[Drama 2017] Manhole: Feel So Good 맨홀: 이상한 나라의 필

[tealee]

JJ and CJES IG Updates

 

Ready for Manhole Episode 3!!!

[lovehbhjw2013]

anyone doing live recap?

[tealee]

Manhole Episodes 1 and 2 Highlights
with subs
 

Bong Pil's sloppy birthday surprise for Sujin was a success

 

Bong Pil finally meets Sujin's fiancé! [Manhole / 2017.08.10]

 

Bong Pil goes back to his classroom from 10 years ago!

 

 

 

Bong Pil is always Sujin's secret helper! [Manhole / 2017.08.11]

 

Bong Pil changed the past. Will he gain Sujin's heart? [Manhole /

 

Actually, Sujin liked Bong Pil, too? [Manhole / 2017.08.11

 

KBS World TV

[tealee]

Manhole Episode 3 Highlights

JYJ CAFFEINE: JYJ News Week of 8/14- 8/20/2017 http://jyjcaffeine.blogspot.com/2017/08/jyj-news-week-of-814-8202017.html?spref=tw

 

Scaps via junjun508 and yakamoz109

 

Video Highlights

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

DramaKBS

 

[0ly40]

clips ep3

 

Spoiler

 

 

[starfield]

Awwwww rating unbelievably dropped again !!! But I really enjoyed ep.3!!! Does it mean I have weird taste or what ???

Some spoilers below if you haven't seen this epi yet:

I have actually already watched ep.3 twice, and on my second watch I tried to "objectively" figure out what might be the "problems", and realized maybe unlike shows with better ratings, Manhole lacks 1) a high stake, no one is going to die, get seriously hurt, or face some truly dire situation and we all know even a bad situation will last at most for 12 hours; 2) makjang elements like male lead and second lead fighting over the girl, birth secret, revenge, conflicts between good & evil etc. We all know Soo Jin is not going to end up with the pharmacist, because he's a two-timer, so there's basically no suspense in the plots; or 3) a mystery that viewers need to stay with the series to find out the truth about.

However, for me personally Manhole works just fine without any of the factors that usually makes a show popular. Maybe it's because I watch more Japanese TV dramas than I do Korean dramas, and a lot of the J-dramas are slower paced, involving mostly ordinary characters (read: no chaebol), and more about character development than intense plots. Plus, I very much dig the sort of campy humor prevalent in Manhole, and I am not sure the general viewership in Korea appreciates this kind of humor! Even if Manhole were to air in Japan, it likely will do better in a late night time slot than in prime time... Sigh! I only hope the low ratings aren't too demoralizing for Manhole's cast and crew!

Anyway, still lots of LOL moments in this epi for me, and I've finally begun to root for the OTP now that I've seen how the two of them really do genuinely care about and are drawn to each ohter. Has anyone seen ep.3 already? Do you like or dislike it??? 

[tealee]

#김재중 learns Uee's true feelings Will #BoingPil be able to stop the wedding this time? #Manhole entertain.naver.com/read?oid=421&a…





[Naver Main] Both #김재중 and #BongPil are working so hard in #Manhole m.entertain.naver.com/read?aid=00029…

Translations by crystalmoon9213

Looking forward to Manhole Episode 4



naver.me/GcoHtaPV


Teaser Epi 4

drama KBS

[RPM]

Waiting for ep 4❤❤❤ bong pil......whenever he say I loved her .....I loved her for a such a long time ❤❤❤❤ I love this drama 

[RPM]

He look like Edward (twilight movie)❤❤❤bong pil❤❤❤killer looks

[tealee]

Cjes IG Update


#KBS #Drama #Kdrama #manhole 4th #episode tonight at 10!




Li SiKang IG Update



#UEE & #LeeSiKang beach scenes m.busan.com/m/News/view.js…





via K-drama 맨홀 MANHOLE‏ @Manhole_KBS

With English subs

[1Click Scene] Kim JaeJoong dreams about getting married to Uie! (Manhole, Ep.2)

 

Manhole | 맨홀 - 이상한 나라의 필 : Ep.4 Preview

KBS World TV

[tealee]

Video Highlights Manhole Episode
JYJ CAFFEINE: JYJ News Week of 8/14- 8/20/2017 http://jyjcaffeine.blogspot.com/2017/08/jyj-news-week-of-814-8202017.html?spref=tw

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

DramaKBS

 

 

Manhole Episode 4 Highlights

 

Really enjoyed this episode even without subs yet! Manhole team Fighting!

[0ly40]

ep4 clips

Spoiler

 

 

[enigmatic_zephy]

i am surpurised.. this is such a zany series.. ratings are very bad.. i think 1t episode was slow in terms of showing time travel so people probably lost interest

 

does the lead guy also have any controversy like his "best" friends

 

and doesn't it seems in these two timelines that.. no matter what Uee will always fall in love with him.. he just needs to realize that.. that she has always loved him probably before he starting loving her

[starfield]

@enigmatic_zephy Jaejoong? He doesn't have any recent controversies, he was just discharged from the army and the dramas he headlined before enlisting did notably better ratings-wise than Manhole thus far. So I think it's the genre of the show and yes, the first episode which was described by some Korean media as "sloppy" in terms of plots, even though the same media praised Jaejoong and the remaining cast's acting.

And I agree with you! Soo Jin will fall for Bong Pil no matter what timeline, he just needs to confess to her sincerely, oh well maybe he needs to get his life on the right track before he can muster enough courage to confess! Though I think he did like her first 

[sansukini-_-]

Hello. My first time posting on this thread.

The first 2 episodes were very sloppy. I have a big heart for my JJ but all the characters seemed pathetic and I just couldn't root for them. If this is any other lead, I would have dropped the drama already, but this is JJ's drama after such a long time.

Episode 3 was so much better though. I loved it immensely. You can see how Bong Pil showed how his actions changed everything and he somehow seemed mature this episode. BP seemed less pathetic. I think the drama will get better and better from here, so I'm hoping the ratings will get better too. 

This does remind me of Proposal Daisakusen but that series seemed repetitive in terms of plot, like the hero never learned, and I'm hoping Manhole won't go down that route. It seemed to me like BP's time slip is allowing him to mature as a person. I hope we see more of how he change his life for the better by making better choices.

[starfield]

Ep.3 is also my favorite among the four aired episodes! Bong Pil displayed a level of maturity in ep.3 that was previously unseen: He went and told Soo Jin to stop blaming herself for how Pil's life turned out, and pretty much "let go of her" to another man for her sake until he accidentally found out the finance was a two-timing bastard. Pil also showed that he cared about his other friends were leading an unhappy life as an unintended side-effect of him winning that fight against church oppa, he was even remorseful that his neighborhood became a bad area to live in as a result of those "entertainment establishments" he sort of brought to the town. So Pil asked magical Manhole to let him go back to the past to just let church oppa beat him up, mostly for the sake of others and not for himself. I really like this version of Pil, that's why I was a little disappointed when for the first half of ep.4, Pil pretty much retreated to square one and was once again that whining, hopeless Pil we saw in ep.1. Luckily later in the episode he took charge and was determined to protect Soo Jin himself, no matter what!

The ratings of these two past episodes are greatly upsetting! I can't bring myself to imagine how the cast and crew must feel  I really really hope KBS won't cut the series short though! Partly because I think the entire series have already been mapped out, like this:

EP2. Back to church fight

Ep3. Alternative Pil version 1. (gangster), 6 days to the wedding

Ep4. Back to the beach outing  

Ep5. Alternative Pil version 2, 5 days to the wedding

Ep6. Back to another past event

Ep7. Alternative Pil version 3, 4 days to the wedding

Ep8. Back to another past event

Ep9. Alternative Pil version 4, 3 days to the wedding

Ep10. Back to another past event

Ep11. Alternative Pil version 5, 2 days to the wedding

Ep12. Back to another past event

Ep13. Alternative Pil version 6, 1 day to the wedding

Ep14. Back to another past event

Ep15. Alternative Pil version 7, wedding day

Ep16. Resetting everything back to the original version, a mature Bong Pil chose to change his 'present self' and not his past self.

 

Hmmmm well I guess at most they can cut two episodes without making Pil's transformation too rushed? But I think there's a plan behind the story starting at 7 days prior to Soo Jin's wedding.

I also want to say that although Jaejoong was the biggest reason that I started watching this show, but while I had misgivings about episode 1, I think I would still have continued watching and enjoying this series starting from ep.2 with or without Pil being played by Jaejoong. The show makes me laugh, and it's so rare these days to find a show that is genuinely funny, plain and simple!

[tealee]

WATCH: #KimJaejoong And #UEE Get Into Hilarious Disagreement Over Idol Generations soompi.com/2017/08/18/wat…

The cast of KBS drama “Manhole” recently sat down for an interview with “Entertainment Weekly,” during which Kim Jaejoong and UEE got into a funny disagreement.
Kim Jaejoong made his debut with TVXQ in late 2003 (and is currently a member of JYJ), while UEE debuted as a member of After School in 2009. The “Manhole” cast also includes Baro from B1A4 (who debuted in 2011), as well as actress Jung Hye Sung.
When the interviewer asked Baro about working with his seniors, Baro described either one or both of them as being “almost in the first generation,” which Kim Jaejoong immediately balked at. UEE quickly gestured at Kim Jaejoong as though trying to clarify that Baro was only referring to him.

Baro added, “It’s the first generation to me,” and UEE jumped in to say, “To me too!” Kim Jaejoong protested at Baro by saying, “No way!”
“The first idol I ever saw was TVXQ,” said Baro, but Kim Jaejoong just shook his head at him and said again, “No way.”

Kim Jaejoong claimed that he is part of UEE’s generation, which UEE was quick to deny, and the two bickered back and forth. After UEE got even more passionate about the topic she eventually just said to him, “We’ll talk later.”
The interviewer said that it seemed to him as an objective observer that H.O.T. and SECHSKIES are part of the first generation of idols, TVXQ is 1.5 generation, while After School would be a part of the second generation.
UEE was shocked by this, and claimed she’s a part of B1A4’s generation, which no one at the interview was willing to accept.

Kim Jaejoong also updated fans on his injury, showing an almost fully healed finger. It was previously reported that he had suffered an injury while filming.
Watch the hilarious clip below!
 

Soompi

 

20170818 cjes.tagram IG

miacat9095

 

 

 

 

 

[VIDEOS/SNS] 170818 Manhole Drama’s Main Cast Interview for KBS2 Entertainment Weekly – Jaejoong, UEE, Baro & Hyesung

August 19, 2017 · JYJ3 Team

 

 

 

[2nd VIDEO] Baro & UEE said that Kim Jaejoong belongs to K-Pop 1st Generation, Jaejoong refused and said he belongs to K-Pop 2nd Generation same as UEE’s and even mentioned UEE is in her ’30s too xD Baro said that because he only remembered DBSK5 as the first idol group.

Note: Actually HOT, Sechs Kies, SES, FinkL, Shinhwa all belong to the K-Pop 1st Generation (All debuted in ´90s)

Kim Jaejoong – DBSK5 (First Performance December 26th, 2003, Started promoting in 2004)
UEE – After School (Debut in 2009)
Baro – B1A4 (Debut in 2011)

The host said that Jaejoong (DBSK) belongs to 1.5 Generation  UEE (After School) to 2nd Generation in which UEE interrupted to say she belongs to the same generation as Baro, as implying she is younger xD
Everyone ended laughing at her xD

Note: So far as I know Jaejoong is older than UEE for about 2 years, but After Achool’s average age from members when they debuted in 2009 were older than DBSK5’s, which is why  I think Jaejoong mentioned Kahi (former After School’s member & former SM’s dancer), DBSK5 debuted at a very young age.
Regarding to what Idol Generation they belong, most people said DBSK5 belong to K-pop 2nd Generation, one of the first groups who started the Hallyu Wave.

Credit: KBSEntertain
Shared by: JYJ3

---

 

 

Manhole Highlights Episode 3
With English subs

Sujin’s fiancée has another woman? [Manhole / 2017.08.17]

 

Bong Pil in trouble! Will he save Sujin? [Manhole / 2017.08.17]

 

Bong Pil leaves Sujin who wants to turn herself in! [Manhole / 2017.08.17]

KBS World TV

 

 

JYJ CAFFEINE: JYJ News Week of 8/14- 8/20/2017 http://jyjcaffeine.blogspot.com/2017/08/jyj-news-week-of-814-8202017.html?spref=tw

[tealee]

JJ IG Updates


The amazing #Jaejoong in #Manhole as #BongPil instagram.com/p/BX82D_3BVww/




 

 

Beautiful picture from our amazing #Jaejoong

20170818 jj_1986_jj IG 

miacat9095

 

 

You're not watching #Manhole? You're missing out big time! #Jaejoong is fantastic as #BongPil!

Click on link: vlive.tv/video/39219 Behind the scenes with #UEE
Fun bts from #kdrama #Manhole with #Jaejoong & #Uee

 

 

 

 

[tealee]

JYJ CAFFEINE: JYJ News Week of 8/14- 8/20/2017 http://jyjcaffeine.blogspot.com/2017/08/jyj-news-week-of-814-8202017.html?spref=tw

[PTTR] #Manhole is Most-talked-about drama of 2nd week of August despite sluggish viewer ratings Will rating go up? chicnewsm.mk.co.kr/article.php?ai…









via crystalmoon0213

 

Our #Jaejoong IG update! instagram.com/p/BX_HZvpB5eG/ #Manhole drama Fighting!




[IG] "Soul Pil... 8.18.2017"
Translations on pic via crystalmoon0213
 

[tealee]

Manhole Episodes 3 and 4 Recaps


Manhole: Episode 3 ==> dramabeans.com/2017/08/manhol…

Manhole: Episode 3

by chickachunga

The magical manhole quickly turns Pil’s world upside down, but unfortunately it doesn’t come with a rulebook, which means Pil must figure things out on his own through mishaps, misunderstandings, and in this case, lots of fisticuffs. Luckily, he puts up a mean fight, but in the quest for love, the ability to throw a punch may not count for much.

 

Episode 3: “The Past Creates The Present”

The manhole lid pops open, and Pil crawls out. He looks around and realizes that he’s back in his neighborhood when the manhole cover suddenly drops back into place and startles him. An elderly worker walks by with a radio, and Pil overhears on the news report that it’s currently 12 noon and that the police arrested a group of gangsters connected to an illegal gambling site.
Pil happens upon a cracked mirror and sees his reflection for the first time, and his new look baffles him. “Who is this?” he wonders aloud. He notices the gold chain around his neck and the large tattoos on his arms and is puzzled by his getup, as well as the shabby, cluttered state of his neighborhood.
Two young men who look like minions bow deeply to him, and although Pil doesn’t recognize them, he somehow acknowledges them instinctively like he’s their boss, which freaks him out. He rummages his pockets to find out today’s date and finds a promissory note for a debt. He checks his cell phone and learns that it’s 2017, meaning he’s back in the present, but he’s completely bewildered because he’s not the person he remembered himself to be.

It dawns on him that his conversation with Soo-jin pre-manhole descent and his fight with Church Boy only recently took place, but that ten years have already passed. As if he’s not frustrated enough, he finds that his tattoos are real. Then his parents walk right past him as if he weren’t there.
Pil runs up to them, and Mom and Dad remind him that they decided to forget they were related, LOL. His mom orders him not to call them even if he gets arrested because she’s frequented the police station so often that she knows the place by heart.

After they leave, Pil walks through his trash-strewn, dilapidated neighborhood with petty thievery to boot, and doesn’t understand how it became this way. He almost walks past Dal-soo’s DVD store without recognizing it because it looks so uncared for.
He steps inside, and the store is filled with dust and old bottles of soju. He’s startled by the sudden appearance of a bum with long, unkempt hair, but takes a closer look and sees that the bum is Dal-soo! Dal-soo glumly says he’s not sure when things took a wrong turn, but had he known, he would’ve changed his life so he wouldn’t be living like this.
Pil explains that something’s off and describes his uncanny ability to dodge blows, his parents’ strange behavior, and his fear of police sirens. But Dal-soo wonders why Pil’s asking him for an explanation when Pil’s been MIA for 3 years. Surprised by this extended absence, Pil then asks where his home is, and Dal-soo says he probably lives near the red district, which is what Seok-tae one said.

Pil asks Dal-soo to explain how exactly he became this way, and Dal-soo proceeds to tell the story of his past with dramatic flourish. Dal-soo narrates that after the church fight, Pil was suspended from school and kicked off the track team. In a black and white dramatic sequence (very cool!) fighters come after Pil repeatedly, but he knocks them out with ease.
Dal-soo continues that Pil became very conceited and went after other fighters in the area. Pretty soon, people felt threatened by him and gangsters gathered to take him down. But he beat them too, and soon became the center of trouble and the most wanted man by local police.
In another cinematic scene, Pil runs away from cop cars in slow motion as snow falls. Dal-soo narrates that Pil became a public enemy.

Back in the present, Pil is in utter disbelief that he’s actually an ex-convict and a thug. He asks Dal-soo about Soo-jin, and Dal-soo says she’s getting married next weekend, but finds his curiosity nonsensical. Pil reminds Dal-soo that he’s always had a crush on her, but Dal-soo says Pil and Soo-jin haven’t hung out since high school.
Pil can’t believe what he’s hearing and concludes that everything changed, all because he beat up Church Boy when he went back to the past.

Pil rushes to the study hall looking for Seok-tae, but finds Church Boy there instead. Pil wonders why Church Boy is studying instead of throwing punches, and Church Boy says he had an epiphany after their fight and decided to study to become a decent human being. Pil then notices that Church Boy is sitting in his cubicle and studying to become a police officer, and Pil realizes that they’ve swapped lives.
Soo-jin plops onto the couch of her parents’ real estate office after an unfruitful search for budget-friendly furniture for her newlywed home. Her mom complains that her in-laws acquired too large an apartment for Soo-jin and her fiance, which makes filling it up with furniture a burden. She scolds her husband for losing all their money by opening up an auction business.

Soo-jin goes to the pharmacy, and she and her fiance Jae-hyun act like they don’t know each other. She complains of a headache, and he adorably asks her where the pain is, but his boss, the bald pharmacist, yells at them to stop the PDA and have some consideration for the old bachelor. Heh.
Dal-soo informs his crew that Pil has returned, which comes as a surprise to everyone. Seok-tae thinks the police aren’t doing enough, but Jin-sook chides him for saying that since Pil used to be their dear friend and isn’t a bad guy. She’s surprised when Dal-soo mentions Pil’s crush on Soo-jin who’s already engaged, but Seok-tae says Pil really is a thug and points to the church fight as proof.

And speak of the devil, Pil shows up right behind him while Seok-tae is badmouthing him, and takes a seat at their table. Pil brings up Gu-gil’s billiards business, and Gu-gil says he plans on shuttering it and starting something new, which surprises Pil since Gu-gil said he wanted to keep it until death because it was a gift from his father. Jung-ae snaps at Pil for prying, and Pil realizes that she and Gu-gil are now a couple and business partners, which explains why Dal-soo is such a wreck.
Pil asks Jung-ae how she could leave Dal-soo like that after they started a business together, but she has no idea what Pil is talking about. Jin-sook tells everyone that this strange feeling she has now also took place ten years ago in high school, and we flash back to when Pil asked Jin-sook if she believed in time travel and told her he came from the future.

Back in the present at Jin-sook’s rooftop, Pil tells her that her memory didn’t take place ten years ago, but yesterday. Naturally, she has trouble believing that he came from the past via manhole and that his life became a mess just because of that church fight. Pil jumps at the sound of sirens and wonders why their neighborhood became this way, and Jin-sook answers that it’s because of the development of bars and motels nearby, which is also where Pil lives.
Pil says he doesn’t even know where he lives since he just arrived from the past, and Jin-sook asks if he’s on drugs, heh. She’s puzzled because his eyes aren’t lying, and mentions that Soo-jin struggled after Pil got kicked off the track team since she felt responsible for his downward spiral.

He stops by Soo-jin’s studio and remarks that her space hasn’t changed, but Soo-jin notes that this is his first visit. Pil decides not to explain further and tells her she should’ve taken better care of him if she felt guilty, and Soo-jin sheepishly agrees that she could have led him to a better life.
She admits that she thought he was a tiny bit cool for the first time ever when she broke a mirror in high school and he took the fall for it. Pil lovingly stares at her for a beat, then tells her that the real reason he came was to assure her that she didn’t ruin his life; the church fight and track team had nothing to do with each other, and he was never going to continue with track since his starts were terrible. “You don’t have to feel bad or sorry. I just wasn’t competent,” he says to her.

He bumps into her broken fan on his way out and stops to fix it for her with duct tape. He watches her from a distance and sighs in regret for losing her to someone else after loving her for so long.
Suddenly, a strange man in a black suit approaches Pil and says his boss sent him. Pil’s first instinct is to run, and he’s out of breath as he tries to escape from Black Suit, who’s bent on capturing him. Black Suit throws punches, but Pil dodges every one of them without breaking a sweat.

He’s amazed by his own fighting skills, and Black Suit clearly is no match for Pil since he manages to break Black Suit’s weapon of choice—a brick—with a single punch. He defeats Black Suit in mere minutes.
As Pil marvels at having discovered his fighting talent, Seok-tae, who witnessed the whole scene, stealthily calls the police and reports that a thug has gone berserk and asks for assistance. Ugh, I’m really not liking this weasel.

Pil stops by Gu-gil’s billiards room and finds Jung-ae and Gu-gil bickering over their business and Dal-soo just there, quivering with his trusty soju bottle. Jung-ae tries to dispose of her boyfriend’s billiards equipment to make room for the cosmetics store, but Gu-gil stops her since he thinks customers can shop and play. Pil is annoyed by his friends’ lousy lives and wonders how they ended up this way, and Jung-ae asserts that she became stupidly smitten with Gu-gil when he shielded her during the church fight.
Pil wonders how life can change so much all because of one blow, while Gu-gil maintains that he still loves Jung-ae. Pil wonders why Jung-ae lives with Gu-gil when she liked Dal-soo, and she pouts, knowing that he’s right and regretting her own choice.

Pil walks through the tunnel and finds wanted posters featuring his face plastered on the wall. He furiously rips them off and yells in frustration. Internally, he frantically wonders if it’s his fault that his neighborhood and his friends ended up this way. “All I did was get into a fight. This isn’t what I wanted. Can I get back in that manhole? No, even if I go back, can I change Soo-jin’s mind?” he wonders. He walks out of the tunnel, looking utterly defeated.
Nearby, two burly men with gold chains around their necks step out of their car. Meanwhile, Pil throws a fit by the manhole because the cover won’t budge. He figures that all he needs to do to turn his life back is to return to high school and get beat up by Church Boy. Mmm… something tells me that isn’t the solution.

The two burly men find him by the manhole and try to grab him, but Pil fends them off easily. One of them has a taser but Pil gets the upper hand and makes the man taser himself as he recites Miranda rights… which is how Pil learns that they’re actually cops, haha.
He manages to elude two police cars hot on his tail by running like the wind and catches his breath at a park where he spots Soo-jin’s fiance Jae-hyun holding hands with a woman who’s clearly not Soo-jin. He spies on them, and while the woman is affectionate to Jae-hyun, Jae-hyun seems uneasy, and Pil overhears their plans to meet at a hotel.

Pil runs to Soo-jin and shares the alarming news, but Soo-jin doesn’t believe him. He moves close to Soo-jin to illustrate Jae-hyun’s proximity to the other woman, but Soo-jin still isn’t convinced, and he regrets that she wasn’t there to witness the scene. Soo-jin feels uncomfortable by how close Pil is, so she pushes him off by hitting him on the head with her bag, which sends Pil to the ground.
As he’s slipping out of consciousness, it finally strikes him that midnight was the time when things went awry; he left the past at midnight and returned to the present at noon.

To Soo-jin’s relief, Pil wakes up. He realizes that he spent 12 hours in the past, and Soo-jin learns that she broke her camera when she struck Pil in the head. He apologizes and says the camera wouldn’t have broken if he had relaxed and taken the hit well, which makes Soo-jin laugh.
Pil smiles and wonders why she isn’t afraid of him like the others, and she answers that when she looks in his eyes, she can tell he won’t harm her. Pil warns her that Jae-hyun was with another woman, but Soo-jin says Jae-hyun isn’t like that and finds it odd that he knows her fiance when Pil hasn’t been around for three years. Behind Pil and Soo-jin, a shady gangster calls his boss and reports that they’ll need a change of plans.

As Pil walks with Soo-jin, he hesitates to move his hand to her shoulder. He suggests they go for an evening stroll, but Soo-jin says she has to go home and reminds him that he needn’t walk her home since she’s engaged, and holds up her ringed hand. Before she leaves, she requests that he attend her wedding if he’s available.
He watches her leave and is bummed that she doesn’t turn around for one last glance. As he walks away though, Soo-jin runs back wanting to take him up on his offer for an evening stroll, but he’s already too far ahead, and she regrets that their timing is off.

At the pharmacy, Pil drinks all the “free”—the sign clearly says nothing is free or discounted at the pharmacy, heh—energy drinks in front of a timid-looking Jae-hyun. Pil asks him if he dates two or three women at a time, but Jae-hyun stutters a “no.” Just then, Pil hears police sirens so he cuts their conversation short, but warns Jae-hyun that they’ll be seeing each other more often.
Soo-jin walks through the tunnel, but repeatedly turns back, distracted by the flickering lamppost by the manhole. Suddenly, a few men grab her and take her away.

Pil pounds on Jin-sook’s door, but instead of Jin-sook, Seok-tae steps out. Seok-tae asks if the police are looking for him, and Pil says that’s why he’s here, hoping to seek refuge at Jin-sook’s place until midnight. Jin-sook emerges—Seok-tae, I see you trying to block that door!—and she and Pil find it curious that Seok-tae knew the police were after him.
Just then, the gangster who spied on Pil and Soo-jin arrives and holds up his phone, ordering Pil to take the call since it’s regarding “his woman.” Pil picks up and speaks to a man dressed in a white suit who claims to be Pil’s boss. Pil says he doesn’t have one, but Boss grows angry and reminds him that he invested tons of money in Pil so he’s not allowed to leave this life.

He warns that if Pil doesn’t listen to him, his “bride” Soo-jin will get hurt and orders Pil to attend their party at BongBong Pub or else.
Pil angrily flings the phone to the ground and punches the gangster unconscious before dashing out to rescue Soo-jin. With an unconscious gangster on her rooftop, Jin-sook tries to wake him and orders Seok-tae to call the police.
Back at home, Pil’s parents are startled by the drastic shift in weather and remark that it’s as if something bad is about to ensue.

It starts to pour heavily outside and Pil sprints through the tunnel en route to rescue Soo-jin. A time stamp appears: it’s currently 11:15 P.M., and Pil says he’s short on time.
He arrives at BongBong Pub and Boss greets him brightly, but Pil is livid when he spots Soo-jin gagged and tied to a chair. He orders Boss to let her go since Soo-jin has nothing to do with him, and Boss chides his henchmen for kidnapping her when she’s not even his girlfriend, lol. Pil warns them not to lay a finger on her or else they’re in for major trouble since he has somewhere to be at midnight.

But Boss insists that Pil return the money he borrowed first. His patience clearly tested, Pil starts knocking down Boss’s men one by one, throwing vicious punches and kicks. He socks Boss in the face while he’s in the middle of reporting Pil to the police.
Meanwhile, the two cops that Pil mistook for thugs arrive at Jin-sook’s place to confirm that Pil beat up the gangster, but the gangster changes his story and insists that he merely fainted. Quick on the uptake, Jin-sook attests to the gangster’s account, hushing Seok-tae up when he tries to say otherwise. The cops receive a call about mob violence, but are surprised that one man beat up a mob and not the other way around, so they head out to investigate.

After freeing Soo-jin, Pil runs with her hand-in-hand, as the police try to capture him. They manage to find cover, and Pil tells her he has to leave, but Soo-jin insists he turn himself in and that she’ll explain everything to the authorities. Pil asks if she trusts him, and she tearfully nods. He vows to return before leaving.
Pil strides through the tunnel, determined to return to the past, get beat up by Church Boy, and bring everything back to the way it was, certain that this will resolve everything. Suddenly, two police cars arrive, blocking both ends of the tunnel and trapping Pil inside. Pil fends off the cops and jumps over a car to get to the manhole before it’s too late.

A cop fires his gun at Pil, but luckily, time is on Pil’s side; midnight strikes, time freezes, and the bullet is suspended in midair right behind Pil’s head. Pil shrieks at the sight of the bullet and desperately asks for one last chance to return to the past. Just then, he has another out of body experience and disappears.
Time unfreezes and the cops wonder where he went, unaware that he’s right below their feet. After they leave, the manhole burps, and Pil rejoices as he travels down the manhole again, thrilled that he made it just in the nick of time.

But… it doesn’t appear that he returns to high school. We’re now at… the beach. Huh? There’s no one there except Pil, and he’s sleeping on a lounge chair in shorts and a t-shirt. The tattoos, gold chains, bouffant hair… are all gone.
Behind him is a small store called “Marine’s Cafeteria” with an awning that reads, “Once a marine, always a marine.” Pil finally wakes up and panics wondering where the hell he ended up. He stumbles across the sand and yells, “Where on earth am I? Where did you take me to, you darn Manhole!”

  COMMENTS
For fans of Jaejoong, this episode was definitely a feast for the eyes. Closeups of his pretty face? Check. Slick shots of him running (and running and running…) and kicking richard simmons? Check. A slo-mo scene of him getting drenched by rain and running his fingers through his wet hair? Check and check. And while there’s nothing wrong with gratuitous footage of pretty, bad boy thug Pil, this episode did feel lacking in the narrative sense. Pil spent most of this episode trying to grasp the time travel rules and reorient himself, and I get that it’s not something he would instantly understand, but I wish he had changed for the better or taken initiative even a just a smidge as a gangster. After all, he was more or less the same Pil we saw, just in a different getup, and he wasn’t able to profess his love to Soo-jin or try things differently. And it’s not like he wouldn’t have tried to save Soo-jin if he weren’t a gangster.

The gangster storyline was so silly, but I didn’t find it very humorous, and there wasn’t much comedy to be had in Pil’s friends either since none of them (except maybe Jin-sook) are faring well. The stakes didn’t feel very high because Pil’s life as a gangster was so short-lived and he was never in real danger. I still like Soo-jin—even though she seems rather vanilla and average—but I’m not sure why Pil loves her so much apart from the fact that she’s pretty and that they’ve known each other since they were little. I’d like to see more moments that the two shared together and learn how they grew closer, but currently, it just seems like Pil has a one-sided crush on her that’s mostly based on physical beauty.
Manhole just started so it’s hard to guess which direction it’s headed in, but Pil’s constant shifts in persona have the potential to either be immensely entertaining (if done properly) or exhausting. Jaejoong’s stamina is impressive given that he’s always running, panting, yelling, or freaking out, but his manic energy is starting to get old very fast because his frenetic, hyper self isn’t particularly funny or endearing; it actually makes for a tiring viewing experience! If he can take it down a notch (or two), breathe, and use every manhole trip for self-improvement to show Soo-jin his best self, he’ll probably grow on me. Naturally, I’m rooting for Pil since Jae-hyun seems to have unfinished business with an ex, but Pil really needs to man up if he doesn’t want to lose his woman!

 

 

Manhole: Episode 4 ==> dramabeans.com/2017/08/manhol…

Manhole: Episode 4

by CandidClown

Oh Time Travel, how you do confound. Pil has his hands full this week, trying to navigate a mystical manhole, prevent an upcoming catastrophe that only he knows about, and fix his previous mistakes while trying not to make any new ones. It’s a good thing Pil has a never-ending supply of energy, as this journey is anything but smooth sailing.

 

EPISODE 4: “Love hotly!”

After leaving behind his gangster self of 2017, Pil awakens to find himself not back in high school as he expected, but on a lovely sandy beach. Stumbling towards the ocean, Pil screams to the sky, “Where did you take me to, you darn manhole!” and a helpful passing chryon tells us that this is 2011.
Collapsing back on the lounge chair, Pil realizes that he does remember when and where he is. He also starts dry-heaving at the sand. Looks like his 2011-self partied a bit too hard the night before.
As Pil lies there just trying to maintain, a man waltzes up to his chair and starts digging into him for drinking too much. Apparently this is Pil’s ex-marine Uncle, whom Pil’s father had given instructions to “build [Pil] into a legitimate human.” Best of luck, friend.

After Uncle leaves, Pil laments that he can’t fix anything from here, since he was supposed to go back and lose the fight with Church Boy. He quickly forgets his trouble though, when a beautiful girl walks up to him, smiling and asking if “Oppa” is all right. She laughs that he couldn’t hold his alcohol from last night, but poor Pil can barely manage a twitch and just stares pathetically at The Pretty before passing out again.
Pil’s friends are on a road trip together, with everyone crammed into the car and happily singing along to music. Jin-sook snaps at them to be quiet so she can concentrate on driving, but the silence barely lasts a second before they’re back at it.

Between Dal-soo’s begging for air conditioning (because he’s overheated from Jung-ae clinging to him), Seok-tae’s whining about bumpy pot holes (because he’s sitting in the trunk, ha), and Gu-gil’s demands for a change in music, it’s all too much. Jin-sook gives an almighty bellow and yanks the car off the road.
At a rest stop, drill sergeant Jin-sook puts everyone in their place before dismissing them with instructions to eat, drink, and poop, then return in 20 minutes. They all scatter, no one hearing Seok-tae’s pitiful pleas to let him out of the trunk. Aww, they forgot about him in there.

Still stuck in a haze, Pil dreams of fire and jerks himself awake, just in time for his uncle to toss a bucket of water in his face. Heh. Sopping wet, Pil staggers around, suddenly remembering that there is going to be a bad fire that night.
Soo-jin manages to get a smile (albeit reluctantly) out of Jin-sook and wonders why Pil invited them all to the beach. Ah, so that’s where they’re going. Jin-sook scoffs that Pil invited them because Soo-jin would never have agreed to come alone, nodding to the group and calling them all “just bridesmaids.”

As the gang loads up into the car, who should pull up right in front of them but Church Boy and his friends. He looks very different from the studious guy we just saw in 2017, calling out to the group and smirking at Soo-jin who looks like she’s trapped in a nightmare.
Soo-jin spends the rest of the drive lost in bad memories while the group ineffectually tries to cheer her up with the suggestion that their three guys should go back and take on Church Boy and his two friends. That is, until Gu-gil points out that their third dude is Seok-tae, who’s more likely to cause damage than help in a fight. Everyone perks right back up however, when Jin-sook spots the ocean.

Pil is still trying to remember the events leading up to the fire that night and recalls that all his friends will arrive at the beach. He attempts to call them, but his phone is dead.
He snatches his uncle’s phone, but because Pil is used to current-day smart phones, he doesn’t have Soo-jin’s number memorized (Pil: “Who memorizes phone numbers these days!?”). Uncle yells at him to go charge his phone in the shack, but by the time it has enough battery to turn on, the gang has arrived.
Pil runs up shouting at them to leave, but Soo-jin just snaps his picture and Jin-sook tosses the car keys at him, leaving him to park the car while they all rush to the beach.

While Soo-jin takes everyone’s pictures on the beach, Pil tries to tell Jin-sook that there will be a big fire here tonight. He rants that though no one will get hurt, some guy saves Soo-jin’s life and they end up dating seriously for a while. (Pfft, figures that that’s the part he’s worried about.) Jin-sook of course has no idea what he’s talking about and yells that he must still be drunk.
Pil tries to explain further, but Uncle steps up with a squirt gun and starts shooting at his nephew like he’s an errant puppy. Uncle escorts Jin-sook away while Pil screams ineffectually that a fire really will break out.
As the group sets up camp on the beach, Church Boy and his friends wander past, deciding that they should camp nearby.

Determined to prevent the fire, Pil runs around hauling buckets of water over to the shack, ignoring the crazy looks from his friends. When Soo-jin asks what he’s doing, Pil gasps out that it’s for the fire, you know, just in case there happens to be one. Dal-soo just shakes his head and jokes that Pil is going crazy since Soo-jin is here.
Pil runs off for more water and doesn’t see Seok-tae march past him. Sweaty from the beach, Seok-tae upends one of the buckets on himself. Pil turns at the noise and shrieks to see Seok-tae empty another of his precious buckets. Losing his mind to see his water go to waste, Pil chases Seok-tae around the campsite while everyone laughs.

When things calm down, Dal-soo and Gu-gil have a literal sunscreen tug-of-war over who gets to apply it on Jung-ae, and Pil looks like he’s died and gone to heaven as Soo-jin gets up close and personal to apply sunscreen on his face.
As Soo-jin twitters concernedly that he’s getting too tan, Pil’s eyes can’t help but wander downwards until he’s legit gawking at her chest. She snaps at him to bring his eyes up top, but she doesn’t really seem upset.
Pil gives her the saddest puppy eyes and thinks to himself, “How are you getting married? What will I do without you?” Right next to the couple, Jin-sook watches them almost wistfully.

The sun lotion party is broken up by the arrival of Church Boy. Everyone jumps up to confront him and Pil immediately tugs Soo-jin behind him, promising that nothing will happen to her. She stares at him for a moment, remembering when he said the same thing the day she broke the mirror.
Pil puts on a strong front, swaggering as he reminds Church Boy that he beat him up before. Except, Church Boy looks confused at that and Pil’s friends shake their heads urgently.
Soo-jin jumps in to break them apart, but Pil continues to taunt the guy, saying that after he “beat him to a pulp,” Church Boy started studying for the civil service exam. It’s too far, and suddenly Church Boy’s fist is making contact with Pil’s face.

For a split second it looks like Pil will dodge it the same way he did in his gangster days. But it seems his fighting skills are no more, and Pil gets knocked flat on the sand.
As he lies dazed on the ground, Pil wonders how this happened. He passes out, and we suddenly cut over to a classroom full of elders who are learning about computers. The teacher explains the concept of a reset button: Everything goes back to the way it was in the beginning. Ahhh. That’s a twist.

Pil wakes up with his friends hovering over him, and he learns that his rewrite of the past never happened, and he actually lost the fight at the church. He starts writhing around to realize that whenever he goes back in time again, whatever happened in his previous time travel gets reset to the way it was originally.
Soo-jin heads straight over to Church Boy’s camp. Smiling at her ex, Soo-jin tells him that throughout her life, there have only been two times when she was embarrassed for confessing her feelings. She says the first time was to Pil, when she secretly sent him a picture she took of him running because she was too embarrassed to say how she felt out loud.

Church Boy cuts in to say that he knows the second time was when she confessed to him. However, Soo-jin corrects him that the second time was also to Pil. Pointing back towards the beach, she says that Pil just stood up for her, that he is always the one to stand up for her, taking the blame and promising that he will protect her.
So, Soo-jin continues, she confessed to him in her heart, but was embarrassed that she couldn’t say it out loud. Church Boy notes that she told him how she felt really easily, but Soo-jin argues that when you truly like someone, you’re terrified to say it because you’re scared that the other person’s love for you will cool.
Dropping her friendly tone, Soo-jin tells Church Boy that she heard he’s been asking around for her, wanting to date again. She guesses that their meeting at the beach isn’t a coincidence and firmly tells him that he hasn’t got a chance with her.

With a final warning not to touch Pil ever again, Soo-jin storms off like a boss, not seeing Jin-sook standing nearby, having overheard everything.
Soo-jin finds Pil in the shack and tells him to stop getting beat up. Pil, however, just pouts that yesterday he was such a cool badass, and now he can’t dodge a single punch.
Jin-sook heads back to the camp as well, just in time to stop the boys from launching a Braveheart-style revenge attack on Church Boy. Bit late, fellas.

The boys play on the beach while the girls watch, Soo-jin remarking that Pil has a lot of energy to already be running around after just getting knocked out. Jin-sook wryly comments that whoever ends up marrying him will never be bored.
The revelry gets interrupted by the arrival of the pretty girl who woke Pil up that morning. She happily joins in on the fun, though the guys look decidedly more excited about the addition than the ladies.

Elsewhere, Pil’s parents continue their lives on their own, blissfully content to leave their son in the care of his uncle.
In town, the Bong Bong Pub opens and the owners stand outside distribution flyers. Seok-tae’s postman father happens to drive by and comes to a screeching stop when he catches sight of one of the lovely owners.
At the beach, the boys have all flocked around the new girl as she tells them that she felt an instant connection to Pil, laying it on pretty thick. For his part, Pil looks pretty uncomfortable with the whole thing and desperately tries to change the subject when she asks if he has a girlfriend.

Not twenty feet away, the girls all glare at the boys, with Soo-jin looking like she wishes that the straw she’s chomping on were Pil’s neck. Jin-sook quips at Soo-jin to let the straw live, and Jung-ae growls that the new girl is dead if she turns her attentions on Dal-soo.
Pil jumps up, desperate for an out, and trots over to Soo-jin to announce that he has to go up to the lodge and collect the rented inner tubes. Soo-jin plays it off like she couldn’t care less, but scowls to to see the girl run after Pil.
Pil tries to collect the inner tubes and leave, but the girl is pretty much glued to his hip the whole time. Using a combination of guilt-tripping and aeygo, she manages to drag Pil up to her room. He gapes to see that her room is literally covered in racy underwear and bathing suits, and hurriedly collects the inner tubes so he can skedaddle.

Tenacious, the girl grabs on to one side of the tube and pulls Pil back, asking him to stay the night with her. It’s as he tugs on the tube that Pil remembers when this happened the first time. He flashes back to the image of Soo-jin and Jin-sook storming into the room and calling Pil trash.
Pil immediately lets go of the tube and the girl goes flying back onto her butt. She starts fake crying as Pil remembers that the last time this happened, the girls treated him like a pervert for the rest of the trip. He tries to leave, but can’t ignore the girl wailing about her booboo. Going to help, he kneels down right behind her, and of course, that’s when the girls walk in.

Pil tries to explain, but between his stuttering, the girl clinging to him, and the underwear lying around, it looks bad. When the girl attempts to lay claim on Pil, Jin-sook angrily grabs his and Soo-jin’s hands together and yells that these two are dating. The girl quickly drops the cutesy act, glares at Pil, and coolly walks out.
Pil watches her leave, apologizing to her in his head and hoping that she finds a good man someday. Unfortunately he gazes after her too long, and Soo-jin and Jin-sook give him twin glares of death. Soo-jin vents her rage, shoving Pil down into an inner tube before Jin-sook pulls her out of the room.
As Jin-sook drags her friend out, they pass right by Soo-jin’s future fiancé, Jae-hyun, with what looks like his current girlfriend (the same girl from the park the last time we were in 2017).

Pil staggers down the stairs with his arms full of inner tubes muttering that he did nothing wrong, but stops short to see Jae-hyun and his girlfriend.
Pil strolls up to the table and bangs his hands down, demanding to know what he’s doing there. But when he gets nothing but confused looks, Pil remembers that Jae-hyun hasn’t met him yet. Pretending he mistook him for someone else, Pil backs off and rushes out, swearing to tell Soo-jin the truth about her fiancé when he returns to 2017.
Pil runs up to Jin-sook and starts trying to justify his actions to her, but she turns him around to show that he has a much bigger problem than proving his innocence: Soo-jin has found herself a new guy (Dayum! Hello, six-pack). As Soo-jin laughs with the sexy shirtless hottie, Pil stares, horrified.

Seeing the newcomer’s face, Pil remembers that this is the guy that will eventually save Soo-jin from the fire and start a relationship with her. We flash forward in Pil’s memory to see the guy carrying Soo-jin out of the burning shack while Pil looks on helplessly from afar.
Pil dashes up to the pair and tries to interfere, but Soo-jin completely brushes him off in favor of Mr. Six-Pack.
This time it’s Pil’s turn to watch as Soo-jin flirts with another guy, and he’s not taking it well. Jin-sook comments that Soo-jin looks uncomfortable, then whacks Pil and yells at him that Soo-jin clearly doesn’t care about the guy and wants Pil to come save her from the conversation.

Pil just stares at her, so Jin-sook sighs that he really was no good at starting a race. She says that the gun has already gone off and he hasn’t started running. That finally gets through to Pil, who downs his beer and sprints to his crush.
Pil grabs Soo-jin’s hand, offering to help her apply sunscreen, but Mr. Six-Pack gets annoyed and pushes Pil back. This is the wrong thing to do in front of Soo-jin, who gets suddenly protective of Pil.
Luckily Uncle comes over at that moment and gives Mr. Six-Pack a shove in return, yelling at him for hitting his nephew. It turns out that the guy is actually a marine himself (explains the abs) and he runs off on ex-marine Uncle’s orders.

Uncle sends a wink towards his nephew and gives Pil the keys for a jet ski. Next thing we see, the two of them are speeding across the water, Pil laughing while Soo-jin hides her face in his back, terrified. He totally goes faster to make her hug him tighter.
Afterwards, the group of friends watches the sunset together, all of them enjoying the sight. Pil just stares at Soo-jin instead. Aww.
The group gathers around a campfire that night (HAH! Pil has ringed the campfire with water buckets and fire extinguishers). Jung-ae fangirls while Dal-soo sings the love theme from Secret Garden (which came out that year), and Gu-gil reenacts the sit-up scene with Seok-tae like a couple of doofuses.

Dal-soo ends the song and comments that he shouldn’t sing any more sad songs, blathering on philosophically that one must approach love with reason, not emotion.
Jung-ae swoons at that, but Gu-gil drunkenly rants at him, “Do you know what love is? Do you know how it feels when you can’t say you love the person that you love?” The words strike a chord with Soo-jin, who looks over at Pil.

After Uncle retires for the night, the friends light some fireworks, and Pil and Soo-jin sit off to the side, watching the display. Soo-jin thanks him for standing up for her earlier, while Pil stares at her longingly, wondering if he should just kiss her now and accept the probable slap she’ll give him after.
Soo-jin tells him that she knows she can take care of herself, but when someone steps up to help, it feels like she’s not alone in the world. She then asks if Pil will be there for her in the future, the same way he was today. Regrettably, Pil is so busy staring at Soo-jin’s lips and debating kissing her that he misses the question, and she snaps at him to keep his mind out of the gutter.

Soo-jin brings out her digital camera and Pil laughs, remembering when he gave it to her. He tells her to keep taking pictures, saying that she’ll make a living with it one day. Soo-jin is doubtful, but Pil jokes that has an eye for the future. Soo-jin asks what he sees in his own future, and he thinks, “I get married to you.”
Nervous at the topic, Pil dashes off and Soo-jin is left looking at the picture she took that morning of Pil running towards the group. She decides to title it “Run to Me.”

Away from everyone, Jung-ae puts some serious moves on Dal-soo, and the flustered poet looks like he’s about to faint from his hormones. His leg drifts too close to the lit mosquito coil and he yelps from the burn. Jung-ae leaps at him to help, nearly crawling up his leg to “blow on it.” Goodness. Girl knows what she wants, I suppose.
The rest of the group is sitting around the fire and Soo-jin wonders where the other two went. Pil recalls that after this trip, Dal-soo and Jung-ae move in together, and he breathes a sigh of relief to know that she’ll never end up with Gu-gil. But then Gu-gil pops up, having heard that Jung-ae is off with Dal-soo, and he drunkenly runs out into the night looking for them.

Soo-jin is quite tipsy herself, and starts heading towards the shack to sleep. Pil leaps to stop her, saying that there will be a fire and asking her to just stay with him until midnight. Instead, Soo-jin hauls him over to the shack and posts him as a guard outside the door. Yelling at him to protect her, she stumbles inside, locking the door behind her.
Pil sits himself down to guard her room and ticks off his time-travel to-do list: The church fight is back to normal, and he can reveal the cheating fiancé when he returns. All he has to do now is prevent a fire for the next hour, and he’s home free.

Seok-tae wakes up to find that he’s the only one left at the campfire. Wrapping himself in a blanket, he walks by the fire and unknowingly drags his blanket over the dying embers. He then loses the smoking blanket on the pile of inner tubes before waddling over to Pil.
Pil jumps to see that everyone is gone from the campfire and immediately douses it with water, sighing that the threat has been eliminated.
Just then, Pil is distracted by the sight of Jung-ae stomping over, with Gu-gil and Dal-soo arguing behind her. Looks like he found the lovebirds. Pil runs over to break it up, not seeing that the fire has begun to spread from the blanket to the inner tubes, and then finally the shack.

As Pil tries to drag Gu-gil away, they all freeze when Gu-gil notices flames coming from the shack. Pil pauses for one shocked moment, then sprints towards the fire. Nearby, Uncle also sees the smoke and runs to the beach.
Everyone runs around the shack, using Pil’s water buckets on the fire, but it’s too strong. Pil starts to wrap himself in a wet blanket so he can break through the flames, but Uncle comes running up and drags his nephew back from the blaze.

While Pil struggles against his uncle, Mr. Six-Pack comes bounding up with his own wet blanket. Pil sees him and runs straight at the guy, shoulder checking him hard and grabbing the blanket from him. Pah!
Pil throws the blanket over himself and jumps through the glass window. He wraps the blanket around the unconscious Soo-jin, gathers her into his arms, then he kicks open the door and hero-runs out of the shack.
Stumbling to the sand with her, Pil yells frantically for Soo-jin to wake up. She finally stirs awake coughing, and stares up at Pil. He flops to the ground in relief while Soo-jin gapes at the chaos around them.

Soo-jin leans over Pil and asks what happened. Looking at her like she’s his whole world, Pil tells her:

“I told you that nothing would happen to you. You asked me whether I would come forward if something happened to you. Of course. Have I ever not done that?”

Aww, he did hear her. Soo-jin looks completely lost for words, and as everyone dashes around them, she starts to slowly lean down. Pil stills, actually trembling as she draws closer and closer to him for a kiss…

But then, when Soo-jin’s lips are a hairsbreadth away, the clock strikes midnight and time freezes. (Gah!) Pil’s 2017 self is once again forced out of his body and he’s yanked upwards, all the while yelling at the damn manhole for its terrible timing.
We return once more to the waterslide manhole tunnel, then cut to the exit where it’s bright daylight. Yet again, the manhole cover flies off. Then, out of the billowing smoke rises… oh my. Hubba hubba!

Wearing a sexy black suit and styled hair, Pil nearly floats out of the manhole like he just stepped off the cover of GQ.
The manhole cover comes plummeting down once more and a chryon updates us that it is noon in 2017, now five days before Soo-jin’s wedding.
Looking at his fancy new threads and checking that his gangster tattoos are all gone, Pil smiles to see that he fixed the future. Believing that he’s now mastered the rules of time travel, Pil sets off, eager to find Soo-jin and confident that he got things right this time.

Epilogue.
Rewinding to mid-afternoon in 2011, all of the friends spend the day speeding around on jet skis and banana boats. That night, when Jung-ae is putting the moves on a nervous Dal-soo, Gu-gil comes screaming out of the woods and rips Dal-soo out of her grasp.
Gu-gil yells at his friend that they’re supposed to be a family and begs him not to break their friendship over a woman. Dal-soo fervently agrees and barely gives Jung-ae an “It was fun, see-ya!” before trotting off with his buddy.

  COMMENTS
Oh, Gu-gil. I appreciate your tenacity, but sometimes you really need to know when to quit. Although, given Jung-ae’s single-minded determination in pursuing Dal-soo, they may actually be perfect for each other.
After making it through our second week of episodes, I still really like this show, but it feels a bit like there is something missing. The acting is great, the music is moving, the shots are beautiful, and the plot—while slightly cookie-cutter—does have some entertaining twists when it introduces new rules into the time travel. (I honestly wasn’t expecting the reset concept, and it’s a clever way to both fix and cause problems.) The one thing that doesn’t quite mesh yet is the relationship between Pil and Soo-jin.
I hesitate to say it’s an absence of chemistry, because I do feel the tension, and those puppy eyes they make at one another melt the ice around my jaded heart very nicely. It could just be a lack of backstory. So far in each timeline, Pil has spent more time with his friends than with Soo-jin. Without that interaction, it’s hard to appreciate their dynamic. I really want to like them, but I just don’t understand them (yet!) and am constantly left wanting just… more. At this point, I’m feeling more of a connection between Pil and Jin-sook than with Soo-jin.

And how about that Jin-sook, huh? I’ve really liked her character this whole time, but I totally didn’t see her as part of a love triangle until this episode. She and Pil seemed like just great friends, until the look on Jin-sook’s face when she watched Soo-jin and Pil playing with sunscreen. I’m not sure if this is intention, or if these two characters just have some great chemistry, but now I’m finding myself torn. I’m used to always getting Second Lead Syndrome when the guy likes the girl, but I’ve never watched a drama where I wanted the second lead girl to triumph. I have no idea if there’s some twist planned for the end game, but at the very least, I’m hoping that one of these upcoming future 2017s will include a storyline where she and Pil are together, just so I can see what it would be like between them.
As much as I enjoy the bumbling Pil, I really like this cool and suave guy that just climbed out of the manhole. Pil’s main flaw seems to be a lack of confidence, which leads to zero motivation for anything—including pursuing the love of his life. He spends so much time second-guessing himself and pining for what he wants without the confidence to just go for it. I am a firm believer in what they say about confidence being attractive, and this new suited-up and self-assured Pil sure is sexay. But as this can’t be Pil’s last trip through the manhole, it immediately raises the question: How many ways can this go wrong?