Record Of Youth – Episode 8 Recap & Review

Jeong-Ha’s Decision

Episode 8 of Record Youth begins with Hae-Hyo and his sister talking about Hye-Jun and his new girlfriend. As I-Yeong enters the room, the conversation then turns to how well Hye-Jun’s career is going. There’s obviously hints of jealousy starting to creep in here.

Meanwhile, Hye-Jun and Jeong-Ha head out for a date with both of them eating food and discussing their feelings for one another. He mentions how relaxed he feels around her and this leads them to the meaning of their names.

Given Hye-Jun’s means forgiveness, he contemplates whether this means he has to forgive everyone. These scenes take place before Hye-Jun’s big gig we saw last episode, as they mention the Gateway project he’s about to take part in.

They’re not the only ones though. Ae-Suk starts working and learns from I-Yeong that Hye-Jun has a big gig. When she messages Yeong-Nam to tell him, he scoffs at the notion and hopes his son fails. Father of year over here wants to teach him a lesson.

Back at I-Yeong’s, she asks Ae-Suk for recommendations for a new cook. She suggests Jin-U’s mother and I-Yeong feigns a smile. The back and forth inner monologues between the two are golden and perfectly capture the comedic undertone of this.

Elsewhere, Jeong-Ha heads back to work and realizes that Jin-Ju is going to do everything in her power to kick her out. With her true colours showing, Jeong-Ha vows to do everything she can to prevent this happening. As we soon see, someone happens to be filming this entire encounter from around the corner.

Tae-Su organises a meeting with Do-Ha for an upcoming drama. As they discuss prospective people to work with, Do-Ha mentions Hae-Hyo and how they got on well together on a previous shoot.

While Gyeong-Nam comes under fire at work regarding the rental scam, they soon change their tone when Hye-Jun arrives to pick his brother up for dinner.

As they start drinking, Gyeong-Nam embarrasses him and eventually breaks down crying when he heads home.

While Yeong-Nam takes care of his son, Ae-Suk and Hye-Jun get talking about his big gig on TV. She wonders why he hasn’t said anything. Eventually he admits that after the last time, he wanted to make sure it didn’t fall through before telling his Mother. The conversation then turns to his girlfriend and Hye-Jun’s face lights up.

After letting Jeong-Ha do his make-up and hair back home, we cut forward to Hye-Jun’s big moment on Gateway. Hye-Jun completely hits it out the park and as everyone watches, Min-Ki break down crying upon seeing Hye-Jun’s big gig.

I-Yeong also sees the drama too and immediately heads upstairs to see her son. She breaks up the conversation between Hae-Hyo and Hye-Jun and confirms that his drama will do much better, especially given he’s working with Do-Ha.

Elsewhere, Min-Jae greets Joon-Young and reveals that his stint on TV has really blown up. As he heads outside, he signs his first autograph… which leads to a long line of people asking to meet and greet him.

After filming a commercial, Joon-Young falls asleep while picking up Jeong-Ha. He’s been busy sorting everything out but wakes up when Jeong-Ha greets him. He drives her to the salon where things go from bad to worse for Jeong-Ha.

In trying to go above and beyond for a client, her fussiness backfires. Jeong-Ha is told to do her job right and the backlash from this causes her to break down in tears.

Believing her gig is over, Jeong-Ha meets her boss who tells her to keep Hye-Jun. After overhearing Jin-Ju frame the entire event with the make-up, she dumps several glasses of water on her head and quits.

With Tae-Su’s career starting to falter with Do-Ha, he meets with a reporter and discusses his current situation. Instead of mentioning Do-Ha, he instead turns the attention to Hye-Jun and the Charlie Jung situation. While we don’t see the conclusion to this, it’s obvious it’s not the last we’ve heard of this.

Elsewhere, everyone heads out to celebrate Hye-Jun’s successful drama. However, Ji-A rings and confirms she’s on the way over too. Given this is Hye-Jun’s ex girlfriend it could cause big drama at the dinner.

Hae-Hyo meets the girl first and she promises not to make a big scene when she shows up. Jeong-Ha makes a quick exit though before things can become too awkward and heads back home.

There, her mother confronts her over quitting the job and her recklessness in deciding to do this. Struggling to hold back tears, the two come to blows and Jeong-Ha left alone to cry. Unfortunately Hye-Jun is asleep and doesn’t see her message.

Thankfully Jeong-Ha meets him the next day and the duo head out for a car ride. As they park up, it starts raining again and they share their true feelings for one another.

Hye-Jun tells her he loves her and the pair seem to have an unbreakable bond. As they start dancing in the rain, this couple revel in their perfect relationship… is it too good to be true?

The Episode Review

There’s some nice drama here this week with the Min-Ki situation side-lined in favour of Hye-Jun’s movie career, which really starts to take off. Seeing him grow over time is great to see and it’s definitely one of the stronger parts of this drama.

That’s to say nothing of Jeong-Ha either who finally starts to stand on her own two feet and refuses to be pushed around anymore. Good for her. That’s great to see and really shows how far her character has come. Quite what she’ll do for work now though remains to be seen.

I have a feeling that Hye-Jun’s career may hit a road-bump though given Tae-Su’s remarks about Charlie Jung and this could bring some unpleasantness to the fold.

For now though, the series does well to keep things engaging and it’ll be interesting to see where this one goes next.