Bora! Deborah: Episodes 11-12
by Unit
For our penultimate week, it’s time to resolve things with the exes (for good, I hope). And as for our OTP, well, it’s another week of teasing us with a romance which the show has refused to commit to.
EPISODES 11-12
Weddings and a spillover of last week’s return of the exes are interwoven this week. But at least, we are now at the resolution side of things starting with Soo-hyuk and Yu-ri. Yu-ri has mixed feelings about her upcoming wedding, and she tells Soo-hyuk that she regrets their breakup. *Rolls eyes* She suggests that she wants to get back together, but Soo-hyuk shuts down the idea. He admits that loved Yu-ri a lot and explains that he didn’t officially ask her to be his girlfriend because he believed she already was. *Rolls eyes again*
Yu-ri is shocked to learn that Soo-hyuk was going to propose on the day they broke up. And perhaps the shock gets to her head because rather than take responsibility for bringing up the breakup, she blames it all on Deborah’s advice (like Soo-hyuk once did). Tsk. But Soo-hyuk clears the air again. Breakup or not, he would have gone ahead and proposed if he wanted to, but he didn’t because that was how far his feelings for her went. Okay, sir. I believe you.
The good news is that for the first time in forever, Soo-hyuk is being honest with his feelings, and as he tells Yu-ri, he plans to keep doing that going forward. After getting their closure, Soo-hyuk’s final act of goodwill towards Yu-ri is to attend her wedding with Bora as his “girlfriend,” having previously introduced himself to Yu-ri’s fiancé as a sunbae from her school. And with this, the groom can sleep well at night without worrying about the relationship between Soo-hyuk and his bride. Heh.
Sang-jin and Soo-jin are also guests at Yu-ri’s wedding, and this gives them the much needed opportunity to reflect on the death of their marriage. Sang-jin admits that he was in over his head when setting up his publishing company, and he was ashamed to share the burden of his failures and many debts with his wife, so he thought letting her go was the best solution. But marriage should be for better, for worse and a spouse isn’t just there to share the good times. In hindsight, Sang-jin apologizes for being a coward, and Soo-jin also apologizes for not understanding him.
Things might not have worked out well between Sang-jin and Soo-jin, but as Soo-jin hopes, it might be different when they meet other people. That being said, it’s finally closure for another set of exes like Soo-hyuk with Yu-ri earlier on, and Bora with Ju-wan two weeks ago — or so I thought, because Ju-wan is the roach that just won’t die.
A relentless Ju-wan blows up Bora’s phone with a million texts, and I wonder why she can’t just block him already. Why is she still entertaining him? Heck, why does the show waste precious screen time on this guy when we could have used those minutes to dive into the OTP’s romance instead? And then that jealous gaslighting chicken has the nerve to be “worried” about Bora’s reputation among their friends because she’s hanging out with a new guy (Soo-hyuk) so soon after their breakup. Tsk. If you’re so worried and you don’t want her to get hurt, then delete her freaking number!!
Unfortunately, having mutual friends means that Bora and Ju-wan can’t always avoid face-to-face interactions, which is why they run into each other at their friends’ pre-wedding photoshoot. Proving that drama is in a love triangle with every couple on this show, the bride and groom throw a tantrum mid-shoot, and the bride storms off. Like Jin-woo and Yoo-jung, this couple is getting married because the bride insisted, and I think the entire friendship squad needs to burn sage or something because they’re giving bad energy vibes.
Luckily (or not, because I still think they need therapy), the groom apologizes to his bride and promises to try to be better because he loves her. And in that moment, all Bora can think about is Ju-wan’s words that “trying is not love.” But Ju-wan is wrong. Because, well, he’s always wrong. Period! And it gave me immense pleasure to see how jealous he was of Soo-hyuk’s presence at the shoot.
Soo-hyuk is a natural, and he really went all out to sell his and Bora’s “love story” to her friends — from his swoony entrance, to saying and doing all the right things. He even comes up with a backstory of how he and Bora met at a wedding and fell in love. And whoa! The Oscar for method acting of the year goes to Lee Soo-hyuk! Let’s hear the acceptance speech, shall we? Heh.
Method acting or not, it’s clear that Soo-hyuk and Bora are smitten with each other. They’re having more heartfelt conversations with each other, and I liked their almost kiss at the cinema more than the actual karaoke kiss. Now if they could just be officially paired together so we can all move on. But seriously, what is the show still waiting for? Bora already had an impromptu meet and greet with Soo-hyuk’s parents — who are such a lovely and affectionate couple — and it made me wonder where Soo-hyuk learned his closed-off ways from.
But within minutes, we learn that his parents got divorced when he was six, and the lovely couple Bora met are his mom and stepdad. Soo-hyuk learned about the ugly side of romance first after witnessing his parent’s divorce at such a tender age, and that’s why he grew up to be so guarded and finds it difficult to express his feelings. This explains a lot, and I wish this reveal could have been done much earlier because I would have been able to empathize with him better.
As the week winds to a close, we get an update on Bora’s career. With everything that has happened, Bora decides to change the end of her book from a definite getting back together with the ex to something more open ended that indicates growth and a new beginning. And really, good for her, because imagine going through all that healing process just to end up with Ju-wan. Ew!
As for her radio show, Bora is still not confident about returning on air because she’s worried that Deborah’s audience will not like the real Bora. But Soo-hyuk encourages her to give the audience a chance, and who knows? They might like Bora better than Deborah. After all, he likes Bora better. Smooth! Now it’s Bora’s turn to be seduced by Soo-hyuk’s charms. Lol.
Later on as Bora backs up the pretty pictures she took at Yu-ri’s wedding to her wedding pictures folder, one of the older pictures in the folder catches her eye. It’s an elevator selfie, and there’s a familiar face in the background. It’s Soo-hyuk! And via a flashback, we see that Soo-hyuk’s “how we met” backstory to her friends was actually true. Somebody, pinch me!
This show did not just pull out the tired “we met in the past” trope on me! LMAO — not the drama trying to snatch the “destined couple” crown from Jin-ho and Bomi. But in retrospect, it was kinda set up in the first week when we learned that Bora accompanied Yoo-jung to Sang-jin’s wedding. As Sang-jin’s close friend, it goes without saying that Soo-hyuk would also have been in attendance, and it’s not far-fetched that he ran into Bora at the event. Still, I’m not buying this pay off.
If Soo-hyuk could clearly remember — and romanticize — their brief encounter from four years ago, how come he acted like he was meeting Bora for the first time in Week 1? Or maybe I’m just overthinking things. Either way, I cannot wait for the drama to answer all my questions as it ends next week.
Will Bora and Soo-hyuk become a couple, or will the drama leave things open-ended like Bora’s book? Will Woo-ri come to terms with the fact that Sang-jin doesn’t see her as more than an employee? And finally, will Yoo-jung dump Jin-woo? Ha! Who am I kidding? I gave up on their separation when Yoo-jung folded and went to sleep in Jin-woo’s arms after he fell asleep while she was airing her sentiments with him. If Yoo-jung is fine with the status quo, why should I bother getting riled up over the dysfunctional arrangement they call a marriage?
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