Yeong-Ok and Jeong-Jun
Our predictions for Our Blues changing its perspective ring true in episode 4, as we shift away from Eun-Hui and Han-Su to Yeong-Ok and Jeong-Jun. However, we actually start the episode with Seon-A, who is clearly depressed and struggling. Her husband is not happy that the house isn’t clean and points out the mess in the laundry room. She shrugs it off, claiming she’ll take care of everything. She’s lost the will to live though, and when you’re stuck in that depressive, downward spiral, it’s hard to find the motivation to carry on. She goes about her day with apathy. Although she deflects and questions why he can’t do this himself, her partner scoops up their boy, Yeol, and leaves, telling her to think of the family. Seon-A completely loses track of time, heading into the bathroom and preparing to have a shower after doing her make-up and hair. In the time she’s spent in the bathroom (which is perceived to be barely anything at all) she’s lost a whole day and Yeol had to be picked up from preschool by her partner, despite him being with a client. Seon-A is losing her family, and she quite clearly needs some help, as she starts to drift further away. Back on Jeju Island, Yeong-Ok gets drunk at the club. Captain Bae is there and tries chatting her up but Yeong-Ok deflects and claims they can get a motel together. When she heads home, her car cuts up Jeong-Jun on the road. He decides to follow them – and it’s probably just as well too. Captain Bae is frustrated when he’s dropped off back home, believing himself to be duped into believing Yeong-Ok is going to go to a motel with him, given she promised that at the club. Yeong-Ok admits that the only reason she did that was to stop his advances. When he drives off, Jeong-Jun immediately phones Officer Kim and asks him to check on the guy. Just in case he heads back, Jeong-Jun decides to wait outside. “Wow, I might fall for you.” Yeong-Ok jokes from the window. However, she can’t concentrate and eventually decides to head out for a walk with him. As they walk along the shore, waves lapping gently against the coastline, Yeong-Ok flirts with Jeong-Jun a little. However, she also compares him to her exs, pointing out her history with several different men. Yeong-Ok came to Jeju Island 2 years back but while she’s moved around a lot, Jeong-Jun is very much a Jeju Island boy. When Yeong-Ok asks him about his love life and past relationships, a big pause ensues. Jeong-Jun is silent and eventually decides they should head back. Hearing Yeong-Ok speaking so openly about her past relationships gets Jeong-Jun thinking, contemplating whether he could love someone with so many exs. He scribbles his thoughts on the inside of the bus he’s staying in. In the morning, it’s time for the latest dive. All the grumpy elderly are at the pick-up point, and they grumble over Yeong-Ok turning up late. She apologizes for her tardiness, and eventually heads out onto the water, with Jeong-Jun serving as the boat captain of course. However, Yeong-Ok doesn’t listen to the captain and surface when she’s told. Sensing this is an emergency, he immediately wails the sirens and calls it in to get some help. We then cut to the shore. Yeong-Ok is okay though but the women she’s dived with are angry. After all, they could have got ill from staying on the boat in the cold like that. The women continue on, pointing out how they’re never going to talk to her again and calling her an outsider, given she originally came from the mainland. Just before they leave, one of the women urges Yeong-Ok to apologize to Chun-Hui before she goes. Now, the reason for Yeong-Ok not returning right way stems from the fact that her buoy actually drifted away so she head off to retrieve it. Yeong-Ok fails to see the error of her ways and claims everyone is ganging up on her. Now, a separate storyline to this centers on Jung Hyun and Young-Joo. The latter is late for her period and she realizes, with dread, that she may be pregnant. She tells Jung-Hyun to prepare some money just in case and even sends him off to pick up a pregnancy kit for her. Tensions continue between Captain Bae and Jeong-Jun later on that day. After reporting him for drunk driving, he believes Jeong-Jun has a vendetta against him. That’s not true of course, he actually just wants the man to be a law-abiding citizen. When Bae squares up to Jeong-Jun and tries to start a fight with him, it’s eventually broken up. Later that evening, Jeong-Jun meets with Yeong-Ok again, who wants to see the inside of his bus. The same bus, if you’ll remember, that he’s been scribbling up the side with questions about romancing Yeong-Ok. Before she arrives, Yeong-Ok heads over to see Chun-Hui, wanting to apologize properly. When Chun-Hui mentions her parents and why she’s been lying, Yeong-Ok has no words and walks away. While these old ladies believe that Yeong-Ok will leave soon, in reality she actually wants to live her life on the island. She opens up to Jeong-Jun over at his place, admitting she’s been disliking Captain Bae since the previous night. Predictably, she notices the black writing on the windows and reads out Jeong-Jun’s writing. As she gets to the third statement, asking what his plan is and to stop being vague and make a move, Jeong-Jun interjects and asks Yeong-Ok out. “You’ll get hurt.” Yeong-Ok warns, but as they think it over, Yeong-Ok leans forward and the pair look set to kiss, just as we fade to black.
The Episode Review
As expected, Our Blues shifts the perspective over to a different couple this time around and it’s intriguing that it happens to be Yeong-Ok and Jeong-Jun. This chapter allows us to dive into Yeong-Ok’s psyche, and how she feels like a bit of an outsider. She moved to the island 2 years back and it’s clear she’s moved around a lot for a reason. What is she running from? I’m sure we’ll find out soon why she thinks she’s going to hurt Jeong-Jun and I’d imagine it extends beyond what we’re seeing on the surface. We do catch a glimpse of Eun-Hui though, policing the kids at school in what happens to be a lovely bit of character shifting. We haven’t seen a whole lot of this high school couple but we do get a pretty intense and gripping opener with Seon-A instead. That looks like it’s going to be a very dramatic storyline that I’m sure we’ll return to that after a rather light bit of romance between Jeong-Jun and Yeong-Ok. It would appear that the show is going to use these stories as a way of shifting from light drama to more deeper character ties, but it’ll be interesting to see how well this show manages to handle that moving forward. For now though, this feels like a hard reset (as predicted), setting things up for more drama between this couple in the future.
