Mr Sunshine Review | Ep. 11

emily
7 min readJan 10, 2021

(Please read the previous ones!)

Ae Shin starts to tear up, and Hina on the train watches them. She puts out her hand and says, “I wonder if this is our last snow day.” As she talks to herself, a hand grabs her own hand, dragging her down. It was Dong Mae. She stares right ahead, and they both stay in silence until Hina brings out a gun and Dong Mae puts up his hands, and Hina tells him he should be careful when grabbing a woman’s hand since they might not always be holding such delicate things. He wonders out loud why he’s always surrounded by dangerous women.

With Eugene and Ae Shin, they go somewhere private and Ae Shin took him to a space where no one was around, and Eugene realized her hands seemed cold, and offered her his gloves. She accepts, and apologizes for her unintentional hurtful reaction the day they met on the lake when Eugene told her his story. She admits that she committed to be a fighter because she believed she was doing the right thing, despite the worry she burdened her family with. But the justifications for her world were invalidated by the end of Eugene’s story. She realizes that she never questioned Eugene’s identity because she assumed that he was also a noble. Overwhelmed, she starts to cry and admits she’s just a spoiled noble who lives in the luxuries, and pleads for Eugene not to be hurt by her reaction. Eugene stares at the gloves in her hand and puts them on for her. He explains how she’s been improving and this was a small mistake. He tells her to keep improving, and he will take a step back. He reminds her that every lowborn lives in the state Joseon that she wants to save, and then walks off.

With Hina and Dong Mae, Hina asks why he got slapped recently. He explains he shot a blackbird so that it could never fly again, and he offers her to slap him as well for using her fired worker to spy on Eugene.

Hina warns him never to manipulate her workers again, but he makes an excuse that his boys were useless so he manipulated the workers.

Hina returns to the Glory Hotel, and as soon as she gets her body behind the lobby desk, the door opens and a man walks in. It’s Dr Machiyama, and he greets her as Kudo’s wife.

They go into a private room, and he starts talking about how Wan-ik returned and has summoned him to work, and he reveals that Wan-ik might be revealing the reason why her husband died, and Dr Machiyama claims he had the autopsy report.

Lee Se Hun’s mistress meets Wan-ik, and begs him to take her in since she was sold to him before his death. She explains how Hina manipulated her and calls her a b*tch. Wan-ik’s eyes widen and he starts to laugh. The mistress looks up and asks why he’s laughing, and looking down at her, he says, “That b*tch, is my daughter.”

She gets dragged into the room where Hina is, and as soon as Hina sees them she gives the police each a golden bar, and the mistress is outraged on how easily she spent her gold. But Hina reminds her the golden bars costs the mistress’s life, and demands her to tell her what happened at her father’s house.

Eugene visits Seung-gu at the shooting practice hideout to deliver the broken bowls and thank him. Seung-gu infers that Eugene is here for Ae-shin and says that she’s not here, which is a relief to Eugene. Seung-gu says that Ae-shin has been exceptionally accurate with her shooting recently, as if she’s determined to stand by Eugene. But Seung-gu tells him that their relationship is not possible in Joseon.

Eugene acknowledges this and expresses his wishes that Ae-shin will smile without his presence instead of crying in his presence. He asks to practice with the gun that Ae-shin uses, and he goes to the river to shoot. He thinks about Ae-shin’s delight in meeting him as a comrade on their first boat ride together, and looking at her gun, he says that he was pleased to have met her as well. He shoots the gun into the distance and holds the gun by his side.

Next, Eugene meets with Ae-shin’s right- and left-hand servants and buys them delicious jjajangmyun. The servants can’t take their eyes off the food but vow not to share anything about Ae-shin to Eugene. But the maid accidently lets slip that Ae-shin can barely sleep and wets her pillows every night from her tears. That’s so sad.

Overcome by the temptation, the servants decide that it would be wasteful to not eat the food, and they happily dig into their meals. Eugene hands them a box wrapped in a cloth and tells the two to stay healthy.

Afterward, the servants discuss Eugene’s farewell and figure that they should give the box to Ae-shin after Eugene leaves, since she’s already having a rough time. They wonder if it’s something that will rot, and they worry about where to store this mysterious item.

The American ambassador, Allen, returns from Shanghai, and Wan-ik’s assistant, Lee Duk-moon, reports to Wan-ik that the emperor has solicited Allen multiple times to borrow money, so Allen escaped to Shanghai. Wan-ik finds it amusing that the emperor thinks America is such a righteous country that they’re turning on Japan.

Duk-moon hands him the reports by all the interpreters who they’ve won onto their side, and Wan-ik says that their support will make the emperor waver. He puts the reports into his drawer, which also holds the Kudo’s autopsy report, and asks who’s been helping the emperor connect with the American ambassador. Duk-moon reports that he’s heard of a few consulates, and Wan-ik scolds him for not knowing any names.

At Glory Hotel, Hina thinks back to the mistress’ report that Wan-ik seemed to have a guest that he was looking to house. She looks through her register book and notices the name listed for room 205: Lee Duk-moon, Wan-ik’s assistant. Then, a man throws his key at her desk and walks out. It’s the key for room 205, but the man isn’t Lee Duk-moon — it’s the traitor that Wan-ik summoned from Manchuria.

Hina then suspects someone is in Eugene’s room. She sends a drink up to Eugene’s room, and as Eugene walks in, Hina hands him the wrong key. Eugene looks up and asks if she deliberately gave him the wrong key. Knowing what she did, she slowly nodded her head yes, and Eugene notices something is wrong.
Eugene enters through Hee-sung’s room and jumps over to his balcony with his gun ready. He silently approaches the intruder from behind and cocks his gun. The man raises his hands and immediately grabs for his gun. Their guns fire as they fight, and the man runs down the hall, where the hotel guests have gathered at the sound of their gunshots.
With the crowd of guests in his way, Eugene can’t shoot at the escaping intruder, but the intruder reappears holding the young hotel worker hostage. Eugene slowly approaches them and orders in English to move left. As soon as she moves, Eugene shoots the man’s left shoulder, and the girl runs to hide behind Eugene.
Eugene brings the intruder in for questioning and orders his soldiers to empty all the man’s pockets. He finds a picture of the intruder with his former comrades (Ae-shin’s parents), and Eugene demands to know who those people are. But the intruder shakes in pain from his wound and yells for drugs, so Eugene decides to revisit the interrogation once the man comes to his senses.

In the hotel courtyard, Hina fences with the German guest and think about her menacing interactions with Wan-ik and Dr. Machiyama. She aggressively wins the match, and the German guests seems surprised by her aggression. She explains that she enjoys fencing because it requires a quick attack and allows her to defeat her opponent with brevity and accuracy. The guest reminds her that her opponent also holds the same blade, and being too wild can reveal her weaknesses. He suggests that she try to maintain her elegance, but Hina says that the world doesn’t seem to allow it.

Ae-shin climbs up the mountain, thinking about Eugene. She wanders to the hideout, where she hears the familiar tune of the music box. Ae-shin runs into the hut, where her maid struggles to turn off the noise, and she asks how her maid got the music box. Her maid admits that she met Eugene a few days ago, and he asked that they deliver this box to her as payment for allowing him to ride on the boat. She also adds that Eugene seemed like he was about to leave, and Ae-shin looks devastated.

On the verge of tears, Ae-shin grabs the music box and barges out of the hut. She’s overwhelmed with emotion but stops when she sees Seung-gu, who reluctantly asks her to sub in for their next mission. She tearfully agrees to take on the mission, and Seung-gu instructs her to finish shooting the bowls before she leaves.

Eugene looks at the picture of the comrades found from the intruder’s belongings and notices the writing on the back. As he walks through the town, he sees a red pinwheel, which was a secret sign that he and Ae-shin agreed on to indicate that she was out on a mission.

That night, Ae-shin jumps over walls to reach her destination, and Hina also seems to be on a mission to the same destination: Wan-ik’s house. She picks the lock with her hairpiece and enters the house to search for the autopsy report. Both Hina and Ae-shin search different parts of the house, but Ae-shin finds something first. It’s the letter from Joseph to Eugene, and she recognizes Eugene’s name written in English.

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