HIGH SCHOOL: LOVE ON EPISODE 5

Recap:
Seul Bi and Sung Yeol race to save Woo Hyun from the bullies. The former angel uses her powers to disable the motorcycle, and the three of them dispatch the miscreants. A homeless man shows up to stop the fight, and Seul Bi faints. The school administration decides to gloss over Jae Seok's cheating because his father is a chaebol with political aspirations.� Classmate Ye Na, meeting with Seul Bi after hours, convinces her to help Ye Na confess her love to Woo Hyun. Confronted with this, Seul Bi begins to understand that she actually likes Woo Hyun,�as well. Sung Yeol and Seul Bi hang out at the mall together and end up outside eating ice cream. Ji Hye shows up at Granny's shop and is castigated and cast out.


Ye Na�confessing her love to Woo Hyun

Woo Hyun's friend is bullied by the tough girl, Young Eun, into making Woo Hyun show up at the bicycle track.� Ji Hye again focuses on her pendant, remembering that she gave Woo Hyun a matching pendant years ago, a key-like necklace fitting into her lock necklace, just before she left him with Grandma. Later we see Granny throwing up and looking quite ill. Ye Na, Young Eun, Seul Bi, Woo Hyun, Sung Yeol and his friend all show up at the bike track. Despite not having a bicycle built for two, Ye Na rides with Woo Hyun and makes her declaration. He tells her flat out that he is not interested and spots Seul Bi on a bicycle with Sung Yeol. Woo Hyun gets in the way and stops the bike, bidding Seul Bi to come with him.

My take:
And now the triangle appears to be complete. In this episode, we see Seul Bi's emotions about�Woo Hyun morph into something more than friendship. The writers are respectful, but they manage to pack a lot of scenes into this episode that make it pretty obvious. When he puts an apron on her, she positively beams, and not from pride, either; they flirt at school when they are working on a project, and her face is glum when Ye Na makes her intentions known both at Granny's shop and at the track. Our angel consoles herself by being with Sung Yeol, who hurries his step to catch up with her. It almost seems as if he's been relegated to second lead this episode, but I think it's too early to tell. Certainly Seul Bi enjoys spending time with him, and she doesn't seem like she's pining away for Woo Hyun in those scenes. Woo Hyun himself reacts with jealousy, comically telling her she is not to faint around Sung Yeol, and then interfering with their bike ride at the end.


Handcuffed! Father-son bonding time. :)

Grandma seems to have a serious issue with Ji Hye. She was pretty angry at her for even daring to suggest that Woo Hyun change schools. Granny takes the position that Ji Hye needs to deal with her own life and leave the two of them alone. It's nice that she seems to have Woo Hyun at the heart of her distaste rather than just unreasoning hatred. Rather than hating the mother just because, she hates her because she abandoned her child.

Grandma seems to be truly ill, and Woo Hyun and Seul Bi have noticed, though they don't know how serious it is. She does look more and more tired, and I foresee a hospital visit in their future. I wish she'd tell them or go see a doctor because I'm worried that she will pass on. The wrinkle in all this, of course, is that she has what essentially amounts to the grim reaper staying with her -- Seul Bi's job, as an angel, is to escort the spirits of the dead to their final reward. And she's already saved Woo Hyun's life, which caused her to become mortal (as far as we know). I'm not sure she'd be able to do that twice, much as she might wish to. I love how the writers set that up.


Sung Yeol and Seul Bi at the mall

In this episode we also see Sung Yeol's parents more. We already knew bits and pieces about Ji Hye, but not a whole lot about his father. In a high school drama like this one, focusing on the parents is a great thing; you can kind of see where the kids get their behaviors from, though most of the time it's a reaction to something their parents did. But I like the dad's sensitivity about getting old: getting a tooth pulled and receiving an implant, then imploring Ji Hye not to let Sung Yeol know about it. Also, playfully handcuffing Sung Yeol when the boy ignores him and taking him out to eat. I didn't see Sung Yeol "resisting arrest," either.� Why? Because he was probably hungry and enjoys spending time with his dad.

There was a scene I found particularly interesting. The man who took Seul Bi's school transcripts for processing appears to have a side business: selling ice cream. I swear it's the same guy. In that episode, he counsels her not to talk to herself when he sees her talking to sunbae. But here it almost seems like he can see him and makes a comment as they pass each other. I think this guy might be more than he seems. Is it possible he is also an angel who became mortal? Or something else entirely? They discard extra cast members too quickly in this drama--someone does something and then nothing else is said about it. It seems like our core cast is in place with recurring characters also established, so maybe somehow his role will be explained.


Grandma's fortune-telling cards (hwatu)

There were some viewers saying this was a mess, that it didn't know what it wanted to be or that they wanted it to focus more on Seul Bi's struggles to be human, but I think if 'High School: Love On' focused on one thing too long, it would get tiresome and stale. I like how it really is a high school drama and our angel-turned-mortal is one of the central characters. It still has enough of her hijinks to to keep it fresh, and the characters seem to get fleshed out eventually. It throws you just enough rope to string you along, and I fell in love with 'HS:LO' at the first view. Seems like you guys might have, too.

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