Boys Before Flowers, episode 9
Warm, fuzzy feelings coursin’ through my veins . . .
Recap of episode 9
It’s the morning after Jun Pyo slept over at Jandi’s house. He’s all alone in the room and is awaken by noise coming from the common room area. He calls out to Butler Lee and asks him why there was so much noise and to tell him to pipe down. He gets no answer and wakes up, only to realize that he’s not in his Jun Pyo McMansion. Jun Pyo is startled for a second but then rolls out of bed and leaves the room.
He’s greeted by the Geums getting ready to have their breakfast. The table is lavishly set with all kinds of foods (seriously, it’s like a banquet), and it’s obvious that the family’s trying to impress the young master. Jun Pyo looks a little uncomfortable as he sits down and Jandi’s mom tells him to excuse the small amount of food prepared and that he should try to make do.
Then the next part is a little ridiculous — Jandi’s mom takes fish off a plate and uses her hands to rip it apart, take meat off of it and feeds it to Jun Pyo. Obviously, the PD’s trying waaaay hard to show us how “uncultured” and “plebian” the Geums are by using their hands to take apart their food and feed it to Jun Pyo, but come on.
Jun Pyo is obviously revolted, but to be polite, he takes the food. And gags. Jandi’s brother, Kang San, asks Jun Pyo, “Hyungnim, can’t you just keep living with us? Even when there are holidays we don’t make this kind of food. This is the most sumptuous meal I’ve had seen!” Jandi’s dad shushes him and everybody is embarrassed all around.
At the Gu McMansion, Jun Pyo’s sister is having breakfast when her mother joins her. Her mother wants to know where Jun Pyo is, and both Butler Lee and Jun Hee lie to her, saying that he’s still in bed and that he hung out with F4 till late the other night. Jun Pyo’s mom is irritated that at such an important time like this, Jun Pyo still has time to fraternize with his homies.
Jun Hee interrupts and tells her that it’s his good fortune to have friends like F4. Her mother says firmly that as Shinhwa Group’s heir, he can’t have friends like that, and has no need for friends like that. Jun Hee continues to argue with her, but her mother won’t have any of it. She insists that they only sit down together a few times a year, so he must come down. She tells Butler Lee to fetch him, but then decides that she’ll go get him herself. Uh-oh’s all around because Jun Pyo’s not in his room and Gu mommy gets maaaad when nobody will give her a straight answer.
Back at Jandi’s house, the family gets ready to make kimchi. Jun Pyo’s a little aghast that a four people household can eat that much kimchi but once the family starts their kimchi-making assembly line, he decides that this looks waaay fun. He intercepts their assembly line and joins in. Later, when the family prepares more food, Jun Pyo sits and watches but he’s highly amused and maybe even secretly joyous at watching such a happy family. The Geums continue doing their thing but eventually, as they start to feed each other pieces of the food they were making, they extend their offers to Jun Pyo, who really is delighted at the warmth they all share. (Kang San is freakin’ ADORABLE.)
And then the next scene, the PDs decide to be a BUZZKILL. Ji Hoo is by the school’s pool and he’s looking emo-ly at the water. He reminisces about the time he spent with Jandi in New Caledonia — when they sailed, and when he kissed her. As he leaves the poolside, we see that he’s folded a piece of paper into a boat and let it sail in the pool water.
The boys — Jun Pyo, Jandi’s father and brother — go to the public bath where Jandi’s mother works. Looks like they’re gettin’ ready to take a bath. Jandi’s mom warns her husband that Jun Pyo’s skin is delicate, so when they scrub, they have to go soft on him. LOL.
Ahn Suk Hwan (Jandi’s father) is HILARIOUS. The next scene is just gratuitous backscrubbing but Jandi’s father really scrubs Jun Pyo like he’s some sort of exotic specimen. Jun Pyo’s is unused to the whole thing at first, but really gets into it later. LOL again.
Sauna time! Basically, shirtless!Lee Minho AB TIME. Holy jeez the boy has a great body. /drools
Then, the guys run to a food stand where they proceed to have fishcake on sticks. Jun Pyo’s a little hesitant of course — no doubt thinking that foodstand food is unclean or something — but he realizes to his surprise that it’s pretty damn good. And proceeds to eat it. A lot of it. In fact, Jandi’s dad is a liiiiittle aghast at just how much he eats.
Back at the F4 lounge, Jun Pyo smiles to himself as he thinks about the fun he had with Jandi’s family. Of course, it won’t be Jun Pyo laughing idiotically to himself if Yi Jung and Woobin weren’t off to the side wondering what the hell was up with the crazy bastard. They wonder if Jun Pyo ate something wrong at the Geum household. Jun Pyo in turn asks the both of them if they’ve ever made kimchi, if they’ve ever gotten their backs scrubbed at a public bath, if they’ve ever had fish sticks from food stalls. Finally, he asks them, “Do you guys know the meaning of life?” Yi Jung wonders if things may be were better back when Jun Pyo still messed up his character sayings. Woobin then casually says that Geum Jandi is even more scary than Jun Pyo’s mom.
In the next scene, we see Jandi going for a swim at the school pool. After she’s done, she comes across Ji Hoo. The two greet. Smile at each other. I get awkward. Ji Hoo then asks if Jandi’s been in a bad mood lately and if it’s because of Jun Pyo. Jandi doesn’t answer, but does start sneezing and coughing. Ji Hoo turns around, touches her wet hair, and says that she’ll get a cold. He gives her his hat.
Then tells her that she should stop avoiding it. Running away is for the weak, didn’t somebody tell him that before? (I nod.) Ji Hoo reiterates that she shouldn’t run away, she should give him a chance. Jandi expresses that she feels a little uncomfortable that Jun Pyo’s coming into “her world,” but Ji Hoo tells him that “their” worlds don’t exist; their worlds should coincide with each other.
Back at the F4 lounge, Jun Pyo paces around nervously (to FORT MINOR MUSIC! Hallelujah, the music people momentarily snapped out of insanity). From what Yi Jung warns of Jun Pyo (which is not to be the first person to call), Junpyo really wants to call, but doesn’t want to take the initiative. Oh, guys. Then, Jandi calls. Jun Pyo feigns like he hasn’t been waiting, “I’m busy as hell. I didn’t even have time to think about your lack of a phone call in 3 days and 13 hours.” (LOL.) Woobin busts out his gangstagrish, “Hey man, whoa whoa.” Yi Jung can’t believe Jun Pyo’s is his friend, because this is embarrassing.
Jun Pyo then hangs up on Jandi when she asks something of him, and he’s mad excited about his own male prowess. He goes, “See that? Did you see that? It was I, the Great Gu Jun Pyo, who hung up on her first.” Then he tells his crew that Jandi asked him to go on a double date, the very idea of which disgusts him, but the other three are surprised. Yi Jung suggests that he’ll take Jun Pyo’s place if he decides not to go. Jun Pyo scoffs at the idea.
The next day, Ga-eul and Jandi are both respectively waiting for their boyfriends. Jandi insists that she’s not, but we know better. Then, Gu Jun Pyo comes across the two, “Ah, who could this be? Are you . . . Geum Jandi, by any chance? (awkward laugh) What a coincidence! I . . . was just passing by this area, saw someone who looked like you and thought I’d ask.” Jun Pyo and Jandi do the usual bickering thing — Jandi tells him he should just be on his way and leave, Jun Pyo pretends like he doesn’t want to be here (we know better), suggests the two wait together, etc etc. The two are predictably adorable.
When Ga-eul’s boyfriend arrives (really late), he acts pretty flippantly. He mocks Jun Pyo’s hair, makes Jun Pyo call him hyung, and just pisses Jun Pyo off in general. Jun Pyo keeps his anger in check only upon Jandi’s heed. She suggests that they should just go, but Jun Pyo insists that he should experience what it’s like to go on a commoner’s date.
Bad idea. Ga-eul’s dude beats him at an arcade game, makes fun of Jun Pyo’s patrician eating habits (he dares him to try cow/pig insides — which is really good, but sounds really gross) and makes fun of his intelligence when Jun Pyo messes up one of his sayings. (Jun Pyo asks Ga-eul’s boyfriend if he’s never heard of the little worm who was afraid of the snake, when it’s actually supposed to be a newborn ox who’s afraid of the tiger.) Jun Pyo, again, holds back the urge to beat the guy to pulp.
Then, the obligatory couples-skating-in-ice-rink scene where Jandi and Jun Pyo do a lot of hand-holding as they glide along ze ice. Jun Pyo and Jandi stop for a second to take a breather. Jandi expresses how pretty everything is and how it’s her first time in a place like this. Jun Pyo notices that it’s cold but she doesn’t have gloves and the next bit isn’t even really worth recapping if it were not for the MASSIVE squee-worthiness of it, but Jun Pyo takes off one of his gloves, puts it on Jandi, takes Jandi’s gloveless hand with his own gloveless hand and holds it to keep her warm. Little moments like these are so much better than Jun Pyo’s grand display of wealth, methinks.
Ga-eul and her boyfriend catches up with them and the boyfriend suggests to Jun Pyo that they go get coffee for the girls. Jun Pyo obviously does not want to do anything with this dude, but goes without a word when Ga-eul’s boyfriend insists. (Ga-eul’s boyfriend is so annoying that I can’t even be bothered to backtrack and look for his name.)
While Jandi and Ga-eul wait for the boys to come back, they do some girl talkin’. Ga-eul tells Jandi she should be grateful that Jun Pyo’s trying so hard with her. Jandi’s happy about this and says that he has been trying really hard. Then, in an awkward transition, the two wonder why the boys aren’t back yet and go check.
What they arrive to see is not something they expected. There’s a crowd around Jun Pyo and Ga-eul’s boyfriend; it turns out that Jun Pyo is (finally) beating the crap out of him. Jandi asks what the hell he’s doing and demands that he apologize. Jun Pyo says that he doesn’t need a reason to beat up a bastard like Ga-eul’s boyfriend, and tells Ga-eul to choose better boys in the future. Jandi makes an ultimatum: if Jun Pyo doesn’t apologize, they’re over. At this, Jun Pyo wavers a bit, but he doesn’t and he leaves.
Jandi goes to F4′s lounge. She’s here to tell Jun Pyo something, so can F3 pass along the message? (Jun Pyo’s right there; she doesn’t want to speak to him.) She continues to insist that he apologize; he firmly believes that Ga-eul should be grateful for what he did, and that he shouldn’t need to apologize at all. Yi Jung is astonishingly worried about the situation and tries to caution him. In the end, Jun Pyo won’t apologize, and Jandi shoots back to him what told said to her a long time ago, “Ya, this is like you…From the very start, you knew you were forcing yourself. But, what I don’t understand is why someone innocent like Ga-eul has to be punished on behalf of you.” (I think what Jandi is saying is that she doesn’t understand why Ga-eul has to be the one punished for Gu Jun Pyo not being able to do things that “common” way.)
Finally, Jandi says to Jun Pyo,
Gu Jun Pyo, from now on, don’t pretend like you know me.
She leaves and Yi Jung asks why the hell Jun Pyo doesn’t go after her. Jun Pyo says nothing and breaks shit in his anger (of course).
In the following scene, Jandi comes out of the swimming area. This time, she looks like she’s sick. She’s all snotty and coughing when she bumps into Ji Hoo again. Ji Hoo reasons that she’s in a bad mood, because she’s swimming. And she only swims when she’s in a bad mood. Circular…logic? Jandi tells him that if this is going to be a convo about Jun Pyo, she doesn’t want to hear it. Ji Hoo tells her that in front of a girl they like, guys do certain things, and they always have a reason for their actions. He’s talking from experience, so she better listen to him.
Jandi drags Ga-eul to the bar where her boyfriend works because she hasn’t returned her calls or texts for days, and Jandi doesn’t think Ga-eul should just keep waiting without doing something. Along the way of course, they see the bastard with another girl. He’s unabashedly telling her the story of how he got beat up by the chaebol Jun Pyo.
We gt a flashback to the date night and we find out that when the guys were away to get the drinks for Jandi and Ga-eul, the boyfriend gets a call from somebody and presumably, it’s someone he’s going to meet up with after the date’s over. Then he suggests to Jun Pyo that maybe he should join him because Jun Pyo’s girlfrend ain’t that great. She’s just like a weed, and she doesn’t fit with a rich boy like him. Jun Pyo gets pissed off and starts beating the crap out of him. (Applause all around.) He threatens that he should just TRY and call Jandi a weed again and he’ll never eat barbecued food again (which was what Jun Pyo was made fun of for earlier in the episode.)
When Ga-eul’s boyfriend is done with the story, he sees Jandi and Ga-eul listening to him. Jandi confronts him about it and the boyfriend doesn’t deny the story. He goes on to insult Ga-eul, calling her an ugly girl, and telling her to stop flooding his inbox with texts. Is she a stalker?
The next bit KILLED ME. Jandi lets out an OUTRAGEOUS “YAAAAA~!” and dropkicks the hell out of the guy. Jandi tells him that one punch was for Ga-eul, and one punch was for her boyfriend. (Hurrah, she called him her boyfriend for the first time!) This scene was so good for me because it was comical and the tone was just right and didn’t go into cheesy territory, like the dropkick scene between Jandi and Jun Pyo in the earlier episodes, for example.
Ga-eul tells Jandi that she should go apologize to Jun Pyo because he’s not a bad guy after all.
In a serious display of lack of cohesion, the story diverts to Yi Jung and his personal family problems. From the looks of it, Yi Jung learned to be such a lady’s man from his dad — who’s a teacher of a pottery class. Yi Jung catches his dad getting friendly with another woman and later when he sees the woman again, he tells her that she’s his dad’s fourth girlfriend.
On his way back to wherever, Yi Jung spots Ga-eul from his car. She’s walking around aimlessly, in a dejected mood, when she finally sits down on the front steps of a shop and starts to cry. Yi Jung, against his wishes, decides to go reconcile her. Only, it doesn’t really work and she cries more, and to onlookers, it looks like Yi Jung’s the one who made her cry. HA.
Back at the F4 lounge, Jun Pyo is playing a card game with Woobin and Ji Hoo is twinkling away at his guitar (WTF). Ji Hoo asks Jun Pyo is things are alright with Jandi at the moment, and Jun Pyo says, “Even if she comes back and kneels for three nights, three days, I won’t even blink once.”
At this moment, Jandi shows up behind Jun Pyo. Jandi says that she didn’t know he’d still be mad and that she only thought about herself, so she’ll just take her leave. Jun Pyo, of course, being the little boy that he is, runs to tell her that if she has something to say, she should just say it. Jandi says,
Gu Jun Pyo . . . please accept my apple.
Well, it only sounds stupid in English. In Korean, apple and apology sound the same, so good one there, writers. Jun Pyo looks really amused for a split second, but pretends to be still angry (aw). He won’t take the apology that easily and demands that he gets three wishes. After that, they’re even. Jandi protests at first, but then says that if he can list his wishes in under a minute, she’ll do it. She starts counting, he gets distracted, two of his wishes are out the window when he says “sit down” and “stand up,” and finally, he comes to a wish.
He wants Jandi to say, “Oppa, I’m wrong” in a nauseatingly cute fashion. AKA, aegyo. Jandi is inwardly wincing and thinking, “WTF” and tries to get the words out of her mouth, but could only go as far as “Op..op..” before screaming that she can’t do it. If Jun Pyo won’t accept her earlier apology, then whatever.
Ga-eul is back at Yi Jung’s place and Yi Jung waxes philosophic about the importance of growing strong through much, much practice. Then he suggests to her that they go out because they’re both having crappy days and they need to relax. Yi Jung takes Ga-eul to a club, where she sees her ex with another girl. Yi Jung decides to take his “revenge,” I guess, by luring the ex’s current girl away and dedicating a saxophone performance to someone who has captured his heart tonight. Er…
Annnyway, with that story left hanging, we’re back at Jandi’s. She leaves her house and is mumbling to herself in disbelief over Jun Pyo’s demands for her aegyo when she walks into a park decorated with lights. Seems like Gu Jun Pyo’s outdone himself once again. Jandi thinks everything is really pretty, and likens it to Christmas, but Jun Pyo reacts negatively at that mention. Why? Because his memories of past Christmases are nothing but maids singing carols, Butler Lee dressed up as Santa (LOL) and lame Christmas cards from his parents.
The two sit on benches in the park and Jun Pyo teasingly asks,
Is that kimchi I made still good?
Jandi: Others might think that you made the kimchi.
Jun Pyo: I really want to eat it.
Jandi: Really?
Jun Pyo: Yes. And I want to eat your mom’s seafood. The fishcake sticks that your dad bought were really good. I . . . didn’t really understand what a family was. But seeing your family, I think I understand a little. Can I come again?
Jandi: Since when do you come over with permission?
Jun Pyo: I’m not playing around.
(gets off swing and walks over to Jandi and knees in front of her)
I want to go. Actually, I want to go everyday. Everyday.
THIS IS WHAT I’M TALKIN’ BOUT.
This episode is by far the best episode we’ve gotten yet. And now that I think about it, it’s not really the Jun Pyo/Jandi moments that made the episode so great (though there are definitely some good moments), but the strong emotional elements tied in with the idea of family. This was definitely not a theme explored in the Japanese version and while Jun Pyo’s love (I think it’s strong enough to be called ‘love’ at this point, no matter how childish his notion of love may have been in earlier episodes) for Jandi didn’t grow because he experienced the warmth of her family, Jandi’s family is one more good thing that he can associate with her.
Beneath the girl who bickers with him constantly, which is definitely one of the draws of Jandi, it’s really that she can bring the kind of humanity and comfort that he doesn’t have with his own family and can’t really recreate with his friends. That’s one of the reasons, and it’s definitely over-emphasized in the Korean version, that Jun Pyo keeps looking for Jandi to argue with. She gives him the kind of attention that he hasn’t been able to find, and sure, it may be that Jun Pyo wasn’t satisfied about not “getting” what he wants, ultimately, he wants something to fill a certain void. The more he got to know Jandi, the smaller the void became.
This sort of portrayal of emotion is something I found severely lacking in Hana Yori Dango, and maybe on a whole, j-doramas in general. I want that sort of angst so that I can really feel for the characters and I KNOW Koreans can deliver the angst, so bring it on!
