Archive | October 21, 2018

The Smile Has Left Your Eyes: Episode 6 Review

A lot was going on in this episode, so I’m just going to touch on a few things I noticed or am wondering about.

Officer Yoo finally gets a view of Kim Moo Young’s burn scar that is similar to Yoo Jin Kang’s. Immediately, Officer Yoo rushes to his car to process this and consider that Jin Kang told him Moo Young is also from the same town they are from. Officer Yoo suspects Moo Young is actually a missing child from back whenever the accident happened, and we conclude that Jin Kang and Moo Young were part of the same accident and that perhaps Officer Yoo saved Jin Kang and also tried to save Moo Young, but we really don’t know. Officer Yoo appears to be a good guy, but things aren’t often what they seem.

There is also the discovery that Tattoo girl is also left-handed. Officer Yoo is now like us considering the possibility that Moo Young was at the scene and perhaps helped Im Yoo Ri cover up the fact that she killed her friend. Im Yoo Ri has often been on medication in which she can’t remember things.

Missing child. On the hunt for a missing child in his neighborhood, Officer Yoo hears people talking about someone going to jump from a building. He finds it is Im Yoo Ri who is preparing to jump off the building where Moo Young lives. This is presumably because Moo Young is not home and is not answering her calls, etc. He can’t or won’t give her the attention and love that she wants. Officer Yoo is clearly on the side of good hear as he valiantly tries to save the life of someone who tried to take his sister’s life not too long ago. The missing child is later found and Moo Young witnesses the reunion with the parents, perhaps thinking of his own story in which he was never reunited with his.

Eom Cho Rong. Jin Kang’s would be suitor continue to seem ill-suited for her. Most often he behaves like a bumbling child or a sidekick. Two things stuck out with him in this episode. First, he is in the scene where Im Yoo Ri is going to commit suicide. It is not explained why he is there, if he arrived with the police to help or because he heard Officer Yoo was there. In, I think it was, episode two, Cho Rong comes across Im Yoo Ri at the movie theater with Jin Kang and makes an offhand comment about her tattoo. That he can’t stand it or thinks she is rude, etc. He probably just remembers interviewing her for the murder case, but I keep thinking he has some connection to her we don’t know about yet. The second thing involves Cho Rong’s mom. Mom is super anxious to have him solidify things with Jin Kang. Later on in the episode we find that Mom has been severely burned. It’s mention a few times, and I think will be important in the future. Could Kim Moo Young be involved in this at all? The connection of burns and also that he is jealous of Cho Rong? We will see. Let me also say that Eom Cho Rong appears to be the most unobservant detective ever. He fails to notice Moo Young stalking him and Jin Kang and even doesn’t appear to recognize him when he’s bending down to tie his shoe.

The Damsel and her fiancee. These two are rather one-note characters and don’t seem to be necessary to the story anymore, yet they keep popping up. Officer Yoo tells Moo Young that he appears to be playing a game for his own amusement, just skating close enough to danger to make things exciting. We see Moo Young boldly delivering the fiancee’s requested wedding beer to the front desk of his company well after the wedding has been called off and Moo Young has broken things off with Seung Ah, or the Damsel. Is this all really a game in which the fiancee, Jang Woo Sang, is Moo Young’s real target? Why would anyone purposefully try to antagonize someone so rich and quick to feel insulted? The episode ends with Moo Young getting the crap beat out of him by Jang Woo Sang’s goons.

Moo Young and Jin Kang. Speaking of games that Moo Young has going on. He mentions something striking to Jin Kang (assuming the translation is accurate): Aren’t you so happy we met by chance? She says no as she’s answering no to everything he asks her, refusing to give him the confession of love or affection that he wants. When a person like that asks a question like that, one immediately wonders, but was it just chance how they met? Isn’t it possible that Moo Young, at least, has seen Jin Kang before? He remembers everything. The Arts Brewery is both connected to her friend, the Damsel, and also her work, and it could be that a day or two before the plot of the series started in which Moo Young happened to see Jin Kang and become interested in her.

Furthering this thought, let us consider that Moo Young clearly likes Jin Kang, but doesn’t have or show feelings in the normal way. It is entirely possible that his real goal is to get the Damsel and her world, her mother, her fiancee, as far away from Jin Kang as possible, because it’s becoming evident that whatever Moo Young’s wrong doings, these people are toxic and selfish. The Damsel is drowning herself in drink due to being rejected by Moo Young and has now also become jealous of Jin Kang. With good reason, of course, but Jin Kang has certainly tried to be a good and loyal friend and although she is perhaps unwillingly attracted to Moo Young, she clearly wishes not to be and she is also trying her best to appeal to the best of both their natures.

Jin Kang has told Moo Young that she pities him because he has no heart and doesn’t care for the hearts and feelings of others. This bothers him because he senses her pity is sincere, and he doesn’t get why she should pity him so for this. Jin Kang also calls him “good,” because it seems to her that although he pretends to be a bad boy he always ends up doing the right thing. For example, he comes to pick up a drunken Damsel to clean her up and get her home safely. We have seen that he saved Im Yoo Ri from a previous suicide attempt. He quite obviously protects Jin Kang from the wrath of the Damsel’s mother, pretending it was he alone who brought her home, not the both of them together. Moo Young shrugs the compliment off, saying that some days one does these things even if they are annoying, and some days one doesn’t. Jin Kang says again that that’s being “good,” but as it’s become obvious she does like Moo Young, we, like him, are thinking she not seeing things as they actually are.

Near the end of the episode, the fact that Jin Kang pity’s Moo Young is brought up by him again. This is because Jin Kang is very angry with him for telling the Damsel that he likes Jin Kang. This declaration is of course ruining the friendship she has with the Damsel, but we are seeing more and more that their friendship may really not be that deep. In any case, Moo Young seems to think Jin Kang should be happy he’s telling the truth. He’s being very open about liking Jin Kang and not wanting her to be with Eom Cho Rong. And he’s frustrated that Jin Kang doesn’t get why she’s so angry. It’s not because of the Damsel knowing, it’s because he’s telling the truth and because Jin Kang, despite her better judgement, likes him back. But she stubbornly refuses to acknowledge this fact. Moo Young asks who is more to be pitied, someone without feelings or someone who has feelings but ignores them? He never says it, but we know that he is also silently holding up before her the fact that she knows Eom Cho Rong cares about her, but that romantic feelings on her side are pretty much nonexistent. She is stringing him along just like Moo Young was stringing along the Damsel. Two peas in a pod, but in different ways.

The only other thing I wanted to mention was that Moo Young tells Officer Yoo that Im Yoo Ri can’t lie. This is interesting because we are shown a few times that Moo Young often tells the truth, but in roundabout ways. Both of these things are likely to figure largely in future episodes, as well as the fact that both Yoo Jin Kook and Yoo Jin Kang are the “good” ones, but often conceal or ignore the truth about things.