Friday, February 1, 2013

Flower Boy Next Door ep 8: Dramatic Friday Review


I wanted to start today by passing on a quick message from my dear Unnie.  She apologizes for being away from here for so long, but she's been sick and out of commission for awhile.  She hasn't left us permanently or run away screaming quite yet, it's just been impossible for her to participate.  The good news is that she is slowly but surely improving and should be returning very soon to grace us with her wit and warmth and fun.  I know I speak for all of us when we tell her that she has been missed and we eagerly await when she feels up to once again coming to play with us.  Until then, sorry, but you're still stuck with little old me as the lone voice of The Crazy Ahjummas. What does that mean?  Why, of course it means more FBND!!!!  Yay!!!  That's not so bad, now is it?  Pretty boys, funny tales...what's not to love?

Remember where they left us hanging at the end of episode 7?  Enrique was holding a distraught Seo Young when Dok Mi stalked over and pulled him away and then the two of them just stood there all close and gazing into each other's eyes meaningfully?  Fangirl & boy hearts around the world all did a little flip flop? Mmmhmm, good stuff.  Well, in episode 8 we get more of the story and it's not quite as romantic as we had thought/hoped/dreamed of.  It turns out that Dok Mi had spied Han Tae Joon walking towards them all as Enrique was holding Seo Young.  Remembering back to a conversation where Enrique had expressed a sincere desire to not be a roadblock between the two of them, Dok Mi instantly recognizes how this situation might be taken out of context and misconstrued and possibly cause unnecessary problems between the three of them, so she takes it on herself to prevent such problems by pulling the two of them apart.

Okay, so yeah, not quite as romantic, but still sweet and awfully brave of our dear heroine.  Of course, Jin Rak is watching all of this and not very happy, but we already know that he's not going to get the girl, he might as well start to face facts as well.  He's the 2nd male lead after all and therefore doomed to forever walk this earth alone and unloved.  There needs to be some sort of foundation for these poor 2nd male leads for their lot truly is a difficult one in this life.

Now, something that I neglected to mention in the last episode was how Jin Rak had asked Dok Mi if they could talk, but she was too tired to do so at that moment.  Then the whole Seo Young/Enrique/Tae Joon encounter happened.  Afterwards, Dok Mi asks Enrique if they can talk.  They make a sort of peace between the two of them.  He thanks her for saving him in front of Tae Joon and she apologizes for calling him an empty shell of a person.  He also tells her how curious he is about her - how she is the first person he is really interested in understanding besides himself.

But then, being the good wing man he is, he starts to talk up Jin Rak to her.  You know, after they discover that Jin Rak has been hiding behind the dumpster listening in.

Remember Drama Basics 101?  Any somewhat-significant or easy to be misunderstood conversation will definitely be overheard by the one person that you don't want overhearing/misunderstanding.  Still a very funny scene though as Jin Rak tries pathetically to cover-up his spying.



So, do you recall the cell phone that was stolen from Enrique in the last episode?  Well, that storyline comes into play now.  The thief accesses and posts private pictures from the phone, making sure to send everyone important a link to said photographs.  Particularly damning are the pictures of a sleeping Enrique with Seo Young in the foreground.

Looks like maybe a little hanky panky could have taken place.  Obviously we know that that's probably not the case (never say never, but I seriously doubt it), but it's easy to see how it could be interpreted that way.  On the Korean scandal scale, I'd say this one ranks pretty high. Like Eunhyuk/IU high.  {Sarcasm?  Me?  As if.}  Enrique is a little panicky as the possible ramifications start to unfold in his imagination.

The phone thief isn't the only one dirty dealing and playing manipulation games.  Muppet Hunter Do Hwi is up to no good once again, trying to win over our sweet, innocent, totally clueless Jin Rak.  She calls up, pretending to be fall-down drunk.  Jin Rak takes this as an opportunity to spend some quality time with Dok Mi and asks her to come with him to go fetch the wretch.  She declines, not quite ready to face the devil/aka former bff, and so off he goes, lone man on a rescue mission.  Turns out though that he's the one that's going to need rescuing once she gets her evil claws into him.  Big shock, she's not as drunk as she led him to believe.  No way.  I know, I know, we're all so surprised by this.  Then, on the walk home, she grabs him and plants a gigantic kiss on him, practically mauling the poor boy.

He pushes her away in abject horror.  He looks like she just made him drink raw sewage.  While he is running away from her, they bump into Dok Mi and Enrique who have been standing there talking, Enrique explaining the strange text sent from his anti-fan.  Do Hwi tries to be all cutesy and sweet with Dok Mi.  An incredibly uncomfortable and discombobulated Jin Rak apologizes to Do Hwi for any confusion, tells her that there's someone he likes, and then stumbles off (I assume to go disinfect his tainted mouth or something).  Uh oh.  This leads Do Hwi to set her laser target suspicions on Dok Mi as the one that Jin Rak likes.  I smell trouble a-brewin'.

Our last and final scene to talk about is when Enrique brings Tae Joon's dog, Hippo, over to say goodbye.  Hippo is being sent away to a boarding kennel while Tae Joon is away for the year.  Enrique lures her down by sending a text supposedly from Han Tae Joon himself.  As she leaves her apartment, she spies her milk.  On it is the Jin Rak post-it.  I decided to translate what it said (I don't know if the subs you had did it for you, but mine didn't), because I felt it might be significant, what with the giant heart on it and all.  I ran it through two different translators and of course they didn't agree fully so I'll just give you both and you can make of it what you will.  "to restart a day/day to start again".  Hmmm....  Interesting.  Very, very interesting.

Dok Mi goes down and meets, not Han Tae Joon as she thought, but Enrique and the dog.

As she is saying goodbye to the pooch, the man himself, Han Tae Joon, walks up.  He wishes her well and she's all cute and flustered that her long-time secret crush is actually speaking to her.  Then Seo Young appears, joining the impromptu farewell street party.

She pulls out a couple of plane tickets and announces that she intends to go back to Spain with Enrique like, tomorrow.  She asks him why he held on to the pictures of the two of them all this time and basically says, "now that I've been hurt, I get it.  Let's just go back to Spain together."  And that's our cliffhanger for this episode.

Nice, huh?  What will he do?  His first love of 10 years is more or less throwing herself at him.  Sure it's to get back at Han Tae Joon, but still....  When opportunity knocks, you know.... ? But now he's starting to have feelings for Dok Mi which is all fine and good except for the fact that he has promised love sick Jin Rak that he will play cupid and has no romantic interest in Dok Mi.  Okay, so what do we call this?  It's way bigger than a love triangle.  Right now we're sitting somewhere around a hexagon maybe?  I dunno.  Our correlation chart has arrows flying all over the place.  And our lovely Dok Mi has the most pointed at her, which should give hope to all scarred, timid, home-bound recluses out there.  See, you can cut yourself off from the world and gorgeous men will still flock to your door and fight over you.  What a wonderful world we live in, huh?

 

And, with that, I'm going to sign off for the day.  I hope that you had fun with these two episodes this week as I most certainly did.  If you are looking for another fun drama to add to your lineup, may I be so bold as to suggest you give Level 7 Civil Servant a try if you haven't already?  Unnie and I have been enjoying that one so far.  It's Joo Won, what's not to love?  Maybe you'll like, maybe you won't, but it's worth giving it a shot.  What other dramas are out there currently that you are enjoying?  Let us know!  We're all ears.  Until next time dear addicKts, have a wonderful weekend!  As always, thank you for dropping by!




 
P.S.  I almost forgot!  I was going to mention this earlier but it slipped my mind.  Did you guys hear about what I am calling the real life Flower Boy Next Door neighborhood?  It is taking all my willpower not to pack up and move to this magical place.  ;)   It totally made me think of this pin on Pinterest...
   

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