I guess many of the Chicago fans missed episode #1. Though we got some details from the California board, I thought I’d present my own summary of events as well.
*Note that I’m watching the unedited version, so some of the things I mention may not have been shown on the Chicago broadcast.
Episode #1
We meet
Ki-woong, all suited up and headed for an important job interview. On his way there, he’s quoting inspirational phrases that he’s apparently memorized about Korea’s greatness (perhaps to impress the interviewers)?
Back at Ki-woong’s home, Ki-woong’s mother (
Min-sook) is busy making kimchi, and she getting nagged pretty good by her mother-in-law. Min-sook seems pretty used to the nagging, and she basically just ignores it as she goes about her business. There’s a phone call for Min-sook, from her “Bean Paste Friend.” Her friend asks her a favor, and then begins boasting that her son has been promoted to superintendent position. Min-sook is mildly depressed at the news (apparently, because her own son Ki-woong can’t even find a job) but MIL says not to envy her. She’s sure Ki-woong will get the job.
But . . . Ki-woong is delayed on the way to the interview by a drunken man, who is about to jump from a bridge and end it all. Ki-woong tries to calm him, but the drunken man laments that he just got fired from his job, and that his wife glared at him about it. The drunken man asks Ki-woong to tell his wife to go out and find some rich guy to marry. Ki-woong reminds him that he doesn’t know his wife’s name or address – could he write it down for him? And Ki-woong uses that opportunity to grab the guy and prevent him from jumping. A policeman arrives, and the two of them wrestle the drunken man to safety. The police hail Ki-woong as a hero, but he’s also now way-late for that important job interview.
Next scene switches to the “Well Being Home Shopping” Network, where we meet
Hae-in, a very pretty, very together young professional woman. She’s got some kind of supervisory position at the Home Shopping Network, and she’s obviously both competent in her position, and confident of her ability.
Switch now to a hair-pulling struggle between two young women. One of them, named
Jong-nam is apparently winning. The girl on the losing end of the struggle is hollering that she’s sorry, but that “Sang-ho” needs a place to stay, and since she can’t share a room with him, Jong-nam has to leave. She tells Jong-nam to find another place to stay, since she has a “rich brother,” which seems only to make Jong-nam even more upset. Jong-nam angrily asks her if she’d really give up a 3-year friendship for some man???
Indeed she would, and Jong-nam packs up her belongings (not much) and storms out (we see, however, that Jong-nam *does* have a rather cute yellow scooter). As she’s leaving, her friend cautions her that she needs to do something about that bad temper of hers!
Ki-woong finally arrives for his interview – one hour late. No interview, and no excuses allowed, they tell him. They can’t make any exceptions. Ki-woong seems less upset about missing out on the job than he was annoyed at their unfairness. His cell phone rings, and it’s Hae-in, from the Home Shopping Network (apparently, the two know each other). She asks how the interview went, and he tells her that he’s got plenty of time to find a job (translation: he didn’t get it). She’s obviously ticked off at him, and she asks him to come by her office at the Home Shopping Network tomorrow, because she has something to give him.
Switch to a café, where Min-sook (Ki-woong’s mom) is meeting up with a serious, no-nonsense looking woman. Her name is
Jung Yo-jin, and her husband is the Home Shopping Network’s CEO (Min-sook and Yo-jin talk together about “mother,” suggesting that maybe they’re sisters? They have different family names – “Kang” and “Jung” – though). Min-soon then asks the woman for a favor, saying that she has a friend with a bean paste factory, but that the Home Shopping Network has turned down her request for a show featuring her product. Is there anything she can do?
Yo-jin seems uncomfortable about the request, saying that she’s already told her husband not to accept favors like that (and indicating, perhaps, that the woman is the real power behind the Home Shopping Network) but she reluctantly agrees to talk it over with her husband about it. Then, the woman brightens up and tells Min-sook that
Suk-hyun (apparently, her son) is coming back from living overseas tomorrow.
Min-sook, though, is suffering from some serious indigestion, and she asks Yo-jin where the nearest restroom might be. And, while she’s there taking care of matters, she hears the woman in the next stall asking her questions (actually, the woman in the next stall is speaking to someone on her cell phone, but Min-sook doesn’t understand that). Min-sook thinks the woman needs toilet paper, so she tosses a roll up and over into the next stall – and knocks the woman’s cell phone loose from her hand and lands it in the toilet.
The woman turns out to be
Yoo-jung, the mother of Hae-in (the Home Shopping Network’s supervisor). Both women, we discover, know Yo-jin, but they don’t know each other (yet). Yoo-jung is furious about ruining her new cell phone, but Min-sook comes off as such a bimbo that Yoo-jung decides she isn’t worth arguing with.
Speaking of the Home Shopping Network, we switch to Hae-in discussing business with the company’s CEO (Yo-jin’s husband). The CEO
(Jae-man) is interrupted by a cell phone call, from a “Miss Shin,” to whom he had just sent 500 roses (apparently, Yo-jin’s Dear Husband has a girlfriend on the side). Then, he’s interrupted by a second cell phone call (different ring tone). It’s from wife Yo-jin, reminding him that they have to pick up Suk-hyun at the airport tomorrow (looks like the guy carries two cell phones: one for his girlfriend’s calls, and the other for his wife’s calls). He tells his wife that he “loves her,” as he’s juggling the two cell phones with calls from two different women.
His wife is running the treadmill at the gym as she’s talking to her husband, and around the bend comes Yoo-jung. She’s still ticked off about seeing the new cell phone (a gift from daughter Hae-in) fall in the toilet. She’s also ticked off at hearing Yo-jin’s husband tell her he loves her. Her own husband, she says, would sooner die than ever tell her he loves her.
Back at the Jang household, Min-sook is hanging clothes and grumbling. She says she’s never asked her (Yo-jin) for a favor before. Ki-woong then walks in and fibs, telling everyone that the job interview went great. Mother-in-law calls Ki-woong’s father to give him the good news about the interview. The father
(Jae-do) is apparently a jolly, heavyset, midlevel public employee. He informs his co-workers about his son’s good interview, and one of them asks if that’s the same son who broke his arm trying to catch a pickpocket. His dad says that yes, and that his son just can’t stand to see injustice (so, we see that young Ki-woong is apparently a do-gooder by nature).
It’s late now, and a mysterious young woman is about to exit a taxi in front of a nice house. But, she hesitates when a stern, well-dressed man pulls up in a car behind them and then enters the residence. The woman asks the taxi driver to just keep driving (her identity becomes apparent in the next episode). The stern man is
Byung-doo and he’s Hae-in’s father. As he enters, he coldly jumps over every little imperfection his wife Yoo-jung has left behind, though when Hae-in walks in the door, he delightedly dotes all over her (in later episodes, however, we’ll see that stern Byung-doo’s bark is a lot worse than his bite).
Back at the Jang home, Ki-woong’s father asks when he’ll find out if he got the job. He says a month or so. Mother-in-law seems to think it’s a sure thing. Min-sook comments that Suk-hyun will be coming home from overseas tomorrow, and the MIL says it’s good that Ki-woong found himself a job before he came back (some not-so-friendly competition between the families for social status seems to be going on here). Dad reminds his mother that it’s NOT a sure thing yet. Ki-woong volunteers to go to the airport to greet Suk-hyun.
We’re introduced now to
Da-jung, a high school senior and the youngest daughter of the family. She seems to have a talent for making up trendy clothes items utilizing other people’s worn-out jeans.
Switch to a nightclub. It’s closing time, and we see Jong-nam (the hot-tempered, scooter-riding young woman) has a job there. She volunteers to stay late to help close up, since “Min-woo” isn’t showing up any more. She says she’ll fill in until the manager hires more help. The manager asks her what happened to Min-woo, and she says she doesn’t know (though she really does seem to know).
Actually, the real reason she’s offering to help close up that – having lost her room to her former friend’s boyfriend – she plans to sleep over in the nightclub. And as she settles in to the nightclub’s storage room for the night, she remembers how her former friend suggested that she ask her “rich brother” to help her find a place to stay. “Little freak,” she says to herself, “she knows he’s dead.”
Back at the Jang household, the mother-in-law is also thinking about Min-woo. She says how it hurts her so to think of
Jae-ok (Min-woo’s mother?). No husband, and now, no son. She must be so lonely.
And the scene switches to a sad-looking woman, who is sitting there all alone among her dead son’s model airplane collection.
Next day, at the airport, Ki-woong shows up to meet the arriving Suk-Hyun. There, he greets the Home Shopping CEO Jae-man and his wife Yo-jin, whom he addresses as “aunt” and “uncle.” And then Suk-hyun comes down the ramp, all decked out in a black leather coat and dark glasses. He seems to be one heck of a cool, cocky, confident, character.
Good grief, did I ever become long-winded or what?
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