Bora! Deborah: Episodes 3-4

Bora! Deborah: Episodes 3-4

by Unit

Our heroine takes a pretty hard fall from grace this week. And as she will learn, being a professional dating coach does not guarantee immunity from heartbreak.

 
EPISODES 3-4

We pick up from where we left off last week with Bora finding out that her boyfriend is a cheat. Naturally, Bora is heartbroken and even more so because despite catching Ju-wan red-lipped, he still gaslights her… because according to him, the only reason a girlfriend will show up unannounced at her boyfriend’s is because she doesn’t trust him. It’s bad enough that Ju-wan is cheating with a girl he once introduced to Bora as his cousin (we call each other’s moms “auntie”), but he wants to drop off said cousin at home before attending to Bora? Aigoo!

As if the situation isn’t embarrassing enough, Bora trips and falls as she storms off. Soo-hyuk trails after Bora to make sure she’s okay, but when she calls him to switch phones she sees that he saved her name on his phone as “Obnoxious Deborah The Liar.” Oops! Soo-hyuk ducks out of sight to take the call, but Bora spots him anyway, and she’s mortified to learn that he was a witness to her humiliation. Now it cannot get worse than this!

Bora expects Ju-wan to call and apologize after their argument, but he doesn’t. Instead, her mom calls to chew her out over scolding her younger sister YEOM BOMI (Kim Ye-ji). Oblivious to the current situation, Mom also throws in the “Do you do that to Ju-wan, too?” and even Bomi takes Ju-wan’s side. But none of this rubs salt into Bora’s wounds more than Bomi getting a slew of texts from YANG JIN-HO (Gu Jun-hoe a.k.a iKON’s Ju-ne), the cute saved-her-from-a-pervert guy she met at a club last week. Bomi gets texts from someone she just met and Bora can’t get an apology text from her supposed boyfriend of three years? Tsk.

Still, Bora won’t break up with Ju-wan just because he was “hit by pre-marriage blues and made one stupid mistake.” She tries to rationalize his actions and makes excuses for him until she and Yoo-jung go for a drink at Jin-woo’s bar and overhear a conversation between Ju-wan and Jin-woo. Rather than apologize to Bora as Jin-woo suggests, Ju-wan expresses relief at Bora’s discovery of his cheating. At least he doesn’t have to marry her anymore. He calls her clingy and suffocating, and Bora rushes off in devastation. And it’s official: Ju-wan is cancelled!

Ju-wan eventually reaches out to Bora. But rather than a heartfelt apology over drinks, he just keeps repeating “I’m sorry” over and over like a programmed robot. Puffy eyes and a misery-streaked face is an image unbefitting of her status as a dating coach, so Bora gets up to leave. But she blows her top when Ju-wan inadvertently spills that he’s only here because Bomi (who has been all good sisterly since she heard about the breakup) texted him in concern over Bora’s post-breakup blues.

Bora dumps her classy Deborah act into a passing garbage truck, and things between her and Ju-wan escalate into ugliness. Bora implores the garbage collectors to take Ju-wan too since he’s trash, and they get into a drunken “What type of garbage are you?” argument. Unrecyclable? Toxic waste? Man, it’d be hilarious if Bora wasn’t going through a meltdown. Nah, I’m kidding. The whole scene is freaking hilarious! Albeit sad because this is the pathetic manner in which their three-year relationship ends.

But while some relationships are ending, new ones are being formed. A recruiter gives job seeker BANG WOO-RI (Hong Hwa-yeon) the wrong company information for an interview, and she ends up at Jinlee publishers. Earnest Woo-ri is very likeable off the bat, and she wins points with Sang-jin because she’s a fan of his many kkondae-like innovations at work. Once Deborah’s project begins they’ll need someone to help with the extra workload. So, Woo-ri is hired as a temp for a six-month period with a full-time position in view if she works hard. Yaay! She’s all flustered when Sang-jin calls her “our Woo-ri” and it looks like somebody has a crush! Lol.

Speaking of which, Bora still hasn’t signed the “an offer you can’t refuse” contract with Jinlee yet (what in the Godfather? LMAO!), and Sang-jin is beginning to worry that she has ghosted them. But since Soo-hyuk is aware of the breakup, he maintains that Bora has her reasons for not checking her mail yet. Awww. Look who’s defending Bora to Sang-jin now. Sang-jin is not one to wait around without a word, so he decides to honor the invitation to a party where Deborah is the guest of honor.

At the Golden Night party thrown by La Bella magazine (where Yoo-jung works as a writer), the editor-in-chief SEO SOO-JIN (Song Min-ji) — who does her best to serve Miranda Priestley vibes — congratulates Bora on her engagement. It’d be embarrassing to deny the engagement allegations, so Bora accepts the congratulations and the corresponding toast. (By the way, Soo-jin is Sang-jin’s ex-wife, and now I see why Yoo-jung called him her brother-in-law. Heh.) Soo-jin and Sang-jin’s relationship is anything but cordial (especially on her part), but they try to keep up appearances.

Back to Bora, she goes from finishing the toast to finishing the entire bottle and a few extra ones. And she’s royally wasted by the time she’s called onstage. She goes on a drunken rant that starts with “ladies are only after a diamond ring” and ends with “men are bastards!” Oops! And for her mic-drop moment, she hits her heel and lands on her back. Ouch! In her moment of humiliation, Bora wishes for someone to carry her offstage. And Soo-hyuk comes to the rescue like a hero on a white horse.

The clips from the event go viral and La Bella is inundated with angry calls from guests. Everyone hails Soo-hyuk for being a hero but as for a horrified Ju-wan, his image is more important and all his chicken brain can think of is to update the security at his company to not allow Bora into the office. And the difference in class between Soo-hyuk and Ju-wan couldn’t be any more glaring. Tsk. Mom’s Chicken also releases a statement about terminating Deborah’s contract with them and that’s just the start of Deborah’s woes as an influencer.

For her “anti-men” and “anti-women” statements, Bora becomes the number one public enemy and hundreds of comments from both sides pour in by the minute bashing her. It’s even worse when she puts up an apology post explaining that she couldn’t control her emotions after a breakup. She makes no excuses for her actions and clarifies that she wasn’t under the influence of drugs (very important these days). She also announces that she will halt all current schedules to reflect. But to the public, her image just goes from crazy to pathetic. And it’s the complete downfall of the popular dating coach.

With her public image in the dumps, Sang-jin wants to hold off on the deal with Deborah. But it’s Soo-hyuk’s turn to be pissed because if there’s one person who understands what Bora is going through right now, it’s him. He’s still hung up over his ex and in a way, he’s kinda more delusional than Bora was when she was making excuses for Ju-wan. Soo-hyuk refuses to move on from his ex and bases his hope on a song played over the radio (the same song the ex chose when she confessed her feelings to him back then). According to Soo-hyuk, it’s a sign that she’s waiting to hear from him. But his delusions hit the rock when he goes to her place and sees for himself that she has moved on and she’s with someone else.

Soo-hyuk is miserable, Bora is miserable. They individually reflect on everything that went wrong in their relationships, and we end the week with their meeting at the traffic lights as they cry their hearts out. Neither of them was completely faultless in the breakdown of their respective relationships, but based on what we’ve seen from the show so far, I’m optimistic that these two won’t wallow in misery for too long. The good thing about hitting rock bottom is that there’s nowhere else to go but up. Hopefully, they pick up the pieces as well as take the lessons they learned from their previous relationships and move on.

As for the only surviving relationship in the show — Yoo-jung and Jin-woo — these two are on a slippery slope. Jin-woo is too laid back and he’s more of an avoidant than confrontational spouse. Get married because she asked first. Pretend to be asleep because he doesn’t want to have sex. Make I’m-bored-with-my-wife type of jokes and play it off as “guy talk.” It’s getting tiring. Yoo-jung and Jin-woo are becoming more of roommates than a couple, and it’s up to Jin-woo to sit up and decide if he wants to be a husband or not. Lord knows my Yoo-jung deserves better than this!

 
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Bora! Deborah: Episodes 3-4
Source: Buzz Pinay Daily