King’s Family Episode 21-22

With 20 episodes behind us, it is now time to get ALL the daughters of the Wangs into some kind of trouble. Soo-bak looks like she’s DYING to start an affair, Ho-bak is trying to survive through her husband’s not-so-affair affair, Gwang-bak is trying to get married to the love of her life, Hye-bak…can she do what she wants?

Frankly speaking, I hate hate hate the inevitable separation of Gwang-bak and Sang Nam. I may very well write one-liners on the buildup of their separation. Don’t say I never give ample warnings.

Soo-bak and Min Joong

Soo-bak decides to take it into her own hands to search for a job, and she logs into Facebook (!) and asked a contact. And that contact turns out to be her ex-boyfriend. It’s not just any other ex-boyfriend, but apparently one whom she likes alot, to the extent that they still met up the day before her wedding (from their conversation, their meetups don’t sound anything innocent). Ex gives her $5000 upfront, “to buy clothes” for her new job. Soo-bak is over the moon with the sudden windfall. Min Joong is apologetic that he cannot provide enough for his wife, and backhugs her in gratitude that she is willing to go to work. Man, what you don’t know can kill you.

The next day, she goes entertaining some clients with Ex, and they have a very charged close encouter at the corridor in the nightclub. Ex drives her home, while Min Joong carries Joong Ji the baby, waiting for her at the bus stop.

Ho-bak and Se Dal

Se Dal buys a bouquet of roses, pops open a bottle of red wine, and buys a cake…and asks Ho-bak to divorce him. Wut. He even packs a boxful of his boxers to give Ho-bak, because she “likes wearing them”. His words. He even added there’re lots of colors and patterns, she can wear them for a whole year. She locks him out of the house, and screams at him when he’s at the ground floor, and throws all his boxers out of the window. It’s raining boxers on Se Dal.

Ho-bak, for a moment, made me thought she’s suicidal, though I believe she wouldn’t, and thank goodness she only decides to bring the kids to some seaside resort and lay low for the time being. However, because she did not inform anyone where she has gone to with her sons, Se Dal and his crazy mother and sister starts thinking the worse and wonders if she’ll kill the kids and herself because Se Dal wants a divorce.

He finally tracks them down because he heard the kids screaming beach in the background, while on the phone with Ho-bak. Se Dal suddenly recalls a certain beach which holds special meaning to both he and Ho-bak, and voila, they’re indeed there. I’m confused though, Ho-bak tells Gwang-bak she’s at Ganghwa-do, which unless I’m mistaken, is pretty far away from Seoul. A check shows that it takes around 3 hours from downtown Seoul to Ganghwa-do, but it seems like Se Dal manages to get to them in a flash. Time, in drama, is something that defies common logic. But I digress.

We get a glimpse of how Se Dal and Ho-bak became an item. It was the time when Soo-bak, Ho-bak and Uncle Don were at the age to go to university, and they were playing rock scissors paper to decide who cannot atten university because the household cannot support all three. Ho-bak won the first round, and it was down to Soo-bak and Uncle, but Grandma started complaining it wouldn’t be fair if Dad’s only sibling cannot go to university, and Mom counters that it wouldn’t be fair either for her firstborn to not attend university. Ho-bak ends up being the sacrificial lamb and she runs out of the house crying. Just then, Se Dal came looking for Uncle, and he chased after Ho-bak instead, seeing her in tears. Somehow they ended up at the same beach at Ganghwa-do, and he sorta confessed to Ho-bak that he likes her. And he DID attend law school! ZOMG cannot compute.

There’s a sidenote with cray cray Director; she gave Se Dal a super expensive branded watch, as some kind of collateral that he leaves with her, literally, for a month-long rendezvous. Because when he mentioned to her that she goes to the villa first and he’ll go to find her after he settles the issues with Ho-bak, cray cray Director asks him to return his watch. She who giveth, taketh.

Gwang-bak and Sang Nam

There’s only one phrase to describe them in this two episodes – the calm before the storm.

We pick up from where we left off, rice and her rice bucket walking home arms locked, and Gwang-bak is TOTALLY beaming. Sang Nam asks her about things she wants to do when she’s attached, and she listed a whole lot, which included kissing under the lamppost on the first day of snow, and also be pinned against a wall and be kissed. She gets her wish fulfilled for the latter, as Sang Nam pins her against a brick wall by the alley and kisses her. Just then, Mom walks past, retracts her steps, and gave a disapproving look at the couple. Of course she doesn’t know that’s Gwang-bak, no worries.

The couple goes for a samgeyopsal date, and as Sang Nam is walking towards Gwang-bak, who is waiting outside the restaurant, she starts seeing him bathed in a circle of light, a la the vampire in Twilight style. This girl, she’s so hopelessly in love it’s both funny and sad looking at her, knowing what’s coming her way. During dinner, Sang Nam stands up and gives her a kiss, not realising his scarf is touching the hotplate and buuuuurning. Like rice, like bucket? Looks like her accident-prone behaviour is rubbing off him heh.

There’s a night when they are talking on phone, and Gwang-bak moves from her room (because Hye-bak grumbles that she can’t sleep with Gwang-bak yakking away), to the kitchen and is on the video cam showing Sang Nam the kitchen and leaves the kitchen because Dad comes in, to outside the house under Uncle’s room’s window (and gets ticked off by Uncle because she is just too noisy LOL), to outside the gate. She stayed out the whole night to talk to Sang Nam OMG.

And so comes the day for Gwang-bak to visit Sang Nam’s Dad, and here comes my one liners. Dad orders her to leave and never to meet again. Sang Nam can’t believe his Dad. Dad says no no no.

Nevertheless, the couple still calls each other at night, and there’s a particular night Sang Nam asks her out to meet at the lamppost. And he actually hired people to set up fake snowfall just so she can get her wish fulfilled! *swoons*

Sang Nam runs into Gwang-bak’s Dad one day, and her Dad tries to be polite and curt at the same time, leaving Sang Nam scratching his head.

Dad calls Gwang-bak one day because he can’t find Sang Nam at work (it’s not as if Sang Nam skipped work to meet her; he has already done what he should at work). Dad lectures her nastily and refuses to meet her. He heads back to the construction site and has the most heated argument with his Dad. Dad picks up a wooded rod and almost hits Sang Nam, only to be caught at wrist and Sang Nam asks is this the Dad who minds about manners so much, is this his manners. Sang Nam still gets hit in the arm anyway (OUCH) but he scampers away.

He buys a bouquet of roses and goes to her house, intending to comfort her, but runs into Uncle instead. Uncle tells him the truth in a very nonchalant manner, and tells him Dad is an obstinate old fool man and will not agree to him and Gwang-bak, ever. And indeed, back at the kitchen, Dad tells Gwang-bak no no no. Uncle heads back to the house and gets Gwang-bak out, lying it is Young Dal who’s here to see her, but for some reason cannot come in. Gwang-bak goes out, not expecting Sang Nam. He wrist-grabs her, and heads to where every depressed Korean goes to – Han River. Sang Nam concedes defeat, and decides that breaking up is the best for Gwang-bak. GAH.

*kooriyuki tears hair*

Hye-bak

She heads to some docked ship, and an ahjusshi comes out and hands her an envelope. She opens it, and takes out the content, showing us only 1/3 of and A4 size paper. So what the heck is she interested in? Ship construction?

Uncle Don

After Se Dal’s raining boxers, he books a room at some KTV joint, and runs into Uncle there. Uncle is still hostile towards him, and so naturally refuses Se Dal’s offer to drink together. However, when Young Dal appears (Se Dal asks her to come), Uncle changes his mind and joins them. He is one very happy dude when Young Dal takes the mike and starts singing and gyrating to the music.

Young Dal orders pizza to be delivered to her house, and it just so happens to be Uncle who is delivering it. On one hand, he’s totally embarassed to be doing pizza delivery, yet he can’t resist seeing her. And there she is, clad in a bath robe, painting her nails. Kudos to Uncle for not fainting in front of her hee. She totally makes use of the fact that he fancies her, and makes him run errands for her, such as picking up pickles at the pizza joint (she claims pizzas are best eaten with pickles. WUT.) and buying sanitary pads (heol). Uncle grumbles in front of her, but once he’s out of her house, he’s giddy with excitement. I don’t know what to say about Uncle Don.

Sang Nam’s Dad

He is SO excited at the prospect of meeting his future daughter-in-law (he keeps practising how to greet her in front of the mirror), and runs to Park Sal Ra’s (Se Dal’s Mom) salon to have his hair straighten. This uncle, he’s vain in every single drama I’d seen him in. Anyway, Madam Park is in a hurry to Se Dal’s because Ho-bak is missing with her sons at that point, and she half-heartedly does Dad’s hair. She kind of burnt his hair with the straightener while on the phone with Se Dal. Dad makes a big deal out of it and comes back to claim reimbursement the next day. They start arguing on the street, and Madam Park faints on him.

Some other stuff

Madam Park and Young Dal laugh at Gwang-bak when Se Dal tells them Gwang-bak’s boyfriend is only a junior high graduate. If only this mother-daughter pair knows the boyfriend is Sang Nam, whom Young Dal tried to snag then.

Aunt wants to tell Min Joong that she is very much single now, but chickens out in the end.