[drama 2008] Happiness / Bliss / I Am Happy 행복합니다

[Guest reKaddict]

Nice play by play of the episode. Sounds pretty dramatic and things don't look like they bode too well for Mrs. Lee. What do the previews look like? is AD pissed w/ her mom and family? Wonder if her wedding will be on or not. I'd think she would need some time to get over the loss of KS yet again (and more final this time).

I wonder what they'll do with the episode we didn't get this week? Seems a bit unnatural to prolong the show for another week just for one episode.

[canyayasis]

Previews show the memorial....everyone in black...

spreading KS's ashes in the forest - i believe near their once hide-out/lovenest...

A few shots of Sang Wook and Ji Sook and then Sarang...

What was missing...is the shot of HK "getting what's coming to her!"

That's why I'm still watching!!!

[baduy]

Ah well I attacked the sofa so fiercely that my saw blade broke and I had to come in to find another and saw canyayasis's posting. Only got a connection for the last 5 mins though. So next episode = next week we're going to have a lovely funeral, to judge from the teasers. And HK cooking something up with Mrs HK (i.e, SY's one-time intended mother-in-law, she of the alarming-colored coats). I stuck around on the off chance that they might have cancelled today's First Wives Club and run on ep 56 back to back with 55, but no, they're screening FWC now 90 mins or so late. So why didn't they do the same thing yesterday, namely push both dramas back instead of showing just FWC?

Assuming that next week's slots aren't both pre-empted by Limpets, there would be nothing unusual about simply shoving everything a week back, since Korean TV stations are pretty flexible with their drama starts and finishes (they have to be to manage to do the series shortening or lengthening they're so fond of.)

But my guess is that they may just show 56 next week and so prolong the span by two weeks, since these episodes really have been planned in two-unit groups (plainly we were not meant to be left waiting a week between today's freeze frame and the following episode). Generally there's an especially tight linkage between the last two episodes in Kdramas, and I think they'll want to get the last two them on successive days if at all possible, which means they would need to just show one next week.

But at least we've got something to keep us busy, assuming the rippers didn't miss the much-delayed start today...

[Auntie Mame]

OMG, the "limpets" are killing me. And, I hate to be the bearer of bad news. But, next weekend should be worse for dramas because it is the final weekend and closing ceremonies of the "limpets".

... "limpets" ... that's great. Out of the mouth of babes...

Thank you to Candy and Baduy for the recaps.

[Guest sang]

OK. Thanks--- Big SPOILERS CANYA from a mile high City.

I'm dling right now ep.55.

You could DL

http://bigmail32.mail.daum.net/Mail-bin/bi...CvPWXGdRRnQ2_BD

[baduy]

OMG, the "limpets" are killing me. And, I hate to be the bearer of bad news. But, next weekend should be worse for dramas because it is the final weekend and closing ceremonies of the "limpets".

Hmm. What with the revelations about the lip-synching little cutiepie and the digitally-enhanced pyrotechnics of the opening ceremony, I bet they shot the closing ceremony already, so they could jolly well time-shift that and let us see our drama at the proper time. Dream on...

Ah well, like the President once told little Ae Da, with such terrible long-term consequences for her and Kang Soek, everyone has to have a dream. That she chucked the championship belt KS had won at such great cost to the ground shows that she's already seen what helping him chase that dream has led to.

And molson, if you weren't a fellow-Oppa I'd send you a massive anchong-ish Mwahh! for that lovely link But hey this is 2008, and we're all broad-minded around here, so mwahh! to you anyway.

[canyayasis]

molson!!

Muah!!! Muah!!

Better add one more, so I don't get clocked for violating the 20 character rule!!

MUAH!!!

[baduy]

Muah!!! Muah!!

Better add one more, so I don't get clocked for violating the 20 character rule!!

MUAH!!!

Tough call that one. Less than 20 characters = Soompi warning. More than three muah's = public indecency rap. And of course, I should have thought about asking my other trusty tongsaeng to perform vicarious osculation on my behalf and so keep my own reputation intact. Too late now.

Just sneaked a quick peek at the download coming in. HK to Mom: "Mother-in-law, why aren't you wearing your favorite ring?" Oh ho ho....

[Guest reKaddict]

I dunno, it looks to me like what's his name (SY's friend) is trying to hit on her a bit more than SY thinks. It always did look like that to me and if the producers want add one last conflict in for SY and JS that's the only one that currently exists that could be used.

I'm pretty interested in learning how they're going to handle Ae Da now. It doesn't seem like she wants to get married anymore. I think the mom did a really good job in this episode of looking devastated at everyone turning against her (not that I don't think she deserves a lot of what's happening to her).

[Guest hjkomo]

SY decides to stay at the company, rather than start with new enterprise with Dong Seok.

Pres. Park says he's going to retire and discusses who the successor should be with his two directors. One wants JS and SY to take over because their abilities outweigh SW's. The other thinks that preposterous to choose the son-in-law over the son.

Mrs. Lee's more worried about rumours that could be incited if anyone found out about Ae Da being at the hospital (which is owned by NS). She doesn't want anything to jeopardize AD's engagement to young Kang. When she prays to God and Buddha, she asks that KS survive - for AD's sake. KS must survive, so that AD can safely be married off to Kang. :fury:

[Guest reKaddict]

SY decides to stay at the company, rather than start with new enterprise with Dong Seok.

Pres. Park says he's going to retire and discusses who the successor should be with his two directors. One wants JS and SY to take over because their abilities outweigh SW's. The other thinks that preposterous to choose the son-in-law over the son.

So that's what SY and DS were talking about? Something in DS's eyes made me think that he was really riding on having her join him w/ that new enterprise. I dunno, guess I want something more to attempt to start up so we can one more test for their relationship or something.

[Guest sang]

molson!!

Muah!!! Muah!!

Better add one more, so I don't get clocked for violating the 20 character rule!!

MUAH!!!

thank you for 3 Muah!!! Muah!!! Muah!!!

but i'm no longer kid, Ha Ha

See you at choonja's events on monday.

why not, MUAH!!! to CANYA. :rolleyes:

[Guest huangsy]

[Guest xXeunhaexP]

what the heck.....

ughhh i just watched episode 55 and....

i can't believe KS dies ugh that definately made me cry

i feel in the next episodes ae da will try to find peace....

hmm exicted about the next episode

[baduy]

Here's my first batch of "what the !?@! are they talking about???" spoilers for ep 55.

[ep 55 00:01:25]

The President telling the two directors about

his plans for retirement.

We guess that's what he's telling them, because we come into the scene, sound first, as the two of them are reacting with dismay and astonishment to what he's just said, (which we didn't hear) and protesting that he's far too young to step down yet.

We can see from the President's whole manner, though, that this reaction is exactly what he expected, and that he has made up his mind and is simply doing his senior management the courtesy of informing them, not looking for them to talk him out of a decision he will not go back on. Though he does indeed want their views on a vital related matter, as we'll soon see.

He responds to their pleas to stay on by misinterpreting a certain 찰스 다윈 (come on, you valiant Hangeul learners, sound that one out, though the President's pronunciation is plain enough), who, he claims, said that to survive you have to adapt and change. [다윈 of course said nothing of the sort. The whole point about evolutionary theory is that adaptation has nothing whatever to do with decisions or chosen changes by anyone or anything. This is tinpot Management Theory 101, not the The Origin of Species] The business world is changing rapidly, and he feels he is too old to adapt to the necessary new ways. He's painfully aware that the kind of managment he's practised is now outdated. The company needs new leaders who are not afraid to venture into new territory.

Having made plain that his retirement is non-negotiable, the President now turns to what he really wants to know from his senior directors: what ideas do they have about who should succeed him? He asks them to speak their minds frankly.

Before we hear what they have to say, we intercut to HK in "her" office, drinking tea with Mom (the location indicates that, once more, it's Mom who's come to seek out HK).

She's ostensibly come to assure HK that Sarang has taken well to his new 베이비시터 [this week's episode is really big on Hangeul reading exercises. But as often in Konglish, this is a bit of a "false friend" (as well as a death-trap for Koreans who don't guard against a native pronunciation of the 시 combination, which Mom successfully does here) A "paeipis[careful, NOT sh!]itto" is more than a baby-sitter and less than a nanny. More like an in-house child-minder.] She's really glad about that, says HK, but her eyes are already on Mom's hand.

- Mother-in-law, what happened to your ring?

- Ahh...

- It was your favorite and it would go really well with the dress you've got on today. So how come you're wearing a different one?

- Umh... I left it at home [which is I suppose the best we can do in English with the apparently innocent 집에 뒀어. But in Korean there's more than a ghost of a second meaning here. The verb she uses here is often employed in Korean where English has "is", in cases when "is" actually means that something has "become" something else, or undergone a change of state. And of course in Korean 집 is not only "house, home" but also "family" in the sense of "those who belong to the household". So we can't help recalling that she gave Ji Sook this precious ring of hers as a token of her acceptance into her family, and neither can Mom herself, as the distinctly uneasy look on her face testifies.

But it's time for Mom to steel herself and attempt to get to the nitty-gritty (after this massively unfortunate start, as we'll see in a moment) and she braces herself and continues

- Ha Kyoung, dear. Coming back to what we were talking about last time... Don't let it weigh on your mind. I mean, what I said about asking whether you would divorce Sang Wook.

- I won't. I've already forgotten all about what you said. I knew all along there was no way you would have wanted me to break up with Sang Wook. (Mom's look shows that wasn't quite the message she had been hoping to convey, but she's no match for HK, who's obviously been rehearsing this encounter and quickly makes another daringly ingenious move to resieze the advantage) Mother-in-law, shall we make a promise?

- A promise?

- Yes. That we'll never part. That we'll always be mother and daughter, and stand by each other for the rest of our lives.

- Ah... Alright then... Let's do that.

- Let's link pinkies!

- What? You mean, like a couple of kids?

- Yes, come on, please!

- OK, OK. Like this?

- (Noticing something else about Mom's hand as she clasps it) Did you take off your signet ring as well? [interesting question: has she been placing her seal on some important documents??] ... Mother, I am going to model the rest of my life on you. Like you, I'll be an elegant and gracious hostess. I'll devote the whole of my life to the company and the family. And so you won't be able to help loving me in return. Are we agreed?

Mom gives a faint smile and the ghost of a nod. Her expressions tells us (and it will emerge shortly, HK as well) that she hasn't been taken in, but she's at a loss how to react. She decides to withdraw for the time being and try again another time.

She comes out of the office and asks the PA if the President is free. He's in a meeting, she replies. So Mom, wondering to herself what the meeting can be about, asks for her usual glass of water, and while the PA fetches it, reflects, "The cheek of that cunning vixen! So plausible, so eloquent. Ha! (Then, looking at her ring finger) Little Ji Sook! You poor child! You poor, poor thing!"

[00:05:42]

Cut back to the high-level meeting in the President's office where things are getting quite heated, though the President remains a calm observer as the two directors argue things out. We infer that the one on the left is in favor of Sang Wook, while the other one has different ideas..

- What on earth are you thinking of? Pass over the eldest son and go for the son-in-law instead?!

- Nowadays succession of the eldest son can't be taken for granted. Park San Wook hasn't achieved anything special, and the employees have seen that. But Lee Joon Soo did a splendid job as resort project manager, and he's an outstanding team leader. Promote him and his wife, give them the necessary management training, and in my view they could jointly run the company.

- Excuse me, Director Choi, but you can't really be suggesting the President should put aside his eldest son?!

- We're talking here about what's best for the future of the SJ group!

- Who believes such nonsense?!

At this point the President intervenes:

- Hey now, enough of that, the two of you! I just wanted to hear in person the opinion of the two people whose judgement I value most. Fine. That will be all for now.

Just as they are leaving, Mom comes in and exchanges the usual civilities as the Directors leave, but she senses something is afoot, and tries to find out what it is as soon as they are gone.

- A confidential meeting with your two most trusted Directors?

- Ha ha, why not?

- Buy why? It's a little strange. Is the company in trouble?

- Whatever makes you think that? But what's taken you away from your work?

- Well, it's just that ... I stopped by Ha Kyoung's office.

- Ha Kyoung? What's the matter?

- Never mind. (She's clearly in a quandary. After what she's just experienced she knows that the President has to be alerted to the whole of HK's misdeeds as soon as possible, but if there's some sort of company crisis looming, she doesn't want to add to his worries) You know you talked about letting go of everything? How about we try a little rehearsal for that? Things are really getting on top of me, too!

- Let's do just that, eh? Leave go of everything. How about just the two of us go somewhere nice today?

Cut to HK, apparently talking to herself. (In fact, once the camera angle changes, we see that Wicker Man is sitting in the office right behind her, engrossed in his poetry reading [or could it be that Birdlife in the Rockies with free authentic birdsong CD he was recently sent by a repentant newly-converted admirer of his?])

- Plainly even my mother-in-law suspects me now. Something seems to have opened her eyes! Problems over Sarang's adoption!! And the business of Park Sang Wook being implicated in stock manipulation! Everyone without exception is questioning me...

She turns to Wicker Man:

- Chief Lee

- Yes ma'am?

- Was it you? (He gives her a puzzled, but rather alarmed look. She gets up and approaches him menacingly) The person who tipped off the President, it was you, wasn't it? About comparing Lee Joon Soo's proposals with mine?

- No ma'am, it wasn't me!

- Why did you do something so mean, why?!

- I didn't do it. But wouldn't you like to be given a chance?

- Given a chance? What are you talking about? You mean a chance to confess and do penance? [Which is in effect what the President was trying to give her in his reaction to her second set of stolen proposals] Don't get cocky, please, or you're done for! I've gone too far now to call a halt. It's like a race along a cliff edge: the one who loses is the one who falls off first [PLEASE don't ask how I got there from the Korean original. I'd rather not think about it. Though actually, cliff-top racing might make a rather good Olympic event that could be over pretty quickly so we could get to see our dramas on time]. My father-in-law will be retiring soon. I know that from very reliable sources. So I've almost made it. So don't put a spoke in my wheel now! Arrange a secret meeting for me next week with the President of the HK group. But no-one must know.

- What? With the President of HK?! Whatever are you planning now?

- I've made a false move, so I have to fix things, OK?

- Ma'am, what is it you're going to try?

- (Chucks papers at him) Don't try to hold me back!

- I beg you, ma'am!

- My mother-in-law wants me to leave and fend for myself. She says she wants me to ask for a divorce! But I'm determined to hold on to my place in the family, my husband! Don't I have a right to my life, too? If I'm to fall, I'm not going to fall alone!

(At this point, SW arrives and stays, unseen, listening at the open[!!] door) Help me, please. Don't get in my way, help me out, Chief Lee, won't you?

- Very well, ma'am

- Oh, and one more thing. Ji Sook is finished. I know she was the one who sent Sarang back with my mother-in-law. Follow Sang Wook, find out where she is and get her hospitalized. I don't want to see her revolting face ever again!

- But how? By force?

- You'd follow orders from the President or my mother-in-law blindly. So why not mine? Don't you understand why? If you don't want to do it yourself, hire someone! She has to be put out of circulation. She's got to be locked up fast and the key thrown away, that Kim Ji Sook!

(Sang Wook leaves his listening-post and goes out on the roof, thinking "Kim Ji Sook. I'm sorry. All the hardship you've been through all this time...")

[canyayasis]

Yes, i'm the one who sent Wicker Man the birdcall book of the Rockies!

Now that I've seen the evidence on the SBS morning show that Wicker Man is trained

in musical theater and looks GREAT in tights!

P.S. Thanks for the update of the HK conversations...

I'm waiting for her to fall.....

[Guest hjkomo]

Thanks, baduy!

But you forgot the Konglish, "I told you not to put on the beu rae yi keu (brakes)!" that HK yells to Wicker Man.

First, tattered t-shirt...then tights...wish I could've seen that!

[Auntie Mame]

oh bummer! The writer gave KS a "Bittersweet Life/La Dolce Vita" ending. KS's death is not going to bode well for Mrs. Lee. His death is going to give AD a core of steel.

Also, just imagine how many of them can throw "Do you want me to die, too?" in Mrs. Lee's face ... each time he/she doesn't want to capitulate to Mrs. Lee's demands.

I've been thinking about how and to whom the title of the drama, "Happiness/I am Happy/Bliss", applies. I wonder if the "whom" is Mrs. Lee ... when she finally relinquishes her control to let each person find his/her own brand of "Happiness".

Side note: I have to give credit and appreciation to whoever is dressing Mrs. Lee. I think the elegant and sophisticated outfits selected for Mrs. Lee is perfectly in rhyme with the character. Of course, it helps that the actress herself is quite befitting the role.

As always, thank you to everyone for the translations and recaps. A big MUAH to all.

[baduy]

Side note: I have to give credit and appreciation to whoever is dressing Mrs. Lee. I think the elegant and sophisticated outfits selected for Mrs. Lee is perfectly in rhyme with the character. Of course, it helps that the actress herself is quite befitting the role.

I have to admit I'm still stunned by that green dress SY wore for the resort opening ceremony. Or rather by the way she wore it. And her hair falling over those bare shulders. OK down boy! On with the spot translations, next chunk...

I'm going to carry on skipping the Joon Ki-Soon Mi parts so as to focus on the more vital strands of the drama. Once the subbers are able to catch up, people with no Korean will be able to follow the details of what JK and SM are saying, but I don't think they're missing too much in the meantime.

Just one small addition, though, to canyayasis's recap of ep 54, concerning the somewhat impromptu "formal" visit of Soon Mi to her prospective new family. [ep 54 00:22:00] The mini stand-off across the family table in which SM gets the better of SY, to the great satisfaction of Granny and the quiet admiration of Mrs Ahn, does indeed involve their relative ages, but in a slightly more complicated way.

The key word here that canyayasis picked up on isn't 동생 = younger sibling, but 동서 = [brother]/sister-in-law. And what makes Soon Mi's pointed use of it so telling is that it's embedded in panmal speech which sends a particular sort of signal. Since this will be practically impossible to convey via subs, I will expand a bit on that point now.

We can see how the moment that the canny Soon Mi eyes the (often remarkably less than canny) SY across the room on first being introduced to her that she's identified her as the "one to beat" when making her bid for a place in the family pecking order. We need to remember yet again that in Korea women tend to marry their husband's family rather than just their husband, and sizing up that family and juggling for a favorable position as a newcomer is an important part of pre- or newly married life. If we consider the relative positions of SY and SM within the Lee family structure, they are about evenly balanced. SY, on her side, has the advantage of having her feet under the table, her wedding photo on the wall, and a working (as well as affectionate) relationship with granny and Mrs Ahn. (I ignore Pop Lee here, this is serious women's stuff we're into right now).

But Soon Mi, though she has almost literally just walked in off the street, has her strong points too. Though the wedding hasn't taken place yet, her prospective husband is the first-born, so his wife has a potentially higher status than JS's. And above all, she's pregnant, a massive familial-status-boosting advantage, which of course SY is deliberately passing on for now. So given that they are more or less evenly matched, their relative ages could be a crucial status factor.

That's why it's a significant move when, as they eat their meal, SY, apparently as an innocent conversational gambit, asks SM how old she is. Now Soon Mi, still smarting a little at the way her future husband [oh boy! has he a lot to learn about women, beyond his discovery, to quote his bewildered words to granny and Pop earlier in the ep, that they "get pregnant so easily"] has just described SY as "the angel of the family", knows very well what SY is fishing for, which is why she rather stuns everyone by asking SY, in effect, whether she'd like to see some ID like a checkout clerk at a liquor store who suspects a customer is under-age (though of course she doesn't make the rebuke so explicit). SY is taken aback and left floundering for a moment and SM presses home her advantage. Since it turns out they are both year of the Dog and so too close in birthdate for age to make a difference, she (Soon Mi) intends to treat SY in a "relaxed" fashion. That is, speak to her in panmal from now on. And she immediately puts her intention into practice with the "반가워, 동서" Pleased to meet you, sister-in-law", where it's the confident use of informal speech after such slight acquaintance that marks Soon Mi's -- remarkably successful -- status bid.

We'll see another switch into panmal, even more important and very different in tone, right at the end of ep 55, to which I now return, jumping back in at 00:16:02 where JS, Young Jae, and the coach

(the latter clutching the championship belt) are waiting outside the operating theater. Throughout these sequences, it's noticeable how Young Jae is almost as distraught as Ae Da is over what has happened. There's a kind of solidarity of orphans at work here, a spontaneous fellowship of people who know how important it is to have some sort of replacement for the kind of bonds denied them at birth (which links in with YJ's inextinguishable concern for Ji Sook, no matter how she treats him, and her apparently shameless, but in fact very touching confidence that no matter what she does to hurt him, YJ Oppa will always be there for her.) A little later, when JS is patronizingly assuring AD that KS will be OK and she can go home, YJ walks out in silent, but unconcealed disgust, refusing to be a party to such deception, however well-meant.

Right now, though, the coach is reproaching himself for maybe pushing KS into taking on the champion too soon. But JS tells him not to beat himself up over that: KS himself wanted to win that belt more than anything else. YJ, who's been listening from a distance, suddenly gets up and yells at the coach, blaming him, not for KS's present state, but for even entertaining the thought that KS might die. "Our Suki isn't as easily beaten as that! He'll be fine after the surgery! He's real tough!"

[00:16:40]

Cut to SY's cubicle in the company, where JS's buddy Dong Ki has come over to talk to her in a state of some alarm, and she's clearly peturbed by what he's telling her, namely that SJ enterprises is gearing up to market a garlic-enhanced soft drink, the very item on which her proposed startup enterprise with Dong Soek was going to be based, an idea she had presented to her father only two days earlier in a business plan (asking him to become an investor, as a private individual though on commercial terms). This shows, though SY doesn't realise it, how far HK has thrust her tentacles into the SJ management structure (from within which we discover she is instantly tipped off about the President's retirement intentions). So by the time she floated her stolen idea with the President (thus unwittingly starting her downfall in his eyes) she had plainly already got things moving on the ground without waiting for his approval or support. More immediately, it faces SY with a serious dilemma. She'd staked a lot on this proposed venture, but her aim was to show the world (not to mention her father) that she was capable of running a successful business by herself, not to enter into cutthroat competition, and maybe also intellectual property litigation, with the family firm. She has to take a snap decision. Is it worth getting into a nasty fight, which may expose a lot of dirty laundry, over HK's misdeeds in this matter? Especially when that would involve a problematic alliance between her and Dong Soek against the firm where her husband is now clearly a rising star. She decides she doesn't want to go down that road. Family loyalty and her marriage come first. (It's part of her awareness of her responsibility to company morale that, after her initial consternation, she doesn't reveal to Dong Ki her full reaction, with all that it might unveil about conflicts at the top, and shoos away his hints that she needs to take some initiative to ward of the threat, perceived widely among middle managment, that Ha Kyoung represents. You get back to your job, she tells him, and goes off grim-faced to meet Dong Soek and give him the bad news.

He doesn't exactly accept it with good grace (but then, as we've already observed by contrast with young Kang, he may have the education and the manners, but beneath the surface he's no gent). "So you've finally knuckled under to your husband! "No", she retorts, "I'm just accepting the consequences of choices I've made. I've chosen in favor of the company and of Lee Joon Soo." And that's it, as far as she's concerned, though she's plainly sad at having to let her old pal down. He gets the further message that here aren't going to be any more similar schemes linking them, so this is a sort of parting of the ways: "OK then. I get it. Good luck in your future life!" And she responds in kind: "You too. I hope you're a big success!" He hasn't quite given up yet though: "If you have any good ideas that the company is hostile to, just let me know! I'll do you a good deal for them!" And an even shorter-term move: "Say, some of our college friends are having a get-together tonight. Wanna come?" But no, she has to go right now and meet Joon Soo "See you some time. Fighting!". So: a road not taken. And not one she's keeping for another day, either. She just doesn't want to go there any more.

[00:19:52]

SY finally gets through to JS's cellphone and learns the dreadful news. In the hospital lobby, Ae Da is standing with Joon Young and Jjong Ah. How could this happen at the very moment KS had become a champion? JA laments. But AD knows that there is grim link precisely between this happening and him becoming a champion. "I remember now, she says, "Oppa used to have occasional dizzy spells. And sometimes he'd say he had a bad headache". "Hey, that sounds bad" says Jjong Ah, who as ever is very low on tact despite her heart of grit-encrusted gold. But Ae Da isn't really listening, or talking to her apparent companions. She stands leaning dispiritedly against the wall, looking nowhere in particular, and continues her line of thinking aloud "He was vulnerable from the start. He wasn't cut out to be a boxer. It was because of me he became Newcomer of the Year, then Champion, but he shouldn't have." "Don't talk that way!" Jjong Ah retorts. "You're insulting the Korean champion". Ae Da takes no notice. As we'll see again when her mother confronts her the next day, she has passed through grief, anguish and love into a different universe where only she and her Oppa are truly real. She hears voices from another, supposedly real, world, but doesn't attach much importance to them. "If only he'd never met me, Oppa would never have gotten into the state he's in now. It's all because of me".

Cut to SY returning home, and her father asking her where Ae Da has got to, seeing how it's so late. SY checks that Mom isn't in earshot -- she's reading Sarang a story in Ae Da's room, so the coast seems clear -- then starts to tell her father what's happened.

We cut briefly back to the corridor outside the operating theater, with KS being wheeled out, then return to the mansion, where the President is asking what KS's prospects for recovery are. He's undergoing surgery, SY says, but it sounds touch and go. "Daddy, that's where Ae Da is right now. Joon Soo is with her." She says it in an undertone, half expecting an angry reponse to the information as to AD's whereabouts, but that's not what the President is worried about. "And after he'd become Newcomer of the Year. I thought he'd go from strength to strength after that", the President muses." "Daddy?! How on earth did you know about that?" "Huh?" the President says, realizing he's let something slip. "Joon Soo told me Kang Soek had an anonymous backer. Could it have been you?!" The President looks over his shoulder and lowers his voice. "This must be kept a secret from your Mom. Though there was no way he could have carried on seeing Ae Da, he was a kid with a dream and I couldn't make him give it up. What hospital is he in?"

Which will turn out to be a rather important question a little later, and we cut to the person to whom it will matter so much, namely Mom. Sitting with Sarang on Ae Da's sofa, she's just spotted the shoes KS bought AD as an engagement and farewell present enshrined on the window ledge, where that row of milk cartons once stood. "Mr Kang never gave her these! Maybe they're a present from Seo Yoon?" She soon gets a chance to ask, as SY comes in and tells her not to worry, but AD will be a bit late home, she's with Joon Soo and Jjong Ah. "Doing what? Why's she with them?" "Mom I'm dead beat, so..." "What's all this nonsense? What's going on?" Mom insists on knowing. "I just wanted to let you know Ae Da will be a bit late home. Sleep well now, Mom. You too, Sarang, dear", and she tries to leave, but Mom has something else she wants to dig into. "These shoes. Did you give them to Ae Da?" "No, I didn't: why do you want to know?" "So where did she get them, then. She hasn't been out shopping on her own lately... And surely that punk wouldn't buy her anything like these? ... But if it does turn out he's been meeting Ae Da again, I'll have him jailed and throw away the key!" SY knows it's best to say nothing, but this really is too much to take. "There's no chance of that now!" she says bitterly. Then biting her tongue, "Sleep well!", and determinedly goes out, leaving Mom absurdly calling out after her the joyous news that Mr Kang has phoned from his house-hunting expedition to the States to say he's found an apartment for him and Ae Da in a beautiful Victorian [??!!] house just two blocks from Central Park..."

[Guest hjkomo]

Side note: I have to give credit and appreciation to whoever is dressing Mrs. Lee. I think the elegant and sophisticated outfits selected for Mrs. Lee is perfectly in rhyme with the character. Of course, it helps that the actress herself is quite befitting the role.

But, it's quite amusing that she goes to bed in ep. 55, for the sake of her skin, in full make-up, clothes (that black, sequined outfit), and earrings.

[00:16:40]

Cut to SY's cubicle in the company, where JS's buddy Dong Ki has come over to talk to her in a state of some alarm, and she's clearly peturbed by what he's telling her, namely that SJ enterprises is gearing up to market a garlic-enhanced soft drink, the very item on which her proposed startup enterprise with Dong Soek was going to be based, an idea she had presented to her father only two days earlier in a business plan (asking him to become an investor, as a private individual though on commercial terms). This shows, though SY doesn't realise it, how far HK has thrust her tentacles into the SJ management structure (from within which we discover she is instantly tipped off about the President's retirement intentions). So by the time she floated her stolen idea with the President (thus unwittingly starting her downfall in his eyes) she had plainly already got things moving on the ground without waiting for his approval or support. More immediately, it faces SY with a serious dilemma. She'd staked a lot on this proposed venture, but her aim was to show the world (not to mention her father) that she was capable of running a successful business by herself, not to enter into cutthroat competition, and maybe also intellectual property litigation, with the family firm. She has to take a snap decision. Is it worth getting into a nasty fight, which may expose a lot of dirty laundry, over HK's misdeeds in this matter? Especially when that would involve a problematic alliance between her and Dong Soek against the firm where her husband is now clearly a rising star. She decides she doesn't want to go down that road. Family loyalty and her marriage come first. (It's part of her awareness of her responsibility to company morale that, after her initial consternation, she doesn't reveal to Dong Ki her full reaction, with all that it might unveil about conflicts at the top, and shoos away his hints that she needs to take some initiative to ward of the threat, perceived widely among middle managment, that Ha Kyoung represents. You get back to your job, she tells him, and goes off grim-faced to meet Dong Soek and give him the bad news.

After SY walks away from Dong Ki (is that really his name cuz I'd hate to be named colleague), he's frustrated that the President isn't believing in HK's misdeeds even though he sent the email (the one with details of JS's and HK's proposals side by side - that HK assumes was sent to the Pres. by Wicker Man).