SONG OF THE DAY
Kim Gun-mo – “울랄라” (Ooh la la) from the My Girlfriend Is a Gumiho OST
Angry Grandpa bursts in at a conveniently inconvenient moment, which is when Dae-woong is about to answer Mi-ho’s request to like her back. Thanks to the wily maneuverings of Bug-Eyed Bitter Betty, aka Hateful Hye-in, Grandpa and Min-sook are under the impression that Mi-ho is a crafty gold-digger who is pushing Dae-woong to endanger his health by doing the movie.
Grandpa orders them to break up and for Dae-woong to pack his bags. Dae-woong protests that he’s perfectly fine, and that “If I stay here with Mi-ho, absolutely nothing will be wrong!” Which, to them, sounds like he’s making excuses because he’s been blinded by twoo wuv. Or at least post-adolescent infatuation.
Waiting below, Mi-ho hears the dictate to separate with distress and rushes out to speak up, but her heart starts to act up. These pangs are part of her de-gumiho-ifying process, and she stops her in her tracks, frozen with pain.
Dae-woong stands up to the adults, saying that his grandfather was always telling him to “be a human” and a man, so how can he tell him to just quit? “I’m going to take responsibility through the end as you wished and not give up.”
The adults sputter in outrage, but they’ve come prepared with a contingency plan. After Dae-woong heads back to the loft, Grandpa shoots Min-sook a wink to signal the beginning of their planned bit.
Inside, Dae-woong finds Mi-ho slumped on the ground and asks what’s wrong. Just at that moment, a groan sounds from outside and Min-sook screams for Dae-woong. (Oh, I love that they’re playing off the overused scenario of a supposedly tough elderly man collapsing at the first sign of the hero’s opposition! How like these writers to make Grandpa a faker, subverting yet another familiar cliche.)
Dae-woong tells Mi-ho he’ll be back soon, then races outside to take Grandpa to the hospital, ironically leaving the real sick person behind while the healthy one feigns illness.
Mi-ho sits in pain, her blue eyes indicating that she’s losing control of her shape-shifting properties like she did on the boat, as a result of a prolonged separation from her fox bead.
As Mi-ho stumbles to her bed, she knocks the camcorder on the ground — which turns on and starts recording. She collapses and moans, “It hurts so much.”
In his Emo Lair, Emo Hair observes his slowly emptying sandglass and predicts that tonight marks “the first death.” Just as one of Mi-ho’s tails disappears. (Hm, interesting. It’s like a cat with nine lives…)
Mi-ho sees her tail fade and says, “I must really be dying.”
In the car, Grandpa reveals that he hadn’t truly collapsed, but uses that as emotional blackmail: if Dae-woong doesn’t want him to truly collapse, he’ll follow quietly.
Remembering Mi-ho, Dae-woong asks his aunt to pull over, and threatens to jump out to force her to stop. He tells them he’ll only confirm that she’s fine and then head home.
He runs all the way there, but when he gets to the loft he finds her looking much better, though her forehead is alarmingly cold. Mi-ho makes a few weak excuses that she’s better, and that it’s just because she worked too hard cleaning grills.
Now that he’s checked that she’s okay, Dae-woong has to go back home until he can be assured that his grandfather won’t fall ill again. Mi-ho tells him not to worry, and to come back “to our home” when Grandpa is better. It isn’t until Dae-woong turns his back that she lets herself grimace; she’d been hiding her pain for his benefit.
