The Nice Guy: Episodes 5-6

by starrygazer

Our hero finds it harder to walk away from the gang life than he anticipated. The more he hesitates, the messier his life becomes. And even though our heroine is becoming more confident, she faces a new obstacle in her budding singing career.

EPISODES 5-6

Chairman Kim’s order to kill Tae-hoon leaves Seok-chul shaken, and the chairman tells him to take a day to think over the task. After Seok-chul has a vivid nightmare about killing Tae-hoon, he wakes up in the middle of the night, checking to see if there is blood on his hands. The dream makes him even more certain that declining is the right thing to do. Seok-chul’s defiance leads him into a heated exchange with Sang-yeol.

Sang-yeol is livid with Seok-chul and withholds the advance of 100 million won that the chairman had promised. The frustrations pour out of Seok-chul and he screams at Sang-yeol that he was the problem to begin with, causing this mess by coming between Chairman Kim and Tae-hoon in the first place. This earns Seok-chul a slap across the face, followed by a half-hearted apology by Sang-yeol.

Sang-yeol puffs out his feathers, declaring he was always going to be a director of the company, and Tae-hoon was always going to be discarded. Seok-chul is enraged by this and asks if Sang-yeol wants to get rid of him, too. Is Seok-chul also just a tool to be used and then discarded once he’s done the job?

In an attempt to get the funds, Seok-chul tries to get a bank loan. But of course, his job at the “construction company” doesn’t make him the best candidate for a loan. He can’t even answer basic questions like what his annual salary is, and he realizes how different civilian life is to his own.

The financial pressure is weighing on Seok-chul, but he bears the weight alone. It seems he got it from his dad, as Dad is hiding the fact that he received an official notice that the family home will be seized due to outstanding debts.

Chairman Kim also has worries of his own. He pays a visit to Dad to get advice on what to do about Tae-hoon. In a very similar fashion to Seok-chul, Dad advises the pacifist’s solution: talking things out. Dad even calls Tae-hoon himself to arrange the time and place.

Chairman Kim and Tae-hoon both descend on the meeting place, flanked by their men. Chairman Kim suggests a fresh start; he’s willing to work together on the redevelopment project that they’ve been fighting over. In the spirit of good will, he even pours Tae-hoon a drink to seal their new partnership. When Tae-hoon accepts a drink from Chairman Kim, Seok-chul’s relief is palpable. That is, until Tae-hoon spits the drink out. Chairman Kim raises his hand to slap him, just as Tae-hoon pulls out a knife.

It’s a Korean standoff, with Tae-hoon telling everyone to stay put as he tries to put the fear of God into Chairman Kim. He asks the chairman if he should stick the knife in or put it away. In response, Chairman Kim stares him down as he rips open his shirt and says that if he’s going to do it, he better do it right or else he’ll be the one to die.

Seok-chul interjects at this point, and Tae-hoon drops the knife. Chairman Kim darkly warns Tae-hoon that if he keeps this up, he will die young. Tae-hoon nonchalantly wishes him a long life before leaving.

After the knife incident, Chairman Kim is furious and no longer in the mood for peace. He orders Sang-yeol to find someone to carry out the hit; someone who’s dumb and will do anything for money.Sang-yeol finds the perfect candidate in LEE DU-SIK (Cha Si-won). Du-sik is a low level member of their gang with a gambling problem. Seok-chul has tried to straighten out in the past but nothing seems to stick.

Tae-hoon is feeling bold though and he orders his men to wade into Chairman Kim’s territory. The two gangs nearly get into another big fight and it’s only Seok-chul’s arrival that calms things down. He tells Bok-chun to give Tae-hoon a message: Please don’t do anything that would make them hate each other.

Seok-chul is starting to wonder why he is finding it so hard to leave when he runs into Jin-ho, the man he saved from the fire at the redevelopment site. The community have stayed together, and Jin-ho invites Seok-chul to come and have a catch-up. Jin-ho’s wife is so thankful to Seok-chul for saving Jin-ho’s life that she invites him to stay for a meal.

Jin-ho is an ex-gangster, and he advises Seok-chul that if he is serious about leaving, he needs to get out soon. If he hesitates, he won’t be able to leave. Jin-ho reminds him that whether it’s money or a sense of loyalty keeping him put, none of that matters in the end. What really matters is family. Family never betrays you, and it is worth protecting that. Jin-ho tells Seok-chul to come and see him whenever he’s in trouble; he won’t turn him away even if he is still a gangster.

Seok-kyung is still down in the dumps this week. Though she’s free of the gambling den, she’s not free of her debts. Having to hide at Seok-hee’s place – and not being able to make money to repay her debts – is making her feel trapped. Just as she’s considering going back to the gambling den, she gets a text from the den boss. The den boss says she never wants to see Seok-kyung again and that her debt is cleared. Thanks to the intervention from Byung-soo, Seok-kyung’s a free woman again.

Seok-hee is concerned about Seok-kyung running off and hatches a plan to give her sister something that will make her happy. The plan is for an amusement park date so that Seok-kyung can spend the day with her son Hyung-geun without having to worry about being spotted by their parents. Byung-soo meets them there, and you can tell how happy Seok-kyung is to see her son. But when she has to part with him, she is left with tears streaming down her face. Byung-soo tries to encourage Seok-kyung to go to her family home with Hyung-geun, but she is still too scared and ashamed to face her parents. And Hyung-geun’s heart breaks when he wakes up at home and his mum isn’t there; he can’t even tell his grandparents why he’s upset because he was sworn to secrecy.

Seok-hee is having her own woes to deal with. She realizes that Ki-hong has secret plans to go on to a piano recital with the daughter of the hospital director. It’s not clear at first if he’d just taken the ticket to be polite, or if he’s actually going, so she tries to subtly suss things out by suggesting they go on a trip to the beach on the same day. Ki-hong lies, telling her he is going to a reunion that day.

When the day arrives, Seok-hee dons a baseball cap and follows Ki-hong – and spots him with another woman. She misses her chance to confront him and fed up with waiting around outside the recital hall, Seok-hee goes to a bar to drink her blues away.

Seok-hee runs into a patient at the bar who had flirted with her during his appointment and they have a drink together. He’s a total lightweight though and when Ki-hong keeps calling Seok-hee’s phone, he answers it in his drunken haze and declares himself her boyfriend. Seok-hee tells the patient he did a good job, but she’s not interested in him and leaves. Little does she know Ki-hong had finally been honest with the director’s daughter and told her he had a girlfriend. But will this negate the fact that Seok-hee knows he lied to her?

All the women in the show are having a hard time this week, for one reason or another. After Mi-young’s gig at the jazz club, at Tae-hoon’s request, the manager pressures her into a private meeting with Tae-hoon in his office. She is clearly uncomfortable with this situation as Tae-hoon asks her to sit and talk about music with him. He says he’s a fan of hers and follows her on YouTube. Tae-hoon ramps up the pressure by insinuating it takes money to create artists, and all he wants her to do is sing for him occasionally, privately, in his office.

She does perform, very reluctantly, and when she finishes Tae-hoon asks her to stay for a drink. She politely declines, telling Tae-hoon that she has to meet up someone and Tae-hoon literally snatches her bag away. Polite mask fully off, he says that if she’s going to keep treating him like a lowlife, he will behave like one. He calls in one of his lieutenants, CHEON-HO (Han Min) to hold her bag hostage and block the exit until she has one drink with him.

Mi-young finally tells him outright that her boyfriend is waiting, and he won’t be happy she is here. Tae-hoon responds that this is just a casual get-together and he would never force a woman to do anything. His actions contradict his words. Tae-hoon pulls out a stack of cash and hands it to Mi-young, and there’s more available whenever she wants. Mi-young slams the money down on the table and rejects him outright. She tells him she’s not someone who can be bought and she goes to leave. Cheon-ho manhandles her in an attempt to keep her in the office. Tae-hoon steps in then, telling Cheon-ho to let her go and give her bag back. As a parting shot, Tae-hoon says that with her attitude she’ll never go anywhere in life.

Mi-young is understandably upset on her way home, and she can’t bring herself to reply to Seok-chul’s worried texts. Though Seok-chul had stopped by the club to pick up Mi-young, he left when the club staff lied and said she was already gone.

Mi-young arrives home to see Seok-chul waiting outside her house and she runs into his arms. She’s grateful to see him and asks why he did it, meaning beat up the bullies who humiliated her when they were kids. Seok-chul tells her that they hurt her and broke her heart; he doesn’t regret it, and if someone hurt her again, he would do the same thing. Mi-young holds him close, and perhaps his answer is why she doesn’t tell him what happened at the club.

The next day, when the club manager calls her with an offer to double her pay, Mi-young simply says she won’t be performing at the club any longer. She tells the manager to inform Tae-hoon she quit and hangs up.

With her newfound confidence, and disappearing stage fright, Mi-young is performing more than ever. She is busking, singing for the patients at her mum’s care home and teaching piano (a job she initially turned down because of her stage fright). She even gets an offer from an entertainment company that wants to debut her.

Despite happiness seeming just around the corner for Mi-young and Seok-chul, Tae-hoon is lurking in the background. He’s in too deep, and even after Bok-chun informs him that Mi-young is dating Seok-chul, he has Mi-young tailed so he can keep tabs on her. Thanks to this, he spots the name of Mi-young’s cafe in one of the photo updates and he seeks her out there. He offers her money and his help to kickstart her career. All she needs to do is have the occasional coffee with him. Mi-young refuses once more. She’s not interested in buying her dream with someone else’s money.

Tae-hoon pulls out the big guns and threatens her with Seok-chul. He tells her that if she keeps this up, he will have no choice but to take it out on Seok-chul. Just then, Seok-chul arrives at the cafe.

 
RELATED POSTS