Episode 2 :The Lady in Red shoes

We see a flashback of a little girl saving a boy from drowning. The little boy waits for her at school gate and follows her wherever she goes. Kang-Tae says she looks similar to the girl in his past whose eyes doesn’t have any warmth. Moon asks if he is scared of her but Kang- Tae clarifies he liked her.

Moon jokingly asks if Kang-tae is making a move on her by using a girl from his beautiful memories. He clarifies the memories were not beautiful. We are back to the flashback and we see the little girl tearing the butterfly before him and asks him if he still likes her. The scared boy drops the flowers in his hand and runs away .

Kang-Tae says they are not good memories. Moon says bad memories tend to stay longer in the heart. Kang-tae says he can understand how tough is the job of her manager. But he assures her that he doesn’t have to go such lengths for him and and to never call him again.

Kang-tae leaves and he is blocked by the Sang-in and his art director Yoo Seung-jae( played by Park Jin-joo). Sang-in asks Kang-tae to stay and talk over a drink. Seung-jae reminds him to get her autograph.

Moon smiles ” The spiel in my eyes and that girl in your memories was all for my autograph?”. Moon says that he is not after money or sex but for an autograph. She says she will give an autograph and takes off her new book “The Zombie Kid” and asks for his name. He gives his brother’s name ‘Moon Sang-tae’. Sang – in and Seung-jae says the author has a huge fan base of all nationality and age groups. She gives him the book and he leaves. She says ‘See you again’ but he replies back ‘I don’t think so’.

Sang – in chases and gives him a beverage box. Kang-tae opens and sees money inside. He says the money is too much for him alone. Sang-in suggests him to share with people around him. He gives the box back and asks not to follow him.(Such a good man). Sang-in was shocked as he has been bribing everyone for past 10 years and no one had denied money.

She says he is beautiful and she wants him.She calls the art director and asks her to do the digging on Kang-tae without informing Mr.Lee. Kang-tae gets a call from Jae-su who is having breakfast with his brother. He says he got an autograph from the author. Kang-tae flips the book and instead of autograph she had invited his brother to a book signing event. He asks Jae-su to take his brother to the book signing event and Jae-su agrees.

His brother is so excited and he keeps on repeating the invite written on the children’s book. He tries on dresses and tries to do some cool expression by seeing the mirror. Meanwhile ,Nurse Ju-ri visits Jae-su chicken place for fried chicken. Ju-ri asks if he is moving again as he has put the place for rent. He says he is like a nomad in this country. She asks about Kang-tae. Jae-su says he is overworking himself on part time jobs. We see Kang -tae hand injuries open up because of overworking.

Back to meeting room in Mr.Lee office. They discuss about the new book. One person says the images are too cruel. They decide to change bit Moon interrupts to leave the way it is and they couldn’t disagree to her.Next her book ‘The Ugly Dog’s Puppy’ is made to an animated film in US and they want to change the dog character to cat. Moon replies to keep it the same way else she will annul the contract. She asks Mr.Lee to make sure the tomorrow events end in an hour and leaves the room.

Kang-tae is leaving town and he is getting his final salary from his part time job. We see Ju-ri has come to meet Kang-tae. She asks if he is moving again and asks if he has decided on the hospital. She suggests that her hospital is looking for a experienced caregiver. It has good perks and since he is a nursing assistant he will get extra pay. She says the hospital is in Seongjin city, their home town. Kang-tae remembers his mom is killed and his brother keeps on repeating the ‘butterfly did it’ while the police interrogates them. The brothers leave town as the police are gonna send them to a different child care centers. Ju-ri also says a room is available for him if he decides to move back to his home town.( She really likes him). He thanks her for concern but he says he will not go to his hometown as it is in country side.

Ju-ri boards the bus and remembers what Jae-su told her about Kang-tae. He says Kang-tae doesn’t build deep relationship as he keeps on moving from one place to another. She asks for the reason and Jae-su replies it is because of a damn butterfly. Kang-tae searches for new jobs .

Jae- su is still sleeping while Sang-tae excitedly gents ready for the book signing event. Kang-tae couldn’t reach Jae-su so he has no other option to accompany Sang-tae to the event. There is a huge queue in the book signing event and Moon is busy in signing the autographs and giving pose to the photographs taken. The brothers arrive at the event. Sang-tae stands in the line while Kang-tae watches him from far. Moon becomes happy on seeing Kang-tae.

We see a book written by Do -Hee-jae published posthumously. A passerby quotes that the mother writes detective fiction while the daughter writes children’s literature. The passerby is the critic of Moon books, He adds her 7 books are in the top selling list and jokes it is because of her looks. Her manager says it is not because of her looks but her writing skills and drags the critic outside for a drink. Kang-tae leaves the event as he gets a call from Jae-su.

Sang-tae sees a child in the front of his queue who is dressed as ‘Stegosauarus’ . He explains about the dinosaur and the kids father gets angry and pushes him and pulls his hair out . Sang-tae gets a mental breakdown and Moon watches the events from far. Kang-tae rushes to the event and calms his brother.

Moon interrupts them and asks the kid parent to apologize for ruining her signing event. She grabs his hair and says, ‘Who wouldn’t scream when someone grabs their hair like this?’ . The kid’s mother says he is a lunatic and harassed her child. Moon asks how she judged him to be a lunatic unless she is a psychiatrist. Moon says she is also rambling about something and she calls her a ‘Crazy bitch’. People take pictures and films the entire event.

Sang-tae is sitting in the room consoles himself that he is not a bad person. Kang-tae says it usually takes an hour or a day for him to be normal. Moon says she doesn’t have much time and tries to meet Sang-tae. Kang-tae holds her hand and stops her and asks her to sort out the situation. She says she doesn’t care about it. She removes Kang-tae cap and asks him not to wear it as it hides her pretty face. His face turns red and he removes the cap from her hand.

We see the manager taking care of the mess she made. The art director says she acts like this whenever Kang-tae shows up. Manager says she should have made sure that they should not run into each other.

The critic holds two beverage boxes(full of money) and says to Moon her mother is an excellent author and sexy as well. He provoke s her by saying she has lot in common with her mother. Before moon reacts, Kang-tae interrupts and asks him to leave. We come to know her mother passed away and her father who is a famous architect became insane and was admitted to a physciartic hospital. The critic asks him to be careful of her and leaves them alone.

Moon tries to follow him but Kang-tae stops her. She asks if he likes her and can handle her and angrily leaves him. We see Moon approaches the critic. The critic says he expected her to follow him as he guessed her attitude from her writing skills. He adds that based on her next action he will bring both her and Mr.Lee down as well. He says everyone calls him a suicide bomber. He will destroy her career by saying she has an antisocial personality disorder. He got tired of the boxes he received and asks her to sleep with him .(What a jerk??) Moon says she can attack him and pushes him down the stairs. Kang-tae rushes and sees the entire incident. The critic is taken to the hospital.

Moon is angry and says he should have died and asks why the jerks always have a long life span. Kang-tae holds her and asks her to take some deep breaths. He asks her to close her eyes and self hugs her and asks her to taps her shoulder. He says this will make her calm down. He says this is a ‘Butterfly Hug method’.

Moon drags him from the back and hold him close and says ‘trauma should be faced head on like this instead of standing from behind’. Kang-tae leaves her and goes to meet her brother. Moon follow her and asks her she will explode if he leaves like that and asks him to be a safety pin for her. She says since he is a care giver and she will pay him a lot. Kang-tae declines the job offer. He asks her not to meet again as he says to his recovered patients, ‘Hope we never meet again’. Moon says she is not a patient.

Kang-tae says she can’t be cured with drugs or injections and she is born that way. Also she has poor prognosis. Moon says he is a coward and he is running away from her. Manager is angry with Moon as she is trying to ruin her own career. Kang-tae gives a dinosaur encyclopedia to his brother and makes him happy. Meanwhile Moon’s father is taken to a big hospital for his surgery.

Jae-su apologizes to Kang-tae and says he got drunk and woke up late. Kang-tae asks Jae-su to stop moving with them and asks him to get settled and live comfortably. Jae-su asks why he became so sentimental and says the decision is up to him. Kang-tae says he has been running all his life because of his brother, butterflies and the thought of someone chasing him. But today he found that he is not running for his brother but he is running away from himself.

“When life is unbearably hard, the easiest way out is to run”.

Kang-tae asks Sang-tae if he is alright if they move back to their hometown. Sang-tae says he is alright and misses the Chinese restaurant. Kang-tae says to his older brother that he is brave but he is coward.

The book signing event causes a huge ruckus and everyone is busy at publishing house saying that it is a rumour. Mr.Lee is so angry on seeing the footage of the incident in the television. A civic group has posted an injunction to stop selling of the book ‘Zombie kid’ as the illustration are too cruel. Manager was so shocked that he couldn’t find Moon after she has checked out oh her hotel room.He tries to jump from the window. The art director stops him and says she gave her information about the care giver.

Meanwhile we see Kang-tae has taken the job at the physciartic hospital and Ju-ri is happy to work along with him. Mr.Lee calls and asks Moon where she is going. Moon says about a ‘ Red shoes’ by Hans Christian Andersen. She reaches the physciartic hospital where Kang-tae works.

The story is about a girl who wore her red shoes everywhere even to Church. Once you wear the shoes your feet will be dancing on their own and one cannot stop dancing or take off the shoes. The executioner cuts off her feet. Even after the feet cut off,the feet kept on dancing in the red shoes. Somethings can’t be torn apart no matter how hard you try to do so. That’s why obsession is noble and beautiful.

It is raining heavily and we see Moon approaching Kang-tae and she says she found her red shoes. Kang-tae why is she here. She came because she missed him.

COMMENTS

This is a good episode. We see lots of character development and we see both female leads like Kang-tae. Even though Kang-tae avoids Moon she keeps on entering his life like a magnet. Kang-tae takes her advice as well ,’The only way to end trauma is to face it’. He even go backs to his hometown where his mom was murdered and all he got is some bad memories. Moon has also suffered as much, her mother’s death and her father gone insane. It must be hurtful for her. Ju-ri one sided love to Kang-tae, it is shown she has a huge crush on him but Kang-tae doesn’t reciprocate to her. Let’s wait for next episode and see how the story unfolds.