AAE Chronology -- The 2.5-Year Gap

In Episode 6, the AAE story line advances rapidly. From a scene that happens during the second semester of Sun-Mi and Young-Mi's first year in university, the story jumps to a scene in their final semester of university. Some have theorized that MBC, reacting to declining audience ratings, cut out a number of intervening scenes to bring Jang Dong-Gun back into the story in a significant role. But the result is that many viewers were left lost by the rapid flow of events, and misconstrue how the story developed.

A brief synopsis of the major storyline events follows:

After Young-Mi connives to spend a night in a hotel with Woo-Jin, Sun-Mi sends a desperate email to Hyung-Chul pouring out her concerns to him.

The next scene shows an Asiana plane landing, and then Hyung-Chul arriving at Seoul airport, where he is met by Kim Sun-Dal and Yoo Joo-Hee. They immediately visit his sick father in the hospital, and later he shares a beer with Sun-Dal in his apartment in a high rise Gangnam officetel. There, Sun-Dal encourages him to join MBS to protect his interests there against his step-uncle.

After this, Hyung-Chul searches out Sun-Mi, who is visiting art museums that day, and treats her to a picnic lunch in the Seoul Museum of Contemporary Art sculpture garden.

Next, Mrs. Song still rejects and humiliates Young-Mi. In revenge Young-Mi concocts a fake story of having an abortion as a result of her one night stand with Woo-Jin. This forces Mrs. Song to accept Young-Mi as a daughter-in-law and agree to their marriage, after which Sun-Mi finally seems to lose all hope for Woo-Jin.

The next scene happens at night on the university campus, as Sun-Mi watches Woo-Jin drive off with Young-Mi. Sun-Mi appears more mature, having straightened her hair and changed her wardrobe, and seems to ponder something. In the following scene she is flirting with Hyung-Chul as they walk along a path on Yuldong Lake, where they agree to start dating. At dusk, Sun-Mi calls out across the lake, saying that she is giving up her feelings for Woo-Jin, as Hyung-Chul watches on.

Subsequently, Hyung-Chul begins his position as Director at MBS, and Sun-Mi and Young-Mi take the MBS announcer training program entrance exams.

At first glance it appears that Hyung-Chul comes back to Seoul with all his belongings, moving into an apartment in a newly constructed luxury building in Gangnam. He meets up with Sun-Mi on one day to tell her he is back and looking for job. Then sometime later, still jobless, he meets her again apparently after a long absence, for their 'official first date' at Yuldong Lake shortly before she graduates.

The problem with this conclusion is the timing of Hyung-Chul's two meetings with Sun-Mi. The first one has to occur in the spring of 1996, because soon after that Young-Mi pretends to have had a recent abortion. Their second meeting obviously happens shortly before Sun-Mi graduates. So if Hyung-Chul had moved to Seoul, he must have dropped out of Cambridge and then hung around, unemployed (somehow justifying his idleness to Sun-Mi) for a couple of years until 1998, when he met her the second time just before joining MBS.

A more likely scenario is that Hyung-Chul returned to Seoul not once, but twice, with a 2-1/2 year gap between the two meetings with Sun-Mi.

His first return, when he meets Sun-Mi outside one art museum and goes with her to another, is prompted by his father's seriously illness, and coincides with Cambridge's 1996 Easter recess (March 15 -- April 23), a time that falls within the first trimester of Young-Mi's supposed 'pregnancy' (February 29 -- May 31).

His second return occurs in the late summer or fall of 1998 after he completes his education at Cambridge. (He told Sun-Mi that it would be three more years as she departed at the London airport in summer 1995) The meeting with Sun-Mi by the lake occurs after the start of autumn semester, when she is focused on graduation and preparing for the MBS training program entrance exams.

But why, if staying for only a few weeks in 1996, would Hyung-Chul bring a full cart of luggage, get an apartment -- the same apartment he would live in when he returned in 1998, almost 2-1/2 years later -- and start looking for a job?

One possibility is that Hyung-Chul, influenced by Sun-Mi's close relationship with her father, decided to reconcile before it is too late. He came prepared for a long stay, planning a leave from Cambridge for one or more terms, or maybe for good. But instead of dying, his father eventually stabilizes, so Hyung-Chul returns to school the next term after deciding to finish his education and come back to lead MBS. He keeps the apartment in case of a relapse, and since he expects to eventually return.