Sensible Temperature
Episode 2 of Forecasting Love & Weather begins with Ha-Kyung leaving her apartment after seeing Ki-Jun cheat on him. She curses out her ex-fiance and decides to call off their wedding. “Okay,” He says nonchalantly, leaving Ha-Kyung to break down into tears. Fast forward to the present and Ki-Jun tells Ha-Kyung to keep civilized, given they still have to work together. However, she’s less than enthused by his behaviour, and it’s made even worse when his new mistress rings and encourages him to head home. The point of contention here comes from the apartment and who it belongs to. Ha-Kyung’s mothers urges her daughter to stand her ground, pointing out that this should be hers and she needs to fight to keep it. In the morning, Si-Woo finds himself stopped at the front entrance despite being an employee. He’s lost his ID and the picture on file is very different to how he is now. And as we catch a glimpse of it, it’s clear he’s lost a lot of weight. Thanks to Ha-Kyung’s influence, Si-Woo manages to make it inside the building. He’s actually been dispatched to her team, and will be working with Ha-Kyung for the next two weeks… much to her annoyance. In fact, she even tries to urge Bong-Chan to reverse this decision. However, he’s convinced that Ha-Kyung is going to take the job in Switzerland. She’s got one week to make a decision. The thing is, this situation is made all the tougher by Ki-Jun and his new mistress, who happens to be working at the station as well. And as fate would have it, it happens to be Yu-Jin Chae, the reporter who broke up with Si-Woo. Ha-Kyung throws herself into her work but the atmosphere is, well, hostile to say the least. With Senior Forecaster Um on their team too, the other workers whisper that they’ll be disbanded soon, with Ha-Kyung heading off to Switzerland. Ki-Jun continues to flirt with his mistress at work, and even hounds Ha-Kyung about the apartment. However, she bites back and demands he hand back the items he’s taken, especially the TV, given she paid half for it. Si-Woo soon realizes how the four of them are entangled together and speaks to Ha-Kyung about it at work. The pair are at ease calling Ki-Jun a loser. Si-Woo also tells Ha-Kyung not to take the Switzerland job if it’s only to get away from Ki-Jun. Back home, Ha-Kyung finds all of her stuff packed up, including the TV and rice cooker. So naturally, she takes pictures of them and decides to sell them online. However, it turns out the serial number on the TV is actually one from overseas and the money she wired Ki-Jun originally is way more than the TV is actually worth. The real icing on the cake here though comes from Ki-Jun’s next move. He sends a Certificate of Contents over to Ha-Kyung’s mum, intending to try and force them to split the apartment. Ha-kyung is livid. Ha-Kyung eventually calls out Ki-Jun and after slapping him in the hallway, he turns things around and claims he was the victim. He points out how bossy she was, and even brings up how they did the wallpaper on their day off together. Only, she got called in to work and left him to do it all. When Ki-Jun finished with his little rant, Ha-Kyung bites back with venomous wrath. She’s sold the apartment and after deducting his 5 million won deposit and the money he scammed her out of with the TV, he’s left with 7% of the sale. With everyone there listening in, Ha-Kyung eventually tells him to go to Geneva instead, hurrying into Bong-Chan’s office and deciding to decline the Switzerland gig after all. Off the back off this, Si-Woo and Ha-Kyung both head out for a drink together, lamenting all of Ki-Jun’s flaws. Thee thing is, even if they’re flaws, they’re also things she used to like too. Unfortunately the pair end up drinking a lot, leading to them both waking up in bed together naked in the morning. Uh oh! And as we soon see, they both started kissing outside the bar and continued to do so all the way back to Si-Woo’s place. Ha-Kyung tries to brush off what’s happened as a mistake and how they should be mature and forget that this happened. After all, with Si-Woo heading off to the Meteorology Office in the next week then it should just blow over right?… Right? Well, no, as it turns out. Si-Woo has actually been given a permanent role on Team Two so they’re going to be working together from now on.
The Episode Review
After a dramatic opening episode, Forecasting love and Weather starts to shift tone slightly to more of a comedic and romantic role. This works well in the context of the series, balancing out the more dramatic moments involving Ki-Jun and Ha-Kyung. However, seeing Ha-Kyung stand up for herself – in front of everyone at work no less – was incredibly satisfying and a great moment to show how strong she actually is. However, the situation with Si-Woo is obviously going to escalate over time now and there’s definitely a feeling of this leaning into more of the romcom vibes that Park Min-Young works so well to channel in shows like What’s Wrong with Secretary Kim. Either way, everything is set up nicely for an enticing follow-up week to really lean into and develop the blossoming romance between our two leads. Roll on next week!
