Our Sticky Love Episode 10 Recap

Who's in the cast:
Jung Hae-in as Jang Tae-ha
Ha Young as Go Eun-sae
Heo Sung-tae as Baek Sang-gil
Jeon Bae-soo as Hong Do-yeop

Go Eun-sae, a Seoul prosecutor who lost her memory, spent weeks in Gujin Taffy Village believing boxing coach Jang Tae-ha was her boyfriend. Her memory is back now, and so is her case against Baek Sang-gil, chairman of Mirae Eden Company. Do Jeong-hwa, one of the villagers, ends up in surgery.

Jeong-hwa is hurt

Fourteen years earlier, the legal guardian of a stroke patient named Hong Man-su offers to pay part of his overdue caregiver fees. Staff say he has had no caregiver for a while. Instead, a young man they take for the guardian's son comes daily. The guardian, a bachelor and a younger Hong Do-yeop, finds Tae-ha washing the old man. He scolds the boy for wasting energy before training at Taereung and warns him off a 30-million-won offer as an organ scam. Then the two bicker over whether they look like father and son.

In the present, Do Jeong-hwa, Do-yeop's wife, was only supposed to drop by Kim Song-wol's. When she does not come back, Sang-gil's men jump Do-yeop. She was trapped in the car Tae-ha rammed again and again at the end of the last episode, and she ends up in surgery. A doctor says it went well, but she lost so much blood that tonight will decide everything. When someone, almost certainly Tae-ha, addresses Do-yeop as Coach, he is told they will talk later.

Sang-gil's earlier taunt about Tae-ha's plan replays, and a brawl follows, with Tae-ha against Sang-gil's men. Sang-gil offers a drink and talks of the world's best wine, made by two families for over 60 years until they fell out. No friendship lasts forever, he says, not even Hong Do-yeop and Jang Tae-ha's. He asks Tae-ha why he is going this far and hears that scum like him would never understand. Over it all come the words Do-yeop once used to disown Sang-gil as his pupil, and a verdict: Sang-gil has lost.

Eun-sae makes the arrest

Eun-sae arrives, introduces herself as Prosecutor Go Ji-won of the Anti-Corruption Department, and arrests Sang-gil for bribery and attempted murder. A flashback shows the setup. She tells a superior she was hurt chasing Sang-gil and Mayor Ju Min-jong of Gangju City, then lost her memory. Learning that her supervisor claimed she had requested long-term sick leave, she suspects moles in the prosecution and asks for only the most trustworthy investigators and police. Soon her team has both men located.

Back at the scene, she reads Sang-gil his rights and says the rest can wait for her office. Then she turns to Tae-ha, who cannot believe she is there. Her memory is back, she tells him, and Sang-gil is caught, so he can stop worrying.

A news report covers the early-morning arrests of Sang-gil and Mayor Ju on bribery charges. Sang-gil was caught threatening a former Mirae Eden executive identified only as Mr. A, who is now cooperating. Eun-sae tells Tae-ha her memory returned on the stowaway boat, and she came back because she had evidence. She thanks him for keeping her safe and promises to handle the rest, including justice for Jeong-hwa, until Sang-gil gets the maximum sentence. Called away by her chief, she orders Sang-gil brought in for questioning.

Jeong-hwa wakes up

Do-yeop rails at Tae-ha for risking his life on a man he calls a despicable dog. Tae-ha's grandmother raised him like treasure, and the village was once proud of him. Tae-ha, he admits, is a thorn deep in his heart.

Then Jeong-hwa wakes and jokes that she can take a beating. She asks after Tae-ha and reminds Do-yeop how he wept like a creature that could not shield its young when Tae-ha quit the national team. Out of guilt, he moved to Taffy Village to watch over the boy's grandmother, and that is how he met her. Tae-ha's heart must be bruised, she says, but Do-yeop has a thorn of his own to pull, so he should go.

Do-yeop goes to him and warns that next time Tae-ha gambles his life on someone barely human, he will get a fist instead of an open palm. He wanted to go after Sang-gil more than anyone, he admits. But Prosecutor Go called about Jeong-hwa and promised to handle it, so their part is over. At Jeong-hwa's bedside, Tae-ha apologizes, and she reminds him that those men forgot who they were dealing with: "Taffy doesn't crack the hotter it gets." It only sticks together more.

The village sees her on TV

Villagers sharing warm food in front of the TV spot Eun-sae at a press briefing. They thought she had fled the country. The screen calls her Prosecutor Go Ji-won, but they know Go Eun-sae when they see her, and she actually got him. On air, she promises to chase leaks inside the prosecution too. Later, a voice calls Ji-won, and someone, apparently Eun-sae, tells Aide Gwak Chi-hyeon to cooperate with the investigation.

Eun-sae then visits Sang-gil, who notes she has made her name. Only the beginning, she says. Remains of missing people tied to the development have turned up in Mirae Eden's quarries and mountains: four murders confirmed, plus five more he allegedly ordered. Some bonds really are thicker than blood, she adds, and his script for Tae-ha and Do-yeop failed too.

Two weeks later, villagers grumble that seeing her on the news is nice, but she has not called once and even switched off her phone. One says she never really belonged with them. Tae-ha is alone at the gym while Do-yeop sits with Jeong-hwa, and Eun-sae seems not to have reached him either. A report on the raid at Mirae Eden's headquarters names Prosecutor Go Ji-won as the lead.

Eun-sae takes a day off

Someone who calls her Prosecutor Go worries that she never stops, and Eun-sae says the heavy lifting is finally done. Soon a toad causes a fuss, and Eun-sae steps in to deal with it. He is the one scared of toads, she teases, which explains the story he once invented about one.

"I'm the busiest prosecutor in Korea these days," she announces, and she fought for this day off to see her boyfriend. Her breakup speech was a ruse to let her work quietly until the arrests. At the ocean, she stumbles while bragging about how athletic she is, then boasts she is now famous for chasing people until she catches them.

She wants to replace her last memory of the sea, a near-escape that almost killed them both. Then she asks why he risked so much for someone he had met only twice. She is the only person he has ever liked, Tae-ha answers, and their night in Japan was the first time he wanted time to slow down. "You were my first love." She realizes he has liked her since a boxing match years ago.

A caption returns to the 2010 National Junior Boxing Team selection, where Tae-ha's opponent keeps going for his eye. A girl barges in claiming the match was rigged; she spotted something while taking selfies, and someone wonders whether a certain substance is only disinfectant. After a scuffle, Tae-ha wins gold. He thanks the girl, young Eun-sae, who came to cheer on a friend from her orphanage. Her evidence changed the color of his medal, she brags, like a righteous prosecutor, which is maybe what she will become. He promises to thank her in his interview once he wins Olympic gold.

Back in the present, Eun-sae teases that he fell for her then, and asks why he never gave her his number in Japan. Instead of Olympic gold, Tae-ha says, he became a gangster. She admits she did not become that righteous prosecutor either. Desperate to prove herself, she filled the emptiness with expensive bags and supercars, which is why nothing impressed her when she first reached Taffy Village.

Sang-gil's past surfaces next. As a boy, Sang-gil is beaten by a father hunting for gambling money. Then, on the way to a funeral home for the late Baek Hak-su, he orders the car turned around: a father who kept his son bruised deserves no send-off. Tae-ha says he hopes Sang-gil will prove he is different. Sang-gil tells Tae-ha he has never disappointed him and that he trusts him.

Over soju, Eun-sae mentions that Dr. An Gi-jun once carried her home from a pub, and calls him cute. Tae-ha grumbles that cats are cute, not 34-year-old men, and she calls out his jealousy. Gi-jun likes someone, one of them notes: a woman whose eyes point to 8:20.

Elsewhere, nurse Min Su-ji drops by for things she left behind and plans to take a taxi. Gi-jun says she will never catch one at rush hour and tells her to ride with him. A flashback to two years earlier shows a classmates' drinking night where Gi-jun appoints himself Su-ji's black knight and downs her drinks. Rehearsing how to suggest casual speech outside work, he asks whether he can touch her up, then explains that he meant his hair. They do agree to speak casually, and when hangover soup is offered, Gi-jun's eager yes comes out as a stammer.

Back with Tae-ha, Eun-sae says there is one more thing she wants to do and suggests they go rest. Tae-ha is startled; her idea of rest is a campfire. When the moment comes, she wishes him a happy birthday. She loved their night in Japan too, she says, with its crackling fire, its sunrise and a birthday wish from a man she found attractive. It was her best birthday ever, and she wanted to give him the same.

She switched off her phone because one call would have sent her straight back before her work was done. Asked why she went to such trouble, she says she loves him, the fool who staked his life on saving her. Intercut are Tae-ha's lines hoping their time together will not hurt her once she remembers, even if she stops liking him. Her memory has returned, she answers, she still likes him, and being his girlfriend was the happiest time of her life. She thanks him for being born and for coming into her life, and tells him she truly loves him.

Up next: Our Sticky Love Episode 11 Recap. See every episode in the Our Sticky Love episode guide.