Heirs episode 8 "Pass Me My Inhaler"

Okay all, now, this may just be me being all over dramatic-like (what?  me?  over dramatic?  no.  never.  I have no idea what you're talking about. I'm totally rational, calm and cool headed, even when someone like Lee Min Ho is around.), but I think that that may have been the single best episode of any drama I have ever seen.  At least of anything lately, and that's saying a whole lot because there has been some stiff competition in the recent (and distant) past.  But wow!  Now, it could just be that my hormones are all in overdrive, but there were so many amazing and tantalizing scenes scattered throughout these 58 wonderful minutes that I may have sprained an ovary or two.  I can't even begin to estimate how many times I pushed that 30 second rewind button (oh, 30 second rewind button - have I ever told you how much I love you and how I really just can't live without you?).  It's not unusual for me to utilize that feature while watching a drama, but I seriously doubt that I have ever used it to the extent that I used it today.  It was just scene after scene after sexual tension-filled scene.  Okay, so yeah, so unlike me to just lay it all out there like that, but dang, that's how hot I found this entire episode to be.  I can't think of a tamer, more PG way to describe it.  Lee Min Ho, Kim Woo Bin -- ------------  (< that's me flat-lining just thinking about it).  I believe the fangirls of the world say it best when they say, "asldkjfklsdfjal;ksdjfkldjflskdfjslkfjasdklfjsaklfjsdlkfjsdklfjsdklfjsdklfjskldfjskldfjsdklfjsdklfjsdklfjsdklfjsdklfjsdlkfjsldkfjsaldkfjsldkfjsladkfjsladkfjasldkfjeifjaeklfjca,cjfakjfdklsfjdsklfjsdklfjaskldfjsdklfjsdlkfjasdklfjasdklfjasdklfjasdklfjaskldfjsdkljfsdklfjsdlkfjsdklfjasdlkfjasdlkfjasldkfjaslkfjasldkfjsaldkfjsdkljfsdlkjfsdlkjfasdlkfjasdl;kjasl;dkfj"

Like you probably did too, unless you've found some awesome rock to hide underneath (and if you have, can I come hang with you this week?), I saw all the teaser pics beforehand of "the kiss".  I knew it was coming.  I was beyond thrilled and excited to see it too.  I mean, duh, right?  How could I not be?  So yeah, I went in to it with certain expectations, knowing that it would have at least one nice, romantic scene.  What I did not expect however, was that the actual kiss scene, as hot as it was, would not be my favorite hot moment out of the entire episode.  What was the winner for that contest?  Well, I'd tell you now, but then what would we have to talk about later?

Oooh, I'm such a tease, aren't I?

o.O

Yeah, not really all that much.  I'm going to start talking about it now.  I'd pause for more dramatic effect, but this is written, and it's hard to pause the written word.  Not impossible, mind you, but darn difficult and frankly kind of annoying, so let's just not, and say that if you want a pause for dramatic effect, insert one here now.  I'll wait.

...

You done yet?  If so, continue reading, if not, well, go ahead and insert another one as needed, but really, you may want to consider scaling back and getting your feels all under control because you wouldn't want people to think that you're some overly dramatic nut job or anything, would you?

For those of you that are now ready, let's get started.  The rest of you can catch up when you get here.

Dongsaeng Splits Heirs

1.  Hot Scene #1 - The Hug

Kim Tan and Eun Sang are standing outside of the coffee shop where she works having a very intense conversation.  He has just confessed to her.  Full on, no doubt about it, declaration of "like".  She's begging him to just let her be - that his involvement is making life more difficult for her at school.  She just wants to make it through so that she has a better future when she graduates.  Emotions are running high.  Tears are in the eyes of both.  Then Tan's mom calls Eun Sang's phone and Tan answers it and tells her that they are in the middle of an important conversation and that he'll call her back later.  She flips out when he won't hand her phone back to her, going on and on about how it is expensive and how she needs it to text her mom and talk to work and so on.  It may seem on the surface to be a girl a little overattached to her cell phone, but what she is trying to say is that to him it may be just something insignificant that he doesn't appreciate the value of for someone like her.  He's rich, a phone is just a phone.  To her it's vital and to lose it would be detrimental to her life.  She's pointing out the differences between the two of them.  The differences that seem insurmountable.  His response?  He hears her underlying message and is even more drawn to her.  He wants to protect her and care for her.  He wants to comfort her and find some way to overcome the obstacles that stand in their way.  He exclaims that he is going crazy because he wants to hug her so badly, and then dramatically reaches out and pulls her into him and embraces her as she cries in his arms.  He then begs her to not say that she doesn't like him, but to instead at least say that she'll think about it.  These two crazy kids are obviously mad for each other but have many different and legitimate reasons that a relationship would prove difficult at best.  I can't wait until the moment she finally lets go and succumbs to her repressed and restrained feelings for him.  Won't that be fun?

2.  Hot Scene #2 - It's Not Just All Kim Tan

I know this is no secret, I believe I have mentioned it a time or two, but seriously, can I tell you how much this character gets to me?  I want to hate him, but I just can't.  I hate some of what he does, but daaannnggg, he's killer hot and then some!  I didn't realize that this bad-boy-liking side of me was so strong, but he's done a fabulous job of finding it for me and shining a great big spotlight on it.  So much so that I'm starting to question the wisdom of putting Kim Woo Bin in this role in the first place.  Why?  Well, because he's just too good.  He kind of is overshadowing our lead.  There are moments where I legitimately want him to get the girl, not Lee Min Ho.  And I LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE like obsessively Lee Min Ho, so that is saying a whole lot.  Like a whole lot.  Young Do is just oozing and dripping with sexy charisma that I can hardly contain myself when he's doing his thing.  Every single time he appears out of nowhere and puts the moves on our girl, I shiver and melt.  My heart races, my blood pumps and I just want to yell at the screen and tell her to go for it!  Shag him right then and there.  The innocent, nice, quiet good girl in me gets shoved roughly to the corner while my naughty side dances wildly.  Throw in there his vulnerable, heart-wrenching moments and that's it, I'm done for.  Kim Tan who?

So yeah, when he comes up behind her at her locker???  Or shows up at work after just being trashed by his crap dad and confesses to being lonely???  Oh. MY.  O_O  Just every single scene where he's in the vicinity of Eun Sang I am completely done for.  Throw in the towel - he wins.

3.  Hot Scene #3 - It's Not Even Just About Our Lead Characters

The shivers and heart pumping isn't just reserved for our leads in this drama.  Oh no.  Even our secondary and tertiary characters are getting action of their own.  Like these two.  We have another triangle on our hands.  I don't know why I didn't see it before (yes I do - and their initials are LMH and KWB), but there is a triangle between big brother Kim Won and classmate Lee Hyo Shin (played by Kang Ha Neul) and pretty teacher/tutor, Jun Hyun Joo.  I hope that this is how it's intended to be and that I'm not just broken, but I haven't felt any heat between her and Kim Won, despite his romantic gestures like giving her the wishbone necklace in an earlier episode.  Their relationship seems very one-sided.  To be honest, she seems scared of him.  And then there's her young student, Hyo Shin.  She tutors him privately and it's very clear that someone is hot for teacher.  From my limited observations (really, I wasn't paying much attention and only realized in this episode that this was the same girl with these two guys - before now she was just superfluous in my eyes), I would venture to guess that the feeling is mutual, but because of the improper nature that their relationship would be, she is restraining herself and sticking with the rich, powerful, age appropriate, yet intimidating, Kim Won.  That could explain her reluctance when she is with Kim Won and her apparent disinterest.  She seems to be faking it with him while feeling it with Hyo Shin.  Take for example our Hot Scene #3 - the near kiss.  She is due at Hyo Shin's for their tutoring session, but he sees her eating ramen at a convenient store and calls to tell her he'll be 20 minutes late, thus surreptitiously giving her the time to eat.  When she shows up for the tutoring session, he asks her about what she ate, and leans in suddenly as if to kiss her.  She is shocked and freezes when he just smiles, pulls back and tells her that she smells like ramen.  Let me tell you, she wasn't the only one flustered in that moment.  I swooned.  I shouldn't, but I did.  According to my sources (i.e. DramaWiki), she is 25 and he is 19.  And she teaches at his high school.  Totally inappropriate and I shouldn't root for them, but look at this and tell me that you weren't secretly cheering him on as well.  Go ahead, I'm waiting.

See, you can't, can you?  Evil show, making us want bad boys and inappropriate relationships when we're really just innocent, good girls at heart falling victim to the clever wiles of the writers..... 
  
4.  Hot Scene #4 - It Doesn't Even Have to Be Romantic to Be Hot

Testosterone.  This segment is all about testosterone, the fuel of men's passions, romantic or otherwise.  And what do women like more than a man's passion?  No, besides chocolate.  Yes, passion.  Even when it's between male rivals, like father vs son, or former friends fighting over a girl.  For one who spends a great deal of time hanging around a Taekwondo studio, it is dangerous for me to keep seeing Woo Bin this way.  Before you know it, I'll be at some TKD tournament or something oggling the older (as in adult) contestants competing all sweaty-like in their uniforms....  Not that I would ever do that.  *cough cough*  Sorry, what were we talking about?  Ah, yeah, Woo Bin, uniform, hot, sweaty, mat....  Yeah, I give up.  Here are some pictures.  It was a hot scene, even without the romance factor.

As much as I have an unhealthy interest in bad boy Young Do, I can at least say that that sentiment does not transfer over to his father.  That guy is evil in an entirely different way and so not hot.  He is downright cruel to his son.  A fact that, granted, makes me even a bigger fan of the son because I recognize and see his poor broken soul that has been molded into some convoluted mess at his father's hand.

And then, anytime these two are on screen together and are facing off over anything (usually of course that "thing" is our heroine Eun Sang), all those over active hormones start racing and jumping around again.  I blame the testosterone.  The hormonally charged vibes are so strong that they leap out of the screen and get me going all sorts of crazy.  I understand why this is a difficult situation for Eun Sang to be in, but I just want to tell her to kick back and enjoy the show like the rest of us get to at her expense.  Cuz it's hot.  There's no other way to describe it.  It is deliciously sexy hot in all its manly passion, testosterone-fueled glory.    

5.  Hot Scene #5 - The Pantry

Confession time.  This is it folks.  This was my winning scene for this episode.  The scene that earned the most 30 second rewinds and audible gasps.  The scene that emptied my brain of blood and left me staring motionless at the screen unable to move or process.  The scene that, if immaculate conception was a possibility with us mere mortals, would have possibly resulted in a very awkward conversation with my husband later on.  Kim Tan and Eun Sang run to hide from his mother who is looking for her and duck into the pantry off the kitchen.  Nice enough on its own, but what Lee Min Ho does with that scene is nothing short of genius.  The way he holds her, the way that he stands.  The body language.  Actually, the body language is kind of muffled, what with him pressing himself up against her as he does and all.  Now, it's a small pantry, it is, but there is more room in there than what they are using, if you catch my drift.  If you didn't catch my drift, I'll just spell it out.  He is pressed up against her not because of sheer need, but because of wanting to be that close (or you know, because of the giant window in the door, but I am ignoring that and inserting my own totally biased opinion).  Sure he's trying to protect her and hide her, but he wants to do a little more than that.  He wants what any 18 year old boy stuck in a dark closet with his crush wants.  Being the gentleman that he is though, he only goes in for a kiss.  May as well, they're practically kissing anyway.  They're practically doing a whole lot more than kissing, but kissing is the next logical step after arm holding when you're a gentleman in love.  So yeah, he goes in for the kiss and she cringes and pulls back.  What the deuce?  I won't even say it, you know what I'm going to say, but really?  Wow.  Talk about opportunity wasted.  It was still a very lovely scene though, and of course it had to turn out that way or else the next one wouldn't have had the same impact.

6.  Hot Scene #6 - The Roof

Here it is addicKts.  The scene we were tempted and teased with this past week leading up to this episode.  Many of us around the globe I'm sure assumed that it would be in episode 7, but still had our doubts.  Of course we wished it would be in 7, but then what would keep us rabidly foaming at the mouth for 8?  Stills of this scene were plastered all over the interwebs days beforehand, so much so that even those of us not actively seeking spoilers out most likely stumbled upon it a time or two (or a dozen or more depending on your level of social networking).  Our first kiss scene between our two leads.  A romantic scene on a rooftop.  And we were certainly not disappointed.  At least I wasn't.  I guess some of you may have been, I can't speak for all of us, just myself, but as far as sexy first kiss scenes, it passed my criteria.  I'm glad though that they filmed it the way that they did, pulled far back from a distance, because, Park Shin Hye once again pulled a Park Shin Hye.  I don't want to badmouth her because then it would seem as if I'm not a fan when truly I am.  I really do like her a lot as an actress.  Except for kissing scenes.  She is not good at kissing scenes.  She looks like she is grossed out and/or suffering miserably.  Girlfriend, those are freaking LEE MIN HO's LIPS pressed against YOURS -- at least PRETEND that there is some measurable pleasure in the moment!!!  Okay, so yeah, her character is supposed to be resistant to his advances, yaddah yaddah yaddah.  I don't care.  You have to try really hard to make that moment look as torturous as she makes it look.  Maybe I'm just looking at this the wrong way.  Maybe she's such a talented actress that she is hiding her inner glee so convincingly.  I'd buy that a lot easier if I hadn't seen her in many other kissing scenes where she falls flat though.  This was the one thing that worried me when I saw that she was cast opposite of my LMH - that his talents and skills in this particular arena would be wasted on an unenthusiastic partner.  Now, before I go all ugly angry netizen on her, I will give her one concession - it's still early on.  Her character truly is not supposed to be digging on this yet.  I can concede that and reserve judgment for now.  I am willing to give her the benefit of the doubt...for now.  But if by the end of this entire drama she hasn't risen to the occasion and showed us that she actually can indeed kiss the most gorgeous men on the planet without it looking so miserable, I just think I may have to be finished with her.  I may have to wash my hands of her.  Or at the very least, go into her dramas knowing ahead of time what's coming and that I'll be disappointed.  Like I kinda already do now.  I had hopes though this time around that things would be different because she's been showing more "adult" side lately, doing sexy photo spreads and all, but I still had my doubts and concerns.  I hope that by the end of all of this she can prove herself capable of matching the men she is paired when it comes to matters of the lips and spit.

7.  The Rest of It
There is so much more here that I could talk about.  Plot development.  Funny scenes.  Emotional scenes.  This episode was packed with them all.  In the interest of time, how about I just give you the cliff notes version though on some of them?

One important thing we learn is Tan's father's reason for sending Eun Sang to Jeguk High.  It's so that she will have 100 people tell her why she can't be with Kim Tan.  Dad must see that there's something brewing between these two and so he wants to make sure he separates them and his plan is to accomplish this by throwing her into the gladiator arena that is Jeguk High and letting "nature takes its course" so to say.  When he reveals this to Secretary Yoon, something clicks for Yoon.  He now knows why he and Rachel's mom didn't work out - social pressure because he wasn't good enough for her.

We have romantic scenes such as Eun Sang finding the note that she had written to Kim Tan back in LA and posted on the bulletin board, thinking there was no way he would find it.  We were even led to believe that he hadn't found it, so what a happy surprise to find out that we were all wrong.  He tells her how he had missed her and had wanted to ask her to stay there with him.  Of course he says it a whole lot more romantically than that, but I'm paraphrasing.  It was a scene that easily could have been listed up there with the other hot scenes, except that it was pure romance, less hawtness.

I also loved how he very openly declares his feelings for Eun Sang to Retchel and asks her to back off.  That's gutsy, to tell one's fiance (even if it is a business-related engagement as opposed to a love match) that you are into another girl and need her to not stand in your way.  The thing is, as much as I started out loathing her, I really am starting to feel bad for Retchel here.  Almost enough to not call her Retchel anymore.  Except that I have been around this drama block a time or two before and have a sneaky suspicion that she's not going to take this bold faced rejection quietly and will probably launch some form of retribution against our leads at some point.

And then this scene.  I'll just put up the pictures because it speaks for itself.  I am adoring the interplay between these characters so very much.

Another possible contender for yet another hot scene was this.  Simple, but effective.  At least when you're a hormonally overcharged ahjumma.  Hot guy sucking on a tube of something.  Kang Ha Neul has some nice lips.

Glimmer of a former bromance.  I enjoyed a good chuckle over this scene.  First, there's the testosterone-charged face off between our two alphas fighting over the girl that we mentioned before.  As tense as that moment was, it ended on a light note thanks to our heroine.  The boys are so busy fighting for her, that they don't notice that she has left.  She's gone home for the night and has bought them both a smoothie.  They walk out side-by-side sipping on their drinks, feeling like contrite fools who have been taken down a notch or two, when Young Do notices his bike is missing and is replaced instead with a notice that it has been towed.  Oh yeah.  Kim Tan had his bike towed because of some illegal tuning Young Do had done to it.  Tan laughs, Young Do stands there in disbelief.  It's our first peek into what was once a close friendship between these two and gives this girl at least hope that they'll eventually patch things up between the two of them.

He's sincere.  Young Do really does like Eun Sang and is not just messing with her because he knows the truth of her financial situation.  This seemingly disturbs and worries Kim Tan more than if he were just bullying her.  As well it should.  Sure enough, we see Young Do back at his hang out thinking about Eun Sang and trying to figure out his feelings for her.

A suit never looked so good.  When I saw Young Do wearing a suit for the family pictures, my heart stopped and I gasped audibly.  True story.  I loved how he used his father's teachings against him in order to cancel the photo shoot.  How?  He has a former girlfriend show up.  A girlfriend that just may not be as "former" as she should be.  It's a lady he caught in the elevator with his father recently.  So yeah, she just happens to show up at the photo shoot, fiance gets jealous, and boom, picture is cancelled.  Young Do reminds his father of his own words that there are no rules on the mat, only winning matters.  Cheating is fine so long as the result is success.  Lovely father, isn't he?  I really did appreciate though Young Do turning it back onto him and giving him a dose of his own medicine.  Take that you evil rat.

Yikes!  This one was a long one you guys.  Sorry about that.  There was just so much to talk about, and I know I didn't even cover it all.  But, this is late enough as it is, so I'm going to go ahead and leave it at that for today.  I don't know about you but I am counting down the hours now at this point until the next episode comes out.  What happens after the kiss?  How does Eun Sang react?  What comes next?  Will we be happy or upset?  Ooh, the suspense!  Happy waiting.  Know that you're not in it alone, that plenty of others of us are right there with you eagerly anticipating what comes next.  I'll be back later to talk about it, until then, happy drama times to you and thanks for stopping by!