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My Dearest: Episodes 3-4
by alathe
War is on its way, and all our heroes can do is brace themselves for the oncoming storm. Of course, our heroine has far bigger concerns than the looming threat of invasion and imminent death — namely, stealing her best friend’s boyfriend! If only this actually were her biggest problem…
EPISODES 3-4
Word hits Neunggun-ri like a hurricane: the king in his fortress is besieged by Hong Taiji’s troops. Yeon-joon copes the only way he knows how — with passionate, public speeches. It’s time, he declares, to stand up and fight. Granted, only about 30% of these glorified schoolboys know which way up a sword goes, but Yeon-joon’s words are so stirring that soon every man in the village is clamoring for battle. Or… almost every man. If there’s one thing our hero is loudly uninterested in, it’s dying for a runaway king. And if this wins him the scorn of the entire village, Gil-chae included? No problem. He’ll just flutter his fan and brazen it out.
Still, in private, he wears the grim certainty of someone who knows the true meaning of war. If only he could guarantee Gil-chae did too. But like the rest of the village, she’s caught up in thoughts of heroism and sacrifice. Perhaps a little war propaganda will scare her sensible. The Qing invaders, he declares, are battle machines who eat, drink and breathe murder! Gil-chae cringes, wide-eyed. But she reserves her anxieties for her beloved block of wood, Yeon-joon — there’s still time to convince him not to fight. Or, better yet… convince Eun-ae to convince him!
Yeah, not so much. Eun-ae emerges triumphant and giddy. No, not because she’s persuaded him to stay — because he intends to marry her before he leaves! Never in her vast history of cunning schemes has a Gil-chae gambit backfired so disastrously. Still, even through the haze of heartbreak, our heroine is resolved… by hook, crook, or elaborate emotional manipulation, she’ll win her man. Among her bumbling bevy of suitors is the perfect target: the soulful yet hapless KONG SOON-YAK (Park Jong-wook). If she can convince him to propose to her a little, maybe it’ll spur Yeon-joon to jealousy!
If there’s one thing worse than a Gil-chae plot gone sour, it’s a Gil-chae plot that succeeds without a hitch. He proposes to her a lot. Soon, she finds herself trapped between her best friend, her best friend’s miserably un-stealable boyfriend, and her accidental-on-purpose fiancé, miserably planning a double wedding. By the time Jang-hyun finds her, she’s loudly, defiantly, and with great relish, bawling her eyes out by the swing. This is worse than war! He doesn’t tenderly take her in his arms. At this point, he’s mostly just exasperated. But what he does offer her is a handkerchief — and, against his better judgement, help.
Love makes martyrs of us all. Jang-hyun meets with the village elders, offering them weapons and armor for the coming fight. There’s just one thing he wants as payment. The young men waltzing off to war plan to marry beforehand, heedless of how Joseon’s laws will penalize the widows they’ll leave behind. For the good of all, these marriages must be postponed. Now that’s how you enact a cunning scheme! But when Soon-yak parrots Jang-hyun’s worthy words back to Gil-chae, she’s far to preoccupied with thanking her lucky stars to recognize the rhetoric.
During a stilted midnight rendezvous (safely chaperoned by Jong Jong), she and her mercifully unofficial fiancé exchange farewells — though not before she makes Soon-yak promise to look out for Yeon-joon. As soon as Soon-yak’s back is turned, our hero comes crashing in to merrily ruin the moment! Deliberately crass, he requests a farewell kiss. Gil-chae does not disappoint: with zero qualms, she slaps him. He nods. Good. If you’re caught by invaders, he tells her, suddenly serious — fight back.
The next day, the villagers gather to send their young men off to war. Jang-hyun arrives on horseback with the rest of them, dashingly armor-clad… for the purposes, he insists, of bravely fleeing to safety. Gil-chae sniffs, affronted, and point-blank refuses to hand him a handkerchief for luck. No matter. He has a gift for her instead. Firmly, he hands her a dagger. For protection, he insists. Hate me all you like — but keep hold of it.
With a matchmaking glint in her smile, Eun-ae corners Jang-hyun. You know, she begins, people are predictable. In moments of fear, they look to the person they trust. Do you know who Gil-chae looked at the moment we heard about the invasion? Earlier, she had asked Gil-chae the same thing. Our heroes’ reactions are roughly identical — baffled disbelief. Jong Jong, when questioned, supplies the answer with an eyeroll: you looked at Jang-hyun. Ryang-eum, silent and watchful, had spotted the same thing. But when Jang-hyun asks him, masking the hope in his voice, he looks resolute. Gil-chae looked at Yeon-joon, he lies. Jang-hyun breathes a sigh of not-quite-resignation. All is, if not right with the world, then at least recognizable.
Meanwhile, the soldiers of Neunggun-ri meet up with a larger regiment, where they intend to rescue the king. Their leader gives a rallying speech, idealistic enough to rival any of Yeon-joon’s. But reality bites brutally. Flaming arrows come reeling through the sky, killing every soldier on the front line within seconds. The invading armies descend on the village fighters, who with trembling fingers struggle to loose a single arrow. Yeon-joon hurls himself into the fray, but drops within seconds, bludgeoned on the temple. Bleary and half-conscious, he watches his friends be slaughtered one by one.
When he wakes, he is one of a handful of survivors. By the time he reaches Soon-yak, it’s far too late. His friend bleeds out in his arms, haltingly confessing that he’d always known Gil-chae never loved him. He hadn’t been naive: he knows Yeon-joon likes Gil-chae. Still, his last thought is of her — and of what she’d meant to him regardless.
Far — but not too far — from the battlefield, Jang-hyun hunkers down in an outpost, looking for all the world like a man who, in fact, has not run away. From here, he can spot the enemy’s approach, to warn the neighboring villages. Calmly, he tells his servant, GOO JAM (Park Kang-sub) to retreat with Ryang-eum; he’ll send a smoke signal from the mountain. But Ryang-eum, it turns out, still hasn’t returned from town.
Poor Ryang-eum. It’s a raw deal, being ambiguously gay in a heterosexual romance drama, where the narrative demands that you be in tragic, unrequited love with the male lead. Currently, he’s buying a dagger for Jang-hyun to replace the one he once gave him — the same one, I’m certain, Jang-hyun gave Gil-chae. It’s not long before hooves rattle down the streets: before all is screaming, chaos, and capture. Ryang-eum is dragged away by the throat, but Jang-hyun comes hurtling to the rescue, cutting him loose just in time. Roughly, Jang-hyun lectures him for being careless, whilst Ryang-eum stares at him in wonder. He saved him — again.
Jang-hyun’s evacuation signal reaches Neunggun-ri. Aghast, the villagers gather their possessions, preparing to abandon the life they know. But the village’s eldest, most loving couple, know a thing or two about war. Someone has to buy them time. When invaders arrive to plunder the village, half are caught in a meticulously-rigged explosion, crafted by our couple — tactics drawn from the first Jin invasion. But it can’t last. With horrific inevitability, the two are caught and stabbed by the surviving attackers. They die in each other’s arms.
When Jang-hyun arrives, there’s nothing left but two corpses, cradling one another beneath the snow. For a moment, he looks utterly broken. Then, he narrows his eyes. The king’s plight doesn’t move him in the slightest — but this? This, he’s willing to fight for. This is worthy of revenge. The invaders move slowly, dragging roped hostages by their necks. Jang-hyun stands before them on the road. With brutal efficiency, he and his allies descend — and after a silent flash of blades, not a soldier is left alive.
Meanwhile, Gil-chae, Eun-ae, and their maids rapidly find themselves the only ones left free. Dragging themselves through the snow, they hide in a narrow cave. But there’s a complication: BANG-DOO (Kwon So-hyun), Eun-ae’s servant, has gone into labor. Now, she must give birth in the freezing cold, and somehow stay quiet throughout proceedings. Worse, someone has to be midwife. Gil-chae nobly volunteers Eun-ae for the post! Mustering her courage, Eun-ae peers beneath Bang-doo’s skirt — and promptly passes out.
Whimpering only a little, our heroine steps up. Before long, she’s elbow-deep in copious amounts of blood, but the baby has been safely delivered. Now, the challenge is to keep mother and child from freezing to death. Terrified but resolute, Gil-chae steps into the forest, in search of supplies. Her wish is granted — in the form of a dying villager. He’s beyond hope of saving. All she can do is witness his last words and breathe an apology… before peeling the furs from his back, and looting his bag for provisions.
That night, plenty more happens that the girls aren’t proud of. Eun-ae creeps out in search of Gil-chae — only to come face to face with an invader. He seizes her, threatening to rape her. But out of the dark comes Gil-chae, plunging her dagger into the back of his neck. Mutely, the two girls push his body off a cliff. Then, they go to brush the blood off in a stream. Eun-ae is stiff and shaken, remembering the voices of the village elders: if a woman is raped, it goes without saying that she should die.
She glances at her bloodied hand. Then, she swipes it viciously into the water. Face crumpling, she faces Gil-chae. Nobody, she says, will believe me if I say that nothing happened. Gil-chae takes her by the shoulders. Nothing, she decides, did happen. We fell down a hill, and hurt ourselves. You never encountered a man. I certainly never killed him.
Morning dawns. With renewed determination, the girls trudge up the mountain, splitting the last crumbs of their provisions. When night falls, they rest beneath a cliff. Gil-chae dreams vividly of the sea — of clinging to her husband, dirty and exhausted, and asking him why he won’t come. When she wakes, it is with the certainty that he will be with her — and that the figure she sees, walking out of the darkness when she wakes, is him. Then, she opens her eyes properly. Yup, it’s another invader. Maybe fate can do a reroll on this one.
The soldiers converge. It’s an ugly, screaming fight — Gil-chae grabs, and bites, and swipes with her dagger, but it slips uselessly to the ground. It’s only when she’s thrown from her feet, and just about given up hope, that her attacker jerks back, wounded. Gil-chae looks up, astounded, as a fighter emerges from the mist. Then, her eyes widen further as she recognizes Jang-hyun. As one last invader leaps out of the shadows, she collects herself with a frantic cry: husband, move! Jang-hyun reacts fast, dispatching his attacker with ease, before coming to kneel by her side. He gazes at her — and grins. Did you, he asks, just call me husband?
It is safe to say that virtually no punches were pulled this week. This show is gorgeously good at pulling the rug out from under your feet. Rousing speeches about loyalty are cut short by mass murder. The heartwarming elderly couple team up to save the village — and are stabbed to death. Our heroine loots a corpse. Despite this, nothing feels relentlessly grim, because these episodes absolutely ached with moments of hope. Gil-chae and Eun-ae, finding solidarity amid trauma. Jang-hyun, fighting not for the king, but for two dead peasants he cared about immensely. All our heroes crossing every possible line in order to keep each other alive.
Meanwhile, the characterization is masterful. Gil-chae is such a satisfying heroine! She’s selfish, flighty, and vain, all of which make me love her dearly — but when you truly force her to be a leader, she’ll rise to the challenge without complaint. She’s so similar to Jang-hyun in that respect: he’ll do his level best to be aloof, foppish, and cowardly, and he’ll fail utterly, because it never takes much pushing to make him care. What I love the most is that none of this erases their beautiful, endearing flaws. The chemistry is unbelievably strong: already, this pairing combines sunny, springtime banter with desperate, war-torn longing in the snow. Though I’m sad the former had to be cut short… bring on the latter! I can hardly wait.
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