Our Sticky Love Episode 9 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
Kim Young-ok as Go Yeon-hong
Lee Jun-young as Kaito (special appearance)

Go Eun-sae, a Seoul prosecutor who lost her memory, has been living in Gujin Taffy Village with Jang Tae-ha, the boxing coach who says he is her boyfriend. Tae-ha has just taken a beating from crime boss Baek Sang-gil's men so that she could be smuggled out by boat, and at the harbor her memory came back. Sang-gil's men report that she is not on the cargo ship where they were waiting.

Do-yeop faces his old pupil

Someone shouts Sang-gil's full name, and Sang-gil greets his old coach, wondering what an abandoned disciple should call his master now. A flashback to the 1991 national boxing team final selection explains the grudge. Sang-gil is dominating his light welterweight bout when his own coach throws in the towel, leaving the commentators baffled. In the corner, the coach orders the gloves off. He could hear that something about them was different. He disowns Sang-gil for using his fists to hurt people.

Back in the present, Sang-gil needles the coach, Hong Do-yeop, for taking back a disciple who went down Sang-gil's road. Real fights with your life at stake, he says, make ring jabs look pretty. Do-yeop tells him three decades have not changed him. Sang-gil never corrupted Tae-ha, he says: Sang-gil hurts innocent people for greed, while Tae-ha did all of it to save a life. He has reported a car explosion, so the police are coming, and Sang-gil is welcome to wait for them.

Tae-ha scolds Do-yeop for charging in with nothing but Kim Gang-rok, Tae-ha's former underling, some gas cans and a call to the police. Then he says Eun-sae got away safely, and collapses.

Eun-sae, meanwhile, refuses to leave. She fights to get back to Tae-ha, and when Kaito, who is holding her, refuses to let go, she uses the move Tae-ha taught her: stomp, trip, run. Someone shouts her name as she disappears.

Eun-sae remembers

Back in Seoul, Eun-sae comes face to face with her friend Park Hyo-jin, who asks whether her memory is back. It is. Hyo-jin has been hunting for her with almost nothing to go on, since all she knew was that Eun-sae was in a taffy village somewhere. Eun-sae asks why she would bother, when she already got her revenge. Hyo-jin admits the revenge drained the hurt away, and she remembered the good times and the friend Eun-sae used to be. Eun-sae, recalling the day she made Hyo-jin swap shoes, apologizes for how she lived, and the two apologize to each other.

Over a warm drink, Eun-sae says she was in Gujin, taken in by someone she knew. Flashbacks fill in what she now remembers: a meeting long ago where he introduces himself as Jang Tae-ha, someone teasing a future gold medalist, and an organizational chart for Mirae Eden Company listing Tae-ha as director. Then come his apology for being a gangster and his boyfriend act. He lived a life he never wanted, she says, and he risked everything to save her.

In the village, Tae-ha's allies learn that Eun-sae never boarded. One of them says the last they saw of her, she was riding off on a motorcycle, and her phone is off. They cannot go to the police, so they agree to keep it from Tae-ha, who would tear across the country looking for her. One promises to check facilities nationwide instead.

Eun-sae tells Hyo-jin the one thing she can do for Tae-ha is catch Sang-gil, and she reasons it through. Sang-gil tortured her for her watch, found it, and still let her live, so he must know about her plan B. Only Gwak Chi-hyeon, Mayor Ju's former aide, knew about it. Hyo-jin recalls that Gwak talked her out of reporting Eun-sae missing. Plan B was a pair of sneakers that uploaded footage straight to her cloud drive, but the account seems hacked. The cameras in her watch and sneakers also synced to her laptop at home, and she is scared to go there.

A security company sweeps her home and finds no bugs or watchers, only signs that someone tampered with the lock. Inside, the laptop is gone. The last copy is the memory chip in the sneakers she wore with a suit the day she was found, and they are in Taffy Village. Hyo-jin suggests asking Tae-ha. Eun-sae refuses: if he learned her memory was back, he would try to ship her off or shield her, stalling the investigation, and she will not put him in more danger.

Both sides regroup

Sang-gil learns that Prosecutor Go is probably still in Korea. Only the cargo ship left port overnight, and his men saw her ride away on a motorcycle. He confronts the old coach, reminding him that he settles every debt and every grudge, and that Do-yeop once praised his tenacity. Do-yeop begs. Prosecutor Go has no memory and cannot hurt him, he says, so Sang-gil should do whatever he likes to Do-yeop and leave Tae-ha alone. The boy has never once lived for his own sake.

At the hospital, Tae-ha is told that Kaito confirmed the boat left safely, though no one has heard from him since. Tae-ha insists on going home. His grandmother, Go Yeon-hong, arrives having learned that he stayed behind because of her illness. She calls herself a grandmother who has held him back twice, and asks how he will live after letting the woman he loves go alone. Tae-ha promises he will be fine without her.

Eun-sae sends Hyo-jin off to work. The security company has cleared the place and Sang-gil thinks she went to Japan, so home is safest for now.

In the village, the women mourn her absence. They remember the fun they had at karaoke, admire the light pink roses she loved, and miss having an ally in a fight.

At home, Gang-rok helps Tae-ha wash up. Tae-ha warns him that Sang-gil knows he helped. Gang-rok insists he has still got it and asks Tae-ha to call him if anything happens.

Eun-sae comes back to break up

The next morning, Tae-ha wonders aloud whether she arrived safely and is finding some comfort there. When he calls the dog Go Eun-sae, he is corrected: "Her name is Blessing." Eun-sae, who seems to have named the dog, is back.

Tae-ha is stunned. Eun-sae is furious at being shipped off and has no plans to go to Japan. She has a simpler way to stay safe: "I can just break up with Jang Tae-ha." He went back to gang life, she reasons, so cutting ties should protect her. She will go to a facility, and they are strangers now. Tae-ha asks whether her memory has returned, and she says no. She only came for her things, but Tae-ha had Do-yeop ship them to Japan yesterday. She demands them back, insisting something important is inside. They will arrive tomorrow afternoon, so she has to stay the night.

Then she takes charge. She warns him never to ship her off again, scolds him for letting himself go, and washes and dries his hair when his injuries make him wince. He asks which facility, and she reminds him they broke up. She bathes Blessing too, grumbling that everyone in this house gets filthy without her.

When villagers drop by, Eun-sae notes that they all knew she was being sent away. She tells Tae-ha to explain and goes to buy dinner. Tae-ha's allies admit they hid her disappearance because he was in no state to search. She cannot stay now that Sang-gil knows the village, and Kaito is checking on the next stowaway boat. Tae-ha asks whether anyone saw an odd suit and sneakers in her things. He suspects her plan B evidence is hidden in that outfit, and finding it might keep her safe without sending her away.

Elsewhere, nurse Min Su-ji has written a letter of resignation. An Gi-jun meets her and says he has realized he was surrounded by flowers. Some people are forced apart despite loving each other enough to risk their lives, he says, so quarrelling over pride feels like a luxury. He apologizes for every hurt, deliberate or not, and confesses he kept ordering yulmu tea, a grain tea he does not even like, just to see her more. Then he accepts her decision: she can stop coming to the clinic, and they can break up as she wanted.

Back at the house, Eun-sae serves a feast of black chicken, abalone and shrimp, pushing dishes toward Tae-ha. Afterward, his allies note that the menu looked meant for his recovery. They wonder why a woman breaking up would sleep over when she had other beds in the village.

That night, Eun-sae insists on disinfecting the wound on his back. She teases him for claiming to be a good fighter, and he protests that he took on almost 20 men. Then she thanks him. Living with him, she felt safe, and no mountain stood taller than his back. A promise to protect him now follows, most likely her inner voice.

Sang-gil needs a win

A flashback captioned 37 years ago shows a young Sang-gil joining a gym and telling Do-yeop he has idolized him since the Asian Games. In the present, Sang-gil drinks somewhere he last visited about 30 years ago, when he also downed a dozen bottles. It is not anger he feels, he says, but "A filthy sense of defeat." Back then he had no cure. Now he knows it is winning, and this time he must win.

The returned boxes arrive. Eun-sae shoos Tae-ha out, claiming they are full of underwear, and finds what she was looking for. As she prepares to leave, Tae-ha asks someone to tell him where she ends up. He tells her he still likes her and that she can call him anytime. She will call when she arrives, she says, but Do-yeop's wife, Do Jeong-hwa, not him. An unplaced voice notes that she never took out the suit or the sneakers while she was there, yet she packed them now.

Do-yeop calls: he cannot reach Gang-rok. Tae-ha finds Gang-rok's place empty, remembers his own warning and follows Gang-rok's shared location. He arrives to find him under attack and hauls Gang-rok toward the hospital, Gang-rok still insisting he is a good fighter. A car blocks their way, and Tae-ha, assuming it carries more of Sang-gil's men, rams it again and again. But Jeong-hwa is trapped inside it. Do-yeop's screams of her name close the episode.

Up next: Our Sticky Love Episode 10 Recap. See every episode in the Our Sticky Love episode guide.