Bo Ra! Deborah (2023) Episode 3

Episode 3 of True to Love opens with Bo-ra coming across Ju-wan kissing another woman inside a car. A cab rolls up behind and Su-hyeok gets out to return her phone. When he sees what’s happening, he hides. The honking of a car makes Ju-wan look up and see Bo-ra. He immediately tries to talk to her but Bo-ra doesn’t want to.

The girl from the car gets out and Bo-ra recognises her as Ju-wan’s cousin but turns out Ju-wan lied to Bo-ra. The girl, Da-mi, is his mother’s close friend’s daughter. Bo-ra gets all the more frustrated when he says he’ll drive Da-mi home and then talk to Bo-ra. Ju-wan then turns the tide on her, gaslighting Bo-ra and blaming her for spying on him. While walking away, Bo-ra trips and falls but doesn’t let Ju-wan help her.

Su-hyeok follows Bo-ra unseen. She gets a call from Sang-jin who informs her about the phone switch. She then calls Su-hyeok, who crouches behind a car and pretends to be elsewhere but she catches him. She knows Su-hyeok saw everything. He tries asking if she’s okay but Bo-ra tells him to bill her for his cracked phone and leaves.

At her house, Yu-jeong calls out to her husband but he’s already asleep. She snuggles up to him but he’s not in the mood and wants to sleep.

Bo-mi hurriedly cuts a phone call as Bo-ra comes home. In her room, Bo-ra thinks back and regrets the way she reacted to Ju-wan.

Sang-jin tries to vie for an open-plan office but the idea doesn’t fly. Su-hyeok placates him and then makes a vague reference to last night’s events. Sang-jin mistakes him for not being over Yu-ri.

Bo-ra wakes up and checks her phone to find no messages or calls from Ju-wan. Her mother calls up and berates Bo-ra for not sharing things with her sister but Bo-ra cuts the call when she mentions Ju-wan.

While the team goes out for lunch, Sang-jin takes it on himself to remove the partitions in the office. A young girl enters and helps him with it. After they’re done, she praises the publishing company and wonders about the CEO. He then realises she’s come for an interview. Turns out, the hiring company gave her the wrong details, as Jinlee Publishing doesn’t need new employees. Seeing her disappointment, he offers her a temp position for six months. She’s ecstatic.

The employees come back from lunch and are annoyed to find the partitions gone. Sang-jin is not deterred and introduces U-ri to them. When Sang-jin mentions Bo-ra’s book, Su-hyeok says it might not be as a done deal as Sang-jin thinks.

Bo-ra’s sister assumes she’s fought with Ju-wan and makes a comment about Ju-wan texting her. Bo-ra takes her phone and opens an unread message. It’s from the man Bo-mi met at the party.

Yu-jeong talks about an event for the fashion magazine she works at, La Bella. She then calls Bo-ra and they meet at a restaurant where Bo-ra tells her everything. Bo-ra claims things have gone too far for her to break up with Ju-wan, and as such, they decide to go and have a drink later.

Ju-wan visits Jin-woo’s bar and asks for a drink. Yu-jeong and Bo-ra walk to the bar and see Ju-wan’s car outside, but regardless, she decides to go in anyway. They overhear Ju-wan saying that he’s hesitating to make up with Bo-ra because he doesn’t want to marry her.

Jin-woo reassures her that it’s normal to not feel butterflies as he doesn’t get them for Yu-jeong either. Ju-wan doesn’t want to be with Bo-ra all the time and even feels suffocated by her. Bo-ra turns to leave, but Yu-jeong tells the men off and leaves as well.

The two women go to Bo-ra’s place, where they see Bo-ra trying to process everything she heard. Her sister hears her sobbing from outside. Yu-jeong comes home and berates Jin-woo for making all those comments about husbands not being attracted to their wives. Upset, she goes into their bedroom and locks him out.

Bo-mi sees Bo-ra crying in bed and leaves, but in doing so, Bo-ra gets a message from Ju-wan saying sorry. She gets more upset that the apology isn’t followed up by an affirmation of their love. Bo-ra spends the next few days in a haze of constant crying.

Over the days, Bo-ra thinks about all the signs she had missed before, like Ju-wan hiding his phone, checking her schedule, secretive calls and more. Ju-wan then messages saying he’s outside her house and asks her to come out. She initially refuses but he won’t leave until she comes. She tries to do her make-up but can’t stop crying. Finally, she dresses up and heads outside.

The pair go to a restaurant where Bo-ra drinks a lot of Soju and they sit in silence. Ultimately, he just apologises again. Bo-ra looks away and is astounded to see her tear-streaked reflection. She suddenly gets up and leaves but trips while walking. He tries to help or even call Bo-mi to come get her.

Bo-ra realises Bo-mi texted Ju-wan about Bo-ra not sleeping and that’s the only reason he came. While Ju-wan continues to defend himself saying their relationship had problems, Bo-ra blames his cheating; at least she tried to save the relationship. They continue arguing and he accuses her of being interested in him only because of his background. He blames her, claiming that she’s the reason he cheated in the first place.

A garbage truck stops by them to pick up the nearby trash, but as they argue about who is garbage, both of them climb onto the truck. Bo-ra’s voiceover says that they knew each other so well they knew where to hit each other hardest. The truck leaves and Bo-ra throws up on the corner of the street, while Ju-wan pats her on the back

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The Episode Review

This was clearly a Breakup Episode and I’m surprised that it lasted a whole hour and still managed to keep viewers hooked. It was interesting to see Bo-ra go from dealing with Ju-wan’s cheating to a much bigger, more internal problem of Ju-wan not wanting to be around her. It was clever of the writers to not just use the cheating as a reason for the breakup as it made the story a lot more impactful.

We don’t see much of Su-hyeok or interaction between our main leads though, and it’s disappointing because Ju-wan, as a character, is extremely frustrating. The things he told Jin-woo, about not wanting to marry Bo-ra, did seem genuine and throw light on a different side of him. It made me appreciate the roundedness of his character but that was offset by later scenes when he just goes back to blaming Bo-ra for everything, including his infidelity.

Yoo In-na does a fabulous job as the heartbroken Bo-ra. There is subtlety and range to her expressions and she brings out Bo-ra’s sombre side very well, maybe even better than her chirpy, confident version.