[Daily Drama 2016] Heaven's Promise/천상의 약속 KBS2 Mon-Fri 19:50 KST

[baduy]

I wonder what "Yet, it is their matter of wanting to. " is supposed to mean in that KBSW synopsis?  English it ain't. But then the episode run time isn't "70 mins " either. Unless KBSW think the show is so good that everyone will feel compelled to watch each episode all over again as soon as it finishes.

In any case, that synopsis must be based on an earlier draft. The one on the drama's official Korean site is plainly a different version. It doesn't contradict the plot outlined (in a rather muddled way) in the KBSW version, but it's expressed quite differently, as indeed are the character profiles in places.

For starters, it drops the "apple not falling far from the tree" bit, and just as well, because it looks like whoever used it didn't know what it means. The same expression exists verbatim in both English and Korean, and in both languages it means children inevitably turn out to have their parents' characteristics. Which is not the same as what the passage apparently wants it to mean, namely the rather different notion that children are destined to repeat their parents' experiences. The former is a matter of genetics, the latter is more a question of socio-economic forces that make parental background more influential than personal abilities or achievements (a recurring concern of both Korean sociologists and Kdrama writers, of course, with all those "Candy Girls" supposedly showing that a "positive outlook", boundless energy, hard work, plus prodigious and unstinting respect for their genuinely worthy elders are all it takes (though a face and figure like a Kpop girl group member, and access to a rich young man susceptible to such visuals helps quite a bit, too).

And in the profiles, in place of that innocent-sounding "...stays with one of her mother's friends," we read that "she embarks on the existence of a live-in domestic [더부살이]" in that gentleman's household which suggests that her life with the father (who presumably doesn't aknowledge her true relationship to him) wasn't hugely rosy even before his wife and daughter conspired to have her thrown out and consigned to an orphanage.]

But anyway, what all former TOH devotees are dying to see is more of the stuff that gave a new definition to the term "slapstick". We want to know whether the Grandad character has a stick that he wields in the same way as his TOH counterpart did, and whether plenty of chops are going to get as juicily and resoundingly slapped as they were in that drama.

In other words, here's hoping there'll be enough material for whoever made the following work of UCC genius back then (which is overlaid on the soundtrack of a daily TV quasi-military workout video, for anyone who doesn't recognize the genre) to create a sequel in due course.

 

 

 

 

[ggry]

5 hours ago, baduy said:

I wonder what "Yet, it is their matter of wanting to. " is supposed to mean in that KBSW synopsis?  English it ain't. But then the episode run time isn't "70 mins " either. Unless KBSW think the show is so good that everyone will feel compelled to watch each episode all over again as soon as it finishes.

In any case, that synopsis must be based on an earlier draft. The one on the drama's official Korean site is plainly a different version. It doesn't contradict the plot outlined (in a rather muddled way) in the KBSW version, but it's expressed quite differently, as indeed are the character profiles in places.

For starters, it drops the "apple not falling far from the tree" bit, and just as well, because it looks like whoever used it didn't know what it means. The same expression exists verbatim in both English and Korean, and in both languages it means children inevitably turn out to have their parents' characteristics. Which is not the same as what the passage apparently wants it to mean, namely the rather different notion that children are destined to repeat their parents' experiences. The former is a matter of genetics, the latter is more a question of socio-economic forces that make parental background more influential than personal abilities or achievements (a recurring concern of both Korean sociologists and Kdrama writers, of course, with all those "Candy Girls" supposedly showing that a "positive outlook", boundless energy, hard work, plus prodigious and unstinting respect for their genuinely worthy elders are all it takes (though a face and figure like a Kpop girl group member, and access to a rich young man susceptible to such visuals helps quite a bit, too).

And in the profiles, in place of that innocent-sounding "...stays with one of her mother's friends," we read that "she embarks on the existence of a live-in domestic [더부살이]" in that gentleman's household which suggests that her life with the father (who presumably doesn't aknowledge her true relationship to him) wasn't hugely rosy even before his wife and daughter conspired to have her thrown out and consigned to an orphanage.]

But anyway, what all former TOH devotees are dying to see is more of the stuff that gave a new definition to the term "slapstick". We want to know whether the Grandad character has a stick that he wields in the same way as his TOH counterpart did, and whether plenty of chops are going to get as juicily and resoundingly slapped as they were in that drama.

In other words, here's hoping there'll be enough material for whoever made the following work of UCC genius back then (which is overlaid on the soundtrack of a daily TV quasi-military workout video, for anyone who doesn't recognize the genre) to create a sequel in due course.

 

 

@baduy

I see you've posted your favourite callisthenics video from TOH.

I had a massive headache when I first saw that English 'synopsis' on KBSW.
In addition, their translator seems somewhat fond of dropping details and oversimplifying the lines in their translation.
Hopefully, this is not an indication of the quality of the KBSW E-subs that most of the people here on this thread will be depending on.

[ggry]

Let me just give the rest of you an idea of the timeframes and the age of the characters in Heaven's Promise.

Out of the 4 main characters, Lee Na Yeon, Kang Tae Jun, Jang Se Jin and Park Hwi Gyeong,
the 1st 3 are all of the same age whereas PWG is around 4-5 years older than them.

In terms of timeframe, we'll get to see them as kiddies.
For the 3 of the same age, they'll first appear as 12 year olds, then 27, and finally 32 when the drama gets up to the present time.
For PHG, he'll be 17, when the rest are 12, then 36 for the present.

Lee Na Yeon loses her ill-fated mother at 12 and ends up at her biological dad's place, where she meets JSJ.
I assume that's also where she met PHG who was 17.

The 27 to 32 time period should coincide with the time when KTJ gets financial support to study abroad,
where he hooks up with JSJ. By the time he returns to Korea with her, they're 32.

Those of you who have already seen the chart I made should have noticed that KTJ and LNY have a daughter, Lee Sae Byeol.
She's 4 years old (present time), meaning, KTJ presumably returned from his overseas studies to find that he has a daughter.
Which means she was conceived before he left for overseas.

As for Baek Do Hui, she only comes on at 32.

As for the 3 high schoolmates, Park Yu Gyeong, Lee Yun Ae and Yun Yeong Suk

Yun Yeong Suk later became Chairman Park Man Jae's secretary, then became his second wife.
As she was high schoolmates with Chairman Park's daughter, Park Yu Gyeong,
she knows that PYG's husband, Jang Gyeong Wan was actually the bf of Lee Yun Ae.
She's also in the know as to how her step-granddaughter, JSJ, came about.

To get her hands on the otherwise attached JGW (he had promised to marry LYA),
PYG had seduced him and from that one night, she later dropped the bomb on him that she's with child.
So the poor man was presumably trapped into marrying her.

As for the poor LYA who was abandoned, she had wanted to kill herself but decided not to when she found out she was pregnant.
Unfortunately for her, the vicious PYG found out years later that she had borne JGW's child(ren).
[Note: I'm not sure whether LYA raised the twins or gave away the younger one, keeping only the older Na Yeon].
In any case, that's where we get the rainy day accident scene as PYG attempts to get rid of her.

Another detail about PYG, she has her eyes on the family business.

In terms of the age of the adults

Chairman PMJ will first appear in his mid 60s, then when the drama moves to the present time, late 70s.
He'll eventually die.

YYS starts in her late 30s, then goes on to mid 50s.
Since PYG was her high schoolmate, she's also within the same age group.

As for JGW, he'll start from early 40s then jump to mid 50s

LYA will be in her late 30s when she dies from the traffic accident.
 

For Lee Na Yeon's adopted family --

Yang Mal Suk, the adoptive mom is early 50s.
Her older 'sister' Lee Eun Bong is first 28 then 33.
Her younger 'sister' Lee Geum Bong is mid 20s.
Mama boy Lee Jung Dae is in his 30s

For Kang Tae Jun's family --

His mom, Oh Man Jeong is in her early 50s.
Half-brother Heo Se Gwang is late 20s.

For Baek Do Hui's family --

Adoptive dad, Baek Dong Jin is late 50s
Adoptive mom, An Seong Ju is mid 50s

[baduy]

7 hours ago, ggry said:

Those of you who have already seen the chart I made should have noticed that KTJ and LNY have a daughter, Lee Sae Byeol

 

With a bit of luck, that may have rescued readers from a severe case of boggled mind when they read in that KBSW "translation' that  Sejin was determined to grab TJ, ""no matter he has a woman with his daughter", which suggests a plot-line closer to the more lurid products of the booming Korean porn movie industry than a KBS daily. The phrase the translator was attempting to render is "그런데 그 남자에게 여자가 있고 딸도 있다,"  which is a slightly less scandalous "but that man already has a woman, and a daughter as well."

[jongski]

@ggry thanks for the detailed description. I still am clueless. Ha ha. But I'll check this one because Seo Joon Young is here. I watch daily dramas thru kbsworld

[booha]

@irilight

You mentioned that HP’s writers also wrote TOH.  I didn’t  know anything about this drama.  But when I saw this hilarious  video clip of the TOH parody (posted by @baduy ), I had to check it out so I wikied and read a basic plot line.  I’m glad to know that TOH must be a memorable drama for some soompi members.   I guess I can assume HP will be the improved version of TOH??  

** In HP PC, Song Jong Ho was asked about the possible ratings for HP and he said it could be 25%...  His reason,  the outstanding cast and the script was so fun/interesting that he read it in one sitting.  Hopefully he didn’t say it for the sake of saying it because he was in a PC.  Then there was another Q/A during which he was asked about the scene in HP where LNY’s skirt was ripped off and Park Hwi Gyeong showed his caring side by covering it with his cardigan.  It’s funny the way he answered.   He said that he wasn’t  such a meddlesome person to act from caring  for others in public, and more likely he would pass by laughing  but PHG has a lot more warm sides.

Thank you @baduy & @ggry  for updates and other interesting tidbits.

I was glad to see the relationship chart  with other information added later about them and the detailed description about the time frames and etc…   Nice to know about the translated synopsis because I was a bit  haggard  trying to read it, and about  ‘the apple does not fall far from the tree’ which I don’t why but, when I saw it, the first thing came my mind was Newton??    aahahaha   I really had fun watching  the TOH video.

    +         

Spoiler

 

 

[baduy]

2 hours ago, booha said:

 I’m glad to know that TOH must be a memorable drama for some soompi members.

 

It was, not exclusively for positive reasons, alas. The dreadful way MBN dropped it in mid-stream with scarcely any warning (and never a satisfactory explanation) left a nasty taste, And i've  just taken a look back at the thread and discovered that the soompi "upgrade" has butchered our discussions beyond belief, not to mention beyond comprehension.  You could easily get the impression that week after week ggry, for instance, posted things beginning "@baduy said...", followed by what I said in full length and absolutely nothing else. To which I then apparently responded with "@ggry said...", followed by the full post I was quoting, but not a sign of my reply. It would have been better just to delete the whole lot.

One unique feature of that drama was that the text previews were extremely detailed and, on the whole, much better written and informative than these things usually are (I often find with other stations' previews that I can only figure out what on earth the preview writer was getting at after I've actually seen the episode, and then not always all that clearly.  But sometimes the details extended to things that never showed up in the episode, including things that looked quite significant in plot terms. Above all, we had the Mystery of the Phantom Landlady.  According to one text preview, said Landlady was going to throw Our Heroine out of her apartment, but she never did. In fact, she was never even mentioned on screen, though she cropped up a few further times in the text previews while in the scenes as aired Our Heroine enjoyed undisturbed residence.

[ggry]

6 hours ago, baduy said:

 

It was, not exclusively for positive reasons, alas. The dreadful way MBN dropped it in mid-stream with scarcely any warning (and never a satisfactory explanation) left a nasty taste, And i've  just taken a look back at the thread and discovered that the soompi "upgrade" has butchered our discussions beyond belief, not to mention beyond comprehension.  You could easily get the impression that week after week ggry, for instance, posted things beginning "@baduy said...", followed by what I said in full length and absolutely nothing else. To which I then apparently responded with "@ggry said...", followed by the full post I was quoting, but not a sign of my reply. It would have been better just to delete the whole lot.

[...]

 

@baduy

I haven't been back to the TOH thread since everything was migrated to this new site, so I took a look just now.
The recaps looked fine until I finally saw what you had mentioned about your posts being butchered.

I doubt that the admin here will care.
I had told a Mod a few days ago about certain problems and he blithely assumed that I'm some tech ignoramus who doesn't know to run 
the preliminary checks like clearing my cache etc to see if they're the cause before complaining about certain issues with this new site.
Apparently, having the site unexpectedly hang on you nearly every time you're halfway through typing a post
and losing your post is NOT a problem, and along with other sign in problems they're just peccadilloes.
Why? According to his logical reasoning, they haven't seen much feedback from members about them, ergo, 
the majority of members who are silent on this can't possibly be suffering from them, the problem has to be with my PC.
So I was made out to be, in his reply, like some nasty loud ogre out to bash the new site
while he's the civil one who prefers to look for a solution.

Well, he couldn't even help solve the problem of why in spite of following the correct steps required,
I can't get the YT videos to embed when more than a week ago, everything was working fine.
In any case, while he was posting that defensive, presumptuous reply stuffed with the logical fallacy,
I have since cracked it without his elementary knowledge of tech stuff.
Here's proof of it, version 1 of the TOH parody, for those curious about the SWs' previous work. HA!

 

 

BTW, if anyone is wondering what that <> button on the editor that's supposed to help you insert code does, don't bother.
Apparently, unless you're admin, you can't access the BB code. It's effectively a dud that won't show you a thing.
Whatever you type in comes out as plain text in a box.
This site is deathly afraid that we'll screw things up for them by fiddling with the code.
Well, given how poor they're at solving REAL bugs that plague this site, 
we should be the ones afraid of them screwing things up for us.

[booha]

@baduy

Oh really?  So TOH was dropped in mid air. Well then it still can be considered a memorable drama for a different reason.   haha   TOH-wiki didn’t say about it. It simply said TOH had 25 EPS so I thought it was a short daily??    If that could happen with HP, well then before we are onboard with HP, we should prepare with a parachute and GPS …     However with a different PD under KBS (though I don’t know the track record of KBS),  the drama might turn into heaven’s promise? 

Yes I wasn’t happy when soompi migrated  when it wiped out  the content  leaving out only the top portion.   Somehow somebody forgot that in soompi there would always be someone checking out the old drama/actors (I’m one of them.)      About a drama preview, I know it’s sort of like a teaser but I haven’t had experience of seeing the character appear in a  preview but not in the drama.  It’s funny to think about it.  After a preview started for members to lay out  all these conjectures about the possible outcome/reasons, nothing would happen in the drama.   What a waste of time for such fine minds  hahaa   Well we know that producing a daily or any drama can be messy and chaotic.  I have to imagine that the production place which produces a messy kdrama has its own messy kdrama incidents all the time or daily.  haha 

 

[ggry]

@booha

TOH was originally supposed to air on tvN as a daily drama, but the station pulled the plug on it before it aired.
However, the production house that produced it continued to film up to something like 50 eps.
Another cable station, MBN, then bought over the drama the next year, but turned it into a weekly one.
So 2 daily eps were combined into 1 weekly ep of around 70mins for a total of 25 eps.

The drama had pretty good pace and was quite riveting. Although it wasn't the intention of the SWs
for the story to be funny, certain aspects of it were amusing in a twisted sort of way. 
The story was chugging along nicely when MBN dropped the bomb that it was just 1-2 eps before the end.
Only the last 10 minutes of E25 with the time jump was awkward as they tried to wrap things up, everything else before it was fine.
Actually, we should have suspected something was wrong when MBN never mentioned how many eps the drama had.

This time round, HP has KBS behind it, so I doubt we'll suffer the same sudden death of an end.

The preview with the 'missing landlady' that baduy mentioned was the next ep text preview at its webpage, not the next ep preview from the teaser.

[baduy]

Not long now till the start of what Mr Google, in his inimitable turn of phrase, calls "a string of fast-paced two shaggy akyeon of four mother-daughter fascinating stories." Or, decoded into human form, "a gripping story of four mothers and daughters entangled in a ill-fated bond across two generations."

[baduy]

A cracking start.  Truck driving daddy pelting along through a downpour is talking on a late 1990's not-very-mobile mobile phone (we don't see the kit his earpiece is connected to, but they were the size of a suitcase and needed a vehicle battery to power them) in a special Kdrama multi-regional dialect that always signals "there's a heart of gold underneath this homey checkered shirt" to his family about a birthday celebration that day. Apparently his daughters whom we see pictured on his key fob,  being a modern 1997's kiddie, is hoping he's bringing home a decadent Western cake, but he pretends to chide her for the notion, praising instead the ancient merits of seaweed soup with a few clams thrown in, while all the time smirking to himself at the vast upmarket cake box he has on the seat beside him. He assures his family he's not in the least tired and is in a fit state to drive, especially since the road is virtually empty

Suddenly we realize: this is yet another in the ongoing series of instructional videos on how to drive to ensure the maximum fatal casualies as required by all good dramas. He sees in his headlights a woman on all fours in the rain at the roadside, looking at her yellow umbrella which is lying open in the middle of the highway, right in his path. It's pretty obvious that there's a fairly high chance that she may be about to crawl into the highway to retrieve her brolly. So, with true Kdrama truckdriver logic, he keeps his foot on the gas and merely asks himself (in that homey dialect of course) "What the..."?  The woman, for her part, has also plainly studied the Kdrama manual for death-craving pedestrians. Not only does she indeed crawl towards that umbrella despite the fact the it's being illuminated for her by the lights of the fast approaching truck, she also lingers by it gazing wide-eyed into the said headlights.  Only now does the driver stamp on the brakes, while still steering straight for the woman. While he should be swerving and she should be diving, they both instead freeze while shouting AAAAGGGH

until CRASH!!!, the truck hits her full on but then tips over, leaves the road and disintegrates. It doesn't look too good for driver daddy or the woman he's hit.

A slow pan over the blood-streaming woman to her bag which has spilled out a document and some Obviously Significant Birth-Secret Connected Photo,

then a caption takes us back "6 hours earlier" when all was comparatively jolly and  bright.

That's just the first minute or so. A whole lot else is still to come in the first half hour.

[baduy]

Six hours earlier in a diner, a little girl's mid-price-range catered birthday party is in full swing, with many guests and another posh cake (but in a different colored box.) Birthday girl blows out the candles

.

In another part of the same diner, the woman we've just seen horribly splatted is sitting at a table with the girl we saw in that photo in the roadway, saying to her daughter "It looks like those people over there must be celebrating a birthday, too". And birthday girl#2 looks like this...

 

PHEW!!!!  With visuals like that, I can see that those of us who understand Korean may not need to do too much explaining....

 

[Misstwilightfan1416]

Episode 1 Video Clips

Spoiler

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wB1xAubCGOQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0nHDPtfIxw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vsuz7PDHchc

Credit: DramaKBS

 

[baduy]

Exposition proceeds apace.

We rapidly learn that Birthday Girl#2 (the economy model) is a bit of a clever clogs and a touch priggish, as she points out to her Mama that since around 20 million people worldwide share the same birthday, there's nothing special about someone else with that birthday being in the joint. [This of course emphasizes a key point for understanding KDramas: namely that no matter how much or how little Kdrama characters resemble real Koreans in general, they appear themselves never to have watched a Kdrama in their lives, so they are oblivious to the most blatant plot signals being waved in their faces] She adds that she doesn't want a birthday present beyond just going out with Mommy,  For the price of a single pizza in this place a whole crowd of people could have a feast of good old Korean pork belly: she suggests they leave before ordering anything.

But Mom insists the girl should do as she's told "for once", suggesting that she normally doesn't. She orders a lavish "combination pizza" over her daughter's protests that that's the most expensive item on the menu, plus two glasses of decadent Western Lemonade, ignoring the girl's insistence that the tap water they have already is perfectly fine. But she finally persuades the girl that they can splash out a little on this special occasion, at which the daughter says she has something for her mother too, presenting her with a wristwatch to "thank you for giving birth to me 12 years ago" [so that's another fact on the chart] while assuring her it's just a "cheap fake", but that one day when she's older she'll buy her mother the real thing. Awwww.

Another minute down and time for another character. Into the pizza joint comes a quite well-dressed but not particularly elegant woman, talking into a slightly more mobile mobile phone (though it's still the size of a brick, mainly hidden under her  hair and you can bet she's got a backup-battery strapped to her belt).

She's got a rather strained faintly stuck-up accent and she's showing off her command of Konglish in a way that suggests she's trying to hide relatively humble origins as she explains to someone that it took her rather longer than she thought to get to the birthday party, but she's about to "픽업" the person she's come for. 픽업 is one of those words that have you rooting around in dictionaries, till you try saying it aloud and you twig that it's "pick up".  She tells the 45 degree bowing server she believes there's a birthday party going on in the establishment, and that she assumes it will be in a private room, (rather than out here with the common rabble) and he duly conducts her towards to the table of Birthday Girl#1.

But en route she passes close by the table where Girl#2 and mama are loudly toasting their little occasion in lemonade, clearly saying the girl's name: Lee Na Yeon. Posh lady's pearl-earringed lobes begin to flap wildly and, the camera, standing in for her astonished gaze, zooms up very close to girl#2's face. The newcomer gives a gasp of horrified recognition and stands rooted to the spot, looking as though that battery may be leaking into her undies, and the server has to remind her she hasn't yet reached her desired destination. "Is there maybe a back exit from his place?" she asks the bewildered server.

At which we cut to the hoary old Fateful Encounter in the Little Girls' Room, except that this time that term isn't a euphemism, in the sense that it's indeed two little girls who find themselves hand-washing side by side. Not both our unwitting twins, though. This exposition is fast-moving, but not that fast. No, another girl we only glimpsed briefly at the posh birthday table is there when what those of us who are sufficiently clothing-attentive recognize as Girl#2 from Economy Class joins her at the adjacent sink. The newcomer apparently doesn't initially notice the costume difference, because she puzzles Girl#2 by asking her in a rather uppity way "What? Still here? Haven't you left yet?" adding that she thought she'd just seen her mother take her away in a sudden hurry.

Then we're abruptly outside and apparently some way away from the diner and Girl#2 is telling Mom about the extraordinary encounter with a stranger who claimed Girl#2 was the spitting image of a girl she was just with. Now it's Mom's turn to be just as shock-horrified as posh lady. She tells her daughter to go on home ahead of her and dashes away, somewhat superflously saying that's she's "got to go somewhere for a while." Her daughter calls after her that she doesn't want to be late for her choir accompanist duties. But Mom is heading back to the pizza place where she barges in and insists on searching for the posh birthday party members and, finding they've long since left the scene, asking in vain to be told the phone number from which they made their reservation. She asks the server to contact her if that party ever visits the place again.

Time for her to retire distressed to a Kdrama Humble Abode of Sordidity Grade #2 ( = moderate: low rise with grubby outside stairs and crumbling concrete, but spick and span inside with KBS 1950's- setting morning-slot daily drama decor and furnishings). Despite that fact that we may have a good 99 more episodes to go, she isn't allowed more than a few seconds' anguished quivering before the Doorbell of Fate rings out and special delivery arrives with a Kdrama Ominous Envelope type #2 (= containing life-changing information).  To be more precise it's actually type #2 Grade#1 (= especially sinister) because there's no sender information, and Mom asks the delivery man who it's from, but he explains doesn't know: he's just the messenger.

So Mom opens it up, and once again we Keepers of Hangeul Enlightenment can take heart that this drama may take some of the usual load off our shoulders, because it is very plainly marked in Huge English Script "DNA PARENTAGE TEST REPORT." However, the Keepers  have no sooner retired for a quick swig of soju than they're summoned back to their post to interpret the (literal) bottom line, which says there's "no match" between the subjects tested (we don't get to see who they might be.) This clearly wasn't what Mom was expecting and she furiously calls out "Park Hwi  Yu  Kyeong!!!"

Though that's a male name, --Oh no it's not !!! Listening again, I hear she  says Park YU Kyong, and so there's a straighter path than I at first imagined to the identity of the imperious-looking red-dressed female we immediately go on to encounter for the first time.

Not bad so far, eh?

[jongski]

Oh hey @baduy very enlightened entertaining recap. Thanks much.  I'm gonna wait till KBSworld shows this and when SJY appears.. And  because I can only understand English I'll follow the story through your recap for now.

 

[baduy]

We witness the woman we (correctly as it will turn out) assume is the Park Yu Kyeong that Na Yeon's Mom was aiming her fury at being sucked up to by a couturier who is a rather tiresomely stereotypical KDrama  gay: like all Kdrama gays he prances about, warbles in ultra-camp intonation and - most telling of all -  says "Omo!" a lot. In fact we hear him say "Omo" nine times in just under a minute. This is an area where mainstream TV has a lot of catching up to do with Korean movies. Park Yu Kyeong is plainly a lady of considerable social importance, and is visibly none too pleased when along comes another client whom the couturier addresses with equal deference.

The two women are obviously from the same lofty social circle (and the couturier's joke about them being "like mother, like daughter doesn't go down well with either of them, though we don't yet know why, nor is what one woman says to the other about "father" wanting so see her make much sense without the context that's yet to come our way) and the way they address each other shows their acquaintanceship goes  back a long way, but their tone is anything but cordial or relaxed. There's a note of complacent superiority towards Yu Kyeong in her friend's manner, as if they both know that the friend (who will turn out to be Yun Yeong Suk)holds some sort of hidden strong card that she's choosing -- for now -- not to play, in some game of which we don't yet know the rules or the stakes, or indeed all the players.

No sooner has Yu Kyeong arrived home with her many bagfuls of expensive togs than she chucks her purchases down and embarks on one of those "informative" soliloquies aimed at ensuring that ajummas who are tempted to nod off after a hard day peeling and cleaning multiple sorts of veggie, which all taste the same anyway once they've been smothered in red pepper paste, don't get too mystified by all these subtle hint thingies and can keep up with what's going on. "Yu Yeong Suk!" she proclaims, purely to herself but very loudly nonetheless. "You've sure come a long way" [literally 'grown a lot', but she means 'grown too big for your boots'.] "Your parents ran a pancake shop [the dentists' nightmare sort of pancake, stuffed with brown sugar, nowadays mainly sold as a street food] but you've risen to hob-nobbing with the First Lady of the Sang Ah Group and you  gad around everywhere spouting nonsense and acting like you had real breeding." But before she can take that rant any further, the monster cordless phone that's sitting by her bedside rings and with impressive strength of arm she raises the huge clunky object to her ear to hear... at first nothing, but after a couple of increasingly exasperated "hello"s on her part, we hear the same furious female voice that had earlier yelled out her name after seeing the DNA report saying "It's me! Yun Ae."  "Who? she responds in a tone that shows she's in no doubt of the caller's identity but is staggered to hear from her.

Straight over to a church where Na Yeon has presumably finished accompanying the choir which is no longer in evidence and is instead taping herself on a cassette recorder (we recall a correspondingly olde-worlde cassette player in the Truck of Death and wonder whether there's some connection) as she plays Gounod's Ave  Maria, i.e. a nineteenth century sentimental descant melody on top of J.S. Bach's austerely beautiful first Prelude from the "Forty Eight", the piece that, minus the later religiose overlay, Seon Jae so wowed Hye Won with in Secret Love Affair by intuitively grasping that it benefits by being played with feet well clear of the pedals. However, our red-coated 12 year old is giving it plenty of pedal, and before long, the schmalz is upped still further after a shabbily-dressed boy of roughly her age comes into the church with soaking wet hair and, dripping silently, takes a seat, plainly relishing her recital.

 

Well, shabby his clothes may be, but they somehow miraculously conceal an invisible string orchestra which joins the performance, a feat not seen on screen since Elvis crooned accompanied by a sizeable band while standing on a coral island where only he and a single palm tree were visible.  There's plainly a grave danger here of dispatching the ajummas into rapture-filled slumbers, so it's time for another dose of yelling and car noise to keep them with us.

 

[baduy]

"Stop the car!" the woman who identified herself on the phone as Yun Ae is screaming repeatedly. "I've told you I've nothing more to say to you."

But Yu Kyeong drives on regardless, despite assuring her reluctant passenger aht she understands how she feels well enough. "If you'd only listen to what I have to say, you'd understand everything too. Just start by calming down a bit." But instead, Yun Ae throws the whole weight of her upper body against the driver while snatching the wheel and steering towards the curbside. Yu Kyeong is forced to pull over and brake to a screeching standstill. Her passenger clambers out, putting up the yellow umbrella that was so prominent in the opening sequence and runs away along the highway in the downpour.

Her own umbrella in hand, Yu Kyeong rushes after her and manages to hold her back. "Bear with me a bit longer till we get to our country villa," she pleads. "Let's go there and talk. It's not right for you to refuse to hear what I have to say. I had my reasons as well back then, you know." "Reasons?" screams Yun Ae. "Reasons to underhandedly steal someone else's man and actually marry him? Were those your wonderful reasons? Well, hard luck, but now your blatant lies don't wash with me one little bit. So I'm inclined to go see that man right away and tell him straight out everything he ought to know."

"You must to totally crazy," Yu Kyeong protests. You think that if you do that, he'll come back to you? Don't delude yourself. That guy is pure ambition. He won't cast aside everything he's gained just to return to you like a total loser." But Yun Ae is undeterred. "Let's see whether that fool who's been deceived for so long won't come to his senses and back to me when he discovers the truth."

With a tinge of panic, Yu Kyeong tries a different tack. "I'm sorry. I said so already, and I'm saying it again. I'll pay you compensation. Tell me. How much to you want? I'll give you as much as you demand." That only enrages Yun Ae still more. "You filthy richard simmons, you want to talk about your filthy money yet again. Now I see you're so desperate, I think it's exactly the right moment for me to go see him." She starts to walk away again.

Yu Kyeong yells out to her over the noise of the rain. "So then... Do you intend to wage war on a whole family regardless? I've been a good wife to that man for 12 years. You think you can shatter a relationship that's stood the test of time, trample it underfoot, then stand back and have a good laugh about it all?" "Sure," Yu Kyeong replies with a bitter grin. "I know what an evil thing that would be. But then my daughter has just spent yet another birthday without a father. That's what her life's like and how it would carry on. From now on I'm going to start playing my part as a mother properly. I'm going to get her a father before it's too late."

She starts walking away yet again, but now a change comes over Yu Kyeong at those last words, and she holds her back once more. "What did you just say? You have a daughter? Tell me what you mean by that!" With an almost manic glint in her eyes, Yun Ae replies "I mean exactly what I said. My daughter. Your husband's, or rather no, Jang Kyeong Wan's daughter and mine. Weren't you expecting me to say that?

"But I thought you got rid of that that child!" Yu Kyoeng screams, flabbergasted. "Didn't you claim you'd had an abortion?" "Yes, I did," replies Yun Ae. "I claimed that so I could protect my child." "What?" gasps Yu Kyeong. "You must be crazy! So... So... what are you planning to do after all this time? Tell me that!"  "I told you already," Yun Ae answers ferociously. "I'm going to reveal the truth and set all the wrongs to right." 

Yu Kyeong is now completely frantic. "Look I told you I'm desperately sorry. I was totally in the wrong. But 12 years have gone by now. All that's far in the past. You kept everything buried and lived a happy life."  "A happy life?" scoffs Yun Ae as Yu Kyeong goes down on her knees to her on the wet road. "I'm begging you. Just let the three of us carry on with family life the way things are now. Let's protect what we have. I'll spend the rest of my life making everything up to you. I truly will."

But Yun Ae's response is a bitter tear-tinged laugh. "The sight of the formidable Park Yu Kyeong kneeling desperately before me in the dirt, that goes beyond the scariest things even my daughter could imagine. You truly are a hideous sight right now. You look so pathetic and isolated. Don't be that way. Stay true to yourself right to the end. That way I can relish what ensues all the more."

This time she really does walk away. Yu Kyeong, though she stays behind on her knees, shouts after her in  hoarse defiance. "Fine. Do your worst. Let's see if it all goes according to your wishes!"

 

Well, there's more to the episode after that, of course, but I hope I've got across the density and tension of the first two thirds or so and explained the most important parts of the patterns of relationships that have emerged so far and which can't readily be inferred from the visuals.

To bow out for today, here's the text preview for tomorrow's ep 2. It's  unusually brief and hardly worth spoilering, especially since over half of it isn't a preview at all...

After her fight with Yu Kyeong, Yun Ae falls victim to a road accident and Na Yeon rushes to the hospital. Gyeong Wan goes to the hospital to pay his respects to the driver of the truck that was in the accident and there he encounters Na Yeon.

Looking forward to waking up tomorrow to find how other people are reacting to the what we've seen so far of this "fast paced two shaggy akeon" (Discredit: Google Translate)".

[booha]

@baduy

Thank you for the recap. Actually I was going to wait till the grownup characters appeared  but after reading your recap, I had to go through today’s episode quickly before the wacky sensation  in my head which I got from reading your recap vaporized.   whahaaaa.  very delightfully impressive  & memorable 

 

 

[ggry]

@baduy

Thanks for covering the bulk of the 1st ep.
My schedule this year is so hectic, I don't really have the time to cover it like TOH, it doesn't help that it's a daily.
I think there're only a few of us who're watching it raw and know enough of the language.
The discussion will only really begin to move when it starts on KBSW.

So far, I'm liking it.

Judging from E001, looks like just as with the SWs' TOH, the character descriptions give only half the story for some of the characters.
Remember how the Gorilla was described as a very jealous mother when in reality, she was pathologically obsessed with her son?
Yu Seon Gyeong was supposedly the heartless mother who abandoned her daughter to move up the social ladder when in reality,
she did have a more complex backstory.

Actually, E01 of TOH was shocking precisely because viewers weren't expecting a rampaging gorilla.
HP's E001 isn't as shocking, though, I had suspected as much from Yun Yeong Suk's character description that Se Jin is
probably not Jang Gyeong Wan's biological daughter, what I wasn't expecting was for the big revelation to be in the very first ep.

It's only E001, so I'm waiting to see things unfold as I think there's probably more to Park Yu Gyeong and maybe Yun Yeong Suk as well.
As for Jang Gyeong Wan, we only got to see the family man side of him whereas the description in the Korean media articles
hinted at a certain degree of ambition beneath the ideal head of the household image that he has.
So, his wife's claim that he's pure ambition should carry some truth.
Park Yu Gyeong turned out to be a whole lot more vulnerable than I had expected (as based on the KBSW description).
The way she said -- 당신, 내 품에서 늙고 내 품에서 병들고 내 품에서 죽어. 알았지? -- with that look of desperation on her face... hmm...
it's almost as if her husband is her security blanket of sorts. I hope there's more of her backstory coming.
She might yet turn out to be another fear-driven character like TOH's Yu Seon Gyeong, just with a different set of reasons.
Though right now, another TOH character comes to mind -- Jin Je In -- she was after the sense of security Gi Hyeon gave her.