Another strong episode:) You know, Shining Inheritance had one of the slowest romantic build-ups I’ve ever seen in a drama, pulling us through with tiny, teasing, delightful tid-bits and really great characterizations, but now that the romance finally has hit its stride, it was well worth waiting for. After all that Eun-Seung and Hwan have been through, hurting each other, rejecting each other, tolerating each other, occasionally reaching out and showing the other that they’re a decent person, it’s so frelling satisfying to finally see them seeing each other with new eyes, making tiny, hesitant advances toward having a positive relationship instead of a negative, and the once-an-episode, amazing out-and-out romantic, chemistry-laden scenes that are dished out now and then(the bus scene from last weekend! mm!!). Shining Inheritance isn’t one of those dramas that you want necessarily to go shout from the rooftops and tell everyone to watch immediately(ie Coffee Prince). But it is one of the most thoroughly and consistently enjoyable dramas I’ve seen in a long time, and definitely one I’d recommend that everyone see at some point.

Watch ep 19 on Viikii

Episode summary:

Eun-seung finds out that her mother took all her father’s life insurance.Incredibly shaken, she doesn’t go back to work and forgets all about how she was supposed to meet Hwan at the church. When she doesn’t show up, he gets worried, a worry which only increases as the hours pass. When she still hasn’t arrived home by late at night, he calls Jun-se and asks him if Eun-seung is with him, and when he discovers that she’s not gets her phone number. Jun-se and Hye-Ri, alarmed by the call, go check out Hye-Ri’s place to see if Eun-seung is there, but she’s not. Jun-se goes out to keep looking for her and Hye-Ri says to call her if he finds her. Hwan calls Eun-seung but she’s not picking up, sitting alone on a bench in the dark staring sightlessly into space. Hwan goes out to the bus-stop and waits for her, growing frantic with worry. Finally, a bus drops her off, and Hwan confronts her in mingled anger and relief, demanding what she was doing worrying “a person” like that and how could she not let him know, saying that she’s driving his insides crazy. Eun-seung, confused, says that she’s sorry but why was he worrying about her like that? Hwan, going insane, demands back “What? I can’t worry about you? Why can’t I worry about you?”. Jun-se, passing by in his car on his search for her, sees them, but passes on by, noting their intimate situation. Eun-seung and Hwan go back home.

The next day, Eun-seung leave early, and Hwan, noticing that she isn’t there, finds out that she didn’t even eat breakfast. At lunch, when she’s about to leave without eating again, he goes out and stops her, telling her to eat first. She refuses, and when he insists tells him not to worry about her, that he should worry about the woman he’s going to marry, i.e. Seung-mi. Hwan is confused by this mention of Seung-mi.

Jun-se comes by the store looking for Eun-seung after finding out about her relationship with Seung-mi and her mother, and tells Hwan not to like or worry about Eun-seung because he’ll only hurt her.

Later, Hwan and Seung-mi meet up for lunch, and he tells her that he’s realized that it was she also who wanted to keep Eun-seung’s relationship to her secret. He clearly doesn’t, however, impute bad motives to her for this.

Eun-seung has a confrontation with her stepmother in which she threatens to reveal everything to Hwan and his grandmother, telling her step-mother to “live uncomfortably” under the knowledge that she could at any time. Her stepmother, driven to desperation, convinces Seung-mi to help her after showing her Hwan treating Eun-seung well on their rounds, and the two go to Hwan’s house, where they tell a pack of lies with just enough truth mingled in to be convincing, to show that Eun-seung knew all along who Hwan’s grandmother(and Hwan) was and that this has all been her plot to get money/the inheritance.

Seung-mi and her mother leave, and Eun-seung, heartbroken, doesn’t bother to defend herself after Young Ran(Hwan’s mother) slaps her and it seems that everyone is against her, and immediately packs up and leaves the house. Hwan and his grandmother are clearly undecided about what they’ve just heard.

Thoughts

This episode was more of the same in some ways, only more of the same at a more intense level. Eun-seung is broken to an even greater degree to find out the level of her stepmother(and Eun-seung’s) betrayal and deceit, there’s another tense confrontation with her step-mother, which this time drives her step-mother to action, and there is definitely more of Eun-seung finding out about how evil her mother is and still going along with it(I despise her. She’s so spineless), and, of course, there is the step-mother and Eun-seung scheming and being relentlessly, ruthlessly deceitful and cruel in order to get what they want. If anyone was in any doubt about how far Seung-mi would go to save her relationship with Hwan, however, this episode answered it; Seung-mi is all too clearly now on the side of the bad guys. One of the structures which this drama relies on, I think, is the contrast between Eun-seung and Seung-mi; the one, so strong in facing life’s battles and what needs to be done and yet so constantly self-sacrificng also(was there ever a tougher saint?) and the other, unable to influence any of the events going on around her, constantly swayed by events and emotions, and governed by an instinctive, stubborn selfishness. It also struck me during this episode that as far as Han Hyo Joo’s acting skills go, she has particular strengths and weaknesses. She’s rather bad at appearing surprised – google-eyed is how I would describe her response to Hwan everytime he says something that surprises her, e.g. when he asks why he can’t worry about her – but she excels at portraying heartache, despair, and misery – that moment when she comes out of the insurance office and slumps, clinging to the wall, racked with such strong emotions as to feel physically sick, is some great acting. I’m excited for the next one, particularly as it’s clear that Hwan, continuing in his process of rapidly growing up and becoming a man, clearly decides to trust Eun-seung no matter what the apparent circumstances or facts:)

Favorite moments:

-When Eun-seung finds out about the insurance and is shaken so much that she feels physically sick(I only wished Hwan could have been around to find her in that state:)

-When Hwan demands, “Why can’t I worry about you?”

-When Eun-seung opens the box and realizes that Hwan has bought her expensive suchi while he himself eats cheap kimbap, and then he puts water by her side too

You know what my dream scene would be right now? For Eun-sung to lose Eun-woo yet again and break down completely and turn to Hwan instinctively and bury her head in his shoulder -with Jun Se standing right there, while he, initially stunned that she’d turn to him, puts his arms around her and comfort her. ahhh!!!

In lieu of that, however, I’ll take a continuation of the solid storytelling, good acting, and delightful shippiness that’s coming out more and more.

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