"While You Were Sleeping" drama: episodes nineteen and twenty recap

 Air Dates: September 27th to November 16th on SBS, airs Wednesday and Thursday nights at 10:00 pm, two episodes per night

 Ratings(Nielsen) for the two episodes- 8.2% and 8.9%

Main Cast:

Bae Suzy as Nam Hong-Joo

Lee Jong-Suk as Jung Jae-Chan

Lee Sang-Yeob as Lee Yoo-Bum

Ko Sung-Hee as Shin Hee-Min

Jung Hae-In as Han Woo-Tak

Shin Jae-Ha as Jung Seung-Won

Hwang Young-Hee as Yoon Moon-Sun

Park Jin-Joo as Moon Hyang-Mi
Kim So-Hyun as Park So-Yoon
Lee Yoo-Joon as Oh Kyung-Han

 Thrilling conclusion to end off the previous episode and the intensity did keep up for a while though quickly faded. Still a fine pair of shows but have to admit the second half of the twentieth episode did drag so much.

 No need to give many details from the previous recap as I hope most have painstakingly read it.
Jae-Chan is lying at an intersection after getting shot once with the car fleeing the crime quickly. Hong-Joo had memorized the license plate number and gave it to the police who went searching for the car. An ambulance was also on the scene to whisk Jae-Chan away to a local hospital.
 As you can see in the above screenshot the police had surrounded the hunted vehicle who had also tried to run over a pair of men. That duo was Woo-Tak and his friend Hak-Young who all thought had killed the popular archer Su-Kyung though he was 100% innocent. The driver had missed hitting the men the first time but he had turned around when he saw who they were and was about to run them over when the police intervened.
 The driver was Yoo Man-Ho who was the father of Su-Kyung. He didn't believe Hak-Young was innocent and had taken matters into his own hands, first shooting Jae-Chan and then trying to run over the once main suspect and his friend. It wasn't entirely Man-Ho's fault, he was given some info from Yoo-Bum and not all of it was truthful, Yoo-Bum won't be charged for any crime but he was the demon behind Man-Ho's actions. The man also has terminal cancer and wanted to see his daughter's death avenged before he died and his thinking was all warped thanks to you-know-who.

 There are twelve episodes left after this pair of shows so of course it was too early for the main male lead to die. Jae-Chan was in critical condition but perhaps getting shot in the stomach isn't as serious as getting shot in the chest. He did have to be rushed into the operating room, after what seemed hours the operation was a success and it appears Jae-Chan should recover completely.
 Hung-Joo says above she couldn't change the events in her dream which was true, she was able to do it once many episodes ago but that was the only time. Her recent dreams had Jae-Chan getting injured at the intersection though the dream did change slightly as time went on. At first he wasn't injured, then he was stabbed by a knife and finally was shot by a gun.
 No one can quite figure out why her dreams are changing but there's one thing I've noticed in the last few episodes. That's of Jae-Chan and Woo-Tak not having dreams and don't know why they've stopped. The pair having variations of the dreams Hung-Joo has had managed to save a few lives including their own, perhaps if one of them had a dream this event wouldn't have happened.

 Before being shot Jae-Chan had gone to a jewelry store and purchased a ring for Hong-Joo. Naturally he wasn't able to give it to her but his brother Seung-Won eventually did, haven't seen much of him in the last few shows. But in the box was more than a ring as there was also a note, a note from thirteen years ago written by Hung-Joo!
 She had met Jae-Chan briefly back when she was fifteen for one day, he had gone to her father's funeral and both of their fathers had been killed by the same runaway soldier. She had been irate at the soldiers's brother and wanted him to die, after a talk with Jae-Chan she changed her view on revenge. She then had give him that note and he had kept it for thirteen years. Hung-Joo won't freely admit but she's never forgot about that incident but up until the day before he was shot Jae-Chan had forgotten about it, it was signed by Chestnut which was Hong-Joo's nickname all those years ago.
 Yoo-Bum won't be charged with any crime but he planted the seeds for the three people almost getting killed. Because of some of his actions he was brought into the prosecutor's office for an interview, Woo-Tak had also been summoned for the interview. At it many details about Yoo-Bum's involvement with the incidents were revealed, thanks to Hee-Min for once he had to eat his words and don't think they tasted so well.

 Yoo-Bum had brought up the fact that Jae-Chan and Woo-Tak had become such close friends. With Woo-Tak also knowing Hak-Young so well perhaps that was a reason for Jae-Chan not prosecuting him, he made sure Man-Ho was aware of that. That was hogwash to Woo-Tak and before long
Yoo-Bum had started to choke on his accusations. He said that perhaps much of the evidence that
Jae-Chan had garnered for the case was fabricated, didn't all prosecutors do that?
 Hee-Min replied that he's mistaken, the current prosecutors have never forged any evidence and perhaps when Yoo-Bum was a prosecutor he was the only one who did. That comment really startled Yoo-Bum who had no response for it, the more he talks about the case the more he's making himself look bad. All in attendance, including those behind the glass partition, knew of Yoo-Bum's info that led to Man-Ho's actions but sadly there was no crime he could be charged with.
 Have to admit Yoo-Bum does cover his bases and though such a despicable person he never loses a case and is on top of everything or at least was until now. Granted he's not a fave of the viewers but has made the show much more interesting. Really nice to see more of Hee-Min in these two episodes as I've been falling hard for her, was also terrific seeing her make Yoo-Bum choke on his words.

 That concluded the nineteenth episode which was good all the way through. Can't say the same for episode twenty and guess every series has to have at least one clunker. Jae-Chan is still recuperating in the hospital though it shouldn't be too long before he's released, he'll have plenty of time to heal at home as his doctors said no work for thirty days.
 Also at the hospital is Soo Man-Ho who was the man that shot Jae-Chan. He's getting up there in age as he's 73 plus he has terminal cancer, it appears as though he may never leave the hospital. Jae-Chan wants to meet him and has some harsh words he wants to tell him. He can't see him by himself for he needs Hee-Min who is the prosecutor of Ho-Man's case to escort him. She stalled that meeting for a while but finally she arrives at the hospital, her stalling took so long that Jae-Chan had forgot all about the meeting.
 Instead of laying into the old man Jae-Chan takes it easy on him, he tells Man-Ho and his wife who was there what a nice daughter they had and they should be proud of her. Jae-Chan didn't try to make Man-Ho feel guilty as was struggling with the shame of what he had done plus also the pain from his cancer. But he did understand why Jae-Chan did what he did and in a way he was thankful that an innocent man wasn't sent to prison.

 The softening up that Jae-Chan went through was him remembering the note that he gave back to Hong-Joo in the ring box. He had told her when they met that one day thirteen years earlier to never carry grudges or to look for revenge. Jae-Chan had forgotten his own words which was why he wanted to make Man-Ho feel so ashamed of his actions, recalling the words he had once told
Hung-Joo made him a gentler person to the older man and his wife.
 That scene at the hospital was an okay one but it was of the few highlights of this show. Way too much time was spent on the romance between Hung-Joo and Jae-Chan becoming more serious. But what happens in dramas is that a scene gets filmed from so many angles. For instance towards the end they had a small embrace and kiss. But we had to view it from ten or more angles in slow motion, seems that the scriptwriter had no more ideas for the show.
 We all know that Hung-Joo and Jae-Chan are going to end up together so why spend over twenty minutes in a half hour episode showing us what we already knew? Wonder if they wanted add a new storyline in but there wasn't enough time, no kind of cliffhanger either going into the next episode. In all honesty 20+ minutes of episode twenty were of Hung-Joo and Jae-Chan repeating the same lines over and over along with us viewing the same scenes over and over from different angles. Plus there were some flashback scenes we've already seen, once again different angles to fill in the time.

 Sure there were a few that enjoyed the last episode but don't count me among them and the ratings were a sign of how it may have turned off viewers. Episode nineteen had a rating of 8.3% which is an excellent number. Usually the second show will go up by 1% and often more but the increase was only .6%, many may have switched the channel well before the end.
 But so far that's been the only down note for this drama, as mentioned it's hard to have a 32 show series without having at least one mediocre show. That's also why this recap was much shorter, so little happened in episode twenty there wasn't any more filler I could add in. Still highly recommend this show so take it as a warning if you view it skipping episode twenty means you'll miss zero.