Episode 2 of See You in My 19th Life was simply Seo Ha coming to terms with exactly how much of a looney tune Ji Eum is. She acts with remarkable composure, as expected of someone who has lived so many lives. At the same time, she is confident enough to let out her crazy side. We really can’t fault her for not being subtle. She is not insecure enough to leisurely play the dating game, and she has waited too long to take any other approach. We also got some glimpses of her previous lives in episode 2, and we have understood, just as Ji Eum also says at the beginning, that she only wants to be happy. Having seen and done everything, Ji Eum must be going through what has popularly come to be known as ennui, which means boredom due to dissatisfaction. Anyone else in Ji Eum’s shoes might want to conquer the world, but she is happy being a “bellboy” if it means she can be around the person who makes her smile. Priorities really change with eternal life, and this is Ji Eum’s journey in this recap of Episode 2 of See You in My 19th Life.
Spoilers Alert
Does Seo Ha Hire Ji Eum For The Hotel?
As we said, Ji Eum is clear about her intentions and tells Seo Ha that they should get to know one another if they plan on dating. Seo Ha is dumbfounded at her directness but has caught on to something she said about them knowing each other from before. While he ponders over this, Ji Eum drinks with Ae Gyeong as both of them revel in being crazy over delusionships.
The fact is that Ji Eum has feelings for Seo Ha, but she has yet to assess what kind of person he is. She only knew him as a child, and even a thousand years of intuition cannot give her a character sketch of a person. She is debating whether she should tell him directly that she is Ju Won. She had freely spoken about her past lives when she was Ju Won, and Seo Ha was just a child. She couldn’t repeat the same thing again. But she gets an opportunity to try. When she spots Seo Ha about to have a panic attack in the middle of the street, she holds his hand and runs into one of the by-lanes. She tells Seo Ha that she had learned in one of her past lives, during the Japanese invasion, to be precise, that one can run out of panic attacks. She later says that she read this in a draft of an unpublished book. Naturally, Seo Ha thinks that Ji Eum is a pathological liar, and she answers by asking him to marry her. This is her second hint of where they had met before. Seo Ha had asked Ju Won to marry him when they were children, but he has yet to remember that.
In the meantime, Ji Eum goes to meet Seo Ha at his hotel to check up on her application. She knows that Seo Ha is hesitant to accept her, but she is relentless. When she shows up at the hotel, she runs into Lee Ji Seok, who was previously trying to headhunt her for his company, Daehan Group. He looks like a rather rude person, and he just grabs Ji Eum by her hand. But she flamencos her way out of his grip. We don’t understand why she simply did not report him for sexual harassment. Either way, Ji Seok also seems to know Seo Ha, though the latter is clearly not fond of him. When he tries to get handsy with Seo Ha as well, Ji Eum gives him the warning to stay away from him. Later, she presents a painting to Seo Ha of the hotel in its early days. When Ji Eum came for her interview in episode 1, she had told him that she had seen some paintings of the hotel from 1997 that had left a deep impression on her. By giving that painting to Seo Ha, she establishes that she is serious about working there and is not just goofing around. This also had to erase any doubt in Seo Ha’s mind about her “tall tales.” Hence, Ji Eum gets the job she wants.
What Is Seo Ha’s Home Situation?
In episode 1, we saw Seo Ha mad at his father for being with a woman after his mother’s death. That woman is Ms. Jang, who used to help Seo Ha’s mother run the hotel. Even Ji Eum remembers that woman having an affair with the Chairman while his wife was still alive. Ms. Jang has let the hotel’s management run into the ground, but she is not happy about Seo Ha coming back and wants to make changes. He has already put his foot down about Ms. Jang’s children being banned from the hotel due to their unruly behavior. She complains to the Chairman about keeping Seo Ha in line so that he doesn’t ruin her “hard work.” Even the Chairman laughs at that, which makes us think that Ms. Jang’s current position might have been the result of her being what is called a “social climber.” Regardless, the Chairman calls Seo Ha’s secretary, Ha Do Yoon, to keep his son in line. Do Yoon is a friend of Seo Ha, but it seems as if he has always been the eyes and ears of the Chairman. He apparently used to keep Seo Ha “in line” even when he was abroad, and the Chairman wants him to continue that in Korea. But Do Yoon is uncomfortable with the job, and he doesn’t accept the money given by the Chairman, though he doesn’t refuse his duties.
Elsewhere, we also see Yoon Cho Won, who was Ju Won’s little sister. She looks like she is interested in Seo Ha, though he doesn’t meet her eye-to-eye. Cho Won applies to be a landscaping artist for the hotel under an alias so that she gets hired and, similar to Ji Eum, is free to spend time with Seo Ha and pursue him.
Does Seo Ha Remember Ji Eum?
Whatever Seo Ha may think of Ji Eum, she has made an impression, and he cannot get her out of his mind. As he seriously tries to remember what her hints mean, he remembers that he met her when she was a child. In Episode 1 of See You in My 19th Life, we saw how Ji Eum used to follow him around without him knowing. We should have guessed that Ji Eum would attempt to meet him at least once. When Seo Ha got into trouble after skipping school and trying to break down a wall to probably relieve his frustrations, Ji Eum grabbed his hand and made a run for it. This is very similar to what she did at the beginning of See You in My 19th Life episode 2. Even as a child, Ji Eum had been bossy and acted like someone older. She had asked Seo Ha to marry her and used her handkerchief on his wound. Seo Ha had that handkerchief even after all these years. He tells Ji Eum that he remembers her, and she makes it clear to him once again that she likes him and that he is her first love. Seo Ha doesn’t take her seriously, but she has started occupying his thoughts.
Later, when he wants to go someplace and Do Yoon doesn’t pick up his call, Seo Ha asks Ji Eum if she could accompany him. Seo Ho doesn’t drive, and when Ji Eum comes to pick him up, he is waiting with flowers. They are not for Ji Eum, at least not directly. She drives him to a gravesite, where she finds that Seo Ha has come to visit the grave of Ju Won. At the end of episode 2 of See You in My 19th Life, as Seo Ha cries near her tombstone for not having visited for so many years, Ji Eum wonders about the people she has left behind in her many lifetimes. She had lost countless people she cared about, and since she was the one who used to survive, she had only known her pain. But for the first time, two of her lives are intersecting, and she can see the love others had for her and the grief they felt when she passed away. It is something she hadn’t considered before and is slowly coming to terms with.
Final Thoughts
We were wondering whether Ji Eum is rich. No matter how many times you have lived, money will never cease to be important. Seeing how reckless Ji Eum is with her career, we wonder whether she has some secret stash of wealth or property stored away somewhere, accumulated over her lifetimes. Other than that, Seo Ha is certainly interested in Ji Eum, though there is still a long way to go before he accepts that. In the upcoming episodes, we will probably start to see Ji Eum uncover more about her previous lives and her feelings regarding the people in them. This has been the better Netflix series so far, compared to its immediate competition with King The Land, which we are struggling to pay attention to. It seems laughable that we had expected to like the other series more. Let’s see what the next week brings to this story.
