Master's Sun Ep. 4 Recap

A special note on names and puns in this drama:
Hello Everyone! This is Nina~
I wanted to begin this recap with a short explanation of some of the most commonly recurring puns in the drama. I’m still learning Korean myself, so I apologize in advance if my explanations aren’t perfect.
Let’s begin with the names of our hero and heroine: Joo Joong Won and Tae Gong Shil. In Korean there is an ending for names that is a bit more formal (andless commonly used) than –ssi. It’s –goon for males and –yang for females, and with these endings it’s okay to just add them to a person’s surname. If we do that with our characters we get: Joo-goon and Tae-yang.
In Korean Joogoon means Master, Lord, or Liege—a perfect (punny) nickname for someone who owns a shopping mall called Kingdom. And (as fans of Big Bang already know) Taeyang means Sun, which then leads to the “Big Sun” “Little Sun” nicknames that Gong Shil and Yi Ryung had as teenagers.
That means our title can be translated either as Master’s Sun or Mr. Joo’s Ms. Tae. xD

Now onto the recap!

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Gong Shil wakes up, seemingly no longer possessed by the ghost of Hee Joo. She smiles and looks over to find Joong Won lying next to her. He’s still sleeping peacefully and I must admit Joong Won can be handsome when he is asleep and cannot sass anyone.


She laughs and says to herself that she’s wanted to sleep with Joong Won so badly that now she’s even dreaming about it.

Oh Gong Shil…. You are sadly mistaken. Does it make me a bad person that I am enjoying this immensely even though it is bound to get very awkward? ^^

She pulls Joong Won’s hand close to her face and muses that if she was going to dream about him, it should’ve been an R-rated dream. That way she could’ve gotten a lot of yang energy too.



Joong Won’s eyes snap open at just that moment and Gong Shil calls him Joo Goon which (by the disgusted look on his face) it seems like he doesn't know that’s what everyone calls him behind his back. Or maybe he just doesn't like it when she calls him that.
 
She cutely asks if they can sleep a bit longer because she doesn’t want to wake up yet. Did I mention that she still hasn’t let go of his hand?
 
Joong Won pulls Gong Shil on top of him and looks her square in the eye and asks “Who are you right now? You’re Tae Gong Shil, aren’t you?”




No honey it is not.

The beautiful thing about Gong Shil is that she doesn’t get embarrassed. No matter how insane quirky I think she is, I actually envy the fact that she can take everything in stride and doesn’t really care what other people think of her.



And of course no encounter with Joong Won would be complete without his sass. He tells her that while for her this situation might be a dream, but for him it’s a nightmare.
 
He makes sure to set the facts straight with her. Nothing happened between them the night before. They literally slept holding hands and that was it.



But that’s not enough for Gong Shil, because she still doesn’t understand where she is and how she got there. Joong Won tells her that this is his house and of course her initial reaction is to begin eyeing up the place and commenting on how he has a really nice house.



He’s a little surprised that this doesn’t seem to be that upset about the entire situation and imitates what he thinks should be the proper response. She explains to him that occasionally this happens. So sometimes you wake up in a random man’s house?! She continues on to tell him that once she even woke up in a cemetery.



He asks her if it’s okay just to wake up in random places like that and she tells him that even though the ghosts are scary, they sometimes help her too. With a little grin she asks him “Are you worrying about me?”
 
He quickly covers it up (that’s right Joong Won, can’t let her know you’ve fallen for her this early in the game) by saying he wasn’t worried about her but those people who must’ve seen her.



She remembers what it was like: crawling out of a grave like a scene from the Ring or the Grudge or some other horror movie I haven’t seen because I’m too chicken. She scares a group a mourners who literally were tripping over themselves to run away from her. You know what her next part time job should be? Working in a haunted house.

She shrugs a little and admits, “They were pretty frightened…” Then she asks Joong Won if he was frightened by her. Of course he was! Because of her, he says, he was visited by a lot of “guests” last night.
 
As if dealing with the ghost of Hee Joo wasn’t enough, Gong Shil was also possessed by other ghosts the night before.





A child, a French ballerina (during this part her eyes turned blue. Cool!), and a dog (lol wut? xD). Joong Won looked on in disgust as she tore apart one of his pillows. I supposed the dog was the limit for him.

But each time Joong Won touched Gong Shil, the ghost would leave her body… only for a new one to enter once he let go of her.
 
So then it makes sense if she insisted on holding his hand,because that way she would go the entire night without being bothered by a single ghost. 
 
Joong Won tells Gong Shil, “After drinking, you became a dog”




I have never heard of a Siberian Husky having such a cute bark. Also if she were a Siberian Husky her eyes would’ve been blue then too. Also the way Joong Won says Siberian Husky is adorable. Sheberian Husky. I digress~
 
Gong Shil is a little confused about why she would act like that, because to the best of her knowledge she didn’t drink the night before.



He tells her that she would only be quite when he held her (AWWW!) So that’s why they held hands why they slept.

And then he asks, “So it’s not just that you can hear them and see them? They can come into your body too?” And I don’t know why but I just realized that Joong Won finally actually believes in her ability. The way he gets closer to her as he asks suggests that he really is worried about her.
 
She tells him that sometimes is happens while she’s unconscious(It’s very 49 Days… ghosts possessing humans as they sleep). She thanks him because she slept really well last night due to the fact that she wasn’t bothered by ghosts.

She inches closer to him and tries some more of her awkward flirting, but he moves away from her. Joong Won did not enjoy last night one bit. Last night she was just Kae (dog) Gong Shil (Tae Gong Shil, Kae Gong Shil, I see what you did there xD).



Gong Shil tries to think back and remember what exactly made her go to Joong Won’s house last night… and she remembers seeing Hee Joo’s ghost. She connects the dots and realizes she must have found Joong Won after being possessed by Hee Joo.



The scene then flashes back to the previous night. Hee Joo’s ghost says she understands that Joong Won feels so betrayed because he loved her so much.



The scene flashes back even further to Joong Won pushing Hee Jooon a swing...



...and then cuts to her stony-faced apology that night when he was kidnapped and tied up in the warehouse.



In a final scene we see Joong Won being restrained by a group of men as Hee Joo is trapped in a burning car that explodes.

Joong Won tells Hee Joo’s ghost that because she died that night he couldn’t even admit that she was the one behind his kidnapping. We can see that had she survived that night this entire situations could’ve been rectified by legal means. Since she died, however, Joong Won was never able to get the justice he desperately wants and for fifteen years that night lives on as a festering wound.
 
Hee Joo’s ghost is firm in her stance that she didn’t deceive him, and from beginning to end she really did love Joong Won. Even now she only wants for him to be like the boy who once loved her.

But all Joong Won can think about his catching his kidnapper. Only then will he feel satisfied.



Hee Joo’s ghost reaches out to touch his face, and says “I love you.”



But of course the moment she does, she’s forced out of Gong Shil’s body.


Tears well up as Joong Won hugs Gong Shil.
 
It seems he doesn’t share all of this with Gong Shil, and merely says that Hee Joo left after saying useless things. He brings up the fact that Gong Shil once said she wants to stick by Joong Won, he’s decided now he wants her to stay next to him. There’s a lot of money at stake for this, 10 billion won (roughly equivalent to 9 million USD). Something tells me this was how much his ransom was when he got kidnapped…



Meanwhile Kang Woo is knocking on Gong Shil’s door. When she doesn’t answer, he opens the door anyway.

Nooooo Kang Woo! Until now I gave you the benefit of the doubt because you’re handsome. Even if you were a bad guy planted to spy on Joong Won, I wanted to think that your feelings for Gong Shil were real and not just part of your cover. How could you use your good looks to betray me like that?
 
He puts on a pair of white gloves and takes out his flashlight and begins to rummage through Gong Shil’s possessions.
 
Back at Joong Won’s house, he explains to Gong Shil that he needs to use her ability to contact Hee Joo and find out what happened to his ransom money. He’ll be Gong Shil’s safety hideout and Gong Shil will be his radar. It’s a win-win situation for the two of them, and Gong Shil will agree to anything if it means she can touch Joong Won whenever she wants.



The only thing he needs to figure out is where to “install his radar”. Gong Shil needs to have a job where she can stay next to him at all times but other people won’t think is suspicious.
 
Her suggestion is being a secretary. More precisely I think she wants to be the secretary to his secretary (remember Secretary Kim? The only person who is genuinely nice to her and doesn’t think she’s weird?) or just a secondary secretary. Say that 5 times fast.



Joong Won immediately squashes this idea. His secretary is his face, and honestly Gong Shil doesn’t even wash her hair, so for now she’s have to stay on the cleaning staff.





At Gong Shil’s house Kang Woo can’t seem to figure out who exactly Gong Shil is. In high school she had a lot of friends and she went to a prestigious university but now she lives in a one-room apartment and works as a janitor. It just doesn’t add up.

Kang Woo also finds Gong Shil's high school yearbook and realizes that she and Yi Ryung were in the same class.



Joong Won gives Gong Shil his number. She says she doesn’t want to call him, but she feels safer if she has it. When she asks if she can send him texts his response is that he won’t read them. Well we know it isn’t so much that he won’t read them but more that he can’t read them. Poor Joong Won :[



Gong Shil asks if Joong Won is really worth 10 billion Won,and he tells her that today it would be even more than that. Gong Shil tells him that after her accident her older sister used all of the money that had been saved for her wedding on the treatment. For them that money was worth a lot more than it’s dollar sign value.



To this day Gong Shil still feels bad for her sister who gave up all of her money only to have such a strange sister after it was all said and done. After that she lived in hiding and although she is afraid of ghosts, she’s more afraid of living like one. That’s why she’s so thankful she met Joong Won.



She’s slowly moving into Joong Won’s heart, and he tells her to save his number again. Last time he gave her Secretary Kim’s number.
 
Can I live in a world where the quirky and weird girls get the guy in the end? xD



Outside Joong Won’s aunt (who lives next door) and her husband are walking into their house while discussing “the girl who ruined Yi Ryung’s wedding”. Her husband brings up the rumor that Joong Won and Gong Shil are in a relationship, but the aunt doesn’t believe it at all. Just then he sees Gong Shil coming out of Joong Won’s house, he tries to show Joong Won’s aunt, only by the time she looks back it’s too late.



Yi Ryung sits in a salon and explains that the reason she doesn’t like Gong Shil stems from has she was always overshadowed by her in high school. They were always called Keun Taeyang (Big Sun) and Jageun Taeyang (Little Sun). Since Yi Rung is a celebrity, of course she’s the “Big Sun” now.
Oh stop with the punny names, guys! xD



In the salon they see another celebrity, Kim Hee Jin. She’s staring at herself in the mirror and we see a ghost behind her. Honestly she looks kinda really crazy as she stares at herself in the mirror. I’m sorry, can’t anyone else in that salon see the crazy in her eyes?  How about the insane grin that her face has contorted into? No? Just me?



Yi Ryung sits next to Kim Hee Jin and then the ghost starts working its voodoo on her by telling her she’s the prettiest in the world. Now Yi Ryung looks scary too!



Kang Woo emerges from Gong Shil’s house, which is probably for the best since she’s on her way home now. Those two kids from the apartment building who Gong Shil always feeds catch him. So they’re not ghosts, right?



He puts on his cute “I’m talking to children now” voice and makes up an excuse about trying to find Gong Shil because of a broken light bulb on his floor. They’re not buying it. He asks them if they like ice cream. So we know he’s found the way to their hearts.



The kids sit on the stairs eating their ice cream when Gong Shil arrives. She asks why they have so many ice creams and the older brother hands her one and tells her that the man from room 404 bought them. He then tells Gong Shil that Kang Woo seems nice so she should try to date him. You kids like anyone who gives you food.


When the kid says, “That guy says he likes you,” Gong Shil nearly chokes on her ice cream.



Gong Shil runs into Kang Woo on her way to her apartment and he asks her if the kids said anything to her.
 
To which she responds along the lines of: “Kids? What kids?I didn’t see and kids.” Only she’s eating on of the ice creams he bought. So smooth. Only I can’t blame her because I would probably do the same.



Then he asks, “Did you hear why I bought it?” You really want her to know that you said you like her. Your face may be handsome but it’s all lies! I’ve got my eye on you Kang Woo!
 
He then asks an ambiguous question which can be roughly translated to “So how about it?”  As in…“So how about you and I start dating?”
 
Gong Shil must be thinking along the same lines as me,because she looks at him a little puzzled until he clarifies, “So how’s the ice cream?”
 
The situation becomes too much for Gong Shil to handle, and complaining of the heat she excuses herself and goes into the apartment.



As she leaves Kang Woo smiles as says to himself, “It seems she believes what the kids said.” The smile seems genuine though. WHY DO YOU CONFUSE ME LIKE THIS? My heart can’t take it.

Gong Shil is really surprised that a real, live, handsome guy likes her. Amen to that sister.

Kang Woo is back in his apartment and he’s calling whoever has placed him undercover in Kingdom. He explains that Gong Shil isn’t a threat and that she is not connected to Hee Joo at all. Kang Woo claims the situation is becoming “awkward” for him so it’s best not to get any closer. Is it awkward because Gong Shil’s strange charm is starting to work on you?



The person on the other end of the call emerges from a mansion in a foreign nation. He asks Kang Woo to look further into the rumored woman who is around Joong Won these days. Kang Woo accepts his orders but he has a pained expression on his face. Maybe there is an ounce of sincerity in his in how he treats Gong Shil.
 
Joong Won discusses the impending grand opening of Giant mall. Secretary Kim tells him the owner of Giant mall will be at the upcoming charity event, so they can ask him then when the mall is going to open.
 
Joong Won asks Secretary Kim to create a job position. “It has to be physically close to me, but it has to stay out of my sight. The position won’t include important tasks and will remain unnoticeable to the outsiders” is his requirement. Is that even possible? Do you want Gong Shil to be your secret service? Your driver?





Gong Shil is at work, looking in a mirror and admiring how her dark circles have disappeared after sleeping deeply at Joong Won’s house. The security team comes up and offers her an iced coffee. They treat her really well because they think she’s Joong Won’s girlfriend. As they walk away Lee Han Joo says to the other security members, “You never know what it’s going to be like with her and Master (“Joo-goon”, see above). You’re supposed to make connections with the King’s concubines… that’s how you become successful.”
 
And if you’re seen any historical dramas, you know what he’s saying is true. That Han Joo is a smart cookie.
 
Han Joo is called into the Vice-President’s office (this is the husband of Joong Won’s aunt). Han Joo immediate begins to apologize and say that he never meant to spread rumors about Joong Won and Gong Shil. He tells the Vice-President everything, 1) how he saw Gong Shil when she first came to the mall, talking about the “tingly” moment they had together in the car and how she left her clothes behind in the car 2) When he saw them hugging in the garage while monitoring the CCTVs.



The Vice President is convinced that it really was Gong Shil he saw leaving from Joong Won’s house. Han Joo says he’ll keep it a secret from now on but the Vice President tells him it isn’t necessary. From now on Han Joo will report anything he sees going on between Joong Won and Gong Shil to the Vice President.



Han Joo has already come up with their couple name Master’s (Joon-goon’s) Janitor.



Yi Ryung is picking out and outfit for the charity event.She picks a green dress she likes but when she looks behind the rack she see’s her high school self, stabbing a picture of Gong Shil with a pen. When the girl turns and faces Yi Ryung, she’s frightened to see herself. She turns around she sees another ghost, the one we saw earlier in the salon.






Yi Ryung wakes up with a fright, sitting in the exact same room from her dream. Her manager holds up a dress and asks if that’s the one Yi Ryung is going to wear to the charity event. It’s the exact same one from her dream.



Gong Shil and her older sister drink coffee together in a café. Her sister is glad to hear that she’s found some relief from the ghosts. Actually sitting next to them in the is ghost, and when Gong Shil gets up to leave her sisters asks her to take the ghost with her.



Yi Ryung wears the green dress and struts through Kingdom looking like the Loch Ness Monster. She runs into Gong Shil and stops to chit chat… more like rub in the fact that she’s a celebrity now and Gong Shil is just a janitor. Gong Shil sees the ghost that’s been following Yi Ryung around and runs away.



Kang Woo approaches the situation Yi Ryung and she recognizes him from that night at the hospital. Once Yi Ryung realizes that Kang Woo is close to Gong Shil, she wants ttalk to him about her.
 
Kang Woo has no desire to talk to her, and says “I have no interest in talking to someone that my friend doesn’t like.”
 
Alright Kang Woo. I can’t hate you just yet.
 
She asks him to reconsider. When would he get another opportunity to eat with a woman as beautiful as her?



His response is that he would reconsider if he were with a really pretty woman. But Yi Ryung isn’t pretty and he walks off. OUCH.
 
Gong Shil sits outside of Joong Won’s office, upset that she let Yi Ryung see her acting strangely. Since Kang Woo also saw her, she’s worried he won’t like her anymore.



Joong Won comes out of his office and Gong Shil explains the entire situation to him. She tells him that she was embarrassed for how she acted in front of Yi Ryung. Actually it’s the first time she’s felt embarrassed since her accident, and she seems a bit excited about the fact. Joong Won sarcastically congratulates her on the accomplishment.
 
She looks around the office in admiration, it seems she really would like to be a secretary. He insists that he doesn’t plan on setting up his radar here and tells her to leave.



The Vice President sees her leave from Joong Won’s office,making his suspicions of their relationship even stronger. He thinks he can use this as leverage over Joong Won.



Kang Woo sees Gong Shil as she leaves from work and followers her, only she’s acting strangely and takes a big detour in the way home.

Gong Shil also works as a groundskeeper in her apartment building, so when she gets home she’s asked to sort the community trash bins and bring it outside. She goes upstairs to change her clothes but when she comes back down the trash is already gone, Kang Woo did it for her. (Sorry I said I didn’t like you in the beginning of this episode, Kang Woo. You’ve won me over now). As he sorts the recycling he wonders what is making Gong Shil's life difficult
 
Gong Shil can’t sleep because she’s being bothered by the ghost of a grandmother who ran the neighborhood supermarket, the grandmother is upset because a convenient store is opening up right next to the grocery store.



Yi Ryung is in her dressing room and hears someone crying.She searches to find the source of it but when she turns and looks in the mirror, instead of seeing her own reflection she sees her younger self.
 
Yi Ryung wakes up, this time in her van. She’s becoming more and more obsessed with her appearance, and now she’s convinced that she needs plastic surgery.
 
Gong Shil is in Joong Won’s office, she wants him to hold her hand and let her sleep on his couch. Joong Won doesn’t like the idea and tells her to find Hee Joo and his money first, then she can hold his hand.



Gong Shil decides her best bet would be to visit the place where Hee Joo died, Joong Won tells her to ask Secretary Kim. Secretary Kim explains to Gong Shil that Joong Won was there when Hee Joo died, so returning to that place would be painful for him. When they were kidnapped, the ransom was jewelry that had belonged to Joong Won’s deceased mother and Hee Joo was the one who delivered the ransom.



We see a scene of the man who Kang Woo reports to opening a safe and retrieving jewelry from it. O.O



When he was being held hostage, Joong Won was forced to read a script over the phone every thirty minutes to prove he was still alive.


I wonder if he had dyslexia then too or if it happened after the incident…



After the ransom was given and Joong Won was released, a car chase ensued between the kidnapper (who had Hee Joo in his car) and the police (who had Joong Won in their car). The kidnapper’s car is hit by a flatbed truck. The kidnapper has only minor injuries and manages to get out of the car and flee the scene. By the time the police arrive the car is already on fire, with Hee Joo trapped inside.



Joong Won struggles against the police and yells for Hee Joo to get out of the car. The car explodes, and Hee Joo dies.



Gong Shil now understands why Joong Won won’t go back to the place where Hee Joo died.
 
Giant mall has moved their opening to a closer date and even though Joong Won is upset about this, he’s going to smile like nothing is wrong when he sees them.
 
Yi Ryung walks through the small with her hair looking like she’s been electrocuted. Joong Won observes from the second floor of the mall as fans gather around her.



He remembers what Gong Shil said about seeing a ghost next to Yi Ryung, and he wonders aloud, “Did that woman also become a dog?” LOL shockingly accurate.



Joong Won is at dinner with his aunt and her husband. His aunt has invited two possible marriage candidates to the charity event, and she wants to make sure that Joong Won talks to them while they’re there. Her husband interrupts, saying he’s heard that Joong Won is dating someone these days.



Joong Won sets them straight. He and Gong Shil have a purely physical relationship, and she only wants him for his body. Everyone else at the table is shocked.
 
Joong Won sees Gong Shil working at the mall, clearly being bothered by a ghost and he can’t imagine why he would ever have a “purely physical” relationship with a woman like that. He reminds himself that he’s doing this to get his money back.
 
Joong Won grabs Gong Shil’s shoulder and the ghost disappears. He asks Gong Shil to check on Yi Ryung because he thinks the reason why she’s been acting strangely is because of that ghost Gong Shil saw earlier.
 
Gong Shil doesn’t want to see Yi Ryung again because she’s afraid of that ghost, in addition to the fact that she’s embarrassed that she’s only a janitor now.
 
Gong Shil is on her way home from work when she runs into Kang Woo. She tries to explain that the reason she was acting weird that day was because she’s embarrassed to see Yi Ryung.



He tells her not to compare who she was before to who she is now, and admits to doing a background check on her. If by “doing a background check” you mean you broke into her house and looked through her stuff, then I guess it’s true.
 
Gong Shil probably assumes he means a work-related background check so she doesn’t think anything strange of it. He says that after finding out those things about Gong Shil’s past he was a bit intimidated. What a smooth talker.
 
His advice is to love your present and expect great things for the future, with that he and Gong Shil walk home together. Commence second lead syndrome.



Later on at Kingdom’s charity event, both Kang Woo and Gong Shil are working. Yi Ryung comes in looking like a cross between Cruella de Vil and an electrocuted chicken.



She brings new meaning to the term “fried chicken”
 
The Vice President sees Gong Shil cleaning outside of the charity event while Joong Won is inside talking to a woman. Thinking he can create some sort of dramatic situation, he concocts a plan to get Gong Shil to work inside of the charity event.



Gong Shil approaches Yi Ryung and tells her not to get tricked into believe that she needs to become prettier. She brushes off Gong Shil’s advice.
 
A few table away two women gossip about Yi Ryung. One of them says she’s much prettier than Yi Ryung, and when she walks past Yi Ryung the ghost attaches itself to the new woman.
 
Yi Ryun suddenly looks down at her outfit and says “Why the heck am I wearing this?” and rips off the feathers. THANK GOD.
 
Gong Shil bumps into Joong Won. Or, more accurately, Joong Won sees Gong Shil coming and purposely doesn’t move out of the way so she’ll bump into him. She’s surprised to see him there, and he sasses that this is his Kingdom and his charity event, so he should be the one surprised to see her there. She tells him that she’s decided to love her present and he asks her to put her radar up when the owner of Giant mall comes… he wants any dirt he can get on him.
 
It turns out the girl who the ghost has attached itself to is a minister's daughter—it’s a good thing he now knows not to get involved with her. He offers her a glass of wine, but she declines, reminding him of the night when she was possessed by all of those ghosts. He asks her if she drinks in Steve Jobs’s house will he be able to talk to Steve Jobs. Oh you two are too silly.



Kang Woo sees Gong Shil and Joong Won together, looking very friendly and close with one another.
 
Secretary Kim says the owner of Giant mall wants to meet with Joong Won separately before he goes to the charity event. Gong Shil and Joong Won go to his office to wait.
 
Something falls as they walk into the office and Joong Won assumes it’s a ghost. Gong Shil assures him that nothing is there. She feels bad for not being able to find Hee Joo again, and tells Joong Won that sometimes the ghosts just disappear after saying what they have to say.

Thinking that Joong Won still feels guilty over Hee Joo’s death, she tells him that she remembers hearing Hee Joo saying she doesn’t resent Joong Won.



It's obvious this is a lie because in the end he’s the victim (a fact that Gong Shil doesn’t know). He yells at Gong Shil, saying he knows it’s a lie because Hee Joo would never say something like that. He tells her to leave his office, and she apologizes before she goes, telling him she only wanted to give him a breathing hole too.



Secretary Kim comes into the office and tells Joong Won that the owner of Giant mall said he would be late because of a big accident that happened.
 
As Gong Shil walks home she sees the ambulances and firetrucks.
 
When Joong Won hears the death count was high, he asks if anyone has called his phone. Secretary Kim assumes he means the owner of Giant mall, but actually Joong Won has someone else in mind…



Gong Shil is frozen in place at the scene of the accident.She can see the burning bus, the injured passengers, and the ghosts of the victims. She reaches up to cover her face when Joong Won suddenly spins her around and hugs her, saying “Your safety hideout came. Hide”