Happy Home Episode 7-8 Recap

Happy Home Episode 7-8 Recap By Ninja

Stunned to find out that the annoying guy that he've had several unpleasant run ins with is none other than Hae Ryung's husband AND Seo Jin's father, Ji Gun's attitude towards Hyun Ki undergoes a noticeable change.

Not surprised when he comes home after his morning exercise to find Hyun Ki waiting in front of his door, Ji Gun takes the time to explain his reasons of refusing Ji Gun's offer of employment and even sincerely apologizes to Hyun Ki for the way he treated him in the past. Puzzled by Ji Gun's unexpected apology, Hyun Ki is thoughtful when Ji Gun merely explains "You are my cooking teacher's husband after all."

After seething silently over her husband's betrayal day and night, Hae Ryung finally confronts Young Eun about the affair...which ended in an all out cat fight between the two women.
Wondering the street aimlessly with her "battle wounds", Hae Ryung can't help but think back to Young Eun's piercing words that Hyun Ki has never been happy being married to her. Lost in her thoughts, Hae Ryung doesn't notice that she has run into Ji Gun once again nor the fact that our hero has been following her the whole time with a concerned expression on his face.

Following Hae Ryung around as the day turns into night, Ji Gun finishes his guard duty when Hae Ryung finally decides to go home. Shaking his head as he stands outside of Hae Ryung's house, Ji Gun asks himself "What am I doing?"

Clued in by Young Eun that his wife found out about their affair, Hyun Ki quickly starts to do all the things he has never done before to try to get Hae Ryung to let the whole thing slide. Dismayed when she shows up for a dinner date with her parents to find Hyun Ki there already, Hae Ryung has no choice but to play along with her husband's good son-in-law act for her parents' sake.
Inpatient when Hae Ryung insists on driving when they both know that she has been terrified of driving since their son's death, Hyun Ki explodes in anger after Hae Ryung nearly kills them on the road. Putting on his "I can't believe you don't trust me" expression, Hyun Ki assures Hae Ryung that Young Eun simply made a mistake of kissing him that one time and promises that nothing of the sort will happen again.

Not falling for Hyun Ki's demand that she should just believe his explanation without asking anymore questions, Hae Ryung looks at her husband with an unwavering gaze and says "There is one thing that is clear to me now. I don't trust you anymore."
Convinced that his seemingly fated encounters with Hae Ryung and Hyun Ki must be Seo Jin's way of asking him to do something for him, a remorseful Ji Gun shows up at the little boy's mausoleum to offer up his apology once more. Surprised when she finds Jin Gun standing in front of her son's tomb, Hae Ryung easily accepts Ji Gun's excuse that he was just visiting a friend's tomb and stopped when he noticed Hae Ryung's picture with her son. Chatting in an easy manner with Ji Gun, Hae Ryung finds herself telling him the sad tale of how she lost her son.
Going back to the dark and lonely house by himself after his fight with Hae Ryung, Hyun Ki sits as he think back to the bleak days of when Hae Ryung is still fully immersed in her sorrow of losing Seo Jin. We get a glimpse of how bad things were as Hyun Ki remembers a painful memory of himself pleading with a frantic Hae Ryung that after a year of mourning it is time to let their son go. His heart breaking as his pleading goes unheeded and his sobbing wife begs him to send her to their son, Hyun Ki shows up at Young Eun's door and does his own begging "Save me, Young Eun. I feel like I am dying." Looks like this is probably how the affair started. 

Mildly concerned when Hae Ryung informs him "I am tired of trying to push myself to keep up with you. It's time for me to think of the reasons why I should stay with you." Hyun Ki's alarm bell goes off when his wife's answer to his question of "If you can't think of any?" is "Well, I guess we'll go our separate ways then."

Resorting to personally buying some flowers for Hae Ryung when his last attempt of asking his secretary to pick out an expensive purse for her failed miserably, Hyun Ki is frustrated when an unimpressed Hae Ryung tells him "For someone so smart you sure are choosing to act dumb. Do you really think I could forget the past and just go on living my life smiling? I still haven't found a reason to stay with you."

�NinaReflection.com

Playing the concerned mother-in-law even when Hyun Ki confronts her about her effort of hiding Hae Ryung's infertility from his wife, Madam Jang assures her son that she only lied to Hae Ryung out of concern. A bit doubtful of his mother's "good intentions", Hyun Ki none the less decides to go along with his mother's plan and doesn't react when Madam Jang informs him that she has sent Young Eun overseas for more schooling.

Unbeknownst to Madam Jang, all her plotting to get rid of her barren daughter-in-law is for nothing since Hyun Ki already had a vasectomy in secret. Blissful ignorant of what her son had done, Madam Jang is happily discussing with Young Eun (yap, the very person she had assured both Hae Ryung and Hyun Ki to be overseas) of her evil plan of throwing Hae Ryung and Ji Gun together. Waving away Young Eun's worry that simply seeing Hae Ryung and Ji Gun together won't be enough for Hyun Ki to divorce his wife, Madam Jang laughs and assures Young Eun "My son is someone that would take off a shirt in the dead of winter over a small stain. He is not one that can stand the slightest imperfection." Um... so why hasn't he thrown away himself yet?? 
Clueless that they are both walking into a trap Madam Jung has set for them, Hae Ryung and Ji Gun chuck it up to the hand of fate again when they meet at the hospital to take care of a very sick orphaned boy. Madam Jung asked Ji Gun to operate on the boy while asking her daughter-in-law to be the boy's care taker at the hospital. 

Showing up at the hospital thanks to Madam Jung's "kind" direction that Hae Ryung can be found over there, Hyun Ki arrives just in time to see his wife laughing cozily with Ji Gun and their little patient.
Time to cover Mi Soon's story line (So that's Hae Ryung's sister-in-law, married to the heroine's no good twin brother).

Frustrated with Man Ho's (the no good cheating husband) latest act of stealing his aunt's jewelry and attempting to pawn it off, Mi Soon is unmoved when Man Ho threatens to kill himself and simply walks away. Equally frustrated that Mi Soon is not buying his act and bailing him out of trouble like she always did before, Man Ho becomes more desperate as Se Ri's (his mistress) debt collectors start to get more fierce.

Knowing full well that there is no way Mi Soon would pay the money if she knew that he had taken over his mistress' debt, Man Ho pulls out every act in his arsenal to convince Mi Soon to take out their two daughter's collage savings to pay off the debt collectors.
Meanwhile, feeling no shame whatsoever, Se Ri is skillfully using her "poor me" act to win over Man Ho's family. Se Ri's plan seems to be working surprisingly well as Man Ho's uncle even takes a "family photo" of them to celebrate their baby's hundredth day feast.

Luck seems to be on Se Ri's side especially once Daddy Bong sees the red birth mark on her baby and instantly connects it to the very same mark that was on his deceased younger brother.

The show took the time to tell us the tragic story of how Daddy Bong's youngest brother died after eating some food that had rat poison in it. It seems like Daddy Bong's Chinese restaurant was started because his youngest brother's fervent wish was to be able to have endless jajangmyeon for him to eat. The pain of losing his youngest brother still raw even after so many years, it is understandable why Daddy Bong's attitude would change so drastically once he saw the identical birthmark on Se Ri's baby...who by the way also shares the same birthday as his brother. It does make me wonder if Se Ri somehow knew the story and did something on purpose to connect her baby to Daddy Bong's brother. Poor Mi Soon, her heart is going to break not only because of her husband but because of his family as well. 

Ninja's Thoughts
I sure hope Mi Soon cut ties with her no good husband soon because I don't know how much frustration I can take anymore with that relationship. I kinda wanted Mi Soon's next romance to be with someone older than her BUT Chul Soo (the young kid working at the restaurant to work off his bill) sure seems like a good possible candidate for another noona romance. I love Mi Soon's stunned expression when Chul Soo takes over the task of mixing the dumpling filling for her just because he noticed that she was tired. Such a tragic thing that Mi Soon would be so surprised that someone would notice her fatigue and actually helps her out.

I was completely surprised by the plot twist that Hyun Ki secretly had a vasectomy done. It is going to be gloriously satisfying when Madam Jang finds out what her son had done. I do find Hyun Ki's character really intriguing. The writer has done an awesome job in inserting just enough things to humanize Hyun Ki's character that I find it hard to just write him off as a jerk. It is obvious from the flash backs that Hyun Ki loved his son very much and was probably hurting just as badly as his wife but Hae Ryung was too deep in her own grief to see his pain nor had anything in her to offer him any semblance of comfort.

In the end it was a tragic situation where a couple instead of clinging to each other to cope with their grief they had instead pushed each other away...and in Hyun Ki's case, he coped by going to another woman. The interesting thing is that I think Hyun Ki actually harbors some deep resentment towards Hae Ryung for some unknown reason. Is he resentful that she "abandoned" him when Seo Jin died? Or perhaps there are some other reasons? Young Eun did make that stab at Hae Ryung that Hyun Ki has never been happy being married to her so perhaps there are something deeper than that. Still, there seems plenty of indications that Hyun Ki is not only determined to stay married to Hae Ryung but might actually love her in his rather cold way.
As intriguing as Hyun Ki's character is though, I am completely on Ji Gun's side when it comes to the man for Hae Ryung. Granted, our two leads' romance is going to hit a huge snag once Hae Ryung finds out Ji Gun's role in her son's death...even if technically he can't be blamed. But Ji Gun himself might have a hard time getting over his own guilt since he is convinced that it was his big ego that was the cause of Seo Jin's death. By the way, I do love the fact that Ji Gun is the kind of man that refuses to let himself forget a patient death even when everyone else might have easily justified the whole thing and moved on. It is also touching that Ji Gun is convinced Seo Jin has a hand in his constant run ins with his parents and has even gone as far as accepting the orphaned patient despite his rule of not operating on children once he realized Seo Jin's grandma (Madam Jang) is the one that request him to be the boy's doctor. 

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