Sparks from the Wheel

Playful Kiss Ep 4, Part 2: An Education

October 9, 2011 at 5:45 pm | Posted in TV shows | Leave a comment
Tags: kdrama, playful kiss, recap, tv

Read my general disclaimer about my cultural ignorance here.
Read recaps of previous episodes here.
As always, all screencaps produced by my iPad and Netflix Instant.

Last time on Playful Kiss: The whole gang heads to the beach for some hijinks in less clothes than usual. Mean Girl invites herself along, Ha Ni nearly drowns, and Duckie shows up looking like an extra from The Walking Dead.  Seung Jo tells Duckie that he’s a good fit for Ha Ni, while she eavesdrops from behind a car and looks shattered even though SHE TOTALLY DOES NOT LIKE HIM, okay guys?

I’m not gonna lie to you. The second half of this episode is way less interesting than the first half. But there is a big WTF moment at the end, so try to hang in there.

The beach trip is over and the kids are back in school and remembering that they have to worry about college soon.

Ha Ni, fresh from her Study Hall success, turns on her inner cheerleader.  It’s like those seniors who slacked for three years and suddenly study like crazy for one semester of good grades before they apply to college. My inner high school nerd is grumpy about this. I’m not the only one.

Ha Ni’s feeling confident about her new found intelligence and offers to help the other girls study.  Since we need to make sure Dark Prince is nearby to maximize Ha Ni’s discomfort, they decide to study at Ha Ni’s house.  Mama Meddler, who is starting to look more and more like one of those “Cool Moms” in the vein of Amy Poehler on Mean Girls, is commiserating with the girls that they actually have to, like, work.

In her continued disdain for her own son, Mama Meddler tells the girls to ask him for help when they need it because, “what else is the smart kid for?”   If this woman had a Good Son situation with Ha Ni and Seung Jo both hanging off a cliff, I suspect she would pick Ha Ni.  She leaves the girls to study and the Aggressive One makes an apt observation.

The Faithful Sidekicks go on to tease Ha Ni about her clothes (“You have some crazy taste”- and they’re not wrong. I should make a slideshow on this subject.) and her schoolgirl crush on Seung Jo.  Here’s where we find out that Ha Ni has been doodling about her love in her English workbook.

Her fantasies of the Dark Prince mostly include piggyback rides and talking all night on the phone. Aw, come on, girl. You could at least get a fancy restaurant or dancing on clouds in there.  The girls tease her for a little bit, but then they agree that her crush is well founded.   They all got a little warm for his form after he saved Ha Ni’s life in his wet t-shirt.

Now that we’ve got the vom-inducing squealing over Douche Noodle out of the way, the girls get down to work. They attempt their math homework for about 20 seconds before giving up and shoving Ha Ni into Seung Jo’s room to ask for help.

Ha Ni, who is getting a little smarter with time, knows that Sourpuss is not exactly going to welcome her into his room with a smile and twinkling eyes. She tries to resist but her friends physically force her into the room and slam the door behind her.   As predicted, he is totally disinterested in helping her.  In fact, he’s downright nasty about it. Can’t you see he has important toy construction to complete, foolish girl?

Ha Ni turns on her pathetic whining charm to get what she wants– she tells him their lives depend on his 30 seconds.  Truly, people in this show are constantly exaggerating the danger hanging over their lives. Anyway, for some reason, this convinces him and he snidely asks what about the problem she doesn’t understand before solving it in 30 seconds flat. I guess this is not a geometry proof.

 

What follows is a montage that just makes me want to gag Ha Ni and keep her in a room until Seung Jo leaves for college. After oohing and ahhing over the answer to Question 1, the girls send her right back in for Question 2.  She pokes her head in again when he trying to get ready for bed, and then again when he is actually dead asleep. No wonder he’s irritated with her; are these girls even spending a minute on it before throwing their hands up?  So, even though I’m generally Team Ha Ni, I’m absolutely on the Dark Prince’s side when he grabs the workbook, dashes through all the problems, and roars at her not to return.

 

The next day at school, the Faithful Sidekicks are marveling at their good fortune while Ha Ni just looks pained. This did absolutely nothing to further her plans to hold hands and eat ice cream with Seung Jo. Her friends, like the honey badger, don’t care. They’re ready to ask him for help in every class– a prospect which causes Ha Ni to turn a little green.  While they’re discussing this, a classmate with Betty Rubble hair snatches their homework away.

 

The Aggressive One loses some respect from me.

 

The other kids want to get in on the tutoring action and Ha Ni looks like somebody just killed her pet bunny. Duckie to the rescue?

 

As it turns out, the other kids in class do not, in fact, have any pride. We also learn that Duckie doesn’t really know his friends’ names as he refers to one of them as “Yellow Head.”  Everyone in class, sans Duckie, wants a taste of the Seung Jo magic– nevermind if the Genius of the Senior Class wants any piece of this.  The whole class shows up at the Dark Prince’s castle that weekend without ever asking if he has plans. Of course, he has no plans because he doesn’t have any friends and his primary choice of activity is listening to his iPod while looking surly.

Faced with the entire class of twits, he tries to make a break for his room but his mother stops him. She’s so thrilled about her son having friends! Lady, these people are using him. They are not his friends.  Meanwhile, Ha Ni is doing that thing that you mostly see in toddlers playing Hide-n-Seek where they think if they can’t see you, you can’t see them.   Like a lot of plans Ha Ni concocts, it’s not working.

Cover blown, Ha Ni comes out from hiding and begs him to help her class. Obviously, this kid is starting to like her because he agrees, but not before acting like she’s asking him to donate a kidney.

 

I’m just including this shot because it’s kind of artful and makes Duckie look like a Crique de Soleil extra.  All this scene really does is establish that he won’t get in the house and is upset that Seung Jo is within 10 feet of Ha Ni.

The tutoring session goes something like this:

 

After the study buddies leave, Ha Ni glows her way into the kitchen where Mama Meddler wishes everyone stayed for dinner. Speaking of dinner, what should they have?  Eun Jo requests his favorite sweet and sour pork (good call, kid!) but Ha Ni shoots it down because Seung Jo doesn’t like it and she lives to make him happy. Speak of the devil, he walks in to the kitchen for some water and totally cuts off his nose to spite his face when he refuses the cold water Ha Ni offers him and instead goes for the lukewarm stuff so he doesn’t have to interact with her.  Guess that study session only went well for SOME of you, eh girl?

 

Then Mama Meddler steps up her game by pretending to get an urgent phone call that will take her and Eun Jo out of the home.  She doesn’t bother to explain what is so urgent, and Seung Jo doesn’t even ask why his mom is so in a tizzy. Jerk.

Sourpuss starts to leave the house in search of sustenance, but Ha Ni stops him and says she’ll make dinner to thank him for his help.  He’s rightfully skeptical, but she assures him she’s her father’s daughter and can definitely cook.  Wait a tick– didn’t her father tell us three episodes ago that she’s a bad cook and won’t be able to handle the family business. Uh oh.

Ha Ni retires to the kitchen in her apron and a gleam in her eyes. She’ll win him over with food!  You know, just once, I really want this girl to succeed. I want her to be really great and shove Douche Nood’s face in it. I want her to produce a really great dinner and smugly make suggestive faces with her her spoon in her mouth while  Seung Jo develops grudging respect.  I just… I don’t have high hopes.

Over at Ha Ni’s father’s restaurant, the Queen of Hearts is cackling over the success of her cunning plan to leave the kids to work out their problems while the adults have dinner together.   She’s about as subtle as red lipstick. The adults are talking about Ha Ni convincing  Seung Jo to tutor her class and her inner strength and Eun Jo is like:

Mama Medder notices a picture on the wall of young Ha Ni and her mother and the discussion turns to Dad’s romantic prospects. This discussion makes me suspicious. Are they foreshadowing a set up with old people love? That would be so tedious. Can we just focus on the teenagers, please?  Anyway, they tell him he’ll be lonely once Ha Ni gets married and he’s like, “It’ll never happen!”  To his credit, I think he says it more out of denial than because he thinks his daughter is ridiculous.

Then he says he’s not sure it was such a good idea to leave the teens home alone.  Mama Meddler thinks it was  GREAT plan.

Okay, so I like this character. I think she’s sort of a hoot. But she’s not winning any awards for her parenting.  The dads agree with me because they adopt identical, “Woman, what are you smoking?!” faces.

Back at the Tunnel of Love, Seung Jo is charming as usual.

The following exchange takes place.

Seung Jo is like, “Looks like I have to everything myself. You are completely useless,” and reminds me forcefully of movies where the sweet leading lady lives with a verbally abusive boy while her co-worker is a nice guy who would drop everything for her.

Guess what else Grand Master Tool does really well?

Ha Ni can’t contain her amazement and gushes that he’s a really great cook. Modest as always, Seung Jo reminds her that he’s perfect so what did she expect?

Bless Ha Ni– she actually does manage to take him down a peg or two, even though it’s a complete accident. She muses that her dad must be really smart because he’s such a good chef and that Joon Gu (Duckie) is a pretty great chef too. Even though the Dark Prince doesn’t comment, we can start to see his eyes twitch as she babbles on about Duckie’s fantastic cooking at the school festival. His food was crispy on the outside but soft on the inside, and it really does sound like great food and a perfect metaphor for most romantic heroes. Seung Jo loses his cool and snatches back her plate and throws it the sink. DINNER IS DONE. YOU RUINED EVERYTHING. CLEAN THE DISHES, SLUT.  Of course, other than telling her to do the dishes, he doesn’t say anything or offer any explanation for his abrupt behaviors. Ha Ni misses the subtext and is sadly sucking on her spoon for traces of her delicious dinner.

Back at the restaurant, the adults are closing up the shop and about to head home. Mama Meddler checks her watch and figures the kids haven’t had time to argue to the point of passion and jump each other yet, so she begs to go sing karaoke despite the fact her youngest is whining that he’s tired.  Really, lady, really?   Ha Ni’s dad calls to tell her they’ll be late and she’s in her bedroom with her homework. She tells him to have fun and then faces her work, but not before having a little conversation with her bear about the Dark Prince.

 

She’s about to crack her English workbook when the horrible truth sets in: she left her book in the cave of the Sourpuss.  He could be reading it and learning her secrets RIGHT NOW.  Like every teen girl in this situation, she know she will DIE if she doesn’t get that book immediately.  She’s willing to sneak into his room to steal it back. She finds the book without waking him, but she has to stop and marvel at his perfection.

And here’s where we get our WTF moment. As she’s lingering near his bed like a stalker, his arm suddenly reaches out and snatches her wrist. Ha Ni is like, “Oh no! What are you doing?” Suddenly, Seung Jo is a total lusty lounge lizard and like, “Hey, there, pretty lady. I know why you’re here and I’m totally cool with it. Let the boning commence.”  Ha Ni is all, “No! Just here for my book! I only like you from afar but I don’t actually want you to touch me.”  Seung Jo counters that it’s awfully suspicious that she suddenly has to find a book when he’s in his bed and they’re alone in the house.  He knows she wants it.  I mean, he thinks she’s dumb and awful and that she ruins his life, but he is  definitely DTF (Jersey Shore slang– means, “down to ______”).

Ha Ni is not into it, but he flips her on her back on his bed and sort of hovers over her whispering sweet nothings like, “We’re all puberty stricken 18 year olds,” and, “Isn’t this why you came in here?”  She’s still stiff as a board and clutching the English workbook to her chest like a shield. This is totally not how she pictured this. Her version had rose petals, a down comforter, maybe some candles, and nice music.  He leans closer to her face and the screen fades to black. You’re just going to have to wonder if Mama Meddler’s plan worked.

Next time on Playful Kiss: The family arrives home to find the teens doing …. what exactly? Plus, college applications are suddenly a HUGE effing deal.

We close with this awful shot of the bears in the closing credits. Have we discussed the bears yet? Every episode ends with the bears re-enacting a scene from the episode. I feel this scene was a very poor choice as the bears really do look like they’re engaging in something R-rated.