The Revenge

Episode 10. The Revenge

 

Kang Pi-o drives to the Seodeom Art Center and enters the practice room where he and Choi Jeong-yo, as children, promised to keep playing four hands after the competition. He recalls their names written below the windowsill, which conductor Choi Jeong-yo stared out of, according to Kang Ji-hye, his mother, when she said Jeong-yo was faking his amnesia. He also recalls the promise still written under the sill and Jeong-yo saying he would win the competition and that they should enjoy playing the piano together.

 

Choi Jeong-yo’s right shoulder causes him unbearable pain when Kang Pi-o visits him in his room. Pi-o notes that Jeong-yo composed the concerto piece Nemesis five years earlier and lost his memories after the shooting accident. He asks what Jeong-yo meant by saying Pi-o had not changed, whether in high school or during the competition in Prague, since Pi-o saw his composition in the dorm during high school. Jeong-yo says his amnesia allowed him some memories of the past. Pi-o asks how Jeong-yo remembers the practice room where they met as children and tells him to admit that he did not have amnesia.

 

Jeong-yo admits that he remembers their practice sessions and how they played the Hungarian Dance Macabre together in the room where they first met. He says he feigned amnesia because Pi-o would have tried to kill him again. Jeong-yo tells him he knew Pi-o had him kidnapped before the Prague competition because he saw him pay the man. He says he could not believe it because he trusted Pi-o most, but a kidnapper said his name, and he saw Pi-o return to pay the kidnapper again. Jeong-yo says he saw Kang Pi-o perform without remorse and asks why he did it. Pi-o admits that when his fingers were hurt, he feared losing to him and had him kidnapped.

Kang Ji-hye tells Kang Pi-o that she would rather kill herself than apologize to Choi Jeong-yo, and Pi-o decides to admit that he paid the kidnappers when he hurt his hand and feared he would lose the competition.

 

Choi Jeong-yo tells Pi-o that jail was not enough to repay how his life was ruined. He says the punishment will come from him. Death will not settle the score; exposing what Pi-o and his mother, Ji-hye, did to him will make their lives hell. He says Pi-o cannot imagine it.

 

Kang Ji-hye is determined to find Choi Jeong-yo’s father and asks if anyone at the Musical Instrument Arcade traditional market knows where he is. She meets the loan shark General Manager Kim and says she wants to help Choi Jeong-yo regain his memory by finding his father. Kim tells her that Jeong-yo’s father owes him money and may be drunk somewhere, which connects to Jeong-yo’s visit to the alcohol addiction rehabilitation center. He gives her his call card and warns her about the rumor that she caused Choi Jeong-yo’s disappearance nine years earlier at the Prague competition. Ji-hye calls Pi-o and says she is scared because Jeong-yo did not have amnesia, went to see his father at the rehabilitation center, and will expose them if they do not stop him. Pi-o angrily tells her to stop because he will not just watch her. She says Jeong-yo is going to get revenge, and Pi-o says he will answer for it.

 

President Yoon Seong-ju of the Hankook Symphony Orchestra drafts a contract with a soloist replacement clause for the world premiere recording of the repertoire. Kang Pi-o’s manager Hoon Jae-in protests that it is excessive, but Pi-o signs the contract without her permission, which makes conductor Choi Jeong-yo grin. Jeong-yo tells him they need to practice more without his accompanist.

 

At the practice room, Choi Jeong-yo pushes Kang Pi-o to play the cadenza at a faster tempo to evoke more emotion. Pi-o asks whether Jeong-yo intends to destroy his fingers. Jeong-yo says the piece must be captured with the hellish fear he felt when his kidnappers drove him into the forest to kill him, and when he thought he had escaped, he was shot in the shoulder. He tells Pi-o that his masterpiece matters more than Pi-o’s fingers.

 

Nothing Kang Pi-o did to express the piece seemed to please conductor Choi Jeong-yo, and his fingers began to bleed while his arms started to hurt. Jeong-yo says he still does not feel the murderous intent in the performance. Hoon Jae-in hears how Jeong-yo is pushing Pi-o and confronts him. Pi-o breaks up with Jae-in because she nags him about his fixated performance for Jeong-yo. He tells her that he is not in love with her, that her domineering nature suffocates him, and that he only needed someone to cheer him on. He apologizes.

 

At the Eugene Art Center, the orchestra prepares to record Nemesis and the concerto repertoire for the 80th anniversary of Hankook Symphony Orchestra. President Yoon and Manager Eden Yoon whisper about the tension between Choi Jeong-yo and soloist Kang Pi-o. Hoon Jae-in watches from a distance. The recording takes 27 attempts and is discontinued for the day because of Pi-o’s anxiety and his failure to express the needed emotions. Maestro Kang Seung-woon appears at the recording and sees Pi-o trying to feel the fear in each episode that he and his mother caused in Jeong-yo’s life. Jeong-yo fires Pi-o at the end of the day when his fingers freeze. Choi Jeong-yo tells Pi-o that he was not meant to be a musician, that people like him destroy geniuses out of jealousy. He says Pi-o destroyed his life and would never beat him.

Kang Pi-o locks himself up and his mother visits him and sees his fingers.

 

Conductor Choi Jeong-yo tells Manager Yoon and President Yoon that soloist Lee Min-sung should be considered to replace Kang Pi-o, and he apologizes for being stubborn about insisting on Pi-o.

 

Maestro Kang Seung-woon tells Conductor Choi Jeong-yo that there must be something more behind Jeong-yo’s intention in the composition that made Kang Pi-o unfit. Jeong-yo assures Maestro Kang that his vision for the music was personal.

 

Hoon Jae-in visits Professor Do Hyun-soo and vents her frustration over what happened to Kang Pi-o and Choi Jeong-yo’s concerto. She says she does not understand the harsh relationship between them, and says Choi Jeong-yo is purposely ruining Pi-o. This prompts Professor Do to call Kang Jye-in after he suddenly understands her drunken ramblings about keeping Pi-o away from Jeong-yo before she was about to call General Manager Kim.

 

Professor Do confronts Ji-hye about the rumor that Pi-o had Jeong-yo kidnapped. She confesses that she was responsible for it.

 

Maestro Kang hears Kang Pi-o crying in the practice room and watches over him until he wakes in the morning. He asks Pi-o if the nature of art is unbearable and whether he still wants to keep playing the piano until the last day of his life. Kang Pi-o says he definitely does because the piano is the only thing that brings him joy. Maestro Kang throws the timer out the window and tells him to change things, bring out the natural rhythm inside him, and pull his energy to draw the orchestra and the conductor into his own world. He says, “Music that moves people, deeply in their hearts, is music that carries a lifetime within it.” He says the desire to play until the last day of his life should shape how he plays.

 

President Yoon brings pianist Lee Min-sung to conductor Choi Jeong-yo for the anniversary concerto, but Jeong-yo is still unhappy with the interpretation of his piece.

 

Choi Jeong-yo gives his brother Hung-yo the voice recording of Kang Pi-o admitting to having Jeong-yo kidnapped. Kang Pi-o then appears at his door and begs to play his masterpiece, claiming he alone can express the hatred needed in Nemesis.

 

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