Heart to Heart Episode 13 recap

Side dish: I woke up this morning with a craving for manakeesh, but no energy to bake them myself (and no bakery close by). Here’s a recipe from the Food Blog if you feel like giving it a shot. Invite me over if you do, so I can eat away the sadness of this episode.

Episode Recap

We’re back in the past again, with a little girl named Young Ji (who we now know to be Cha Hong Do) playing hide and seek with the young Ko Yi Seok, and his older brother, Il Seok. Yi Seok and Il Seok go to find a hiding place in a storage shed, and Il Seok climbs into an oil drum, commanding Yi Seok to close the drum then go hide elsewhere. Yi Seok leaves the shed, and goes to sit behind a haystack, reading a book. Our next view is of the shed on fire.

Back in the present, Yi Seok (Chun Jung Myung) presents himself at the door of Hong Do (Choi Kang Hee), announcing that he’s run away from home. He invites himself in, and explores her apartment like a kid on an adventure. When she tries to send him home to his worried grandfather, the Chairman, he dismisses her concerns. Ever the master of subtlety, Yi Seok pretends to be tired, and invites himself to her bed. When Hong Do attempts to sleep elsewhere, he drags her in to snuggle. They kiss, and he tells her fish to close their eyes.

The Chairman, meanwhile, ignores the advice of Butler Ahn (Choi Moo Sung) who counsels him to come clean with Hong Do and Yi Seok. Instead, he resolves to send Hong Do abroad, to protect the fragile Yi Seok.

The next morning, Hong Do wakes up to find Yi Seok busy removing most of the locks from her door. He invites her to go out to eat, but they’re interrupted by a phone call from Yi Seok’s mother, Hwang Moon Sun (Jin Hee Kyung), to Hong Do. She asks to meet, and for Hong Do to keep it a secret from Yi Seok. As Hong Do pretends to go back to bed, Yi Seok reassures her that his family will come around, and then leaves for work.

Hong Do nervously waits for Moon Sun at a café. Moon Sun arrives and goes straight on the attack, telling Hong Do that she killed Il Seok. A shocked Hong Do goes racing home, and finds her grandmother’s photos of her as a child at the Chairman’s house, with Yi Seok, Il Seok and Butler Ahn. Hong Do is devastated as her memories of the fire return.

Back at the house, Moon Sun confesses to the Chairman about telling Hong Do about her “crime”. The Chairman regretfully points out that, soon, Yi Seok will know, too.

Yi Seok’s sister, Ko Se Ro (Ahn So Hee) repeatedly messes up a scene she’s filming, until her lines are cut from the script. Instead, the director suggests shortening her skirt so she’ll at least look better. Upset, Se Ro visits her policeman crush, Jang Doo Soo (Lee Jae Yoon) at the station. He buys her a coffee, but when she asks for alcohol instead, he demurs, since he’s working overtime.

Yi Seok comes running to the Chairman’s house, to find that his mother has had to be sedated. Before he goes in to see her, Butler Ahn warns Yi Seok that the Chairman intends to send Hong Do out of the country. In her bedroom, a sleepy Moon Sun refuses to let Yi Seok go, then tells him that she hates Hong Do. When he tries again to leave, she threatens suicide to keep him there.

At home, still sitting in the corner with her grandmother’s photos, Hong Do’s memories are returning. She flashes back to being led away in a police car from the smouldering ruin of the shed, and Yi Seok’s devastated family. Back in the present, Hong Do misses a phone call from Yi Seok, as she wonders if she really did it.

While driving Se Ro home, Doo Soo is treated to the story of her time in the US. Initially lonely and bullied for being different, Se Ro eventually had her first kiss with an American boy, and then became the queen of her school. Distracted by her legs, Doo Soo takes his coat from the back seat to cover them, as she tells him about a German professor, who insisted on being asymmetrical in appearance. Doo Soo is reluctantly charmed as she goes inside, and takes his coat with her.

The next morning at the Chairman’s house, the Chairman can’t find his favourite boxers. He yells for Butler Ahn, but is startled to be answered by his newly returned housekeeper. She mocks him for peeing on his pyjamas and falling for a con-woman, then bustles out the door.

Downstairs, Yi Seok’s father asks Butler Ahn to move his bed into Moon Sun’s room. Instead, Butler Ahn informs him about Yi Seok dating Hong Do (formerly Young Ji), the grand-daughter of their former housekeeper. Yi Seok’s father is so stricken by this news that he says nothing.

Doo Soo tries to reach Hong Do, but fails. He realizes he hasn’t seen her in a while, and goes to her apartment. When he doesn’t get an answer, he knocks the door down, and finds her unconscious. Doo Soo picks Hong Do off the floor and carries her out. Yi Seok arrives shortly thereafter, to find her back door wide open and Hong Do missing. He calls Butler Ahn to ask what he’s done with her, but Butler Ahn obviously has no idea. As he hangs up the phone, Butler Ahn turns to the Chairman to ask if he’s going to leave things like this. The Chairman resolves to sort the situation out.

At the hospital, Hong Do is so catatonic, that Doo Soo resorts to calling Yi Seok. Hong Do snaps out of it and stops him, then tearfully confesses that she killed Il Seok.

Back at the Chairman’s house, Se Ro is, all unawares, continuing her campaign to win Doo Soo by sending him cute photos of herself with his jacket. She wonders why he’s so unresponsive when she can see that he’s read her messages.

At the Chairman’s house, Yi Seok is so distraught that he asks Butler Ahn to swear on his dead daughter that he didn’t do anything to Hong Do. When he goes inside, his mother grabs on to him again, and tries to make him swear never to see Hong Do again. When she threatens suicide again, Yi Seok finally snaps, and tells her he’d rather be an orphan than live with his shameless father and a mother who constantly attempts suicide out of guilt. She slaps him, and when his grandfather tries to interrupt, Yi Seok yells at them to back off and stalks out. In the background, a worried Se Ro looks on.

Doo Soo brings an exhausted Hong Do home, only for Hong Do to go straight back to the pile of her grandmother’s photos, and start crying again. Instead, he takes her to a frozen lake, where he finally tells her what we’ve all been thinking, which is that the fire was not her fault, since she was too young to know what she was doing. He offers to be her reason for breaking up with Yi Seok, if she wants to break up with him without telling him the truth. Hong Do rejects his offer in favour of just disappearing.

Yi Seok waits at Hong Do’s apartment, and finally thinks to call Doo Soo at the police station. He’s disturbed to find that Doo Soo has not come to work, but not as disturbed as Se Ro, who arrives at the police station at the same time. Doo Soo’s partner, newly spiffy for a blind date, tries to reach Doo Soo for her, but fails.

Back at the lake, Doo Soo and Hong Do are in the car, waiting for Hong Do to gather the courage to go home. Meanwhile, a worried Yi Seok sits in Hong Do’s apartment, checking his phone over and over as he waits for her. It’s not until morning that Doo Soo and Hong Do return to the apartment, to find Yi Seok sitting on the couch, stewing.

Instead of yelling, Yi Seok pulls the weeping Hong Do into the apartment and hugs her, telling her he’ll forgive everything now that she’s back. When Doo Soo tries to intervene, saying that the two of them spent the night together, Yi Seok is stricken, but doesn’t believe that anything happened. Instead, he wants to know why Hong Do’s face is so lifeless. When Doo Soo tries to pull her away, Yi Seok shoves him off, and Hong Do, left with no support, collapses to the floor. She grabs on to Yi Seok’s legs, and begs him for forgiveness.

As Doo Soo tries to get her to stand up, telling her that she did nothing wrong, Yi Seok grabs his jacket and leaves. Alone, Hong Do sits at the kitchen table and checks Yi Seok’s worried messages from the night before. You can hear the sound of her heart breaking as Yi Seok begs her to get in touch with him, and apologizes for the situation with his family.

Back at the station, Doo Soo looks over the police file for Il Seok’s death. His partner directs him to get in touch with the fire department, which Doo Soo has already done.

Hong Do is packing her things in her apartment, when Yi Seok returns to have it out with her. She can’t even look at him, but when he apologizes for whatever his family has done to her, she stops him. Yi Seok begs her to tell him what’s going on, but Hong Do refuses to answer and asks him to leave. He demands to know if something happened with Doo Soo, but Hong Do can only apologize.

Yi Seok leaves, but he doesn’t go far; he calls Doo Soo out of his apartment, and immediately punches him. When Yi Seok demands an explanation, Doo Soo tries to make it sound as if he moved in on Hong Do. Unfortunately, Yi Seok knows something else is going on, but Doo Soo doesn’t explain.

Meanwhile, Hong Do sits in her greenhouse, and wishes she could disappear without leaving a trace or a memory. Her wish is not going to be granted, as Moon Sun shows up at the apartment, in search of the missing Yi Seok. Hong Do begs for her forgiveness, but Moon Sun has none to give. The two of them are so wrapped up in their drama that neither notices Yi Seok coming in to the apartment behind them. When Moon Sun starts shaking Hong Do, and demanding the return of Il Seok, Yi Seok intervenes. Moon Sun attempts to take him from the apartment without explanation, but Hong Do stands up, and confesses that she’s Young Ji, the kid who killed his brother. Yi Seok shouts in rage as the episode ends.

Comments

ARGH. This cliffhanger is killing me, and the previews of the next episode are not helping.

I really only have a few comments about this episode:

First, it’s really refreshing to watch a show where everyone can pull their weight with acting. Kudos to everyone for being super awesome, especially Chun Jung Myung.

Second, K-dramas, why do you always bring the tears? I thought I signed on for a romantic comedy. Where are the laughs? Where are my cute hijinks? Am I supposed to be content with the Chairman and the housekeeper as comic relief? COME ON. THIS WAS HEARTBREAKING.

Third, this may be a bit unexpected, but I really hope that having gone down this route, they don’t pull back, and give us someone else to blame for Il Seok’s death. Much as I’d have preferred to stay the course with a light-hearted romantic comedy, if we’re going to go in this direction, let’s follow it through to the end. Personally, I would find it way more interesting to see these two get past this awful situation convincingly, than to see them get a get-out-of-jail-free card by suddenly discovering that someone else set the fire.

Lastly, what the hell is this business with everyone not telling Yi Seok about Hong Do’s true identity? How was that going to help?

Here are some bonus shots of the brief moment of happiness with Hong Do and Yi Seok before it all came crashing down:

---

Heart to Heart (하트 투 하트)

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 || series review