“Crash Course In Romance” Episode 15 Recap And Review- The Shocking Ending Of Dong Hui

Published Categorized as Kdrama Recaps
https://www.jazminemedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Crash-Course-In-Romance.jpg

“Crash Course In Romance” Episode 15 aired earlier today, lets talk about it!

“Crash Course In Romance” Episode 15 Recap

After a shocking and climatic 14th episode, we’re back now with Hae e’s birth mother intruding and making her daughter’s life more difficult. She paints her daughter’s feet with nail polish before getting told off by her younger sister. She then opens TV and finds out that Sun Jae’s mother is being investigated. Reporters swarm her work place while the assistant panics. She gets escorted by her estranged husband to her car.

Su A’s mother is questioning the school’s board over what happened. In the middle of that, she gets a notification that her husband purchased something for around $2000 and then returned it, the husband talks to his mistress that she doesn’t care after Su A’s mother gets angry at him for calling her.

Su A’s mother asks the principal to expel Sun Jae over the situation.

Choi Chi-Yeol calls Haeng-Seon and tells her their suspicions about Dong Hui might be true after all. Amid all of this, Dong Hui returns to work happy about the outcome, he goes to Chi Yeol’s office and talks to him about a meeting but he asks him to go instead of him. Dong Hui goes out but as he does that, he overhears Hae s’s friend say she had woken up.

The detectives get closer to the truth and finds out that Chi Yeol assistant Dong Hui is in fact Jeong Su, Su-Hyeon’s brother.

Meanwhile, Chi-Yeol goes to his house and opens the door using his birthday as the passcode, he sees how obsessed he was with him, and notices the pen. He recalls gifting it to Su-Hyeon. As he leaves the place, people call him about Dong Hui missing the meeting, and he gets a bad feeling.

Turns out, Dong Hui went to the hospital to kill Hae E but Haeng-Seon throws things at him, then Chi-Yeol shows up and chases after him.

They end up at the rooftop, Chi-Yeol asks him why he’s done this and in turns he protests saying he was doing it to protect him by removing every obstacle in his way, Chi-Yeol says thats nonsense and he shouldn’t justify it like that. Dong Hui doesn’t take kindly to that. He tells him he should turn himself in but he refuses. Dong Hui says if Haeng-Seon didn’t show up none of this would have happened, Chi-Yeol disagrees and tells him to stop this, and that his sister wouldn’t want this, Dong Hui yells at him saying he’s forgotten about her and shouldn’t say stuff like that.

https://www.jazminemedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Crash-Course-In-Romance.jpg

Dong Hui then jumps to his death while Chi-Yeol watches stunned, he tries to plead with him but he jumps and dies. We then get a flashback that explains why Dong Hui decided to become Chi-Yeol’s assistant, it was his sister’s dream before her death.

Chi-Yeol is broken after what happened and Haeng-Seon visits him with food to make him feel better. He’s utterly stunned at how he didn’t know about anything that had gone down with Dong Hui.

Hae E then wakes up and everyone goes to see her. She is not exactly happy that her mother is back like that and the situation is tense.

Meanwhile, Haeng-Seon goes to the school to hand in some papers about Hae E after she woke up, she then overhears Su A’s mother protesting outside to kick Sun Jae out, she tells her to stop it and that it was the grown-ups mistake, Sun Jae doesn’t deserve to be kicked out.

Yeong-Joo is then set up for a blind date and Jae-Woo feels jealous and not happy about the situation.

At the hospital, Sun Jae finally visits Hae E and lets her know he is leaving the school and taking a break for the time being.

At a restaurant, Su A’s mother invites everyone to lunch after they found out Sun Jae left the school, however, Su A’s mother ends up seeing her husband with his mistress. She beats him up.

On another day, Sun Jae and Geon-Hu visit Hae E at the same time, and Sun Jae gifts Hae E the hair tie, he also confesses his feelings but gets rejected, she tells him she’ll think about it after the CSAT. Geon-Hu laughs about it and tries to cheer him up.

https://www.jazminemedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Crash-Course-In-Romance.jpg

Back at the hospital, after Yeong-Joo leaves for her blind date, Haeng-Seon sees Su A’s mother trying to get her credit card from the purse because she twisted her hand kicking her husband. She helps her out, she leaves without making fun of her and that makes her cry.

As Yeong-Joo closes the shop, Jae Woo calls her urgently, then he asks her out and says he’s not sure if he likes her similar to how he likes his sister but he’s annoyed and concerned about her, he asks her out and she agrees to it, she gives him a kiss on the cheeks and they sit beside each other.

As Hae E gets discharged and Chi-Yeol takes them back, Hae E mother gets invasive and inquires about his wealth a lot embarrassing everyone in the process.

At home, she complains about sleeping in the same room as her sister and it causes friction as Haeng-Seon continues to cave in. Then she goes outside and talks to someone on the phone saying she’s found a way to get money, then she calls Chi-Yeol to ask for cash, Hae E interrupts her and yells at her, she says if she does this again, she’ll kill her.

Hae E cries her eyes out back in her room and then talks to Sun Jae a bit about it. Venting her frustrations.

At night, everyone gathers to celebrate Hae E’s discharge, after she blows out the candles, she says she’s prayed for her aunt and uncle to live happily ever after after she’s gone because she’ll live with her mom from now on. Everyone is stunned.

“Crash Course In Romance” Episode 15 Review

That was definitely something….

I must say, I have not been the best fan of the drama’s writing direction for some episodes. I understand all of the writing decisions from the screenwriter’s perspective but I don’t agree with the majority of them.

Firstly, as many have already pointed out, Dong Hui’s suicide felt very underwhelming, the fact that he leaves so easily was not the best of writing decisions, also that montage of him talking to his sister before her death, we didn’t need to sympathize with him to be honest with you.

The entire way he carried out his last act of malice was very odd considering he was bound to get caught if he tried to do something to her.

Despite saying that, I felt his ‘reasons’ were ‘justified’ in his own world, he needed guidance and a role model because his mother didn’t provide one, it makes sense why he would become so obsessed with Chi-Yeol. A part of him also loved how much he relied on him and when Haeng-Seon came into the picture and made him happy and less dependent and miserable, Dong Hui naturally would feel jealous and that his ‘purpose’ in life is gone, thus, he’d react badly.

The suicide makes sense for his character given he’d feel he has no purpose after being found out, but it should have definitely carried more weight later on in the episode, despite what a horrible thing happened to him, the screenwriter makes the odd choice of introducing Hae E’s birth mother this late in the series, which is, in my opinion, the drama’s biggest writing mistake.

This character was bound to come back, I knew it, most knew it. However, the timing is off, from a narrative perspective, it would have been better had she came back around episode 10 to 11, and the awkwardness and the entire drama unfolded similarly to how it did originally.

Introducing her so late in the series adds an artificial ‘emotional’ grip that deserved to be explored in much more depth as the return of the mother was bound to cause severe trauma to Hae E and trigger everyone in the process.

Many are also sad that Hae E made the decision to leave, but considering how she’s just a kid and is conflicted by this whole thing, it makes sense.

Kids tend to think their parents mistakes are because of them, and I think Hae E believes she has inconvenienced everyone with her existence after her mother left her, I bet she felt conflicted, sad, happy, annoyed and everything in between seeing her mother. She must have wanted to stop being a “nuisance” in Haeng-Seon’s life and leave her so she could live a happily ever after not having to care for a child who is not her own. This is actually very noble of her and makes sense with the context of her character.

Overall, this episode structure was not to my liking, its my least favorite episode of the drama, I felt some points were rushed and others flat out undermined because the screenwriter chose to jam everything at the end to make for a spectacle.

I understand why she’d do this for the ratings sake but she had a good project going on, the entire arc of Dong Hui’s character deserved more exploration and Chi Yeol’s subsequent struggles should have not been overlooked but amplified after his death.

Despite that, I’d still say its a fun drama. I hope in tomorrow’s episode, the remaining threads are resolved well.

Whats your reaction to this article?
+1
0
+1
0
+1
0
+1
0
+1
0
+1
0

By Jass K.

Hi, I am Jass k. I discuss some of the hottest currently airing kdramas on this site in form of reviews an/or recaps, join me in the discussion~

2 comments

  1. That was very dramatic, loved it. But still can’t comprehend why Chi Yeol tried to plead with Do Hui, he was telling him not to jump, that he would help him to “come back to the world”. This is inexplicable – the guy killed at least 2, including a high schooler and planned to kill more. Sun-Jae’s brother almost went to prison because of him and Chi Yeol had empathy for him. On the contrary – let him jump, nothing can justify killing innocent people. That was a strange moment.

    As for Hae A – I think by leaving for Japan she wants to draw away her leech-like so-called Mom away from the family, where she can cause so many problems. She is sacrificing herself. Poor Sun-Jae and us – why, oh why can’t we have them dating at the end..Why can’t we have a happy ending, is it too much to ask? )))

  2. Hae-E has no intention at all of leaving to live with her birth mother. She’s actually calling her out on her BS. I am predicting that the first thing that happens in the final episode is the mother weaseling her way out of having Hae-E move back with her, and then disappearing – maybe after one final brazen plea for money.

Leave a comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.