Romance in the House – K-drama Episode 3 Recap & Review

The Great Byeon-sby’s Secret

Episode 3 of Romance in the House begins with Tae-pyeong teaching kids tae-kwon-do. His signature kick is the same one he uses against Mi-rae’s dad of course. So not only is he a knight in shining armour, he’s also got good strength and he’s a hit with the ladies too.

At work, Mi-rae takes him aside and pleads with him not to tell anyone what happened outside the Mart. She threatens to get him fired but also points out that it was rather satisfying seeing him boot Moo-jin in the face.

Meanwhile, Ae-yeon makes her decision and chooses to stay rather than move out of the villa. When Mi-rae finds out, she’s not particularly happy, suggesting they could always take out another loan. The thing is, they’re already up to their eyeballs with debts so that’s not exactly a great option. Mi-rae questions whether her mum is getting swayed by his riches, but she immediately turns on her daughter and lays down the law, promising that this absolutely is not the case.

Mi-rae shows up to see her dad and he refuses to hand over his wedding ring. In fact, he intends to try and seduce her back into loving him. Mi-rae is shocked and very clearly rattled. Moo-jin is so confident he can win Ae-yeon over, he decides to set up a bet to make a wager on this. The stake? Her entire alimony money. With interest and inflation, that adds up to the entirety of the villa ownership.

There’s four weeks for this to take effect, and the deal is bound and notarized the next day. Oh, and Mi-rae pays the rent for the month too, keeping her pride in the process of all this.

One of the more important flashbacks we saw in episode 2 (which we didn’t touch on too much last week until we knew more) stems from Mi-rae seeing her father in trouble with loan-sharks. With the restaurant completely trashed, she was not happy. Now, the bit we didn’t see is that she made him promise to get lost, vowing that he’s dead to her and never return again. Now that he’s broken that by buying up the villa, it explains part of her resentment and anger toward him right now.

In the midst of this, we also get a subplot involving Choi Dong-jin, one of the villa residents who lives in the semi-basement. He doesn’t trust Moo-jin and is spooked by him especially when Moo-jin himself shows at the apartment. He wants his locks changed, partly because he saw him the night before the fire hanging with the landlord.

Of course, Lee Jeong-hyeok, the guy already suspicious about Moo-jin, is all-in with this theory and the other residents all start to band together to figure out if there’s weight to this story, along with spreading rumours about what his history could be. Did he go to prison? Is he an ex-convict? Either way, Moo-jin burning “traces” up on the rooftop and entering a tofu restaurant seem to be the bigger suspicious elements here.

They all work themselves up to a big stupor, with the group even believing Ae-yeon and the kids could be part of this “murder cover-up”. While they theorize, Moo-jin moves in and tries to woo Ae-yeon. And predictably, his first stab at doing this goes badly. Getting nowhere, Moo-jin tries a different tactic.

Moo-jin speaks to Hyeon-jae who breaks down just how difficult things have been for them. He also points out how Mi-rae has not had a boyfriend and Ae-yeon works at the department store. Slamming down his credit card, he decides to try and help them out financially. Hyeon-jae is all in but outside, he’s rattled byb seeing his old landlord.

Apparently, this guy hit on Ae-yeon while they lived there and he kept trying to break into their Unit while they lived there when he was drunk. Moo-jin is not happy but similarly, Jeong-in is not happy with him either. So he’s increasing the list of people not on his good side.

At work, there’s a big reveal as Mi-rae overhears the CEO and Tae-pyeong in the elevator. It turns out, the CEO is actually Tae-pyeong’s father! They believe Mi-rae is going to reveal the truth but she agrees for them to keep it all tight-lipped for now. Less quiet though are the villa residents, who are convinced that Moo-jin is an arsonist and responsible for the landlord’s death.

When Hwang Jin-hee, the woman with a kindergarten kid, approaches Ae-yeon at work, Moo-jin has seen enough. He jumps in but Mi-rae too points out that Moo-jin is a stranger to them and not their father. Part of this stems from his horrific history, which has angered Mi-rae as she sees nothing but destruction and misery when he’s about. Remember the snack bar that got smashed up when the loan sharks arrived? It turns out it got shut down because of Moo-jin.

After being reprimanded at work, the girls head home while Moo-jin is left to stew over the past. He drinks heavily, downing shots of soju, while Hyeon-jae shows up with a lie-detector of sorts and everything comes back as truth. It’s a weird attempt at levity that doesn’t quite work.

In the morning, Moo-jin rings Ae-yeon and promises that nobody is going to pester her anymore. He shows up at the police station and decides to testify regarding the fire, with information that could help their investigation.

After, he gathers all the residents to spill the beans. He shows them all his matches and explains he tried to convince the landlord to sell to him. He’s not happy that the residents all pestered Ae-yeon and his explanations are enough to swing them in his favour. Moo-jin even decides to buy them enough drinks to get them all drunk. As they all drink, Moo-jin sends a cheeky message to Mi-rae, telling her that he refuses to give up and he’s going to continue on.

During the epilogue, we cut back to the incident with the landlord from earlier in the episode. He’s definitely a creep and Moo-jin confronts him inside a restaurant when he’s about to harass a woman. He promises to kill the guy if he shows up in the neighbourhood again.

The Episode Review

Romance in the House returns with another intriguing episode, one that blends comedy and mystery together into a show that works some of the time, and other times it hits bum notes. Some of the humour is ill-fitting – like that of Hyeon-jae doing the lie detector and the final moments where the tone wildly swings back to comedy – but for the most part it does work reasonably well.

The villa residents are definitely channelling their inner-Hometown Cha Cha Cha/Vincenzo roots here and you get the feeling that this is where the levity is going to come from. However, I hope they’ll now turn and start to favour Ae-yeon and their family after initially talking smack for the first two episodes.

To be honest, the most interesting part of this drama stems from Mi-rae and Moo-jin’s estranged relationship. It’s fascinating to see their dynamic and it remains to be seen if they’ll patch up their differences before everything is all said and done.

For now though, Romance in the House has been a good watch and everything is left wide open for where this one may go next.