Link: Eat, Love, Kill: Episodes 7-8

by quirkycase

With a certain stalker back and as deluded as ever, our heroine’s loved ones rally to keep each other safe. Her family may be a mess, but they’re ride or die. Our chef struggles to keep an emotional distance the more involved with our herione he gets, but his hot-and-cold act isn’t going over well. Meanwhile, long-forotten memories lead to a revelation that raises new questions about just what happened that night 18 years ago.

EPISODES 7-8 WEECAP

Stalker Jing-eun corners Da-hyun in a dark alley, still in his twisted fantasy that they’re dating. He has the gall to argue let bygones be bygones – he’s forgiven her, so now she just needs to apologize (!). I’m not sure whether to admire Da-hyun for her courage in aggressively rebuking him or get frustrated at the danger she’s courting by antagonizing him.

Gye-hoon finds Da-hyun and Jing-eun rankles at their obvious closeness. Only the CCTV camera stops him from attacking Gye-hoon in the street and gets him to leave for the moment. Guess we know who his next target is.

I love how Gye-hoon has become a reluctant member of Da-hyun’s family meetings, but he does draw the line at the suggestion he stay with them for safety. Da-hyun isn’t about to let Gye-hoon wander around alone, though, so she enlists Jin-hoon to help keep an eye on him.

This family is so extra that no matter what they do, it ends up looking like a Pink Panther scene. Now, they travel around in a pack, ready for battle whenever a young man who slightly resembles Jing-eun passes by.

As for Jing-eun, he’s decided that Gye-hoon is the problem in his “relationship,” which means he needs to go. He blackmails the taxi ajusshi with footage of the accident, ordering him to run over Gye-hoon if he wants to stay out of jail. Uh, that argument seems a tad flawed.

The taxi ajusshi may have tried to bury Jing-eun after he thought he killed him – is it bad I laughed at Jing-eun getting almost killed and buried twice in one night? – but he proves he’s not a murderer of innocents. He drives at Gye-hoon, but he swerves at the last minute, crashing into Bok-hee’s restaurant instead. (The neighbors are secretly overjoyed to have a break from eating her awful food for a while.)

Jing-eun is disappointed Gye-hoon isn’t dead, which he learns by going to Bok-hee’s restaurant. At first, Bok-hee and halmeoni don’t recognize the conscious version of him. When they do, they threaten him if he doesn’t leave Da-hyun alone. He shamelessly says he “sincerely loves” Da-hyun and refuses to give up on her. Gross.

Next thing you know, they’ve all drawn the weapons they’ve been concealing. Gye-hoon walks in during their standoff and confronts Jing-eun for trying to have him killed. Once again, Jing-eun backs off for the time being.

The return of Jing-eun and the danger that puts Da-hyun in has made it impossible for Gye-hoon to keep ignoring his own feelings. Ever since losing his sister, he’s tried to avoid deep connections that make him feel weak. But now, he’s in too deep to delude himself.

Da-hyun is worried now that he’s on Jing-eun’s radar – she keeps having dreams of Gye-hoon getting attacked. When she finds out that Jing-eun actually tried to hurt him, she tells Gye-hoon off for keeping it from her and cuts him off. Da-hyun doesn’t waver this time and makes good on her word, keeping their relationship professional. Although Gye-hoon isn’t happy about her pushing him away, he does mostly accept her decision. He doesn’t agree to let her quit the restaurant, though.

One thing I greatly appreciate about Da-hyun and Gye-hoon is that they don’t let things fester between them. They communicate, thank the drama gods. If only Gye-hoon could be honest about his own feelings, they’d be set.

Da-hyun has had it with Jing-eun messing with her loved ones, so she confronts him. There’s no trace of the fear she had when facing him earlier as she threatens to finish the job if he touches any of her people. Rather than be rational, Jing-eun decides that Gye-hoon has ruined his life and must pay.

Once he’s destroyed all the CCTV cameras nearby, he goes to pay Gye-hoon a visit. But both Da-hyun and Eun-jung are already there. When Eun-jung sees him, she greets him … by trying to stab him. Oho. So it turns out he’s not her little brother – he was dating her little sister who disappeared.

I totally should’ve seen that coming, but I did honestly think she was his sister. They even both have “Eun” in their names like siblings (who often share a common syllable). Then, there’s her aggressive behavior toward Da-hyun who, for some reason, she didn’t consider might be one of Jing-eun’s victims.

Now Eun-jung is out for blood, as are half of the people in the room. Everything devolves quickly, the commotion drawing Da-hyun’s family over, too. And then everyone is trying to kill Jing-eun and protect each other. It’s a complete mess of half the room attacking while the other half try to hold them back.

The police show up thanks to all the screaming and break up the fight. Da-hyun finally tells the cops that Jing-eun is a stalker, and they all lie that Eun-jung definitely didn’t try to stab Jing-eun – everyone was just protecting Da-hyun.

With the full story out, only Jin-hoon seems appropriately scared of the locals after all the violence and deception. Adding to the fun of this bonkers neighborhood, we learn that both Won-tak and Jing-eun grew up there too.

As I speculated, Won-tak is indeed the son of the suspect in Gye-young’s disappearance. And Jing-eun’s obsession with Da-hyun goes way back to childhood, apparently, although Da-hyun can’t remember him. Gye-hoon does vaguely recall him and shows Da-hyun an old school album to help jog her memory.

Da-hyun’s memories are weirdly fuzzy of that time, but she does recognize Gye-hoon as her old crush and starts to recall spending time with Gye-young. Hmmm… maybe she saw something happen to Gye-young and blocked it?

Maybe she didn’t witness anything, but it looks like Jing-eun did. Like the horrible person he is, he taunts Gye-hoon and refuses to tell him what he knows; he wants to watch him suffer and beg. Gye-hoon loses it and gets into a brawl with Jing-eun. Da-hyun arrives right after Won-tak intervenes, breaking them up. We end with all the Jihwa kids unhappily reunited.

Now that we’re at the halfway point, it looks like we’ll be focusing on the mystery of Gye-young’s disappearance. Although Jing-eun is unhinged and I wouldn’t put it past him to lie just to hurt Gye-hoon, I do think he’s telling the truth about seeing what happened to Gye-young. His amused and surprised reaction to Won-tak calling himself a murderer’s son seemed genuine.

Since everything is apparently tied together, I’m guessing Gye-hoon’s link to Da-hyun is tied to her memory loss and whatever happened to Gye-young. I don’t expect a deep exploration of their link, but I do hope we get some logical explanation of the how and why. I still find it odd that the connection only goes one way, but it appears that was the case with Gye-young too. Maybe all that repressing his own emotions has made him into a conduit for everyone else’s.

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Link: Eat, Love, Kill: Episodes 7-8