Marriage Woes
As we approach the midway point of this drama, Graceful Friends continues to feel Kang-San’s presence. With Hae-Sook re-entering the fold and plenty of issues for our various couples to deal with, this Korean drama still has plenty of gas left in the tank. Episode 7 of Graceful Friends begins in the past with Kang-San blackmailing Mi-Ra to see Ji-Wook again. With a quick thumbs up, he promises it’ll be the last time. As we cut back to the present, Hae-Sook sits with the boys in the restaurant and they do their best to impress her. Goong-Cheol struggles to smile though, as Jae-Hoon quizzes him in private. He asks about their childhood crush buying a restaurant with the money he gave her and he swallows hard. This certainly isn’t going to go down well at home when Jung-Hae finds out. Back at the table, Hae-Sook invites them along to opening day. While Hyung-Woo and Choon-Bok are enthused to see her and eager to help, Goong-Cheol and Jae-Hoon remain vigilant. The latter asks them whether he’s there to scam them or not. It doesn’t help that Hae-Sook messages Goong-Cheol as soon as he gets home. As we see from flashbacks, Goong-Cheol actually slept with her but in his lustful state, asked her to to marry him. In return, she simply told him she’s sleepy. While the others head home, Jae-Hoon returns to the restaurant and tells Hae-Sook they need to talk. It turns out Jae-Hoon was the one who told her about Man-Sik’s death. He also goes on to reveal the incident between Jung-Hae and Goong-Cheol has left them both on edge. “It’s a great opportunity… for you,” He says. However, she reciprocates and says the same to him. This leads them to make a proposal and seemingly work together. Still reeling over the compliments Hae-Sook gave, both Hyung-Woo and Choon-Bok start caring a lot more about their appearance. However, when Hyung Woo and Kyung-Ja fail to hear from Ji-Wook, they assume the worst. Despite his drunken state, Ji-Wook refuses to make love with Mi-Ra. Eventually they fall asleep together. In the morning, Mi-Ra admits to being an adult movie star but Ji-Wook takes offence, asking just who could get involved in something like that. Unbeknownst to him though, his parents are ironically involved in just that. Meanwhile, police detectives realize the old Professor case from years ago has gone missing from the database. As they continue to look, they instead decide to reach out and contact the theatre – specifically Goong-Cheol who was in charge then. They question him over Professor Han and ironically the detective who quizzes him is the same one from all those years ago. He admits that Goong-Cheol is the prime suspect in both cases. As he always wants to protect people, this means he could be hiding something. Hae-Sook shows up at Jung-Hae’s office and gleefully admits that she’s taken over the bar. Even worse, she does so with a wry smile and with money Goong-Cheol gave her. It’s a massive hammer blow for her and one that threatens to drive a big wedge in their marriage. Hyung-Woo gets blinds drunk after an incident at work. This is made worse by one of the movie producers there boasting about how much money he has, prompting him to lash out at Kyung-Ja back home. “You’re the reason my life is a mess,” He tells her. Hyung-Woo also goes on to mention how she did something to a guy in the past but quite what that is, remains a mystery for now. Meanwhile, Jung-Hae meets Jae-Hoon who admits that he still hates her after all these years. In fact, it’s actually getting worse. Hae-Sook continues on with her web of deceit, phoning Goong-Cheol and asking him for a favour. As he hurries up to the bar, she asks for Goong-Cheol’s help with the kegs. However, the real reason she came is to steal him away from Jung-Hae… which she admits just as Jung-Hae shows up at the bar. Back home, Jung-Hae and Goong-Cheol discuss Hae-Sook and how long he’s been seeing her. When she shows him pictures from the funeral, Goong-Cheol loses his temper and demands to know who sent them, which is where the episode ends. What did Kyung-Ja do in the past? What was so bad that it caused Hyung-Woo to descend down this path? Could she be the murderer? It may explain why he’s grappling with dark feelings after all this time. It’s just a hunch of course and this could be way off the mark so take this with a pinch of salt. Meanwhile, Hae-Sook returning looks like it’s going to drive a wedge in this marriage going forward. You can already see the cracks start to form but Hae-Sook’s intervention could prove to be the turning point for them both. And what’s going on between Jae-Hoon and Jung-Hae? There’s plenty of questions left hanging over this one and it’ll be interesting to see how that develops over time. For now though, Graceful Friends bows out with another decent episode.
