Scandal Episode 21

When last we saw our stalwart hero he was being shot by his biological father.

 

 

Hwa Young hastens into the law firm offices and catches Fake Eun Joong listening in over his cell phone to what's happening at the warehouse with Real Eun Joong. Hwa Young pleads with her not-son to call 112 (their 911). Like he's gonna do that. Instead Fake claims he has no idea where they're at. She grabs him by the jacket lapels and screams like a banshee for him to do something, anything!

 

Myeong Geun arrives at the site just as Tae Ha turns and fires the gun, hitting Real Eun Joong somewhere on his chest. Hwa Young hears the gunshot over the phone. Real Eun Joong, tied to a chair, slowly topples over. In the office Hwa Young hits the floor herself. As Myeong Geun shakes Real Eun Joong, crying for his not-son to come to his senses, evil Tae Ha has the temerity to snicker. He tries to shoot Myeong Geun as well but the gun is out of ammo.

 

Tae Ha tells his nemesis this is what you get for messing with me. This is when Myeong Geun finally blurts out that Real Eun Joong is Tae Ha's real son. Tae Ha scurries over to tear off Real Eun Joong's sock and finds the old childhood scar on the cop's ankle. Tae Ha ruins his suit by crawling through Eun Joong's blood. (There is quite a bit of it.)

 

Thank goodness, I hear sirens in the distance. Kang Ho beseeches his boss to get the hell out of there before the authorities arrive. Tae Ha joins Myeong Geun in being useless and yelling at the dying Eun Joong so Kang Ho has no choice but to knock Tae Ha out and drag him away, cleaning the fingerprints off the gun before they leave.

 

Back at the Jang house, Joo Ha overhears her father repeatedly saying this can't be his son's blood all over his hands, it just can't be. Real Eun Joong is finally taken into surgery at a hospital. Myeong Geun, covered in his not-son's blood, is harassed on all sides by the staff to fill out their freakin' paperwork. Suddenly the paper is torn out of his hands. It's Hwa Young who has recovered from her faint and now says she'll take care of it all. All she wants Myeong Geun to do is to crawl off somewhere and die. Then she changes her mind. Hwa Young doesn't want him to die, she wants him to live in misery and pain and pay for what he's done.

 

Tae Ha struggles to get into his PJ's as he keeps staring at his hands and replaying the scene in the warehouse.

 

I think we have a time skip although the show won't tell us. Hwa Young silently sits in her car outside of the Ha house. Real Eun Joong, recovered from his surgery, is coming home from the hospital. (Surely some time has passed. Although in Heartless City their life-threatening injuries didn't seem to bother them the next day. Perhaps Eun Joong was taken to this same miracle hospital for lickety-split therapy.)

 

Anyway, Soo Young begs her not-brother to quit the force. Eun Joong doesn't say anything as apparently he hasn't spoken since he woke up from surgery. Myeong Geun takes Eun Joong's hand with the intent of guiding him to the bedroom so he can rest. Eun Joong markedly pulls his hand out of Myeong Geun's grip.

 

In the kitchen (where I'm totally distracted by the black chicken they're fixing. I've never seen black chicken before. Well, except for when I've burnt dinner, but this one's black before they've even cooked it. But I digress...) Myeong Geun confides in Ah Mi that he believes Real Eun Joong knows about what Dad #1 did. Once again Ah Mi tries to push Myeong Geun into telling Eun Joong the whole story before Jang Tae Ha comes over and starts opening his big mouth.

 

Hwa Young is still outside sitting in her car when she sees Real Eun Joong come out of the house. He's carrying a backpack, holding his side and limping slowly down the street. Worried, she jumps out of her car and grabs his arm, imploring him to take it easy and not push himself so hard. He just got out of the hospital after all. Like Myeong Geun, Eun Joong pushes her hand away. He grabs a taxi and leaves her, leaves everyone behind.

 

It's Soo Young who discovers her brother has slipped out of the house, taking his clothes (in just one backpack) and leaving his cell phone behind so they can't contact him.

 

Meanwhile over at the Jang house, Tae Ha sits on the door sill and keeps looking at his hands. Fake Eun Joong comes home from the office and tries to get his not-father to talk. It seems Tae Ha has also clammed up and stopped speaking since the shooting. Fake falls to his knees and begs to be remembered as Tae Ha's son. Fake has been his son all these years and still considers Tae Ha as his father. Tae Ha finally speaks...

 

...and tells Fake Eun Joong to stop calling him father.

 

Hwa Young comes home for her own painful meeting, this one with Joo Ha. Joo Ha blames Hwa Young for almost allowing her to commit incest (in a sense) with Real Eun Joong. Seems Joo Ha was just on the edge of starting to feel something for Eun Joong, which is still icky. Although if I recall it was Joo Ha who broke up with Eun Joong before Hwa Young found out he was her real son. If anything Joo Ha should be blaming Fake Eun Joong. He knew the truth way before his mother did.

 

Kang Joo Pil shows Tae Ha the DNA test he had done recently on Real Eun Joong and Tae Ha. The ex-reporter asks why didn't Tae Ha do a paternity test all those years ago? This reminds Tae Ha that he did do a test and that his wife must have rigged it. He goes to find Hwa Young and ends up overhearing Joo Ha coming to the conclusion that Hwa Young must have known all along that Fake Eun Joong was not her biological son.

 

Later that evening at a verrrry awkward dinner, Tae Ha starts quizzing his family on just when exactly they learned that Fake is fake and Real is real. Hwa Young admits she brought in a fake child partly as revenge for what Tae Ha did to her father. Tae Ha shouts that he's going to get his son back and keep Real Eun Joong away from his mother for the same amount of years she kept him away from his father. No word yet on what Real Eun Joong thinks of this plan.

 

Everybody mopes to sad music.

 

The next day Tae Ha is trying to work up the courage to knock on the Ha's door, not knowing Real Eun Joong isn't there. Instead Tae Ha has a very prickly encounter with my girl, Ah Mi. As usual for this dick, Tae Ha offers her money and an apartment if she'll drop the case against his company. When he tries to drop off some herbal medicine for Eun Joong, Ah Mi picks up a bag of garbage and dumps it over Tae Ha's head. She then pulls out a few bills from her wallet and throws them at him saying to use the money to pay for the dry cleaning.

There's a scene with Joo Ran and Jin Woong but you know it's totally anti-climatic compared to what else is going on in this show so I'm going to skip over them.

My girl is on a roll today as Ah Mi is the one who figures out the location of where Real Eun Joong has been using an ATM. She tracks him down to where he's camping out on an island (because apparently a sponsor of this show makes outdoor equipment and clothing and Scandal needs to advertise the hell out of it.) 

Ah Mi tries to get Eun Joong to come home with her but he simply keeps on cooking on his state-of-the-art portable cook stove. It's only when she tries to call Myeong Geun to tell him she found Eun Joong that Eun Joong finally finds his voice and shouts at her to not contact "that person!"