Beautiful Love, Wonderful Life – Episodes 7 & 8 Recap & Review

Cheong-Ah’s Turmoil

After yesterday’s slower episode, Beautiful Love picks up the pace with an episode charged with emotional scenes and some needed development for our main characters.

We start with Seol-Ah on the news, talking about the death of hero Joon-Kyum while his brother watches it on TV looking devastated. After discussing funeral plans with her sister, Yu-Ra calls Young-Ae asking to speak to her daughter. She replies that she’s at school which shocks Yu-Ra. Young-Ae apologises and tells her she will always remember Joon-Kyum prompting Yu-Ra to ask for a favour – to be able to see Cheong-Ah from time to time.

Meanwhile, Cheong-Ah decides to go to the funeral and arrives at the same time as Joon-Hwi. With his head down, she doesn’t realize he’s the same soldier she met on the train. As Cheong pays her respects, Hwa-Young stops her and admits it’s all her fault her nephew died. She then takes her into a private room where she forces her on her knees and to apologize, pouring water over her head.

Cheong-Ah returns home but lies to her mum about the reason why she’s wet. Young-Ae has dinner with her daughters and berates Seol-Ah for not saving any money for when she ever wants to get married. However, she replies that her plan is to find a rich guy. During the funeral, Joon-Hwi asks his mum why she wanted to do an autopsy. She explains that she wanted to know for sure what had happened, going on to lie that she knew Joon-Kyum had a girlfriend. As she goes through her son’s possessions, Yu-Ra finds a hospital receipt and looks really disturbed by it.

While Seol-Ah tries on more clothes in the store, Hwa-Young discusses with the sales assistant how she despises poor people asking for freebies and claims that she’ll have to start shopping elsewhere. Seol replies that it’s really ugly when rich people abuse their power. Angry, she vows to Seol that she will never let her marry her son.

Seol-Ah heads to her arranged date, thinking it will be with the owner of the elevator firm. However, she finds Jin-Woo instead who has been organizing the whole thing. Still thinking he’s the elevator guy, she mentions that she knows that he’s divorced and beats women up, however she’s still determined to marry him. Amused by her determination, Jin-Woo finally reveals who he really is and tells her he wants to marry her.

Yu-Ra invites Cheong-Ah over, determined to get some answers. She shows her his honourable death certificate and the medical receipt with the name Park Keu Sun written on it. Cheong remembers the name being one of the people Joon-Kyum claimed to have eaten. When Yu-ra asks her which one is the truth, Cheong points at the death certificate.

After leaving each other, Jin-Woo calls Seol-Ah to talk about their new relationship. They agree not to listen to their parents if they don’t approve and to go on short dates before getting married within the year. However, as she heads home she realizes the connection between her sister and Jin-Woo. She confronts her soon after, telling her she should have died too and how she ruined her life.

Hwa-Young reveals to her son who Seol-Ah is and tells him that she’ll never take her in. Meanwhile, Seol-Ah tells her parents that Jin-Woo, who is Joon-Kyum’s cousin, has asked to marry her but because of her sister, they’ll never accept her. After Seol storms out of the room, her father tells Cheong-Ah to get out and to kill herself if that’s what she wants.

Cheong-Ah heads to the roof of her house to speak to Joon-Kyum some time later. As she looks up to the sky, she tells him what he said was a lie and to give her a sign. At that moment, a shirt suddenly falls on top of her to keep her warm.

We then jump forward one year where we see Joon-Hwi in college. He receives his post and one of the letters is from his late brother – it turns out that he sent it the day before he died. Joon-Kyum wrote all about his last day on earth and meeting Cheong-Ah, finishing the letter by revealing that he loves his brother.

Today’s episode of Beautiful love had some very difficult scenes to watch and unfortunately, Cheong always seems to be the victim in each of the episodes so far. First with Hwa-Young, blaming her for the death of her nephew, followed by some physical and emotional abuse. The most heart-breaking though came from when her father tells her to kill herself. This was a tough moment to experience and we’re left to wonder what kind of scars this will cause Cheong-Ah going forward.

Hwa-Young is certainly growing into becoming the evil character too, with her current victim being both sisters. Now that her son is aware who his future wife is, who knows if he’ll still be determined to marry her. The end of the episode jumps forward one year and this really makes us wonder what has been happening for every other character. Are Jin-Woo and Seol-Ah now married? Is Cheong-Ah still living with her dreadful father? Aware of his brother’s suicide, will Joon-Hwi tell the rest of his family? So many questions hang over this show and hopefully they’ll be answered sooner rather than later!