My Lovely Journey: Episodes 7-8

by Dramaddictally

We wrap up our Japan trip with only one week to go, as our heroine heads back to Korea to focus on her new client. After uncovering the weepy love story in her last case, her final mission just might be to find a romance of her own.

 
EPISODES 7-8

We left off last time with a question mark about this Korean doctor who sent Yeo-reum on a trip to Japan. This week we learn that he’s CHA YOUNG-HOON (Ha Seok-jin), a heart surgeon who has a potentially fatal condition — and will be needing a surgery of his own. (And no, the drama doesn’t spare the schmaltz about a heart surgeon with a broken heart.)

Yeo-reum and the gang have already figured out that Haruko has something to do with this mystery trip, but they’re just now discovering that the doc is too sick to travel on his own. He fills them in on the backstory of how he and Haruko fell in love while she was studying architecture in Korea and he was taking a break from med school to earn tuition money.

Both of them were struggling financially, but when they were together, they made each other feel like money didn’t matter. All those long walks save on bus fare, after all, and these kids are a couple of romantics. They’re young, they’re broke, they’re in love, and they’re already making plans to travel in tandem someday. He wants to backpack through Europe and she wants to take him home to Japan, but either way, he’s stashing up all his money for when the day comes.

And that leads us back to the opening scene for this story, with a twenty-something Haruko stealing all the dough Young-hoon saved and running off with it. They never contacted one another again, but when Young-hoon learned he was ill, he started thinking about all his regrets, which made him want to find Haruko. So, that’s how Yeo-reum’s current assignment came about: it’s the itinerary that Haruko had planned for the young pair when they visited her hometown.

Sang-shik takes all this in but he can’t bring himself to tell Young-hoon that Yeo-reum has already encountered Haruko — and she’s still a thief. But, of course, we know that Haruko immediately returned the wallet she snatched from the woman at the bar. Yeo-reum just didn’t stick around to see that part.

And what about the original theft? Why the heck did Haruko run off with Young-hoon’s money to begin with? Well, she has a wild-child sister who was alone and pregnant, asking Haruko to come home and bail her out. And so, Haruko took the money, went home, and ended up spending her life helping her single sister raise her daughter.

And the sister, now an adult but not totally over her adolescence, was the woman sitting next to Haruko at the bar — the one Haruko “stole” the wallet from. It turns out that Haruko is just used to being the responsible one, and sometimes nabs her sister’s money so she won’t spend it frivolously.

Yeo-reum puts all the pieces together just before Young-hoon is scheduled to go in for life-or-death surgery. Beforehand, he records a video message for Haruko, which Yeo-reum passes on to her. In the video, he thanks Haruko for the time they spent together and tells her that he’s dying. She cries, sitting next to Yeo-reum, and sobs out that she’s sorry. But also, as sad as it is, she seems relieved to know he still wanted to see her too, and it wasn’t only one-sided.

But, in a fluff-filled show like this one, there’s no real question that the doc’s surgery will be successful and he and Haruko will reunite. And, so it is.

Yeon-seok is the one to message Yeo-reum with the good news about the surgery, and he adds that he misses her and she should hurry back. (Yes! The only thing I like better than a romance is two romances!)

And lucky for us, it looks like the final story in this drama will indeed hit close to home. Yeo-reum picks up a new case when the wealthy chairwoman (Nam Gi-ae) who canceled her travel show becomes her next client. The mission is to travel to the chairwoman’s family home in a seaside town, and then climb up an impossible hill to get to the temple at the top.

However, Yeo-reum is sworn to secrecy about this mission for the rest of her life. And so, Yeo-reum leverages this by saying that if she completes the trip, she wants her travel show to be revived. The chairwoman agrees, and Yeo-reum sets off on her own, since she’s not allowed to tell the rest of the staff at her agency about the trip. She figures it’s an easy mission, and she’ll have her show back in no time.

In the interim, Yeon-seok gets some negative feedback about his recent script and decides he needs a break of his own. At the train station, he happens to run into Yeo-reum, and the next thing we know these two are traveling side by side. She ends up telling him a bit about her trip, without any details, and wonders why a wealthy family would pay her to do this. Yeon-seok offers that there might be a reason that it has to be Yeo-reum.

I want to take this moment to interject that we’ve known from the beginning that Yeon-seok comes from a rich family, but that he disconnected from them some time ago. His past has been kept a purposeful secret throughout the show, and his knowing attitude here makes me think things are about to come full circle in the finale week when we find out exactly which family he hails from.

Anyway, once they hit their destination, Yeo-reum and Yeon-seok part ways so she can get on with her assignment — and he can start dreaming up the romance he’s about to write. And I mean that in terms of a new script and also his dealings with Yeo-reum. Our poor male lead is trying desperately to flirt, but our heroine is oblivious to all his lines. When he asks if she wants to star in his romance, she’s all like, “Sure! I’d love to!” Uh, yeah, that one didn’t hit right.

Halfway up the hill that Yeo-reum has to hike, she meets a monk who tells her that life is all about perspective. Whether you think that everything is heavy or that everything is light, it’s true. And just at that moment, Yeo-reum receives word that the chairwoman has passed away — which means no one knows about the deal to revive her travel show.

Her hope disappears as quickly as it arose and she returns to Seoul deflated. But just as she’s trying to heed the monk’s advice to perk herself up, she arrives home to find her ex waiting for her. We end this week with Mr. First Love saying that he wants her back, while Yeo-reum stares in non-response.

Well, with one week to go the central story is finally taking shape, but this is not a show about conflict. I have no question about where our heroine will end up — especially since she’s been ignoring this ex’s phone calls all episode to hang out with Yeon-seok. Still, while this drama feels overly scripted and lacking in real emotion, I find the characters warm and I do want to see how they’ll finally land on their feet.

 
RELATED POSTS