This episode was less slapstick than some of the other episodes, but definitely the best one yet. Some really nice and meaningful dialogue that doesn’t feel heavy-handed, and in combination with the lighter scenes, it’s win-win all around. Yay for a drama that really keeps getting better and better!

(Technical note: For those who read my blog via Google Reader, Feedburner, etc, I’ve implemented a way to ensure that entries that are cut at a certain point on the main page of the blog appear likewise on the feed. This is a problem I never got around to solving when I did my “Boys Over Flowers” recaps, so full entries used to show up on feeds, and thus mooting my point of placing the recap text behind a cut!

Another thing, I’ve only ever fully recapped one drama and because I still sometimes have random spasms of fear just thinking about how bad an experience that was, I won’t be recapping “You’re Beautiful” in its entirety. But I will try as best as I can to give brief rundowns of what happens in the episodes. I feel a little too self-indulgent [operative word being "too"] just blabbing on and on and on about my thoughts of each episode without giving at least some frame of reference as to what goes on in each episode.)

Now, back to your regularly scheduled programming.

Brief rundown of Episode 8

Taekyung witnesses the little moment of intimacy between Shinwoo and Minam, and is led to believe that Minam was acting out because she had feelings for Shinwoo.

Minam continues to feel guilty about her feelings towards Taekyung and goes to hang out by herself. Little did she know that Jeremy had been watching over her, and with a mission in mind to make her happy again, the two spend some time hanging out. At the end of their day together, Jeremy introduces Minam to the so-called “magic bus” of his — a bus that very little people get on, and one that takes an hour to make a full trip around its stops. Jeremy says that whenever he’s depressed, all he has to do is sit on the bus and then within the hour, he feels back to normal. So, he instructs Minam to “meet” him again in an hour and as more of a note to himself, Jeremy allows himself to like Minam for just an hour.

In the midst of filming a music video for a new song, Minam comes across the best friend of her older brother…whose name she conveniently forgot. Hijinx ensue and it turns out that the best friend has always liked Minyeo, so much so that she was his first love. Needless to say, Taekyung acts like a pouty biatch, but has to reluctantly step in to help save the day whenever the best friend came close to discovering that his biffie was in fact penis-less and not the guy who he thought he was.

I think the confession that took place between Dong Joon (oppa’s best friend) and Minyeo was one of the cutest things ever.

It’s Taekyung’s birthday on the day of the MV shoot, and he gets a call from his mother saying she wants to meet up for dinner. Taekyung is calmly surprised about her call, wondering if maybe she indeed remembered his birthday and was inviting him to celebrate. However, once he gets to their agreed meeting point, it turns out his mother actually called him out to meet some reporters that she had invited to the dinner, in order to do some PR for the new song she wants Taekyung to cover. (A FML moment?)

Taekyung doesn’t oblige his mother, citing personal reasons for not being able to go through with the dinner, which his mother feels like is an insult to her. She looks for him afterward, and tells him in a carefully chosen number of pretty words that having him was the reason she lost what was most precious to her, so he should help her preserve the memories of once being so loved. Naturally, Taekyung feels spiteful and maintains that he won’t do it, but his mother reiterates that she did give birth to him after all. Then, Taekyung kills it with, “If you did give birth to me, you should at least remember when that was.”

It couldn’t have been . . . today, could it? By god it is. Oopsies?

I really liked Shinwoo at the beginning of the series, but as we move along it becomes more obvious that there’s a gaping difference between him and Taekyung — not in terms of how likable he is, but rather how his character is written. He’s not really multi-dimensional and it’s kind of uninspiring. On top of that, Jung Yong Hwa is stiff as an actor. That combo together doesn’t produce the most memorable character and that’s not really a big deal because he’s not a bad character, he just pales in comparison to Taekyung.

One thing I really like about how they’re handling Jeremy’s attraction to Minam is that he’s no longer feeling “icky” with himself for it. Sure, he can’t really say out loud that he likes Minam the Boy, but he’s starting to place feelings of attraction over doubt of sexuality. It’s inevitable that the writers had to insert that initial “OMG I like a boy? I can’t be normal!” reaction into Jeremy because Korean society is still taking very tiny baby steps with this issue, but I like that once it was said and done, there was no more clumsy fussing about it.

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