Devotion & Loyalty
We begin episode 2 of Run-On with Seon-Gyeom and Mi-Joo meeting for the first time. Well, officially anyway. With Dan-A overseeing their chat, she leaves and promises to send the “gofer” all the details needed. Mi-Joo wanders off muttering under her breath, picking up a newspaper for herself and seeing an article depicting gossip about Tae-Ri and Seon-Gyeom dating. She’s not the only one looking at the news though, as Seon-Gyeom checks the article and explains his actions. It turns out he met the famous Tae-Ri but didn’t remember who she was. The picture taken by reporters was following a playful punch on her part for him not remembering. In town, Mi-Joo bumps into Seon-Gyeom and asks for her lighter back. Only, it happens to be at the training centre and he doesn’t have it right now. As they talk together, Seon-Gyeom mentions the current scandal circulating and how he’s not dating anyone. Eventually she manages to convince him to ask her out for dinner in the near future. Mi-Joo struggles to focus on work though in the wake of Seon-Gyeom’s schedule being sent over. He messages her while doing track featuring a list of prospective times and dates to meet up. She selects one of the options before learning from Mae-Yi that Han has won the Best Picture award. Upon looking through the pictures, she even learns about Seon-Gyeom and how his Mother is Ji-Woo. Back at the track field, Woo-Sik finds himself bullied by the others boys. He’s forced to hold up a plank of wood while Gyu-Deok beats him down and punches repeatedly. With the wood plank in hand, they beat him to a bloody pulp and hurry away. Seon-Gyeom sees them leave in the pouring rain and races up to help. There, he finds Woo-Sik semi-conscious on the ground. Seon-Gyeom rushes him to hospital but it’s clear he’s in a bad way. Woo-Sik finally admits to this and opens up, crying his eyes out as Seon-Gyeom promises to cover his hospital bills. On his way out, Woo-Sik tells him he’s scared, especially after hitting Gyu-Deok. Seon-Gyeom heads straight back to the locker room and hits Gyu-Deok with a stiff punch across the jaw. The two fight viciously and eventually Seon-Gyeom leaves the room with Gyu-Deok and Gi-Beom a battered and bruised mess. Afterwards, he heads straight in to see the coach and admits he’s assaulted both boys. The coach knew all about the abuse though and wants Seon-Gyeom to simply cover everything up. He’s having none of it though and demands to see the disciplinary committee. With the international contest for the track team in a year’s time, Seon-Gyeom’s future lies in jeopardy. His pride gets the better of him though and he eventually heads home. Back at Dan-A’s academy, Dan-A tells her brother to sort himself out, leaving the smashed flower-pot in the office for him to clean up. Myung-Min jumps in to help but it’s clear Tae-Woong is the odd one out in the family. Mi-Joo continues to work with her subtitle translations but at the coffee shop, runs into Dan-A who shows up and takes a seat opposite her. She feigns being asleep before eventually grilling Ju-Kyung over what she knows and where she met Seon-Gyeom. On the way out the door she admires the artwork on the wall, changing the lighting to accentuate the colours. Only, in doing so she unfortunately gets paint all over herself. Dan-A wants the painting for herself and eventually talks to the owner, buying it for double the price the shop bought it for. As she leaves, Young-Hwa shows up and learns that someone has bought his painting. He’s also formally introduced to Mi-Joo too, who finally meets him away from the thrown bag incident last episode. The cold-hearted Dan-A finds Seon-Gyeom in her office and laughs about him striking out at the other kids. Seon-Gyeom doesn’t find it particularly funny though and after telling her what really happened, leaves the office. On the way out though, he runs into Jae-Gyu, the head of Choi Tae-Ri’s agency. He’s struggling to get through to Dan-A. Seon-Gyeom holds the man off long enough for his car to be towed away for illegal parking. The next day, Seon-Gyeom realizes he’s forgotten about the meeting with Mi-Joo who messages several times asking exactly where he is. As Seon-Gyeom rushes down the street, he runs straight past Mi-Joo. When Mi-Joo lets him know, Seon-Gyeom quickly bolts back and greets her. It turns out he selected the wrong date originally for their date. Still, the pair head out together and go to the cinema. It’s an English film with subtitles but the pair stay until the very end where Mi-Joo sees the credits for her translation show up at the end. After, they head out for a “business dinner” together to discuss the movie they’ve just seen and Mi-Joo’s career and dreams. As they keep eating, the attention turns to Seon-Gyeom who mentions his career and how he used to be a javelin thrower before a sprinter. Seon-Gyeom is quite the lightweight and Mi-Joo calls him out for flirting. As they stare into one another’s eyes, Mi-Joo pulls back and bids farewell as they both go their separate ways… until Mi-Joo returns and decides to walk a drunk Seon-Gyeom to his car. There, he runs into Tae-Ri which is clearly a coincidence but her agent doesn’t see it that way… until Mi-Joo shows up on course. Realizing there’s reporters nearby, Seon-Gyeom uses that to his advantage and kisses Mi-Joo, claiming she’s his girlfriend. As she looks on in shock, he smiles at her.
The Episode Review
Following up yesterday’s episode, Run On comes roaring out the gates to deliver a wonderful follow-up. Across a solid 70 minutes of character building, episode 2 perfectly illustrates Seon-Gyeom’s loyalty, charisma and fierce devotion to what he believes is right. Woo-Sik’s bullying at the hands of the track team was certainly hard to watch and seeing him break down crying in hospital is easily the most emotional moment of the episode. It’s not all dark drama though; where Run On really excels is with its comedy and chemistry between its two leads. Both Shin Se-Kyung and Im Si-Wan are fantastic in their roles here and you can really feel the warmth both of them have on-screen together. Sometimes pairings just work from the beginning and these two have that “it” factor to make this one of the more promising Korean dramas going into 2021.
