A mission of Love

Episode 5:

After catching Myung-wol in her stunt gone awry, Kang-woo flashes back to the Singapore auction, when the woman in the mask had come to his rescue.

This time, the sequence continues differently from the reality we'd seen: Kang-woo approaches the woman in red, who puts her hand up to his face, and he pulls off her mask. There stands Myung-wol, looking up at him.

Aw, what a pretty way to illustrate his moment of discovery, conflating their actual meeting with his dream. Kang-woo wakes up with that dream-vision on his mind, and mulls over his suspicions.

Peering in on the bedroom where Myung-wol sleeps, Kang-woo sees her sprawled out with mouth agape and shakes his head in denial. The lady in red whom he's in awe of and attracted to cannot possibly be the bumbling bodyguard he's trying to convince himself he's not attracted to. So he tells himself.

In the car, he stares at her curiously (prompting a jealous Dae-kang to pout that he can tell he's looking at Myung-wol). Kang-woo asks if she's ever been to Singapore, and Myung-wol lies that she's not even sure where that is. He muses that she looks like someone he saw there who left "quite an impression."

Myung-wol worries that he's recognized her, while Kang-woo puzzles over these details all afternoon. He's so preoccupied that he doesn't even register In-ah's presence at his drama shoot (muttering "No, no, that's not it" — which she mistakes as a barb against her new Parisian ensemble).

As he fumbles with the prop gun he's to use in his scene, Myung-wol pipes up and shows him the proper way to put it together, before realizing she's acted out of character.

To cover, she says that she grew up near an army training site and hastens away with an excuse, but Kang-woo tests her by tossing the gun at her back, and she whirls around instinctively to catch it. Whoops.

Kang-woo tells President Kyung to check into Myung-wol's customs records for records of her movements of the past month. And what about her family — perchance do they live in Singapore?

Operation Seduce, Marry, and Kidnap Kang-woo is still in early stages, as Ok-soon runs Myung-wol through some training drills...of how to introduce some skinship while under cover of bodyguard duty. Hee. Do they teach a class on that too? And where can I sign up?

Ajusshi spy Hee-bok wears a sign reading "Kang-woo" and acts as stand-in, but Ok-soon is dissatisfied with this visual mismatch. Just as Ryu walks in to check on their doings, conveniently enough.

Ryu is swapped in for Fake Kang-woo (while Hee-bok pouts), and when Myung-wol shoves herself against his chest in a protective hug, he freezes at the contact, then shoves her away awkwardly. Ok-soon sighs that Myung-wol must be completely without feminine charm, which is just about the diametric opposite of the truth.

Yoo Da-hae presents her findings to her NSA team, which include the sighting of the North Korean general's daughter at Kang-woo's Singapore concert. That indicates some kind of North Korean movement...and it so happens that Kang-woo was also at the secret auction. There's no evidence linking the two — yet — but this looks like an angle worth pursuing...

Director Yoo relents (against his better judgment) and gives his daughter the go-ahead to pursue this mission, though he warns her that she'd best be careful when messing with the Hallyu star.

Up in Pyongyang, North Korean General Kim nervously informs his superior about his (rashly-thought-out) scheme to abduct Kang-woo and bring him over to the North. Thankfully for him, the plan is well-received, although now General Kim actually has to, yunno, do it. Gulp.

Ok-soon decides that the way to Kang-woo's heart is to analyze his past girlfriends for clues on what he's attracted to. As it happens, his past three lady loves were all co-stars, which gives us a hilarious bit of meta as we retrace Kang-woo's, and Eric's, recent career: