Recap "Now, We Are Breaking Up" Episode 11 with Song Hye Kyo and Jang Ki Young

Episode 11 of Now, We Are Breaking Up begins with a question. Young-eun wants to know how Jae-guk would spend their time together if it was limited. He answers like they have a long, long future together. Young-eun then poses another question: after ticking everything off, should they break up?

We flash back again to the day Young-eun visited Hye-ok. Hye-ok promises to die if the couple continues to date, willing to force Young-eun to watch Jae-guk’s guilt tear him apart.

The One’s office is crawling with members of a due diligence team the next day. Rumours that the company is being bought out hang heavily over the employees.

In CEO Hwang’s office, Chi-sook demands to know if the rumours hold any truth. CEO Hwang denies them but Chi-hyung doesn’t buy into his oblivious charade.

La Fayere snubs Sono’s initial portfolio of designs. Given their precarious position on their home turf, Na-ri and Sun-ju question whether the La Fayere project is even worth their effort. Young-eun holds steadfast to her belief that a designer’s job is to design, not worry about upper management.

Meanwhile, Jung-ja notifies Taek-soo that she has put their house up for sale. Taek-soo refuses to sign the divorce papers, finding no faults in himself. Jung-ja accuses him of cheating, still unaware that he’s been talking to Jae-guk and not a mystery woman.

Young-eun and Jae-guk share lunch at the same time that their mothers meet by coincidence in a bathroom at Hills. When Hye-ok insinuates a difference in standing between their families, Jung-ja calls Young-eun in a fit of rage. Jae-guk takes the phone – and the brunt of Jung-ja’s wrath – from Young-eun. Hanging up, Jung-ja delivers her final blow to Hye-ok, shaming Jae-guk’s illegitimate status.

Jae-guk and Young-eun split up to collect their wayward mothers. On the drive home, Jung-ja tells Young-eun that Taek-soo has been cheating.

We cut to a family meeting where Young-eun helps Taek-soo clear up the misunderstanding. Unfortunately, her parents only find new things to argue about.

Mi-sook asks Soo-ho to throw her a goodbye party while she’s still alive. Soo-ho begs her to stop acting like she has already passed. Mi-sook wants him to let her go without fuss so that she can pass away peacefully.

CEO Hwang checks in with Do-hoon to monitor his progress with Chi-sook. Do-hoon relates how he gifted Chi-sook a book of poems that very day. Though Do-hoon is confident that she liked it, she’s currently complaining about it over the phone to Young-eun as she leaves Vision PR.

In the car park, Chi-sook spots Soo-ho having a clandestine meeting with Min-kyung. Min-kyung begs Soo-ho to help her with her work but he shrugs her off.

Young-eun meets Chi-sook outside Mi-sook’s apartment. Chi-sook is hellbent on snitching but Young-eun warns that the news could worsen Mi-sook’s condition.

Inside Mi-sook’s apartment, Chi-sook keeps her lips shut. Mi-sook gives them two pieces of advice. The first is that love can also be letting go amicably. The second is that while you have it, express it without hesitation.

In a conversation with Yoo-jung, Jae-guk explains that he heard from the bartender that served Soo-wan and Yoo-jung on the night of the accident that Yoo-jung followed Soo-wan out into the rain in her own car.

Yoo-jung alleges that she followed Soo-wan to stop him when she realised that he was drink driving. In an accompanying flashback, we see Yoo-jung try to overtake Soo-wan’s car. She pulls into the opposing lane and must swerve out of the way of an oncoming truck. Soo-wan also swerves, though he ends up crashing while she does not.

That night, Chi-sook shows up at Do-hoon’s apartment with a bottle of wine, intent on taking Mi-sook’s advice and showing him a night of passionate romance. We cut to Do-hoon serving her a pot of tea, cautioning her over the dangers of excessive drinking. Chi-sook doesn’t understand Do-hoon’s slow and steady approach to their relationship until he lets her know how precious she is to him.

Young-eun, having received Chi-sook’s earlier request to keep Jae-guk away from Do-hoon’s apartment, keeps working from inside his car. He gets an incoming call from Hye-ok and doesn’t answer until Young-eun prompts him to. Even then, he gets out of the car before picking up. Young-eun sees this as the beginning of a strain on their relationship that will only get worse.

Hye-ok sits in Soo-wan’s old room and has a flashback to Jae-guk asking for her to accept Young-eun. It’s the first time he’s ever asked her for anything.

The Sono team gets a request from La Fayere for a fabric test report. It’s the worst possible timing; they’ve already begun production. Before they can even decide what to do, another email from La Fayere requests for design modifications.

Amidst this mess, Sun-ju gets an offer for a position with another company. The catch: Na-ri must jump ship with her.

Young-eun wants to reject La Fayere’s demands if they cannot come to an agreement soon. For the first time, Gwang-soo gives her his full support. In the middle of packing his office, he’s obviously passed caring and onto finding a new job before the acquisition.

Revision requests from La Fayere continue to pile up as the fabric vendor comes to The One with the final samples for Young-eun to choose from. Young-eun decides to go with Sono’s initial fabric choices, unwilling to lose Sono’s identity for La Fayere’s whims.

Jae-guk arrives at Hye-ok’s house to find that she’s packed up Soo-wan’s old room. She says she will allow Jae-guk to keep seeing Young-eun if they wait until she dies to take their relationship further.

Hye-ok also admits to telling Young-eun the same thing. Jae-guk finally understands why Young-eun has been obsessing over a breakup. He shows Hye-ok the extent of his anger for the first time, telling her that the only reason he hasn’t kicked her to the curb is because she is his mother.

After storming out, Jae-guk goes to find Young-eun and hugs her while apologising. To herself, Young-eun hopes that their breakup will be somehow special.

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The Episode Review

Episode 10 closed on our leads seemingly heading down the road to fighting for their relationship with more passion (well, with as much passion as these two can muster) than ever. And then Episode 11 opened with a whiplash-inducing 180 turn back to breaking up, stomping all over basic narrative progression.

Young-eun’s sudden change of heart is supposedly caused by Hye-ok’s evil emotional blackmail. But… Young-eun had already had that experience when she reciprocated Jae-guk’s last big confession. At this point the writer has thrown sense to the wind and is just going where the (very fickle) wind blows them.

Helping them along the way are two very handy characters. Mi-sook continues to face her untimely end for the sole purpose of giving Young-eun sage morsels of advice. And Yoo-jung has upgraded from simply antagonizing Young-eun to taking any blame for Soo-wan’s death off her. Don’t look for complex characters here. You won’t find them.