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Secret Love Affair Episode 10 Recap — 41 Comments

  1. what a thrill it is to be the first one to comment! this is an excellent recap from koala and jomo as usual. i also experienced this episode like a taut thriller!

  2. All eyes are on HW and SJ and they seem so oblivious to it all. They are taking so many risks; making out at her workplace, her sneaking out in the middle of the night for their trists.

  3. Many, many thanks for your recap Jomo!
    Been stalking and refreshing this site eversince I watched ep 10 on Wed 🙂 SJ & HW’s chemistry is just ricocheting everywhere despite their efforts to put on a nonchalant front.

    And I am so glad that you highlighted more on the quiet moment they enjoyed cocooned in HW’s office. Both understanding and reciprocating emotions they have for each other without any words exchanged. And it was evident that SJ was holding back his need to do more than just hold hands with HW just by the way he looks at her and his physical contact with her on the sofa. I mean, you can’t even wedge a piece of paper between them!

    My goodness, he absolutely adores and Loves her! (wiping off the sweat on my flushed face)

    I’m nervously waiting for Hell’s Gate to be obliterated in next week’s episodes… in fact, I need to get a force field just to brace for the impact…

    • As far as YAI, I hold back on almost everything I write.
      Boy gives me the vapors, whatever those are.
      We need our own black and white plaid hanky, don’t we?

      • I SO Know what you mean!!! I just HAD to re-watch that scene in her office again right after my post!

        HEEEELLLPPP!!!

      • Pleaseeee write a dissertation on YAI in black and white plaid hanky! I’ll the be the first to comment. Teehee!

    • I have been making up stuff trying to guess exactly what is behind Hell’s Gate:

      1. HW goes to the Big House, after taking a fall for Seohan. In dramas, it seems the longest time they end up in prison is 3 years. During that time, Hubby and she divorce. She gets the Lizzie Borden treatment from all her former colleagues. SJ travels the world with a piano on his back, learning a lot more stuff that if he stayed the Wunderkind of Seohan Land. When she gets out, they marry and move to my neighborhood.

      2. SJ or someone in his entourage becomes embroiled in a jewelry theft frame-up. Hints come from the fact that they keep showing various necklaces, rings, etc AND the omnipresence of the cameras. One of which SJ requested be turned off. Circumstantial but still suspicious. Remember in 10 when DM tells SJ, “THIS is a restricted area.” She is on camera onsite, and she prolly showed up on some CCTV camera near HW’s garage. It could also involve Jang Ho is guilty by being poor.
      They admit the love affair which everyone knows about anyway, and SJ or HW falls on his/her sword to protect the framed whomever that is. There much disgrace all around but the lovers hang together rather than separately. When he/she finishes jail time, community service, they marry and move to my neighborhood.

      I don’t want HW to keep any illicit money after she goes through whatever turmoil is ahead. I want her to walk away clean and poor.

      • Same here. I want her poor, back to the basics and with him.

        Thanks for another great recap. The office scene was for me, just like for you, the highlight of this episode. Such great acting. Yoo Ah In is Sun Jae.

        The chairman’s comment about her being lucky having no kids. It could be a hint at a possible pregnancy (which I wouldn’t like) or she lowers her head, because somehow she worries about Sun Jae like about a kid of her own him being so young and clueless to the world’s mechanisms.

        The next eps will be very tough.

  4. thanks for another wonderful recap Jomo. I think I may need psychiatric help. I hate dramas in my real lufe and am usually grateful for the calm one i have but this drama has rendered my life colorless. it’s made me listless and restless. pretty much like some lovesick fool.

    oh well. thank goodness I have lived enough to know that drama is not a good thing. keep all dramas in k land! 🙂

  5. After every episode I have to diffuse. I leave the room and pace and flail, taking deep breaths. I attack whatever unfortunate family member happens to be in the next room I enter with how great the show is and how intense the moments are. All the while pacing and flailing. And then I rewatch the episode, which starts me up all over again.

    As someone who doesn’t speak nor understand Korean, I have to wait for the subs. I watch them from multiple sites since they are always a little different. Then I wait impatiently for the recaps here. I don’t feel my understanding of the episode is complete until I read about it here. I think part of it is my excitement at knowing there are others just as wrapped up in this show as I. The rest is comparing notes. Did I read that scene correctly? Did they see what I saw? What was that? I don’t get it, etc. Example: I didn’t know that it was actually illegal to participate in adultery in Korea.

    The two of you really bring everything together. Your writing styles although different, compliment each other well. I finally calm down after having read the recaps. They know, they saw, they feel it as well. I can take a deep breath and wait for the next episode. Where it will start all over again. 🙂

  6. Thank you, Jomo, for your recap/analysis. I especially like your probable scenarios in the comments. My mind has wandered too. God, I love this drama. All the elements are there: writing, acting, directing. I hope they don’t screw it up by extending it. I want SJ and WH to ride off together on the motor scooter, and be happy together, even if they ride off a cliff. (I know it’s been done before, but it’s so effective). Eagerly awaiting the next episode, and thanks again.

    • Lol Misty, I’ll take the ride off the cliff as well, if they are together and happy. Or, as happy as you can be, as you fly over a cliff…

  7. The remarkable thing has been the building sense of impending doom. Just which doom hammer(s) will fall, since there are several possible ones, is part of the suspense.

    I have a hard time seeing any positive way out for Hye Won, as it really isn’t in her careful and manipulative nature to just flat out turn on Seohan. But Sun Jae represents all that isn’t Seohan, and I don’t wonder if it’s more of a case of him pulling her out of it than him getting sucked in to that world.

  8. I adore this drama but I am not really drawn to the love affair in terms of identifying with it myself. I do not wish to be Hye Won as I often do when I am watching other kdramas that pull me in as much as this has. And that is what I like best about it. I think the PD is really smart this way — he makes the situation moving and very understandable but not (at least for me) desirable. It is not exactly sordid but a little bit uneasy situation — especially in this episode where everyone appears to know and let be. For me, that web of knowing takes way from the “rebelliousness” of the relationship. It makes it a little sleazy — not their love but the complicated reasons why Mme Han, the husband, the dean, etc etc both know and do not know. This knowing unknowingness is the same attitude that people have to Young Woo’s boy toy right? So, how is Hye Won and Sun Jae different from the perspective of a materialistic, soulless world which will look the other way as long as some benefit is to be gained from this relationship. I think that a “illicit” romance gains in power and force when the couple scripts its own destiny in a hostile and narrow-minded world but in this universe of don’t ask, don’t tell, of open secrets, there is no self versus society conflict that makes the couple and its choices heroic.

    Am I being delusional here?

    • Part of the deliciousness of HW/SJ is that they have to hide it.
      Every second together is heightened by the adrenaline of maybe getting caught.

      That makes me wonder – if HW and SJ could love openly – as YW and her Boy Toy, would it be as sexy? As tantalizing? At first I thought it wouldn’t be, but I think the clandestine element is only part of it. I am not talking about hiding behind stage to get it on. The urgency of SJ having to have her THEN and THERE is more a part of the newness of their relationship than the illicit nature. Even married people would get into trouble for doing it back stage at a work place!

      Next I wondered – if they were the same age, would be the same sexy since it is less forbidden?
      Mulling…mulling…I think so. They are hot for each other because they have similar musical and other sensibilities and they find each other physically attractive. He likes the way she smells, which isn’t necessarily tied to age. It sounds like a good pheromone match.

      The tragedy, I think, is when they met – since she is already tied to another.

      • Their sexual chemistry soul and feeling is making us crazy, it’s more an awakening for HW that following her ambition a better life chose a package that includes a husband but she is more tied up with her work. Nobody supports adultery/cheating but it looks to me she is more married with work than the “husband”. Also we don’t know yet her past, we only had hints about it. Why she gave up playing?!?!

  9. Thanks for the recaps again!
    And I watched the guitar video….breath taking and tense and sexy!
    And I looooove his piano concerto, it was thrilling!
    The make out scene I confessed I couldn’t see anything , it was so dark I was trying to increase brightness my computer screen! Lol

  10. Hooomygoooooddddd my heart beat so fast like crazy energizer rabit battery on their dangerous make out scene! Show you’re killing me! And the piano concerto…gosshhhh…YAI is such a badass and sexy little maestro! So real actin and so beautiful music! Love love love this episode so much!

  11. Thank you for this beautiful well-thought and quirky recap, Jomo. I smiled a lot and aww-ed here and there while reading each passage. I love how you described the scene where they are sitting together watching his concerto, so detail and just catched all the feelings that I couldn’t say. That’s one of their best scenes. Once again props to KHA & YAI fantastic acting. As one said, they say at best when they say nothing at all. The gestures, the eyes, the expressions have said all the words.

    PS: for the encore, LS plays Brahm’s as his “love” letter to HW. It was actually Brahms Six Pieces for piano that he dedicated to his lover Clara Schumann too. They had similar love story.

  12. I could barely breath easy watching this episode just as how HY quoted SJ’s performance: “It was breathtaking I almost died.”

    Again, thank you Koala and Jomo for your brilliant minds, yet this is my second comment posted here I am very satisfied with your affirmations on the episode’s story. With the total of 10 episodes aired, it has been most of the time with me that I reviewed watching it from the start as I wanted to absorb every detail of the story that would help me understand those scenes where there are idiomatic messages of the dialogues and conversations of the characters, say for example:

    1)How, when and why HW stopped from playing piano?

    2)why YW always emphasizes that she and HW are both married for convenience: I would easily understand on YW’s part why coz of the prosecutor’s office influence on her husband’s side, but then, what about HW? what has she gained being married to her Stalking Rat Husband, whom was always described by her colleagues as “a child being raised by her”

    3) how are the people on HW and SJ’s surrounding were able to comprehend earlier on their affair?

    With the chain of events happening behind the Seohan Art Center I could say it is really a threatening place both for HW and SJ for a number of dangerous people around.

    Firstly, both the chancellor and chairwoman are playing strikes both hiding behind HW’s diligence and orderliness of the job they gave her especially in incurring money out of their greed both behind their backs.

    Secondly, YW who’s extrovert of her relationship with her young bf, would somehow make a move that would pull down HW once she finds out her affair with SJ. Since they were always bickering on each other on YW’s matters.

    Thirdly, Mdm Han’s secretary who has started to place into the platter on her thoughts towards HW’s behavior adding up HW’s secretary as well.

    Fourthly, the Stalking Rat Husband who has already shown a tantrum and had suspicions early on.

    And fifth, Park Da Mi the former gangster, oh she’s equivalent to HW’s husband who’s started stalking too around the couple’s neighborhood.

    Naah, the wait’s too long for next airing of this love affair, am anticipating for a more thrilling scenes and events to come up.

    • Couldn’t one possible reason why Hye Won married him be, that the Korean society pretty much expects women of a certain age to be married? She wasn’t really interested in founding a family, the working place very often is the pool to choose a partner from, her friend Jo, who might have been a candidate, had another partner, and hubby at least understands her passion and job. Other men would nag about her devotion to this profession and might have tried to tie her down to the house and possible kids.

      So she gained social acceptance and to a certain ammount even support.

      • hi newbie, thanks for your thoughts. what really clings to my mind about HW’s marriage life is why she chose stalking rat to be her husband who himself claimed as inadequate for HW and doesn’t even love her. well, I hope in the next episodes to come this question of mine will be answered. right now am imagining what’s next (feeling excited!)

  13. Mz Koala and Jomo, thank you very muchie for the wonderful recap.
    of ep 9 & 10.
    YAI is fantastic in this show. With a look or a smile, he can cause spontaneous combustion. When he was playing Rachmaninoff at the concert, I almost died. Can I keep him as my very own pianist, playing for me only? (oops! I said that out loud) I think the pair has one of the best on screen chemistry ever. Together, KHA and YAI can light up buildings, I believe even the whole city. Makes me wonder whether it is just great acting or directing skills or…

    Albeit, this show is amazing. I go through different shades of emotion and thoughts watching it. There are so many themes one can glean off from this show. One that really stand out for me is the theme of greed/desire. Every character has a different relationship with greed/desire. Some more dysfunctional than others.

    I can’t wait for more.

  14. The most disfuncional here its the absence of sexual relations into the married couple and his husband sexual life is where I ak for myself in club girls because nothing has been shown still but I think he is a man after all.

    The otgher disfunctional role is the wannabe girldfriend whose stubborness to get Yoo ah in is going to blow up their world

  15. inappropriate saying, but i am addicted to this drama like in drug…can someone tell how to quit it? i am hoping our pair eventually together like Ivo pogorelich and aliza kezeradze.

  16. IS the preview for ep 11 on any other site than the drama website. That video runs in steps and there shud be an alternative to watch smoothly.. Youtube doesnt have it .

  17. I am so happy that you chose to recap this drama! As none of my friends nor families watch this (despite my incessant raves), glad to meet people who are as addicted to this as I am. For someone who does not speak a single Korean, I surprise myself that I am willing to watch each episode raw, every mon/tue soon as they aired and again after they’re subbed. I am that invested. Considering, I don’t watch drama that often and very rarely do I repeat watching any drama, for whatever reason this drama got me hooked.
    Again, thank you for the recap. Nervously anticipating the opening of Hell’s gate and getting impatient as now I just saw the clip for ep 11. Unfortunately, we have to be content in re-watching all 10 episodes this week as I think I saw that JTBC is postponing the airing of ep 11 to next week in light of the recent Sewol tragedy.

  18. Thanks for the brilliant recap. I simply love LSJ. Unlike your typical Kdrama male leads, he doesnt bully the love of his life as a sign of affection. He stays true to his feelings and doesnt suppress them, 100% honest with her, care for her, protect her using his own way but at the same time being selfish and careless just to be with her . I have to say YAI does a very god job portraying LSJ as an innocent cute boy and mimicking professional pianist being all fiery hot and sexy while he’s at it. Bloody talented fella.

    ps: my deepest condolences to the families of the victims of Sewol ferry tragedy. may they find closure soon.)

  19. love this drama. cant get enough of the two lead together. really dislike that gf of him. she should now by now. that him dont think anything of her other then a friend.

  20. This is the very first Korean drama that I’ve watched and like all of you (whom I am assuming are all women), I feel like what I felt as a young girl (I am 42 years old) experiencing the giddy, heady rush of a first love.
    Even after the 16 episodes are over, I find myself tearing (sometimes even sobbing) when I recall certain images in the episodes that squeezes my heart so hard and makes me into an emotional wreck.
    It is those little small seemingly unimpressive things SJ does for HW that squeezes my heart and make me cry, because these little words or actions of his speak so incredibly much of his protectiveness, care and love for HW.
    Like for example, when they were having a tickling and rolling around on SJ’s bed, amidst all that laughter he stopped to ask her ‘Are you ok?’; another example when they were making love for the first time, he said ‘Let me know if you are uncomfortable’, and then this other example which would you believe, I am crying now as I type at the memory of the time when HW went out to meet SJ near her office, at some construction site or something, and then they realised they were being stalked. HW wanted to hurry down the steep stairs on her own to quickly return to her office, and told him not to touch her (or something like that) and SJ said to her ‘At least take hold of my hand as the stairs are steep and dangerous’.
    Oh my goodness me – I cried and cried at that scene and recalling it, I am crying now.
    I felt like I could collapse into a puddle. His concern and care and protective feelings towards her are so pure and uninhibited, I feel like if those were the last words I hear, I don’t mind dying.

  21. Yoo Ah In sekshi in formal wear. A review in 7 words. 

    Seon Jae keeps a tight hold on his gift from Hye Won, a handkerchief. She found a gift that wouldn’t be showy. He kept it with him on stage, a personal reminder of his goddess. 

    The hand holding scene, absolutely marvelously beautiful. If you told someone there were a couple of wordless minutes of two people sitting on a sofa watching a video, it would sound boring. But with these two actors, this was one of the most wonderful scenes in the entire drama. SJ/YAI was so natural when he took her hand. No calculation or hesitation. The two of them sneaking little glances, shifting closer together, holding hands, discretely touching, yearning. I loved loved loved this scene, so well done, saying so much without saying a word. The gorgeous music. Beautiful.  

    And speaking of sekshi, their backstage antics!!! Sweet of SJ to want to show HW where he first saw her. Their faces pressed together, rubbing his nose along the side of her face with his beaming smile, so sweet. And then SJ, wow, his confidence has grown, trapping her against the wall and teasing kisses on the floor, omo incredibly hot. He is so gentle yet passionate. My turn now? So, yeah… I kinda like YAI.

    Then the build up of anxious tension as JH searches for them. He even looks like the tiny little man he is here. This was the first time I noticed HW voicing concern for SJ asking, what about you? She really did not want to leave him, her safe place, and go out to face the dangers awaiting her. And SJ feels so helpless.  

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