Goong episode 20 in caps: angstolicious in the palace...

[dangermousie]

Some time ago, I started a series of posts capping episodes of Goong (just click on the goong tag to see previous eps' caps) because not only do I adore that drama, but it's just so incredibly pretty. It should win some sort of an award for art design.



In case you somehow avoided knowing about it, Goong was a wildly successful adaptation of a manhwa from a few years back, starring Yoon Eun Hye and Joo Ji hoon. It's a delicious, hilarious (but with that yummy underpinning of angst) fairytale set in an alternative universe, where Korea is a constitutional monarchy. Our heroine Chae-Gyung, in her last year of high school, an outgoing, funny, and dorktastic girl from a wonderful but poor family, finds out that years ago, and unknown to anyone but her now deceased grandfather, she has been betrothed to the Crown Prince Shin - a cold, arrogant young man who she has overheard proposing marriage to another woman. How on earth could the two of them ever make it work?



I took a bit of a break, but am back on it now, where I left off: this post contains caps for ep 19.

You know, this capping is basically a giant excuse for me to rewatch (it's one of my most rewatched dramas) and somehow, every time, I forget how much I adore it and just how well it flows - the makers of BOF could learn a thing or dozen on how to adopt a manga into a teen-oriented drama successfully, by watching Goong (and, no, stealing instrumental music from it doesn't count). In addition to pretty colors, art design, and actually competent editing, what really gets me in Goong is the characters: to me Goong, bubblegum though it is, has some of the most consistent, believable, and interesting character arcs I have seen in kdramas. There is a bit of drag in the middle (apparently the drama was so successful, it got extended from 16 to 24 eps and it shows) but unlike in BOF, where the first half and second half are almost two different dramas with two different sets of characters, and there is no character development because mechanical pulls of the script push and pull characters in arbitrary ways, the characters are deeply consistent (Chae-Gyung of ep 24 is matured and grown-up, but she is a believable outgrowth of CG from the start. Shin of ep 24 has learned to express his emotions and open up to CG but he is a believable development from Shin of the first ep). And I really really love the character arcs - CG's growing up arc, true, but even more so, Shin's arc, one of my favorite in dramas - in a way he is an introvert version of Domyouji, at least in my reaction to him - I start the drama deeply disliking him (as fivil put it, he is a "cold bitch") but by the end, I am all about him - he grows, yes, but also you end up understanding where he comes from and why he is the way he is, how much of it is haughtiness and how much is his being an introvert cripplingly unable to express himself due to his upbringing - it's more of a slow reveal than a magic moment of change. Oh, and they did the right thing with Yul: a lot of people like him (though I am indifferent to him) but he is never allowed to eclipse Shin/CG or have oodles more moments with the girl than her supposed OTP.

Anyway, ep 19 - angst, funniness, shippiness, and prettiness.



This episode has a lot of shots through obstructions - I love it.



She is flashing back to that forced kiss from ep 18. Of course, at this point, she still doesn't realize Shin likes her which is rather realistic despite everything that would indicate he does (hellllllo, she slept in his arms for a start!) because she is so young and has no experience. And of course it doesn't help that Shin's FUBAR upbringing left him basically unable to express himself in any productive fashion...Just tell her you love her, dork!



Meanwhile, Shin is brooding on the same thing...





What will you bet that his attempt to apologize/explain will fast go South? I thought so...









Ahahaha - are you saying only an insane person will want to kiss Chae-Gyung? Smoooooth.



And now you are saying that it wasn't personal for you at all...heee, the hole gets deeper!



*there there puppy*



Ummm, if you tell her "I kissed you because I am in love with you and was jealous out of my mind" that might go over better. Just sayin'. Not to mention it's the truth so that also might help.



That is not a face of a forgiving woman! :)















This cap cracks me up.



You know what I love about Goong? The OTP actually talks to each other! I am sick to death of BOF's musical montages with no dialogue - that is plain lazy.





You know what makes a fight even better? Bringing the topic of the guy's ex into equation:







*sigh* He is so very pretty.



Bwaaaa, and now he is blaming her!





Awww, poor inarticulate thing!







I love Grandma's haircut:



Ooooh, hidden meanings. I have never got why people like Yul, but like him they do, so here he is. I think, for me, I never warmed up to him because I never bought that he liked Chae-Gyung for Chae-Gyung. I always got the sense that he saw her as yet another "thing Shin stole from him" so he wanted to reclaim her the way he wanted to reclaim CP status. Plus, he knows CG likes Shin and he knows Shin likes CG, however awful he is at expressing it, and yet he keeps hammering away at CG's insecurities and trying to convince her Shin doesn't like her. Not to mention his idea in ep 20, I think, of having CG ask for divorce on national TV? UGH. CG might not know better, but he does - he knows what kind of horror she'll get for it from the Royal Family of Evil for this, he knows the trouble he will get her into, and he doesn't care.







Of course, Yul did have FUBAR upbringing. I still haven't decided what is worse - Yul's mother, who is almost obsessively devoted to him but threatens/tries suicide on regular basis as emotional blackmail, or Shin's parents, which deny him any human contact (when he tried to haltingly call his mother "Mom" as opposed to "Your Majesty" for the first time since he was little and she snapped at him "You forget yourself", I literally screamed "bitch!" at the TV, getting a rather amused reaction from my husband).





So not going to work!







Instead, she tells him to be nice to Yul:







Outfits!



YEH is so pretty!





I love this farewell conversation btw Shin and Hyorin (which CG sees and misinterprets, of course, per drama rules). I ended up quite liking Hyorin, actually, despite my dislike in the beginning.











Shin looking for CG and fooling nobody by his denials:



One of the prettiest shots in the drama:











In looking for CG, Shin discovers about his father and Yul's mother having an affair...(Oh God, how I loathed Shin's father. I remember desperately wanting him to die from tetanus or rabies or something. Good times, good times!)





And meeting Yul's mother shortly afterwards:





My response would have been "that's because I just learned about my horrible daddy and you knocking boots, Your Highness. May I say your taste in men is atrocious?"



Yup, growing up at the Palace gave Shin a great deal of emotional control because he had to have it - problem is it also made him an emotional cripple at the same time - he got smacked down any time he showed any human feeling.





I wonder if Shin was wondering whether Yul is not his cousin but his half-brother. Yuck.









Confirmation:





Awwwww, he tries to meet her in her environment and sneaks out after her!





Her friends notice him and leave:







This is not related to the scene but I just realized why it ends up working out with CG - Shin needs someone who is very open and very warm and completely and obviously likes him - otherwise he'd never dare to come out of his shell, seeing how thoroughly he was smacked down for any attempts throughout his life - he has to feel safe, and even then it takes a great deal - he is terrified even when she tells him she wants to stay by his side (prior to the awesome kissing scene in 23) and it takes him a moment even then to actually say he wants her to stay.







That will win her over! (You know, one of the things I adore about Goong is that, in the end, it was not the girl who had to adjust to the guy's world, but the guy realizing not only that his world will never make her happy, but that he would be happier in her world, too)









How do I love this scene! Also, Shin totally didn't realize he'd create a commotion - he does live in a bubble.





Awwww, Shin!

















Aaaand, they get separated. Hooray for unsubtle symbolism.







Like I said, I love the shots through obstructions:







Awww, he takes her to her family's house to spend the night because he knows how she misses them.













But her family sends her back because she should get used to living in the Palace.



And not only that, the Queen Bitch chews her out for going AWOL (I like how CG doesn't say Shin let her). God, I hate Shin's parents. One of the things I always found most realistic about the ending is that yes, Shin ended up with CG, and happy by giving up his title, but he never really reconciled with his parents - he never got his father's love or his mother's warmth or anything like that. That was quite realistic.





Yup, boy, your impulse of kindness backfired.







I love how Shin goes to Queen Bitch and takes responsibility, and stands up for CG.













"Breathe What is that? For am android and do not need it"









Good luck, Shin! She hasn't managed to care for you, and she's had you around a lot longer!





But then of course, being Shin, he totally blows it when he tries to talk to CG:



























Oooooh!





































To be fair, she does end up hanging out with Yul, and almost gets caught.





Oooooh, Shin. That's cold.





















Tpo be continued in ep 20...

Comments

[sisterjune.livejournal.com]

I loved the latter half of goong! after the draggy parts it really got SO intense. I was on edge of my seat from start to finish! I loved all the intrigue and palace politics in this drama. it's what made it so much more fascinating than your average kdrama. though I think coffee prince remains my fave kdrama ever.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

I loved CP but it got a bit draggy in the end for me.

[morwen_peredhil]

Aww! They hurt my soul in this episode, but so much pretty!

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

There is always a lot of pretty in Goong :)

[walkwithheroes.livejournal.com]

I love Goong. I'll admit I found the first few episodes draggy and there was some drag in the middle, but it was an awesome show.




Did you know the production company behind Boys Before Flowers is the one that did Goong S? But, Group Eight, is also doing The Return of Iljimae, which is love. Mm. I still blame the horribleness that can be BBF on the writer.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

I knew about the Goong S thing but like you, I adore RoI (which apparently has the same PD as Goong proper). So far they are batting 33% success rate :)

[thinking-lotus.livejournal.com]

I think I must watch goong.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

It is very very pretty.

[thinking-lotus.livejournal.com]

I dl'd the first few eps.

I think I'll watch one now!

[bae-mac.livejournal.com]

oh crap! Seeing this post of yours, I suddenly have the urfe to rewatch this.

I'm watching/rewatching 6 dramas at the moment btw.

LOL!

<333

[miss-dian.livejournal.com]

LOL what dramas are you rewatching? ^^; I just watched ep 23 of Goong with that very un-Korean kissing scene and OMG. I can't believe BOF is just soooo tame. Please, even a hug is a rarity in BOF. I love that in Goong we get (as Mousie put it) actual conversation, even if arguments, which shows that at least they communicate. And towards the end we get heaps of hugs and cute scenes. Aaaawww.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

A lot of kdramas have good kissing scenes (Return of Iljimae, Lovers, QSS, La Dolce Vita etc have bed scenes!) so why BOF characters kiss like dead fish, I have no idea.

[bae-mac.livejournal.com]

Kim Sam Soon, My Girl, Mawang, Full House, Yellow Handkerchief HGD.

:)

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

6? Yikes!

[bae-mac.livejournal.com]

I know...it's pretty bad,noh? hehe! 2 dramas a day...that's like 3-4 hours each drama. That could only mean I barely sleep at all! LOL! :)

[joonni.livejournal.com]

I've rewatched Damo the most (probably because it's the oldest too) and it leaves me sad and wistful.
Second is Save the last dance, and that is just for pure kdrama goodness.
third is Coffee prince because it just makes me happy and nostalgic and I look forward to summer.
Fourth is Goong and the colors vivid colors just fill my soul.

God, Yoon eun hye was good in coffee prince; There is no chaekyung at all.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

I haven't rewatched Damo much because it makes me so depressed!

Hmm,my most rewatched kdrama is probably Capital Scandal...

[ambergold.livejournal.com]

MMM. I'd forgotten how much I love this. SO need to do a rewatch! and yeah - I didn't notice until a bunch of people mentioned it, but you're so right - part of the reason I can't enthusiastically ship Jandi/Junpyo(because I could - I have little problem shipping both Jandi/Junpyo and Jandi/Jihoo if I had sufficient reason) is because they don't really TALK to each other at all - there's so little of the delightfully witty and happy bickering/exchanges that there was in Jdrama and twdrama.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

I loved their bickering in j/twdrama because you really got the sense of the energy they both derived from it. In kdrama? Nope.

[lain7.livejournal.com]

I can't believe I'm saying this: ITA, Goong was way better than Boys Over Flowers. Shin annoyed me; Doumyouji fills me with hate.

I never bought that he liked Chae-Gyung for Chae-Gyung. I always got the sense that he saw her as yet another "thing Shin stole from him" so he wanted to reclaim her the way he wanted to reclaim CP status.

This contradicts canon. In ep. 9, Yul plain told his psycho mom that 1) he had never wanted the throne and only returned to Korea for her, and 2) now he wanted the throne because he wanted Chae-Gyung. There was absolutely no reason for Yul to disguise his throne ambition before his mother, who had pushed him toward it from the start. We can debate Yul's actions and motives prior to ep. 9, but that conversation pretty much settled the matter of What Came First: CG or Throne. It was always about CG to Yul; he wanted the throne only because he thought CG came with it (a stupid and offensive belief, and the reason why I couldn't stand him from that point on).

he knows CG likes Shin and he knows Shin likes CG, however awful he is at expressing it, and yet he keeps hammering away at CG's insecurities and trying to convince her Shin doesn't like her

Why should Yul "know" that Shin liked CG? Why should he care about Shin's damage? Yul and Shin were rivals; of course each believe the other didn't like CG enough or in the right way. It was Shin's responsibility to convince CG that he liked her, not Yul's.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

I don't think Yul should care about Shin or what Shin wants, but he should care about CG and what CG wants - he is supposed to love her! He shouldn't set up candlelit picnics for S/CG but he should at least stop adding to her misery.

Re: what Yul wants. I was basing it on a conversation he had where he said he didn't want Shin to give up things, but take it from him (I don't remember if that was before or after ep 9 though). He just struck me as very resentful throughout, understandably so. He might say he didn't want the throne and it might have even been true in part, but a part of him did resent being kicked out of the palace and IMO tied Shin, CG and everything else with it.

You know me - I normally like Domyouji just fine (as long as he stays in fiction) but even I cannot stand the version of him in BOF - they added complete cowardice and passivity on top of everything else :)

[sodahands.livejournal.com]

Goong was totally eye candy despite the fug wardrobe (the fuzzy pink sweater! The polka dots! The girl shorts!). And y'know even though Goong is set as much in fantasy land as BOF, the OTP relationship is so much more realistic. The way they are arguing/trying to apologize in those caps, in real life a teenage couple would probably go about it the same way. JP and JD had that potential. In the first part of the drama they actually had conversations but it all got screwed up by lazy, awful writing. I think the batshit writer just expects us to accept that Jun Pyo and Jandi love each other and worked through their problems without actually showing it on screen because the manga's so popular and there's been two very successful adaptations so we already know the story. *sigh* I wish they'd picked the script writer who wrote Goong or Coffee Prince for BOF. It could have been so epic.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Whoever designed the male clothing for Goong must have been legally blind - I have never seen such horror even in other kdramas!

The horrible thing about BOF is how amazing it could have been with the same cast, same budget, even same PD (he did DGCH and MG both of which I loved), only if it had a good writer! So much potential wasted...

[miss-dian.livejournal.com]

Aaaaaaaawww... I miss Goong. I need a rewatch. Such a pretty drama. It was actually the drama that sucked me totally into doramas.. I'd watched Meteor Garden first but then my love for doramas didn't grow until Goong.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Goong was one of my earliest kdramas and I fell in love from the first second, which rarely happens for me with dramas!

[bennet-7.livejournal.com]

I'm on a Goong rewatch myself. I'm amazed that I can still get so angry at the parents.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

They are truly awful but in a highly realistic, can see this happening easily way, not the ott way of a lot of kdrama parents.

[cranberrysheep.livejournal.com]

I think Goong would have been help infinitely if it had remained 16 episodes. While I do agree that the character develpment was well handled I just don't think the story could handle being stretched out. That's what suffered and I found myself getting tired of watching it, but wanting to continues because I loved CG and Shin.

Besides, it was just so *pretty* to look at.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

It does get draggy in the middle, doesn't it? I wonder what I would have thought of it watching it 'live' - as is, I just used my ff button.

[boycottbananas.livejournal.com]

I liked Yul~ because he was pretty

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Heee, as good a reason as any.

[kitkat-cat.livejournal.com]

Oh good god! Just when i was seriously considering dropping capital scandal to watch the 9-tailed fox, you go and remind me of Goong!!! Oh sod it! I'm giving in to the power of Shin + Chae Gyung!

Yul in Goong, is my Rui in HYD! Basically, bleurgh! Can't stand them. although Yul is in a whole category of hate all by himself! i absolutely hate his 'oh, aren't i so very very innocent... i only want what's best for you chae gyung...you know, don't you, that shin can't possibly love you...' ARGH! HATE!

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Yeah - the way he played on her insecurities really pissed me off - he owes nothing to Shin but he should be nicer to CG!

[knollei.livejournal.com]

This will definitely be my number asian series.. no doubt, hands down.. It made me laugh, cry, mad.. almost everything.. I'm watching it all over again and I will never get tired of watching it and listening to its soundtrack. :)

Oh and the goong 1.5 is totally hilarious.. :P I'm laughing most of the time while watching it.

Thanks for this @Dangermousie!!!

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Awww, thank you!

[(Anonymous)]

Hello sorry to be so late on reading this but where
can I find the continuation of this? Love the
screen caps and of course the sub comments

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Sorry, I never went further than this ep with recaps

[nomdeplumejam.livejournal.com]

Hi there~! I came about your lj through a forum in Soompi about Goong and its pairings. I just want to say how much I appreciate this and loved it all the way. You made an honest review, and pretty much said what i have in mind too. Thanks :))

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Thank you :)