Cantabile Tomorrow: Episode 8

144 November 4, 2014January 24, 2016

by girlfriday

Oh, I love this episode—our hero takes one important step towards becoming a virtuoso, but more importantly, his music stirs something deep inside our heroine and the focus shifts to how he influences her. They share a connection through a language that only they understand, and we start to witness why it is that this couple belongs together. On the surface they might seem totally mismatched, but when they lose themselves in music, nothing could be further from the truth.

SONG OF THE DAY

Grieg – Piano Concerto in A minor, Op.16, 1st movement: Allegro molto moderato [ Download ]

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LESSON 8 RECAP

Much to Yoo-jin’s shock, the S Orchestra’s performance of “Mambo” is good, and so is the new guy Yoon-hoo, who’s acting as their emergency conductor. In flashback, we see him asking the orchestra to give him a chance to conduct, since he’s performed this piece before and has memorized the score. They look hesitant, but they’re out of options so they agree; and as we’ve already seen, the result is a roaring success.

Yoon-hoo is playful and expressive up there on the conductor’s platform, performing as much as the rest of them are and leading them like the life of the party. It’s adorable to watch, and in the back of the auditorium, Yoo-jin’s cloud just gets darker and darker.

Streseman seems to have been waiting for this reaction, as he simply stands there praising Yoon-hoo. He looks intrigued the minute Yoo-jin retorts that he’s the star today. Perhaps Streseman has finally pushed the right buttons to get at Yoo-jin’s emotional center? It’s certainly a better shot than that seductive snake dance thingy you tried.

The S Orchestra returns to their rehearsal room still buzzing with excitement, and when they praise Yoon-hoo, he assures them that it was only possible because he’s performed the piece before and is intimately familiar with it, and adds that it was because they played it so well. Il-lac looks positively smitten, and squeezes him in a hug: “Where have you been until now, Friend?”

Yoon-hoo looks around for Nae-il, and Mini Min-hee says she thought she saw Yoo-jin and ran after him. They argue that there’s no way Yoo-jin would’ve been there to see them, and the mood sinks a little.

But Nae-il does catch up to Yoo-jin, who tells her stiffly that the performance was good but he didn’t come here to see her. She mutters adorably that he ought to have just let her believe it anyway.

The cute thing is that his pride doesn’t stop him from making damn sure Nae-il will be at his concert. He tells her not to miss a thing, and to watch and listen from start to finish. Why, is the concert for her? Huh? Is it? IS IT?

Yoo-jin heads to his dressing room to look over his music one last time, but all he can think about is Yoon-hoo and Nae-il shaking hands onstage after their performance. He tries to shake the vision out of his head, rumpling his perfectly coiffed hair in the process, and Streseman comes by to note that he prefers this “wild and sexy” look.

Yoo-jin says he’s going to perform his way, arguing that showing your emotions doesn’t lead to good music. Streseman asks, “Has there ever been a time you revealed your emotions properly? When conducting, you only cared about expressing the music. But without emotions, your growth stops here.”

Streseman challenges him to really show the audience how Yoo-jin plans to use this concert, and that riles Yoo-jin up enough to argue defensively that he’ll give them something to see all right.

They walk onto the stage to the sound of applause, and we see that Min-hee and Su-min are sneaking a peek after all, and Yoon-hoo is in the audience too. As Yoo-jin takes his seat at the piano, Yoon-hoo narrates that the composer Edvard Grieg was as talented a pianist as he was a composer, and he wonders if that’s why Yoo-jin chose his Piano Concerto in A minor to perform.

Streseman turns back one last time to send a telepathic message to Yoo-jin that their joyful music session begins now, and on cue, Yoo-jin plays dramatically. He remembers what Streseman told him about making everyone’s eyes turn toward him, to seduce them, to steal their hearts.

That’s exactly what he does, making it so that you can’t look anywhere else but at him, as he gets lost in the performance. Nae-il arrives in the back of the auditorium and instantly drops her raccoon cap because she can’t stop her fingers from playing along.

At the end of the concert, Yoo-jin takes his bow, and Yoon-hoo is moved to tears as he clutches his shaking hand. He turns around to see Nae-il standing there mesmerized, gaze fixed on Yoo-jin.

Everyone spills out of the theater singing Yoo-jin’s praises, and the board chairwoman tells Teacher Do that they now have a star. All they have to do is get rid of S Orchestra and Streseman, and their headaches are over.

Back in the dressing room, Yoo-jin is exhausted, having poured everything into the performance. He enjoys ribbing Streseman with his own advice to be more expressive of his emotions, thinking of the next time they perform together, and Streseman cuts him off to say that today was the last time they’ll perform together.

Yoo-jin starts to protest, but Streseman says, “Two conductors cannot stand together on one stage.” Aw, has grasshopper finally graduated? I’m a little sad that the lessons are over, just when I started to enjoy their pupil-teacher dynamic.

Streseman holds out his hand and Yoo-jin shakes it warmly, as Streseman says today was their last concert and it was impressive. He even holds up his fingers in a little pinch to add, “Cha Yoo-jin, I’m a little—just a little—proud of you.” Aw.

Yoo-jin tosses back that he’s very proud of his teacher too, and Streseman calls him impudent. He pinches Yoo-jin’s cheek (lol, I was wondering why we hadn’t seen a Secret Love Affair parody yet), and says that his pupil appropriately takes after his rudeness.

Yoo-jin gets called out to the press line for photographs, and they don’t even bother trying to convince Streseman since he wouldn’t agree to that sort of thing. He does tell Yoo-jin that it’s all a necessary part of the show, so Yoo-jin does as told and stands there smiling uncomfortably for the cameras.

He and Mom mutter at each other that they both hate this sort of thing, and she mentions that “that person” will likely see these articles and be surprised since he doesn’t know Yoo-jin debuted as a conductor. Yoo-jin: “Don’t talk about Dad.”

The crowd gets especially chatty when Do-kyung comes up to Yoo-jin with flowers, and Teacher Do makes a big show of calling them the faces of Haneum, and prods Mom to join them for the photo op. That’s the moment when Nae-il and Min-hee discover the connection between Yoo-jin and his mom, and Nae-il is stunned to see them looking like a picture-perfect family.

She would’ve gone up there in her raccoon costume, but Min-hee drags her outside before she can make a fool of herself. Nae-il looks like she’s on the verge of tears, and runs off to be on her own.

Il-lac calls the girls repeatedly to hurry up and join the after-party, and runs into his crush Shi-won, who congratulates him on S Orchestra’s performance with a fist-bump. He looks so shocked when she offers her fist, and then afterwards he watches her leave fluttering, “We touched!”

Yoon-hoo goes to see his doctor, who worries that the pain in his hand is likely excruciating. But Yoon-hoo stops him before he can suggest surgery for the umpteenth time, and cries that if he gets surgery for his nerves, he might never be able to play the cello again. He asks for more pain meds instead, and says he can handle the pain: “It’s because there’s a performance left that I have to do.”

Nae-il stays up all night playing Yoo-jin’s Grieg concerto piece over and over again, and doesn’t even notice when she plays through sunrise.

Streseman finally sits down to tell Mina how he really feels, confessing that the piece last night was what he should have said to her twenty years ago. He was under the impression she loved someone else back then, and she vehemently denies it.

He opens his mouth to say the words, when suddenly a German woman storms in with bodyguards and has Streseman picked up and forcibly carried away, saying that he has to live up to his side of the contract.

He seems upset that he’s been found out, and the woman tells Mina that she’s from the Royal Orchestra—Streseman has a concert to perform and ran away from them. Ha, so he’s basically been playing hooky this whole time? Yoo-jin actually laughs when he hears it from Dean Mina, and says it sounds exactly like something Streseman would do.

She worries that this leaves Yoo-jin in the lurch, especially when he’s in an awkward position with S Orchestra. She guesses that he chose A Orchestra for his concerto because of Teacher Do, and he assures her that it was still his choice in the end and he’ll take responsibility for it. Mina seems most affected by Streseman’s sudden exit, and fumes that it’s really over this time and she’s never going to see him again.

With Streseman out of their hair, the board takes a revote on the orchestras. The S Orchestra members wonder if Streseman leaving puts them in danger of being disbanded yet again, but they argue that they’ve come this far without him.

Min-hee runs up to the boys in a panic to say that Nae-il is missing, and takes the boys to her apartment, where they can hear the sound of a piano through her door. There’s no answer, and Min-hee says that this has been going on for two days straight—at first she thought it was Nae-il playing, but she must’ve turned on a recording and left.

Meanwhile, Yoo-jin meets Do-kyung for coffee, where she asks if he wants to date again. He doesn’t really react, so she guesses that he doesn’t want to, and he admits that he’s a little surprised since he’s never thought about it, but doesn’t completely dislike the idea either. She asks him to think about it sincerely.

The S Orchestra kids run up to ask if he’s seen Nae-il, and Min-hee says Nae-il was traumatized after seeing him with Do-kyung the other night. Yoo-jin stupidly asks why that would be, and Il-lac actually rolls his eyes, ha.

They split up to look for her, and Do-kyung insists on tagging along. She’s taken aback when Yoo-jin knows Nae-il’s lock code, and even more peeved when he says it’s the same as his. He opens the door and runs over to the piano in a panic when he finds Nae-il slumped over on the floor.

He lifts her up and she winces while clutching her arm. He realizes that she’s cramping up from overplaying, and asks angrily if she’s been playing piano nonstop for days. Aw, the worry in his eyes.

Do-kyung gets him to stop yelling and tells him to get some hot towels for a compress, but then her claws come out when she uses that opportunity to tell Nae-il that she’s sorry about her seeing them together at the concert, but Yoo-jin belongs with someone “befitting his class.” Urg, you little bloodsucking mosquito. Get thee away, preferably to another country!

Yoo-jin rushes back and asks where it hurts, but Nae-il just shakes as she says, “You won’t leave… your Grieg concerto is circling in my head. Here… it won’t leave my head! I want to play the Grieg concerto like you—strong, clear, brilliant. I’ve never once played like that before.”

He yells back that she can’t play like this, but she just continues, “I can’t escape from your performance! I want to bewitch someone with my piano playing too!” He promises that once her muscles relax and she feels better, they’ll play it, and Nae-il finally relaxes and smiles as if a weight has been lifted.

The air between them is spellbinding, as if they’re connected by something otherworldly. And Do-kyung sees it too, as she looks on jealously, as if she’s on the outside looking in. He doesn’t even hear her when she tries to suggest that they leave, and just says that he didn’t know Nae-il could excite him like that: “Have you ever heard such pure praise?”

He’s basically talking to himself, and smiles broadly: “She was bewitched by my piano.” As soon as Nae-il is feeling better, he conducts her as she plays, and draws out an amazing performance from her.

She envisions him reaching out a hand and drawing her to him, and they’re beautifully in sync as she plays following his lead. Do-kyung can’t stand to watch anymore and quietly makes her exit, and at the same time, the S Orchestra trio arrives at the door.

Their jaws drop open, and they ask each other how it’s possible—Nae-il is playing the Grieg concerto just like Yoo-jin. They can’t believe how impressive she is, and stand there spellbound.

Do-kyung calls her mother to cry that the thing she hated most while studying abroad was, “Other kids playing only with each other, speaking a language that only they understand.”

Yoo-jin tucks Nae-il into bed and a flicker of emotion crosses his face as he watches her sleep. He leaves with heavy thoughts weighing on his mind.

As Nae-il sleeps, we flash back to a conversation she had with Streseman before the concert. He asks what her dream is, and she says shyly that her dream is to be a kindergarten teacher and Yoo-jin’s wife. Streseman tells her to be sure to watch Yoo-jin’s performance at the concert, because it’s going to be amazing, and Yoo-jin is going to become even greater than what she’s surmised.

Her face falls when he tells her that Yoo-jin is going to fly far away, to a place where her eyes and hands can’t reach him, and that at this rate, she won’t be able to go with him. “If you want to be with Yoo-jin, you have to confront music directly.”

She wakes up and takes out a pocket watch, and Streseman’s last words to her ring in her ears: “Time and Cha Yoo-jin won’t wait for you.”

At school, her friends scold her for not answering their calls and make sure she’s okay, and Yoon-hoo offers to buy them all lunch. While they eat, Nae-il notes that Yoon-hoo’s hands look just like the hands of the person who rescued Yoo-jin at the waterpark. She never got a look at the person’s face, and feels bad for never saying thank you. Yoon-hoo realizes only now that she doesn’t recognize him because she never saw his face, and just keeps the truth to himself with a little smile.

Il-lac gets all huffy at just the mention of Yoo-jin’s name, and Nae-il promises to stop talking about him. Yoo-jin in turn sees that she’s posted a picture of herself eating a sandwich that Yoon-hoo sunbae bought her, and grouses at his phone that she’s wasting her time posting that because he’s not going to look at it and fall for the obvious ploy. Uh-huh, totally not falling for it, right now.

Do-kyung joins him and he apologizes for not even noticing her leave yesterday. He starts to give her an answer about their relationship, but she cuts him off to say that she’s going to study abroad. She was thinking about giving up music, but she’s decided that even if she can’t be number one, she’s going to try for number two.

He tells her that he’s always liked her voice, and she knows that’s why he liked her to begin with. “And Seol Nae-il? Why do you like her?” He asks why he would like Nae-il, so she just says that she seemed special, but maybe she isn’t girlfriend material, and leaves it at that.

In a move that genuinely surprises me, she actually makes a graceful exit and says her goodbyes as a friend with a handshake. Is the show actually giving me what I want and sending her to another time zone? I love the moment when Yoo-jin sits back down after saying goodbye to her and then scowls as soon as he looks at Nae-il’s sandwich picture again.

In class, the violin students are told to pick partners for a duet project, and to think of the performance like the push and pull of dating. Il-lac spends the whole class swooning at Shi-won, and watches with a long face as all the other students rush up to the elite concertmistress to ask her to be their partner.

But she surprises everyone in the room when she says that she already has someone she wants to play with, and publicly asks Il-lac to be her duet partner. He has a terrible time trying to contain his squee as he nods yes, and then bursts into Dad’s restaurant blathering about how the sky is so beautiful and he’s so grateful to have been born. Ha.

Teacher Do tells Do-kyung that he’s sorry to see her go, especially when he thought things were going well with Yoo-jin. She says that Yoo-jin will probably end up with Nae-il because music is what he loves most, and this time she’s the one to say that Nae-il and Yoo-jin are of the same class.

That clicks things into place for Teacher Do, who perhaps didn’t quite believe Streseman when he introduced Nae-il as the pianist he’s been looking for. He runs to Dean Mina and asks if she’s known about Nae-il’s talent all this time, and argues that letting her play fart songs is wasting her skills. Mina says that they need to give Nae-il time to want to learn, while Teacher Do argues that they have to force it. Ack, don’t do that.

He’s determined to steamroll Dean Mina, and reminds her that one of the orchestras has to disband—that means the end of S Orchestra. The news spreads all over school quickly, and Il-lac is heartbroken to hear a rumor that Yoo-jin chose to perform with A Orchestra because he already knew S would disband. Yoo-jin only hears the news now, and asks Dean Mina if there’s anything he can do to save S Orchestra, calling them his friends. D’aw. She says there is one way, but worries that it means he’ll have to carry a heavy burden.

Yoon-hoo finds Nae-il lost in thought, and asks why she likes Yoo-jin—is it his looks or his talent? She says that she liked all those things about him before, but lately she wishes that Yoo-jin were ugly and talentless. Ha. Yoon-hoo asks what Yoo-jin means to her, and she says he’s just Cha Yoo-jin, the only Cha Yoo-jin in the whole world.

He asks what Nae-il means to Yoo-jin, and that she can’t answer because she doesn’t know. Yoo-jin walks up and Yoon-hoo offers to ask for her, and she shushes him to keep it a secret. That just gets Yoo-jin riled up even more, and when they refuse to let him in on their inside joke, he grabs Nae-il by the wrist to lead her away.

Yoon-hoo stops them and warns Yoo-jin to treat her better, and Yoo-jin glares at him coldly before pushing his hand away forcefully. The problem is that it’s Yoon-hoo’s injured hand, and he winces from the pain so much that Nae-il and the other kids run up to him in worry.

Il-lac is especially huffy, accusing Yoo-jin of attacking his friend, clearly taking his anger about the orchestra out on him. Yoo-jin is just as stunned and argues that he didn’t push that hard, but it’s their accusatory glares that hurt him, and he storms off angrily.

He vents over at the whack-a-mole machine, grumping at each of the moles as if they’re S Orchestra members, and whining at their sudden fondness for Yoon-hoo and the fact that they totally took Yoon-hoo’s word over his own.

When Nae-il gets home, she finds a box of her stuff out in the hallway, and panics when she discovers that Yoo-jin has changed his lock code too. He tells her not to come back, so she cries that there’s still lots of stuff he left out, and she won’t leave until she has all of it.

So then he begins to maniacally hunt down the last remnants of Nae-il’s stuff in his apartment, and it’s telling how much stuff has accumulated. He asks both himself and the rabbit puppet in his hand: “When did we get here?”

It’s an endless search, and he asks how it’s possible that she’s left something of hers in every nook and cranny of his place. When he finally thinks he’s done, he sinks into a chair and declares that every last remnant of Nae-il has been erased. But then he looks over at the piano to see one last doll wedged inside.

Outside, Nae-il keeps knocking and asks if she can’t come in, promising to just collect her stuff and leave. She asks if she did something wrong, “Or do you really dislike me that much?” He answers to the doll in his hand, “It’s not you; it’s me.” I hate it when people say that.

At school the next day, Teacher Do blocks Yoo-jin’s path, and surprises Nae-il by showing up for her lesson instead of Teacher Ahn. She tells her hand-puppet that he must be mistaken because he isn’t her teacher, but Teacher Do takes the totally wrong approach with her, stepping on her doll and tapping his fan menacingly, as he tells her that she has the talent to become a world-class pianist.

It only brings up the worst associations possible for her, and in no time she’s reliving her childhood trauma as tears stream down her face. She cries that she doesn’t want to become a pianist and runs out of practice, leaving Teacher Do gobsmacked.

She runs out to Yoo-jin to hold his hand, and begs him to lend his hand for just a moment. She’s visibly calmer now that she can touch him, and he tenderly asks what’s wrong. She says that Teacher Do came to her lesson today instead of Teacher Ahn, and Yoo-jin says this is a good opportunity for her. He knows Teacher Do’s personality isn’t great, but he’s the best, and she needs a strict teacher.

She cries that she doesn’t need a strict teacher, but he argues in his firm-but-gentle way: “Yes, you do. That’s how you’ll grow.”

He doesn’t know the depths of her trauma and her emotional stress though, and when he answers a call from Teacher Do and says he’ll bring Nae-il back to class, she looks at him with betrayed eyes.

She starts shaking again, and yanks her arm out of his grasp. With tears pouring out, she says that she doesn’t want to go, and that she doesn’t want any of those opportunities: “Always crying, beaten, hurt, scarred,” and told that that was the only way to become a successful pianist.

She cries that she’s frightened and she doesn’t want that kind of lesson, so why is everyone forcing her? She looks up at him and says, voice shaking, “You’re the same! You’re just like them!”

COMMENTS

No, he’s not! He’s the one who inspires you break past your pain and work for what you really want! Agh, I really need Yoo-jin to start being a little more insightful where Nae-il is concerned. Denying your feelings is acceptable and even cute; ignoring her visible signs of panic is not okay. Why won’t anyone listen to the words she’s saying? Maybe the fact that she’s childlike and quirky to begin with masks the severity of her reactions for the people around her, but I’m going to be mad if people keep ignoring the signs. Somebody ask her a direct question about her trauma already!

Yoo-jin clearly knows that she’s gifted and learns very differently than others and knows how to draw that brilliant performance out of her, so it’s a wonder why he hasn’t made the connection. People not recognizing his trauma is one thing—he’s a bottler of feelings; but Nae-il wears her heart on her sleeve, and she literally runs crying from stern teachers. It doesn’t seem that much of a mystery, but maybe he hasn’t taken the time to notice. I was vastly relieved to see that Streseman did see through it all to the heart of her problem, and that he gave her a nudge that she really needed. For her, being by Yoo-jin’s side IS motivation to face her fears, just as he knew that losing Nae-il and the S Orchestra would be motivation for Yoo-jin to play a bewitching performance.

What she needs is Yoo-jin to be that bridge for her, and take her by the hand like he does when he conducts her. I especially appreciated Streseman’s reminder that Yoo-jin will outgrow her if she doesn’t grow with him—it’s so universal and a great way to stress that Nae-il’s personal journey is just as important. What she fears most—Yoo-jin flying out of her orbit—shouldn’t be reason to hold on tighter, but motivation to soar just as high on her own merits.

This show is at its strongest when Nae-il’s emotional journey is expressed through music, and today’s episode felt especially poignant because it stressed her connection to Yoo-jin in a visceral way—they communicate in a way no one else gets, and she stirs him as much as he stirs her. What struck me is that in music, their love isn’t one-sided at all, and he’s just as inspired and spellbound by her as she is by him. There’s just a lovely balance in that, that runs counter to how they act in their everyday lives, where he seems reluctantly fond of her, like she’s a wart that he’s grown accustomed to having on his face. A cute wart that he’d miss, but still a wart. So when he’s captivated by her music, it gets me right in the heart (whereas when she’s enraptured listening to him, I’m like, well duh). It is, as Yoo-jin said, the purest form of praise there is—she’s so taken by his music that she’s made herself sick because she NEEDS to play it that way, like it’s some kind of addiction and it won’t let her escape until she’s poured it out in notes.

The other stuff falls by the wayside very quickly when the show hits those high notes well, because then the other scenes feel a little more like side stages to the main act. I mean, did Do-kyung’s entire character exist for eight long episodes just to get her to have that jealous epiphany, suddenly become acute enough to read Yoo-jin’s heart, and drop her scheme just like that? I know, I should just accept gifts and not ask questions. I just wish her transformation had been more believable, because then it would’ve been satisfying to see her grow. And is Streseman already done teaching Yoo-jin? Because he could stand to learn more things, I think. One good performance doesn’t really mean he’s got it all figured out, right?

The side story that does move me is Yoon-hoo’s, and I found his reaction at Yoo-jin’s concert more striking than anyone else’s. He seemed simultaneously inspired, jealous, and angry at the universe, and I find his battle to endure pain to play the cello just a little longer so heartbreaking. I’m so happy that he’s a well-rounded character we care about, rather than a device to provoke jealousy. The jealousy is still awesome, by the way—just ask the whack-a-moles—but I’m glad we also care about the other guy, and want them all to be bestest friends with each other. Just as soon as Yoo-jin stops being a noble idiot, that is.