I wrote this about the ending of another lesser-known Hong sisters’ romcom, “Warm and Cozy” (2015)

For Throwback Thursday, I’m retrieving it from soompi.

You don’t have to read this, but if you want to know how the Hong sisters do endings, then you might want to slog through 100000000000 paragraphs. lol. Who am I to stop you?

“Warm and Cozy” is memorable for me because this is where @agdr03 spent a lot of hours doing rewatches.  Hey, girl, we should have celebrated our 4th year anniversary this year.

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On timejumps and cellphones

A timejump is a convenient kdrama tool to show that the OTP are undergoing voluntary penance and atonement so they’ll come back stronger. Think of plants hibernating in the winter so they can bloom again in the spring. Likewise, a timejump gives the couple time to breathe apart from each other so they fulfill their broken promises when they meet again, without recycling the same old arguments.

For me though timejumps are good depending on when it occurs in the story path. Honestly, in the last two rom-coms of the Hong sisters I’ve watched, I was disappointed with their judgement call. I know some people complained about it in Warm and Cozy, but My Girlfriend is a Gumiho (MGiaG) and the Master’s Sun (MS) had it worse.

In MGiaG, the timejump occurs towards the END of the LAST episode. The waiting time isn’t stated; but it looks interminable because a gumiho is a supernatural being. The problem with that timejump is it shortens the reunion for the couple to just about 10 to 15 minutes of show time, and the issue of cohabitation after their meeting isn’t tackled, unlike Warm and Cozy, where we have 2 episodes for the reconciliation.

Same thing with MS, the separation there takes place in the 16th episode, and the reunion is the episode’s cliffhanger. The OTP has one episode, Episode 17, to mend fences.

Given the Hong sisters’ proclivity to last-minute timejumps and delayed gratification, I consider the Warm and Cozy’s leap-in-time the best so far. It occurs at the end of 14th episode, giving us 2 episodes thereafter for the conflicts to be resolved. Sure enough, the 15th episode serves as denouement or the “unknotting” of the problems in the OTP’s relationship.

The 16th episode, for me, is the epilogue, where we see the aftermaths of their OTP’s reconciliation, and the rest of the castmembers are paraded and given their own happy endings. In my opinion, a hypothetical episode 17 (or a third episode devoted just to our couple’s bliss) will be redundant and sappy. It’ll lack the necessary conflict to make an hour-long episode worth its time, unless the Hong sisters manage to contrive a fake crisis.

Also for me, timejump is good if the plot can somehow link the past to the present without makjang (i.e., a death) or accidents (i.e, being swallowed by an anaconda in the middle of Seoul). I believe in our rom-com, the TEXT MESSAGES are used to BRIDGE the timejump.

This is going to be long, because I want to go through the episode carefully.They are no points given to speed-reading, and no test anyway, so take your time.

At the beginning of Episode 15, we learn that JJ (the female lead) texted GW (the guy) after discovering he was gone, but he’s never opened them, even after a year. At the café, she apologizes for not believing in him and not recognizing how earnest he was — in the past. She’s sorry that he had to go bear the pain on his own – in the past. She informs him too that she texted him last year – in the past. He hasn’t seen them, he says.

JJ replies: It’s been a year, so it won’t be sent to you again.

There’s a double meaning here. The literal meaning is that the text messages cannot be sent again because of technical difficulties. On the other hand, the figurative meaning is that the text messages cannot be resent, because the sentiments that prompted those texts have elapsed. The sender has moved on with her life.

Observe GW when JJ says that the text won’t be resent. The body movements are subtle but he definitely deflates. His shoulders go down, and he blinks his eyes, not knowing where to look, before he looks down.

JJ continues: “You didn’t want to talk about the past. But I’m glad I was able to apologize to you.” She also invites him to eat at the restaurant before he leaves. Her short speech is full of sincerity and apology. It doesn’t sound at all as if she’s clinging to him. It sounds more like she’s had her closure.

GW asks her if she was hoping that he’d come back to see her.

Observe how he asks. First, he repeats…no, he REPHRASES his question. “You weren’t hoping for anything from me. You weren’t hoping that I’d come to see you?”

Now, when a person rephrases something, often he’s trying to find an ALTERNATIVE way to get the SAME response. lol. Kinda like begging for one thing, but giving different reasons why the thing should be given to you. Anyway…

It tells me that he’s eager for the answer. Secondly, GW asks in a negative form. Instead of saying, “Were you hoping”, he used the negative version, “Weren’t you hoping.” The change is subtle, but for me, when GW affirms a Positive (hoping) in a Negative way “weren’t you”, he’s downplaying his expectation in case he gets rejected. Lastly, look at his facial expression, especially his eyes. Do you see it? He looks expectant. When he blinks his eyes while shaking his head, he’s insisting like this: “Are you sure, you weren’t hoping?” lol. You get the point? He’s hoping that SHE was hoping.

JJ softly admits that she did.

Look at his face again. He heaves a sigh, and tries to hide a smile. Then his mood changes. He pounces on the rattle, and accuses her of USING the rattle as bait, to make him curious and get his attention. He stands up, saying he’s confiscating the rattle. In other words, he knows the game isn’t over yet. The “text messages” can still be recovered.

Just for the record, here are the messages:

Geonwoo, I feel like crazy now that you’ve left
I didn’t believe you
I wasn’t confident enough to believe those words
You were desperate for me as I was for you, weren’t you
Baek Goon Woo, where are you
Regardless of how you feel, I’ll keep liking you

In the next scene, we see him frantically searching through his luggage for that old cellphone. When he finds it, he calls up the company to ask them to restore the old texts. And he’s told it’s impossible.

He complains: It’s only been a year. Is it that difficult to get them back?

Now, this is a rhetorical question. Meaning, the question is asked to emphasize a point, rather than to get an answer. Of course, he isn’t going to have much difficulty in getting the texts back. The easiest way for those texts to be released from the “time-bubble” is for JJ to resend them, as Poongsan tells JJ. But, without the same feelings of desperation, fear, distress and heartbreak that accompanied the original message, she can’t JUST send the messages. If she does so, she’ll be, in a way, emotionally blackmailing GW. Make him feel guilty.

I think that’s why JJ doesn’t send them. The texts are a “casualty” – or unfortunate outcome — of the timejump which has created a temporal break and separated the past events from the present. Since the text messages are from the past, they stay in the past.

Meanwhile, GW too is affected by the timejump. He has learned to separate the past from the present. Back at the resort, he tells JJ that he doesn’t want to reminisce about the past. He says, “Then, should we talk about the good old days? No, I don’t want to think about it.” Moreover, when JJ asks him in the privacy of their bedroom, to tell her what happened that night she was drunk, he also declines. He tells her that her present is too busy to talk about the past. And then he leaves.

People might ask: But why is leaving anyway?
Best answer: Because he is his father’s son.

Remember in Episode 9, when he first discovers JJ’s feelings for him? He tells her he won’t chase after her, he’ll let her go peacefully. If she decides to leave him, he’ll accept that. “I’ll just say that she’s having a nice life somewhere,” he says. He even leans in with that teasing look, saying “It’s not like you were hoping I’d try to stop you, right?” lol.

This was back in Episode 9… lol

That’s GW being cocky after he told JJ that “I’m still yours. Until I die, I’m yours” at the lighthouse, and after he discovers that JJ has developed feelings for him that night. But that was then, and this is now. He’s come a long way in developing a more mature love, a love that sacrifices itself for the other person.

Now, he’s become like his father, willing to erase himself from her world so that she can be happy. He once teased her about “having a nice life”, now he IS seeing her “having a nice life somewhere”. But there’s a difference in his outlook. Whereas before he sounded patronizing and condescending, now he’s wistful and regretful. She HAS what she’s always wanted: a thriving business, supportive friends who are surrogates for the family she wants, independence, and happiness. But he can’t be part of it. If he comes back, he’ll throw in disarray that “nice life” she’s created. Thus, like his father, he does the noble thing, and leave. Remember he says he doesn’t want to hurt her anymore.

However, the only thing he cannot tolerate is knowing that another man may enter her life. He said this explicitly in Episode 14. “I don’t want you to be happy with someone else. There’s no guarantee I’ll return and we made no promise to wait, but I want you to keep liking and missing me. And I hope that these last words will pop the last balloon you have for me. Lee Jung-joo, keep liking me.”

The Mayor knows this weakness of his. Jealousy was always GW’s weakness and will always be his weakness. Hence, the Mayor trolls him about setting JJ with 25 men. I love it when the Mayor bragged that he has 25 suitors lined up, and five of them were handsome, seven of them were tall, 2 are super-rich. GW still wins with a simple counter-punch: “But it’s hard to possess ALL those qualities, like I do.” It’s even funnier when we consider what GW said earlier about the Mayor. GW brags that he can beat those handsome, tall and super-rich guys because he’s all these things rolled in one, but he dissed the Mayor earlier, saying that the Mayor was NOT cute, classy and exceptional enough to father a BABY like Han Byeul (Baby ≠ MAN).

Meanwhile, we have Poongsan telling JJ not to be discouraged. He uses a phone analogy: GW is like a cellphone. Replace the cellphone cover, but the cellphone’s still the same inside. (Let’s just disregard the obvious product placement here for Samsung phones.)

But do you see how it ties up with the text messages? The choice of analogy is deliberate. Poongsan could have used any kitchen item like a pot and lectured, “JJ, see this stew boiling in this pot? I can change pots, and transfer the stew, but the stew will remain the same.” Instead, Poongsan uses a cellphone analogy. Why?

Answer: If GW is the cellphone, then, JJ is the text message inside him. (lol. So cheesy, Hong sisters! Cheesy x 10)

That’s why I expected that there’s déjà vu of the airport chase. The past must collide with the present. JJ needs to feel the SAME emotions that she had when she originally sent the text messages — desperation, fear, distress, heartbreak.

She has told Poongsan earlier than the unsent messages were like “a heart…floating in the air”. A heart floating in the air? That’s THE balloon metaphor, dearie.

Remember now: GW thought that the last “love” balloon would be popped if he selfishly asked her to keep on liking and missing him. But that balloon was never popped because she CONTINUED to like and miss GW. Even after a year, she still doesn’t want him to leave her. She ~loves~ him now.

She resends the texts, knowing that he may not get them again, but HOPING he will…this time.

When she resends the messages, GW immediately responds. “Are these the texts that I didn’t receive a year ago?” She doesn’t answer his question (did you notice that?) but she texts frantically like she did last year. If we combine her texts from the past and the present, they run seamlessly.

Where are you now
Did you leave?
Did you leave you jerk?
You don’t remember what you said last night, do you?
I remember everything
Where are you?
Where are you!

Poof! Like magic, he appears right beside her, and – get this – he puts his cell phone down on the counter. See that? She’s Ms. Text Messages, he’s Mr. Cellphone. She’s the message that can’t be resent because a year has passed. And he’s the phone whose cover may have changed, but it still the same inside. pwahahahaha. (Too obvious, Director-nim! We saw what you did there, Hong sisters. Cheesy x 20)

As a matter of fact, the first view we have of GW is of his hand holding the cellphone. Ta-daaaa! Cellphone incoming!

The nice touch however about this timejump is that, after all is said and done, our couple lay to rest their cellphones, and communicate in the old-fashioned way. There’s no need for more texting when they can see each other face-to-face, and say the simple words out loud.

GW: This is your doing, wasn’t it (holding up bandaged hand)? You stayed by my side last night, didn’t you? We talked sitting her last night. Thanks to the Mayor, I completely let go of my mind. Because of that, I couldn’t leave.
JJ: Do you remember what you said?
GW: Forget everything that some drunk guy told you. Hear it again when I’m clear-headed. Joonjoo-ya, saraenghe. ♥♥♥ lol

At long last, the timejump accomplishes its goal when he reaches out to touch her face, and she nestles her cheek in his hand.

There were many love confessions made along the way, but this one finally works.