Oh My Venus: Episode 6

by LollyPip

Joo-eun’s hard work starts to yield results… some expected, and some very much unexpected. Her evident physical changes begin to enact emotional changes in the people around her, affecting how they relate to her and each other. And as the past slowly starts to become clearer, present actions begin to make more sense – let’s hope they lead to honesty and healing.

EPISODE 6 RECAP

Joo-eun gets all worked up over Anna Sue and Young-ho’s scandal (since he’s let her think he’s gone to the US to see her), but starts her workout faithfully. He arrives home in the middle of a balancing exercise, making her tip over and knock both of them to the floor. Young-ho sees Joo-eun’s noticeably thinner face, and her dimple winks at him, mesmerizing him instantly.

He ignores her complaints and smiles in wonderment, poking a finger into her dimple. He’s so utterly charmed that her grumpiness flies right over his head. Flustered, Joo-eun puts her glasses back on, and Young-ho ruins the mood by pointing out that people lose weight from the top down, and her tummy hasn’t changed. Ugh, stop while you’re ahead.

But Young-ho is in a great mood, and admits that it’s nice to hear her voice in person again. Joo-eun asks about his trip “to the States,” and Young-ho vaguely says that he experienced a moment he’s been waiting for for a long time. At that, Joo-eun screams in his face, “You bastard, get over here!” HA, she means her stuffed sloth, who she’s named You Bastard.

After beating the crud out of You Bastard, Joo-eun is still angry over Young-ho’s comment that he had a moment he’s been waiting for while he was gone. Thinking he was with Anna Sue, she assumes they had a sexy night together, and laughs wryly to herself. She finds Young-ho glaring suspiciously at a snack she left out for him, muttering that she regrets making it, when he says he doesn’t eat carbs or sodium.

Joo-eun argues that home-cooked meals are warm and comforting, with lots of flavor, grumbling that it’s no good to be so sexy when he lives a bland life. He ignores her, more curious about the meal cover she used to keep the food fresh, and she asks if his mother never used such a thing. Sadly, he says he’s never seen one before.

Joo-eun wanders off saying she’s going to get a massage, and Young-ho says massages are best from a man. But then he imagines Joo-eun, moaning ecstatically while getting a sexy massage from a muscle-bound masseur (holy crap that guy is huge), and panics a little. He hollers at her not to get a massage, offering to do it himself.

HAHA, and then he just lets her use his massage chair. That’s cheating! But he covers her torso with a pillow, saying that the bouncing of her body looks suggestive, and he doesn’t want her getting too turned on. Right, I’m sure it’s her comfort you’re thinking about.

Now Joo-eun is embarrassed, and Young-ho seems to be enjoying her discomfort. She asks him to stop the chair, dropping to banmal, and he pretends offense and leans way over her to chastise her for speaking to her coach that way. He’s right on top of her while she bounces underneath him — this is awesome.

In spite of their suggestive position, Joo-eun proposes that they act more like friends from now on. Young-ho asks if she means the kind of friends who kiss, and adjusts the chair vertically, bringing her even closer to himself. Joo-eun’s heart starts to pound as she remembers their accidental “kiss” during jiu jitsu practice.

Stepmom brings Grandma tea and offers her a massage, but it’s obvious that Grandma prefers to keep her at arm’s length. She says that people talk about her as if she cares more about the company than her dead daughter, and that she somehow used her son-in-law by having him marry Stepmom, and she says that it hurts her to know that people think that way. She compliments Stepmom on the way she’s raised Young-joon, but warns her not to give him any ideas about inheriting the company.

Ji-woong bounces into bed with Young-ho to welcome him home with an attack-hug, excited to hear that he’s gotten a clean bill of health. He chatters about Ma’am and how she wasn’t kidding about being Daegu’s Venus, and Young-ho admits that her long-unseen dimples are pretty cute.

Joon-sung spends the evening in his car, perking up when he sees an older woman walking past. He recalls someone telling him that “they” refused to met him — is this his birth mother? He sighs and heads home, just missing the woman arriving at her door to find herself confronted with a drunk, abusive husband.

Young-ho is woken the next morning by all three of his house guests grinning at him, excited for Joo-eun’s weigh-in. They hold their breath as she steps on the scale… then celebrate. Joo-eun and the boys bounce in circles, but Young-ho is curiously unmoved. He asks why they’re doing this, and Joo-eun and Joon-sung both turn to Ji-woong to shoot him dirty looks.

Apparently, they promised to grant Joo-eun a wish if she lost fifteen kilos (about thirty-three pounds), and Young-ho waves at them to go grant her wish and let him sleep. But the boys insist that all three of them have to do it, so Young-ho reluctantly asks what the wish is. When Joo-eun says it’s to live as Kang Joo-eun for a day, both boys slink away like they’re expecting to get swatted, hee.

All she wants is for the guys to experience some freedom in their lives, but Young-ho doesn’t like the idea — that’s how she became unhealthy in the first place. Joo-eun comes prepared for his objections, showing him her improved blood results, and says there’s room for compromise. Being unhealthy for one day won’t hurt them.

First stop — the coffee shop, where Joo-eun orders everyone fancy drinks with extra whipped cream. Young-ho orders a plain Americano, and Joo-eun has to re-enforce that today is her day to make the decisions.

Hyun-woo’s ex comes back from the States without having found John Kim (mostly because he wasn’t there) but with some interesting footage of Anna Sue. He’s certain the man she’s with in the film is John Kim, but he’s less concerned with fact than he is with getting a good story. If he’s wrong, let John Kim sue him — at least he’ll get to see his face that way.

Joo-eun arrives at work in a great mood, at least until she runs into Soo-jin and her supervisor. He chastises Joo-eun for focusing more on her diet than her job, ordering her to take the harassment case Soo-jin assigned her to (that Soo-jin also happens to be working on). In her office, Soo-jin notices Joo-eun’s smaller face, and gives Joo-eun a new case. It’s a copyright infringement case, guaranteed to be difficult and boring, that she admits she’s too busy to handle.

Ji-woong gets a text from Joo-eun, thanking him for not complaining about his day living as Kang Joo-eun, and gives the guys their next mission. They must get comfortable, and do nothing. Ha, sounds easy, but it’s going to be torture for Young-ho!

Joon-sung shows up in time to participate (with a new, sexy haircut), and the guys take pictures of themselves lying around like slugs. Even Young-ho looks like he’s having fun with it. Later they’re told to watch a romantic movie and get emotional, and awww, Joon-sung even cries a little. He’s definitely the marshmallow of the trio.

Joo-eun forbids Young-ho to exercise, which seems to break his brain a little, hee. Then it’s naptime, which is definitely not a problem for Young-ho. He’s so squishy when he’s sleeping.

Woo-shik delivers information on Young-ho to Uncle, including a photo so that now he knows what his nemesis looks like. They discuss getting the CEO on their side, and how he’ll probably want stocks as incentive. They agree that it’s worth it to give up something in order to gain more.

Soo-jin visits the chaebol daughter who’s being accused of sexual harassment, and she seems like a real nasty piece of work (she’s naked in the bathtub getting a massage while talking to her lawyer — need I say more?). The woman is insulted that she got the firm’s deputy president instead of the president to handle her case, but Soo-jin informs her that no matter how much money she throws at lawyers, the press is going to eat her alive.

She advises the spoiled princess that, since her assault on her employees is public knowledge, she needs to lay low while she’s supposed to be under house arrest — no more plastic surgeons and massage parlors for a while. Princess spits that Soo-jin thinks she’s all that because she’s a little bit pretty, but as a lawyer, she needs her money to live. Soo-jin valiantly holds her tongue, unimpressed.

Joo-eun gets the hilarious pictures of her boys following orders to be lazy and unproductive, squealing at how cute they are. Her secretary, Hyun-jung, expresses worry over her weight loss and justifies that her own weight is mostly muscle, though Joo-eun just sighs that she has to get healthy for her thyroid.

She goes to Hyun-woo’s for a good solid meal on her day of freedom, but the restaurant is under construction and she’s left hungry. Hyun-woo does notice that Joo-eun’s face looks thinner, but shakes her head at the rest of her (oh come on, she didn’t lose thirty pounds in her face, people!).

Joo-eun tells Hyun-woo that she’s staying with a friend, which triggers the memory of Young-ho getting all close and asking if they’re the kind of friends who kiss. Hyun-woo mentions that her ex says he found out where John Kim lives, which makes Joo-eun sit up in alarm.

She calls Ji-woong and has him put her on speaker phone, ordering the guys to put down the bland food. Their day of living as Kang Joo-eun isn’t over, and they’re going out to eat. Expecting a fancy meal, they get dressed up in slick suits which is totally adorable, only to find themselves at a fast-food place, ha. Young-ho tries to bail (“I don’t eat carbs!”) but Ji-woong and Joon-sung force him to go inside.

Joo-eun in ecstatic over the food, while the boys eye it suspiciously. Finally Ji-woong digs in, and even Joon-sung picks at it, though Joo-eun tells him to just fight in a higher weight division. She tries to feed the stonefaced Young-ho something yummy, and he’s no match for the combined power of her cuteness and the boys’ muscle, though he threatens to make them pay for this tomorrow. But he does smile when Joo-eun wants to take a group selca.

Woo-shik gets a call from the police station, but on his way out, Soo-jin calls him to ask where he is. He says he’s at work, unaware that she’s watching him from her car and can see that he’s lying. He heads to the police station, where he finds out that Stalker is suing him for assault. Apparently Stalker spent three weeks in the hospital after Woo-shik punched him (as if) and even recorded Woo-shik’s threat to kill him if he goes near Joo-eun again.

When he’s asked if he has a lawyer, Soo-jin pipes up that she’s his attorney — she followed him to the station. She shoots Woo-shik a Look, and he knows he’s busted.

Soo-jin calls Joo-eun to the police station as well, to serve as witness. It’s not a funny scene, but I can’t help but laugh when Woo-shik and Joo-eun send Soo-jin identical glares when she tells the cops that they were each other’s first love. But she keeps it professional, explaining that after fifteen years, of course Woo-shik would be worried when someone is stalking Joo-eun. Young-ho shows up as well, since he was the witness for the first confrontation with Stalker.

After coming to a settlement, Woo-shik wants to talk to Soo-jin, but she says that he and Joo-eun should probably talk first. He shyly notes that Joo-eun looks good, and admits that he probably overreacted when he confronted Stalker — he didn’t know she had someone looking after her.

Joo-eun is angry that he pities her, but Woo-shik says that he didn’t totally stop caring just because they broke up. He wonders if she really knows who Young-ho is… maybe there’s more to him than she knows, and he might be playing with her. He says he’s worried that she may be falling for Young-ho, but Joo-eun counters that he’s being too nosy.

She turns serious and says that they aren’t kids anymore, but that she’s the same Kang Joo-eun she’s always been, and that gaining weight didn’t mean she destroyed herself. She tells him to think again about what she’s changed in the last fifteen years.

Declaring Soo-jin the better lawyer and Woo-shik in good hands, Joo-eun leaves. Young-ho gives his statement, and we see that he overheard Soo-jin’s explanation of Woo-shik and Joo-eun’s longterm relationship. He calls Manager Min to ask him a personal favor.

Woo-shik waits to speak to Young-ho, and officially introduces himself as an employee at Gahong, Young-ho’s family’s company. Young-ho says he hasn’t decided if he’ll be the new director yet, asking if Woo-shik is doing this because of Joo-eun. Woo-shik concedes that he has no right to worry about her, and thanks Young-ho for coming to help.

Young-ho says that he’d better go because Joo-eun doesn’t like being cold, which bothers Woo-shik. On the other hand, Young-ho looks pretty tickled that Joo-eun waited for him to drive her home rather than take a cab. So cute.

Soo-jin slumps once she gets home, remembering that same lunch where Joo-eun set her up with the engineering jerk, and how Woo-shik had brought her chocolates. After the jerk had told her that “people like her” should stay at home, Woo-shik had come back to punch the guy out for speaking to her that way. He’d dared the guy to sue him, saying that his friend Soo-jin here just passed the bar exam and could defend him. Aww, he really is a good person.

But in the present, Soo-jin had overheard Woo-shik’s recorded threat to Stalker, and how he’d warned him to stay away from Joo-eun. She spots her reflection in the window, seeing her old, overweight self huddled there.

Joo-eun makes Young-ho stop at a coffee shop, happily chirping that she still has thirty minutes before her day of freedom is over. Young-ho objects to caffeine so close to bedtime, but his face goes all soft to see how excited she is for a simple cup of coffee.

Manager Min agrees to Young-ho’s request, which involves himself and all the minions showing up at the police station in a show of force. Min talks to the cop handling Woo-shik’s charges, and makes sure that the word won’t get out that Young-ho was involved. He calls Young-ho to warn him to be more careful, and Young-ho retorts that Min should be more careful not to nag. I freaking love these two.

Whoops, Young-ho is illegally parked, and he narrowly escapes getting towed. It’s raining when Joo-eun comes running back to the car, and the sight of her pretty face in the soft rain makes Young-ho go all wibbly. He’s so flustered, he doesn’t even object when she hands him a fancy coffee for himself, but he recovers enough to ask if she had fun today doing everything he told her not to do.

She softly says that the coffee was just a gift, that she wanted him to experience a sweet part of life. She continues that humans have the right to pursue happiness, and Young-ho looks as though this is resonating with him. He asks if her gift symbolizes their right to be happy, and she says yes, just for this one day.

She suddenly seems to realize the atmosphere in the car has changed, and gets out for some fresh air. But the coffee shop has now closed, and she’s stuck in the rain, which makes Young-ho go all mushy again. Her wish for him to experience the good things in life echoes in his head as he watches her, and he gets out to say that this is too sweet.

He joins Joo-eun under her patio umbrella and casually drinks her coffee, but cringes that it’s too sweet. She catches him staring at her dimple and gets shy, but he doesn’t back down. She wonders when the car will be fixed, thinking that’s why the tow truck came, but Young-ho says the car is fine. He’s just hanging out here because he’s enjoying the sweet things in life. Okay, ~swoon~.

He can’t seem to get over Joo-eun’s dimple and reaches out to touch it, and she tells him to stop messing with her, remembering Woo-shik’s warning. Young-ho says thoughtfully that she really has no idea, that men do other things when they’re only messing with a woman.

Opening his umbrella to shield them from onlookers, Young-ho reminds Joo-eun that her body belongs to him, takes off her glasses, and gently kisses her.

COMMENTS

Well sir, when you finally figure out your feelings, you don’t waste any time, do you? Young-ho is just the best thing ever, with his fascinating mixture of insecurity and confidence, pairing confusion over his feelings with a willingness to get closer to Joo-eun to see what will happen. He seems so hard to read, and yet every thought is right there on his face once you know how to look. He obviously finds Joo-eun interesting as a person, and has for quite a while, but I love that it’s that adorable dimple that mesmerizes him to the point that he can’t keep his hands off her anymore. It’s a great way to take the focus off of Joo-eun’s physical body, yet still make his attraction to her very physical.

I just love Joo-eun and her boys. It’s so cute how she’s really becoming one of them, so much so that Joon-sung and Ji-woong are even willing to make deals with her even when they know it will annoy Young-ho. Their eagerness to participate in the “day of Kang Joo-eun” was the cutest thing ever, and I love how they all really got into it, even grumpypants Young-ho. It really shows that they like and respect Joo-eun, and that they’re up for her shenanigans (though honestly, if she really lost that much weight, she’d probably be thin as a rail already — she wasn’t THAT heavy to start with!).

I wish we could get a little clarification on what Woo-shik’s deal is, why he’s following Joo-eun and getting involved in her business. I think he’s given some clues, such as when he told Soo-jin that he could never get remarried if he ever got divorced, because he would feel too guilty. But I can’t tell if he still cares for Joo-eun or if he’s just feeling guilty for “abandoning” her after dating for so long, and I wish we were shown a bit more of how he feels. In any case, it’s strange how he keeps watching and following Joo-eun from behind the scenes, since she seems to be doing quite well all on her own. She doesn’t need his help, and has truly moved on, and he definitely knows it, even conceding to Young-ho on several different occasions. It’s like he knows she doesn’t need him anymore, but he’s still stuck in being the knight in shining armor and can’t seem to let go of fulfilling that role for her. Huh, maybe that’s why he’s having trouble letting go — because she was able to let go so easily.

But I was cheering for Joo-eun when she pointed out that they’re not the same people as when they first met, and that her gaining weight wasn’t, as he put it, “destroying herself.” Because she’s right — people grow and change, but they stay fundamentally the same on the inside no matter how they change on the outside. Someone can gain or lose weight, or decide to change their style or their career, gain scars or even choose to alter their bodies purposely through tattoos or surgery, but it doesn’t make them somehow less. Joo-eun’s weight gain never affected her negatively other than a small loss of confidence in some situations. She never lost her sense of self, her pride in her accomplishments, or her determination to be successful. If Woo-shik saw her body changes as a loss, then that’s all on him, and says a lot more about him as a person than about Joo-eun. Good for her for knowing that, and for having the courage to say so out loud.

RELATED POSTS

• Oh My Venus: Episode 5
• Oh My Venus: Episode 4
• Oh My Venus: Episode 3
• Oh My Venus: Episode 2
• Oh My Venus: Episode 1
• Thing vs. Thing: Image ruinations
• Oh My Venus teases secret heirs and diets
• Oh My Venus’s rain-soaked trainer, ex-boyfriend, and rival
• Shin Mina, So Ji-sub weigh in on Oh My Venus