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Like Flowers in Sand: Episodes 7-8
by missvictrix
The mystery of the past is slowly being put together, and this week, the missing piece is finally revealed — much thanks to our hero forcing himself to recall details he thought he’d forgotten in his alcohol-induced blackout. But there are other feelings hiding out in one of those blackouts, too…
EPISODES 7-8
The childhood flashbacks in this drama continue to be so completely touching that they make me feel tenfold for the characters as they are in the present day. These flashbacks are about character depth and context — not for merely shoving facts in our face like most dramas do — and Like Flowers in Sand is all the stronger for it.
This week’s flashbacks start off with when Doo-shik was leaving town and trying to say goodbye, but little Baek-du was too happy-go-lucky to realize what was going on until too late (these two never change!). The second flashback shows us our usual kid crew, but there’s another player on the outskirts. She’s a little younger than them so she feels left out of their world. As it turns out, it’s little Mi-ran, and we see her interacting with her dad, and learn that he was the one who taught her how to spell coffee as “coffe.” It’s little details like this, I tell you.
Back in the present, Yoo-kyung has just come clean to the ever-perceptive Hyun-wook, and she tells him the backstory of why they left town twenty years ago. Her father was once Geosan’s ssireum coach, and was suspected of the murder of one of the wrestlers after they supposedly fought when the wrestler refused to throw a match. Yoo-kyung tells us her father was freed on lack of evidence, but no one would believe in his innocence, and they eventually left town to start over.
The mirroring between the case with Yoo-kyung’s father and the present one with Choi is all too apparent — but it’s not just mirroring: Yoo-kyung believes that Choi Chil-seung was responsible for the match-fixing scandal in the past in addition to the current case. But, as we’ve seen, our cops are having trouble stitching the story together. They’re getting warmer, but it’ll take some more prodding…
Meanwhile, Baek-du is ready for his championship, but he specifically tells his family not to come. Due to the team being comprised of unorganized athletes, Baek-du misses the team bus to the championship location (and no one notices LOL), and Yoo-kyung actually has to drive him there. Baek-du is having the time of his life on this little road trip, and overeats with glee at the rest stop, claiming he never gains weight from eating. But that spree actually puts him over the 80kg weight limit for his class. And so, he spends the day before the match running the beach with a tire on his back. And when that’s not hard enough, the coaches decide he needs to carry Yoo-kyung instead. Cue: more cute bickering, slapping, and heart to hearts between these two.
It’s hard to believe they’ve been separated for 20 years because they know each other so well — for instance, later that night Baek-du tries to order her non-fish items at the sashimi restaurant they’re at with the team, knowing she can’t eat much there. That turns out to be a good move, because on match day, the entire team except Baek-du is down with food poisoning. It would be tragic if it wasn’t so funny — Baek-du goes to the match alone, and the team watches from their hospital beds in their little gowns and IVs!
At the match, Baek-du wrestles the best that he has in years. Round after round he pounds down his opponents and not only is the crowd going wild, but all the ajusshis back home are losing their minds cheering for him. Aww. Why is Baek-du on fire today? Is it because the team isn’t there, because his family isn’t there… or because Yoo-kyung is there? It seems like Yoo-kyung’s advice, her faith in him, and her presence at the match all contribute to Baek-du’s renaissance. Because when two teammates come over and tell him that Yoo-kyung actually left the arena, Baek-du’s winning streak comes to a quick end.
We cut to the team eating once again at Jin-su’s mom’s place, and it’s hilarious as she points out how depressed they are. But Baek-du is the most depressed of all, when he should be the one rejoicing — his coach reminds him what a feat it is to finish in the top five. Even the surly Jin-su gets up, and pours Baek-du a celebratory glass of beer. It’s the nicest gesture of acknowledgement from his frenemy – and a matter of respect — so Baek-du downs the beer while staring at his phone and the girl who’s left him on read.
It’s hard for me to say anything negative about this drama at all, but if there’s one thing that’s disappointing me a bit, it’s how Jin-su has been left on the fringe of the story. For one, his complex relationship with Baek-du is as interesting to me as Baek-du and Doo-shik’s relationship; second, rookie actor Lee Jae-joon continues to floor me in this role. He doesn’t say much or do much, but his eyes speak volumes in every scene with an intensity that communicates much more than is on the surface. Jin-su is such a fantastic foil for the more heart-on-his-sleeve-and-foot-in-his-mouth Baek-du that I eat up all their interactions. I also firmly believe there is more story to mine here (and who knows, maybe it’s coming in our final two weeks).
Back to our main plot, those six ounces of beer have a fatal impact on our delightful hero. He’s bumbling in a matter of minutes (but first, more kudos from Jin-su!), and happily, this leads to a telling encounter with Yoo-kyung. As in, Baek-du’s screaming “Doo-shik-ah!” through the town yet again, until they find a quiet place to hang out. As ever, their back and forth is adorable. Drunk Baek-du is even more silly than the sober one, and he scolds Yoo-kyung for ignoring his texts, and then openly asks for her to praise his performance at the match. Meanwhile, Yoo-kyung gives him a hard time, but also holds him up when he starts to wobble, and tells him better than finishing in fourth place was seeing him truly enjoy his sport again.
During this exchange, Baek-du starts to get hearts in his eyes, and he plants a kiss on Yoo-kyung, who’s utterly stunned but also doesn’t pull away. And doesn’t think to slap him with her requisite slap until several seconds later.
The next morning Baek-du has a hand print on his forehead and doesn’t remember anything — anything! He runs to the gym to meet up with Yoo-kyung and they basically reenact half of the conversation they had last night, thus proving it’s like it didn’t even happen to Baek-du. As for Yoo-kyung, she’s mortified over the whole thing, and definitely more in touch with her ~feelings~ if her reaction to his ramyun invitation is any indication!
With all the cuteness and humor (I mean, Baek-du buying ice pops for his hyungs with his prize money was comedic gold), we can’t forget the reason why Yoo-kyung left the match. The captain had called her with an important finding, and it’s the puzzle piece that starts to put everything together. Yoo-kyung goes straight to Ran’s Coffe, and Mi-ran plays it straight. “Hello Doo-shik unnie,” she says.
Turns out, Mi-ran is the daughter of the wrestler who died twenty years ago, whose murder was blamed on Yoo-kyung’s father. It comes out that Choi Chil-seung, when he came to Geosan, came to talk to Mi-ran and knew who she was. But what’s really going on? Mi-ran as a character has always been a bit glassy, so it’s hard to know what she’s hiding exactly, but she knows about the investigation and that both Yoo-kyung and Hyun-wook are cops.
Hyun-wook’s senses have always been up around Mi-ran, and after staking out her cafe, he follows her and her big mysterious black bag around. Meanwhile, Yoo-kyung is certain there’s something that happened the night of Choi Chil-seung’s death that they’re missing, and she convinces Baek-du to try to remember what happened the night he was drunk. No, not last night, she warns, but the night when he interacted with Choi.
Here we hit probably one of the drama’s greatest scenes — Baek-du is in the middle of the road, talking to himself more than usual, and reenacting the night he fell in the road and tried to give Choi his $40 change. While we’re watching Baek-du look like a madman throwing himself on the pavement, Seok-hee and his partner have pulled up in their cop car and they’re watching the whole thing. Their commentary is hysterical — from the “He must be hot that’s why he’s laying down in the street,” to the “Is he looking for a career change?” to Seok-hee eventually denying that he even knows who Baek-du is (LOL!). But the crazy pays off, and Baek-du is able to remember a crucial detail of that night: there was someone in the passenger seat with Choi.
Baek-du might have run off screaming in horror and embarrassment when he finally remembered kissing Yoo-kyung (“We don’t have that kind of relationship!” he sputters), but when he remembers this important clue, he runs at top speed to the gym to tell Yoo-kyung. But before he can get out what he wants to say in between heaving for breath — “That night… in the car” — Mi-ran walks in. “You saw me? You said you didn’t remember,” she says plainly. BOOM!
Mi-ran is such a wild card that I’m not quite sure where this reveal will go, but I love it as a reveal that’s been hinted at obliquely all along. In a story that has treated all of its characters quite evenly and without assigning villainy, I suspect and hope that this scenario will go the same way. At the very least, the flashback to Mi-ran’s childhood assures me that the drama cares about her as a character — like it does all of its players — so I’m curious to see where they take us from here.
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