Superdaddy Yeol: Episode 4

by Saya

It’s an episode where nothing goes to plan for anyone, and like Yeol, I’m getting mixed messages. Do Mi-rae’s ends justify her means? Meanwhile, Yeol has to adjust to his new housemates, whose lifestyle is pretty much the antithesis of his, and everyone finds that it takes more than living together to make a family.

In such close quarters, it’s inevitable that his and Mi-rae’s unresolved past will keep snapping at their heels. Yeol’s answer is to grab the bull by the horns, while Mi-rae takes the tried and proven avoidant approach. We’re reminded that behind all things seen lies an untold story — but what happens if you’re the only one who knows it and you don’t tell?

EPISODE 4 RECAP

Sa-rang is perplexed by finding her mother and Yeol together. Yeol is shocked to find out Mi-rae is Sa-rang’s mom, and the three of them make an uneasy triangle.

As they watch Yeol mess around with his players a little later, Sa-rang emphatically disapproves of Mom’s choice. She thinks Woo-hyuk is better than loser Yeol, and is convinced that Mom can’t love him — how could she, when she’s 100% awesome and he’s so pitiful? Mi-rae halfheartedly says she does, and Sa-rang calls her out on it immediately. She boasts that she can tell love when she sees it, after all, isn’t her name “sarang” (love)?

Mom tells her they’re going to try living together for three months and see how he does as her dad, before making a decision. Sa-rang insists her mind is already made up.

She stalks out and confronts Yeol. “Teacher!” she calls, and kicks him in the shin. Hm, did you learn that from your mom? That’s what she’s going to call him, she says, and scoffs at the idea of him being her dad. Yeol makes it clear that he doesn’t want a headache like her, either.

Sa-rang asks if the woman who chases him and sticks to him is her mom, but before he can answer, she gives him another one-two in the shins. He’ll never be her dad, she spits. Sang-hae is outraged by her rudeness, and she gives him a hard kick, too, before marching away.

Mi-rae watches, and says to Yeol that it must be fate that he’s already met Sa-rang. He observes that she’s just like her mother (I’ll say), and they’ll have to see whether it’s a good fate or a bad fate between them.

Mi-rae catches up to her daughter, and Sa-rang demands that Mom tell her just one good thing about Yeol. Mi-rae thinks, and replies that he’s an “analogue.” The opposite of her, he’s bumbling but in touch with his emotions. She tells Sa-rang that he keeps his promises and inspires trust. On the other hand, he’s unpredictable, and Mi-rae vows to “fix” that. So he’s an old-fashioned caveman, Sa-rang concludes, unimpressed.

The coaching team come out together to see off their superiors, and Ki-tae takes a jab at Yeol — the Mi-rae story must be a fib, right? Yeol, pretending to fix Ki-tae’s tie, laughs that he’s just jealous because she’s prettier than his wife. But Ki-tae gets the upper hand by pointing out Yeol’s demotion to trainee. He sneers that even after twenty years, Yeol is still his inferior — a fact as true as the earth is round and Kim Tae-hee is pretty.

Before Ki-tae can leave, Yeol leaps on him and tackles him to the ground, and punches him in the face. “Now you’re below me. I’m above you,” he crows. And Jeon Ji-hyun is prettier than Kim Tae-hee, he finishes. Haha, this can only be real in his imagination.

Yup. Sang-hae (who knows him so well, lol) tells a zoned-out Yeol to snap out of his violent daydream, and they watch Ki-tae go.

The night sees Mi-rae packing her things up to move. She rediscovers a photo album of Sa-rang’s baby and childhood pictures, and can’t help tearing up over them.

Sa-rang, in her pyjamas, finds her like that. Mi-rae turns away so she won’t see her tears, and Sa-rang asks if the reason they’re going to live with Yeol is so she gets her wish to have a dad. Mi-rae says it’s for herself, but adds that that’s because Sa-rang’s needs are her needs, and gathers her into a cuddle. “You are me,” she tells her daughter — that’s how all moms feel.

Sa-rang gently tells Mom that in three months, she’ll do what she wants, “Because I’m me, and you’re you.”

Yeol and Sang-hae are hashing out Yeol’s new lifeplan at their favorite watering hole. Sang-hae calculates the ways Mi-rae’s recent interventions have saved him, and figures it’s a fair trade to be the kid’s dad for a few months. “That’s not all. I started to want to live with her,” Yeol confesses. He wants to try at love again. But, he asks, can they live well together?

The next morning, Mi-rae and Sa-rang turn up at Yeol’s door, to his shock. He scrambles to throw on clothes and tidy up, before he lets them in. Mi-rae announces that they’re moving in, and shrewdly guesses he was loafing around in his underpants. Yeol is even more dismayed when Papa the dog bounds in — he’s allergic to dogs.

Mi-rae proceeds to move in all her furniture, too. She lays down the rules to Yeol: For three months, they’re to live together and sleep apart. She instructs him to rehabilitate Sa-rang’s sports and school performance.

Yeol drops Sa-rang off to school, and she gives him the cold shoulder. Their voiceover conversation continues, and Yeol says her daughter is just like her — rude and cold. Regardless, Mi-rae tells him that Sa-rang has to sincerely see him as her dad, until the three months is up. Yeol retorts that the rehab marriage ends then, too.

The bachelor pad has been remade to Mi-rae’s elegant tastes, and Yeol wakes up to Beethoven’s 5th, much to his disgust. When he tries to begin his morning routine, he discovers with horror that his record player and LP collection are all gone. Mi-rae’s rejoinder is that they’re bad for kids and he should raise his tastes.

Meanwhile, Sa-rang comes out and lets out a long scream because Yeol’s in his underwear. He flees.

He tries to de-stress with a game on his computer, but it’s been replaced with “Princess Maker,” haha. When he finds that even his adult entertainment collection is gone, he confronts Mi-rae.

She denies any knowledge of it, but lets him know that inappropriate stuff isn’t acceptable with a kid in the house. Yeol suddenly remembers his backup, and leaves happy.

Sa-rang asks Mom if she deleted them, and Mi-rae nods. Even the backup, she adds gleefully.

Yeol moans in his room, until his eyes light on a fat dictionary — nested in a cutout inside it is a secret backup drive. Yeol rejoices. He swaps out the identical one already plugged in, and leaves it. Well that’s an accident waiting to happen…

Breakfast is pretty much rabbit food (“Is this some kind of grass-based punishment?” lol). Yeol frantically searches for his tinned staples, but Mi-rae’s dumped them and the fridge is full of greens.

He indignantly rescues his junk, and Mi-rae insists they eat healthily, and as a family. Sa-rang tires of his complaints and sets her dog Papa on him. Mom is impressed by her training prowess, and they ignore Yeol’s plight.

In the car, Sa-rang tells Yeol to escape while the going is good, because her mom will get her way in the end. Yeol retorts that he knows her mom better than she does, and lists her quirks, like eating uncooked ramyun to hold back tears, or that she’s afraid of water. But Sa-rang points out Mom doesn’t eat ice cream anymore, and is too smart to make calculation mistakes.

But Yeol’s point is that Cha Mi-rae is still Cha Mi-rae: “No matter how much people change, their basic nature remains constant.” Sa-rang guesses his nature must be “analogue” and tells him that Mom plans to fix him.

He huffs to himself how Mi-rae must think she’s the digital to his analogue when a wail from Sa-rang distracts him. She accidentally sent a text she didn’t mean to — to crush boy (whose name is Min-ho) asking to meet him alone later. She blames Yeol, but he smirks that she should just confess to him.

All the drama makes him nearly skip a light at a pedestrian crossing, and Sa-rang suddenly ducks out of sight. Min-ho knocks at the window. He thought he saw Sa-rang, he says (Yeol: “So did I”), and wonders why Bo-mi’s uncle is hanging out with Sa-rang. She can’t contain herself anymore, and breaks for it, out of the car.

Yeol chases her, but she wants him to go away because he’s embarrassing. She cusses him out, calling him a bad driver, clueless, and an analogue, before stomping away. Yeol’s day gets better when he turns around to find his car getting towed.

Dr. Hwang introduces Mi-rae to her doctor team at the rehab clinic, and both of them overrule Ji-hye on being in charge of Yeol’s re-education. Ji-hye suggests they let Yeol choose, but Mi-rae firmly nips that in the bud with the explanation that her choice is his choice, since they live together now. Yeol’s arrival curtails the discussion.

In her office, Mi-rae tells Yeol to concentrate on Sa-rang’s rehab — his assignment is to find out her problems and fix them. She meets his complaints with one explanation: He’s her dad now, so he should act like it. He argues that he can’t be insta-dad — and why does she even need rehab for what are probably growing pains? She snaps and tells him to do as he’s told, 100%, since she’s his supervisor.

It’s evening and Yeol’s dad sips tea at their place. Mi-rae announces that she’s going to be his doctor from now on, so he can leave the nursing home. But he’s not going to be living with them — he knows better than to cramp the almost-newlyweds. Instead, Mi-rae’s got a place for him elsewhere. Yeol objects, but Dad says family is about sharing everything — happiness, sadness…material goods.

Dad also says he’s seeing someone, and suggests they doubledate from now on. Even Mi-rae blinks at that. Yeol scolds him, but Dad scolds right back — does he have any idea how hard it is to scratch your own back when you’re old? Dad disavows all interest in marriage — he just wants to date as much as he likes, now that he’s fulfilled Yeol’s mother’s last wish. Mi-rae, as his doctor, heartily approves.

Mi-rae hears from Woo-hyuk that Sa-rang is with him. She wants homework help, and also passes him her report for parents that the teacher gave the class earlier. She asks him to go secretly instead of Yeol, but he refuses to lie to Mi-rae. He asks her why she doesn’t like Mom’s choice of dad, and she replies that she hasn’t made her choice yet.

Woo-hyuk groans that it’s Yeol who comes for Sa-rang. She sits outside the room speculating on whether the two men are fighting, when she gets a text from Min-ho asking to meet.

Meanwhile, the men stare off with each other, to the ominous notes of Beethoven’s 5th (again!)…which turns out to be Woo-hyuk’s ringtone, lol. Woo-hyuk hands over Sa-rang’s worksheets and explains that she doesn’t like Yeol or trust him. Yeol isn’t worried — she naturally would regard him as a rival for her mom’s affections. He corrects Woo-hyuk’s tense about his and Mi-rae’s relationship — it already happened.

Woo-hyuk asks him what he has to give to Sa-rang as a dad. Yeol doesn’t plan anything so mercantile — he won’t be giving anything, because family is about sharing, and he shamelessly rips off his dad’s words. Woo-hyuk is left feeling the worse off from the encounter.

Yeol can’t find Sa-rang in the waiting area, and that’s because she’s traipsing around alone to meet Min-ho in a fancy restaurant. But she’s nonplussed to see it’s a party — specifically, Bo-mi’s birthday party, where she wasn’t invited.

Yeol gets a text from her instructing him to wait for her signal, like how she gives Papa. He tries to rehearse them, but catches himself and fumes at the implication, “Am I a dog?”

Sa-rang takes Min-ho aside to talk, but only gets as far as asking how he feels about not being with her, when she catches sight of Yeol at the window. She signals, and he okays. Then Bo-mi joins them, eager for juice on the man who dropped her to school. Sa-rang vehemently refutes her. He’s not her dad — yet. And that’s when Yeol comes in, oh noes.

He almost blurts out Sa-rang’s crush right in front of Min-ho and Bo-mi, and only Sa-rang’s hand over his mouth stops him. She’s furious that he ignored her signal to wait. Durrp. He thought it was “Go, bite!”

He’s about to slink out when Bo-mi asks if he’s Sa-rang’s dad. Sa-rang tries to drag him out, but he boldly declares he is, to the kids’ shock. Upset, Sa-rang bolts.

Locked in her room, Sa-rang bawls loudly. Mi-rae rounds on Yeol: What did he do? He’s understandably grumpy about being blamed. She yells that he’s her dad and she’s his daughter, and he snaps that just saying that doesn’t make it true; they don’t even share a drop of blood.

That makes her fly further off the handle, and he points out his deal was to live with her, Mi-rae, to be her man, if only for three months. “Isn’t that why you came back to me?” he asks.

He tells her that it’s fine if she changes everything in his house, but the two of them can’t change: “Like before, I’m beside you and you’re beside me.” So she should believe him. He reminds her that she left on her own and came back again on her own, and she fiercely interjects that it wasn’t one-sided. He replies that he finally heard her voicemail now, but it doesn’t matter either way, because she didn’t show up that day ten years ago when he waited for her.

Crying, she’s about to say something when Sa-rang interrupts her, looking for Papa. They discover the door left open and the dog missing, and all three take to the street in search. But it’s late and Yeol reminds Sa-rang that she has school. She cries that they have to find Papa — he’s her number one treasure.

Yeol promises to find the dog before she gets home tomorrow. “Really?” she asks. “Really,” he promises.

The next day, Sa-rang finds her assignment sheet filled in and wonders if it was Caveman Teacher (aka Yeol). She lets herself into his room and finds a sheaf of “Lost” posters for Papa, and she’s impressed despite herself. On Mom’s instructions, she grabs the flash drive plugged into the laptop for her schoolwork. Oh no.

While Yeol spends all day handing out flyers and pasting up posters, Sa-rang works at school. She plugs in the drive, and pretty soon, the whole class gathers around to watch the naughty videos with a combination of horror and curiosity.

The teacher reassures Sa-rang that it’s okay to make a mistake, and encourages her to read her worksheet to the class, about her relationships with students, teacher and friends.

“Don’t trust Teacher. If you’re not a nerd, she’ll treat you like rubbish,” she starts. The class sniggers at Yeol’s handiwork and she continues: Friends’ll stab you in the back (she’s lookin’ at you, Min-ho), parents are irresponsible, and love and promises will only be broken.

Yeol hasn’t found Papa yet, and after school, Sa-rang confronts him for not keeping his promise. He asks if he can’t get a new dog, and she bursts into tears. Would the new one would be the same as having the old one she treasured? There’s only one Papa, she cries, just like his number one treasure. Her outburst is cut short when Yeol gets a call from someone with a tip about Papa. He tells her to stay right there while he gets the dog, and she promises to wait until he comes back.

After an encounter with a Papa-lookalike and its glamorous owner, Yeol is met by the real Papa (lol it’s like watching Lassie), accompanied by the ajumma who called him. He’s overjoyed, at least until his allergy kicks in, and tests the dog with the command signals.

Sa-rang falls asleep waiting for Yeol. Mom finds her and takes her home. She tucks her in, and sleepy Sa-rang hands over the flash drive to her. It’s Yeol’s number one treasure, she tells her.

Yeol brings Papa back to where he left Sa-rang, but finds her gone. It pours with rain and Yeol runs for shelter, the dog in his arms.

Mi-rae begins her sweep of the second backup, deleting all the porn, when she comes across a folder titled “Number 1 treasure.” It’s full of happy pictures of them, of her, from before. She remembers how precious and priceless he said it was — his whole youth — and tears spring to her eyes. She wonders why he didn’t get rid of them.

She heads into the rain, and her memory shows her another rainy night where past-Yeol stood at her door waiting, after his final game. She finally decides to go to him, and steps onto the road, only to be hit by a truck. Yeol stands mere meters away, drenched and oblivious, while she fades out of consciousness.

In the present, Yeol shelters in that same doorway, still cradling Papa, nose twitching. In voiceover, Sa-rang quotes her mom, who said the Caveman Doc is “analogue”, and repeats Mi-rae’s earlier description. He’s impulsive and makes mistakes, but he’s warm-hearted. He’ll stake his life on keeping his promises.

Mi-rae makes it to him, this time. So, Sa-rang continues, he’s someone you want to trust.

Without opening his eyes, Yeol tells her he found Papa. She crouches level with him, and strokes his cheek. She leans in, and as their lips touch, Sa-rang finishes: “Mom…likes analogue.”

COMMENTS

I have mixed feelings about this show. I have an unnaturally high ability to be immersed in a story’s moment (this is how I enjoyed Heirs), but this one keeps losing me. The devices and execution are clumsy and contrived in a way that takes away the organic quality that a heartfelt story needs to have. The ten-year-old voicemail started a decline into ungainliness that got increasingly pronounced this episode. I can see the intention here: the crossed wires and the missed moment, but it stretches credibility cross-ways when such a typical got-hit-by-a-car-and-couldn’t-meet-you scenario is enacted mere feet away from your waiting lover. I mean, REALLY? It has to at least pretend to make sense, otherwise it can’t ask you to believe in it. And that’s why I found myself almost laughing at it.

I’m at a point where the secondary characters like Woo-hyuk or Ji-hye are more interesting to me, and the central trio give me a headache, as well as regular whiplash as they flit between varying flavors of inexplicable behavior. Despite the source material, it’s somehow failing to tap deeper emotions. My biggest stumbling block to continuing to engage with this show is Mi-rae, and by extension Sa-rang (I liked you so much last week!). It’s not because she’s prickly and contradictory, or a tease (Hae-soo was all of those things in It’s Okay, It’s Love, and I loved her), her problematic trait is that she’s manipulative without conscience or consequence.

She tries to manipulate Yeol into going along with her by saying it must be fate, and it frustrates me that that she won’t just tell him the truth. The thing is, I understand not wanting to disclose her terminal status, at least not immediately, but doesn’t it end up being counterproductive for her, with Yeol? Her line all along has been, “anything for Sa-rang, no matter what,” so telling him seems like it would serve Sa-rang’s interest better. She wants a father for her child; stringing him along as a paramour (as he thinks) is a waste of resources. She wields enough power over him emotionally that he’d co-operate, although that becomes irrelevant when her method of choice is coercion, not persuasion. Her only saving grace at the moment is that Yeol is a willing participant (although this annoys me, too).

Yeol, on the other hand, tries to dissemble and can’t — honesty seems to win out despite himself. He’s unashamedly open about his feelings to her, the good side and the bad, and I don’t think he’s held back on saying what needs to be said. The problem is that frankness needs to be met with frankness. As long as it’s one-sided, they won’t get anywhere. Now that it’s become clear that there’s more to their story than simply that she stood him up, if she doesn’t say something, she can’t blame him for misunderstanding. With her discovery of his number one treasure, maybe she’ll get her head out of her butt now. I don’t even know why she’s so touched — he waited for her last time, too. Or perhaps that’s it — the fact that he dependably doesn’t change, which reaffirms the reason why she sought him out again in the first place.

But it did endlessly get my goat how Mi-rae and Sa-rang, in their mother-daughter bubble, encroach on Yeol’s life in every possible way, and then make him the outsider. She acts like he owes her something — and he really doesn’t! I get that she has some (misguided) resentment, but that problem is pretty much all hers. A guy who left his mother’s deathbed for his girl has surely done his share of sacrificing. On the kid side, if Sa-rang going around kicking everyone is meant to be cute or funny, I’m not laughing. She’s clearly had a very loving (and economically privileged) upbringing, and growing up without a father hasn’t given her more than occasional discomfort. That’s miles away from traumatic or even troubled, so I don’t think there’s an excuse. Maybe it’s just poor characterization.

Yeol finds this hour that he has to start over with Sa-rang. His introduction as a prospective dad wipes out all his previous credit with her, and that makes his promise to find Papa all the more significant. That moment between them is the beginning of trust, and this is the kind of emotional realness I’d like to see more of. It’s important for both him and Sa-rang, because they both need proof that she can rely on him. Although Mi-rae’s been lambasting him with “You’re her dad,” as Yeol points out, it doesn’t become magically true if you say it enough times. While outwardly, they present the perfect image of a nuclear family, that’s far from their actual reality. But I really like that they’re is setting out to show that it isn’t biology that makes a dad. I actually think it has the makings of a much better story if they aren’t related at all, because then, all that ties them together is mutuality and trust. There’s something much more heart-tugging about choosing to pour yourself into such a deep bond.

Because it strikes me that Yeol and Sa-rang, who don’t have anyone else, both need a family. With Sa-rang’s future life at stake, maybe Mi-rae is, in her own way, doing him a favor after all.

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