The Producers: Episode 7

by girlfriday

On the one hand, every time we get another episode of The Producers that moves away from the hilarious mockumentary style that made me love it in the first place, it saddens me. On the other hand, the more it becomes a traditional rom-com, I do find myself getting wrapped up in the lovelines and the cute, light situational comedy. Today all four of our leads are forced to spend a little time together, giving us an amusing whirpool of petty jealousy and slighted feelings, as everybody’s signals miss their mark and come out sideways.

 
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Zitten – “TV Show” from The Producers OST [ Download ]

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EPISODE 7: “Understanding media play”

Feeling bold, Seung-chan pulls Ye-jin into a hug so that she can lean on his stomach while she cries, just like Joon-mo did for her as kids. It’s a big romantic moment for him… but Ye-jin asks drily, “What’re you doing?”

Seung-chan quickly fumbles for an explanation—he was shielding her so she could cry and not be stared at, see! She points out that he’s making them more of a spectacle to look at, just as two grandpas pass by clucking about kids these days doin’ that stuff anywhere.

Seung-chan ignores her requests for him to leave and sits down next to her, and Ye-jin says that he’s a really odd duck, but ruffles his hair and calls him cute. That’s all it takes to get him smiling again. She thanks him for not leaving like she asked, because then she would’ve felt really alone.

He tells her that crying alone doesn’t suit her anyway, and decides that she’s better when she’s mad or strong. At that, Ye-jin returns to her usual self and asks why he keeps dropping the nim at the end of sunbae-nim (the most formal way to address your senior at work).

We saw him get the idea from another PD who calls Ye-jin just “sunbae,” and then we flash back to Seung-chan practicing it backstage all day: “Sunbae, sunbae, sunbae… I think I’m going to get hit.”

Ye-jin prods him for an answer, so Seung-chan nervously mounts his defense—another PD in his class calls her sunbae, and Lee Seung-gi is only a year older than him but he gets to call her noona and mix in banmal and stuff… Ye-jin raises an eyebrow: “So you’re going to use banmal too, is what you’re telling me?”

He nearly gets scared out of his resolve, but he declares, “I’m going to call you sunbae! Without the nim!” His voice trails off at the end and he totally flinches when she takes a deep breath and throws a hand on his shoulder. But then she’s suddenly casual and light: “Okay, you do that.” He beams like a puppy with a treat, and trails after her, calling out: “Yes, sunbae!”

Meanwhile, Joon-mo comes home alone and doesn’t get an answer when he tries calling Ye-jin, so he paces around outside to wait for her. He says in interview that he considers it the easiest thing in the world to get Ye-jin to stop being mad at him, and we see in a series of childhood flashbacks how all it takes is for him to give her the bigger popsicle half, the last egg, the better soda flavor, and so on.

Ye-jin comes to a sudden stop on the way home, remembering that she’s mad at Joon-mo and can’t go home like this. She turns around to go sleep at KBS, but Seung-chan won’t have that, and suggests coming with her to Joon-mo’s then.

But she gets a text from Joon-mo—a picture of him holding scissors up to her favorite bag, with the threat that he’ll cut it up if she doesn’t come home thirty minutes. It’s a cheap trick, but it totally works, and Seung-chan sighs as Ye-jin runs off without him.

Joon-mo is waiting, purse in hand, when Ye-jin busts through the door twenty-four minutes in. He refuses to hand it over until he gets out an apology for earlier at the hospital and again for lying about the blind date, and fishes an apple (sagwa, a homonym for “apology”) out of the purse to give her.

She calls him a child, but agrees to consider his plea for her to stay here until her apartment is ready. She pretends not to care, but takes out his apology apple in her room.

Seung-chan trudges home on his own, and stops to gaze across the way at Ye-jin’s building with a sigh.

CEO Byun gets her way and sends Cindy to Japan, even when she isn’t fully recovered. She insists that this is what’s best to quiet down the rumors that Cindy got into a fight with a PD, and Cindy resigns herself to doing what she’s told and leaving the media play to her.

When Cindy complies, CEO Byun is appeased and says that she’s grown up a lot since the days she used to cry in the corner and miss her mother. Cindy gets a faraway look in her eyes and says that’s true: “Now I don’t have a mother to miss, and a home to want to go to.”

Seung-chan is happy to spot Ye-jin at the bus stop in the morning, and offers to drive her to the hospital to get her stitches out. They happen to park right next to Cindy’s manager as they both arrive, and just miss seeing Cindy leave the lobby with her entourage. CEO Byun leaves, satisfied that Cindy is headed to the airport.

Cindy’s already in her van when she spots Seung-chan and Ye-jin get into the car next to hers, and she impulsively sneaks right into Seung-chan’s backseat. All she does is offer a little smile to Ye-jin and Seung-chan, as they whirl around and stare at her in confusion.

Manager oppa is babbling away and halfway down the street before he even notices that there’s no one in the car, and hilariously tries to slap himself out of this nightmare where he’s lost his star.

Ye-jin doesn’t understand why Cindy chose to get into this car when they’re not exactly friendly, but Seung-chan is sympathetic and decides to pull out of the parking lot so that they don’t have to pay.

Cindy tells them that she’s going underground, and Ye-jin argues that she doesn’t want any part of it because CEO Byun scares her. Seung-chan agrees that she’s scary, and tells Ye-jin about the time he got chewed out and Joon-mo had to step in.

Ye-jin’s frustration only grows when Cindy says that she can’t go home and doesn’t have money for a cab, and when she asks about friends, Seung-chan oh-so-helpfully answers, “Cindy doesn’t have any friends.” Pfft. Cindy cries that she does TOO have friends, they’re just busy is all.

Cindy points out that if she didn’t have this bum leg, she’d be perfectly fine, not that Ye-jin pushed her on purpose or anything. Ye-jin quickly decides that she’s not in a position to argue.

CEO Byun flips out when she hears word that Manager Oppa lost Cindy, and reads the text that says he’s gone into hiding too, for fear of her wrath. Ha. Cindy won’t go to a hotel because she knows that’s the first place CEO Byun will look for her, and Ye-jin and Seung-chan sit in the car going through all the reasons why they can’t house her.

What really gets to both of them is Cindy’s quiet admission that she’s never once taken a break in ten years, and all she really wants is to rest for a few days. Well who could say no to that? In the end it falls on Ye-jin, and Seung-chan seals the deal with his puppy eyes. (I love that she tries to point them away from her, as if that’s going to work.)

Seung-chan returns to work and chokes on his lunch as the 1N2D crew talks about Cindy’s disappearance and Joon-mo declares that she wouldn’t run because she’d have no place to go.

Cut to: Cindy sitting on Joon-mo’s couch, with Ye-jin wondering how she got herself into this situation. Cindy looks around and assesses that Ye-jin lives here with Joon-mo, and Ye-jin goes through her whole we’re-not-living–together-living-together routine. Cindy says that she gets it, that Ye-jin is like her—squatting here because she has nowhere to go. Ha, suddenly the scandalous lovers version seems better.

The PDs and writers are all gossiping about Cindy, guessing that she’s got a boyfriend hidden away, and Seung-chan mutters under his breath that they don’t know a thing.

Ye-jin reluctantly gives Cindy her room and her favorite pillow, and Cindy notes the surprising amount of girly pink in her room. She starts demanding that Ye-jin bring her water, pointing out her bum leg, and Ye-jin grits her teeth and complies. Of course when she brings water, Cindy turns it away for being room temperature and asks why there isn’t a lime in it. Omgah.

Seung-chan does his best to appear normal at the office, which of course makes him look even shiftier. In a quick flashback to earlier that day, Ye-jin tells him not to say anything to Joon-mo because he won’t be able to keep it hidden once he knows. She worries that Seung-chan will spill the beans too, but he assures her that he’s got a good poker face. And then he makes the face. And then I die laughing.

Seung-chan waits until just before Joon-mo is headed out to tell him about Cindy, per Ye-jin’s orders, but they get waylaid by PD Hong-soon who invites them out for a drink. Seung-chan decides to keep his mouth shut and heads over with the limes that Ye-jin requested, and Cindy eagerly invites him to stay for dinner.

By that evening, the rumor mill is blazing with wild speculation about Cindy, with stories that she’s been spotted on the Champs-Elysees with her Parisian chaebol lover, who plans to buy her out of her contract with CEO Byun. Joon-mo calls it all ridiculous, and sighs when he tries calling Cindy but gets no answer.

Joon-mo arrives home to find Seung-chan rooting through his fridge to set the table, and starts yelling at Ye-jin about how Seung-chan practically lives here and he doesn’t run a boardinghouse… and then opens the bathroom door to Cindy scrubbing his sink. Joon-mo falls on his ass from the shock.

Seung-chan and Cindy sit nervously as Ye-jin tries to calm Joon-mo down and explain the situation. He complains in all the same ways that she did earlier, but now she’s the one trying to convince him to let her stay. She points out that he’s the homeowner so he’s totally free to send her back to CEO Byun who’ll eat her alive.

And just like that, Joon-mo becomes a co-conspirator, and he scoffs that everyone thinks she’s at some ritzy hotel with a secret boyfriend in Paris, when she’s really sitting in his kitchen eating his plain food.

Cindy says that she can’t really eat this stuff (though as soon as she tastes Ye-jin’s cooking, her eyes widen at the deliciousness), and requests that they have some lentils and quinoa on hand for tomorrow. Joon-mo: “You’re staying tomorrow too?”

When Seung-chan pops in to say goodnight to Cindy, she asks him about some of the passages that he underlined in the book he loaned her, and he sits next to her on the bed as he animatedly describes how the metaphor of a bird cracking through its shell is like a person having to shatter their sheltered world in order to grow up.

All she really registers is how close he’s sitting next to her, shoulder to shoulder, and she has to struggle not to just stare at his lips the whole time.

Joon-mo is alarmed when CEO Byun calls him and says that she’s outside his house, but Cindy is surprised when he stops her from going out and tells her that he’ll deal with this. I can’t tell if CEO Byun knows that Cindy is up there or not, but if she does, she doesn’t let on. She makes reference to the fact that she’s been here before, years ago when they had that incident over one of her stars that made them hate each other.

Joon-mo listens warily to what she has to say, but surprisingly, CEO Byun is here to ask him to give a statement to the press that matches her own, that Cindy is resting in the care of her agency. She knows media play better than anyone, and says that it’s the speculation and the possibility that it could be true, no matter how wild the theory, that ruins reputations and can’t be stopped.

Joon-mo agrees and keeps it to himself that she is resting well because she’s in his house. Everyone else breathes sighs of relief to hear that CEO Byun didn’t bust them for Operation: Free Cindy.

Now that Joon-mo can relax a bit, he notices that Cindy has reorganized his fridge on top of cleaning the bathroom and folding the laundry, mostly because her OCD won’t let her leave things in disarray.

They all sit down for beers together, and Seung-chan and Cindy watch curiously as Joon-mo and Ye-jin carry on their own rapid-fire conversation, each getting the other to admit that they like it that Cindy’s here. Lol, are you playing the Dangyunhaji Game? (It’s an old game from the variety show XMan, where you have to answer every question with “dangyunhaji,” which means, “Of course!”)

When Seung-chan finally stops them to ask what they’re doing, Joon-mo explains that this is what they do when they’re drunk, explaining how Dangyunhaji works. If you can’t answer “of course” to the question, you have to drink. Ye-jin assumes that Cindy’s too young to know it, but Cindy surprises her by playing.

Ye-jin: “You’re here because you have no friends, aren’t you?” Cindy grits her teeth and confirms it, then tosses back (in banmal, because it’s part of the game): “You’re here because you have no money, aren’t you?” Ye-jin gets her to admit that she took off her jacket on Music Bank just to piss her off, and then Cindy asks if she gets dumped by all her boyfriends three months in.

At that, Ye-jin loses her focus and accuses Joon-mo of spilling her secrets, and has to drink. When Seung-chan laughs at her she makes him play too, and he gets all adorably worried about using banmal, then blurts, “Hey you, Ye-jinnie!” Only he follows it up with the weaksauce question: “You know that you’re much prettier than you think you are, right?”

That sours everyone else’s mood but Ye-jin lights up, and tosses back that he’s cuter the more she knows him, and they keep going back and forth like this, complimenting each other and making Cindy and Joon-mo scowl.

Ye-jin asks, “You know this is why I like you, right?” and Seung-chan answers, “Of course… More than Joon-mo sunbae?” Omo. The room goes quiet and Ye-jin hesitates, and Joon-mo looks over at her warily. After a long pause, she chirps, “Of course!” and Joon-mo huffs angrily.

Ye-jin asks on her turn, “You like me too, don’t you?” She doesn’t mean it like that, but that’s clearly how Seung-chan answers, face full of earnest puppy love: “Of course!” At that, Joon-mo and Cindy are the ones to down their drinks.

CEO Byun takes a team over to Cindy’s apartment to tear the place apart looking for clues, and she orders the lawyer to make sure that Cindy pays every penny of her fees for missing her concert. She looks like she’s getting ready to mount a war.

As the night wears on, Cindy gets increasingly drunk and starts to confess that she’s never experienced anything because she debuted at thirteen, from fun outings with friends to the taste of liquor… as she expertly mixes poktanju and downs it in one shot. Heh.

The others feel bad but then quickly realize that she’s repeating her sob story over and over and over, and Ye-jin complains that she hates drunk behavior, just as her aegyo monster comes out. Seung-chan looks over at Joon-mo in wide-eyed terror: “She’s here.” The boys spend the rest of the night with their hands full trying to keep the girls out of trouble.

In the morning, Joon-mo and Ye-jin ask Cindy if she doesn’t think it’s best to go back before CEO Byun starts to retaliate for all of her missed appearances, but she tells them that this is the first birthday where she remembers having a home-cooked meal.

They can’t in good conscience kick her out on her birthday, and Ye-jin offers to throw her a party instead. Joon-mo says he can’t because he has to go scout an amusement park tonight, and Cindy lights up and begs to go with him. He caves and lets her come, and asks Ye-jin to go too.

CEO Byun releases a statement to the press that Cindy is accounted for and recovering from her trauma, caused by a recent accident on a special music show stage rehearsal with PD “T.” Dude, she’s totally throwing Ye-jin under the bus, and by the time that they read about it at KBS, Ye-jin’s writer shows her the poll that Cindy’s fans have going on whether or not she pushed Cindy on purpose.

Ye-jin tries to act like she doesn’t care about fan hate, until she reaches the parking lot and finds her car tagged, “Tak Ye-jin out.” Ye-jin interviews that she takes back her statement about fans not being able to affect her from behind their computer screens. Of course what really sucks is that she’s the one hiding Cindy, but can’t take credit for that good deed.

Ye-jin and Joon-mo go to argue with CP Kim and their director, and Joon-mo is the one raising the biggest fuss, wondering why KBS isn’t issuing a statement to take Ye-jin’s side and defend her. He remembers what CEO Byun said to him the other night about rumors, and says that she’s turning the hate on Ye-jin to avoid becoming the target herself.

Despite the snickering around her, Ye-jin puts on a brave face and goes about her day as normal, insisting that she’s okay. But then her phone blows up with texts from Cindy fans, and they’re scary threats, accusing her of attempted murder and telling her to watch her back at night.

Seung-chan decides that she needs to be more careful, and jumps into action when a motorcyclist zooms by a little too closely. He spins her around into his arms, but once she recovers from the shock, she points out that it’s a deliveryman and tells Seung-chan not to go so overboard.

He still refuses to back off and walks in front of her like he’s secret service or something, and when a large man looms nearby and asks if she doesn’t recognize him, Seung-chan runs up and throws an arm around her, asking in banmal, “Do you know this guy?”

It turns out to be an old acquaintance, who now thinks that Seung-chan is her boyfriend, lol. Ye-jin grabs Seung-chan by the ear and tells him to knock it off, and asks what’s with all the sneak-banmal lately. He stammers, “That was… method acting.” Hahaha.

Cindy goes down to throw the trash out with a mask and a hat on, and Seung-chan’s mother is awed to see that she properly separated every single article of trash and recycling properly, and even bothered to wash out every single can.

Cindy’s neurotic cleanliness speaks to Mom’s obsession with proper trash disposal, and she praises her for being so much better than other young women these days. Mom is left wondering how a girl could be so demure and prim, not knowing that it’s the same girl she called a hussy on TV.

Hong-soon’s trash-talking about Office Nazi comes around to bite him in the ass, because she’s got spies everywhere reporting to her about the stuff he’s saying. She traps him in the elevator and overpowers him with a quick twist of the arm, threatening to do real damage if he doesn’t back off. It’s mostly just satisfying on a meta level to see Kim Jong-gook getting pinned to a wall.

Cindy asks about Ye-jin on the way to the amusement park, and Joon-mo stops Seung-chan from saying anything about the fan attacks, happy to hear that she got some quiet rest away from the media frenzy.

They make her sit in a wheelchair with a hat over her eyes at the park, and Joon-mo calls Ye-jin to make sure that she got her car serviced and is on her way to meet them. Ack, someone is watching her, or at least the camera angle makes it feel like it. Ye-jin remembers Seung-chan’s worries about her safety, and takes off the phone number on her car as he suggested.

Cindy enjoys her stroll around the park with Seung-chan, while Manager Oppa is drinking himself into a stupor and wishing she’d reappear so that he can live. Little Bro Ye-joon comes home to find Joon-mo’s house so spick and span that it leaves him scratching his head, and at KBS, Ye-jin’s bratty writer goes online to vote in the Ye-jin poll, choosing the unpopular vote that she didn’t push Cindy on purpose.

Today’s chapter is: “Understanding Media Play: You can’t hide the truth by majority.” And CEO Byun sits alone in her office, flipping through an old album of Cindy’s photos.

Seung-chan takes Cindy to a lighted tunnel, and she says that she hasn’t been back here in ten years, and sighs that it would’ve been nice if she had never come here that day. A flashback reveals that she came here with her parents when she was thirteen, and this is where she met CEO Byun for the first time and got cast off the street.

Seung-chan asks why, and says that she might be busy and tired, but there must be good things about her life. Cindy asks what’s about it when all she has left is to go downward, when all she’s ever known is the upward climb.

He tells her about his mother’s favorite singer, and how when she hears her favorite songs, they make her happy and feel all the same emotions when she was young and dating and happy. He gets all earnest as he describes his theory that a star is a symbol of a generation, and says that even when Cindy is older and not shining as brightly, people will hear her songs and remember their youth when they shone brightest too. “And I think that means something.”

Cindy says she never thought of it like that, and remembers her mother’s favorite actor, Leslie Cheung. Seung-chan says she must’ve been sad when he died, and Cindy gets quiet. She decides that it still would’ve been best if she had never come here ten years ago, when she had begged her parents to come up from their small town on her birthday.

She met CEO Byun and started living in Seoul as a trainee, and her parents drove up to see her every two weeks, and then in flashback, we see young Cindy mourning her parents when they died in an accident on their way to see her. CEO Byun is by her side and tells her that she’ll be her mother now.

Cindy says in a shaky voice, “If only I hadn’t begged them to come here that day, if only I hadn’t met CEO Byun, if only I didn’t live apart from Mom and Dad, if only they didn’t have that accident… how nice would that be?” She admits through tears that she knows it doesn’t change anything, but she thinks it every night, and every night she can’t sleep.

Seung-chan kneels in front of her and time slows to a crawl as he reaches out to wipe a tear from her face. He says gently, “It’s not your fault.” He adds that her parents wouldn’t want her thinking “what if” every day, and that they’d be proud of how well she’s grown up and worked hard, all on her own.

Cindy thanks him and asks him to hold onto her because she wants to stand. He holds his hand out and helps her up, and Cindy tells him that she never thought she’d come back here, but she’s glad she did today, with him: “From now on, whenever I think of the amusement park, I’ll think of you.”

He nods, not really getting why, and then everything goes quiet as time stands still… and then Cindy gets up on her tiptoes to surprise him with a kiss. It’s just a shy little peck, but Seung-chan’s eyes turn to saucers, and he stands there just blinking back at her.

Cindy: “Now whenever you think of the amusement park, you’ll think of me too.”

 
EPILOGUE

Ye-jin calls Joon-mo to let her know that she just arrived, but as soon as she enters the park, someone calls her to say that she left the lights on in her car. Without thinking, Ye-jin heads back out to the parking lot and calls Joon-mo back to say she’ll be another minute, but then she remembers on the way there that she just removed her number from her windshield after Seung-chan warned her to be careful.

She wonders, “How did they get my number?” Suddenly she senses someone behind her and whirls around, dropping her phone in the process.

 
COMMENTS

What?! You’re going to leave us on an epilogue like that? Yeesh, fans can be scary, though in this drama I’m way more afraid of CEO Byun, who actually uses her powers for evil in the name of protecting Cindy like a mother. It was nice to delve into Cindy’s story today and see her as more down-to-earth, with her own little personality quirks and foibles. She’s seemed so guarded and perfect on the outside that it made it hard to empathize with her at times, beyond feeling really bad that she was always so lonely. But now she feels a little more human, with an uptight obsession over cleanliness, a desire to connect with people, and insecurities like any other girl who sees that her crush likes someone else.

It’s really Seung-chan that brings out the real Cindy, the vulnerable girl who doesn’t hide behind her icy persona and dares to share a part of herself. There’s something inherently swoony about falling for the one person who sees you for who you really are, past all of the rumors, the expectations, and the lies. And of course the fact that it’s unrequited pinches your heart just a little more, the same way that Seung-chan’s feelings for Ye-jin go misinterpreted or willfully ignored, and the same way that Joon-mo steamrolls right over Ye-jin’s attempts to turn their friendship into anything more. And now Cindy’s general attitude makes a lot more sense, when she has a deep-seated reason to hate her all-consuming job while still clinging to it because it’s all she has—she blames taking this path as the thing that caused her parents’ death, and as obvious as it is, she probably really needed someone to tell her the words, “It’s not your fault.”

Of course I can’t not feel something for Seung-chan’s crush on Ye-jin too, though mostly I find it cute and endearing the way that Ye-jin seems to, like he’s an adorable puppy that deserves to be praised (with head pats and chin scritches, in fact). It’s a wonder how anyone wouldn’t fall for a guy who gets all over-protective and tells you that you’re pretty all the time, and it was extra satisfying to have Joon-mo and Cindy witness their adorable rapport and get jealous. Joon-mo had better step it up and soon, because Seung-chan is about to run away with everyone’s hearts. It’s his earnestness that really kills me, because he lacks that self-consciousness about needing to be cool and aloof and above it all.

He missed the apathy memo about his generation, and I love the turnaround that his weakness—not understanding sarcasm—has a huge upside: He gets past other people’s layers of self-consciousness and pride by asking until they answer things the straight way. You can never just say a thing in front of him; he has to know what you really mean. He stays when you tell him to go, he only says truly uplifting things when playing the Dangyunhaji game (this was my favorite thing—who on earth would play the game this way?? I died), and he finds purpose and meaning where others see a bleak future. As much as this story started out as his journey into adulthood and the workforce, it’s now about how his sincerity gets through and influences the people around him. Of course the biggest project awaits: Joon-mo, the most jaded of all, who only knows how to say the opposite of what he means. Maybe they can all move in and make it a team effort. With more Dangyunhaji games, please.

 
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