[Drama 2013] Thorn Flower / Spine Flower 가시꽃

[baduy]

Nowadays, giving download links other than to legal sites authorized by the rights holders is strongly discouraged on soompi. Not because anyone wants to spoil anyone's fun, but because the legal flunkeys engaged by the rights holders (and especially those rights holders who have licensed viewing rights to Kdramas for the US market) actively comb soompi and other leadiing fansites to find such links so they can get the sites that host them taken down.

Since they also compel Google and similar search engines to remove links to such sites from their results, finding what the rights holders don't want you to find can be a tad difficult at first, but with a little patience it can still be done. For fairly obvious reasons I won't say any more, except to point out that what you find on d-addicts are links to torrents which will only work if the file concerned is actively being "seeded". Most dramas only get seeded for a week or so. After that your chance of getting anything via d-addicts are pretty slim, so you need to grab stuff pretty soon after it's aired.

You can watch this drama in streamed form from a number of Chinese VOD sites. Again, and for similar reasons, I won't name them here, but a little perseverance will come up with quite a few of them.

If you are prepared to pay a monthly subscription, you can legally stream all the episodes of this drama from either www.mbivo.com or www.showboom.com, though there are some restrictions on the countries each site will stream to (different between the sites). Subscribers  can also watch the drama as it airs in Korea on showboom, if the Internet connection is good enough, and currently mvibo is getting the raw streams up every day within half an hour or so of the show airing in Korea.

Showboom.com also allows (for a separate additional subscription) legal downloading, but for this particular drama showboom does not offer any English subs. The only legal source of English subs (for the first 19 episodes only so far) is mbivo.com.  It is possible to get hold of software that will record the streamed videos but, with the exception of showboom download service subscribers, doing so violates the terms and conditions of streaming-only sites like mvibo, and is definitely illegal under Canadian, US,  EU and Australian law (which is why you have again to be a little persistent to track down the software that allows you to commit such a heinous crime).

[elegance1]

Did what I think just happened .. happen in episode 60? No! That was not supposed to happen!! Sooner or later everyone will know - it was supposed to be a big surprise.

[Triton823]

generally the big reveal is around 60-65 in most 100 plus shows...cause now we are on the downhill slope!

[baduy]

elegance1 said: Did what I think just happened .. happen in episode 60? No! That was not supposed to happen!! Sooner or later everyone will know - it was supposed to be a big surprise.

[elegance1]

I just don't like where this is going. There's still a long way to go to the 100th episode - but I will really hate it if Hyeok Min and the others find it out even before Jennifer knows it. It was going so well. 

[Triton823]

The president love se min mother or did he just rape her? Eng subs way too slow.

[baduy]

Triton823 said: Eng subs way too slow.

[samara34]

I think they should stop taking new projects and just concentrate on what they have for now.

[baduy]

Here now are the main things that I imagine people with no Korean will need to know to make full sense of episode 60. As usual, I make no attempt to summarize things that can be seen directly from the video.

After Seong Min has intervened to stop Hyeok Min attacking Yang Hee, Seong Min accompanies her out of the house. This is a good example of how Kdramas contain things that are apparently purely visual, but where what you see only makes full sense if you understand it as a specifically Korean cultural signal. Showing visitors out is a fundamental part of Korean etiquette. Letting a visitor just leave your home without coming some way out with them (to the elevator at least,  or even down to the entrance lobby in an apartment block; to the outer gate and maybe into the street outside in a house with any kind of yard) is extremely rude and is taken by the visitor as a clear sign that they were unwelcome and should not return. So by showing his mother out in this way, Seong Mi is rowing back from his earlier outburst to Jennifer that he had no interest in seeing his birth mother again.

That context provides the underlay for the words he actually says to her, explaining that he's sorry for the upset that just happened, but that right now he's very confused and needs time to sort himself out, so he'd prefer it if she could go away for now. She understands that this is in effect a promise to meet her again and she in turn apologizes for springing this shock on him.

While Seong Min and Yang Hee are still outside, Hyoek Min asks Jennifer how come "that woman" came to the house again, and she surprises him by saying that Yang Hee came and met Seong Min with his mother's consent. Hyeok Min furiously orders her never to let Yang Hee in again, and they have a silent stand-off.  At the same time, Ji Min is alarming her mother by reporting that mother and son just left the house together, and Ji Min says that, more than seeing his mother out, Seong Min may have run off with her. But Evil Mom says Seong Min isn't the kind of person who'd do that.

Hyeok Min intercepts Seong Min on his way back to his room and rebukes him for making the mother who raised him suffer, despite the warning Hyeok Min had fiven him in his office earlier that day. He angrily tells him not to be fooled by by his "beggar" of a birth mother.. What brought her back is the "scent of money", he claims. She's doesn't really want to meet her lost son at all, let alone take him to live with her: she's just out for a massive payoff to go away again. But Seong Min calmly replies that this is his problem, and he'll sort it out in his own way, and he's unimpressed by Hyeok Min's unspecified but ominous threats as to what will happen to him if he continues to upset their mother.

Seong Min has in fact gone to talk gently to his mother, assure her that Yang Hee has now gone away, and thank her for letting that meeing take place. She replies that she had always wanted to tell him the truth, but the right occasion never arose. Stepmother and son obviously understand and sympathize with each other's predicaments.

Meanwhile Hyeok Min is confronting his father, asking why he is turning a blind eye to Yang Hee's behavior and the pain it is causing his mother. The President replies that he has his own reasons, and Hyeok Min should let him get on with solving this problem in his own way. When Hyeok Min refuses to be fobbed off with that, his father tells him about the newspaper that was sent to him that morning. When Hyeok Min reveals that he, and Seo Won, were also sent copies of that same newspaper, the President is deeply alarmed and wonders who can be behind this. If he hadn't been told the guy was safely dead, he'd suspect a further blackmail move by the creepy chauffeur, but Hyeok Min assures him that there's no possibility of that. Looking as thoughtful as he can manage to be, Hyeok Min goes to find Jennifer, but she has mysteriously left the house.

What she gets up to, and how she nearly gets caught, is plain enough from the visuals. When she gets back to the house, she brandishes a bag of sashimi, which she says she popped out to buy to satisfy a sudden craving, but on her way to the kitchen to dish it up she lets the voice recorder fall and daren't risk drawing attention to it by picking it up with the others watching. But she soon has an other problem Hyeok Min stretches himself out on Jennifer's bed and announces he's sleeping there that night. Jennifer protests that they promised his mother they wouldn't sleep together till their month's "trial period" was over, but Hyeok Min can't see why they should keep that promise.

She's rescued by Ji Min barging in to tell Hyeok Min their mother wants to see  him pronto, then turning on her and accusing her of seducing her brother for her own ends. Lowering her voice and drawing Ji Min to her in a mock sisterly embrace, Jennifer says that Ji Min's a fine one to talk, given what her father has swept under the carpet about his own affairs, and indeed what she herself has been up to with Seo Won. So she'd better watch out, because there's a whole lot of dirt Jennifer can dish out about her and her family. While Ji Min is taking that threat in, Jennifer adds that no-one else can hear what's being said in that room, so if Ji Min tries telling anyone what Jennifer just said, no-one will believe her. Realizing how true that is, Ji Min screams in frustration, bringing Hyeok Min and Je Joon in to investigate, and allowing Jennifer to drive home her point with a practical demonstration. Ji Min frantically tells her brother and husband that Jennifer has just said outrageous things to her, but Jennifer feigns apologetic and puzzled surprise, saying she's no idea what Ji Min is referring to. If something she just said has unintentionally offended Ji Min, she'll gladly apologize if only Ji Min will explain what is it that has so upset her. That tips Ji Min over the edge into complete hysteria, giving Jennifer a pretext for saying that her sister-in-law's strange behaviour has worn her out, so she wants to retire to bed -- alone.

Apparently that same evening, Nam Joon and Soo Ji are drinking in a bar. We get the impression that Soo Ji may have called Nam Joon there to probe into what lies behind her observations of Jennifer and Nam Joon together earlier that day. Not by asking him any trick questions or inciting him to betray confidences, but by admitting her own puzzlement over recent events, about why they happened and about her own response to them. She remarks that it's a strange turn of events that the two of them should be together here side by side, each of them thinking of someone else, she of Hyeok Min Nam Joon of Jennifer. He agrees  it is indeed strange, but then there's no turnng back time. She wonders whether if they could nevertheless turn back time and rerun everything that's led up to this situation, would the outcome be any different? He says he thinks it would be, which is why he so wishes it was possible. She isn't so sure. She explains that she once used to be so certain about who she was and what she wanted, but now when she observes herself, she can no longer decide what sort of person she truly is. They both ponder that remark in silence.

The sequence that follows, another one that needs no linguistic explanation, takes place even later that night, then first thing the following morning. Next morning, having observed the housekeeper retrieve the voice recorder and then hand it back to Jennifer, the President has spent the whole night at his desk  pondering what's going on when his wife comes in with a further delivery of a newspaper from the past, this time with the story of Se Mi's mother's death in a hit and run accident. At his office, Hyeok Min has just received his copy of the same newspaper when Soo Ji comes in, saying she's brought him a birthday present. He coldly comments that his birthday isn't till the following day, but Soo Ji says this is a special present from their unborn child, who wanted to be sure to come up with the first present Hyeok Min received on this occasion. She hands him a wallet with another copy of the ultrasound image. Before Hyoek Min has had time to take this in, Seo Won bursts in. He's surprised to see Soo Ji there at all, and even more surprised when she explains that she's now taken over Jennifer's old position in the company, whereupon she takes her leave of without any further attention to Hyeok Min.

Immediately she's gone Hyeok Min produces the newspaper, but Seo Won says they've a much bigger problem than that, and reveals that the previous night he got a phone call and heard Kim Baek Choon's voice on the line. Hyeok Min is duly taken aback and says he'll look into how that could have happened, at which Seo Won reveals that there's yet another matter on his mind. Did the President mention anything about Seo Won paying him a visit? He's visibly relieved to discover Hyeok Min has no idea what he's talking about.

At the bakery, Nam Joon's mother brings up the matter of Eun Seok's blood group with her sister-in-law. Seon Yeong is thrown off balance for a moment, then tries to bluff her way out of it by claiming that this is an extremely rare instance of a type O mother giving birth to an type A/B infant and that it has has always astonished medical practitioners as well. Her sister-in-law pretends to be convinced, but she plainly isn't, and Seon Yeong can see that she's not. But that's not the end of her problems. Granny brings Eun Seok home from another hospital visit and says she's noticed that they were shadowed by a mysterious stranger. Seon Yeong pretends to make light of the matter and says Granny was just imagining things, but she hastens back to her room to phone Nam Joon in alarm. He takes her call while in a tense conversation with Hyeok Min who is warning him off any further attempts to discredit his family. Reacting to what his aunt just told him, Nam Joon in turn warns Hyeok Min not to do anything more to harm his family.

Ex detective Seo, showing the housekeeper's personnel file to the President, explains that she has every reason to hold a grudge against the President, whom she holds responsible for her husband's death in a construction accident 15 years earlier. He explains that she was only appointed to this position of trust without checking her background because Nam Joon recommended her, at a time when he was thought to be a loyal employee of Taekang. The President puts another piece of the jigsaw in place as he takes that information in.

All that now remains is to find out who planted the housekeeper in his household and what links she has with Jennifer that led her to behave as she did over the dropped voice recorder. Seo takes that in hand, revealing to the housekeeper that he knows all about the lives and whereabouts of her two daughters, the elder one working in a ?leprosy? mission in Manila, the younger one in college,  and threatening he'll have the elder daughter brought home, meaning the younger daughter will have to quit college through lack of cash, unless she provides straight and accurate answers to the questions the President is about to ask her. The President tells her he knows all about her background and her motives for bearing a grudge against him, and that is was she who planted those newspapers from the past,  but he will let her go with a full year's salary provided she never comes near him or his family again and provides, before she leaves, the answers to two questions. First, who put her up to delivering those newspapers. And secondly, what that person's motive was for doing so. Terrified for her daughters , the woman reveals, first of all, what the President was pretty sure of already, namely that it was Jennifer who put her up to it. Then he forces out of her an answer he was plainly not expecting. That Jennifer did that because she is none other than the supposedly long since dead Cheon Se Mi.

[ena_teo]

@baduy thanks for the extremely detailed recap of episode 60, I have to catch up from about episode 50-something and I am just rather blown away with how the President knows Jennifer as Se Mi and extremely curious to know what will unfold hence forth!

[Guest yukiyoshinori]

baduy is Awesome.
It's the cultural fill-in's that are not obvious to non Koreans and foreign born Koreans that make baduy great.
Most recappers miss a lot of cultural things and that includes Dramabeans recappers.
I wish I could reward baduy for her (his?) work.
<3
~yuki

[Guest atomickitty]

yukiyoshinori said: baduy is Awesome.
It's the cultural fill-in's that are not obvious to non Koreans and foreign born Koreans that make baduy great.
Most recappers miss a lot of cultural things and that includes Dramabeans recappers.
I wish I could reward baduy for her (his?) work.
<3
~yuki

[Guest atomickitty]

Hi @ena_teo.
I have been lax on my watching too. I stopped watching before the wedding as I was upset that it was going to happen. Didn't like that turn but I'm starting to let go of my frustration at that plot point. I'm sure it has it's purpose and I trust the writers. I mean, they have the whole picture. I guess...

[baduy]

As I was watching the live stream today (ep 61) , I was thinking "Good, I won't have to write very much about this episode, because the visuals are pretty clear." But then I rewatched some parts, trying to pretend I don't understand any Korean and seeing what might need explaining to other people in that position, and I realised there was a whole lot in the dialogue (plus another little batch of cultural signals) that you need to be aware of so as to get that full dramatic dynamic of this episode. So this may turn out to be rather long...

To begin with, I expect people will be wondering what that notice was that was displayed on screen between the age-restriction banner and the start of the episode itself. Condensing the beaurocrat-speak somewhat, it means:

For violating Article 35 Section 3 Paragraph 6 of the Broadcasting Code through the contents of the program "Thorn Flower" transmitted on 4 February 2013, JTBC has received a formal admonition from the Broadcasting Standards Commission.

That's the first episode, and it's in response so several hundred complaints about the first run of the attempted rape scene. A formal admonition means that the station and the drama producers will not be fined in this instance, but they may face severe financial penalties (and ultimately a ban) if they repeat this or similar scenes in later episodes of this drama or in subsequent dramas that they show.

Interestingly, although MBC provoked even more viewer complaints by the rape scene in I Miss You near the end of last year (where the victim was a young girl), they were spared sanctions because they were able successfully to argue that the scene was artistically necessary and was not in any way exploitative or titivating.

It's not clear whether JTBC attempted any such defense, but it's striking that the notice which they are obliged by law to transmit contains no hint of the reather groveling apology broadcasters normally append to such notices.  The complaints, submissions and ajudications used to get published on the Broadcasting Commission's website, but that section of the site seems to have been removed. A pity. It was really funny to read the outraged complaints from taxi operators when New Tales of Gisaeng dared to show a Seoul taxi driver fleecing what he thought was an American newly arrived in Korea etc... As if...

On to episode 61 itself. I said that I thought the last bit of the teaser for today, tacked on to last Friday's episode, was tricksy, and that the "everything" which Hyeok Min said he now knew as he took Jennifer's phone from her hand and took over her conversation with Nam Joon might not be "everything" his father now knew. Well, this turned out to be a two-level teaser, because that scene, the cliffhanger one with which today's episode ended, continued the tricksiness. Were meant to think that "everything" means, well.... everything, and Jennifer, who fears for her life, certainly thinks it does. But maybe not. We really will find out tomorrow.

The cliffhanger sequence from last Friday continues with the housekeeper adding to her identification of Jennifer as Se Mi the fact that she was planted in the President's household before Se Mi's return by Nam Joon and Seo Yeong, and that all those three are in league. She begs on her knees for the President to spare her and her daughters, and he tells her to get out of his sight and never come near him again before he changes his mind about letting her go.

Left alone, the President thinks to himself (there's an awful lot of voiced over thinking, mixed with a rather alarming amount of talking-to-oneself in this episode) wondering how Se Mi can still be alive, and what purpose she had in marrying into his family. He recalls her mother threating to reveal to everyone that he raped her, and we also see, of the fourth time now, the way he reaches across the table and takes her hands, though once more we see this from the perspective of Evil Mom snooping through the window and so can't hear what was said.

Jennifer is in her Secret Revenge HQ, tweaking the Revenge Targets Display Board every good Korean avenger simply has to have, when she gets a text message from the fugitive housekeeper, apologizing and begging Jennifer not to hate her. She doesn't need to say why, and she doesn't. Jennifer frantically takes some rather absurd precautions Just what is stuffing incriminating papers into a normal steel filing cabinet without even locking it supposed to do? It might have been better to wipe that board and spend a few minutes doing some heavy shredding...

At the same time, Nam Joon is calling Seo Yeong to warn her something's fishy, because the housekeeper has apparently vanished. He says he can't warn Jennifer because she's refusing to take his calls lately, so Seo Yeong immediately phones Jennifer with that warning, but she says she knows already, and she's about to go home to find out what's happened. Seo Yeong begs her not to do that, but to get away while she can, since she's sure the housekeeper will have given everything away, meaning Jennifer's in great danger. But Jennifer says she has to make sure for herself, and insists on returning to the house.

We next see ex-cop Seo telling Hyeok Min in his office what's happened. Or rather, what's happened as far as Seo knows it. Which does NOT include knowing what the housekeeper actually told the President, only that someone or other put her up to delivering those newspapers from the past and that the President was planning to find out from her who that was. With this, partial, information, Hyeok Min now phones Seo Won, and their conversation is overhead by Seo Won's office clerk, who, we remember from episode 13, is another Seo Yeong/Nam Joon "plant" with a secret grievance, as the housekeeper was.

Seo Won asks who was behind the houskeeper's actions, and Hyeok Min says his father didn't tell him on the phone, but he'll find out when he gets home and pass the info on to Seo Won.

The President is still trying to figure out why Se Mi would want of get inside his family. Maybe to get vengeance on him?  [Maybe??  MAYBE???? That hairstyle of his must involve some rigorous daily brushing, but it doesn't seem to help the blood flow to his brain] But he has a problem there. He and his family and cronies have done so many evil deeds that have damaged Se Mi's life that he can't be quite sure what exactly she's seeking vengeance for. In particular, does she know his wife ordered her mother's death? And she couldn't have achieved what she has without significant extra help, and he needs to force all of her helpers to break cover before he makes an open move against her. Some of her help came, he knows, from Nam Joon and Seo Yeong. But was there anyone else?

Suddenly his thoughts turn to Je Joon. He was Se Mi's first love, after all. But then he dismisses that suspicion as absurd. Then swiftly entertains it again, reflecting that the two might have been in league all along, making a double incursion as in-laws into his family with long-term destructive intent. (The President dooesn't know how his daughter entrapped Je Joon into marriage; that secret she shared only with her mother.))

As he's considering that, he hears Jennifer come into the house, laden with groceries needed for Hyeok Min's birthday meal next day, and attempting to show that she's not been alerted by repeatedly calling out for the housekeeper she knows full well isn't there. She asks where the housekeeper is, and the President tells her that she had to take urgent leave to deal with a family emergency. Jennifer seems not to be worried about this, aside from wondering who's going to do the cooking if she's not back soon, and the President is further puzzled by her apparent lack of concern at her helper's sudden absence. Jennifer is in turn puzzled that the President is making no sign of knowing what she's aware he must surely indeed know. Did the housekeeper maybe just admit to planting the newspapers and spying on the family without actually giving Jennifer away, she wonders? Is that all she was begging to be spared Jennider's hatred for? Are Seo Yeong and Nam Joon panicking more than necessary? Are her main plans still in with a chance which it would be foolish go blow by prematurely panicking?

A cat and mouse game ensues. The President says that since there's just the two of them in the house, this might be a good time for Jennifer to confide in him, if there's anything he ought to know about her. That makes Jennifer wonder what he expects her to say. Surely if he knew the whole truth, he wouldn't being asking in that tentative way. Is it something less radical than her true identity that he knows about and which she might satisfy him by "revealing", if only she knew what it was? Is he referring to her recovered wealth, which he's not supposed to know about yet? He, in the meantime, is thinking that he must keep back the full extent of what he knows about her, because once she knows she's been rumbled, she will clam up about just exactly how much and what she knows and about whom, as well as letting any as yet undisclosed conspirators preserve their cover. He needs to tease more out of her, and her suspected accomplices, Je Joon above all, before unleashing a confrontation.

The tension is relieved for a moment by Evil Mom and Ji Min coming home, with both of them also calling for the housekeeper's services. Before Jennifer can pass on the explanation she's been given for the housekeeper's absence, Ji Min gets a call from Ye Ji to say that she's stuck at kindergarten, since the housekeeper didn't show up to fetch her. The President now repeats the tale of the housekeeper's domestic emergency and Ji Min, going in search of the driver to dispatch him to the kindergarten, remarks sarcastically that the kitchen is now in the hands of an "expert in American cuisine". Indeed, Evil Mom remarks, there's no other solution. Jennifer will have to cook the birthday meal. Jennifer protests that she's no idea of how to cook Korean food, but is told that someone as talented as she can surely cope.

In his office, Hyeok Min has just rudely rebuffed a call from Soo Ji's mother, more or less telling her to stop prying into his affairs under the guise of enquiring how her daughter is settling into her new job, when ex-detective Seo brings in Yang Hee. He says he warned her not to upset his mother, but she took no notice. Hasn't her friend Seo Yeong told her what he's capable of when riled? What happened to Seo Yeong will happen to her, and worse, unless she disappears from the scene. Yang Hee insists that all she wants is for the promise she was given before she agreed to disappear last time should be kept by allowing her to meet freely with her son. Hyeok Min yells back that it was his mother who made that promise, not him, and he's no intention of keeping it on her behalf. He tells her to vanish within three days, or risk her life.

At their playground meeting place (Seong Min has had to give up his part-time job at the bakery and is banned from the house because of Granny's opposition) Seong Min half-hopefully, half jokingly suggests to Nam Hee that they should elope. She takes is as a mere joke, so in a more earnest tone, he tells her he may be leaving soon to go live and study in London (thus obeying his stepmother's wishes), and would Nam Hee come with him if he asked her? She still doesn't take him seriously though, and says surely her realizes she could never leave her family. But she also tells him she can't imagine facing life without him. In that case, he says lightly, though we see his heart is anything but light, they'll just have to think of some other way...

Jennifer is glumly wielding the knife on a large array of Korean veggies, when the arrival of Soo Ji at the house is announced. Jennifer overhears Evil Mom lying through her teeth that she's delighted to see Soo Ji and indeed had just been on the point of inviting her over. "Must be telepathy, I guess", Soo Ji remarks, but the sarcasm is lost on mother and daughter.

Ji Min comes to "order" two coffees, but when Jennifer ignores her, she says on second thoughts maybe she'd better see to making the coffee herself, rather than trusting Jennifer to mess it up. Soo Ji explains she came over to bring Hyeok Min's birthday present (though she of course makes no mention of the other present she already gave him the previous day, or of that present's supposed donor). Evil Mom show herself surprised that Soo Ji remembered the birthday, but Soo Ji caps that by reeling off the birthdays of the other family members too (another cultural signal: remembering all the birthdays -- and death anniversaries -- in the family and making sure they're properly observed is one of the prime duties of the eldest son's wife in a traditional Korean family, and Soo Ji is hinting heavily at the role she's still determined to step into once the inteloper has been ousted.) Though she missed the earlier sarcasn, Evil Mom clearly gets the message behind that.

The coffee's now made, but Ji Mi isn't going to serve it when she can tell Jennifer to do so. "Don't you have hands and feet yourself?" is Jennifer's reply. Ji Min is fuming over that when Evil Mom leads in Soo Ji and says she's the ideal person to instruct the "American" Jennifer in how to make the seaweed soup and japchae required at any Korean birthday celebration meal. Soo Ji says she'll gladly teach Jennifer those skills, which every senion daughter-in-law ought to have, but Jennifer, who is meant to be offended by this deliberately patronizing offer, smilingly responds "please do teach me" in the best traditions of oriental submissiveness. This show of exemplary attitudes sends Ji Min through the roof. She tells her mother and Soo Ji what Jennifer said to her a moment before they came in, and both are deeply shocked at such a display of disrespect towards her husband's sister. But Jennifer plays the same trick on her as the previous day, sweetly denying that she said any such thing and explaining that Ji Min must have misheard her. And when this sends Ji Min into another rage, Jennifer scores another Piety Point by gently chiding her (as she has a right to do, the senior daughter-in-law having her mother-in-law's delegated authority in matters of family etiquette) about showing such ill-temper in the presence of a guest. Evel Mom has no choice but to second Jennifer's rebuke to Ji Min in this matter, provoking her to stomp off with another hysterical scream while Evil Mom suggests there's no time like the present for Soo Ji to start "teaching" Jennifer how to make seaweed soup.

Storming off to her room, Ji Min crosses paths with her husband, and wonders why he's home so early. He explains that her father sent for him on some unknown urgent matter. While Ji Min wonders what that could be, Jennifer is taking copious notes while Soo Ji explains how to cook Korean dishes, with Evil Mom listening approvingly. She's just completed the seaweed soup lesson when Ji Min comes back to report that her husband's been summoned to meet her father, and to ask her mother does she know why.

This of course rings alarm bells in Jennifer, but she has to hide her anxiety. Evil Mom asks Soo Ji to move on to the japchae preparation part of her lessons and goes off with her daughter to see if they can eavesdrop on the conversation in the President's study. While mother and daughter are still in earshot, Soo Ji starts dictating her list of basic ingredients, but then changes her tone once she's sure she and Jennifer are alone. "Let's drop this" she says. Jennifer at first pretends to be puzzled, but then admits that how to make japchae is the last thing that matters to her, too, right now. So, what should they talk about, then? Soo Ji has her real topic well prepared. She says that she knows full well that before Jennifer met Hyeok Min, she had something going with Nam Joon (at which point we recognize this is Part II of the sequence Soo Ji started off the previous evening in the bar with Nam Joon, though Jennifer of course knows nothing of that encounter). "If that's a joke, I don't find it funny", Jennifer parries, but Soo Ji continues unabashed "It looks like Nam Joon is still in love with you. So why did you run away from him?" Jennifer still affects to have no idea what she's talking about, but Soo Ji continues that if Jennifer thought Hyeok Min was a better bet and could capture him, that was before she lost the business advantage of being the Mason Group heir. She points out that Jennifer ought to realize what kind of man Hyeok Min is from the way she's seen him treating her, Soo Ji. Once it sinks in with Hyoek Min that Jennifer no longer brings him any business advantages (Soo Ji doesn't of course know about the fake financial windfall Hyeok Min thinks has come Jennifer's way, or her claim to be going to invest it in Taekang) her attraction wil pale. And then, once Soo Ji presents him with a pretty little baby, both Hyeok Min and his parents will change their minds and go back to supporting Soo Ji as his predestined wife and cast Jennifer aside [they could have subtitled this Drama "Bluff and Double Bluff"]. "So is that the scenario you want to see develop?" Jennifer calmly asks her and Soo Ji indicates that she not only wants it, but is certain it will happen. Left alone, Jennifer reflects sadly that when she observes herself and Soo Ji together, she can see very well who the wicked one is (namely herself).

In his study, the President starts by asking how Je Joon is coping with work at the company. Outside the door Ji Min, with her short attention span, stops eavesdropping and decides that her husband was summoned home just to talk about "some business stuff". But she goes away too soon, because that was just the warm up phase. The President has actually summoned Je Hoon home early to settle as soon as possible his own suspicions that Je Joon and Se Mi might be collaborating in a joint vengeance plan. Jennifer, plainly wanting to do a bit of eavesdropping on that conversation on her own account, is carrying through two coffees to the President' study when Ji Min deliberately trips her up (I make that the third time, Jennifer really ought to avoid walking past her, especially when carrying product-placed Royal Doulton porcelain). Evil Mom rebukes Jennifer for being so clumsy, though she saw very plainly what happened. But Soo Ji saw it equally plainly, and she's clearly having her own private thoughts.

Jennifer struggles to hold herself back, but manages once again to slip into gentle sisterly rebuke mode, saying that Ji Min should keep her long legs tucked in when people are walking past and saying that since she has to go change her clothes, Ji Min should see to her husband and father getting some coffee instead.

In the study, the President has got to his real topic. Has Je Joon heard any suggestions that Se Mi might still be alive? We know, of course, that Je Joon absolutely convinced she's still alive, and is living under the same roof, but that he's decided she has, for reasons he can't begin to understand, become a different person in more than just name and lifestyle, and we saw him finally decide that he has to respect her chosen path and get on with a life of his own, since to his mind, the Se Mi he once loved really is dead. That's why he doesn't have to put on an act to answer the President's question with calm conviction and a rhetorical question of his own. How can someone who died seven years ago still be alive? he asks.

The President isn't giving up so easily though. Just supposing, he adds, Se Mi were indeed still alive. Surely the very first person she'd want to reveal herself to would be her first love and former fiancé? True enough, Je Joon replies, and since she hasn't done that, that's certain proof she is well and truly dead and gone. [The writing here is so brilliant. By speaking the heartfelt truth that, because Se Mi did not "reveal herself" to him, he finally had to accept that the woman he once loved really is dead to him, Je Joon's words carry a melancholy conviction that counteracts the President's suspicions of him, though it can't remove them entirely, since the President trusts no-one].

Leaving the President's study Je Joon is clearly wondering whether he should warn Jennifer. He wavers, then tells her that the President just asked him whether or not he has ever encountered Se Mi since her supposed death. That is of course a very loaded remark between the two of them, but as ever, Jennifer doesn't yield an inch, and asks in feigned puzzlement why Je Joon is telling her that. He replies with a meaningful look that he somehow just thought it might interest her. You're wrong, she replies. I have no interest in that matter at all. But of course, the fact that the President called Je Joon home to ask him that question confirms her worst fears.

At the Blue Moon, Seo Yeong tells her nephew she's been trying in vain to track the housekeeper down all day. Someone must have seriously threatened her to make her do that, and maybe she revealed Se Mi's secret. If so, Jennifer is in great danger. The two agree that they must go right now to the house and try to fetch her away.

Ji Min asks her husband what her father called him home early to talk about, but he lies in a way that fortunately matches what she overheard, saying it was just a work matter. At which Ji Mi allows herself to gloat at the total mess Jennifer is bound to make of Hyeok Min's birthday meal the next day, without the housekeeper to do the cooking.

Seo Yeong and Nam Joon are now waiting in the car outside the President's house, but Jennifer isn't answering her phone, even to Seo Yeong. Nam Joon has just decided they daren't wait any longer and is about to try to get into the house when Hyeok Min arrives at the house, and they hang back out of sight.

It emerges that Hyeok Min has been summoned home early by his father, too. When Jennifer hears that, in the light of why He earlier sent for Je Joon, she thinks her worst fears have been realized and that his father is about to reveal her identity to Hyeok Min. In which case, she thinks, he may well murder her before she has a chance to escape. She makes to leave the house, but checks herself for a moment, reflecting that if by any chance she's over-reacting and Hyeok Min has been called home for some quite different reason, she will wreck all her plans by running away now. Then she decides it's highly likely her plans are in ruins anyway, so she'd better make a run for it before Hyeok Min emerges from his father's study.

She's on her way to the door a second time when a text message comes in, and she pauses to read it. It's Seo Yeong, urging her to escape while she can and saying she and Nam Joon are waiting right outside the house in their car. It's a fine psychological touch that knowing help is so near seems to make Jennifer more ready to push the risk a bit further, and once again she holds back from fleeing.

In the study, Hyeok Min is demanding to know who was behind the housekeeper's actions, but his father asks him to be patient a little longer. Yet patience isn't HyeokMin's thing and he insists on knowing who the housekeeper said gave her her instructions. His father seems think better of his earlier decision to keep Hyeok Min in the dark to prevent him flaring up and letting some of the conspirators escape in the confusion. He leans forward in his chair toward his son, and says, "the answer to that is..."

Then we cut to Hyeok Min coming into Jennifer's room and stopping any chance she still had of running out. He looks at her suspiciously and asks is she thinking of going somewhere. "Well, she stutters, I just..." Her phone rings (the caller ID shows Seo Yeong), and Hyeok Min tells her to answer it. But it's Nam Joon's voice that she (and doubtless Hyeok Min, too) hears. "What are you hanging around for? Get out quick! Come on, move! We're right outside the house." Jennifer is at a loss how to react, and as she stands dumbfounded, Hyeok Min silently gestures to her to hand him the phone, and she reluctantly complies. "I might have known it was you" Hyeok Min says, at which Nam Joon tells him to send Jennifer out to him at once. "Crazy bastard" Hyeok Min says.

Interestingly, he doesn't say what he did in the teaser (but will presumably say tomorrow) namely "I know everything". My guess is that his father, wanting to prolong his waiting game and fearing his son's recklessness, hasn't in fact yet told him the bombshell knowledge about Jennifer, but has named only Nam Joom and Seo Yeong as the people behind the housekeeper. But that's not what Jennifer thinks and fears, and I suppose we're supposed to share her terrified anticipation.

Until, that is,  we see the teaser for tommorrow, that is, which indicates the game's not over yet. And also emphasises that Jennifer STILL hasn't learned to keep at least a yard clear of Ji Min's feet when she's carrying crockery, not to mention revealing yet another example of the sometimes literally fatal penchant for Kdrama characters to fall downstairs. I will, however, refrain from speculating right now about the precise way the President is calling out to Se Mi before he takes that tumble, although it is rather odd, in fact very odd in the circumstances. The familiar vocative particle attached to someone's given names can be either a mark of affection or an expression of rebuke from elder to junior within a family (or from a teacher to a pupil, or, yes indeed, from an employer to the child of his housekeeper if she's been naughty). But it's not how we expect someone of the President's standing to address a full-grown woman who stands exposed of having elaborately deceived him with highly malevolent intent. But maybe more of that tomorrow...

[baduy]

Episode 62 text preview

Nam Joon and Seo Yeong go to President Kang's house to rescue Jennifer, but Hyeok Min blocks their path and Jennifer cannot escape.

Nam Joon explains to all his family that Jennifer married Hyeok Min as part of a revenge plot, and on hearing this his family understands and forgives Jennifer.

Seo Won is planning to follow his father to the States, and he asks Ji Min to come with him. But Ji Min turns him down, saying her feelings for him have now changed.

[Triton823]

Yay we gettin close to the downfall! Can't wait! If its true jennifer is the presidents daughter looking forward to still watching each of them get whats coming.

[Auntie Mame]

It's only episode 60's.  We've got a long way to go before the 'fall'.  Fall usually happens only in the last couple of episodes, if not just in the last one, which means ep 120 . . . if this drama doesn't get extended.  8-|

[Triton823]

You forget theres a whole family to knock off! Im expecting the first round will be around 90

[Triton823]

Ive been thinking if the president already knowswho she is doesn't that signal some bad guy is about to be offed? My bat sense is tingling about this.

[elegance1]

This is all too soon - I certainly hope Jennifer will have a comeback.