The Interest of Love season 1 episode 13 recap & review

Open Go TV / February 2, 2023 / Reviews

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In the thirteenth episode of The Interest of Love, Mr. Jeong causes a scene at the bank before breaking up with Su-yeong. The episode is now streaming on Netflix.

Recap

In the hotel room with Gyeong-pil, Su-yeong thinks about the time when he told her that he dated a rich woman in college. Her cousin asked him to break up with her, but he could not bring himself to do it, so he slept with the woman’s best friend, which helped him get closure.

When Mr. Jeong calls Su-yeong, Gyeong-pil picks up the phone and slyly tells him that he is with her for a specific reason. Su-yeong does not speak to Mr. Jeong and switches off her phone.

The next day, Mr. Jeong screams at Su-yeong and punches Gyeong-pil in front of all the employees. Mr. Kim, an employee from a different branch, records everything on his phone.

Gyeong-pil tells Sang-su that he really slept with Su-yeong. He plays a recording for him that he also sent Mr. Jeong; he is heard asking Su-yeong in the recording if she is sure about sleeping with him and she says yes.

Sang-su punches Gyeong-pil after listening to it, but Gyeong-pil tells him that they are the same, as Sang-su was trying to do the same thing to Mi-gyeong. Meanwhile, Mi-gyeong questions Su-yeong about the incident but fails to get an answer.

She then asks Sang-su, who looks heartbroken, if he still likes Su-yeong, but he does not answer any of her questions. An upset Sang-su spends the rest of the day by himself.

Mr. Jeong is still at Su-yeong’s place. He pleads with her to deny her actions or give him a reason to justify them. When he asks her about their relationship, she tells him to find another place to live and pursue his dreams.

Sang-su goes to Su-yeong’s parents’ restaurant, where her father drinks with him. He tells Sang-su that his daughter had to grow up too early, but she is a kind person when Sang-su admits that he likes her.

Mr. Kim leaks the video of the scene at the bank. Mr. Yuk decides to blame the whole thing on Mr. Jeong and fire him.

Su-yeong interviews for a position transfer. She asks the interviewers why they keep failing her in the interview round over and over when she has a satisfactory score in all other aspects. She wants to know why is it that she cannot fit in, no matter how hard she tries.

Sang-su gets aggressive with Mr. Kim at the HQ training for his derogatory remarks regarding Su-yeong. He then runs into Su-yeong and acts normal, making her angry; she wants him to stop acting so indifferent and ask her questions.

The employees at the bank start questioning Sang-su’s involvement in the scandal. Mi-gyeong covers for him, but Sang-su asks her not to do that anymore.

Mi-gyeong meets Gyeong-pil and calls him the worst friend and boyfriend, but he tells her that she should be happy and stop worrying now that Su-yeong and Sang-su cannot be together. She asks him if he did this for her, but he denies it.

She then meets Su-yeong, who asks her to hate her because she wants to feel comfortable for a change. Mi-gyeong had earlier told her she would keep liking her to make her uncomfortable. Mi-gyeong asks her what Sang-su meant to her, but she does not answer.

Sang-su comes to see Su-yeong outside her house. He tells her that he did not want to know the truth because he feared losing her. When she asks him not to come to her house anymore, he promises that he will keep coming to face her while he suffers.

Mr. Jeong vacates Su-yeong’s house and leaves the city. Sang-su goes to meet Seok-hyeon, whose life is falling apart. He admits that after his divorce, he started feeling bad for his ex-wife, but he cannot break up with his girlfriend again.

Su-yeong visits her mother and admits she is tired. She cries and asks her if they should leave Seoul and move back to their hometown.

Sang-su takes Gyeong-pil out to talk to him. He tells him that he does not buy his story about sleeping with Su-yeong; he does not want to believe it.

Gyeong-pil gives him a reality check; he says that he saved him by doing that because if Sang-su had left Mi-gyeong for Su-yeong, her father would have ruined him.

Mi-gyeong’s mother confronts her about her relationship with Sang-su and lying to her father for him, while Sang-su’s mother comforts Sang-su.

Mi-gyeong gets sick due to stress and is taken to the hospital. Sang-su picks her up and takes her to his house, where he apologizes to her.

He tells her that he deceived her as well as himself by making them believe that he would eventually end up liking her as much as she liked him. He thinks that she is a good person, and he does not want her to be hurt because of him.

She says goodbye to him and takes the car that she gifted him. She throws a brick at the car and breaks down while Sang-su cries at his house.

Mr. Jeong comes to take back his books. Su-yeong tries to stop him from throwing them away in the rain. Mr. Jeong accuses her of never liking him; she just pitied him. She tells him that their love came to an end, as he was not happy with her either.

He asks her one last time if she really cheated on him and curses her when she says yes. Su-yeong remembers the night she was with Gyeong-pil; they never slept together, they just recorded her statement to make everyone believe that they did.

Su-yeong asked him about his reason for helping her. She figured out that the woman he dated back in college was Mi-gyeong and questioned him about liking her back then, but he replied that it does not matter.

She needed an irrevocable reason to drive Mr. Jeong and Sang-su away. As she cries in the rain thinking about it, Sang-su appears with an umbrella to shield her.

Review

The show always paints its characters gray. The episode highlights the flaws in Su-yeong, Gyeong-pil, Mi-gyeong, and Sang-su’s ways, without justifying or making excuses for their actions, as they hurt others to achieve goals that are far from being selfish.
This episode’s pace was slower than the usual pace set by the show. Nothing new or surprising happens; it was an episode dedicated to letting the characters cope with the new developments that occurred in the last episode.
While Yoo Yeon-seok depicts his character’s heartbreak smoothly, he has difficulty depicting his anger and resentment. As Sang-su’s character has always been calm and collected, it would have been refreshing to see his other side, which unfortunately does not come out.