In Ha made the right choice, no matter how hard it was, because she loved Dal Po. And her love keeps her by his side through his anger and pain. She is there to bind up his hand after he crushes his glass cup in anger. She is there to encourage him to report this story and there to receive his thanks with a reassuring smile for giving this evidence to him.

_{It’s not that In Ha loves her mom less than Dal Po. In fact, it’s greater than what Cha Ok thought.}

In Ha packs up her things from the reporters’ room at the Han River police station. She heads to MSC to hand in her resignation letter (with reason stating she is quitting because she can’t say what she wants) and does, even after she is told she will be made a permanent employee of MSC. Cha Ok demands to know why In Ha is doing this and In Ha replies it is because she wants to apologize in her mom’s stead. Because Cha Ok didn’t do the right thing 14 years ago and is refusing to apologize now, In Ha is doing all this now for her.


Cha Ok asks why In Ha is apologizing for her and In Ha replies with a piercing and unexpected answer: “Because I am your daughter.” No matter how many times she told herself that since her mom abandoned her, she can let go of mom too and just think of her as a stranger. But she couldn’t let go of mom’s hand, like a fool.


So while Cha Ok can only cause pain for In Ha, In Ha is able to find shelter with her dad who holds her hand as she holds his. He comforts her and tells her he is proud of her when she cries into his shoulder asking for reassurance that she did the right thing by becoming a whistle-blower like him.

In Ha not only has her dad but her grandpa as well, who offers to pay to for her language school. In Ha is going to learn how to drive and learn English, as well as look into other careers now that she quit being a reporter. He and her dad are encouraging and supportive, telling her it is not wrong to say what needs to be said.



Beom Jo makes a different choice from In Ha, but does he really?

Beom Jo rushes to his mom, just like In Ha did to hers after reading the text messages. He wants his mother to explain, to tell him she is not really as horrible as these text messages show her to be. But all she asks is who else saw these messages. She will only talk to him after he quits being a journalist, so Beom Jo immediately calls Gong Joo to quit MSC.


But suspiciously, the camera focuses on Beom Jo’s phone lying on the table face down after he hangs up and right before his mom starts talking.

Ro Sa admits that she sent those messages to Cha Ok. She wanted to protect a congressman who was helping her business. He was the one allowing the illegal dumping of waste at the factory and it was nearing election time. She only wanted to use Ki Ho Sang as a brief distraction until the elections where over. She didn’t expect it to become that big.

Plus, what she did isn’t a crime, Ro Sa declares. All she did was provide a favor to someone who was helping her business. Doing business is like farming- you have to get down and dirty to reap the harvest. And she’s been farming for the past twenty years to reap the upcoming harvest of millions of dollars, but bugs keep causing a problem. “And it’s so annoying!” Ro Sa whines.

When Beom Jo asks what will happen if these messages are made public, Ro Sa calmly replies, while sipping her tea, “Probably nothing much to us. It’s so long ago and if there was a crime committed, the statue of limitations is probably up.”

Beom Jo asks what Ro Sa got out of doing these favors. Her reply tears down Beom Jo’s world- “Everything you’ve enjoyed in your life till now. And everything you will enjoy in the future.”

The fact that he lived his whole life enjoying the fruits of his mom’s media manipulation eats away at Beom Jo, causing him to take the FULLY CLOTHED SHOWER OF DESPAIR.


Beom Jo makes a decision, a decision which makes him cold and unresponsive to In Ha. Instead, he advises her to just let it go, since whatever they report won’t hurt his mom much. He himself is going back to his original place, meaning he is quitting journalism and helping out his mom with the business.

Beom Jo is by his mom’s side when she meets with Cha Ok at a art gallery, buying paintings by a congressman’s wife. Ro Sa lists that buying paintings, sending congratulatory money, and manipulating news are just some of the ways to help out the politicians that support her business.


Once again, the camera focuses suspiciously on Beom Jo’s hand holding his phone. Beom Jo is also clearly disturbed when his mom suggests that Cha Ok introduce her to In Ha in order to create another “good relationship.”

So is Beom Jo secretly recording his mom, still being a journalist? I say he is.

^{In Ha and Beom Jo had to make a choice between protecting a loved one or being a good journalist. So did Dal Po.}

Dal Po shows Gyo Dong the evidence that In Ha gave him and Gyo Dong, feeling a righteous anger, instructs his team to work on the story.


Dal Po gets to work, interviewing Ro Sa. She feigns cordiality at first, as well as innocence, saying she doesn’t know anything about the text messages he recites to her as proof of her involvement with Song Cha Ok. But Dal Po catches her mistake in describing the text messages as old- he never stated the messages were old. Ro Sa cuts him off immediately then, no longer feigning cordiality. Still, it’s a win for YGN with even just this footage and he texts In Ha his progress, who texts him back with encouragement.


What Dal Po doesn’t know is that while he is out investigating and interviewing people, In Ha is out of a job. He is made knowledgable about this fact from Gyo Dong, who learned this from Gong Joo. Gyo Dong first puts the investigation on hold and tells Dal Po that what In Ha did in giving him the text is whistle-blowing, which means she is putting her job and her life on the line. He also tells Dal Po that he learned from her captain that In Ha quit. He reminds Dal Po to remember that whistle-blowing is a hard sacrifice and to remember what being a good journalist is about even though he knows how angry Dal Po is about the media manipulation and how much Dal Po wants to release that anger.

Dal Po angrily goes looking for In Ha and demands to know why she didn’t tell him about her resignation. She tells him it is because she knew he would get angry like this but there is no reason to be. She is fine and she is currently taking classes and will start looking for a job tomorrow. Dal Po tells her that her resignation wasn’t filed yet so she should return. When she refuses, he tells her he is not going to use the information she gave him.


In Ha is shocked- did she hear him correctly or is he crazy? Doesn’t he know what she went through to give him that evidence? No, Dal Po declares, he didn’t know what she went through to give him that evidence. He was too absorbed by the excitement of revealing what happened 14 years ago and didn’t realize it was going to be whistle-blowing for her and what would happen to her. “If I knew that you gave me that information by quitting being a reporter, I wouldn’t have accepted it.”

When In Ha calls him crazy for giving up on the evidence, Dal Po asks her what she would do if she was him. In Ha first replies that she would have accepted the information regardless of what happened to Dal Po, but of course she hiccups. Dal Po points out, “See. You can’t. So why ask me to do something you wouldn’t be able to do?”


So In Ha asks him what he would do if he was her, then- should she just let this go? Dal Po reassures her that he won’t; he will just find another way to report on the media manipulation. No matter how difficult it might be to find it, he will, so In Ha should go back to work at MSC. “Let’s find the way together.”

In Ha cries, disappointed that this information won’t be used to show how wronged Dal Po’s family was 14 years ago. He comforts her, reassuring her that they will find another way.

Later, calmer and eating a their favorite udon place, In Ha tells Dal Po about her mom and dad and the different choices they made in the past about whistle-blowing. Her mom became Ro Sa’s trumpeter while her dad was ostracized at work, quit his job, couldn’t find another one, and ended up getting divorced because of that.

Dal Po wonders, “Do you think either one regrets their decisions?”


In Ha’s dad regrets his decision and her mom doesn’t, or do they?

No, In Ha’s dad doesn’t regret his decision to blow the whistle on his boss. He tells In Ha, who asked him after talking to Dal Po, that what he regrets is quitting his job so fast. He should have stayed and rode it out- that would be his real victory.


So In Ha goes back to work at MSC, telling Dal Po that she will find a way while she is inside working as a journalist. With a lips-to-hand-to-forehead kiss, Dal Po wishes In Ha “hwaiting” and he walks into MSC with her, having his own business to attend to there.

Dal Po has come to MSC to question whether Cha Ok regrets her decision or not. He gives her the evidence that In Ha gave him, asking her to report it. In Ha doesn’t have the power to report it and if he does, In Ha will get hurt. Since Cha Ok is responsible for his family’s tragedy, it should be her reporting it.


Cha Ok asks Dal Po if he thinks she will really report on this just because of that reason. Is he really that innocent? Dal Po replies that he knows it is a nonsensical risk he is taking. But he wants to believe, innocently, that Cha Ok once wanted to blow the whistle herself, that she was once a real reporter, and that she may be regretting the decision she made 14 years ago.


All Cha Ok says to Dal Po as she is walking away with the evidence envelope in her hand is that both Dal Po and In Ha are annoying foolish, that they both are annoyingly nosy, that they both annoyingly get to her, and that they both annoyingly make her feel ashamed.

Cha Ok cries as she thinks about Dal Po asking her why people don’t believe her even when she is saying the right thing and as she thinks about when he did the right thing as a journalist and asked if she was really one. She cries as she thinks about her daughter, In Ha, so foolish in her love for Dal Po and for her. She had let go In Ha go for her own ambitions and desires, but In Ha hadn’t let go of her despite the freedom she would have had to be with Dal Po.


End of Episode 17

Comments:
Can one bear the scarlet letter of a whistle-blower? In Ha can because of her conviction and love of Dal Po, but Cha Ok couldn’t, her will weak and her ambitions big. She decided that is was okay to tell one lie to be able to tell 99 truths, except that one lie can make the 99 truths useless. As Dal Po pointed out, nobody believes Cha Ok even when she says the right thing. Besides, Cha Ok’s 99 truths became fact+impact in the end.

Now Cha Ok is given another chance to bear that scarlet letter. Will she rise to the occasion this time, seeing the courage and passion in her daughter and in Dal Po, feeling the shame of her cowardliness all these years?

Credits: scattered Joonnii

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Priceless !!!

Wow! Thanks for all the recaps and collated images, you all are so quick and efficient. I wish I can go watch it now. Hurry, I must quickly finish my work, so that I can go catch up, or even get to watch the live streaming next week!