Buried Hearts: Episodes 7-8 » Dramabeans Korean drama recaps

KDramaHQ AdminMarch 16, 2025

Buried Hearts: Episodes 7-8

by mistyisles

Try as our scheming villain may, he just can’t seem to pin our protagonist down for long. Whether that’s because our hero is just that good at slipping through his fingers or because those schemes aren’t exactly watertight… I’ll let you be the judge. But it’s certainly entertaining to see just what Buried Hearts will throw at us next!

EPISODES 7-8

For once, the Truck of Doom driver has a name, and he’s someone we’ve seen before. JO YANG-CHUN (Kim Ki-moo) belongs to the mercenary crew Jang-sun hired to kill Dong-joo and then torture him when that failed. Yang-chun is arrested on-scene and escorted to the hospital for (minor) injuries, while Dong-joo’s family and close acquaintances prepare Agnes’s funeral.

Dong-joo maintains a stoic front, giving no indication that he remembers Agnes at all, even as Jang-sun attempts to provoke him. But then he sticks Jang-sun with the task of receiving mourners on his behalf (Jang-sun is hilariously awkward about it, and I can’t decide if it’s supposed to be this comedic) and slips away to mete out some quick revenge.

Assisted by Won-bae (hey, he’s back!), Dong-joo kidnaps Yang-chun, beats him to a pulp, and then sends him off… somewhere. (This will become a point of contention between Jang-sun and the head mercenary, the latter of whom isn’t pleased by Jang-sun’s lack of concern for his henchman’s disappearance.) Then Dong-joo races back to the church, arriving just in time for the funeral and securing his own alibi. Only after Jang-sun leaves does Dong-joo let his eyes fill with tears, and only days later — in the privacy of the home he used to share with Eun-nam — does he let himself properly grieve for his sister.

Jang-sun is still suspicious, though, so Dong-joo announces that his memories are coming back, little by little. For instance, he remembers where Chairman Cha hid the note with the passwords to his office safes. That note, you’ll remember, has since been stolen by Eun-nam’s aunt CHA GUK-HEE (Hong Soo-hyun). But since no one else knows this yet, they’re none the wiser to the fact that Dong-joo remembers the *passwords* and simply replaced the note.

A delighted Chairman Cha misses the veiled barbs that pass between Il-do and Dong-joo and sends Dong-joo to pay Jang-sun the cash he’s been demanding in return for not overturning all the business deals he previously agreed to. Jang-sun is still feeling out the state of Dong-joo’s memories, but ultimately chases after Dong-joo with a gun to demand his money back. Dong-joo responds by snatching the gun and pointing it at first Jang-sun and then himself, successfully reducing Jang-sun to a pleading mess.

In the end, Dong-joo simply hands the gun over and walks away unharmed. But after much thought, Jang-sun decides not even 2 trillion won is worth continuing this fight. See, he’s viewed Dong-joo as an enemy since highschooler Dong-joo got into a rugby scuffle with highschooler Hee-chul. Hee-chul was in the wrong, but Jang-sun paid off the rest of the students to put all the blame on Dong-joo and get him banned from the field. When Dong-joo showed up again at Daesan and caught an “accounting error” that totally wasn’t related to a certain slush fund, Jang-sun’s annoyance with him was renewed. Now, he’s ready to eliminate the thorn in his side for good and get the money he needs some other way.

The method he chooses doesn’t seem very foolproof to me, but I guess he’s exhausted most of his better ideas already. It’s previously been established that Dong-joo is deathly allergic to cinnamon. So Jang-sun’s brilliant idea is to secretly plant cinnamon in his wife’s kitchen in place of another ingredient, so she’ll use it in the snacks she makes for Chairman Cha’s family. By Jang-sun’s logic, if Dong-joo avoids the cinnamon, he’ll be admitting his amnesia is an act, and if he doesn’t, well, he’ll be dead. (Again, that doesn’t quite sound like a win-win to me, and it hinges on quite a bit of happenstance, but at least Jang-sun has Il-do on the inside to nudge Dong-joo in their desired direction?)

Anyway, it works (mostly). Dong-joo forces the cinnamon-dusted snacks down, knowing Il-do is watching him. By the time Eun-nam tastes the snacks and raises the alarm, Dong-joo is already swelling up and gasping for air. He’s rushed to the hospital, but not expected to live through the night. And Jang-sun and Il-do have the audacity to start planning his funeral to Chairman Cha’s face before Dong-joo has even been declared dead. Much to their dismay, Dong-joo survives, and Eun-nam takes note of the disappointment on their faces.

That sends her on an investigation. Minutes before the cinnamon incident, Dong-joo had angrily pointed out that the worst misfortunes befall him when she’s around. He’s right, of course, but Eun-nam discovers another common factor: people connected to Jang-sun were also present at each catastrophe. The most shocking being that Il-do and his boat appeared in the background of that video Dong-joo made for Eun-nam right before being shot.

Alongside her investigation, Eun-nam also officially asks Hee-chul for a divorce. He tries every argument he can think of — he’s loved her since the moment he saw her, she’ll have to give up her Daesan shares if they separate, maybe they could at least have a kid together first? — but her mind is made up. Especially after Hee-chul admits part of him wanted to marry her specifically because she was his old rival’s ex.

Divorce won’t be easy to procure — it means breaking the contract with Jang-sun, which means a heavy fine for Eun-nam and her family — so she tries blackmail. She sends Jang-sun photos of his henchman at Agnes’s accident site and of Il-do on his boat, correctly guessing that Jang-sun is trying to make Il-do the next Daesan figurehead — which will be difficult if he’s embroiled in murder accusations. Jang-sun agrees to meet with Eun-nam, but secretly has her followed.

At the same time, he sends Il-do in to finish Dong-joo off (this time they opt for the good old-fashioned “syringe of ominous liquid added to the IV” route). The head mercenary beats Il-do to it, but it doesn’t matter because Dong-joo wakes up just in time to fight back, and he and Il-do make intense eye contact through the window.

Honestly, I think Il-do is better at this whole villain thing than Jang-sun is. While Jang-sun is playing weird mind games with his nephew’s old nemesis and flip-flopping on whether he really needs that slush fund, Il-do is slowly worming his way into every facet of the family business. Each new secret he learns — from Chairman Cha’s dementia to Guk-hee sneaking cash from the safe — he uses as leverage to make himself the person everyone is supposed to report to first. Plus, I find his tension with Dong-joo to be far more interesting than that between Dong-joo and Jang-sun.

Of course, Jang-sun still has the financial and social leverage to keep Il-do in check (for now), and there’s still the matter of that mysterious Elder Jang-sun reports to. But if any of these men has the makings of an evil puppet master, I’d say it’s the one who watched an alleged amnesiac choke down food he knew would kill him and asked straight-faced if he wanted more.