Love Rain - ep 7
No surprise that this was another gorgeous ep, though I confess wishing just a tiny smidgeon more time was spent on our young lovers (I am clearly insatiable when it comes to them).
You can tell how much Hana throws Jun off-kilter and despite his trying to fight it (not picking up her call, 'showing off' by having model shoots when she shows up, etc.), his fight is hopeless. He does all sorts of things he normally never does - apologizes, chases after her, ditches nightclubs and pick-ups. You are a goner, boy!
But I confess my favorite scene in this episode did not involve them - it was the heart-stopping last scene between In Ha and Yoon Hee, when they pass each other on the street, and who she is registers just a bit too late for him, but then he takes off running and they meet. So much emotion and longing there. While with Hana and Jun it is a start of a romance - uncertainty, prickliness, one step forward and two steps back, with In Ha and Yoon Hee it's old love denied, and it's immensely powerful.
One of the things I really love about LR is the way it shows the fall-out of a love affair gone wrong. In a lesser drama, YH and IH's unfulfilled romance would have existed in a vacuum, but it is not the case here. We don't really know much about Yoon Hee's husband and married life other than he's dead and, seeing how warm and well-adjusted Hana is, Hana's upbringing and family atmosphere must have been good. But it's different with In Ha. The fact that he could not let go of Yoon Hee, could not open up again, wrecked more than his life. I never liked Hye Jung and she certainly went into the marriage with eyes wide open - she knew In Ha loved Yoon Hee and still went for it, and that is after crazy secondary girl antics. But Hye Jung of 70s was a fun, hopeful girl even if spoiled and solipsistic. The Hye Jung of 30 years later is a (sort-of-former) alcoholic who has been robbed of any promise of her youth by incessantly yearning for and trying to manipulate the man who feels no love for her. No wonder Jun has trust issues and views romantic love with all the enthusiasm of a man finding a bug in his soup - he grew up with an emotionally distant father (that scene with Yoon Hee is the first time we see older In Ha truly there) and a manipulative, desperate mother who did not respect herself because of love and who used her son as a way to try to get her ex-husband back. Yeah.