Name: Once upon a Small Town episode 10
Director: Kwon Seok-jang
Released: 2022-09-26T17:30:00

Episode 10 of Once Upon a Small Town sees Han Ji-yul trying to clear the misunderstandings and confess to Ja-young before time runs out, while Sang-hyun finally hears Ja-young’s answer.

Recap

The episode picks up at the awkward moment the show left viewers on previously. The imposing Min surprises Ji-yul by planting a kiss on his lips, an act Ja-young bears witness to without the context.

Surprised, Ja-young drops the corn she brought to deliver to Ji-yul, and dashes off to avoid contending with more awkwardness. Ji-yul runs to her and tries to clear the misunderstanding that might have arisen just now but Ja-young doesn’t want to listen to any of it and rides away on her bicycle.

Later, Min asks Ja-young if she really only sees Ji-yul as a friend. Ja-young says she does and Min interjects rudely, asking her to make it clear to Ji-yul that she doesn’t see him as anything more than a friend.

Ahn Ja-young arrives at Sang-hyun’s peach farm and finally tells him her response. Her answer entails a rejection, which she expresses with a broken heart and tears in her eyes.

Sang-hyun takes the rejection in stride and asks her to let him bear the discomfort of this on his own. Meanwhile, Min meets up with Han Ji-yul again.

Min sings the same song but Ji-yul puts it firmly that he doesn’t have any feelings for her now. He reveals how he thought he was incapable of love when she left him, and that now he has found he can love again.

Min says she knew it somewhere deep down but couldn’t subside her stubbornness since she wanted to see the loving side of Ji-yul again. With tears in her eyes, Min tells Ji-yul she’ll try and move on, finally leaving the village.

Ji-yul confronts Ja-young again and confesses that he likes her. However, she is still closed off from reciprocating the same sentiments, despite what she feels inside. With a heavy heart, she flees the situation again.

The finality of Once Upon a Small Town episode 10 sees Yeong-suk informing Ahn Ja-young that the Little Doctor (Ji-yul) will be going back to Seoul very soon. Sang-hyun talks with Ja-young and makes her realize she just lied about her true feelings for Ji-yul.

On her way home, Min meets Ja-young for one last time before she departs from Huidong. She apologizes to Ja-young for treating/seeing her as a rebound for Ji-yul.

Ja-young also apologizes, confessing she does have feelings for Ji-yul. Min replies that she already knew that from the moment she first saw her.

Ahn Ja-young picks up her bicycle and goes to Ji-yul at the hospital, asking when he leaves. He tells her he’ll be leaving in 15 days, and how he deserves rejection for confessing to her when he leaves so soon.

Before Ji-yul can say anything else, Ahn Ja-young lunges at him with a tender kiss, taking Ji-yul by surprise, only this time the surprise is not the bad kind. Once Upon a Small Town episode 10 rolls the credits before Ji-yul can register what just transpired.

Review

Once Upon a Small Town episode 10 delivers the scene of two lovers kissing rather prematurely, as two more episodes are still left in the canon. However, it’s not that grave a sin as is the show’s pacing.
The pace with which the events transpire in Once Upon a Small Town has been erratic at best, with sometimes the characters taking forever to express something, and a whole lot of development happening too quickly on the other hand.
Pacing issues aside, the episode does deliver on what the fans have perhaps been waiting with bated breath for a long time.
Episode 10 of Once Upon a Small Town is all plot, and it’s all plot with great ferocity in pacing, delivering confrontations and resolutions to conflicts left and right.
Min, who seemed like she would pose a greater halt and hurdle for Ji-yul and Ja-young than a mere misunderstanding, skedaddles out of Huidong and the show’s narrative. Her exit also seems a bit premature.
The episode is rife with the usual romcom tropes, which only leaves you wondering why the makers didn’t unite the central couple until the end of the run.
However, Ji-yul and Ja-young making their feelings official would also allow, as the preview for episode 11 indicates, a number of scenarios where the two love birds try and hide their new love from others and keep it on the down low.