Some superb acting in EP68. Here is my analysis:
The last episode was a great show of sibling reconciliation and restoration. All this time, there was a part of Hana that resented JiSeok. She thought he went chasing after money and success and left them alone in Korea. While she tried to understand (she thought of it as a reaction to grief and bankruptcy afterwards), she still resented him because she was left to do the heavy lifting.
It didn't help that he kept asking her to leave at every point as she wasn't a biological Goo. However, the reveal of what actually happened turns everything on its head for her. He wasn't having some gala time in the US and was struggling to the point he nearly died. He was overwhelmed by finding out there was foul play involved in the parents death that he changed his whole life plan to revenge -- money and power were about gaining tools.
He was also able to do this revenge quest only because of Hana. He could have never done this if Hana wasn't there to take care of the family and to take care of the practical aspects. He would never have left her that responsibility if she wasn't a Goo. So there is gratitude as well as anger and shame that he left the burden of responsibility to her while also not being able to focus on anything but revenge.
It is also clear that SeYoung's frustration and scoffing Hana was his "first love" is misunderstanding. He approached her from the start for revenge. So part of her could sense that their relationship was never that deep whereas his love for his sister Hana was very much real. He was relieved on some level that she was a fake daughter, which means her identity as a Goo still stands.
So this drama is ultimately about how family love can be super deep to ride through any storm and their ties are weathered. Being single child, neither SeYoung or JinGoo understand this kind of bond that siblings can have, especially those who lost their parents and have no one else but to cling to each other. They may get frustrated, fight, misunderstand but at the end of the day, the Goo siblings are a tight unit and that includes Hana in every sense of the word.
The parents really did integrate her into their family and it was never a token adoption. Rather, the adoption was of heart and soul and that is why Hana now feels their loss even more keenly. She was deprived of parental love yet again not by the cruel hands of fate but by foul play.
Unlike other people who yearn for romance, she has always yearned for family. That is what motivates her. Even though she was barely an adult, there was a part of her that hurt that her parents died on the way to her recital. Even if it wasn't her fault, she did feel guilty and she tried to overcompensate by working hard to take care of the family.
So now her turn to revenge is still very much keeping in arc with her character. This is someone who takes herself as a Goo member very seriously. It is beyond her identity. It is who she is. The idea that she hurt JiSeok and her parents without knowing breaks her into a thousand pieces because they are family in the absolute sense. They filled all the broken pieces of her as a child and showed her what a family was. So family disloyalty is not something she can tolerate.
Now, joining JiSeok as older sister in his revenge plan completes her circle as a Goo family member. They may not be related by blood but the older siblings are very much siblings and they are going to go after those who hurt their family and broke it up. Viva revenge arc! This should be entertaining chingus.
Soleil_Fleur:
