Thursday, May 8, 2014

Secret Love Affair - Along the Way - Episode 14

We start with Seon-jae hiding out in the piano room from the going-away party for Prof. Jo's student, Min-woo, and asking the TA to get his own clothes for him.  He's so nervous he can hardly talk. The Hubs acting all possessive and putting his arm around Hye-won is more than he can take.

3:40 - Min-woo improvises a jazz version of Swan Lake.

14:19 - Min Woo plays the Twinkle Variations by Mozart that Seon-jae played in Episode 1.  He soups it up and makes it fancier. The Hubs gets drunk and tells Seon-jae to play.

17:00 - Seon-jae plays Twinkle. He improvises too, going from sad minor to loud crashing dissonant versions. We've seen before that he communicates better with music than talk. He's gotten Hye-won to stick around when she was leaving, and he's quieted the complaints of Da-mi and Jang-ho. Now he gets through to Hye-won how bad all this is. These variations were composed by the man who plays Prof. Jo, who is a famous pianist. Wearing a toupee.

I don't generally like drunk scenes, of which there are too many in Korean dramas. But this one is really good. Hubs does an unnerving and convincing job. 

Yoo Ah-in does a great crying scene outside on the sidewalk, but IMO Kim Soo-hyun still holds the honors from You From the Star. (I told you we were connoisseurs.)

Hubs invites Hye-won out to dinner to talk her into going to jail. My biggest question was why do they take so long showing the opening of the wine bottle? Trust a friend from Soompi to suggest that since this scene is intercut with the quintet practicing and eating, it points up the fake, pretentious life they are leading.

This time the quintet is working on the sad second movement, which is a kind of folksong called a  dumka. Dvorak used folk songs that lamented the unfairness of the aristocracy as a rebellion and a cry for liberty. It fits the situation of the students pretty well.

Dvorak's Piano quintet No. 2 in A Major

Hubs talks about Brahms falling in love with Schumann's wife, Clara. It parallels their situation.

Half the fun of watching a drama as it airs is hearing all the theories of where it's going. Some think Hye-won will turn state's evidence and accuse the people who are after her. Some think she has already talked to the police. Someone thinks that she is in cahoots with the chairman to  pin everything on Mme Han and the SIL in order to get CEO Daughter out of trouble. Someone thinks she'll go to jail and Seon-jae will go to Germany. Someone thinks the Hubs will OD on all his pills.