Sparks from the Wheel

Playful Kiss Ep 3, Part 1: Your Heart is Racing

September 25, 2011 at 8:57 pm | Posted in TV shows | 2 Comments
Tags: kdrama, playful kiss, recap, tv

A disclaimer: Playful Kiss is an example of “kdrama” or “K Pop.”  This is an area of pop culture I know nothing about as it is mostly a phenomenon in South Korea and other Asian countries.  Truly, I am going into this basically blind with the exceptions of a perusal of Wikipedia and questions posed to a friend who knows slightly more than I do about this area.  I don’t pretend to understand what’s normal or good; I’m just commenting as an outsider. If you’re here because you googled Playful Kiss and you really love it, I’m not sure you’ll like me much as I’m a bit snarky about it. No disrespect is intended, and I would be horrified at the thought of being really culturally insensitive.  I’m actually kind of enjoying it, so I hope you can read along with a sense of humor.   If you have concerns, you can definitely  leave a comment or email me at sparksfromthewheel at gmail dot com. All screen caps were made by me using by iPad and Netflix Instant.

In case you haven’t been riveted to my blog, here’s what the story starts:
Playful Kiss Ep 1: Part 1, Part 2.
Playful Kiss Ep 2: Part 1, Part 2

Last time on Playful Kiss: Proving she’s more than just a pretty face, Ha Ni bribes Seung Jo to help her study with the threat that she will share his baby picture with the whole school.  They agree to void their bet  that he will piggyback her if she makes it to Study Hall. Through the power of a study montage, Ha Ni makes the grade.  Since their class doesn’t know they live together (as dictated by Captain Douche Nood), they don’t know he helped her and demand the piggyback ride take place.

The chants for the piggyback continue. Not much exciting happens at this school, evidently.

Ha Ni and Seung Jo engage in a whispered conference where she is predictably ingratiating (I didn’t have anything to do with this! I’m so sorry!) and he’s predictably horrible.

Ha Ni has a rare logical moment and asks what she’s supposed to do  since he doesn’t want people to know that they live together (THE SHAME!) and he only tutored her because they live together.  Meanwhile, the demanding hoard looks on in  evil speculation. Mean Girl wants us to know how much better she is by wearing something large in her hair.

Seung Jo is prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice and go through with the piggyback ride of doom, but Ha Ni chooses this moment to get her pride back and refuses him. He’s like, “Stop being stupid, you’re causing a scene. Get on my back and ride me, hateful  woman.”  And she’s like, “I want to ride you but not like this!”  Okay, it doesn’t go like that at all.  But she does persist in shoving him off when he grabs her wrist. You know who else shoves him  off? Duckie!  Here he comes to save the daaaay!

Duckie, as we’ve established, is not the sharpest tool in the shed and misses the point of this entirely and takes it upon himself to  load Ha Ni on to his back for the piggyback ride in question.

Seung Jo, who should be relieved that Joon Gu is running off with the bane of his existence, looks on with disgust across his face. Either he secretly wanted to have Ha Ni’s boobs pressed into his back or he just loathes both of them so much and is envisioning their offspring that will no doubt be dumb as bricks and drain the economy with their need for help.   I honestly don’t know which of these is more likely.

Joon Gu is galloping around with Ha Ni, completely ignoring her pleas to stop until they are caught by the Faithful Sidekicks and the Aggressive One makes some threats.  The girls, operating under the impression that Ha Ni still loves Seung Jo (which she totes does), scold Joon Gu for standing in the way of true love.  The lightbulb clicks over his head and he’s like, “Wait, are you still into that juicebox?”

Ha Ni is all, “No! He’s awful! There’s nothing good about him. I hate him so much that fire spits from my eyes when I think about him.” Methinks the lady doth protest too much.

And furthermore!

AND…

Look, Ha Ni, I have been yelling this at you from the screen for over a week now, but I still don’t think you’re on my side. Anyway, now that we’ve established that Ha Ni is totally and completely over Seung Jo (never mind that she just grabbed his hand in both of hers to thank him when a high five would have sufficed), the kids move on to more important topics: Study Hall! Ha Ni is in! She will check it out and report back!

You will not be surprised to learn that her first Study Hall does not go well.  She catches sight of the Hopeless Nerd Girl fussing over The Dark Prince and nearly loses her shiz.

Even though Ha Ni is not dating Seung Jo and knows that he hates her and just spent ten minutes telling her friends that she hates him, she’s pissed off that he is cheating on her with his lapdog.  (And seriously, for someone so cold, he’s got the females of this school panting after him. Does he use AXE body spray and does it work?)

Then Seung Jo rejects the  drink and Ha Ni dissolves into laughter and points at the other girl’s misfortune. The other kids are like, “Freak, STFU.”  Really, she’s not doing anything to win friends here. Speaking of friends, the Faithful Sidekicks and Duckie poke their heads in to see her because they do nothing other than surround her with love and kindness.

Meanwhile, in the teacher’s lounge, the VP is musing that there’s something strange about Ha Ni’s sudden rise to to the Top 50.  Her teacher shrugs that there’s no one in her class that Ha Ni could have cheated from because they’re all pretty dumb. The rest of the staff gets a good chuckle out of this, but nobody  points out that a full class of underachievers suggests a bigger issue. Anyway, before we get too far into discussing the inequities in the school- we have a freebie day next Friday! What should we do with the seniors? Field Trip? Not so fast! Ms Song, the teacher of the dumbos in class 7, suggests a sports tournament to prove that her kids aren’t completely useless.  The rest of the teachers boo but she decides there will be a tournament and it will be between her class and Class 1- better known as Seung Jo and the Nerd Herd.

For some reason, every one else thinks this is a great plan.  Then Ms. Song ups the ante..

Here’s where my Stupid American shines through. I have no idea what Oppa means. I asked my friend Ann and she told me it means “brother” and generally refers to any male  in your general age range who’s older than you. So I guess this guy is younger?  I’m not totally clear on why this is so insulting. Please send help.  The teachers go back to tell their classes the good news and the Class 1 nerds groan and complain they need to study.  Ms Song tells her kids that they should, “put their lives on the line.”  No, I didn’t paraphrase. She used those words.  Duckie asks a valid question.

Ms. Song announces they will play for, drumroll please…. PIZZA.  They will stake their young loves for PIZZA. For the promise of melted cheese and salted meats, they will risk the continued beating of their hearts.  Class 1 might have sussed out that this is not a fair trade. But since these guys are the dum dums, they’re like:

But, guys, they are serious as heart attacks about this. You know it’s true because Ms. Song dresses miltary style and blows a whistle.

Joon Gu, or Duckie as I cannot stop myself from calling him, is conducting a training on properly passing a baton in a relay race. He decides to use Ha Ni as an assistant (shocked? I know I am.) and he uses this as a great chance to let his hands linger on hers even though the point of passing a baton is to get rid of it as quickly as possible.

Seung Jo is watching in the background, squinty eyed and judgey, and COINCIDENTALLY chooses the moment when Duckie touches Ha Ni’s hands to pipe up that nobody in his class cares about the tournament anyway.   Duckie lunges at him and the others hold him back. I wish they would quit doing that. Sourpuss could use a good black eye to take him down a peg or two.

He goes off about how the whole thing is pointless, and Ha Ni steps up and dresses him down for de-valuing her class and their skills. She points out that Joon Gu is a great athlete and his face lights up like she just agreed to marry him, and The Dark Prince frowns.  Ha! He likes her! He’s jealous! Kick him, Ha Ni!

Back home, Mama Meddler thinks the sports tournament is a grand idea and ponders who to root for since she loves Ha NI so effing much.  Man, no wonder her kids are cold, distant bastards.  The little one snipes that sports are worthless and I grudgingly agree with him. His mom reminds him that he has to re-take his jump rope test at school and Ha Ni foolishly offers to help.

The day of the tournament arrives and the kids are dressing up. I guess they do this instead of having cheerleaders.  There’s no doubt about who the Agressive One chooses.

Ha Ni makes less sense.

She tells her friends that Mean Girl told her this is the only costume that will fit her. I call shenanigans.  Also, I call unsuitable for a school environment.  What is this? Gay Pride in San Francisco?  I assume this is some Korean cartoon character, but surely they know how phallic she appears.  Ever the optimist, Ha Ni takes advantage of her anonymity to goose Seung Jo.

Did you think she would do this and then run off to high five her friends and cackle? Then you obviously aren’t paying attention.  Of course, she falls over on her back like a beached whale. Of course, Seung Jo helps her up and then pulls off her headpiece. Of course he’s pissed.

The tournament kicks off with another Hail Mary pass on the part of Nerd Girl in the race for Douche Noodle’s heart.

On the actual playing field, the opposing teams are facing off for the first event: the thirty legged race.

As you might guess, the nerds stumble all over each other and groan about how hard this is while the Class 7 athletes work as a unit and wipe the floor them their competitors. You can practically hear the nerds chanting in their heads, “That’s alright! That’s okay! You’re gonna pump our gas some day!”

 

The second event kicks off: the tug of war.

You know what? This is pretty dull. Class 1 puts up a fight but Class  7 wins of course. By my count, Class 7 has already won the whole tournament since there are three events, but Ms Song told them she would give them PIZZA only if they won all three events.  So it all comes down to the relay race.   By the way, Mama Meddler is hiding in the bushes with the Sueng Jo groupies and shushes them so she can hear. Mean Girl takes the opportunity to walk over and introduce herself to her future mother-in-law.

Mama is happy to see her, but not because she is relieved her son will marry well. No, the groupies mean she can root for Ha Ni without feeling bad.   Speaking of ole’ Sourpuss…

Joon Gu is talking smack with his romatic adversary and Seung Jo is stone cold. He quietly asks if Duckie is running the last leg with him and we are left with no doubt that Seung Jo has little sprouting feelings for Ha Ni.  Look, kids, I’ve read the episode descriptions on Netflix and I’m pretty sure he some how eventually wins over Ha Ni, but winning a race is not going to do much to convince me that he’s not the king of the tools.  Proof?

The teachers are having their own little conflict with Ms Song gloating that she will soon call Mr Song,  ”Oppa.”  Again, I completely don’t get it. This would make more sense if she was threatening to call him basically anything else.  Culturally I’m missing the boat, because Mr. Song is like, “So, if I win, you’ll shut up about this?  Great. EAT MY DUST.”

So, we have quite a set up here. Class 1 vs Class 7. Nerds vs Underdogs. Mr Song vs Ms Song.  Douche Noodle vs Duckie. Mean Girl vs Ha Ni. The General Universe vs Ha Ni. In short, it’s epic.

The race starts with Mary Anne Spier taking a decent lead over her nerdling counterpart. She hands off to Ms. Song, Teacher of the Year.  BUT WAIT. It turns out Mr. Song is a beast and he takes off like it’s Chariots of Fire and smokes Ms Song while she goldfishes.  Don’t count her out- she’s scrappy.

Doesn’t she look crazy?

In a total rule violation, Ms Song throws the baton to Ha Ni since she knows she will never catch up. Nobody seems disturbed by her flagrant violation of the rules and Ha Ni takes off to catch the other team. She’s not half bad and actually pulls ahead.  Guess all those breathless broken hearted laps around the school paid off.

But you can’t think this is really going to end well for her.  Sure enough, as she gets closer and sees the two boys reaching for their batons, her mind starts to play tricks on her.

 

As she gets closer, the bodies of Seung Jo and Duckie actually fuse in her mind and when she reaches them, she tries to pass the baton to her Dark Prince.

The Class 1 runner catches up and passes her baton to Seung Jo and he runs off while laughing, “Fool!” like he’s some kind of diabolical genius.  Ha Ni just stands there catching flies with her mouth until Duckie gets the baton from her and takes the moment to reassure her that he is very fast and will still win.  What an idiot. To both of them.  And Seung Jo  just got promoted to Grand Master Tool for manipulating a girl’s feelings.

Girl, we have all been blind-sighted by a guy who won’t take the baton from us.  Don’t even worry about it.

So, the boys run fast and Duckie tries to literally win by a hair by shoving his head first over the finish line, but Seungo Jo prevails because he is magical and perfect.

Can we take a minute to admire the Vice Principal here? We’ll get back to Ha Ni being horrified in a minute.

That is SOME belt.  Is the WWE in town?

Ha Ni attempts to hide from her classmates in her weird phallic costume but she’s not fooling anyone.  They’re all like, “WTF, Ha Ni?!” And she’s like, “Dying now.”   Duckie is still rolling in the dust, unable to accept his defeat.  Seung Jo helps him up and Duckie informs him he hasn’t won anything. And  Seung Jo is like, “Yeah,except everything, SUCKAH.”  No, he doesn’t say anything so catty, but you know he’s thinking it.  His mom stands by snapping pictures of him and he actually looks happy.

There’s no joy in Mudville, however, as Ms Song tells her kids there will be no PIZZA for losers. The kids immediately turn on Ha Ni with their cries that she should buy PIZZA since she effed up so badly. Don’t worry-  Ducki is here to save the day and proclaims that he will buy the PIZZA  until someone tells him it will be $150.  Jesus, Mary, and Joseph… what is on this PIZZA? Truffles? Gold dust? No wonder they’re all desperate to have some.

Fear not! Ha Ni has friends every where! Mama Meddler shows up with her hair down and a pile of pizzas. She manages not to reveal that she is Seung Jo’s mother and instead claims that she’s just a “friend” of Ha Ni’s who enjoyed the games and wants to thank them for amusing her.

 

There are group pictures and everyone is happy. Hooray! PIZZA  wins the day!

The first half ends with those doofy guys in the band playing us out. Have we talked about them yet and how they play the theme song every thirty minutes? Have we also talked about how a lot of the background music sounds like the acapella interstitial music on Glee?  Okay, well, now we have.

Next time on Playful Kiss: Ha Ni may just get her piggyback ride after all… just not the way she expected.