Bring It On, Ghost: Episode 2

by LollyPip

This episode is a bit lighter on the spooky ghost-fighting and a bit heavier on the background of our characters, and knowing more about them only makes me like them that much more. That’s not to say that the ghostly stuff isn’t as intensely creepy as in the first episode, and this time the ghost has a legitimate axe to grind. The school pervert was just a warm-up — Bong-pal and company have their actual lives at stake this time around.

 
EPISODE 2 RECAP

On his way home, Bong-pal stops to watch some mothers putting their children on a school bus, and it triggers a memory — he’s a child, and he sees his mother waving to him from across the street. But a cloud of black mist appears behind her and shoves her into the path of a moving car, killing her.

At his mother’s funeral, little Bong-pal sees his mother’s ghost, only now she seems malevolent and menacing. His new ability to see ghosts makes young Bong-pal an outcast, as he can’t help but react to their presence and it makes the other children wary of him.

Back in the present, Hyun-ji waits for Bong-pal to come home, because she needs to confirm something. She warns him that she’s not doing this because she wants to, and softly floats over to kiss him again… and he yanks her away by the hair. HA.

She aims at his face again and he pops her in the forehead, then gets on her case for speaking banmal to him. Hyun-ji coyly points out that she died five years ago, making her the older one. Bong-pal sarcastically calls her “noona” and blows her off anyway.

She’s waiting for him at his apartment, and he again tries to dismiss her, but Hyun-ji just pops into his apartment and follows him around as he cleans up after Monk Myung-chul. She’s frankly adorable, making cute faces and getting as close as she can without touching him, but Bong-pal valiantly ignores her.

Eventually she asks Bong-pal again for just this one favor, but he firmly refuses. The Look over there! trick doesn’t work either, nor does her explosion of aegyo, and Bong-pal just wants to know where his payment is for the ghost he fought at the school.

He finally scares her off by pretending the letter from his father is a talisman, but as soon as he leaves the apartment she’s back, and she tails him all the way to school.

Chun-sang and In-rang (whose names I got wrong, saaaawry!) are excited when it turns out they got footage of Bong-pal punching that pervert ghost — the ghost shows up as a white cloud on film. It’s also obvious that Bong-pal could see the ghost, and touch it, though In-rang points out that they saw it, too.

In-rang explains that regular people can see ghosts, when they’re very afraid. He says that a silver cord connects the ghost and the frightened person… but Bong-pal doesn’t see the silver cord, he sees the actual ghost itself. They look him up in the school records, and discover his name.

Bong-pal snarls when he sees the veterinarian, Hye-sung, surrounded by college girls as he walks the small fluffy dog he saved the day before. Hyun-ji says that that’s how a man should be, and suggests that Bong-pal get himself a dog so that he’s not alone all the time.

She sighs when she sees Bong-pal’s lunch, reminding him that ghosts can only eat food prepared specifically for them. She requests a bite, but he does that mean thing where he pretends to be feeding her, only to pop it in his own mouth instead.

Hyun-ji leaps out of the way when Chun-sang nearly sits on her, and the two friends introduce themselves formally (Bong-pal: “So??”). Chun-sang says that they’re brothers now after what they went through together last night, but Bong-pal’s response to forming a team with them is the same as his response to the group project… NOPE.

Bong-pal runs into the vet professor, Hye-sung, again when he turns out to be the new teacher in one of his classes, and HA, half the students are girls just auditing the class. He nicely answers their questions about himself then asks them to leave. Bong-pal is happy to see the pretty girl from the other day is in his class, and learns that her name is IM SEO-YEON (Baek Seo-yi).

Hyun-ji appears in the seat next to Bong-pal and asks if he likes that girl, and he grits through clenched teeth for her to go away. She says she’s got nothing else to do, and Bong-pal draws attention when he sighs that she’s driving him crazy.

The professor singles him out in front of the whole class, still smiling but now coming off a bit passive-aggressive. Bong-pal is embarrassed, but it does earn him a sympathetic smile from Seo-yeon.

Chun-sang is frustrated about their website’s dropping rankings — one particular commenter who goes by the handle “Sadako” keeps leaving ugly comments. Chun-sang and In-rang pretend they aren’t there when the Club Association representative knocks on their door, warning them that they have to vacate the room within a week.

Their only hope is to get Bong-pal to join, because having a real ghost-seer will boost their membership. They decide to hang around him even if he won’t join, just on the off-chance they see some ghosts that way. They get all excited, thinking about how popular they’ll be (think of the girls!)… and then their electricity is cut off. Wah waaaah.

In Bong-pal’s class, Hye-sung asks who his assistant is supposed to be, and when Seo-yeon raises her hand he decides it’s too much work for one person. He asks for a volunteer, so Hyun-ji raises Bong-pal’s hand for him, hee.

Unable to get out of it, Bong-pal is forced to talk to Seo-yeon after class about their new assistant roles. She actually seems to know something about him, and they’re in the same department (economics), though Bong-pal admits he doesn’t go to department events. After she leaves, Hyun-ji can’t help but say I told you so, but Bong-pal just gives her a withering look and leaves.

Seo-yeon finds Hye-sung after class to give him the previous professor’s files, and he says he’ll return them. He’s feeding the little dog, and he tells her that he’s only keeping him until he finds his owner. Hye-sung gets a call that he’s needed elsewhere, and he asks Seo-yeon to watch the little dog a while.

Bong-pal happens by Hyun-ji’s friend Kyung-ja at the bus stop, where she’s still hanging on the man she’s hoping will die soon. Hyun-ji stops to say hello, then hurries on after Bong-pal. Kyung-ja suddenly sees professor Hye-sung catching a cab, and instantly drops her current man and chases after him.

Bong-pal spends some time exercising on his roof, doing his best to ignore Hyun-ji even whens she sits on his back while he’s doing push-ups, ha. She jumps up and down on him, whining for fried chicken, and he ends up chasing her around the rooftop while she laughs.

That night, at a dilapidated old village inn, a drunk man sleeps off a bender. His door opens to reveal a ghostly hand, and a female ghost comes creeping into the room. She breathes black mist at the sleeping man’s face, which wakes him, and he screams.

The village is all aflutter the next morning with the news of the dead man, and Myung-chul overhears some locals talking about how the inn is haunted. The story goes that a young local girl was found dead in the closet of one of the rooms, having been beaten to death, and now people die in that room on an alarmingly regular basis. One of them was even the man who killed the girl.

Myung-chul goes to the inn to find its tenants leaving en masse, and the innkeeper throwing salt all over the place. She’s called him to look in on her problem, and he pretends to be all mysterious, mentioning details about the room and its story as if he didn’t just overhear the whole town talking about it.

He takes out his massive scimitar and brandishes it, but he’s suddenly whisked into the room and he starts screaming. He yells at the innkeeper to call a shaman, then he’s dragged inside, and all we hear is Myung-chul’s shrieks and breaking furniture.

Hye-sung takes the little dog to his clinic, where his female employees seem as enchanted by him as the college students. But once he leaves to prepare for surgery they complain that at the rate he’s bringing in strays, they may as well be an animal shelter.

As Hye-sung changes for surgery, a strange-looking tattoo is revealed on his back. It’s not immediately obvious what it is, but it’s black and and creepy and reminiscent of the black mist that pushed Bong-pal’s mother in front of that car. Hye-sung’s usual cheery expression drops, and his eyes go dark and blank.

Bong-pal does his best to pretend Hyun-ji isn’t there, but she’s persistent and manages to irk him enough to get the occasional rise out of him. He’s heartless against her pleas to share his food though, and finally he put in his earbuds to drown out Hyun-ji’s constant chatter.

As he cooks dinner, Bong-pal tells Hyun-ji to go home, but she sighs that she doesn’t remember her home or even how she died. That seems to illicit some sympathy from Bong-pal, until Hyun-ji turns her gigantic eyes on him deliberately, and he realizes he’s being manipulated.

He warns Hyun-ji about the “famous monk” she’s about to meet when Myung-chul bangs on his door, which successfully gets her to poof to another room. Myung-chul looks stiff and bruised, but he refuses to talk about why he looks so bad. He seems to sense a strange energy, and Bong-pal holds his breath that he might find Hyun-ji… but he’s just after the stew, ha.

Over dinner, spooked by his own close call today, Myung-chul says seriously that Bong-pal needs to stop fighting ghosts. Bong-pal cheerfully asks for a loan then, but when he names the massive amount he still needs, Myung-chul changes the subject. Heh.

Through the window Bong-pal sees Hyun-ji begging for a sausage, and he grudgingly gets up to make more. He says it’s for the stray cat outside, and Myung-chul is all You’re on the fourth floor… Bong-pal actually smiles when Hyun-ji motions for him to make lots, awww.

Seo-yeon recognizes the dog in Hye-sung’s office window, and he sees her looking in the window and asks if she lives nearby. He asks her to keep his clinic’s location a secret from the other students.

That night Hyun-ji sneaks into Bong-pal’s room to watch him sleep, and she sees all of his pictures of his family when his mother was alive. She grumbles that he won’t give her a chance to check her theory that kissing him helps her remember her life, then looks over at his sleeping form as an idea dawns.

She gives herself a pep-talk for courage, then leans in until their lips are almost touching… and a yelp makes her sit up straight. It’s just Myung-chul calling out in his sleep, but the noise wakes Bong-pal and he jumps up when he sees Hyun-ji so close.

He instantly knows what she’s up to and chases her out of his room and around the living room. She wakes Myung-chul again when she steps on his stomach, which Bong-pal blames on the stray cat.

In the morning, a very sore Myung-chul asks Bong-pal what the letter from his father said. Bong-pal admits that he threw it out, not the least bit curious what it said. Myung-chul goes looking for it in the trash, and a neighborhood ajumma accuses him of stealing boxes.

Myung-chul insists that he lives in this building with Bong-pal, but the ajumma yells back that she’s lived here for ten years, and nobody lives in that apartment. Myung-chul keeps looking for the letter while the ajumma nags, and she knocks him over when he accidentally touches her.

Seeing him tumble calms her down and she seems contrite, but they quickly resume their argument. She insists that nobody lives in Bong-pal’s unit, which is really strange. Meanwhile Bong-pal comes out side and looks around, wondering if Hyun-ji really left this time.

She shows up when he gets to class, and he bickers with her, thinking they’re alone in the room. Chun-sang and In-rang are there, hiding and watching, and to them it looks like Bong-pal is talking to nobody.

Bong-pal picks up another couple of stragglers, as Chun-sang and In-rang follows him after class. He takes a new ghostbusting job and warns Hyun-ji not to tag along, though she insists. HAHA, Chun-sang and In-rang get freaked out whenever he yells at Hyun-ji, and the more casual they try to look, the more obvious they get.

It’s not until that night that Myung-chul realizes he dropped his scimitar at the haunted inn. As it turns out, that same inn is Bong-pal’s newest job, and he arrives unknowingly with Chun-sang and In-rang still following. The innkeeper is worried by Bong-pal’s youth, but she’s desperate and he swears he’s different than those other swindlers.

She points him to the room and skedaddles, and he goes in while Hyun-ji gets distracted by something in another part of the building. Chun-sang and In-rang set up their video equipment and start broadcasting, fully prepared to hang on Bong-pal’s coattails whether or not he knows it.

Out behind the inn Hyun-ji finds a cloud of shifting black mist, and wonders what it is. She finds a large dagger in a pile of discarded junk, while inside the haunted room, Bong-pal is yanked into a wardrobe by a ghostly hand. (Not gonna lie, I legitimately screamed.)

He finds himself shut in the dark wardrobe with a female ghost whispering in his ear, “Run away. Run away. Hurry.” He looks at her and sees her end… how she’d been viciously beaten and shoved into the wardrobe to die.

Bong-pal hears a shriek and comes flying out of the wardrobe, to find Hyun-ji being attacked by the real malevolent ghost — the man who killed the girl. He goes after the male ghost, as the female ghost cowers in the wardrobe.

Myung-chul arrives at the inn, here to collect his scimitar, and he hears the sounds of Bong-pal’s struggles with the murderer ghost. All out of bravado, he turns tail and runs.

Bong-pal and the ghost spill out of the room, and Chun-sang and In-rang catch the struggle on film. It looks like Bong-pal is fighting nobody, but they know there must be a ghost, especially when Bong-pal is flung halfway across the courtyard.

Of course, since they can’t see the ghost, their viewers think they just hired an actor to pretend to fight a ghost. Lucky for the boys, the ghost picks up Bong-pal by the throat just then, and they’re able to film him hanging in midair. HAHA, despite that being a fantastic shot, they shut themselves in a closet out of fear.

Hyun-ji makes her way out of the room and sees the ghost pummeling Bong-pal, and she puts her game face on. It’s cute how Hyun-ji and Bong-pal check in with each other to make sure they’re both okay, then round on the murderer ghost as a unit.

They fight together like a well-oiled machine, and in a momentary pause in action, Hyun-ji sees the ghost’s weak spot — the place on his abdomen where he was stabbed to death by a loan shark.

Hyun-ji realizes that the knife she found must be the one that killed him, and she locks the ghost’s arms and yells to Bong-pal to target his side. Bong-pal delivers a solid roundhouse kick to the ghost’s ribs, followed by a hard left hook, and the ghost dissipates in a cloud of black smoke.

Bong-pal and Hyun-ji high-five, but they grow serious when they see the girl’s ghost standing in the room’s doorway. She bows to them gratefully, then gently dissolves into a beautiful white mist. Bong-pal assumes she was held here by her murderer’s ghost, and Hyun-ji cheerfully congratulates him on getting rid of two ghosts today.

Bong-pal looks adorably pleased by Hyun-ji’s approval, but he’s distracted when he finds Myung-chul’s scimitar in the courtyard. They go back to his rooftop, where he asks Hyun-ji how she found the weaknesses of both ghosts they’ve fought together. He eagerly asks her to teach him how to see them, but she sing-songs that she won’t do it.

Bong-pal sighs, then asks why she’s following him anyway… does she like him? Hyun-ji admits that she doesn’t remember anything about her life or how she died, but for the first time in five years she remembered something when they… you know…

So that’s why she’s been trying to do that again, to see if she can remember anything else. Bong-pal has no idea what she’s talking about, and Hyun-ji is too shy to say the word “kiss,” so she tells him to forget it.

Bong-pal is just pulling her leg, and with a chuckle, he swoops down and kisses Hyun-ji. Surprised, her eyes fly open wide.

COMMENTS

I felt like this episode gave us a bit more to sink our teeth into, in terms of characterizations and world-building, reducing the show’s comic-book feel. I actually liked the tone of the first episode, but I find myself enjoying the larger world we’re in now as well, so it’s definitely not a complaint. I’m happy we got to know more about Bong-pal and how his mother died, though I like that the show is parceling out details slowly, giving us a lot to look forward to. I also still love the balance between light semi-cohabitation comedy and the darkly creepy ghost-hunting scenes, and it’s fun how the show can make me laugh and scream all in the same episode. I enjoy that the ghost stories are never what they seem at the beginning — so far, each has had a twist. If this show turns into a ghost-hunting procedural, I’ll be perfectly happy with that as long as each ghost comes with such an interesting story.

I am absolutely charmed by Kim So-hyun in this role — she gets to be sassy and spunky, and I love how she follows Bong-pal around, enjoying how annoyed he is by her presence. I like that she’s not a sad-sack ghost, but still tries to enjoy the things the world has to offer even if she can only observe (not to mention being a pretty kick-ass fighter). I’m sure we’ll have some pretty meaty angst when we start to learn about her past and how she became a ghost in the first place, and luckily we know that Kim So-hyun has the ability to make us feel that sorrow and hurt that I’m sure is coming, right along with her.

I’ll confess to wondering, as I know some viewers do, whether she’s actually a ghost or not. I definitely noticed in the first episode that she’s the only ghost who appears to Bong-pal as a normal human — there’s nothing misty or dark or distorted about her, as all the other ghosts look to some degree. We’ve seen that she was in an accident of some kind, but it’s entirely possible that she’s not dead but simply in a coma somewhere, and that her “unfinished business” is to remember her past before she can wake up. This is all speculation, of course, but the creators of this show are known for their attention to detail, so I feel as though Hyun-ji’s nearly-normal appearance will turn out to have an explanation of some kind.

As for Bong-pal, I find his straight man opposite Hyun-ji’s comedienne to be a wonderful balance — the actors have a great comedic chemistry, and I could frankly watch Bong-pal roll his eyes at Hyun-ji’s silly antics every day and twice on Sundays, though his softening towards her is pretty sweet, too. They’re just adorable together, and I can see how they’ll each temper the other’s personality as they get to know each other. Hyun-ji could definitely use some grounding (not to mention help discovering who she is and why she’s still a ghost), and goodness knows Bong-pal needs to learn to live a little. I love stories where the characters come together from such opposite ends of a spectrum, and I can already tell that I’m going to enjoy seeing these two become friends and teach each other about life (and death).

A cookie to those of you who pegged veterinarian Hye-sung as some sort of evil character — that tattoo and the vacant look in his eyes gave me the straight-up shivers. Kwon Yul is a decent enough second lead actor in the shows I’ve seen him in, but I find him much more compelling here as a blank-eyed enigma. There’s something about his young-looking face that makes me go cold when he takes on that blank expression, because he looks so innocent yet his eyes hold so much malice, and the dissonance of the two is chilling. And I mean that in a good way — I can already feel myself warming to him much more in this role (if by “warming to” you mean “completely freaked out by”) than I did in One More Happy Ending or Let’s Eat 2, where I found his characters lukewarm at best. But as a villain? Please sir, may I have some more.

I’ll admit to being a little confused by some of the ghost lore — I didn’t really understand all the “silver cord” business. But I’m willing to go with the setup that regular people can see ghosts when they’re very scared, but Bong-pal is the only one that can see them with such clarity, and fight them. I’m eager to learn why he can see ghosts in the first place, and how his mother’s mysterious death ties into his unusual ability. I also find it clever how each ghost has a weak point related to how it died, and that the way to banish an evil ghost forever is to attack that weak point. It gives the living Bong-pal an advantage against his otherworldly adversaries, to be able to get rid of them forever, when before he just made staying in their current location so annoying that they left. But now he can actually destroy them, and that gives him a leg up, all thanks to Hyun-ji. It’s fun how her ability to see weaknesses, and his ability to physically banish ghosts fit together so well, and is just another reason I love them so much as a team.

 
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