Ok-nam’s confidence begins to shake and shatter when she realizes that things aren’t as what they seem to be. Doubts start to form and what she thought she knew all along makes her second-guess everything.
Mama Fairy and the Woodcutter: Episode 9 Recap
Ok-nam arrives in front of Yi-hyun and Kim Geum’s house and prepares to join Yi-hyun for dinner. However, she encounters Kim Geum right outside of the house who stops her to ask a few important questions. Maybe Yi-hyun isn’t the person who Ok-nam is waiting for. Maybe he isn’t her reincarnated husband like she assumes. Inside the house, Doctor Lee visits Yi-hyun and cooks him some dinner in an effort to win his heart. However, even her sleek dress doesn’t impress Yi-hyun as he attempts to drive her out of the house before Ok-nam arrives.
The plants around the house communicate to Ok-nam on the occurrences happening inside the house so she hurries over to the house. Along with Kim Geum, Ok-nam joins Yi-hyun and Doctor Lee for dinner. After trying both of Yi-hyun and Doctor Lee’s food, the quartet agree to have some drinks together. The drama takes us back to when Fairy Bausae and Fairy Izy also had some wine with each other back in fairyland. There, the two tease each other for the love letters that they’ve both written for their crush who they don’t have enough courage to confess to just yet.
Back in the present, our quartet all play some drinking games with each other. Ok-nam brings up the topic about her husband which Doctor Lee criticizes her for. If Ok-nam is so desperate to find her husband, how can she not remember his face or how he looked like? That can’t even be consider love then. Ok-nam is reminded of the late Joseon period when she shared her concerns with Teacher Gu. She can’t remember her late husband’s face and assumes she’s being punished by the deities as a consequence.
Kim Geum feels otherwise about the punishment; maybe it’s her reincarnated husband who’s being punished and not Ok-nam. Doctor Lee breaks the awkward silence by complaining about wanting some cola. She urges Yi-hyun and Kim Geum to go to the store to buy her some soda. While the two guys leave, Doctor Lee stays behind with Ok-nam. Doctor Lee reveals to Ok-nam her plans in confessing to Yi-hyun. Jealous, Ok-nam gives her a few pieces of advice like how Yi-hyun used to like butterfly-shaped hairstyles or how Doctor Lee should just be completely naked since that’s how Yi-hyun fell in love with Ok-nam 699 years ago when they first met. LOL.
After exiting the convenience store, Yi-hyun points out Kim Geum’s strange behavior towards him. Why has Kim Geum been acting so odd and cold towards Yi-hyun lately? Kim Geum just hopes that Yi-hyun will notify him ahead of time if he is to invite Ok-nam over again as things can get quickly awkward. Yi-hyun then receives a text from Doctor Lee that both she and Ok-nam have left the house.
Kim Geum rushes back to the house in hopes of catching up with Ok-nam, but she’s no longer there. He then heads to her house on the university campus to talk to her and is about to knock on the door when he gets interrupted by Yi-hyun. Yi-hyun finally relays to Kim Geum that he also likes Ok-nam so Kim Geum shouldn’t like her anymore.
Inside the house, Ok-nam can’t stop thinking about the moment when Kim Geum warned her that Yi-hyun might not be the person she’s searching for. She also suffers a nightmare that night when she dreams of Doctor Lee successfully stealing Yi-hyun away from her. The nightmare drains all of Ok-nam’s energy she doesn’t even have the ability to eat the breakfast that Jeom-soon’s cooked for the both of them.
Once at the lab, Kim Geum is reminded of Ok-nam and wonders if she got a good night’s rest. Our trio finally makes it to the university campus where they assume Ok-nam is located and rejoice at the possibility of reuniting with Ok-nam again.
On campus, Yi-hyun and Kim Geum encounter each other and awkwardly exchange greetings. Kim Geum also notices Yi-hyun wearing the neck-tie that Ok-nam gave him. At the coffee shop, Ok-nam is so distracted from the nightmare she had she can’t focus on making coffee. When Yi-hyun arrives to class for lecture, everything seems to be going fine until he overhears a woman whisper in his ears. Fairy Izy of Mazar sneaks up from behind Yi-hyun, chokes his throat, and warns him to complete his original plan of getting revenge. The rest of his class watches as Yi-hyun struggles for air and panics at what just happened to him. Maybe Yi-hyun needs some of Ok-nam’s coffee.
When class ends, Yi-hyun is still haunted by Fairy Izy’s presence and chokes while struggling for air. Our trio walk around the school campus and decide to take a break by eating some food (aka anchovies). They’re shortly approached by Gyeong-sul afterwards who hands them his business card and reveals his plans of filming a documentary. Teacher Gu and Wizard Park bicker with each other once again about who exactly Gyeong-sul was paying more attention to, but Fairy Oh reminds them about Ok-nam. Finding her is the most important thing at the moment.
Labmates Jung-min and Gyeong-sik notice Kim Geum catching some fresh air by himself outside and assumes he must have suffered from a heart-break. While Gyeong-sik plans on confronting Doctor Lee who they assume broke Kim Geum’s heart, Jung-min has no plans in joining Gyeong-sik, lol. Jeom-soon exchanges a few words with her mother before heading out to meet Gyeong-sul. She encourages Ok-nam to get in contact with either Kim Geum or Yi-hyun since they didn’t stop by the coffee shop for the day yet. Ok-nam follows through with Jeom-soon’s suggestion and uses Kim Geum’s phone to contact Doctor Lee after Yi-hyun doesn’t pick up her phone call. As she will learn, Doctor Lee is meeting up with Yi-hyun for lunch.
Ok-nam panics and rushes to Doctor Lee’s office to interrupt the two. She assumes Doctor Lee is with Yi-hyun in her office, but neither of them are eating lunch in the room. Instead, Ok-nam encounters Gyeong-sik who was waiting inside of Doctor Lee’s office to meet with her. Once he runs out of the office, he calls Jeong-min to notify her about his spontaneous encounter with Ok-nam. He assumes Ok-nam must also like Kim Geum. Lol.
Yi-hyun and Doctor Lee have lunch with each other out on the bench. Yi-hyun shares with her about the strange incident that occurred earlier during his lecture. He felt a familiar presence from within him strangle his neck and attack him. Doctor Lee hugs Yi-hyun to comfort him, but the hug doesn’t last for long. Chestnut burrs start to fall from the trees and hits Doctor Lee in the face while the wind picks up and interrupts any interactions of skinship between the two. Yi-hyun and Doctor Lee end up running away hand in hand to escape the sudden madness. LOL.
Jung-min and Gyeong-sik attempt to gather more details about Kim Geum’s ideal type, but Kim Geum isn’t interested. After stopping by the department office to pick up some papers he requested to be printed, Kim Geum witnesses a flower that reminds him of Ok-nam. The flower resembles the one he saw in his dream of him and Ok-nam. It’s not until the receptionist at the front desk interrupts Kim Geum that he snaps out of his daydream. Aww, he is too cute.
Yi-hyun and Doctor Lee head to a restaurant to finish having lunch together. It’s there where Doctor Lee prepares to confess to Yi-hyun. However, the timing just isn’t right as Yi-hyun notices the strange odor of ginkgo nuts coming from Doctor Lee’s shoes and urges her to clean it as quickly as possible, lol. Meanwhile, Jeom-soon and Gyeong-sul finish another round of filming for his documentary series. He shows Jeom-soon a few clips to feed her curiosity, but the preview doesn’t last for long. Jeom-soon exits from the room once she finds the clip of our trio that Gyeong-sul recorded of them earlier that day. She heads out to go find them.
Just when our trio is about to lose hope of reuniting with Ok-nam, Jeom-soon approaches them on campus in the form of a cat. That evening, the three of them eat dinner with Ok-nam, Jeom-soon, and Bong-dae inside of Ok-nam’s house. When asked if Ok-nam’s found her husband yet, Ok-nam believes she has, but Jeom-soon reminds her that her reincarnated husband doesn’t even remember who she is nor has Ok-nam found her winged clothes yet. After eating dinner, Bong-dae uses her special powers to make a new house for our trio like how she did for Ok-nam and Jeom-soon, but she’s lost quite her touch and ends up just leading them to a shed. Our trio has no other option, but to spend the night with Ok-nam and Jeom-soon.
Yi-hyun rejects an offer by Professor Park to appear on TV. There’s something much more important for him to do than to go on TV. Meanwhile, Kim Geum visits Ok-nam’s house that night. Of course, he meets with our trio as well since they’re curious as to who is at the door. Once introductions are exchanged, they all sit outside at a table to talk. Kim Geum invites our trio to sleep over at his place for the night. Ok-nam assures Kim Geum that they can just sleep over at her place or that she can find them another place to sleep, but our trio is keen in sleeping with Kim Geum. So Ok-nam eventually gives in and our trio leaves with Kim Geum to his house.
While exiting from his office, Yi-hyun receives a phone call from Kim Geum. Just as he’s about to answer the phone call, he encounters the same deer from the mountains that notified Husband Bausae about Ok-nam’s bath at the waterfalls. While Yi-hyun panics at the sight of the deer, the deer warns Yi-hyun to expiate. The drama then takes us back to 699 years ago when the deer came across Husband Bausae’s lifeless body after falling off the cliff.
In the present, Yi-hyun manages to break free of the deer’s presence and eventually finds himself alone on the school campus again. Kim Geum walks with Ok-nam and the trio to his house. While the trio strolls ahead, Km Geum and Ok-nam catch up with each other and updates the other on their day. Ok-nam was waiting for Kim Geum to stop by the coffee shop, but he never did. Their hands eventually brush gently against each other’s and things quickly get awkward between the two.
Kim Geum then updates Ok-nam about the lotus flower that she gave him and how it’s finally blossomed. Ok-nam and Kim Geum stare into each other’s eyes in silence until they’re interrupted by Yi-hyun. Standing not too far away from them, Yi-hyun calls out Ok-nam’s name to get her attention.
My Thoughts:
GAAAAAH, I LOVED EVERYTHING ABOUT THAT ENDING. I LOVED EVERYTHING ABOUT IT. I’m not even complaining about how it was such an intimate moment between Kim Geum and Ok-nam (when I’ve been on the Yi-hyun ship since the beginning of this drama). I just absolutely loved everything about that ending scene from the music (the song that played after Ok-nam and Kim Geum’s hands brushed is called ‘Everything’ by The Black Skirts if anyone is curious!), the awkwardness, the yearning to actually holds hands, and the longing to fill that silence with meaningful words and actions. I just loved everything about it and I wished we could have gotten to see what happened if Yi-hyun didn’t show up so soon.
I guess that’s quite mean of me to say since I’m rooting and have been rooting for Yi-hyun and Ok-nam since the beginning of the drama. While I’m beginning to be a little bit more doubtful that Yi-hyun isn’t Ok-nam’s reincarnated husband, I’m not the only one thinking that as Ok-nam herself is also starting to have doubts. Starting with Kim Geum’s comment that Yi-hyun might not be the one who she’s been looking for all along to the awkward hand brushing that they experienced at the ending of this episode – Ok-nam is starting to doubt both her feelings as well as her thoughts on who she believes her reincarnated husband is.
The identity of the Deer is still a little confusing to me because we know that Fairy Izy has been reincarnated into present-day Yi-hyun which I’m assuming means Fairy Bausae is present-day Kim Geum. However, it’s still not clear who the Deer is. All we know is that the Deer was the one who informed Husband Bausae about Fairy Ok-nam’s bath at the waterfalls and also witnessed Husband Bausae’s corpse after he fell off the cliff. Fairy Izy’s appearance in this episode was also a little surprising to me. She choked Yi-hyun and warned him to get his revenge. I’m assuming she wants Yi-hyun to get his revenge on the reincarnated Fairy Bausae who I’m assuming is present-day Kim Geum for what Fairy Bausae did to her back in fairyland that caused her to be punished. Of course, I feel the most pitiful for Yi-hyun who’s completely confused to all of this and just wants to live out his life peacefully. Here he is, caught in the middle of all this mess without any explanation or reasoning as to what is going on. Lol.
I’ve always rooted for Yi-hyun and Ok-nam (and I will go down with this ship), but I can also envision Kim Geum as Ok-nam’s reincarnated husband. The way that he invited our trio over to spend the night at his house and how accommodating and kind he was to them made me think twice about the difference between Kim Geum and Yi-hyun. Putting aside the idea that both guys are contenders as Ok-nam’s reincarnated husband, Kim Geum is all around a much nicer, friendlier, and warmer guy to Ok-nam, Jeom-soon, and her fairy family (our trio). The fact that he’s also understanding of their lives and isn’t weirded out by their powers or Jeom-soon’s animal transformations says a lot. It could be because Kim Geum is Ok-nam’s reincarnated husband so he’s accustomed to these aspects that others might find strange or maybe it’s because he can communicate with plants himself so he’s understanding of their powers. Or maybe it’s because Kim Geum is just a kind and friendly guy who accepts others for who they are. Whatever the reason is, Kim Geum’s reactions, behaviors, and treatment towards Ok-nam and her close family and friends gives me a solid reason to believe why he could be the reincarnated husband. While watching the ending scene where Kim Geum invited our trio to sleep over at his place, I could for some reason imagine Kim Geum living and interacting with Ok-nam and her close family and friends. He seems to get along with everyone from that world so easily, it’s as if he was a part of that world too in the past.
I’m just glad that our trio have finally reunited with Ok-nam which was their original goal all along. I know what the drama was attempting to do with their storyline, but it just fell flat and instead of enjoying the adventures that our trio were going on, I felt like their scenes were out-of-place, unnecessary, and wasteful. Now that they’re finally with Ok-nam and Jeom-soon, maybe they can help Ok-nam find her reincarnated husband or help out with the coffee shop.
The competition to winning Ok-nam’s heart only gets more intense as Kim Geum begins to shake things up. What Ok-nam was so confident about before is starting to shatter as she realizes that maybe Kim Geum could also be the reincarnated husband she’s looking for. However, putting past the reincarnated husband search, maybe it’d be better if Ok-nam can just fall in love with Kim Geum or Yi-hyun for who they are in the present and not for who they could have been in the past.
Bonus: 3 extra screenshots from the episode~
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