4 Lies In Episodes 7-8 Of “Moon In The Day” That Are Quickly Demolished

“Moon in the Day” is already halfway through its run! This show has a slightly odd length of 14 episodes and has been making the most of that momentum to drop reveal after reveal in short order. Do Ha (Kim Young Dae) and Han Ri Ta (Pyo Ye Jin) continue to have some of the best chemistry of this year’s dramas, and that yearning and affection are bleeding into Kang Young Hwa’s (Pyo Ye Jin’s) days as she witnesses what her past self lived through. But our bad guys have stepped up the game big time, and right when it seems like everything just might land right for these long-parted lovers, life once again throws a huge spanner in the works.

Warning: spoilers for episodes 7-8 below.

1. When Young Hwa tries to pretend that none of this is real

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Even after Do Ha’s grand reveal that he isn’t Jun Oh, Young Hwa’s in complete denial. She refuses to believe that she’s had a ghost attached to her for so long (through 19 reincarnations!) and is horrified to hear that he was the reason she thought she was going insane as a child. Young Hwa tries to rationalize everything, calling Jun Oh a stalker and downing her meds so she never dreams of her past life again. But when that doesn’t work, she’s forced to face the truth. And it isn’t pretty.

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She points out to Do Ha that he’s been clinging to her for years and caused her serious psychological trauma all because he doesn’t know why he died, but there are plenty of people who die every day. Slow deaths, quick deaths, deaths that are never solved. But not all of them choose to latch onto someone for 1,500 years to ruin her life and take her dream of being stationed in Antartica from her just so he can figure out what happened to him. She tells him that she’s done and storms off. And that hits Do Ha deeply (Kim Young Dae always seems to play such empathic men!). He watches the news and sees all the deaths in the world and wonders why his soul is still stuck to Young Hwa’s. Granted, she doesn’t know that he doesn’t have a choice, and he doesn’t want it this way either. He thinks that she really will never see him again, but life has a funny way of intervening.

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2. When Ri Ta tries to pretend that she doesn’t care about Do Ha

We return to the past where Ri Ta never got to make her escape to Gaya. Soribu’s (Lee Kyung Young’s) goons cornered her and Do Ha. He fought off his own people, telling her to escape, but she’s badly injured, and they had no chance. He takes an arrow in the shoulder for her (interestingly the same place as where he initially stabbed her) and passes out. He awakes to find Soribu gloating that he killed Ri Ta, and Do Ha has finally had enough. He vows to no longer live as Soribu’s son. Soribu threatens to have him slaughtered, but Do Ha genuinely looks relieved at the thought. She was the one thing he finally wanted to live for, and without her, he has no interest in life.

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Then, Soribu reveals that Ri Ta is alive. He finds it hilarious, and Do Ha and Ri Ta know why too. Do Ha has just revealed his weakness, and by controlling that weakness, Soribu can control Do Ha. Soribu kills everyone who knows Ri Ta’s true identity and demands that Do Ha marry Ri Ta. If he doesn’t, he’ll reveal Ri Ta’s identity and have her tortured and assaulted. Do Ha and Ri Ta don’t have much of a choice. Ri Ta hates it, knowing that Do Ha is going to have to commit atrocities just to keep her safe. She asks why she needs to be Do Ha’s reason for living and why he can’t just let her be tortured and killed. But they both know the reason. When Do Ha is forced back into battle without having a chance to recover from his injuries, she’s the one who waits for him every night. And when he returns and collapses of fever, she’s the one who takes care for him for days on end. And when she finds his dagger and has every chance to kill him while he’s comatose, she can’t bring herself to do it.

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Do Ha realizes the chance he’s missed when he wakes up and finds himself not dead. He asks her why she didn’t kill him, but she wonders if he might know of how she’s supposed to live now. Killing him was supposed to be her reason, but she can’t do that anymore, and perhaps he, who took an arrow for her, might have the answer. Right now, the fact that he’s alive feels like the only reason she can endure everything. Do Ha visibly tears up, and the two look so forlorn but so happy to have each other in the midst of everything. And Young Hwa wakes up with the realization that everything is not okay.

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3. Do Ha and Young Hwa try to pretend that they feel nothing for each other

Not only are Ri Ta’s memories bleeding into her life, but her feelings for Do Ha are doing the same. Knowing that Jun Oh and Do Ha are the same person isn’t helping because she can see the stoic man who clearly adored Ri Ta in him every single day. When Han Min Oh (On Joo Wan) calls her to Do Ha’s place on an errand, she comes much to Do Ha’s surprise. They apologize to each other like adults (yay, communication!), and she promises to keep dreaming and to find out why he died. From then on, it’s like a switch has flipped. Do Ha relaxes in her company because he doesn’t have to pretend. And she realizes that having a 1,500 year-old spirit around her meant she was never alone, even in her worst moments.

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She tries to get Do Ha to recount various parts of history he witnessed, but he insists that those 1,500 years all blended together for him. But when she asks him to recount various parts of her life, he remembers everything. Young Hwa’s moved at the realization that Do Ha never stopped caring and never meant to harm her. He just couldn’t help being stuck here.

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But every cute couple needs a killjoy, and Jung Yi Seul (Jung Shin Hye) is in the way. Now that Young Hwa knows that Jun Oh is Do Ha, she knows that there’s nothing between Do Ha and Yi Seul, but that doesn’t stop Yi Seul from forcing a very unwilling Do Ha into photo ops and staged paparazzi pictures for their PR relationship. For his part, Do Ha keeps telling himself that he has to kill Young Hwa (and is hiding this fact from her) but keeps trying to convince Young Hwa that she’s way prettier than Yi Seul and stares at her like the moon rises on her face. When Goo Tae Joo (Jung Heon), who attacked Young Hwa, is found suspiciously dead, Do Ha’s protective mode goes on, and he starts accompanying Young Hwa everywhere—down to an amusement park. It’s the most fun he’s had literally in his entire life, and Young Hwa sadly wonders what it could have been like if Do Ha and Young Hwa met as regular people without so many political strings attached to them.

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It isn’t clear what sort of ending we’re being set up for because Do Ha deserves to live a full and happy life, but the body he’s in makes that impossible. And his longtime enemy has set everything in motion again.

4. When Min Oh tries to pretend that he isn’t suspicious of Do Ha

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There seems to be something secret pertaining to Young Hwa’s 30th birthday that we aren’t yet privy to because the stab wound where Ri Ta killed Do Ha is growing more and more visible on his skin. It’s to the point where even Young Hwa’s noticed it. And someone else has too. Han Min Oh has been weirded out by how different his brother is for some time now. And when he gets a call from his ex-enemy Seok Chul Hwan (Jung Woong In), claiming to have answers, he goes to hear him out. He has no idea that Chul Hwan is possessed by Soribu but can’t help but buy it when Soribu insists that Jun Oh has been possessed by an “evil spirit.” Soribu asks Min Oh to test Jun Oh on something that only the real Do Ha would know. Min Oh does. And Do Ha fails. Do Ha does have access to some of Jun Oh’s memories but clearly just didn’t care enough to actually go through them and not in great detail. So Min Oh returns to a gleeful possessed Chul Hwan who shows him an ugly wound in his chest and says that that’s the mark he got when he was possessed but that the ghost is now gone. He says that the spirit possessing Jun Oh is the reason for his cancer and that the only way to get rid of the spirit is to kill Young Hwa. Min Oh buys everything. To his credit, he does look into treating Jun Oh in the United States but is met with refusals because Jun Oh’s body is too riddled with cancer to heal. And Min Oh starts to take murder very seriously.

This is not going to be good! The wound Soribu’s sporting must have been the one that killed him 1,500 years ago. The fact that both he and Do Ha are around posits that they could have been watching over Young Hwa’s incarnations this whole time. Do Ha makes an offhand comment at the amusement park’s funhouse, saying that he’s seen spirits do some frightening things. Could it be that Soribu has been killing Ri Ta’s incarnations off before she hits 30? And why is that number relevant?

The next episode shows Do Ha seemingly awakening to the fact that he’s falling hard for Young Hwa and not wanting her to see the truth: that Ri Ta killed him. He tells her that she doesn’t need to dream anymore, but neither Young Hwa nor Ri Ta have ever listened when someone warned them off. Is a happy ending possible between these two this time around? We can only hope!

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Girl, same

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Adorable

 

cr: Soompi