K-Drama Review: To the Beautiful You, Episodes 7-8

Read Episode reviews for:

To The Beautiful You--Episodes 1-2
To The Beautiful You--Episodes 3-4
To The Beautiful You--Episodes 5-6
To The Beautiful You--Episodes 7-8
To The Beautiful You--Episodes 9-10
To The Beautiful You--Episodes 11-12
To The Beautiful You--Episodes 13-14
To The Beautiful You--Episodes 15-16



Contains Spoilers for Episodes 7-8

So Jaehee falls and Taejoon catches her, landing on the puffy highjump mat.

As the Magical Glitter of Love Rains Down.

 

Both parties are embarrassed and bug-eyed, as are Hanna and Eungyul, who were watching from the doorway of the gym. Hanna is not pleased, and she tells Taejoon that he is not allowed to slip anymore, without her permission. I guess that's part of Hanna's abrasive charm. Hanna even wheedles her way into a boys-only party for Dorm 2, just by calling dorm captain Seungri "oppa" and whining a bit.

Jaehee is sad that Hanna is hanging on to Taejoon, but she can't exactly do anything about it. Meanwhile, Eungyul tells Jaehee the news that he is going to start dating a girl he used to go to elementary school with. Jaehee is thrilled for him.

He Isn't As Happy As He Should Be, Though.

At the dorm party, the boys are singing off key to SISTAR's "Loving U," and they're having so much fun, it's downright embarrassing. Hanna gets up to sing her own karaoke song, and you can tell she's not a good singer, but the song is her plea to Taejoon to accept her affection. Jaehee leaves the room to go sit with the dorm's dog. Taejoon follows her outside, and Hanna looks on, simultaneously hurt and seething.

Ooh, ooh, ooh, and in a lovely turn of events, Dorm 1 is flooded, so all the occupants have to be moved to Dorm 2, and the Dorm 2 guys have to share rooms between three of them. YAY. The funniest part of this show is the dorm hijinks, so this is like the best possible thing that could happen. Annoying Jongmin moves in with Eungyul and Hyunjae, cause he adores Eungyul...except he's told that Eungyul has already moved elsewhere!

Jongmin is Disappoint.

Guess where Eungyul has decided to move? To the home of all awkwardness, aka, Taejoon and Jaehee's room.

This Will Be In No Way Tense and Uncomfortable!

Taejoon gives his alpha stare and wants Eungyul to leave, while Eungyul is all, "Hey, this is school policy. It's not like I want to be here." Cue flashbacks of him whimpering and begging an upperclassman to switch room assignments. Teehee.

It's cute how Taejoon, Eungyul, and Jaehee start walking around campus like a happy trio of buddies. This from Taejoon the loner, who once had no friends at all. Jaehee and Eungyul have further instances of cuteness, like when she pushes him in the pool and when he brings her ramyun noodles.

And I'm Really Loving His Rainbow-Brick Shirt.

 

Taejoon starts to feel left out. He tells Eungyul and Jaehee to go eat their ramyun in the bathroom, since he doesn't like the smell of food in the room. Their happy giggling over their food makes him notice that he's the dark, stoic third wheel of the group.

 

Taejoon's life elsewhere is a bit awkward, too. His rivalry with fellow high jumper Hyunjae is always grating at him, and little things continually remind him of the loss of his mom. Then Eungyul and Jaehee are always giggling up a storm and distracting him.

 

But Soon They Make an Effort to Include Him In the Fun.

 

Eungyul and Jaehee take Taejoon out for bowling, and they just so happen to run into Seungri, Jongmin, and Hyunjae, who want to play 3-on-3. Doggone if they're not all the most precious things ever, using pink bowling balls and acting like big kids.

 

Later, Eungyul is fishing in the pool for Taejoon's necklace, which Jaehee desperately wants to find, and he actually retrieves it. He rushes to the student union to announce the news, as Super Junior's awful saxophone-driven song "SPY" plays in the background (I got you, little runaway!). But Eungyul decides not to give Jaehee the necklace when he hears she was only trying to find it for Taejoon.

 

Aw, Sweetie, You're Important to Her, Too!

 

Soon, Jaehee's listening to Jongmin (who hates her!) telling her that he found the necklace, but that the necklace has been left inside a soon-to-be-demolished building--so she should totally go check out that location, alone at night. *headdesk* But there is a really funny sequence where Jongmin and some friends dress up like ghosts, while Jaehee remains unscared and uninvolved in their antics.

 

Taejoon gets suspicious of Jaehee's absence and goes after her, which is helpful because a night watchman has locked her into a room in the abandoned building. How did she even think she'd find the missing necklace somewhere inside that entire huge place, in the dark? These plot contrivances will be the end of me. How am I supposed to care about a heroine who is so gullible?

 

Fortunately, Her Knight in Shining Armor is There.

 

Jaehee's so relieved to be found, she rushes to hug Taejoon and it's a darling moment. He holds her hand while walking down the stairs, and it's totally aww-worthy. They start talking and Taejoon finally shares the story of how his mom died on the day he won the Olympics. He collapses into tears and Jaehee comforts him. Later that night, they watch a movie together--the last movie his mom had ever tried to watch with him.

 

Hijinks Over; Time For the Heartwarming.

 

Next morning, Taejoon discovers it's Jaehee's birthday and he sneaks out to a girly little shop to buy her a present. But what gift to buy a girl who is masquerading as a guy? Unisex moisturizing cream! It's so funny and endearing that he wants to buy her something feminine, but circumstances ruin that possibility. So he gives her the birthday present, adding that he just bought whatever and didn't put any thought into it. :-)

 

Which Doesn't Stop Her From Being One Happy Puppy, Anyway.

 

And she gives Taejoon his mom's necklace, which Eungyul finally gave to her. Next, Jaehee opens up a birthday present from her big brother in America--Oppa sent her a taser, to keep away the nasty boys! Where was this taser when she needed it, four episodes ago?

 

Oh, and sweet little Eungyul brings her a birthday cake, just as Jaehee is feeling bummed out that she won't get to spend her birthday evening with Taejoon.

 

"Please Accept My Desperate Overtures of Friendship."

 

In other news, members of the athletic club are having their weekend training camp, which necessitates going off-campus. I predict more lovely scenery.

 

Hanna sneaks into Dorm 2 again--they should really just install a kitty door for her because she invades once per episode--and she fusses at Jaehee for stealing Taejoon's attention away. Hanna goes so far as to try to steal Jaehee's moisture cream, just so she won't have any token of Taejoon's affection left, and the container spills in the ensuing tug of war. Hanna needs a good shake right now for being such a bully.

 

Why You Gotta Be So Catty, Hanna?

 

At training camp, Jaehee and Taejoon joke and prepare everybody's meals together. Eungyul crashes the training camp just in time for the big, hardcore paintball battle.

 

These Boys Take Their Training Seriously.

 

During the fighting, Jaehee gets her wrist injured, and Taejoon "kills" everyone in the vicinity to keep her safe. Eungyul also saves Jaehee from getting eliminated, and I'm getting more and more tired of our girl being so incompetent. Yeah, she couldn't help spraining her wrist, but yeesh. She hasn't truly succeeded at anything since the mini-marathon in episode 3.

 

And after the exercise, she's really pale and she faints! The School Doctor who knows her secret sends everyone out of the medical tent. Doc wraps her wrist and says she's been binding her chest too tight--she's cutting off her own circulation and making it hard for herself to breathe. Doc wonders why she's even at Genie High anymore, now that she's seen Taejoon recover fully.

 

Time For Some Soul-Searching.

 

The next day, Jaehee invites Taejoon to watch an upcoming meteor shower with her. But their plans are kind interrupted when Hanna comes to training camp with bad news: Taejoon's dad wants to move him to Canada. Taejoon leaves camp to go talk some sense into Dad. In Taejoon's absence, Eungyul finds Jaehee and says he has something to tell her. That's the very anticlimactic end.

 

 

Things I Loved:

 

1. Jealous Taejoon. He's finally starting to see that Jaehee's an important person to him, beyond just wanting to project her and enjoying her company. He wants to be the main person she spends her time with, and he feels lonely when she's off with Eungyul.

Rather Sweet When He's Feeling Neglected.

2. Happy Taejoon. Sharing his sad past with Jaehee has made him open up and be a less-burdened person. It's great to see this show's resident Eeyore lightening up under Jaehee's sunshiny influence.

He Does Know How to Smile!

3. Epic Paintball! One of the best action scenes ever takes place in episode 8. It's funny, it's fast-paced, it's glorious.

And It Builds Friendships.

Complaints:

1. Jaehee's TSTL (Too Stupid to Live) Behaviors. Okay, girl. Your naivete already got you shoved into a pool from three stories up, so why do you think that going into yet another abandoned building alone at night is going to end well?

Stop Being So Trusting Before it Kills You!

2. Eungyul's Aegyo. Eungyul acting cutesy to get seaweed soup from the kitchen staff is just horrifying. If he tried that aegyo act on this noona, not only would he get no soup, and he might even get a bowl thrown at him!

 

Episode Evaluations:  I love the Eungyul-Jaehee-Taejoon friendship circle, which has brought lots of smiles to my face, but I'm getting seriously bored/miffed at the fact that Jaehee's always blindly wandering into some ridiculous problem where one or both of the boys has to save her. (Taejoon saves her from the predator dude, Taejoon and Eungyul save her from her fall into the pool, Taejoon saves her from the locked building, Taejoon and Eungyul save her in the paintball battle.)

Yet there's so much preciousness in the show and so many smile-worthy scenes. I'm liking To The Beautiful You much better now. I'm glad I stuck with it, despite the downsides.