Episode 7 of Beyond The Bar felt a little bit disconnected from the rest of the show, in my opinion. I think this one approaches it more in Seok-Hoon’s voice, rather than Hyo-Min’s. She also gets significantly less screen time compared to the previous episodes. The big question we’re all asking is if Hyo-Min and Seok-Hoon will end up in a romantic relationship. The audience is divided between a mentor-mentee vibe vs. a “crush on my boss” vibe. Then there’s the whole thing with Min-Jeong and her breakdown, which definitely felt a little bit forced in the middle of the rest of the plot. I’m loving the second lead couple, don’t get me wrong, but I have to wonder why they’d spend so much screen time on a character who we already know so much about. What about Jin-Woo? If this romance has to be so believable (no, I know we’re all rooting for them, but still), we have to get some information about him too and understand why he would fall for Min-Jeong. With that said, though, let’s jump straight into episode 7.
Spoiler Alert
Why Does Seok-Hoon Defend the Man?
Beyond The Bar episode 7 begins with a woman witnessing a hit-and-run on the street in her neighborhood. The woman writes down the car number and then decides to call the authorities. However, she ends up stepping on some glass on her way out of the house, trying to see if the boy is okay. She sits down, and the next thing we know, her husband returns to her, all worried and concerned. Suddenly, when they hear the sound of an ambulance, she freaks out and remembers the boy. The next scene cuts to the court, and Seok-Hoon is defending the man that this woman believes is the hit-and-run driver. But Seok-Hoon is quick to prove that she’s not a reliable witness because of her Alzheimer’s. She can’t even remember his name, but more importantly, she can’t remember the names of the two kids who used to be her favorite students in school when she was a teacher. The kids walk out of the room. Guess they can’t stand the thought of their teacher forgetting about them, even if it’s because of a medical condition. The teacher feels absolutely terrible for forgetting, and Seok-Hoon wins the case, leaving her and her husband heartbroken for the dead boy.
A little while after, when Seok-Hoon returns to Korea from Singapore, he finds the woman’s husband carrying her ashes and being arrested for aiding in suicide. Seok-Hoon takes it upon himself to defend the man. It looks like she euthanized herself in Switzerland, specifically because she already felt dead on the inside, despite being physically alive. When the team researches the case, things don’t look great, because the man is set to inherit a lot of money and has possibly cheated on his wife, too. It’s the wife’s brother who has lodged the complaint against him, getting him arrested. Seok-Hoon is deeply affected by this situation mainly because he feels guilty for hurting the man and his wife.
Seok-Hoon learns in court that the man cheated on his wife before the diagnosis, but he fell in love with her again because she became the person she was when they first started seeing each other. It’s like he remembered why he loved her so much all over again, so while their relationship was rocky for a while, it changed after the diagnosis. Additionally, the man refers to love as a rainbow because it has different seasons. It isn’t just about passion. Even though the man gets sentenced to a year in prison, Seok-Hoon learns a valuable lesson. He uses what this man says to convince himself to cut ties with Yeon-A, his ex-wife, for good. He calls her himself, tells her not to make the cologne any longer, and to drop Hash on time. Before their divorce, Seok-Hoon and Yeon-A had also lost their love. She was lonely and didn’t feel like he liked her the same way he did 10 years before, so she decided to ask for a divorce. Additionally, her husband now gives her the love and passion she was looking for from Seok-Hoon. I don’t appreciate that Yeon-A “learned to love” for the first time now and suddenly has a kid and all that. I don’t think Seok-Hoon is a victim here, and they’ve simply villainized Yeon-A as a character.
What happens with Min-Jeong?
Meanwhile, Jin-Woo and Min-Jeong are getting drinks together, when Jin-Woo gets a call from Seok-Hoon. Guess he needs drinking buddies, too. Min-Jeong tells Seok-Hoon that he was the person who inspired her to become a lawyer. He told her the best way to get revenge is to claw your way out of the gutter and prove your haters wrong. He also told her he’d help her in any way, and he clearly pushed her to finish studying and become a big-shot lawyer. Jin-Woo drops Min-Jeong home, and is too drunk to go back by himself. He sleeps on the couch, but then hears her sobbing in the middle of the night. Turns out she really misses her mother, who died when she was 23. Min-Jeong’s been alone ever since, because her husband and mother-in-law exploited her for 14 years, too. Of course, her daughter is now a grown-up and probably loves her mom the most.
Later, her ex-husband and mother-in-law come to the office to harass Min-Jeong. They ask her to pay up because she became a lawyer and didn’t even tell them about it. Min-Jeong shows them who’s boss by dodging her mother-in-law’s slap and then slapping her ex-husband in the face a couple of times to knock some sense into him. She reminds them that they’re the ones who owe her, considering how much nonsense they put her through. It looks like Min-Jeong is falling for Jin-Woo, too, though, after they shared her bed briefly. Maybe they’ll be the true endgame of this show.
Who Is The Woman In The Pictures?
At the firm, Kwon Na-Yeon changes some rules, specifically regarding incentives, which irks Ko Tae-Seop and his gang. They also have incriminating evidence against Seok-Hoon and a few pictures of the woman who came to visit him in the middle of the night at home. Tae-Seop decides it’s Hyo-Min in the pictures and wants to use them against Seok-Hoon, whom he blames for the policy changes, which include the introduction of performance-based incentives. This would affect him the most, I guess. We already know he doesn’t do any work at all. On the other hand, at night, Seok-Hoon is in his room, and Hyo-Min doesn’t know this, so she talks to an imaginary version of him before getting caught. She then asks him if he’d like some tea (guess it’s their thing). She tells him that he should talk to her if he needs to put some thoughts to rest, because she always does the same. He tells her about the divorce and how he feels. He tells her that he had trouble letting her go, but now he’s become somewhat numb to it. She tells him that time tends to erode itself. Meanwhile, one of Tae-Seop’s guys even steals some documents at night from Seok-Hoon, which can easily make it seem like he’s doing the firm dirty.
At the end of Beyond The Bar episode 7, the partners, all except Seok-Hoon and Na-Yeon, are invited by Tae-Seok for an emergency meeting. They expose Seok-Hoon’s pictures to the crowd and claim it’s Hyo-Min in the pictures. The company doesn’t seem to think it’s as big a deal as he makes it out to be. A lot of people don’t even care at all and still trust in Seok-Hoon’s judgment. Ultimately, Na-Yeon shows up with Seok-Hoon, wondering what’s going on. Tae-Seok claims Seok-Hoon had an inappropriate relationship with a junior, but Hyo-Min will probably end up bailing him ouultimately. It looks like the woman is someone who used to work at the firm. Additionally, Tae-Seop wants to go after Hyo-Min, too, which makes it seem like he might be the one who had an inappropriate relationship. As for romance, I really don’t know just yet, but I guess the unrequited love thing is getting a bit old, so I do hope they change it a little bit.
