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A Good Day to Be a Dog: Episode 4
by Unit
It’s a good day to return from our week-long break! This week is all about curse-breaking hijinks, obliviousness to developing romantic feelings, getting rid of phobias, and a surprising identity reveal.
EPISODE 4
My weekly dose of adorableness is back! Yaay! Last we saw of them, Seo-won and Hae-na became close enough to make plans to attend their colleagues’ wedding together. Like a girl on her first date, Seo-won spends the morning of the wedding going through several outfits (I can watch him change outfits all day!), and making sure his car is all comfortable for the drive. We get the Yellow Umbrella of Swoon moment to ward off the third-wheeling Chae-ah, and our OTP finally sets off for the wedding.
But here’s the kicker: Seo-won is a novice driver! Hehe. Hae-na attempts to play some music to diffuse the awkwardness in the car, but the audio of a “How to look cool while driving” tutorial plays instead. The mood instantly shifts from awkwardness to secondhand embarrassment, and it gets worse when Yul calls to inform Hae-na to flee for her life because his uncle just got his license. Loool.
With Seo-won, this is a case of when it rains it pours — and it actually starts raining, but he can’t even follow the navigation system. Oh dear! A driving genius, Seo-won is not. But I mean, the heavens are fair, right? A man cannot have it all. Hae-na is left to clutch her seatbelt while their trip gets rerouted multiple times. But somehow, they manage to make it to the venue in time for the ceremony. Phew!
Seo-won makes up for the embarrassing trip by being all swoony in fixing Hae-na’s hairpin. He also reaffirms his singing genius by being in charge of the congratulatory song. Pfft. Luckily for Hae-na, she is spared the horror of a return trip with Seo-won. That honor is snatched up by Chae-ah — who arrives just in time for the buffet (my best part of a wedding ceremony to be honest), and drags Seo-won out to give her a ride home.
Hae-na gets to ride home with Bo-gyeom instead. But first, they stop by the beach and as always, Bo-gyeom makes deep remarks disguised as normal comments. This time, he talks about how the moon moves towards the ocean and gets pulled away from it regardless of its will. “If you were the moon, would you feel that it’s unfair?” he asks, and Hae-na replies that not moving at all would be boring.
Whether he finds her answer satisfactory or not, Bo-gyeom doesn’t say. Instead, he mutters to himself that Hae-na will be pulled away from [Seo-won] sooner than she thinks, regardless of her will. “Just like me,” he concludes. Hmmm. We get a flashback of Hae-na in a Joseon-like setting crying over a bloodied and seemingly dead Seo-won. And as we return to the present, we see Bo-gyeom’s true form as revealed by his shadow on the beach: he is a tiger! Bo-gyeom is actually a spirit being! Okay, does he have anything to do with Hae-na’s curse?
Speaking of which, now that the wedding business is concluded, it’s time to resume Operation Break Hae-na’s Curse. Yul is recruited for the operation, and the plan is simple: he sneaks Hae-na in dog form into Seo-won’s room, and while Seo-won is asleep, Hae-na steals a kiss and breaks the curse. There is no plan B, but honestly this is simple enough. I mean, what could possibly go wrong?
For starters, Seo-won refuses to go to bed on time. Heh. When he falls asleep, Hae-na is sneaked into his bed, but all she can think about are the heart fluttering moments between them since they got close. Once again, I’m grateful for the illogical and unserious tone the show has set up from the beginning, because Hae-na is just a few inches away from Seo-won’s lips and I’m not thinking, “get that woman away from him!” Instead, I’m all, “Miss ma’am, kiss him already and break that curse!”
Hae-na finally kisses Seo-won and… doesn’t transform back into human. What? To make matters worse, Seo-won wakes up to a dog in his bed and screams bloody murder. Ha! Thankfully, Hae-na scoots out real fast and Yul is on hand to assure his uncle that he just had a “dog” dream (a bad/nonsensical dream in Korean is called a “dog” dream).
A refresher course on Hae-na’s family dog curse: 1) it is activated after they kiss someone; 2) the curse is broken when they kiss the person again in dog form — but the person has to be fully alert during the kiss, and this is why Hae-na did not transform after kissing a sleeping Seo-won. On the bright side, after breaking the curse, they can kiss the person as many times as they like without turning into a dog. The curse only activates again when they kiss someone else.
With an upcoming overnight school trip, Hae-na has never felt more pressured to break the curse. But how does she kiss a fully alert Seo-won as a dog when he is scared of dogs? “How would you feel if you saw a tiger? That’s how dogs are to me,” Seo-won tells Hae-na. Unlike other people who are vocal about their fear and need for help in scary situations, Seo-won says that he falls apart by himself whenever something like that happens to him.
Now Hae-na is resolved to help Seo-won get over his fear of dogs — and not just because of the curse. “I am a teacher and it’s my job to help students who need help,” she says to her sister. “Is he a student?” Yoo-ra teases in reply. But that’s not the point, according to Hae-na. Of course, it isn’t. Lol. Hae-na remains in denial about her growing feelings for Seo-won, but just like the rest of us, Yoo-ra has already noticed. (By the way, I find it hilarious how Yoo-ra just calls Seo-won “Math.”)
Hae-na doesn’t have a concrete plan to help Seo-won get over his fear of dogs. She just asks to meet him outside the school for now, and they can wing it along the way. Seo-won is all up for spending more time with Hae-na — he just has to quell his imagination of a horde of dogs running up to them on their “date.” Heh. They start with sustaining a few seconds of interactions with caged dogs, and things are looking pretty good. Until they settle down in the park, and a dog breaks free from its owner. Oh no!
Seo-won has a flashback to the time a big dog jumped to attack him when he was ten years old. In the present, he panics, but in one sweeping movement, Hae-na hides them away from the dog’s sight with her Jacket of Comfort. “Think of this as our home. The most peaceful and safest place in the world,” she says to Seo-won — who can’t take his eyes off her reassuring smile. Awwww. We’re just going to be ending each week with swoon-worthy moments now, aren’t we?
If there’s one thing I like about this drama, it’s how the characters serve as a source of comfort and protection to each other — from Seo-won finding solace in Hae-na when he’s faced with his dog issues, to Yul keeping Hae-na’s transformation secret and reassuring her that her “bizarre situation” doesn’t bother him. And of course, there’s Yoo-ra, who gently comforted the dog-form Hae-na as she whimpered after the failed transformation attempt at Seo-won’s — by far my favorite moment this week.
Hae-na and Yoo-ra’s sisterly interaction is always a delight to watch, and I love how they’ve roped Yul into their little crew. The other member of the crew is their childhood friend and veterinarian, SONG WOO-TAEK (Jo Jin-se) — who is also in the know about their dog secret. Woo-taek and Yoo-ra are so comfortable around each other like an old couple, and I need them to get together at some point. I mean, he already kissed her when they were kids, so there’s no issue of a curse with them now.
Yoo-ra’s hesitation to date probably stems from the PTSD of her ex hiding a camera to film her transformation. It’s also why the sisters can’t easily trust anyone with their secret. But so far, Woo-taek and Yul have proven to be trustworthy, so maybe Hae-na can take a step of faith and just tell Seo-won the truth. Who knows? Maybe the key to overcoming Seo-won’s dog phobia lies in the knowledge that the woman he likes has a dog-rella transformation every night. Heh.
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