Good Job: Episodes 9-10

Good Job: Episodes 9-10

by DaebakGrits

Good Job has been serving up heaping doses of fanservice since Episode 1, but this week things get a little meta as the writers use tropes to repeatedly tease a highly anticipated first kiss between our leading couple. While the romance heats up, so does the tension between our villains as secrets are revealed and trust is lost.

 
EPISODES 9-10 WEECAP

Last we saw our chaebol detective, he had risen from the dead (not really) and set out to reclaim his kingdom! And just in case Sun-woo’s dramatic entrance didn’t burn itself onto your retinas, we rewind and watch the full extent of his stylin’ slow-mo walk down the stairs towards the boardroom all over again. This time, though, we get to witness the adorably heartwarming welcome from his employees who are clearly happy he’s returned — a giant contrast to the depressed and fearful expressions they wore when Wan-soo and Tae-joon made a similar entrance into the boardroom.

Now that the rightful heir has reappeared to sit on the company throne, the weak alliances Wan-soo was able to form in Sun-woo’s absence crumble. The majority of the board members just want to pretend that the whole emergency meeting to replace the (decidedly not dead) chairman never happened. No hostile company takeover to see here, folks! Move along!

Wan-soo’s lackluster defeat stings, but he has bigger concerns: Tae-joon and his various screw-ups. Since Sun-woo is alive and kicking, Wan-soo can’t easily use the chairman title to cover up Tae-joon’s incompetence and embezzlement. Not to mention the whole kidnapping and attempted murder thing. So, Wan-soo orders Jae-ha to fix things somehow, and Jae-ha’s solution is to bury the evidence pertaining to Tae-joon’s illegal activities and coerce President Byeon into confessing he masterminded Sun-woo’s kidnapping.

As always, though, Sun-woo and company are one step ahead, and Jin-mo and Na-hee were already tailing President Byeon in the batvan — OMG, Jin-mo feeding her snacks while she drives is the cutest! The new lovey-dovey couple follow President Byeon to the police station, where they witness his false(ish) confession. They relay this information to Sun-woo, who ensures the police receive the backup copies of all the evidence he gathered against Tae-joon.

What follows Tae-joon’s arrest can only be described as pure fanservice, as both of our couples burn up the screen with their romantic chemistry. Jin-mo and Na-hee are the quintessential sugary sweet couple: full of aegyo and over-the-top romantic gestures, such as the private dinner Jin-mo prepared — complete with heart-shaped balloons, Na-hee’s favorite foods, and a view overlooking the Han River.

Jin-mo has dived headfirst into the role of doting boyfriend, and while his exaggerated enthusiasm makes part of me think he may have lost some of his marbles along the way, I have to say this side of his characterization has grown on me. I still miss the bickering between Jin-mo and Na-hee, but now that Jin-mo is dating and considers himself something of an expert on romance, I like how this adds another layer of teasing between him and Sun-woo.

While Jin-mo and Na-hee have become a couple, Sun-woo and Sera are still skirting around one another, taking turns quietly catching feels and then immediately switching back to being in denial about it, which leads to several charged moments and a few almost-kisses. And this right here, folks, is the one downside to following a drama where the writers are so attuned to our desires.

Yeah, they can give us exactly what we want — and so far they have done a tremendously good job entertaining us — but they can also torture us. They know we’re waiting for our leading couple to kiss, but instead of catering to us this time around, they tease us and dangle the kiss before us like one of those fishing rod cat toys with a feather on the end.

And just when things are getting spicy between our leading couple, Sun-woo finds a new lead to follow. While he was playing house in the countryside with Sera, he found a picture that proves Wan-soo was in town the day his mother was murdered. Director Hong identifies the second man in the photograph as Wan-soo’s former private driver, so Sera and Sun-woo set out to find him.

After first getting lost and then taking a brief detour to locate a missing child (who coincidentally turns out to be the granddaughter of the very man they’re looking for), the former driver confirms that Wan-soo was indeed in town that day. Unfortunately, he cannot remember anything else noteworthy about the day the photograph was taken. After some more thought, though, he recalls that a few days later, on the day of Sun-woo’s mother’s funeral, Wan-soo asked his driver to look into sponsoring a child from the orphanage.

So the next task for our amateur detectives is to find Kim Nam-gyu, the orphan Sun-woo sponsored and sent to study abroad. While Jin-mo tests out the new facial aging software he’s developed to try and render a possible present-day image of an adult Nam-gyu, Sera and Sun-woo do some old-fashioned sleuthing. They start with the orphanage, but the woman in charge doesn’t remember anything helpful.

Back to square one, Sera and Sun-woo fill the time between leads in the case by dancing around their increasing attraction for one another. And while the two of them are still firmly in denial about their mutual interest, everyone else is waiting for Sun-woo and Sera to realize how they feel about each other. Even Director Hong senses something, but he’s too busy being worried that Sera is going to usurp him as Sun-woo’s main secretary to realize that his jealousy is extremely misplaced.

Eventually, Jin-mo has to spell it out for the clueless Sun-woo: you like Sera, and if you keep moving at a snail’s pace, you’re going to lose her to someone else. Given that he just had an encounter with her overprotective “oppa,” Jin-mo’s truth-bomb proves effective, and Sun-woo has an awkward sit-down with Sera and asks her to define their relationship. Sera cautiously responds with the obvious and platonic answers (e.g. boss and employee), and then turns the question back on him. To which he replies — and I got some serious The Law Cafe deja vu with this one — “Not family!” Oh yeah, he definitely feels threatened by her totally-wouldn’t-be-incestuous-if-they-dated brother.

Sadly, the advancing romance between our leads must be interrupted by new developments and revelations around our two remaining villains. Not only is Jae-ha the orphan that Sera and Sun-woo are trying to track down, but Jae-ha is Wan-soo’s son! Oh, and Wan-soo killed Sun-woo’s mother! Sure, these plot “twists” are about as shocking as sticking your tongue on a 3-volt battery, but are any of us really here for the mystery and astonishing birth secrets? Yeah, I didn’t think so.

It doesn’t take Sun-woo and Sera long to track down Nam-gyu’s identity through his former high school teacher, and when Sun-woo confronts Jae-ha, he admits that he is, indeed, the orphan formally known as Nam-gyu. He thinks owning up to the partial truth will make him less suspicious and will allow him and his father to stall for time while they plot to take down Sun-woo. Now that Tae-joo, the prodigal son, is behind bars, Wan-soo promises Jae-ha a seat at his side. But is he serious or just using Jae-ha?

Wan-soo, using knowledge gleaned from Tae-joo’s intel, blackmails Sera into attending the charity event in honor of Eunkang Group’s sponsorship of Sera’s orphanage. He puts her on the spot in front of the attendees and asks a bunch of questions intended to expose her relationship with Sun-woo. But Wan-soo’s poorly thought out plan doesn’t take into account Sun-woo’s charisma or Sera’s extensive job history, and being a former dog trainer definitely qualifies her to have been Tae-joon’s secretary.

Privately, Wan-soo tries to get in the last word. He questions Sera’s qualifications to be by Sun-woo’s side, and when she responds and speaks informally, Wan-soo attributes her rudeness to her parentless upbringing. Sun-woo, however, drops the mic on the whole exchange when he reminds Wan-soo that he really shouldn’t be talking smack about bad parenting when his own son is in prison.

It’s a good thing Wan-soo has a spare heir, right? Yeah, not so much. Jae-ha realizes he’s just another pawn in his father’s quest for company domination — only useful until suddenly he isn’t. So Jae-ha branches out on his own, determined to prove that anything Sun-woo can do, he can do better. Whatever his nefarious plans are, they begin with him confessing to Sun-woo that he witnessed Wan-soo murder Sun-woo’s mother, and out of loyalty to his benefactor, Jae-ha had kept Wan-soo’s secret.

Even though Sun-woo had his suspicions that Wan-soo murdered his mother, having them confirmed unleashes a wave of rage. Sera, who had been listening outside his office door, rushes in and gives him a back hug. She tries to calm him down so that he’s thinking more rationally, but he’s determined to find Wan-soo and punish him. Unfortunately, he doesn’t get to confront his mother’s murderer. When he locates Wan-soo, he’s slumped over in his chair, having overdosed on sleeping pills.

Sera drives Sun-woo home from the hospital, where he’d lamented the dissatisfaction of not being able to kill Wan-soo himself. Later that night he wakes up from his own nightmares, which have not gone away since finding his mother’s killer. Sera comforts him, holds his hand, and admits that she has feelings for him. After hiding behind her glasses for so long, she’s finally found someone she wants to cherish and to be with during the good times and the bad. For the first time, she has someone she wants to see so clearly that she’s happy to have super-vision.

Her honesty moves Sun-woo, and without saying a word, he inches closer. As he decreases the distance between them, he slowly increases the physical affection. He starts by grasping her hands, and then he sweeps her hair from her forehead so he can place a chaste — but oh-so-romantic — kiss on her forehead. And finally, after an excruciatingly long build-up, he presses his lips against hers.

That was one helluva kiss! I don’t know about you, Beanies, but it went on long enough that I legit started to feel like I should look away to give them some privacy. But did I? Nope! The writers spent all of Episodes 9 and 10 taunting us with little moments that made us think we were going to get a kiss via one classic trope after another: a slip-n-fall kiss, a leaning over to adjust seat/seatbelt kiss, or a doctor treating his injured patient kiss. You think I’m going to look away when they finally give it to us?

We also made a lot of headway with our villains this week. There weren’t any real surprises, but I do like how the story has kind of shifted focus from Tae-joon, to Wan-soo, and now to Jae-ha over the course of the drama. Instead of trying to hide the identity of the killer from us and make a big production out of a bunch of red herrings, the drama has just been shifting our focus from one bad guy to the next to keep up the momentum whenever the drama isn’t giving us massive doses of fanservice.

I could be wrong, but I do think there will be one last reveal about the night Sun-woo’s mother died. Gwang-ki is extremely adamant that Sera not be involved in the investigation and doesn’t want her to regain her memories, so she is definitely going to be involved. I’m just hoping there’s more to it than the fact that Sera witnessed the murder from afar with her super-sight. Based on her nightmares, we know she witnessed something, but maybe Sun-woo’s mother didn’t die when her head hit the rock? What if a young Jae-ha finished the job in order to endear himself to his father? I guess we’ll find out in next week’s conclusion. Aww… I just made myself sad. I don’t want to say goodbye to these characters!

 
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Good Job: Episodes 9-10
Source: Buzz Pinay Daily