YFAS: You sure know how to sweep a girl off her feet

I just got out of a bad relationship. You see there was this show called The Prime Minister and I. We spent 17 whole hours together and then it went and ended everything with a HANDSHAKE. But I’m an optimist at heart. Surely love would come again. Wednesday followed Tuesday, as it always does. And You From Another Star arrived to wash away any traces of the bad writing left over from PM&I. Thank you, show. Thank you for being so consistently awesome week after week. Even if you betray me at the finish with a sad, weepy ending, I think I can still forgive you because of all the many moments that left me grinning like a loon. Moments like this:

 Yes, YES, YEEEEEEEESSSSSSS!!!

This scene kept one-upping itself. Min-joon mind-flipping the desk before the evil baddie can press the emergency button. Then slamming him into the blinds, and lifting him off the ground. Of course, the raging psychopath smiles as if he still has the upper hand. So let’s sweep him to the roof and dangle him off the building. I bet there was a whole chorus of viewers chanting, “Drop him! Drop him!” We knew Min-joon wouldn’t kill the villain this early in the show, but I wanted the satisfaction of watching that perma-smirk wiped off his face. So what does our accommodating hero do? Drops him. Just a teeny-tiny bit. Mr. Puppy Killer falters, but still tries to play it cool and so our Joseon Superman mind-bends him back in slow motion and then . . . he let’s go. The bad guy screams all the way down until he brakes right above the pavement and hits just hard enough to scratch up that sneering face. I could have stopped right there and gone to bed happy. But I’m glad I didn’t.

Mystery Solved: Hwi-kyung has a brain and he’s not afraid to use it!

Hwi-kyung drew ever closer to unmasking his psycho brother, as he tracked down the missing sister-in-law to the mental hospital where she’s held captive. How hot was he when he gave Nurse Pants-on-fire the third degree? Not only was his IQ alive and well, but his EQ proved strong and steady when he brought a caravan of fancy, food trucks to Song-yi’s movie set. Just to make her look good. Plus it wiped the self-satisfied serenity right off the face of our second lead, Miss Aspertame (she looks like sugar, but just might kill you). Then he tops it all off by throwing himself under a falling Song-yi to save her life. In that moment, he was almost awesome enough to make me forget Min-joon. Almost.

Did Jun Ji-hyun need a vacation?

I read an article on Soompi that poor Kim Soo-hyun gets maybe one hour of sleep a night during filming. It makes me wonder if Ji-hyun arranged for extra rest as part of her contract, because between Min-joon pulling an Edward Cullen while she slumbered, to her ambulance ride, to her extended hospital scenes, her character spent most of Episode 14 flat on her back. (Has anyone else seen the dvd bloopers from Secret Garden where a tearful Ha Ji-won stands at the sick bed of the comatose Hyun-bin, and you suddenly hear him snoring? Hilarious.) Although I’m all for well-rested actors, I felt the absence of Song-yi’s sparkle. She injects her scenes with an energy which is all the more noticeable when it’s missing. Thank goodness she woke up at the end of Episode 14 in that brief but squeeable epilogue.

Can you blame her?

Song-yi put on her big girl designer pants this week and showed Min-joon he couldn’t toss her around like his own personal Barbie doll. She didn’t swoon at the sight of him appearing in her hospital room. She switched to formal speech to keep him at a distance (not that she always remembered to keep it up). And the sight of her cheerfully stomping her feet in the cold as she waited to film her tiny scene somehow got to me. I respect her for taking charge of her own life. After spending her entire adulthood in a pampered famous fishbowl, she’s finally learning how the other half lives. She could take the easy way out, and accept the help of her hot, manager-neighbor, but she’s got more pride than that. I feel for our poor, misunderstood hero. He’s only trying to do what’s best for her. But don’t we all hate to see him go down the noble idiot route?

Can you blame him?

Thankfully, Min-joon seems to be taking a detour into Selfishville. And I applaud the move. Especially if it will give us more kisses like this week. *Swoon* His overactive imagination gave him a much needed push toward Song-yi as he continuously pictured a romantic future between her and Hwi-kyung. Looking at it objectively, he should be pushing for her to get over him. He’s still a 400-year-old alien who’s leaving the planet in a month. How is this relationship a good idea? But he’s past caring, and so am I. We’ve both decided to enjoy the warm, fuzzies while we may. The future can go throw itself off a building.

So many shows have let me down this year. Marry Him If You Dare, The Prime Minister and I, Pretty Man. Is it any wonder I’m feeling a little hesitant to embrace something new? But I’m taking a page out of Min-joon’s book. Let’s see how selfish I can be as I relish every pratfall, superhero save, and toe-tingling smooch that this story will give me. It might hurt down the road, but I’d rather live in the moment.