Asian Addicts Anonymous

In which Ji Hui uses a baby to begin her own sick plot of revenge. This is crazy. Now we have revenge trapped in revenge trapped in revenge. Will their be a way out for our cast? Ji Hui and Tae Jeong are really perfect with their displacement of blame and anger at the wrong people and also their anger for really no justified reason that just lingers and envelopes all around them in their vicious poison. They are also very mistrustful of each other. Even when Tae Jeong isn’t necessarily plotting against Ji Hui she immediately jumps to conclusions that he is. And now that Ji Hui is acting all nice and saying she will trust him once more over Seon Yu, Tae Jeong can’t honestly believe in her and while he’s going along with the flow, his anxiety has actually quadrupled. He knows the shoe is going to fall hard sooner or later and must scrabble to do what he can before it does. Big props to Moon Bo Ryung for creating a character we can hate and do the one minute nice and one minute psycho well. It’s amazing. And at the same time with Ji Hui’s actions…it’s also amazing that the other characters don’t realize what is going on. That smile and her attitude aren’t the same as before. It’s heavier and laced with malice. She is kind of doing a Bong Chang thing only her barbs are in there and people really don’t know how to take them. But her apologies and everything are so insincere that they should know something is up.

You know something that is fascinating? I think something like 7 times out of 10, it’s always the non-blood child who is mistreated by a parent. The other 30% of the time, it’s the real child that is mistreated. While Mrs. Gong did not literally mistreat Ji Hui in some of the horrific ways that you see in dramaland, she did her blood granddaughter a great disservice by doting on Ji Seok more. Now that this little snippet of info has been released (and I actually was expecting this since the wedding and learning of the name change). I can also imagine Ji Hui learning the whole truth and thus completely rejecting her “oppa” who is not really her oppa given her attitude and penchant for taking things to extremes.

Anywho…where did this episode start again? Seon Yu is in misery. Thanks to the completely adorable baby not being her nephew, she is devastated and very apologetic towards the child. She wishes she could take him home and give the precious little one the love he deserves, but she can’t. How she wishes dearly that this precious child really was her Sarang. Poor Ji Seok watches from the doorway unable to help her. He does decide to break the bad news to the Heos himself and calls up Pung Ho to let him know the tests came back saying that Sarang #2 isn’t the real one. This is a heavy blow to the Heo family, especially Pung Ho who can only look at his dead niece’s picture and wail about her helping him find her son so he can take care of Sarang in Jin Yu’s place. Meanwhile, Ji Hui is happily plotting revenge using Sarang #1, the real Sarang.

Tae Mi is eating her sorrows away and Dal Nyeo talks her into visiting Sarang #2. The two go and happen upon Seon Yu and Ji Seok coming out of the orphanage. Seon Yu is obviously upset. Ji Seok hugs her to him and says that he knows about the baby now and will help aid Seon Yu in the search for the real Sarang. This floors Dal Nyeo and Tae Mi. Why would they look for a baby that was already found? The baby that Dal Nyeo was doting on and looked exactly like Jin Yu has to be the real Sarang, right?

Tae Jeong, being Tae Jeong, really doesn’t trust Ji Hui’s supposed blind faith in him anymore. Given that she knows everything already, it just doesn’t make sense that after hearing that recording she is asserting she will stand by him and love him. He knows his only recourse now is to take his stockpile of money and buy up the stocks in his name now. Ah. I thought it was weird that he was asking for more money from Aran just to stockpile it. He’s just saving it to drop the lot and take over the stocks. Ji Hui comes in and takes him to the orphanage to see her Sarang. Tae Jeong really has no interest in adorable baby #1 after seeing and holding adorable baby #2. Ji Hui can sense this and is overjoyed to be flaunting his real son under his nose without him knowing it. She also plays up that this is the baby she wants to adopt, but of course they will adopt Tae Jeong’s baby instead. Tae Jeong says once more that he is leaving it up to her and won’t force his child in. He hasn’t even seen that baby, you know. Lies. And Ji Hui knows it. Tae Jeong then gets teh call from Dal Nyeo saying she has checked and confirmed that Sarang #2 isn’t Sarang after all. This news makes Ji Hui ecstatic, but she puts on an apologetic face. Too bad as she really was going to adopt the baby for Tae Jeong’s sake. Eyeroll.

Ji Seok tells Mrs. Gong the backstory about Sarang and she warns him that it is not easy to take care of a child that is not your own. It can be hard to love since it’s not your own blood, an you can also be terrified of mistreating it to the point you go to extremes to be good. Definitely a red flag given Mrs. Gong’s treatment of Ji Seok, but I don’t think it would occur to Ji Seok to think he really isn’t a Seo and thus suffered unjustly in that family for no reason. Anywho, Ji Seok tells his grandmother not to worry as the baby is Seon Yu’s nephew which makes him basically Ji Seok’s child after all. This is how much he loves Seon Yu. Granted Sarang is only a nephew and not a hidden son…but given his reaction here and his love for Seon Yu, he would not be the type of guy to scorn a woman for having a child. He wouldn’t overlook the child and would bring it into the family for all the right reasons instead of all the wrong reasons like Ji Hui.

So Mrs. Gong calls in Seon Yu who ends up meeting Ji Hui who says she knows Sarang #2 isn’t the real baby. She is gloating in Seon Yu’s misery and then tells Seon Yu that she is adopting a different baby instead. Seon Yu becomes very thankful, but then Ji Hui figuratively spits in her face by saying Seon Yu had best move quickly to find the real baby so that Ji Hui can consider adopting him as well…although she doesn’t think Seon Yu will ever find Sarang. Seon Yu is NOT happy with Ji Hui’s cruel words. She wipes away tears and goes into Mrs. Gong’s office where the older woman says she does not see Seon Yu has only an in-law, but as her real grandchild and she hopes Seon Yu will not keep such a burden on herself again. Seon Yu cries and thanks Mrs. Gong who promises to employ every resource she can to find the real baby. I would feel optimistic, but she’s been looking for Ji Seok’s mother for years with no luck, so how will this be any different? But at the same time, this is paving the way for Ji Seok’s and Mrs. Gong’s search to bring up the connection between the Lee sisters and Jang Tae Jeong as well. It would technically be better for Seon Yu to fess up before they find the truth from some outside source.

Ji Hui goes to Dal Nyeo to take the woman to see the baby they are adopting. Dal Nyeo doesn’t want to go, but when Ji Hui claims umbrage and Dal Nyeo’s unfairness as she can’t wait indefinitely for a child to be found, she goads Dal Nyeo into going. When Dal Nyeo is finally wheedled into looking at the baby, she exclaims over how the baby looks exactly like her son while Tae Jeong appears, as always, completely disinterested. Oh, sure, he was a smidgen upset with the news Sarang #2 wasn’t his and you know he won’t take interest in a baby he believes isn’t anyways, but I can’t imagine him acting any less cold towards his own blood even if he knows the truth. I know that they were burned badly by the Sarang #2 incident and the fact that baby closely resembled Jin Yu, but Dal Nyeo should have some alarm bells going off. She was the only one to see Sarang and she talked about how much he resembled his father and not his mother. So since the Jin Yu look alike isn’t the real baby, why doesn’t she think about how this baby looks like her son and is the right age? Is this all due to the Sarang #2 incident? Baboya.

The baby is brought home and every one is in love and excited. Ji Seok points out the child’s resemblance to Tae Jeong which has everyone taking another look while Tae Jeong again looks completely disinterested and this makes Ji Hui’s day that he’s such a horrible father he cannot recognize his own child. She takes the baby upstairs to be fed and has Seon Yu prepare the bottle. While this is going on, Ji Hui does sincerely (?) apologize to Sarang about doing this to him as she will make sure he never knows that his adopted father is his real father. Enter his real aunt.  Ji Hui teases about naming the child Jang Sarang as she adopted the child with love and will raise it with love, so why not use the name Sarang? The uncomfortable Seon Yu hands the formula over and when Ji Hui tries to feed the child while it is lying completely flat on it’s back, Seon Yu tries to take the bottle back and show her the correct way. Ji Hui goes all crazy eyed and screams at Seon Yu that this is HER baby and she had better keep her hands off. Again…I know Ji Hui NEVER treats Seon Yu like she should be treated, but I think it’s very suspicious if you put everything together, you know?

Let’s see how much lower Ji Hui can fall in her own revenge. Tae Jeong has already fallen quite low in his pursuit of grandeur and his “revenge” on Aran’s cruel words. Seon Yu has fallen a bit in her own pursuit of revenge by her lies and concealing the truth and agreeing to date Ji Seok at a time when she did not like him yet in that way. But I have a feeling that Ji Hui can sink even lower since she’s actually using that poor child. Revenge should never be done with children. And trying to feed a baby like that? What the heck? I may not be a mother, but I have enough experience with babies and you try not to feed them like that, not to mention the horrible awkwardness of leaning over that crib to boot. Ji Hui is definitely not mommy material. And that possessiveness, Seon Yu has a right to look shocked and a bit frightened. Obsession and possessiveness are not healthy traits to have in regards to babies either. And how is it that they adopt so easily? Sure, if you went through the entire red tape (at least I’m assuming it’s just as hard in Korea as it is in the US) that would end up being a drama in and of itself, but to go one day and take the baby home as yours permanently the next day…uh uh. With adoption, you get more rules, regulations, and restrictions before you are allowed to adopt. Even the most loving of people are unable to adopt if they can’t meet a very strict criteria…so…what the what with this adoption! I wouldn’t let Ji Hui adopt a baby when she knows nothing about caring for them. Since you are choosing to be a parent by adopting rather than having your own, I can totally go for the whole parenting classes and training. It’s actually a good idea for people who want to have babies naturally, too, to do such a thing. But that doesn’t happen…it probably should.