Dreams Can Come True
Episode 10 of Record Youth begins with Jeong-Ha making a lavish meal for her Father which he graciously accepts and starts eating. It turns out though that he has an ulterior motive for being there with her. He hands over an envelope holding a whole wad of money and talks about what he’s been doing. It turns out he’s painting again as a way of showing her that working hard and cherishing your life are the two most important lessons to learn. It’s solid advice and something that causes her to immediately start beaming from ear to ear. On the back of this, Jeong-Ha heads back into work and hands in her letter of resignation. Before she goes though, she sits with Jin-Ju in Subway and she immediately speaks casually to the woman. Jeong-ha shows the video she took of their encounter at work and wants an apology. Publicly at work in front of everyone. Hye-Jun meanwhile receives a call from Ji-A but he’s frosty toward her and quickly hangs up on the girl before she can spin her web of deceit. Unfortunately Ji-A is cunning sand she shows up on-set instead. Hye-Jun is having none of it though and acts coldly toward her. He tells this ex to be more emotionally stable and vehemently decides against being her friend. Meanwhile, Hae-Hyo starts to doubt his ability and it’s only made worse by his Father calling him a puppet and playing second fiddle to Do-Ha in his supporting role. I-Yeong also chimes in and tells him he needs to be more aggressive. Hae-Hyo sighs, promising to get a lead role next time. Given he has military service coming up, he too decides to postpone this in order to work on his career. Ironically, this is following in Hye-Jun’s footsteps early on in this drama. Hae-Hyo’s woes continue when Do-Ha casually questions the number of followers he has. He also goes on to hope Hye-Jun’s new drama is a failure in a pretty bitter and resentful way. When Do-Ha hangs up, Tae-Su arrives and casually speaks about the ability of buying followers. Back at the salon, Hae-Hyo gets his make-up applied by Jeong-Ha before his big interview. Only, the questions he’s given seem to be directed across to Hye-Jun, which certainly rubs him up the wrong way. As we soon see though, Hye-Jun has problems of his own as rumours start circulating about Hye-Jun and Charlie Jung involved in a relationship in the past. After Jeong-Ha declines Hae-Hyo’s invitation for a drink, he becomes annoyed that everyone is mentioning Hye-Jun and not him. At Jeong-Ha’s, he and Hye-Jun sit together and she mentions how she’s going to open her own salon. Hye-Jun is proud of her, giving her a thumbs up. As they sit together that evening, the duo playfully fight over the remote until Ae-Suk rings. He intentionally ignores her though, worried about his Mother meeting Jeong-Ha for the first time, and walks her home instead. The next day, Jeong-Ha arrives at the salon with a whole stack of doughnuts for everyone as her way of saying goodbye. It also serves a second purpose which is for Jin-Ju and Jeong-Ha to come to a mutual arrangement – specifically with the former admitting her wrongdoing. Elsewhere, Hye-Jun receives a call from Min-Jae to confirm he’s been chosen to host the end of year awards and that he’s been nominated as the Best Actor. This, of course, catches us up to the OVN Drama Awards. What we don’t see however, are the tensions backstage as Hye-Jun and Hae-Hyo discuss the upcoming awards and who could win. Min-Jae thankfully breaks up any ill-feeling between actors, greeting the famous celebrity Min-Su. Min-Jae asks for his autograph and completely fan-girls over him in a hilarious segment. During Hye-Jun’s winning speech, Charlie Jung happens to be watching from home and he contemplates phoning his old friend. I-Yeong meanwhile is not happy and she’s unusually silent at home with the family. Hae-Hyo isn’t picking up his phone and as we soon see, he’s at the awards and holding back tears. After the show, our trio of friends get their picture taken with Min-Su and keep their friendship intact. Or so it seems anyway. Jeong-ha decides against greeting her boyfriend and heads out with Hae-Hyo instead, given she owes him a favour. IOn the way, Do-Hs rings through and starts bad-mouthing Hye-Jun. Hae-Hyo joins in too which makes it worse and eventually forces Jeong-Ha to awkwardly change the subject to going for food. As Hye-Jun looks at his phone, he sees a missed call from Charlie Jung but decides to ignore him for now. Hae-Hyo heads out for dinner but winds up throwing up his food as he’s so nervous and stressed. Instead they decide to watch the skyline of Seoul (which is absolutely breathtaking) and discuss how badly Hae-Hyo wanted the rookie of the year title. Back home, Gyeong-Jun takes to the internet and starts writing back to the internet trolls mentioning Charlie Jung. He’s determined to quell what he believes are rumours and fights back against them. Elsewhere, I-Yeong continues to drink herself into a drunken stupor while Hye-Jun returns home. While our little star is asleep, he receives a message from Charlie Jung. Only, that message is then followed by Sergeant Lee phoning requesting Hye-Jun visit the police station. Charlie Jung is dead and police presume it to be a suicide. The last scene shows Hae-Hyo dropping a message online with a picture of the three friends together with Min-Su.
The Episode Review
There’s something really raw and real about this drama and the slice of life stuff is actually really good. Admittedly, it’s taken me a while to warm to this one. However, the second half of this drama has really allowed the characters to grow and start leaning into their dreams a lot more. While Jeong-Ha has been sidelined slightly in favour of Hye-Jun’s acting career, there’s enough here to enjoy as we see Hye-Jun’s meteoric rise. It’ll be interesting to see how Hae-Hyo slots into all of this as well and whether he continues to listen to his Mother. At the moment you can sense the confliction with his character but unlike Park Bo-Gum, Byeon Woo-Seok doesn’t quite have the same range to pull it off as effectively. Still, it’s a minor point in what’s otherwise a really solid and enjoyable episode. Roll on next week!
