Descended From the Sun: Episode 15

by LollyPip

There’s no such thing as a normal life when you’re in love with a soldier, and knowing that he could be called away at any moment doesn’t mitigate the pain every time it actually happens. It takes a certain kind of strength to watch the one you love walk away, knowing you may never see them again. But imagining the worst can’t even come close to the reality if it were to ever truly happen.

EPISODE 15 RECAP

Shi-jin waits for Mo-yeon to finish his discharge paperwork, posing prettily for her enjoyment. As she wheels him out to the car, he lets her listen to his headphones — which turns out to be a bootlegged recording of her cliff confession, HAHA.

Mo-yeon is so flustered that she lets go of his wheelchair and sends him careening down a hill, and he goes tumbling head over heels. Horrified, Mo-yeon goes running to see if there’s any damage… to the wheelchair. ~pfft~ Shi-jin notes that she’s still death to anything with wheels, and quips that she should avoid public transportation, for the safety of the citizens.

Dae-young takes Myung-joo out to eat, though he’s stonefaced and just sits staring as she eats voraciously. She finally tells him to say whatever it is he brought her here to say, but he says there’s nothing — he just thought she looked too thin (and in banmal, for the first time ever).

Confused, Myung-joo asks for clarification — did they break up, or just have an argument? Are they in the process of breaking up now? Straightforward as always, Dae-young says, “I’m in the process of going to Yoon Myung-joo.”

She asks if he really intends to just live his life as a simple worker, and Dae-young justifies that it means they’ll be together. Myung-joo doesn’t think he looks very happy about it, and she offers to break ties with her father so that they can be together and Dae-young can stay in the military.

Dae-young doesn’t like this idea, and he can see why her father would oppose him as a son-in-law. Myung-joo has the potential to become even a starred Colonel, and any father would want a man for her who also meets that potential. Myung-joo understands, but says that it makes her hate him.

Having fed her, Dae-young takes his leave. Unimpressed, Myung-joo tells him that next time, she expects an actual answer from him regarding whether or not they’re going to break up.

Meanwhile her father still has Dae-young’s military discharge request on his desk, and he glares at it unhappily.

Shi-jin texts Mo-yeon that night, and video calls her when she says she’s washing up for bed, hoping to get a peek, hee. She calls him a pervert and hangs up on him, only to have him ring her doorbell two seconds later, beer in hand and disappointed that she’s still dressed, heh.

Mo-yeon goes to shower and comes back to a room filled with candles, Shi-jin having remembered that she prefers to be lit by candlelight. Something jogs Mo-yeon’s memory and she asks Shi-jin how he rescued her from Argus that night in an Arab helicopter, but Shi-jin goes all twitchy and starts trying to distract her, whining about his sore arm (and getting the wrong arm, hee).

He fails, as usual, and Mo-yeon promises not to be angry if he tells the truth — so long as the truth isn’t that he used her business card for the favor. His guilty expression answers that, though he argues that he used it to save her life. Ha, did she really think she was going to get an oil field out of it instead??

Private Ki-bum is also back in Korea, and he runs into Team Alpha, who’ve come to cheer him on as he takes his high school equivalent test. Awwww. They even brought him taffy and magic PPL almonds, and Dae-young tells him that when in doubt, pick the third answer. HA. They send him off with a pat on the booty and lots of encouragement.

Suddenly all of their phones ring simultaneously… oh no. They head back to the base to prepare for a new mission, and Shi-jin notices that Dae-young is unusually subdued. Ki-bum comes to fetch him to Lieutenant General Yoon’s office, where he’s told that this will be a three-month-long mission, so he needs to decide now whether he’s going, or wants to be discharged effective immediately.

Dae-young doesn’t hesitate — he wants to go with his team, and Yoon seems relieved at his answer. After he’s home, he’ll process his discharge request. Dae-young knows that this means Yoon is accepting him as a son-in-law, and he promises to return safely. After he leaves the room, Lieutenant Genera Yoon rips up the discharge request — he has no intention of processing it.

Dae-young leaves his dog tags on Myung-joo’s doorknob, his way of letting her know that he’s leaving on a dangerous mission.

Chi-hoon finally figures out that the word his little friend had been saying when he said goodbye, wasn’t his name — he was asking for a goat. The doctors are more amused that Chi-hoon still doesn’t know the kid’s name, heh.

Shi-jin calls Mo-yeon outside to tell her that he’s being sent away on a long mission, looking all sheepish and adorably sorry. She tries not to cry but fails miserably, and Shi-jin gives her a big hug. She tells him not to get hurt and he promises not to die, and to come home to her. That worries me, since he’s never promised not to die before…

He starts to leave but Mo-yeon stops him for another hug, and they say that they’ll miss each other. As he drives away, something makes Mo-yeon recall Argus’s words: “Big Boss… he’s smart, funny, and mysterious, but he has a lot of secrets. He’ll disappear from time to time, be hard to contact. And then one day, he will never come back.”

Mo-yeon is tense and distracted until she hears from Shi-jin that he’s arrived safely. She texts him often after that, telling him about her days and how much she misses him. He can’t respond, but she keeps up a steady stream of communication.

When Shi-jin’s mission is over, there’s not enough room on the helicopter for everyone, so he sends his team back, he and Dae-young planning to catch the next ride. But as they wait, out of nowhere a bullet rips through Shi-jin’s chest and he goes down, and Dae-young struggles to pull him to safety and stop the bleeding.

Oh god, Shi-jin looks like he can’t breathe. His eyes start to go glassy, and he sees his old captain, the one who was taken down by a sniper shot right in Shi-jin’s arms. To his smiling friend, he says, “I will go.” No, don’t go!

Dae-young begs Shi-jin to stay awake, but it’s a losing battle. Dae-young is also shot, and Shi-jin slumps, his eyes closing. From the air Team Alpha scream in horror as they watch the area where Dae-young and Shi-jin took cover disintegrate in a fiery explosion.

Mo-yeon is growing frustrated by Shi-jin’s silence, and she meets with Myung-joo to drink herself silly. Myung-joo thinks she’s being unreasonable — if Shi-jin could contact her, he would. She’s just jealous because she’s spent more time broken up with Dae-young than actually dating him.

She tells Mo-yeon that this most recent fight isn’t just a fight, it’s a war, and one she intends to win. She’s feeling optimistic, since he left her his dog tags, which tells her that she’s got the upper hand. When he gets back, she plans to kidnap him for a vacation and work everything out.

Team Alpha salute Lieutenant General Yoon upon their arrival home, Shi-jin and Dae-young conspicuously missing. Snoopy reports that their mission was a success, though his voice falters as he says that they’ve not found the bodies of their missing comrades. It’s raining, but I have a feeling that everyone on that tarmac is crying.

Shi-jin’s father is summoned to Yoon’s office, where the set of dog tags on Yoon’s desk tell him all he needs to know. He loses the struggle to hold in his grief at the loss of his son, and Yoon salutes him respectfully.

Myung-joo is researching vacation spots when he spy comes to speak with her, and at first she gets excited, thinking that Dae-young is home. But he says in a quavering voice that he has a report, and Myung-joo’s face falls.

Snoopy goes to see Mo-yeon at the hospital, but the poor man can’t even look her in the eye. The scene flips back and forth between Myung-joo and Mo-yeon as they process the news that Shi-jin and Dae-young are dead, Myung-joo demanding he repeat himself, and Mo-yeon just descending into tearful confusion.

Mo-yeon is handed a letter, written by Shi-jin, in which he explains that they always write a will before they go on a dangerous mission. He apologizes for not keeping his promise to come back, to not hurt her, to not die while he’s gone. But he says that he was thankful to have met her, and that he loved her.

Myung-joo staggers to her father’s office, eyes red from unshed tears, and begs him to say it’s not true. He can’t, and he gives her Dae-young’s final letter, which she refuses to accept. If she reads it, then it means he’s really gone.

She turns her grief on her father, blaming him for Dae-young’s death, and for stealing the time they could have had together. Yoon, looking devastated himself, just tells her that these are the final words of a good soldier, and should be treasured. Again Myung-joo rejects them, and rips them angrily out of his hands.

Mo-yeon goes rushing to the military headquarters, but she’s stopped by the sound of Myung-joo’s sobbing. She gets angry at Myung-joo — if she loses her composure, what’s Mo-yeon to do? She demands that Myung-joo tell her this is a mistake, but when she sees a letter identical to the one from Shi-jin in Myung-joo’s hand, the truth finally sinks in. They’re really gone.

She asks Myung-joo if this means that she’s truly never going to see Shi-jin again, and Myung-joo can only nod. Mo-yeon’s legs go out from under her, and she finally cries, both women giving in to their sorrow together.

Lieutenant Park visits Mo-yeon to tell her that there will be an announcement of Shi-jin’s and Dae-young’s deaths. The official story will be that they died in a car accident during training, and he has her sign a confidentiality oath for her protection.

Calm, with only a tear betraying her emotions, Mo-yeon asks if Shi-jin’s death saved a life. Lieutenant says proudly that it did, and that he protected peace and died for his country. Mo-yeon can’t understand, then, why his death has to be kept a secret, and she asks Park why they choose this kind of life.

Life goes on, and Mo-yeon throws herself into her work. It pays off and she’s promoted, which sparks a fit of jealousy from snooty Dr. Kim. She approaches Mo-yeon to convince her to change a patient’s medication to a more expensive one, spitting at her to go volunteer again if she’s not willing to play nice with other doctors. This time Mo-yeon just neatly puts her in her place without losing her own temper.

Ji-soo is worried that Mo-yeon will work herself into the ground, urging her to go home and rest occasionally. But even this little break lets Mo-yeon remember Shi-jin, and she tears up even as she laughs that she’s going crazy.

Myung-joo is preparing to go back to Uruk, which we learn was a request that her father granted. Lieutenant General Yoon admits that he still feels badly about letting Dae-young go on that final mission, and that he worries about her.

Myung-joo meets with Mo-yeon to say goodbye (and aww, they have Dae-young’s and Shi-jin’s stuffed animal friends with them), and Mo-yeon expresses envy that she’s going back. Myung-joo has three days, so she suggests they do Dae-young and Shi-jin’s “three days no nights” drinking binge before she goes.

Mo-yeon agrees, and she asks Myung-joo how Shi-jin and Dae-young became as close as they were. Myung-joo says that they met over a woman, and we see in flashback that Shi-jin had jumped under Dae-young’s umbrella on a rainy day.

Knowing that Shi-jin was here because Myung-joo’s father hoped they would marry, Dae-young had awkwardly blurted out that he and Myung-joo were dating. Shi-jin had interrogated him about their relationship, and Dae-young had been so nervous he’d gotten his made-up facts all mixed-up (such as saying they’d been dating for a year, but only met a month ago, hee). Shi-jin had assured him that they wouldn’t be fighting over Myung-joo, suggesting that instead, they only fight on the same side.

Mo-yeon wanders past the coffee shop where she and Shi-jin once had a conversation about saying “I love you.” He’d noted that they never said it, but she countered that they said it with actions, not words. Shi-jin had told her to say it first since her name comes first alphabetically, but she’d just said that the person who wants to hear it more should go first.

Shi-jin tried “ladies first” on her, then age rank (she’s older), and when Mo-yeon got all riled up, he’d blurted out, “I love you!” Mollified, Mo-yeon had responded that she loved him too. They’re too cute for words.

Mo-yeon takes Shi-jin’s stuffed comrade to her place and lights a candle, and hears Shi-jin’s voice telling her that she’s beautiful. She sees him sitting on her couch and says she missed him, and asks why he didn’t come back. “Because I was working for peace.”

She asks if his promises to her meant nothing, and he says softly that he intended with all his heart to come back to her. Mo-yeon dissolves into tears as she says, “But you didn’t come back. You didn’t come,” and she’s only talking to the stuffed animal.

Myung-joo arrives in Uruk, carrying the letter from Dae-young which she still hasn’t read. She vows never to read it, and tells Dae-young’s spirit to be annoyed about it.

Mo-yeon is at the airport when she gets a call from Daniel, who is literally camping in a hallway because he’s forbidden to enter the country. Heh. She tells him that she’s going to volunteer for the Albanian refugee camp, though she has an ulterior motive. Tomorrow is the anniversary of Shi-jin’s death, and she wants to visit the place where he died.

Mo-yeon is still texting about her daily life to Shi-jin, and she tells him about meeting Daniel at the airport. She’s heard that there’s a desert where she is, and wonders if there’s an oasis. She says that she’s become the kind of doctor who believes that life is more important than profit, and asks if Shi-jin is proud of her.

Ki-bum is also in Uruk again, though he’s no longer a private — now he’s a Sergeant, and the commanding officer. I’m so proud! He makes Myung-joo some ramyun and admits that he did this with Dae-young often, then notices that it’s snowing outside, a rare event in Uruk.

Mo-yeon finds the desert and goes out with flowers, tying back her hair and remembering a time when Shi-jin did it for her. She finds a place that seems filled with memorials, stones piled up in small towers, and places her flowers for Shi-jin on top of one. She recalls Shi-jin’s promises not to get killed and tears up, calling him a liar.

Her walkie-talkie crackles to life with a request to bring back some medicine, and Mo-yeon pulls herself together enough to answer. She tries to put her white stone from the beach in Uruk on the stone tower, but it keeps getting blown off by the wind. Her walkie-talkie fires up again, and she hears the voice of a ghost: “Big Boss transmitting.”

She drops it in shock, wondering if she’s really hearing things now. She checks her phone and sees her text messages suddenly registering as “read” one by one, and again she hears “Big Boss transmitting” from her walkie-talkie. But this time the voice continues, “Beauty. Turn around.”

She does, and for a long moment she sees nothing but sand. And then, over the crest of a dune, comes Shi-jin. Holy crap, he’s alive.

Repeating over and over, “It can’t be. It can’t be,” Mo-yeon tries to run to him. But her knees give way, and she collapses to the sand. Shi-jin runs the rest of the way to help her stand — he’s filthy and scarred, but he’s alive.

Mo-yeon asks in a disbelieving voice if he’s been alive this whole time, and Shi-jin just says that he somehow keeps overcoming these difficulties. He pulls her into a hug, as she repeats, as if to convince herself, “You were alive. You were alive.”

With tears streaming down his face, Shi-jin can only say he’s sorry, over and over.

COMMENTS

A year — a whole year! Where the hell has Shi-jin been?? Why hasn’t he contacted anyone? I’m dying to hear what happened to him, how he survived that gunshot and explosion, and what he’s been doing for an entire year while everyone thought he was dead. I could rant about it, but I’ll wait to hear what he has to say for himself before I blast him. And all I can say is, Dae-young had better also be alive ~shakes fist at Show~

Unfortunately, because the show has a habit of putting our leads in life-threatening situations from which they literally bounce right back up over and over, once again it undermined its own emotional moment when we were supposed to think that Shi-jin (and probably-but-better-not-be Dae-young) died in that explosion. Which is a terrible shame, because imagine the emotional impact that scene could have delivered if we’d been built up for fourteen episodes that Shi-jin could die at any moment, yet he hadn’t ever actually looked death in the face and skipped away easily, much less multiple times. With that tension building throughout the course of the show, that scene could have been a huge emotionally climactic moment for the viewers — but because I’ve seen Shi-jin nearly die and cheat death so many times already, when he went unconscious and the area went up in flames, all I thought was that well, he’ll show up again like he always does. It’s a damn shame, because I did truly want to fear for his life at some point, the show was telling us to fear for his life, but the execution just made his death-defying tricks much too common for me to actually believe he was dead.

That said, it’s a credit to the show that I still felt the pain and loss of those who loved them keenly. Shi-jin’s father didn’t say a single word when he learned that his son died, but he had me sobbing. Myung-joo’s and Mo-yeon’s reactions were gut-wrenching and so true to character, with Myung-joo defaulting to anger while Mo-yeon struggles to deny the truth as long as she could. And I loved that we got to see the grief of Team Alpha as they were burdened with telling Myung-joo and Mo-yeon, because it’s clear that they loved their leaders every bit as much as the women did.

And that’s really what saves the show, I think, from itself — though it’s flawed in a lot of ways, and outright unbelievable in others, when it comes down to it the characters and their emotioanl journey are why we’ve all stuck with it through to the end. If the characters weren’t so well-written and perfectly cast, I don’t think Descended would be nearly as successful as it’s been. Jin Gu and Kim Ji-won have long been actors that I’ve liked, but never particularly taken notice of, but this drama has catapulted both of them to a level well above anything I’ve seen them reach before. Song Hye-gyo has given us a character that’s spunky and flawed in all the best ways, making us want to see her grow and change, yet stay true to herself. And let’s not forget the incredible magnetic powerhouse of Song Joong-ki — the man has proven that he’s not lost one bit of talent while doing his military stint, and in fact seems to have gained a gravitas that grounds his boyish good looks and gives his (always great) acting a maturity it didn’t have before. I’ve been a fan of his for years, but he’s truly proving that he’s a force to be reckoned with when it comes to creating unique, charismatic characters. I can’t wait to see what he does next.

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