The truth hurts, but maybe that’s what needed to wake up to reality and to move forward in life. Yi-hyun comes to learning and understanding the weight of his actions and words from his past lives which then helps him change in the present. Though this change is a little late, it’s better late than never.
Mama Fairy and the Woodcutter: Episode 15 Recap
After recalling their past and former identities in their previous lives, Yi-hyun confronts both Kim Geum and Ok-nam. He blames Kim Geum for banishing him from fairyland back when they were still fairies while he relays to Ok-nam his true identity as Fairy Izy of Mazar. Many centuries ago when they were all still fairies in fairyland, Fairy Izy and Fairy Bausae both had feelings for Fairy Ok-nam. However, Fairy Izy also held some resentment towards Fairy Ok-nam for always seeing the bright and positive side of things while she was lonely and pessimistic. Fast forward to the present, Jeom-soon attempts to stop Yi-hyun from hurting her mother. However, she fails and our trio plus Gyeong-sul interrupts to stop Yi-hyun.
They yell at Yi-hyun for burning both the trail and the waterfall pond on fire as it’s the only way back to fairyland for immortals like our trio and Ok-nam. However, Yi-hyun doesn’t care. He blames Teacher Gu for giving him a hard time when he had reincarnated as a deer 699 years ago. We learn that Deer Izy (aka Yi-hyun) escaped from Teacher Gu who was chasing after her to punish her for burning villages in the human realm. Deer Izy thankfully encountered Husband Bausae along the way and seeked refuge with him while Teacher Gu ventured off in search of Deer Izy.
Once Teacher Gu had disappeared, Deer Izy finally steps out to converse with Husband Bausae who she immediately recognizes is a reincarnation of Fairy Bausae. After talking to him for a bit, she concludes that he’s lost all his memories from back in fairyland. With that, she uses him to her advantage and has him do her one last favor. As they observe Fairy Ok-nam and her fairy friends take a bath in the waterfall, Deer Izy has Husband Bausae steal one of the fairy clothes for her. Deer Izy had plans of returning to fairyland with the clothes, but the winged clothes no longer worked for the butterflies on it had all disappeared. Because of that, she stayed on the human earth along with Husband Bausae and Ok-nam who became acquainted with each other.
In the present, Yi-hyun voices his disappointment in Kim Geum who he claims stole everything from him in the past. The fire surrounding Kim Geum grows even bigger and Kim Geum gets into more danger. However, Ok-nam runs to join Kim Geum and gives him a hug. She also places a peony flower on his ear which then triggers Kim Geum to recall memories of Ok-nam as his wife 699 years ago. Kim Geum is shocked but relieved after learning the truth and he embraces his wife once more.
Yi-hyun watches as the couple comfort each other inside the raging fire and sheds a few tears in anger. When he was still Deer Izy and had witnessed Husband Bausae fall off the edge of the cliff to his death, he had also shed some tears because he never intended to hurt Husband Bausae despite his grudge for him. In the present, Kim Geum reiterates for Yi-hyun to put the fire out for he’s burning the only path connecting the human realm to fairyland. He also advises Yi-hyun to get rid of his suffocating anger by learning to forgive and forget. That’s only how he’ll be able to move on from all his pain. Fairy Izy appears in front of Yi-hyun at that moment and pleads Yi-hyun to help her stop her pain.
We learn then that Deer Izy would often visit Husband Bausae’s grave despite holding a grudge on him. Often times, his two children would come visit as well when he was at the grave. Eventually, they grew to liking him overtime. In the present, Teacher Gu attempts to put a stop to everything by aiming his bow and arrow at Yi-hyun. Though he’s determined to stop both the fire and Yi-hyun, his shot isn’t so good and doesn’t come close to killing Yi-hyun. However, Bong-dae comes to the rescue and acknowledges Jeom-dol’s presence which transforms him into the blue dragon that he had originally claimed he was. With that, Jeom-dol’s powers lights up the egg he had hatched from and time freezes.
Yi-hyun is back to where he first started when he was went on a trip to Mount Gyeryong with Kim Geum to visit Kim Geum’s mother. Just like the first time around, Yi-hyun and Kim Geum are at Fairy Cafe ordering some coffee while Fairy Oh and Wizard Park wait behind them in line. However, things feel different for Yi-hyun and he can’t seem to grasp the situation. When he rushes out of the cafe, he reunites with Bong-dae who introduces herself to him as Master of the Southern Star. She adds that they’re in a universe free of time and space as everything that occurs in the human realm are inside of the egg that Jeom-dol had hatched from.
Bong-dae takes Yi-hyun with her to introduce him to her brother, Master of the Northern Star. They travel through time and space and arrive at the mountains that leads to the waterfall. Both Bong-dae and Yi-hyun open the gates to the trail by stacking some rocks on top of one another which Bong-dae had done many centuries earlier to protect the waterfall from being destroyed. Bong-dae takes Yi-hyun back to the shed where he was locked up as a sacrifice to end the long drought in the village. Yi-hyun originally burnt the entire village on fire out of revenge, hate, and anger, but he learns the consequences of his actions when one of the villagers who had attempted to save him died in the process. Yi-hyun immediately feels regret for having been the reason for an innocent person’s death, and he learns that this villager will be reincarnated as Fairy Bausae.
We learn that the monk who appeared in Yi-hyun’s dream (last episode) asked Master of the Northern Star to take care of both the orphan boy (aka Yi-hyun) and the villager (aka Kim Geum) and to transform them into immortals. Master of the Northern Star accepted the request which is how Fairy Izy and Fairy Bausae came about. As hinted before, Fairy Bausae was the one who informed Master of the Northern Star about Fairy Izy’s abuse of her powers and possibility of death. In order to protect her, Fairy Bausae volunteered to give up his immortality despite the risks. Master of the Northern Star eventually decided to banish Fairy Izy to stop her from using her powers and agreed to also have Fairy Bausae give up on his immortality. He warned Fairy Bausae that he would reincarnate in the human realm and watch as the woman he loved in his past life assume her husband to be someone else. Master of the Northern Star checks with Fairy Bausae if he would be willing to go through all the pain and handle everything which Fairy Bausae accepted.
Master of the Northern Star appears in front of Bong-dae and Yi-hyun who are still waiting at the shed. Bong-dae catches up with her brother and is asked to leave with him to the future, but they’re soon approached by Yi-hyun. Master of the Northern Star reminds Yi-hyun that the entire universe moved for him simply because of his pent-up hate, resentment, and anger. When Yi-hyun returns to the Fairy Cafe, he sits down with Kim Geum for some coffee brewed by Ok-nam. He greets both the monk and Bong-dae when he steps outside and is asked by Bong-dae for a pen. It turns out Bong-dae needs to go back 100 years with Jeom-dol (as an egg) to return him to his house. So using the pen that Yi-hyun gives her and a sticky note which she writes Jeom-dol’s name on, Bong-dae returns the egg to Ok-nam’s house which is how Ok-nam was able to find Jeom-dol 100 years ago.
In the present, Jeom-dol’s powers showers the fire started by Yi-hyun with rain and everyone rejoices. Just then, Yi-hyun returns to the mountains with Master of the Northern Star, Bong-dae, and the Monk. Kim Geum runs to Yi-hyun to give him a hug and the two men are soon joined by Ok-nam who also gives the both of them a hug. Everything is resolved and everyone is safe. With the universe back in order and peace, Master of the Northern Star prepares to return to fairyland with Bong-dae. However, they’re interrupted at the last minute by Kim Geum who catches up to them to ask them a question.
He wants to know how Ok-nam can return to fairyland since he had originally stolen her winged clothes. When Kim Geum is given the answer, he communicates to Ok-nam that her winged clothes is in her closet back at home. Indeed, her winged clothes are there and so are the butterflies that will accompany her back to fairyland. However, Kim Geum is sad and he pleads for Ok-nam not to leave. He’s not a perfect man and he can be quite stubborn at times and he knows he shouldn’t hold someone like Ok-nam back, but he can’t help it. Ok-nam grows content with Kim Geum’s confession and gives him a peck on the lips. Kim Geum smiles and leans in to give Ok-nam a kiss back for a much longer time.
My Thoughts:
Oh boy, this episode was one hard episode to recap. LOL. A LOT went on in this episode (basically everything) and we gained so much context and insight as to what lead to Fairy Izy and Bausae’s disappearance from fairyland as well as to how Fairy Izy and Bausae originally came about in the first place.
I appreciated the context and background information and a part of me even wished that we could have gotten this in the very beginning of the drama. Instead, we received hints and little bits of details throughout each episode here and there which only made things more confusing when everything was revealed to us in this episode. The storytelling was the primary issue with this drama, but I think it would have made for a much better and more decent show if the drama showed us some scenes of Fairy Izy, Fairy Bausae, and Fairy Ok-nam when they were in fairyland together in the beginning. Of course, the drama purposely didn’t do so because they wanted to confuse viewers with the whole husband search, but it felt futile to me. Give us some background details and context to make things a little easier for us when the ending approaches.
I can understand where Fairy Izy’s anger and resentment is coming from. Her frustration and anger originally started as a reaction to the injustice that she witnessed in the human realm and the only way to resolve that injustice was to punish those people. Fairy Izy abused her powers so that she could teach these villagers a lesson so that they would never ever do anything of that sort again. Her intentions were good, but the way she executed her actions to treat the injustice was wrong. It also didn’t help that she didn’t know how to control her anger and her powers which ultimately lead to both her and Fairy Bausae’s banishment from the fairyland. What started out as anger against injustice in the human realm turned towards anger and resentment against Fairy Bausae who she thought was the cause of her banishment. Although her guess was technically right (he did inform Master of the Northern Star about her actions despite sacrificing himself for her), she never learned to let go of that anger and chased after him even through his many reincarnations. Fairy Izy can’t help but surround herself with her pessimism and negativity because that’s just how she is, but she also brought these things onto herself for not trying to change and do better.
I liked that Bong-dae eventually took Yi-hyun into the past to have him realize the consequences for his actions and decisions. All that pent-up anger and resentment he has does no one any good and only lead to unfortunate accidents and events, such as the death of Husband Bausae. Yi-hyun (or I should say Fairy Izy) finally learned to let things go once he realized the full consequences for that hate and resentment which was nice to watch. This episode was entirely dedicated to Yi-hyun and his journey to self-healing and self-reflection. I know this drama was supposed to be about Ok-nam’s search for her husband, but it’s ironic that nothing happened with that storyline and that instead we got so much more content and substance in this episode with Yi-hyun’s arc. It was also so much more interesting and I kind of wished we had instead just followed our characters as they attempted to make sense of memories from their past reincarnations instead of watching Ok-nam search for her husband.
Oh how unfortunate, regretful, and shameful it is that the drama failed to utilize its potential and instead gave us episodes filled with fluff and confusion. As much as I enjoyed watching Ok-nam interact with Yi-hyun and Kim Geum and our trio, I think I would have enjoyed the drama a lot more had we followed Yi-hyun, Kim Geum, and Ok-nam dig into their past to discover the truth about their past lives like how Yi-hyun did in this episode. Maybe that would have been much funner and better.
MaryMeKpop 
One response to “Mama Fairy and the Woodcutter: Episode 15 Recap”
Thanks for the recap