Our Sticky Love Episode 2 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
Cha Cheong-hwa as Cho Maeng-suk

One kiss, one verdict

Go Eun-sae, who woke up in a hospital with no memory, has just kissed Jang Tae-ha, the boxing coach who says he is her boyfriend. She takes his panic as proof. A man who has lived with her for two years would not flinch at a kiss, she reasons, so he is either not her boyfriend or not into women. He denies the second option, tells her not to try that again, and argues that a girlfriend who has forgotten him feels like a stranger to him too. Then he tells her to eat and take her medication.

Late that night, Hong Do-yeop and his wife, Do Jeong-hwa, are leaning in for a kiss over eel and ginseng liquor when Tae-ha walks back in. Still red in the face, he asks whether people really just go for it without setting the mood. Once Jeong-hwa leaves, Do-yeop guesses the kiss was Tae-ha's first. He scolds Tae-ha for borrowing the Hongs' own courtship story (it was a snake, not a toad), then asks what debt Tae-ha owes Prosecutor Go. Tae-ha reminds him that Do-yeop has met her too: she is the cheeky high school girl who once told a young boxer he owed her his medal. Eight years ago, Tae-ha says, he ran into her again.

A long night in Japan

In Kobe, Japan, Tae-ha leads his men into a VIP room and beats down the crew inside. He orders the man he has beaten to tally his skimming and send over their share. Afterward he turns down sake, hands his men his card to party on, and walks off alone in the drizzle. Men who have been following him give chase. Just as they close in, a young woman on a motorbike tells him to hop on, and they speed away.

On a quiet roadside, she says she pegged him as Korean from the card and warns that the area is full of yakuza. He asks if they have met before. A caption reading 2010 National Junior Boxing Team Selection flashes up, but she shrugs off the idea. He phones his men to say he got away and to change hotels. The bike is out of gas and the rental company is closed, so they settle in to wait for sunrise.

She patches his bleeding cut with a Band-Aid she carries for her chafed heels, then produces a flask of whiskey. Over drinks, she says she came to Japan alone after a breakup with her first love, and she tells him her name. The orphanage registered her as Go Ji-won, but her mother's maternity notebook called her Go Eun-sae, and she is sure nobody gives a baby such a pretty name without loving her. She is in law school, studying to become a prosecutor and go after bad guys. His job is his business, she says, as long as he is not a gangster. He does not reply.

She admits it is her birthday and pulls him into a photo. She also shares a childhood story: a desk mate's pencil lead left a mark on her backside that forms a pyramid with two moles. At dawn, Tae-ha wishes her a happy birthday. When she asks whether they can keep in touch back in Korea, he only promises to repay his debt if they ever meet again. She tells him he had better keep that promise.

Back in the present, Do-yeop says his film noir has turned into a romance. Tae-ha insists it is about a promise, nothing more. He wonders whether his hair is to blame for her suspicion; Do-yeop blames the market clothes in her closet, until Tae-ha notes that Jeong-hwa bought them. Do-yeop's real advice: never get flustered again, because couples of two years bump lips all the time. Tae-ha turns red all over again.

At the house that night, Eun-sae runs through her theories. Tae-ha is too unfriendly to be a stalker, but maybe she was kidnapped, or maybe she is filthy rich. She ends up with a headache.

Friends, coupons and a broken-down van

The next morning, Eun-sae refuses breakfast, as she refused last night's sushi, because she cannot trust food from her non-boyfriend. Tae-ha says he has somewhere important to be and has asked someone to keep her company. Jeong-hwa appears and introduces herself as Eun-sae's closest friend in the village. Tae-ha heads out in a suit, and Jeong-hwa declares her husband in a suit would outshine the actor Park Bo-gum.

Tae-ha's appointment is with Baek Sang-gil, the boss he calls sir. Having cleared out his place in Seoul, Tae-ha brings a parting gift: a Romanée-Conti worth 100 million won. Sang-gil asks whether it is real and muses that paying full price is no guarantee you have not been fooled. Tae-ha swears he would never give him a fake, and Sang-gil says he trusts Tae-ha above everyone. Tae-ha announces he is going back to boxing and hands something back. The words that follow mention a gift for hanging up his gloves and tell him to pick fights that "reek of blood, not sweat."

In Gujin Taffy Village, Jeong-hwa recommends braised monkfish and pollack stew. Eun-sae pounces: a real friend would know she does not eat spicy food. Jeong-hwa recovers with the tofu poke Eun-sae supposedly loves. At the gym, the Hongs offer meal coupons as proof of shared lunches, but a countdown quiz on her usual noodle order gets mismatched answers. With no fingerprints, Eun-sae says, even the police cannot check who she is, so she wants a psychiatrist to speed up her recovery. Do-yeop tells Jeong-hwa to drive her in Bluey.

At Gangju City Hall, Gwak Chi-hyeon, the man who posed as Eun-sae's boyfriend at the party, frets that Prosecutor Go has been silent for over three weeks. His boss, Mayor Ju, mocks him for getting attached and blames him for losing her at the party, a slip that may force a concession to Sang-gil. If the aide is a mole, he is told, he should act like one. Gwak thinks back to a talk with her about the watch, when she assured him she had backup. The watch, it seems, was not all she had.

Bluey turns out to be the Hongs' old blue van, named back when they were dating. Jeong-hwa explains that a car only needs to feel familiar and comfortable, and then the van breaks down. She stays to call the insurance company and waves Eun-sae off toward the clinic in the rain.

Doctor, detective, shaman

Eun-sae crowds under the umbrella of a man headed to the same building, but his swerve away from a splash spins them a full circle and she takes the soaking. At An Mental Health Clinic, he turns out to be the director, Dr. An Gi-jun. He cannot treat an unidentified patient, he says, but she argues it is an emergency: the man claiming to be her boyfriend may be committing a crime. She would never make taffy in some backwater village, she insists, and Gi-jun says he used to live there. When she names Jang Tae-ha, the doctor goes quiet, then tells her to bring him in. Everyone around here, Eun-sae grumbles, seems fixated on him.

Meanwhile, a detective agency reports its findings. No hospital around the capital had a patient named Go Ji-won, her registered name, but one country hospital took in an unidentified woman of the right age. There, a nurse cannot be sure from the photo, but Eun-sae's former roommate is certain: the man about to marry her collected her yesterday in a van marked Hong's Boxing Gym.

In the village, Eun-sae meets a group of local women dubbed the S.E.S of Taffy Village, a nod to the 1990s girl group. One of them, Cho Maeng-suk, advertises accurate spiritual readings. She studies Eun-sae's face and finds no writing on it, so Eun-sae cannot have been a judge or prosecutor. Her reading: little luck with family, born in the fall in the Year of the Black Rooster, with the Hwagae sign, a fortune-telling mark of a flair for art, pleasure and gambling. Someone will keep her in check, and Maeng-suk's spirit says it is Tae-ha.

Eun-sae is not buying it: in the hospital she proved awful at drawing and never grasped Go-Stop, the Korean card game. Maeng-suk only gets villagers right because she knows them, Eun-sae says, so the readings are a scam. Maeng-suk throws her out, a tug of war over the reading fee follows, and something Maeng-suk calls her revered spirit breaks. Told to respect her elders, Eun-sae replies that age does not exempt anyone from being called out. By that logic, she adds, the oldest grandma could scam them all, and the grandma insists she is only 17. Tae-ha arrives to a chorus of complaints and offers to cover the damage and the fee.

Tae-ha makes his case

Outside, Eun-sae is furious that paying makes her look guilty. She wants the facts straight, not the fight settled. Tae-ha asks whether she trusts him less than a shaman, and she says yes. She has three reasons. He is not her type, which is Cha Eun-woo; his kiss was far too clumsy for two years together; and his eyes are cold, unlike the Hongs, whose love shows plainly. Tae-ha replies that "some people can't afford to have their emotions read."

On the walk home, her shoe breaks, and she sends him off to fetch another pair rather than be carried. When he returns, he finds her crying. She has woken up with no memory, no family, no friends' numbers and no money, she tells him, and a so-called boyfriend who just stands there. Tae-ha says he will make her believe him.

First he has her put on what he brought. Then he tells her he liked her from the moment he saw her and long regretted never asking her name and number. He was overjoyed when they finally met, he says, and vowed that if they ever met again he would never let her go. Seeing her hurt made him want to kill everyone responsible. He is sorry he is not Cha Eun-woo, he says, but she is the only woman he has ever liked.

Over the scene, a voice identifies the man from the party as Mayor Ju's aide, working undercover to gather information on the prosecution. Tae-ha tells Eun-sae to forget the clumsy kiss. "This one's for real," he says, and kisses her.

Up next: Our Sticky Love Episode 3 Recap. See every episode in the Our Sticky Love episode guide.