Oh My Ghostess: Episode 14

by girlfriday

It’s a rough day to be Sun-woo, because there’s hardly a moment for him to process his complicated feelings before a new bomb gets dropped in his lap, which could very well implode his whole family. It only took fourteen episodes, but we finally have our three leads sleuthing their way towards the truth together, and whaddyua know—they make actual progress in the mystery.

 
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The Film – “넌 괜찮니” (Are You Okay) [ Download ]

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EPISODE 14 RECAP

After reuniting outside ajusshi’s restaurant, Sun-woo and Bong-sun sit on the swings at the park, and he asks why she named her blog You Are My Sunshine. She’s surprised that he even knows about it at all, and instead of admitting that he’s a fan, he just acts like it’s obvious that he knows everything about her.

He wants to know who Kyung-mo is and why he took a hit from the guy, though he says he doesn’t mind so much since it was a weak hit and he found out where she was staying. Bong-sun explains that Kyung-mo is Soon-ae’s kid brother, and that he must’ve been drawn to her when she was possessed.

Sun-woo scoffs that she’s made fools of a lot of guys, and wonders aloud which one he himself was drawn to—Bong-sun or the ghost? Well, that’s the question, isn’t it? He asks about some of the moments they’ve shared, and she admits forlornly that they were all with the ghost, except for the bike-thief-catching.

She confirms that the sex-crazed version of her was the ghost too, and he sighs that he feels like he did something wrong without knowing it, like he somehow cheated on her with a ghost. He admits that her sudden change in personality did draw him in, and that he was always so harsh on her in the past because he identified with her passive nature so much.

He acknowledges that he fell for the ghost and her epic aegyo, and Bong-sun says quietly that the ghost unni genuinely liked him too. She’s startled when a different ghost passes by in front of them, and when she tells Sun-woo what she saw, he crouches near her, complaining that she felt the need to share.

He’s so scared that he jumps when she puts a hand on his shoulder, but he quickly grabs onto it and declares, “I’m never letting go of this hand from now on! And I’m not saying that because I’m scared.” Hee.

Soon-ae collects her thoughts and heads to Dad’s place to talk to Bong-sun, and hides when she sees her arriving hand-in-hand with Sun-woo, looking like a happy couple. Bong-sun doesn’t want to go back to Sun, so he agrees to look into somewhere else for her to go, and reluctantly sends her in.

Soon-ae is waiting inside and chides Bong-sun for going outside when she warned her to be careful. She shares her recent discovery that Officer Sung-jae is somehow involved in Eun-hee’s hit-and-run case, and that she’s possessing a police officer to get more info. Soon-ae: “But you’re still my favorite body, so don’t be jealous!” Ha.

They agree not to tell Sun-woo until they know for sure if it’s true, both worried about how it’ll affect Sun-woo and his sister. Bong-sun asks if she’s okay, and Soon-ae waves off her concern, insisting that she has more important things to worry about, like her death, to be mooning over Chef.

Sung-jae mulls over what he knows so far about Soon-ae and Bong-sun, and wonders where Soon-ae has hidden herself now. He glances over at his locked drawer, and gack—he notices that the lock has been fiddled with. He opens it up and finds the diary still inside.

Sun-woo comes home and looks up the Sunshine blog again, wondering if maybe it’s named Sunshine because of him. He calls Bong-sun acting like he’s just checking to make sure she turned her phone on like he ordered, but ends up lingering on the line long after she’s fallen asleep.

The assistant chefs want to hire a new maknae to handle the workload, and Sun-woo agrees to let them interview and hire someone new. Joon is the only one to speak up against the idea in case Bong-sun comes back, but the others say that they could just have two assistants then.

Soon-ae returns to the police station but finds Sung-jae’s drawer unlocked and the diary gone. His partner Officer Han is especially on edge as he awaits the lab results from the evidence he found, and practically jumps out of his skin when Sung-jae approaches. I really wish you’d be less obvious, because Sung-jae looks like he’s onto you.

The assistant chefs hold job interviews for a new maknae, and ugghhhhh, it’s such a rampantly sexist set of interviews, I can’t even. Suffice to say, they hire a hot girl purely for her looks, much to Joon’s dismay (thank goodness one of you isn’t a Neanderthal), and then of course it goes fantastically awry once they put her to work.

She can’t touch snails because they’re gross, she actually thinks it’s okay to call Sun-woo oppa, and talks on the phone during her shift. Sun-woo explodes and tells her to get the hell out of his kitchen before he starts swearing at her, and tells Min-soo he’ll no longer be interviewing anyone. Really, it’s your fault for thinking that guy could be trusted to pick an employee for their skills.

Sun-woo immediately calls Bong-sun and begs her to reconsider taking her job back. He takes a second call from Sung-jae’s partner Officer Han, who asks him to meet over an urgent matter concerning his sister’s accident. He asks Sun-woo not to say anything to Sung-jae about this, which alarms him.

They agree to meet, and Officer Han heads over straight from the crime lab, where he’s just been given proof that Sung-jae was the one who attacked him in the parking lot. He sniffles back tears as he drives, and Sung-jae radios him to ask where he’s gone. Uh-oh.

When he’s stopped at a light, suddenly his passenger door opens and Sung-jae hops in, dressed in his all-black killing uniform. He picks up the envelope in the seat and gives the creeeepiest smile ever, and the next thing we know, the police car is tumbling down the side of a cliff as Sung-jae watches from above.

Officer Han’s phone rings as Sun-woo waits and waits, and Sung-jae lights the evidence on fire.

After getting word of what happened, Sun-woo runs to Officer Han’s funeral in shock and disbelief. Sung-jae is there, of course, taking care of his partner’s loved ones.

Sun-woo is about to tell him that they were going to meet today, but remembers at the last second that Officer Han warned him not to say anything to Sung-jae. He keeps his mouth shut, thank goodness, and seems to become wary of Sung-jae.

Medium Unni is worried as well when she learns of Officer Han’s death from Mom, and realizes that all of these events are connected to Eun-hee’s accident. Sun-woo heads to the restroom but hangs back for a second when he sees Sung-jae at the sink, and it sends a chill down his spine when Sung-jae whistles happily and flashes a smile in the mirror.

Bong-sun and Soon-ae are convinced that Sung-jae killed his partner, and decide that it’s time to tell Sun-woo what they know.

Eun-hee is emotional over Officer Han’s death and worried that something bad will happen to Sung-jae too, and Sun-woo tries to reassure her.

Bong-sun calls to say that they need to talk, and when she arrives at the restaurant, she tells him that the ghost is here with her. Sun-woo backs away and looks around fearfully, but invites Soon-ae to sit down at the table, cautiously offering her a chair.

Bong-sun tells him that they think Sung-jae is responsible for his partner’s death, and that all of this is due to his involvement in Eun-hee’s hit-and-run. Soon-ae believes that he’s tied to her death as well, and asks Sun-woo to recover her diary because there must be evidence inside.

Sun-woo is floored, but he admits that it isn’t unbelievable. He tells Bong-sun about Officer Han wanting to meet with him just before dying, and he heads out for a drink on his own to clear his head.

He still can’t reconcile the Sung-jae he’s known for three years with the person who’d commit those crimes, and he thinks back to the moment when Sung-jae saved his sister from killing herself, and how happy she was when they announced their engagement. Sung-jae was always the picture-perfect loving husband from the start.

After some soju, Sun-woo can’t help himself and returns to the funeral home to see Sung-jae. Sun-jae walks him out and says he’ll probably be here all night, and Sun-woo stops to say that he and Eun-hee depend on him a lot. It’s abrupt enough that it raises Sung-jae’s suspicions, though he responds in kind, and that they’re the only family he has.

Sun-woo comes home to find Bong-sun waiting for him on the stairs because she was worried about him. He asks what she’d do if he were drunk—piggyback him? She says she would, and he laughs that getting a ride from Stalker (the dog, heh) would be better.

Bong-sun worries that he’s going through such a difficult time, and he sighs that the bombs have been dropping nonstop lately between her and Sung-jae. She coaches him on finding some inner peace, a life lesson she learned from Kung Fu Panda.

He laughs at first, but when she says earnestly that she’s been through a lot of rough things in her life and that finding inner peace has helped her cope, he listens intently. She tells him that all things—happy or sad—will pass, and he says that it’s a relief that she’s by his side.

She stretches out her arms and offers him a hug, and he jokes that her personality has changed—is she possessed? She assures him that she’s Bong-sun, arms open wide, and he melts into her hug with a sigh. She pats him on the back and tells him that everything’s going to be okay.

Sun-woo goes to Mom’s house early the next morning and makes sure that Sung-jae won’t be coming home before he asks Eun-hee and Mom to make him breakfast. He hurries into the study to look for the diary, and finally finds it in the secret suitcase.

But ack, Sung-jae has decided to come home to change clothes before work. Thankfully Eun-hee requests his help opening a jar in the kitchen, and it’s just long enough for Sun-woo to put the room back as it was and rush off. Mom is confused since Sun-woo’s the one who asked for breakfast, and Sung-jae watches curiously.

Bong-sun takes Dad up on the offer to stay a little longer, which makes him happy since it’s like having a daughter around again. Bong-sun says that her parents died when she was young so she has no memory of her father, but would’ve loved to have a dad like him. Aw.

She asks cautiously why Soon-ae might’ve killed herself, when she looks like such a happy person in all her photos. Dad sighs that he doesn’t understand it either. His biggest regret in life is not answering the phone that night—he missed a call from Soon-ae the night she died because his battery was dead.

She left him a voicemail with no words, just some indecipherable sounds, and to this day he can’t bring himself to delete it. He steps outside when a visitor comes by, and Bong-sun looks down at his phone. Listen to the message! Do eeeet!

Sun-woo and Bong-sun go to Medium Unni’s house to meet with Soon-ae, who asks to see her diary. Bong-sun takes out Dad’s phone too, which she poached for the message that Soon-ae left, in the hopes that it’ll be another piece of evidence.

Sun-woo asks Bong-sun to include him in the conversation and tell him what the ghost is saying. Medium Unni thinks that’s too bothersome to do and tells Soon-ae to possess her instead. Yes, please.

The instant she’s in Unni’s body, she looks over at Sun-woo with adoring eyes and calls him Chef, and he tries not to be totally weirded out by all this. They flip through the diary and Soon-ae stops them at the number 2368 that’s scribbled on the last page, and all she knows is that it’s unfamiliar to her.

Bong-sun plays the voicemail that Soon-ae sent to Dad the night she died, and it’s a series of beeps. Sun-woo figures out that the sounds are from a phone keypad, and replays it until he gets all the numbers: 535-2368. They assume it’s a phone number, but the number doesn’t exist when they try calling.

Soon-ae berates herself for not being able to remember her own messages, and Sun-woo tells her not to strain herself to remember, belatedly tacking on a polite ending because he doesn’t really know how to address her anymore.

Bong-sun contemplates the number and asks if one of the fives could be the letters for oh [five] instead, which could make it a license plate number. Sun-woo high-fives her and Soon-ae feels a little left out when they leave her hanging, but she says she’ll possess the police officer to look up the license plate.

Sun-woo walks Bong-sun home and wonders what happens if that license plate ends up being Sung-jae’s, and hopes that they’re wrong. He’s nervous about leaving Bong-sun here and asks if she won’t come back to stay with him at Sun, but Bong-sun doesn’t want to leave ajusshi so abruptly.

So-hyung is at the restaurant when Sun-woo returns, and he tells her that he has to quit the cooking show for personal reasons. She half-jokes that she’ll just have to lose her job then, and he’s too distracted with worry over Eun-hee that he just thanks her for getting him out of it.

Soon-ae heads to the police station, but finds Officer Kang wailing on Sung-jae’s shoulder over his partner’s death. Soon-ae waits impatiently for her to separate herself from Sung-jae, and possesses her when she comes outside to dry her tears.

She heads inside and goes straight to the computer to look up the license plate, though she has to try a number of passwords to even get past the login screen. Eep, she’s acting so suspicious around Sung-jae, it’s making me nervous.

She finally gets logged in and hurriedly types in the license plate number… and Sung-jae’s car registration pops up. She closes all the screens and rushes outside to call Bong-sun, and tells her that she must’ve tried to leave Sung-jae’s license plate as a message before she died.

She asks Bong-sun to tell Chef and agrees to meet later, but as soon as she hangs up, Sung-jae approaches from behind and muses that he didn’t know Officer Kang had taken such an interest in him.

He heard everything and asks why she’s so curious about his car, and when she tries to walk past him, he grabs her by the throat and leans in menacingly: “Who are you?” She struggles to breathe, and then suddenly Sung-jae’s phone rings, and the melody brings Soon-ae’s memories flooding back.

She flashes back to the night of her death, when she witnessed Eun-hee lying in the middle of the street after Sung-jae hit her with his car (twice? I think he rolls over her a second time, which… shudder). And then later when she’s lying on his bathroom floor, his ringtone is the last thing she hears before dying.

Officer Kang passes out, and that forces Soon-ae out of her body. Sung-jae shoves Officer Kang aside and smiles as he looks past her: “You’ve appeared at last, Shin Soon-ae.” Aaaaaaaah ruuuuuuun!

 
COMMENTS

This episode can’t really compare to the emotional payoffs of the recent episodes before it, but it was necessary to move our plot forward, and frankly I’ve been waiting and waiting for the show to focus on Soon-ae’s death. The mystery has taken such a backseat to the romance that it almost felt like an hour spent catching everyone up on what we’ve already suspected for quite some time. And it’s another instance where I would’ve preferred to let Sun-woo be conflicted for a little longer—his disbelief-to-acceptance turnover rate has been on hyper-speed since Episode 13, which does make the last quarter of the show feel somewhat rushed. Ultimately it’s fine because we’ve known for weeks that Sung-jae is evil and that he’s running around killing people, and I can’t argue that our good guys haven’t wasted a lot of precious time focused on hormones instead of crime-solving.

Now that we’ve confirmed the likely scenario—that Soon-ae witnessed Eun-hee’s hit-and-run and Sung-jae killed her before she could say anything to cover up the first crime—I’m more curious about what possessed him to save Eun-hee from killing herself and then of all things, to marry her. Is there some kind of sick satisfaction in having her believe that he’s her savior, when in fact he’s responsible for her greatest tragedy? Or worse, does he actually love her, and did he orchestrate all of it in order to make her feel indebted to him? I can’t tell with him because his violence seems random unless he’s killing specifically to cover up his past crimes. It’s horrible to think that Soon-ae might suffer twice at his hands, but this time I trust Sun-woo and Bong-sun to come to her rescue.

It was great to finally get Soon-ae, Bong-sun, and Sun-woo in a room together, partly because we can actually move forward in solving the mystery when they put their heads together, but mostly because of all the awkward lingering feelings that are still unresolved between them. I really appreciated Sun-woo’s honesty today, because the whole picture really is more complicated than him falling for just one or the other—he’s cared about Bong-sun and worried about her from the start, but admits that it was her sudden change in personality that made him look at her differently, and he fell for Soon-ae. The fact that he doesn’t know how to separate the two, or that he worries that he cheated on her inadvertently, is enough to ease my concerns with the problematic love triangle.

Sometimes all it takes is having the characters voice my concerns out loud to each other—they don’t have to come up with a pat answer, but I do need to know that these things bother them, that it’s unclear where his feelings begin and end for Soon-ae, and that both Sun-woo and Bong-sun are worried about the kind of relationship they can build on their rocky foundation. But they’ve already demonstrated how supportive and loving they can be, and how much Sun-woo can’t stand to be apart from Bong-sun, and how much that affection builds up her confidence in turn. She’s become so bright and full of life, and now she’s the first to reach out to him and offer comfort and warmth, whether he’s afraid of ghosts or scared for his family, and he’s the one begging her to take her job back because no one else is as good. You’ve come a long way, Na Bong-sun.

 
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