Best. Episode. Yet. It amazes me how a series can keep us engaged for
so long and still carry us through new waves of emotions. I feel like
I’m drowning in an ocean of feels and am totally okay with it. We
finally get to witness the epic showdown between our newbie band versus
the elite orchestra where the competition is fierce, the rivals are
formidable, and the music… well, it’s just pitch perfect.
Monstar continues to lead the pack on Fridays with this episode hitting a solid 2.3% in ratings.
SONG OF THE DAY
Kang Ha-neul & Dahee – “사람, 사랑” (Human, Love) [
Download ]
EPISODE 7: “Finally the Battle! Color Bar vs. All for One”
Sun-woo’s acoustic serenade wins over the girls’ hearts (including
mine). Unbeknownst to him, Nana looks heartbroken behind him as she
looks on. However, her voice doesn’t betray her emotions when she tells
him to sing another song for them: “
Human, Love” (by Lena Park & Kim Bum-soo).
He points out that it’s a duet and Nana quickly shoots down the idea
that he sings it with their vocalist, Se-yi. Unfortunately, we don’t get
to hear this potentially awesome duet as an irritated Seol-chan
interrupts to end practice. He doubles over in frustration in the car.
Next thing we know, he scares the bejesus out of Se-yi on her way
home. He can barely utter words, let alone sentences before he barks,
“D-did you like it?!” and runs off, embarrassed. Hahaha, I love jealous
Seol-chan.
In the car, Seol-chan literally beats himself up over the head. His
manager reluctantly hits him when asked (it shouldn’t be funny, but it
is a little) which is enough reason to let the tears finally come.
Though he outwardly sobs over the ridiculousness of his tears, it’s
apparent that the serenade has gotten to him more than he lets on.
As for Nana, she stops outside of Sun-woo’s place and chucks a CD over the gate—a BoA album.
It’s still lying on the ground when Sun-woo finds it the following
morning. On the way to school, he stops the car when he sees something
fall out of Nana’s pocket and he silently watches her walk away.
Then he sees her arrive at school from the classroom window. Ooh,
does he see her in a different light now? If so, it’s a nice reversal to
Nana’s memory in the previous episode.
Just then, Sun-woo is called away by Seol-chan, who still has a bone
to pick with him about yesterday’s cheese-tastic serenade. It’s nothing
compared to Seol-chan’s move, Sun-woo reminds him. Those words leave the
idol boy understandably confused since he has no idea Sun-woo has seen
the almost-kiss.
We move onto the other broken bromance. Reminded of the ajusshi’s
words that shielding your friends does more harm than good, Kyu-dong
bucks up the courage to confront Do-nam. He pushes through despite
Do-nam’s increasing aggravation to get out everything he’s been meaning
to say.
When Do-nam retorts that he should say something else instead,
Kyu-dong yells, “You don’t give me a chance to say it!” I love that
Kyu-dong doesn’t shrink away this time and refuses to back down.
They’re joined by Jae-rok and his incessant sneers about them stops
Seol-chan in his tracks. He pointedly remarks how their elite orchestra
doesn’t need to practice in order to win their upcoming competition. You
sure talk big, Cymbals Boy.
Seol-chan retorts that all of those rich privileges like expensive
instruments and private lessons don’t compare to the human voice. Which
is when Joon-hee steps in with a mockingly polite apology that they
should even the playing field.
So Joon-hee calls their opponents (okay, I give in. Seol-chan’s team
call themselves “Color Bar”) to the auditorium to get a taste of what
All for One has to offer. It cracks me up that Seol-chan yawns as soon
as they begin. But just when he’s about to leave, a strong voice rings
out from onstage.
You can see the collective looks of
Oh crap that settle on
their faces at the realization that Hyo-rin can sing. Ugh, and she even
challengingly smirks in their direction as she belts out Jo Sumi’s
classic, “
If I Leave.”
Seol-chan doesn’t hesitate to use Sun-woo’s previous knowledge of
Hyo-rin’s hidden singing ability as ammo to accuse Sun-woo of being a
spy yet again. He’s irritated when Se-yi rises to Sun-woo’s defense. The
others step in before the situation escalates any further as voices of
reason—instead of fighting, they should focus on what to do now.
This calls for a change in song, which clearly pushes the boundaries
of Se-yi’s vocal range when they go over it at practice and ends up with
Seol-chan to storm out in frustration again. At the mention that they
need someone else to sing it, Sun-woo momentarily glances at Nana.
*gasp* Do you know about her strong pipes?
Kyu-dong’s comforting words that everyone can tell that Seol-chan is
trying too hard to win manages to calm him down. But his jealousy flares
again when he sees Sun-woo and Se-yi looking chummy through the window.
He marches back inside to resume his stern music directing, and this
time, it drives Se-yi to tears.
Seol-chan chases after her and grabs her by the wrist, silently
refusing to let go despite Se-yi’s protests. Gah, that look of reserved
guilt just about kills me. Just tell her that you’re sorry for being an
ass!
She asks why he keeps doing this to her—what on earth did she do to
him? She demands to know why he almost kissed her that night, but
Seol-chan remains silent. He finally lets go when the ajusshi steps in.
Meanwhile, Sun-woo calls Nana outside and asks her to help them out. Ack, so you
do
know that she can sing! He reminds her that she once asked him what he
sees in her. He now admits that he did see her talent once, but never
mentioned it since he figured she didn’t want anyone else to find out.
Nana denies it and she asks why she should help Se-yi. But Sun-woo
tells her it’s for the team and when she refuses again, he drags her
back inside. Then he picks up his guitar and starts playing “Human,
Love” before Nana can leave.
She slowly turns to face Sun-woo as he sings, his eyes fixated on
her. Her eyes glaze over in tears, moved, and from the way she looks at
him, it’s as if you can almost see her imagine herself as the object of
his serenade. Hell,
I’m imagining him sing to me.
Then Sun-woo stops to invite her to sing the duet together. He starts
over and over and over again, patiently waiting for her to join him.
And then… she does. And it’s GLORIOUS.
As they belt out in beautiful harmony, a flashback reveals that
Sun-woo had indeed heard her sing as she walked to school that morning.
Their voices cohesively overlap in the present as they sing together.
Rewind, replay!
When they finish their jaw-dropping performance, the others break into applause.
Elsewhere, Se-yi sits with the ajusshi on a park bench. She confides
in him, saying that she doesn’t get why Seol-chan is acting this way.
But even though she’s angry with him and hates him, he keeps weighing on
her mind. There was something else he did to her but rather than
getting angry, she’s hurt and sad instead. She wonders, “Why is this
happening to me?”
The ajusshi gives her a knowing smile and tells her that someone else
asked that of him once. He got angry then because they already knew the
answer… and so does Se-yi.
Seol-chan collapses on his bed in a dejected mood, reminded of how he
made Se-yi cry again. Then he rises to unveil a package by the bed and
breaks out in laughter. Omg, you got Se-yi’s encouraging note framed?
Ha, you would do something like that.
He’s back to his usual self by morning and sincerely apologizes to
Se-yi for his actions last night as they walk up to school. Sun-woo
joins them and doesn’t miss an opportunity to spark Seol-chan’s jealousy
as he takes Se-yi to walk with him.
Seol-chan calls from behind: “Hey, let go of my seat partner’s hand!”
The math teacher offers to spice things up a bit at the class’s
general disinterest… with a lightning round relay of a math formula?
Then he lays down a beat and starts spittin’ out variables like a boss.
Oh gosh, this looks
WAY harder than the quadratic formula tune. Am suddenly so thankful I didn’t go to this high school.
Given how the others jump, it must be a familiar routine to the
class, but both Seol-chan and Se-yi are caught off-guard. When it’s
Seol-chan’s turn, he hilariously starts dancing, completely baffled.
Naturally, they’re assigned to memorize the formula. Seol-chan blurts
out that she had the same blank expression when he nearly kissed her,
and they both flush at the mere mention of the incident. Then Seol-chan
walks her through the rhythm, breaking it up into parts for her. It’s
sweet to see how patient he is with her now.
After they perform it for their teacher, Seol-chan asks why she keeps
staring at him—has she fallen for his idol star image charm now? Se-yi
rolls her eyes at this. When she asks what they’ll do without a power
vocal, Seol-chan tells her that they’ll perform as is.
So of course they’re both left awestruck when they hear Nana’s
powerful voice, and Seol-chan looks so happy that he can hug her. He
does (Se-yi slightly grimaces, heh) and the gesture earns him a punch to
the jaw.
Se-yi notices that more flowers have bloomed outside and learns from
the ajusshi that they’re violets. And the ajusshi wears a
lighter-colored shirt now. Hm.
The Color Bar band gets to work immediately, their cheery mood and
cohesiveness now returned. I appreciate how we get a rough cut of the
music in practice, as the MR adds to the feel that this is practice,
setting us up for a big reveal later.
The Color Bar members are briefed about tomorrow’s battle after
school and they overhear Nana take a gruff phone call. Do-nam and Se-yi
follow behind her and can only watch as she’s quickly whisked away by a
car.
So Do-nam shares his hypothesis about Nana based upon what he
previously overheard. He presumes she must work part-time at a room
salon, i.e. entertaining older men by pouring them drinks.
He tries to shake Se-yi off when she offers to come with, but Se-yi
stubbornly tags along. Both Sun-woo and Seol-chan spot the two hurriedly
race off and follow behind in their respective cars.
Sun-woo confronts them as they argue outside of the club. But before
he can say another word, Nana suddenly runs out of the doors and into
his arms. She’s quickly followed by a rough group of men, who bark at
her to come back in. Both Sun-woo and Do-nam intervene and engage them
in a fight.
It’s not long before Seol-chan joins them and Nana runs off. Fists
fly in every direction until the fight abruptly stops at the word of an
older gentleman, who seems to recognize the group. As for Seol-chan,
he’s whisked away by his manager to save his idol image.
The older man is Nana’s father, who sits the kiddos down for a chat.
He may have a scary presence but his fatherly concern for his daughter
is the same as any parent. He’s determined to find the boy who broke her
heart—do they know who it is?
He assures them that he’ll make sure to send Nana along tomorrow. He
looks back at Sun-woo (the only one who maintained eye contact) before
he leaves. They wonder if she’ll actually turn up tomorrow.
Unfortunately, Nana’s still a no-show the next morning, and Se-yi
receives word from that she’s unreachable. The group grows nervous with
less than thirty minutes to spare before the competition. Then Sun-woo
calls back and before he runs out, he tells them to stall for time.
Which means we get a hilarious scene of the Vice Principal trying to
squeeze his car into a narrow parking spot. His repeated attempts to
park are blocked off and he’s unable to get out from either side. To
make matters worse, his phone runs out of juice when he calls Teacher
Dokko for help. Hahaha, he’s going to be there for a while.
Thanks to Nana’s father, Sun-woo arrives at the one place she could
be. It’s a fashion design studio, where she’s currently at the sewing
machine as tears fall from her eyes. She bends down to pick up a rogue
spool and cuts her already injured hand. Ah, so that’s how she scraped
it, and the new injury reminds her of Sun-woo’s concern.
Sun-woo finds her in her crying state, and she lashes at him when she
hears that they spoke with her father. They must find her pathetic to
see the rumors about her come to light. Now they know about her
parentage, with her gangster boss for a father and her room salon owner
for a mother. Through her tears, she bites out:
Nana: ”You probably thought to yourself: ‘Oh god,
that I hung around with that girl. That I exchanged words with that kind
of girl! That I lowered myself to sing with her.’ Didn’t you?”
She tells him to get out. But Sun-woo stands firm and reminds her
that he only believes what he sees: “What I see isn’t a gangster and
room salon owner’s daughter, but Kim Nana the student, Kim Nana the
Color Bar member, Kim Nana who sings well… and Kim Nana whom everyone is
waiting for.”
The Vice Principal finally finds a way out of his car and bursts into
the auditorium, annoyed and sweaty. He calls for the battle to begin
immediately, ignoring the protests that Color Bar isn’t ready yet. At
that moment, Sun-woo returns alone and relays the bad news that he
wasn’t able to persuade Nana. So Seol-chan reassigns Kyu-dong to take
over Nana’s part.
The All for One orchestra takes the stage first and begin their
performance of “Amazing Grace.” Hyo-rin sings as her brother plays on
the piano before he joins in song. The orchestra drops out and a chorus
chimes in to robustly round out the song in soft harmony.
When they finish, the teachers break in applause (as do the small
group of students who snuck in, hee). The Color Bar members hang their
heads.
The Color Bar band takes the stage and Kyu-dong nervously stands in
the center, trying to calm his nerves. He gets silent looks of
encouragement from his teammates before they begin. The spotlight shines
on Kyu-dong and he squeaks out the first few lines, to everyone’s
dismay.
Then the sound of approaching footsteps grabs everyone’s attention, and the stage lights come up—it’s Nana. Oh, whew.
She takes her rightful place on stage and they start over their performance of (Shin Seung-hoon’s) “
Don’t Make Me Cry.” Her talented voice takes the audience by surprise and the others join in after an impressive legato.
Their remix includes a dance break, which spotlights Seol-chan’s DJ
skills, and the music picks back up as Nana belts out the chorus.
They finish their performance in a line, fingers pointed upwards to the sky.
COMMENTS
SO AWESOME. Surely the wait was worth it to watch the band finally perform onstage, even if it was just for the
chance
to perform elsewhere. We’ve seen what each individual member can do in
the previous episodes as the show gave us a sample of what each of them
can offer. But what we were really waiting for was to see how those
talents would join together as one and boy, was it beautiful. I wouldn’t
necessarily call it my favorite music number of the bunch so far, but I
appreciate what this performance means to them: that an unlikely group
of students can band together to find a common passion and give a killer
performance. I only hope that this is the first of many to come.
On that same note (hur), I love how the show integrates their musical
choices into the narrative. The show’s own renditions of oldies and
new-ish Kpop songs alike hold a certain meaning to the story at present
or to our characters. That isn’t to say that the show has always
utilized music perfectly (did we really need to hear all of MIB’s
upcoming single in last week’s episode?), but even in those cases, the
lyrics can still hold some relevance to the scene we actually see.
Nana and Sun-woo’s duet is a wonderful example of music integration
where Sun-woo’s serenade speaks to Nana’s already broken heart. Though
she’s fully aware of Sun-woo’s feelings for Se-yi, the combination of
the invitation to sing with her crush, to be momentarily serenaded by
him, and the fact that he knows she’s talented… is anyone else swooning
yet? Plus, it’s an awesome duet of bottled musical perfection.
So it breaks my heart to hear how she deliberately alienates herself
in shame of her family background and allows false rumors about her to
spread. Perhaps she feels that it’s easier to bury herself under these
misconceptions and to live quietly with a passion virtually unknown by
those around her. Thus, I can understand the vulnerability and emotional
nakedness she feels when the one person she never wished would ever
find out knows what she’s worked so hard to hide.
The broken bromantic relationships are still at the heart of this
series for me, and I love how emotions continue to bubble at the surface
despite the group coming back together again. It’s a reminder that the
boys have a long way to go and we have to continue to wait and bite our
nails to see what it takes for these relationships to heal. I love how
Kyu-dong took a courageous step in this episode to confront Do-nam in an
effort to repair their friendship. Wah, I just don’t want them to fight
anymore (even though I love that the glares can easily be misconstrued
as lovers squabbles)!
As for the battle itself, I have to admit that All for One’s
performance took me by surprise. I didn’t expect for Hyo-rin to stand
her own with her own vocal chops, and the orchestra still deserves due
credit for their talent even though I don’t want them to win. And though
the name “Color Bar” is an apt name for our group of misfits to act as a
slap in the face to their enemies, I somehow expected a more kickass
name for our band. C’mon Hallyu, wouldn’t something like
Monstar be more fierce and badass?
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