A mission of Love

Episode : 15

Finally! She speaks! And it's a doozy, because with Kang-woo at gun-point, she calls him "Comrade." Confused, he asks what she's doing. She asks if he hasn't figured it out by now. "We came... from the North..." She tells him that they're here to take him by force.

Oh dayum, all out with it and everything. Kang-woo looks at her, aghast, refusing to believe it. He tries to call her name as he always has: "Myung-wol-ah." But she answers coldly and formally, "Don't call me that! From now on, I am Hallyu Crackdown Squad Agent Han Myung-wol."

Chairman Joo gets annoyed at his minions for failing to execute them, and then tasks the same minions to find and eliminate them. See, this is why lazy villains never succeed.

In-ah tries to put the pieces together to figure out what's going on, but alas, it hurts her feeble bird brain and she gives up.

The Hallyu Crackdown Duo and their captive go back to Kang-woo's house, where Ryu informs them that they'll keep him locked up and monitored round the clock, until they can use his planned trip to the States in three days as a diversion to actually go to North Korea via China.

Kang-woo is still reeling from the shock, and asks why him. Myung-wol explains without feeling that the North needs a star like him, and tells him her mission, to seduce, marry, and convince him to defect.

He looks up at her, finally understanding it all. Ryu tells him not to do anything stupid, and Kang-woo simply smirks.

Once he's out of the room, Ryu asks Myung-wol why she changed her mind. She in turn asks why he didn't tell her about his orders to kill them all if they couldn't succeed. "Why did you try to carry that burden alone?"

Ever the stoic soldier, Ryu says nothing, but does clarify that there's no take-backsies now. If they don't bring Kang-woo to the North, then he knows too much to remain alive... Oh crap. So it's North or Bust.

Ryu inform the spy parents that they're northbound in three days, and Hee-bok frets that every time he packs a bag, something goes awry. He wants to see a fortuneteller to ease his mind, but Ok-soon refuses, so he resorts to flipping a coin to see if they'll succeed or fail. They toss it expectantly, only to be foiled by Dae-kang who mucks up the toss, landing it on: Fail.

Myung-wol stands by as Kang-woo calls in sick for a few days, and then he takes the opportunity to ask — even if she couldn't help any of the other things, being born in the North, following orders, weren't her feelings for him real?

He asks again, "Your heart. Wasn't it sincere?" She stands frozen for a moment, and then answers, "No." Aaaaaaargh. What the hell is wrong with you? It stands to reason that telling him the truth now would only help you. So what's with the lying? There's no reason for it, which makes it lame.

She tells him that she was just following orders. He whirls around, insisting that it's a lie, and that he can tell the difference, thank you very much. He pulls her toward him and shouts, "It's a lie! Tell me! Tell me it's a lie!"

She slaps him across the face. Okay, I'm not gonna lie, that's satisfying on account of his slap-happy behavior eons ago. She tells him to shut up and get it straight — she's not the Han Myung-wol he knows, and that for her country, she could kill him on this spot without batting an eye. God, I SO much prefer this version of Myung-wol. Where have you BEEN?

She warns him to get it together and storms out, only betraying her conflicting emotions once she's out of view.

Meanwhile Chairman Joo gets busy reconstructing the ancient books, and we see in flashback that he had once hired Kang-woo's father to put them all together.