Unfaithful Friends
Graceful Friends returns this week with another decent episode, one that eliminates some big question marks hanging over character actions while leaving a nasty dark mark in Kang-San and his horrific blackmail scheme. While the reasoning behind this is still unclear, one thing’s for sure – he wants to make Jung-Hae’s life a living hell. Episode 3 of Graceful Friends begins with another shot from the future, a flicker of what’s going to happen as Jung-Hae charges back to her car breathlessly and clutches her chest. Back in the present we see her drinking in a bar with Kang-San. He encourages her to have another with him and cryptically mentions how things are going to get awkward now. Unsure what he means, when Jung-Hae stands up she realizes he’s spiked her drink and she passes out. In the morning, Jung-Hae awakens and finds herself in a difficult position, naked and confused in Kang-San’s bed. Looking him square in the eye, she promises to kill him if he continues down this path of messing with her. Kang-San smirks though, telling her he’s skilled and won’t fail. Goong-Cheol continues to feel conflicted after his conversation with Myung-Sook. With her leaving Korea in a week, she hands over the text message analysis and within that he finds cryptic messages between his best friend and Jung-Hae. While they don’t explicitly incriminate them, it does look a bit suspect. Thanks to a combination of Kang-San’s blackmail and Goong-Cheol’s meeting with Myung-Sook, their seemingly perfect marriage starts to come undone. Contrasting this, Hyung-Woo receives some good news as a producer rings wanting him to be a Director for a $100 million movie. After scrambling out to buy a suit, he anxiously attends a meeting where his expensive suit is ripped, forcing him to feign indifference. Jae-Hoon listens to classical music in his office before receiving his list of patients for the day. First up is Chun-Bok who receives his prostate test results and although it’s not good news, Jae-Hoon is convinced they can get through this together. Kang-San tells Jung-Hae he needs to meet her by 6pm but just before she can leave the office, Goong-Cheol arrives as a last minute patient. It’s here he confronts her over the text messages to Man-Sik and reveals everything he was doing yesterday. With Myung-Sook going through menopause and Man-Sik struggling with depression, it turns out he joined Jung-Hae at the nursing home helping the residents as a way of coping with his depression. One of the women he helped there happens to be the same old woman we saw in the previous episode applying lipstick in the rain. More importantly, the other worker at the home happens to be Do-Hae. Goong-Cheol meets Hae-Sook not long after and he’s immediately flustered when she asks him about lovers. After breaking the ice, she outright asks to lend some money. At the same time, Kang-San meets Jung-Hae and rejects her bribe, slipping the envelope back across the table and promising this is just the beginning. Back home, Goong-Cheol heads over to Jae-Hoon’s for dinner and asks him for money. This will be for Hae-Sook but Jae-Hook warns him against going down this path given she was his first love. Kang-San’s bullying comes to fruition later that night when he sends Goong-Cheol picture messages of Jung-Hae in bed. While Goong-Cheol struggles to comprehend what he’s seen, Kang-San reveals to Jung-Hae that he’s sent the pictures over to her husband. Without much of a choice, she heads to to his hotel room. In the past, a young Jung-Hae sees Hae-Seok and Goong-Cheol together and snaps incriminating photos of this. The result sees a woman look over this photos and hang herself in the living room. It seems Jung-Hae’s issues may be directly linked to the past in some way. Kang-San clearly knows her and is doing everything in his power to make her life a living hell. Poor Goong-Cheol though finds himself caught in the middle and it’s made ever-more complicated by Hae-Soon coming back in the picture asking for money. The various other characters, including Chun-Bok all have their own little subplots here but it’s the main marriage that really whets the appetite here. There’s a lot of substance to this Korean drama and the bubbling tensions are helped somewhat by an excellent soundtrack accompanying this one. With plenty more drama to digest, Graceful Friends continues to deliver the goods.
