Forecasting Love and Weather: Episode 5 & 6

Episode 5: Localized Heavy Rain

 

“Atmospheric instability, the collision of two types of air with different properties. The atmosphere becomes unstable and dangerous weather occurs”

 

Episode 5 starts where episode 4 ends, Si-woo and Ha-kyung wakes up together and scrambles to get to work. Si-woo however receives a phone call which disrupts his morning and bothers Ha-kyung since Si-woo did not tell her what the call was about. Yu-jin and Ki-jun also share a not so peaceful morning with Ki-jun still angry with Yu-jin’s lie and published article. And although Si-woo and Ha-kyung want to keep their relationship under wraps we see a high probability of them getting busted with a co-worker staying in the same building as Ha-kyung.

 

It is quite funny how the couple struggles to hide their relationship when they were seen together by Shin Seok-ho (Moon Tae-yoo) but Seok-ho seem to not care at all instead he is more invested on the current predicament of the heavy rain which caused some flooding. Si-woo corrects Ha-kyung and gets the approval of the director general which seemed to be a lapse in judgement by Ha-kyung which somehow embarrasses her. Senior Eum gets called out for being late and gets asked by the director general about his situation at home but he choses not to talk about it. We see a flashback of Senior Eum’s argument with his wife and his eventual decision of moving out.

 

In the situation room, Si-woo and Ha-kyung again clashes but Ha-kyung stands her ground and earns some complaints from her team. Si-woo gets another phone call which Ha-kyung notices but did not ask about. Meanwhile with Ki-jun’s end they get a complaint of issuing two inconsistent statements, he’s on his way to settle with Team Two but sees Yu-jin heading out. Out of his suspicion he follows her and sees her talking to Si-woo. The two seem to be talking about another person who’s trying to contact both of them. Ki-jun and Si-woo argues, Ki-jun driving at the no need for Team Two to directly communicate with the reporters while Si-woo counters that there should be a better communication between Ki-jun’s team and the reporters instead

 

Ki-jun reports this to Ha-kyung and finds out that Ha-kyung already knew about SI-woo and Yu-jin’s relationship. Ki-jun then concludes that Ha-kyung is still not over him and accepted Si-woo in her team to spite Ki-jun. Si-woo tries to appease the obviously upset Ha-kyung and tries to find out why Ki-jun spoke to Ha-kyung. Ha-kyung counters as to why Si-woo was asking when she did not ask why Yu-jin called him. They both somehow settle their misunderstanding by being honest and hugs before going back to the office but once again, Seok-ho just happens to be near them making them both look suspicious.

 

Team Two gets busy with analyzing the data assigned to them and ultimately misses out a heavy rain forming their radar. This causes flooding and 2 laborers to be missing since KMA failed to issue a heavy rain warning. KMA gets a lot of backlash and Team Two gets into an argument amongst each other. Senior Eum takes the blame, Ha-kyung takes offense and scold Senior Eum. Kim Soo-jin (Chae Seo-eun) also speaks out and complains of the workload Ha-kyung placed on them. As the work day finishes, Ha-kyung gets an advise from Oh Myeung-ju (Yoon Se-bong) with regards to their team dynamic while Si-woo talks to Soo-jin and lets her understand why Ha-kyung made such decision as explained to him by Seok-ho.

 

 

 

Ha-kyung and Senior Eum meets at the site where two laborers were missing to assess the situation and to show their concern. Both then felt relieved when the missing persons were found, they then have dinner together and had a few drinks and both opened up to each other. It was implied that Ha-kyung trained under Senior Eum but manages to get past him since he got into a slump. We then get to see Tae-kyung meeting Seok-ho but both are unaware of how the two of them are related to Ha-kyung. We also get to see Myeung-ju and her family with 2 little boys and her husband, who wanted to take a year off and take the civil service exam.

 

The episode ends with Si-woo and Ha-kyung bumping into each other, Ha-kyung sending the drunk Senior Eum to sleep in a motel while Si-woo coming out of it.

 

Episode 6: Heat Island Phenomenon

 

“Past wounds are nasty. You think you’re all better now. But when you look back, they’re still infected. The deeper you memories of those wounds are, the more cowardly you become. Like air trapped in a forest of skyscrapers, you’re trapped in self-pity and pain. You spin around in circles in the same place and isolate yourself”

 

The episode picks up the last scene from episode 5, where Si-woo and Ha-kyung awkwardly meets each other. Both question why they were there and both gave out vague answers leaving a heavy air of suspicion. Senior Eum’s family is seen having breakfast without him and though they go about it like they normally do, his daughter shows concern and his wife gave out an excuse which they both probably said and heard a lot before.

 

Ha-kyung’s mom is also shown to be prepare some sort of dish absentmindedly under the scorching which concerns Tae-kyung. Si-woo gets notified that he can only stay for a week more in his temporary lodging place,  his morning gets even more problematic when Ha-kyung called him out and ask for some time off. In an attempt to hold on to Ha-kyung, Si-woo confesses that he met his father who’s addicted to gambling and has been asking for money from him

 

We then see Ki-jun and Yu-jin having a meal together and discussing about the registration of their marriage. While Ki-jun enjoys his meal, his workmate is working hard to finish an article that Ki-jun is supposed to finish this puts pressure on Ki-jun puts him a further slump. We transition to Yu-jin who is hesitant to file their marriage registration.

 

Ha-kyung and Senior Em start to be friendly with each other and Si-woo does not like it. Ha-kyung then gets called out by Si-woo’s father who shamelessly blackmails her to give him some cash. Ha-kyung then faces another problem when Si-woo informs her that her mother was brought to the hospital. At first she tries to put the problem off but Senior Eum steps in and pushed her to leave work to them for her to go and see her mom.

 

As the work day ends, as Team Two leaves KMA they first bump into Ki-jun who was looking for Ha-kyung. The team then infers that he is there to ask for Ha-kyung’s help with his article.The team then bumps into Myeung-ju’s husband who was getting scolded by his superior who seems younger than he is. Myeung-ju comforts his husband and tells him that she supports his decision to take the civil service exam. Si-woo excuses himself from the team and meets his father to give him the money that he needed. Si-woo then finds out that his father meet Ha-kyung and hears him sexualizing Ha-kyung this angers Si-woo and he warns him never to approach Ha-kyung.

In parallel scenes, we see the couples together. Si-woo apologized to Ha-kyung about his father, while Ha-kyung about the trauma of her father leaving them. Ha-kyung asks Si-woo to promise her to let her be the first to know if ever he falls out of love with Ha-kyung. On the other hand, Ki-jun rejoices after his work (with Ha-kyung’s help) got chosen. The mood sours when Yu-jin informed Ki-jun that she did not register their marriage which is the opposite for our main couple as Ha-kyung proposes for Si-woo and her to live together.

 

 

My thoughts:

 

The monologue for the past few episodes have been quite telling of the direction of the episode. For episode 5, Ha-kyung monologues about the meeting of air with different properties and the dangers it could entail. Like how predicted in my previous review, we are indeed going to be having a roller coaster ride of events that would test our couple’s relationship. In episode. 6, Ha-kyung’s monologue about heat island would tell about trapped emotions that could cause problems eventually.

 

First of, our main couple have different personalities, Si-woo being free-spirited while Ha-kyung is in a way jaded. Si-woo tends to ask while Ha-kyung doesn’t and instead waits to be told instead, this contrast turns into a problem. Uncharacteristically, Si-woo hid some details of his life from Ha-kyung which causes her to doubt. I do understand that Si-woo did not want Ha-kyung to find out about his father. Ha-kyung also on the other hand deciding not to explain why she was with Senior Eum was also understandable since it was Senior Eum’s matter and not hers.

 

We also see two different parents here. Ha-kyung’s mom who’s been worrying about her daughter and Si-woo’s dad who’s nothing but a pain in the ass for him. Si-woo’s dad does not deserve to be called a father. I don’t know where these kind of people get the idea that they deserve to be respected and be called a parent.

 

And then we have Ki-jun, he is not only shameless but also such a jerk. He holds grudges and shamelessly accused Ha-kyung of still being in love with him which is really narcissistic of him. He also still asks for Ha-kyung’s help and gets all the credit for it. At first I pitied him for being compared to Ha-kyung but him accusing Ha-kyung and confronting Si-woo really puts me off.

 

Moving on to the other characters, one of my favorite so far is the director general which I continually forget to talk about in my previous reviews. He gives off the “leader vibe” – one who looks after his team well. He commended Ha-kyung back in the previous episode for standing up for the team, and offered a listening ear to Senior Eum who’s been going through some hardship. At first I didn’t like him for putting Ha-kyung in a difficult position in episode 2 but he turned out to be okay.

 

Next character of interest is Myeung-ju. We see her being sisterly to both Ha-kyung and Soo-jin but despite being all calm, we see that she has been struggling too. In one of the previous episodes it was said that she was once a competent worker like Ha-kyung but got married and was stuck to her current position. We see her and his husband to be average earners and that despite being a dual-income family they are barely getting by, so it is a heavy decision for her to support her husband’s desire to take the civil service exam and take a year off from work. Their kids are starting to attend classes and the family would need all the help it could get and being a sole-earner would a big sacrifice for her. We see her husband getting berated and we understand his desire to aim higher which ultimately help their family. I hope this family doesn’t crumble as the stress would weigh on Myeung-ju’s shoulder.

 

I’d like to talk about Seok-ho, who seems to have a mysterious life. He catches our main couple together but doesn’t ask them about it – my theory is he is either to naïve to consider the couple being together or he just really don’t care. He seem like the typical introvert who doesn’t want to interact with people, he isn’t that passionate with his job and he lives a comfortable life that maybe he doesn’t need to work which leads me to wonder why he is stuck in such workplace.

 

The story of supporting characters in korean dramas is one its appealing points, the supporting characters are not just there as fillers but they actually give more depth to the story without deviating much from the main plot.

 

 

What struck me the most in this week’s episode is when Ha-kyung asked Si-woo to promise her that if he does fall out of love with her, let her be the first to know. To some extent, I relate to that situation. Being in a long distance relationship myself, I know of how uncertain things could get and we could not control our partner or ourselves to change. For me, as respect to our partners, we shouldn’t keep them out of the dark. Everyone deserves at least that much respect, no matter how our partners.

 

My take away thoughts from these episodes is that communication is the key. Each of us is different and it is inevitable to clash at times. But with proper communication we can come to a compromise and reach a common ground. We should try to be honest at all times, to the best of our ability. Bottling things up could only lead to destructive tendencies and as social beings we’d need an outlet to vent our feelings to and that is what being in a relationship with other people is for, be it with our God, our family, our significant others or our friends.

 

 

 

How about you, what are your thoughts?