

Then came the slow dance by the river, Gun’s apology, and those fireworks. I’m sure we’ve all seen plenty of on-screen romantic gestures in our time, regardless of where we hail from. And well-timed fireworks weren’t likely to reinvent the romantic wheel at this point… or so I thought. That was B.G. (Before Gun). Now future heroes will have to top that act, to which I say: good luck trying.

 
RELATED POSTS

• Fated To Love You: Episode 7
• Fated To Love You: Episode 6
• Fated To Love You: Episode 5
• Fated To Love You: Episode 4
• Fated To Love You: Episode 3
• Fated To Love You: Episode 2
• Fated To Love You: Episode 1