Shopping King Louis: Episode 11

by LollyPip

Oh, Louis — what are we going to do with him? He puts on a brave face, but inside he’s such a sad puppy, and he breaks my heart. He’s having a hard time adjusting to all the changes in his life, and without his familiar support system, he does his best to acclimate. But every lock needs its key, and Louis is adrift without his best friend there to love and encourage him.

EPISODE 11: “You in My Dreams”

In voice-over, Louis tells us that he dreams of Bok-shil every night. He cries because he misses her, but he can’t go to her anymore. “My time has stopped. I promised I’d find her brother, but I can’t keep that promise any longer.”

A month later, Louis seems to be integrating into his chaebol life well. He still hasn’t regained his memory, he’s still addicted to Maxim Gold, and he has a little stuffed puppy he talks to and calls “Bok-shil.” Grandma and Butler Kim dote on him, and eventually Grandma suggests that it’s time for Louis to learn the business.

Joong-won has quit his job at Goldline, and Mr. Lee wonders if he quit because Bok-shil quit. The Goldline crew try to pry some answers out of Ma-ri, but she doesn’t know why Joong-won quit, either. She does know, however, that they’re getting a new director. Mouths drop when she says it’s the infamous Shopping King Louis, and as the only person who got five stars from him, Mr. Lee does the Happy Dance of Joy on his desk.

Louis walks in right on cue, and hilariously ignores Ma-ri’s familiar little wave. Mr. Lee nearly dies of happiness when Louis remembers his name, awww. Louis rejects the offer of Joong-won’s old office, and instead claims Bok-shil’s desk for himself.

He spends a long time cleaning the desk, while everyone side-eyes him. Mr. Lee brings him some Maxim Gold and gets a thumbs-up, which gives him confidence so that he starts bossing his fellow employees around. Oh no, they’re gonna kill him.

It makes the team nervous to have the boss sitting right next to them, after the way he harshly evaluated them before. They figure Louis and Bok-shil must have broken up, and wonder where Bok-shil is now.

Bok-shil is doing just fine, as the president of Singsingline, her new online shopping mall. Joong-won is her director and only employee, and he’s as gruff as ever, but Bok-shil knows it hides a soft squishy underbelly and doesn’t take him seriously when he snaps and growls.

She makes him a paper nameplate for his desk, but he complains that it’s all wrong and writes himself a new one. HAHA, it says “Daddy Long Legs,” which makes Bok-shil giggle, and Joong-won says it’s better than “Savior of Ginseng.” He tells her to buy him a nameplate when she makes some money, “…and make sure it has the same title!”

Joong-won allows Bok-shil to choose their first product, and she demonstrates that her choice was made with knowledge of the supplier and the potential buyers. Joong-won exposits that their new company specializes in farm products, to make best use of Bok-shil’s knowledge.

Joong-won’s mother is spitting mad that her son quit his fancy job to start up a dinky little company, though his dad defends that Joong-won always has good reasons for the things he does. They find Bok-shil alone in the new office, and Young-ae practically has palpitations when she sees his hand-written “Daddy Long Legs” nameplate.

Bok-shil tells Joong-won’s parents that she doesn’t really understand why he left everything to work here with her, but Young-ae angrily demands to know the real relationship between Bok-shil and her son.

Joong-won meets with Louis, who is not at all pleased that he’s quit his job and works for Bok-shil. He warns Joong-won not to get too close to her, but Joong-on fires back that he’ll cling to her if he wants. Louis very nearly punches him again, frustrated.

In-sung’s mom supervises while a new door and security system are installed on Bok-shil’s rooftop apartment. Mom owns the building now, and she coyly says she won the lottery.

Louis goes out to his car, and OMG, his driver is In-sung. He has a real job! Louis can hardly keep himself from smiling while In-sung attempts to act all prim and proper, but they both burst into silly giggles.

They head to the rooftop apartment, where In-sung’s mom squeals and runs right past her son to Louis, heh. No wonder, since Louis brings her gifts, and something for Bok-shil as well. Louis knows about the locks being installed, and he goes inside to check the place out.

He lays on the floor and pulls a newspaper over himself, remembering his first night sleeping here with Bok-shil. He smiles as memories run through his mind, then realizes that Bok-shil will be home soon. He carefully replaces the newspaper, and drops a few coins in his old piggy bank.

Director Baek is subdued these days, and he peppers Ma-ri with questions about working with Louis. He’s unsettled because Louis hasn’t come to talk to him, and he takes his bad mood out on Jae-sook when she tries to be comforting.

In private, Director Baek agonizes over Louis, wondering how much he remembers of the day of his accident. Again we see Director Baek hand Louis the car keys after being told not to let him drive, and he fears that someone will discover that he broke the rules.

Joong-won’s mom runs screaming into his house, then attacks him with both feet and teeth when he comes out. Dad is no help, telling his son that he’s on his mom’s side this time. Young-ae hollers at Joong-won for quitting his job, but she does manage to calm down so they can talk.

Joong-won explains that he’s taking a year-long sabbatical, to reflect on what he wants to do with his life. He tells them about meeting Bok-shil and how she convinced him to buy ginseng off the street, proving her potential as a salesperson. Young-ae demands to meet Bok-shil formally.

As Bok-shil cleans her apartment, she notices that the piggy bank seems heavier than usual. In-sung and his mom show up with food, which I suspect actually came from Louis.

Later that night, In-sung complains about still living with his mother, but she reminds him that he can’t move out or Bok-shil will find out they’re still involved with Louis. She tells him to be grateful that Louis bought the house for them, and goes over tomorrow’s menu that Louis has written out for Bok-shil. Aww, I knew he was bringing the food.

Bok-shil works until late, but when it’s time for bed, she’s haunted by the ghost of Louis and wonders how he’s doing. Outside, Louis stands on the stairs until she turns out the light, then says goodnight with a smile.

He does this every night, waiting to see her safely to bed before going home. He respects her wish to be left alone, but rain or shine, he’s there each night. During the days, he goes in to clean the apartment and add more coins to the piggy bank, and every evening In-sung and his mother bring Bok-shil “leftovers.”

Jung-ran talks to Butler Kim about how she thought Louis was still an immature boy, but he’s actually very romantic and devoted to Bok-shil. She tells Butler Kim that he could learn a few things from Louis, and asks if Butler Kim is jealous that In-sung is Louis’s driver now. Butler Kim just says it leaves him more time for her.

He asks if she’s still in touch with Director Baek, and she says that he always asks her how much Louis remembers. Butler Kim narrows his eyes, finding that suspicious.

Director Baek finally gets his meeting with Louis, who says he’s enjoying his new job. Baek asks if he’s visited Sunny Land, a Gold Group satellite company that was apparently Louis’s idea, but Louis doesn’t remember suggesting it to Grandma. That satisfies Director Baek that Louis hasn’t regained all of his memories.

He’s alarmed all over again when Louis mentions that Grandma’s stocks would have gone to him if Louis had really died, and asks if that upsets him. Director Baek slaps on a smile and says that on the contrary, he’s sooo happy Louis is back.

Detective Joo-hyuk and his partner stand over Scarface, who’s still in a coma. They still want to know why he was in Louis’s and Bok-shil’s house, but they’ll just have to wait until he wakes up to get their answers.

Bok-shil makes Joong-won an adorable name plate with the requested “Daddy Long Legs” engraved on it, shaking her head at how dumb he seems sometimes. She jumps when he sneaks up behind her, and Joong-won tells Bok-shil to come close and hold out her hand. He reaches out with a closed fist… and stamps her palm with a “good job” stamp. HA.

He jokes that she looks like she expected a ring or something, and Bok-shil affectionately calls him dumb to his face. They both laugh when he says that he’s not dumb, he’s charismatic.

Detective Joo-hyuk arrives to see Bok-shil’s new office, and Joong-won instantly goes on the alert when he sees the young, handsome man paying attention to Bok-shil. She asks Joo-hyuk to help move some boxes, which he lifts easily, and he offers to help any time she needs to move heavy things.

Joong-won barks that he should just go catch some criminals, and that he can lift anything heavy himself. He’s putting on his very best alpha-male display, but Joo-hyuk and Bok-shil just laugh at him. HAHA, Joo-hyuk hilariously mimics Joong-won’s trademark growl before he leaves. Then when Joong-won tries to sit, he misses his chair and ends up on the floor. Poor guy.

Bok-shil goes to the Gold Group building to take something to In-sung’s mom, and she hides behind a plant when Louis steps out of the elevator. She only gets a glimpse of his face, but it shakes her.

Ma-ri finds an orange rose on her desk, and she looks around the office, wondering who it’s from. She deems Do-jin too much like Joong-won, and Mr. Lee is just icky. But she remembers the orange rose that Louis had when she almost ran him over, and wonders if it could be from him. She doesn’t see In-sung peeking around the corner, grinning at her.

Working on the assumption that Louis gave her the rose, Ma-ri asks him to dinner, but he says he can’t because he has a private lesson. He thinks she doesn’t know the word for “private lesson” when she just gapes at him, and exits the elevator shaking his head at her.

Awww, Butler Kim is teaching him to spell. He’s clearly having fun with it, giving Louis silly sentences to practice with, and he encourages Louis when he gets frustrated. Louis smiles, deciding to write Bok-shil a letter when he gets better at spelling, and Butler Kim’s expression goes strangely serious.

Joong-won’s parents get their meeting with Bok-shil, as they all sit to dinner at his house. Joong-won is worried since his mother did the cooking, and he and his dad watch nervously as she takes a few bites. Bok-shil shocks everyone by recognizing Young-ae’s obscure ingredients, and Young-ae falls for her in that instant.

Once Bok-shil goes home, Young-ae tells her husband that she plans to take the girl under her wing and turn her into the next Jang-geum, ha. She decides that Bok-shil can become an oriental medicine doctor, then Joong-won can marry her. Young-ae cackles like an evil mastermind, and Dad looks a little scared.

Joo-hyuk goes to Jae-sook’s bookstore to help her move some books, which is really just an excuse for her to leer at his muscles. After the books, she has him move furniture, but she doesn’t really have a plan and everything ends up crammed into the same area.

Busted, she looks up at him sadly, and the mood grows dramatic when it starts to rain. Joo-hyuk offers to drive Jae-sook home, and she starts to cry — awww, she’s so starved for kindness. She tearfully thanks him for being nice to her, while outside, someone watches them from a nearby car.

Louis grows concerned when the rain turns to a thunderstorm, remembering how Bok-shil always gets sick during thunderstorms because they remind her of the night her parents died. Just as he fears, she’s all alone, shivering and ill, and she can barely speak when Joong-won calls her.

Louis paces his room as the storm intensifies, knowing he shouldn’t go to Bok-shil but scared for her. He finally buys some medicine and heads to her place, but he’s seconds too late — he sees Joong-won already on his way up the steps, and stops. Louis stands crying outside Bok-shil’s apartment, hurting so much that he feels like he’s dying.

He goes back home and sits in the dark, thinking that he felt this coming. He remembers the time he told Bok-shil that he’d be sad if she liked Joong-won, and realizes that he had a feeling this might happen.

In the morning, Louis tells Grandma that he wants to go back to the castle in France. She doesn’t want to be separated from him again and begs him to stay, so he asks if he can just go for a while, promising to come back.

He goes to Bok-shil’s place one last time and tells In-sung’s mom that he’ll come back once he feels ready, while downstairs, In-sung mopes over Louis’s leaving. Louis asks In-sung’s mom to look after Bok-shil, and she teases him for nagging. He stays as long as he can, taking in every bit of the neighborhood, then wishes it goodbye.

Director Baek’s corporate spy reports that Joong-won is now working for Bok-shil, and he laughs wildly at the absurdity. With a wide grin, he decides that he likes Bok-shil very much (for getting Joong-won out of his way).

Bok-shil checks her messages, and from the initial response, it looks like her business is doing well. There’s one message titled “Goodbye,” and she opens it to see that it’s from Louis. In the message, he tells her that he’s going back to the castle, and wishes her well.

Bok-shil lets herself wish that he weren’t going so far away, and just then a package is delivered. It’s from Louis, containing two notebooks, and she recognizes one as Louis’s list of things that he likes. She flips through the list and each item recalls a memory — their trip to Busan, the rose, even thunder and lightning.

The second notebook is a message to her, asking how she’s doing and saying that he misses her. “I’m sorry. I’m very sorry. Thank you so much. I like you a lot. I miss you so much. Bok-shil, it’s time to say goodbye.” Bok-shil cries as she hugs the notepad to her chest, unaware that Joong-won is watching her from the doorway.

Instead of boarding his plane to France, Louis travels down to Busan without telling anyone where he’s gone. He takes a city bus tour, and while his mind is full of thoughts of Bok-shil, he barely notices the scenery go by.

But something catches his eye — a boy, sitting alone on a curb. Wait, is that… it is, it’s Bok-nam. He’s alive! Louis recognizes him right away and stops the bus, and runs toward where Bok-nam is sitting.

He gets right up in Bok-nam’s face and calls him by name, then grabs him in a big hug. Bok-nam doesn’t recognize Louis at first, but when Louis pulls back to say that he’s been looking for him, he suddenly remembers taking Louis’s watch and car.

Bok-nam thinks Louis is here to accuse him of theft, and he pushes Louis down and makes a run for it. No don’t do that, Louis can’t run! Oh thank goodness, Bok-nam can’t flee any better than Louis can pursue, and he leads Louis on the slowest, silliest chase I’ve ever seen.

Bok-nam hides in some bushes, which stumps Louis for a whole three seconds before he sees the back of Bok-nam’s head. Worst hider ever. Louis tries to sneak up on Bok-nam, but Bok-nam runs and tries to hurdle a bush, tripping and landing flat on his face. He slips behind a statue, and Louis can’t find him.

Louis remembers asking Bok-shil, if her nickname is “Flying Squirrel,” then what’s Bok-nam’s nickname? She’d told him it was “Slow Toad,” and suddenly Bok-nam’s clumsy flight makes so much sense. Louis decides he can outwit a toad.

Bok-nam climbs a tree when Louis’s back is turned, and he wonders how Louis knows his name. He’s scared Louis will take him to the police, so he drops to the ground and starts running again.

He’s slow, but Louis is slower, and he runs out of breath and has to stop. He takes off after Bok-nam again, but a biker comes out of nowhere and Louis reels back, falling to the pavement and hitting his head. Oh no, not again.

Louis clutches his head, then looks up to see a fire hydrant in front of him. Flashes of memories race through his mind — a dark night, a motorcycle, falling and hitting his head on a fire hydrant. Louis slumps to the ground, and everything goes dark.

Bok-shil and Joong-won take a trip to Busan to meet with a supplier, and they stop for lunch. Joong-won reminds Bok-shil of the time he walked in on her and a nearly-naked Louis in her apartment, then asks if she knows Louis went back to France. She says sadly that she got a goodbye letter, but they agree that Louis can take care of himself now.

Joong-won heads back to Seoul, leaving Bok-shil to finish up their business in Busan. As she walks to her next meeting, she passes a set of steps, where a familiar-seeming figure huddles on the ground. Bok-shil moves closer, and realizes that it’s Louis. He looks exactly the way he looked when they met, filthy and wearing that same tracksuit.

Bok-shil runs to him, calling his name, “Louis-yah!” She crouches to ask what happened t him, but he looks at her with no recognition in his eyes. In a small voice, he asks, “Am I Louis?”

COMMENTS

Oh Show, I was counting on you not to do this to me! Now we’re back to square one, with Louis’s memory wiped a second time, his love for Bok-shil gone, and Bok-nam still missing. I’m just clinging to the hope that Louis’s personality and instinctive pull towards Bok-shil survived intact a second time, and that we can get back to where they left off pretty quickly.

But I have faith, because I just knew Bok-nam couldn’t be dead, though I’ll admit I gasped out loud and teared up when Louis saw him from the top of that bus. Speaking of which, best chase scene ever, with the silly music and both Louis and Bok-nam stumbling around like the non-athletes they are. I’m just so happy that Louis can still keep his promise to Bok-shil and bring her brother back to her — if only he can remember seeing him again.

Backing up a bit, can we get a big HOORAY for a drama hero who hears a girl say No, and then proceeds to respect her wishes? Louis has grown up so much, because even a few weeks ago he would have been following Bok-shil around and relentlessly trying to change her mind. But when she said she didn’t want to see him anymore, he kept his pain to himself and didn’t bother her anymore, at least not directly.

It broke my heart to see him going to their place to relive old memories and watching her house every night, because it reminded me of how he told her that waiting for her was the best part of his days. I don’t see his actions as disregarding her wishes — he managed to respect her, while still finding a way to satisfy his own need to make sure she was okay. And it’s kind of sweet how he and In-sung and Mom were all watching over Bok-shil, and making sure she’s safe and fed. Louis only came close to breaking once, during the thunderstorm, but even then he put her well-being above his own. It killed him not to go to her, but he understood that the important thing was that she was taken care of, even if he wasn’t the one to be at her side.

I love Joong-won so much more as a father-figure and mentor for Louis and Bok-shil than I ever did when he was a love rival. I do think he still has feelings for Bok-shil, but they seem to be evolving into something more fatherly than romantic. Louis and Bok-shil both need guidance from someone who lives in the real (non-filthy-rich) world, and I think that having Joong-won there to help when they need emotional support or professional leadership is a much better use of him as a character. I think it’s wonderful that he’s helping Bok-shil get her business up and running, allowing her to run the show while giving her advice and teaching her from the background. She really does seem to have a good instinct for what people want, and Joong-won knows that regardless of his personal feelings, she’s a business asset that he’d be stupid to let go.

But mainly I’m just sitting here on pins and needles, just dying to learn all the answers to my questions, and every episode just seems to create more mysteries than it solves. I’m so excited (and thrilled for Bok-shil) that Bok-nam is alive, but then who died in that crash? How did they end up with Louis’s clothes and belongings after Bok-nam stole them? What’s the significance of Koboshi and the penguin statue and the bookstore, and what does Scarface know? We can guess all day long, but I have a feeling that the answers will shock us. That is, if Louis ever gets his memory back, both of his past and of his time with Bok-shil. He’s always telling Bok-shil to trust him, and I’m trusting him, too. I know you won’t let us down, Louis!

RELATED POSTS

• Shopping King Louis: Episode 10
• Shopping King Louis: Episode 9
• Shopping King Louis: Episode 8
• Shopping King Louis: Episode 7
• Shopping King Louis: Episode 6
• Shopping King Louis: Episode 5
• Shopping King Louis: Episode 4
• Shopping King Louis: Episode 3
• Shopping King Louis: Episode 2
• Shopping King Louis: Episode 1