Sold Out on You: Episodes 11-12 (Final)
by Unit
As our sold out show signs out, the last-minute baddies make a last-ditch effort against our mushroom farmer and home shopping host. And the fallout of this tag team of evil will either villainize or vindicate our leads.
EPISODES 11-12
Our final week kicks off with Ye-jin’s resolve to go cold turkey on sleeping pills, and she and Matthew celebrate this news with a ~hot~ night. Must be nice. Matthew decides the new cosmetics product he’ll make is a cream that maximizes skin regeneration, and Ye-jin agrees to launch the cream as the first item in her newly-regained weekend prime-time slot. Gojeuneok bio works closely with Ye-jin’s team to develop the perfect cream, and once it’s ready, Matthew asks Som-yi to name the new brand. Som-yi names the cream “Noori” after the mushroom it was developed from, and since Noori also means “the whole world,” she hopes the whole world will end up using Noori cream. How sweet!
Moving on, Eric and Ye-jin run into each other on a rainy day and it reminds them of their first meeting three years ago. Turns out Ye-jin overslept after taking sleeping pills and that’s why she didn’t show up to their planned date back then. She admits she was looking forward to the date, but fate had other plans. Still, Eric is glad to have met Ye-jin again, and he wraps up his one-sided crush by telling her that her sincerity and hard work during their time together has helped him figure out what sort of path he wants to take. (And now we can properly ship him with Joong-hoon — who’s got all the time in the world after Michelle fired him for spying on her for Eric. Heh.)
There’s a great deal of interest and buzz around Noori cream when it pre-launches, but Chang-ho and Michelle have plans of their own. Soon, a beauty influencer who participated in the Noori cream pre-release test calls out the cream for giving her skin inflammation. Then Matthew is exposed as the maker of the morning cream — which makes Noori cream’s bad press even more severe. Protesters vandalize Gojeuneok bio’s office, and Matthew watches helplessly as the morning cream victims storm his house and farm in Deokpung village. One of the protesters even insinuates that he should take his life like Woo-su did. Sigh.
The vandalism and protests affect some of the other villagers and they blame Matthew for it. He says he’ll take responsibility and leave the village, but Sang-geum won’t have it. She calls the others out on being ungrateful to Matthew after everything he has done for them since he moved to Deokpung. The villagers wonder why Sang-geum is taking Matthew’s side so strongly, and she replies that Matthew is like a son to her. Apparently, she used to have a son his age, but her son died. She was living in guilt and regret until she met Matthew — who just arrived at Deokpung village in depression after the morning cream incident. Matthew reminded Sang-geum of her son, and her heart began to heal as she took care of him and spent time with him. Aww.
Joong-hoon’s last act after Michelle fired him was to swipe the memory card of her car’s dash cam. One of Chang-ho’s meetings with Michelle is caught on the dash cam, and Eric takes the footage to Matthew and Mu-won. Matthew begins to investigate Chang-ho and discovers that he stole core technology and patents of other smaller cosmetics companies to build his own company. One of his victims tells Matthew that Chang-ho is fond of switching to cheaper raw materials, and Matthew realizes that Chang-ho — and not Woo-su — was behind the morning cream material swap.
Chang-ho drops by the home shopping network to see Yoon-ji, and we learn he blackmailed her to leak the Noori cream pre-release test list to him. Myeong-hwa witnesses the clandestine meeting by chance, and she confronts Yoon-ji. Turns out Yoon-ji has a secret daughter (how very original) who needed surgery five years ago. Chang-ho threatened Yoon-ji with her daughter, and Yoon-ji was forced to recommend the morning cream for launch at HIT in exchange for surgery money. Then come to find out that Chang-ho messed with the morning cream as payback because Woo-su chose Matthew as the team leader of a new project instead of him (Chang-ho). Smh. What a pathetic villain origin story.
Thanks to Myeong-hwa stepping into the situation, Yoon-ji publicly reveals the truth about the morning cream incident after she resigns from HIT. As a result, Ye-jin, Matthew and Woo-su’s names are cleared. Chang-ho’s scheme against Noori cream is also exposed, and the public’s trust in the product returns. It also helps that Som-yi went on a live stream to defend the cream because she has atopic dermatitis but she has been using Noori cream everyday without any sign of skin irritation. As Chang-ho spirals to rock bottom, he turns to Michelle for help but she ignores him. She’s got bigger problems of her own now that Eric and Joong-hoon have gotten evidence that she ordered the microbe addition to La Fin essence in order to sabotage Eric for the company’s succession race. Her sob story? She never liked step-bro Eric and hated that she had to share her dad with him. *rolls eyes*
Chang-ho plays his last card by sending thugs to destroy Matthew’s farm. But our motley crew of villagers show up with their motley weapons to teach the thugs a lesson. Aww. They’re back to being on Matthew’s side. Chang-ho then tries to emotionally blackmail Matthew with a goodbye text — and it works, sorta, because Matthew runs all the way to Seoul (at least that’s what it looks like) to talk Chang-ho out of jumping off a rooftop. Chang-ho eventually turns himself in for his crimes, and this is where we bid him good riddance!
Noori cream is finally ready for its official launch, and Ye-jin arranges the broadcast to be televised from Matthew’s farm. She also asks Myeong-hwa to be the guest host for the launch. After the sold out — but of course! — broadcast, mother and daughter finally have a conversation. Myeong-hwa tearfully apologizes to Ye-jin — who accepts the apology, then transfers it to her dad because in hindsight, his act of blocking her communication with her mom was in a bid to keep her from getting hurt. Dad transfers the apology back to Ye-jin because he didn’t mean to hurt her by blocking communication with her mom. But nobody apologizes for making me watch all of this. Anyway, now that the family has gotten their individual slices of the apology pizza, Dad and Myeong-hwa begin to rebuild their relationship.
As the show wraps, Noori cream gets great customer reviews and Matthew makes plans to launch Noori serum. Som-yi’s face begins to clear up and she no longer needs to hide behind facemasks. Jin-yi passes HIT’s open auditions and becomes the assistant host for Ye-jin’s show. Ki-hong is happy to have Jin-yi on their team, and the ship sails. Ae-ra and Mu-won finally become an item after he helps her get revenge on her ex-boyfriend (who made her develop a prejudice against people *coughs* Mu-won *coughs* who wear luxury items). Sung-mi asks Kwang-mo to move in together. I looove their relationship dynamics so much! Eric becomes the new L’Etoile CEO and returns to France. Matthew and Ye-jin’s relationship waxes stronger than ever. And everyone lives happily ever after.
I was never fully invested in this drama because it was kinda obvious from the first week that Show’s potential will be greater than its eventual execution. But that’s not to say it was a bad watch. It had its bland moments, but it had its decent ones as well. It may not hold up under intense scrutiny, so it’s best to leave the microscopic lens and focus on the big picture and the happily ever after.
As for the characters, Ye-jin’s story was most prominent, and I was rooting for her journey to healing. I also ended up liking her more than Matthew and Eric — who were quite stereotypical and boring in my opinion. *yawn* In contrast, the supporting characters were way more colorful, and I enjoyed all their little stories. The villains were one-dimensional caricatures, and it was actually a good thing that Show brought them in late. Overall, this drama will likely end up in my “forgettable” pile…but I will not be forgetting Ahn Hyo-seop’s distracting makeup anytime soon. Show should have developed a matching foundation shade for him instead of the Morning and Noori and night creams and serums.
RELATED POSTS
