Every decision comes with consequences and our characters deal with these consequences in this episode. Some realities and truths are harder to accept than others, but what do you do when you don’t want to accept these truths?
Matrimonial Chaos: Episode 12 Recap
Yoo-young suggests she and Seok-moo sleep with each other if he won’t allow her to sleep around with random men. Hwi-roo and Jang-hyun have some drinks together at a bar and talk about love and attention. While Hwi-roo believes she wanted Seok-moo’s attention more than anything, Jang-hyun doesn’t like attention himself. He’s okay with not getting attention and he’s not afraid to love someone, but it’s just the thought of not being loved by anyone that scares him.
Seok-moo and Yoo-young reserve a motel room so they could sleep with each other. Seok-moo easily gets distracted and starts blabbering about college memories, but Yoo-young stops him so that they could resume with their business. Meanwhile, Hwi-roo and Jang-hyun leave the bar together. Hwi-roo stumbles on her way out and breaks down into tears. She repeats the words ‘I’m sorry’ before staring into Jang-hyun’s eyes and lunging at him to kiss him on the lips.
Hwi-roo’s mom attempts to contact Hwi-roo to ask her about the divorce. While Mom is worried about the divorce, Dad seems more concerned about his marriage with Mom and whether they should be together or not as well. Ahhh! Not Mom and Dad too! Early the next morning, Yoo-young and Seok-moo exit the motel room together. Seok-moo is fine with being a divorcee; it seems like it’ll be too challenging for him to get married again.
Before heading back to their respective homes, Seok-moo suggests another idea that would make for a fun date with Yoo-young. He recommends that they go watch birds the next time which Yoo-young agrees to. When Seok-moo arrives home, he finds Jang-hyun cooking some breakfast. Jang-hyun attempts to bring up the kissing incident with Hwi-roo the night before to Seok-moo, but Seok-moo is too busy worrying about his canker sore to even give Jang-hyun a chance to speak.
Hwi-roo ended up sleeping over at Ma-roo and Soo-kyung’s apartment for the night. After revealing how she met up with Jang-hyun for some drinks, Hwi-roo plans on meeting with Ki-wan after grabbing dinner with Grandma. Ma-roo notes how Hwi-roo’s relationships with her ex-husband and friend’s ex-husband are so weird. LOL, I agree.
Seok-moo and Dong-koo have a conversation with each other during work. Dong-koo reveals that he slept with Mi-ri, but she wants to break up with him now. He then goes on to question who Seok-moo slept with himself. LOL. While eating some food at the same local restaurant she and Hwi-roo frequents, Yoo-young has a talk with the chef. She ponders over whether someone from the past can return as someone new, but the Chef also suggests that she just find someone new.
Jang-hyun reunites with Hwi-roo later on that night. He attempts to get her to recall the kissing incident the night before, but Hwi-roo doesn’t recall anything. She just simply assumes she stepped on his foot since she has a habit of doing that when drunk. Guess she forgot her other habit of kissing people when she also drinks too much. Haha.
Mom and Dad argue over Seok-young and her divorce. Dad disproves of the divorce and refuses to acknowledge Seok-young, but Mom explains that Seok-young should get the divorce. She can fend for herself and make a living and plus, she’s unhappy with her marriage. She can’t stay with her husband. Dad can voice his disappointments with the divorce, but it doesn’t change the fact that Sung-bin likes being around Grandma and Hwi-roo. He enjoys being with them.
Seok-young and her husband fight with each other over the divorce. Her husband is still in disbelief that Seok-young wants the divorce, but she won’t change her mind. She even threatens to hire a lawyer who she knows is acquainted with him, but will still represent her in court. Seok-young presents the divorce petition to her husband and reiterates her wish for a divorce once again.
Sung-bin hangs out with Ma-roo and Soo-kyung at Grandma’s cafe. The pair studies Sung-bin’s drawing and notices that none of the characters have any facial features. Hwi-roo works on her children’s book and acknowledges that new beginnings can be nerve-wracking but also exciting. Seok-moo and Yoo-young make themselves feel better about their relationship by claiming that love does occur randomly at times and you never know what’s going to happen with love. As for Jang-hyun, he hopes to be able to receive another chance at obtaining both love with Yoo-young and happiness.
Hwi-roo and Ki-wan meet to work on her children’s book. Reading Hwi-roo’s work reminds Ki-wan of his late son. He admits that he thinks about his son often, but he’s also come to accepting the reality. Ki-wan feels like he’s said all that needed to be said when his son passed away. Yoo-young and Seok-moo head on their bird date. While walking around, Seok-moo shares that his favorite bird is the dodo bird because of their ability to once live without anyone bothering them. It’s a living situation Seok-moo himself would like to experience once.
Hwi-roo takes care of an ill Grandma. She asks Hwi-roo to work at the cafe for a bit while she visits her friend at a nursery home. Mi-ri encounters Dong-koo at her work place and grows frustrated. She reveals to him the reason as to why she wanted to break up. Back at Grandma’s cafe, Hwi-roo accidentally steps on a customer’s foot which then prompts her to recall the night of the kissing incident. She remembers how after repeatedly stepping on Jang-hyun’s foot, she lunged at Jang-hyun to kiss him on the lips. Right at that moment, Jang-hyun enters the cafe. Haha, talk about perfect timing.
Jang-hyun ends up explaining to Hwi-roo what happened on the night they accidentally kissed. Yoo-young and Seok-moo make plans to have dinner later on that evening at her place. The two separate for the time being to gather some ingredients. While Yoo-young heads to the grocery store, Seok-moo returns to his house to grab some wine. It’s then that Jang-hyun interrupts Seok-moo and attempts to inform him about the kiss.
Seok-moo misunderstands and assumes Jang-hyun saw him with Yoo-young, but Jang-hyun misunderstands and assumes Seok-moo saw him kiss Hwi-roo. The two go at it back and forth until Jang-hyun blurts out that he didn’t intend on kissing Hwi-roo. It was on accident. Seok-moo freezes upon hearing the news and has to take a few seconds to recollect his thoughts.
Hwi-roo encounters Yoo-young at the grocery store and also notifies her about the kiss. Yoo-young reacts indifferently to the news; she and Jang-hyun have broken up so it’s not like Hwi-roo did anything wrong. In fact, Yoo-young apologizes to Hwi-roo. She attempts to bring up the fact that she’s talking to Seok-moo again, but she struggles. However, Hwi-roo is aware that Yoo-young and Seok-moo are seeing each other. She just didn’t expect Yoo-young to be with Seok-moo since she assumed Yoo-young knew that she still had feelings for Seok-moo. However, Hwi-roo doesn’t explicitly comment that to Yoo-young and she refrains from saying anything.
It’s Seok-moo’s turn to update Jang-hyun on him and Yoo-young. He treads carefully at first, attempting to avoid Jang-hyun’s direct questions of who Yoo-young is meeting with. It’s not until Seok-moo hesitates to answer the question that Jang-hyun realizes it’s Seok-moo who Yoo-young has been seeing. Jang-hyun chases Seok-moo out the house and follows up with more questions. He assumes Seok-moo and Yoo-young slept with each other, but Seok-moo claims that he and Yoo-young didn’t. On the night they were at the motel together, they didn’t do anything.
Hwi-roo and Yoo-young bicker with each other over Seok-moo. Yoo-young doesn’t find anything wrong with the fact that she’s seeing Seok-moo again; he and Hwi-roo have broken up and are divorced. Still, Hwi-roo feels strangely iffy about the entire situation. It feels odd to see someone who once belonged to her now belong to someone else. It just doesn’t feel good. Whereas her kiss with Jang-hyun was a mistake, Yoo-young is well aware of what she’s doing with Seok-moo. Yoo-young ends the conversation by saying that she agrees. Hwi-roo is dumbfounded and leaves Yoo-young, leaving behind her bag.
As Hwi-roo walks out, she encounters both Seok-moo and Jang-hyun together. Yoo-young joins a few seconds later when she catches up to Hwi-roo to return her the bag. Awkward glances are exchanged, but Hwi-roo takes the first steps to leave. However, Jang-hyun holds her back and suggests they all talk things out as a group (YES! Finally, someone smart enough to make a wise decision! Lol).
They convene at Yoo-young’s house to talk to one another like civil adults. However, Jang-hyun is distracted by a group chat while Hwi-roo is jealous when Seok-moo attempts to open the champagne bottle for Yoo-young. It doesn’t help that she was the one who bought the bottle for him. The jealousy and pain gets to Hwi-roo and she attempts to open the bottle instead. Seok-moo fights with Hwi-roo over the bottle and accidentally pops it open, causing the champagne to splash into Hwi-roo’s face.
To save herself of the embarrassing situation, Hwi-roo distracts herself by turning her attention to the squid she bought at the grocery store earlier that day. She searches through her bag for the squid, but eventually breaks down into tears. Seok-moo attempts to console Hwi-roo, but Hwi-roo is honest with him on her thoughts about him and Yoo-young. She’s always found them two a good match for each other; they only broke up over a minor misunderstanding, but they’re meant for each other.
Seok-moo is eventually able to persuade Hwi-roo to let him take her home, but Yoo-young won’t allow them to leave so easily. Why did Hwi-roo divorce Seok-moo if she was just going to disprove of Seok-moo seeing her? Yoo-young blames Hwi-roo for being inconsiderate of Seok-moo’s thoughts and feelings; sure, he didn’t know how to express himself and he made some mistakes in their marriage, but he too was struggling. Hwi-roo only cared about herself.
Hwi-roo attacks Yoo-young; she knew about Jang-hyun’s affairs, but never spoke up about it and pretended to be okay with it because she thought she loved him. Seok-moo breaks the intense atmosphere by sharing that he would like everyone to just get along. He was hoping they would embark on another camping trip where things would be much better and where they could even bring their kids along with them. They would start their own families and join one another on the camping trip. However, now it seems like that camping trip dream is impossible and he apologizes for ruining any chances of it coming true.
Jang-hyun attempts to remain optimistic in all of this. He reminds everyone to eat, but he also finally expresses his true thoughts about the situation. Just like how Hwi-roo and Seok-moo’s divorce was the best for them, he hopes Yoo-young will find someone who she has the best marriage with. Yoo-young breaks into tears upon hearing his comment.
After the intense and chaotic confrontation, Jang-hyun leaves to go home first. Seok-moo suggests Hwi-roo wash up at his house, but she declines the offer. She watches Seok-moo walk away from her. The next morning, Hwi-roo learns that Soo-kyung and Ma-roo will be moving in with Seok-young and Sung-bin. Seok-young needs babysitters anyways to take care of Sung-bin. Since Soo-kyung and Ma-roo will be moving in with Seok-young, Hwi-roo asks them about the availability of their rooftop room for future references.
Seok-moo spends some time eating at the local restaurant. He recalls the confrontation the night before and realizes that he’s never seen Hwi-roo so lonely, sad, and frustrated before as she was that night. Speaking of Hwi-roo, she’s gifted with the same bottle of champagne that she and Seok-moo were fighting over by Ki-wan. When Hwi-roo returned to Ki-wan’s company after the confrontation, he greeted her outside and noticed the champagne smell emitting from her head. He then decided to buy her a new bottle. Plus, they have something to celebrate anyways. Hwi-roo’s date for her book has been set. Yaaay!
Seok-moo and Yoo-young go on another date. This time, they’re watching a movie together. Yoo-young arrives ten minutes late to the movies, but Seok-moo doesn’t mind that she’s late. Though Seok-moo should be occupied with watching the movie inside of the movie theater, he worries about Yoo-young who’s sitting stoically in her seat.
Jang-hyun spends his time alone by drinking some wine on the rooftop of a building. The alcohol gets to him and he ends up falling from the edge of the building (???????). Meanwhile, the camera pans to a pregnancy test resting on the counter of a restroom sink. Someone is pregnant.
My Thoughts:
Seriously, WHAT IS GOING ON? WHAT IS GOING ON? Can someone just tell me what is going on? I need some answers, I need an explanation, I need a response! I don’t know what drama I’m watching anymore. The drama I was in love for its warmth and loving messages about love, family, relationships, and marriage has now transformed into an angsty and painful melodrama. I love the angst (because I’m an angsty person in general), but what was up with that ending?!
To be fair, I haven’t watched the Japanese version of the drama so I’m not entirely sure how closely the Korean version is following the Japanese original. I’m treating the Korean version as its own entity and drama, but I understand that the Korean version could be following the Japanese original closely. Regardless, I have no words to explain or describe how I feel about the drama. It feels entirely different now than what we watched halfway into the drama and I can’t quite understand why the drama took such a dramatic and sudden shift.
It’s not like the drama completely changed because you still have some aspects from the beginning that are still present in this episode. One thing that the drama did often in past episodes was include many hidden messages and details about love, family, marriage, and divorce in every conversation. I think that’s what I loved about this drama; that’s what I found charming about the show. Yes, it was difficult to recap and summarize these conversations without going into details about what was said, but I liked how each conversation was packed with purpose and meaning. Now, the drama just suddenly feels like a melodrama filled with angst and anger and hate and that’s not a bad thing. I think the drama executed this angst and melodramatic shift in a decent way, but it just doesn’t align with what the drama showed us in the beginning.
I understand that the confrontation that went down in this episode came as a result of Hwi-roo ultimately deciding to cut ties with Seok-moo by moving out. Divorce was the first step and moving out was the second and final step. However, it was what happened after she moved out that the drama started going downhill. As I mentioned in my last recap, Yoo-young’s decisions to restart with Seok-moo was so sudden. We spent the entire drama focused on Seok-moo and Hwi-roo attempting to make things work with their relationship and then all of a sudden, Seok-moo’s seeing his ex-girlfriend again after they face some struggles with their own respective relationships. Never mind that it just screams iffy and tragic to me, but it also didn’t make any sense or go along with their characterizations. Seok-moo and Yoo-young’s decisions to revive their relationship felt out of place; it didn’t align with what the drama showed us of them all along. I think I would be more accepting and it would make more sense to see Yoo-young and Seok-moo together if the drama hinted to us that Yoo-young still had some sort of feeling for Seok-moo. However, she didn’t because she was primarily focused on Jang-hyun. Seok-moo himself cared for Yoo-young, but was busy working things out with Hwi-roo. Where did the decision to hook up with each other come from?
It was because Seok-moo and Yoo-young decided to see each other again that our four characters went through hell and back in this episode. While I definitely hated that the two ex-lovers did this in the first place, I acknowledge that the drama handled the confrontation pretty nicely. I liked how it was executed and how any issues that our characters had been avoiding this entire time finally came out in this episode. Our characters didn’t hold back from one another and released all their pent-up anger and frustration on each other. Heck, even Jang-hyun said a few words about how he truly felt about everyone. This confrontation might have been messy, chaotic, and stressful, but it was also maybe what our characters needed to do and hear to set things straight and understand things from someone else’s perspective.
I also liked the approach that the drama took in comparing and contrasting the way Jang-hyun and Hwi-roo told Yoo-young and Seok-moo about their kiss to the way that Yoo-young and Seok-moo told the other two about their relationship. Although Jang-hyun and Hwi-roo should have felt more guilty because they kissed each other and engaged in a more physical and intimate way, it was ultimately Yoo-young and Seok-moo who was more ashamed in telling the truth. As we saw, the two didn’t do anything at the motel, but it’s more of the fact that they’re reviving their relationship again that things are such a big deal. Jang-hyun still wants to start anew with Yoo-young and Hwi-roo still has lingering feelings for Seok-moo that she thought Yoo-young knew about. They felt betrayed with the news about Seok-moo and Yoo-young.
Heck, even I felt a little betrayed knowing that Seok-moo knew Hwi-roo still had some lingering attachments to him, but still ultimately chose to see Yoo-young. Let’s not deny that Seok-moo doesn’t have those lingering feelings for Hwi-roo either, because he does. It’s in the small ways he fiddles around with her black hair tie or searched for her when she moved out of the house. So the feelings for Hwi-roo are still there, but he’s also still stuck in the past with Yoo-young. Seok-moo doesn’t seem to know what he wants or who it is he wants to be with. Can he and Hwi-roo truly make amends and fix their broken bridges that have been badly damaged and burned?
Jang-hyun’s jump from the building in this episode came as a total surprise because once again, it felt so random and out of the blue. I feel like I’m being picky when I complain about certain things in the drama that happens without reason, because I’m one of those viewers who wants a reason for everything. I wanted to at least receive some kind of hint or prediction that Jang-hyun was going to accidentally (?) jump to his death (or is he dead? Idk. Maybe that scene of him might have just been a dream). Where did his death all of a sudden come from? Why did he die? Is he out of the drama? If so, why did the drama decide to eliminate his character? What’s going on with this drama? LOL.
I’m glad that Hwi-roo kissed Jang-hyun on accident and not because she magically formed romantic feelings for him. If there’s one thing the drama did right in this episode, it would be this. Since Hwi-roo has a habit of kissing people whenever she’s drunk (something Ma-roo hinted a few episodes back so yay for consistency and foreshadowing!), it made sense how she kissed Jang-hyun. I also liked Hwi-roo and Jang-hyun’s forthright honesty in telling Seok-moo and Yoo-young the truth. Little did they know they weren’t the ones committing a mistake.
And of course, we can’t forget about the pregnancy test at the end of this episode. I know the drama has been a little more dramatic and angsty the past few episodes (which ultimately led its quality to deteriorate), but we’re even going as far as to doing pregnancy tests?! It seems like Seok-moo’s dreams of going on a camping trip with their kids might just come true, lol. We don’t know who exactly is pregnant and who the father is, but I’m just hoping (and praying) that everything will come out fine. There has to be some sort of explanation for Yoo-young’s emotionless and stoic behavior in the movie theater. Though I don’t want to jump to any conclusions, I’m also hoping that she and Seok-moo really didn’t do anything with each other at the motel.
Bonus: Extra screenshots from the episode~
MaryMeKpop 