Kdrama Kiss Goblin Episode 8 Recap & Analysis

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Showing kindness, Goblin saves a balloon for a little boy and chats with him.

The heroine’s unrequited love approaches and asks if she would like to have a drink. The goblins sees this gets jealous and goes over to intervene. [These are my favorite scenes where are the two boys are arguing over the girl and saying silly things to show who is better.] Information is revealed through the dialogue, the unrequited love has been her friend for two years. And the Goblin almost lets it slip that they are living together. Our heroine covers the Goblin’s mouth (touch). Goblin is mad that she wants to deny their relationship and walks away. 

She follows him home and confronts him. He gets snippy “Why are you home? I thought you were going to go have a drink with that guy.“ (a touch of jealousy)

And then he reveals that it bothers him that she doesn’t want to say that they live together and asks if she’s embarrassed by him. (Talking about feelings) She asks him if he’s jealous and he adamantly denies it and walks away. (He doesn’t want to reveal his feelings yet)

Later at work they are cleaning in silence but exchange glances. The Goblin Queen comes in. Asks heroine if she’s dating anyone or interested in anyone. (The side character is acting as a plot driver!) Heroine glances at Goblin but says no. Goblin Queen shares the next target, and tells the heroine to take care of Goblin and leaves. 

There is internal dialogue about how it’s obvious to others about who you like because you always look at the person that you like. (Yes you do! It’s one of the stages of intimacy) The heroine’s male friend talks to the female best friend about how it’s obvious when someone doesn’t like you because they don’t look at you as much as you look at them. (It’s obvious the best friend likes the friend.) She still helps him and encourages his feelings with her friend, our heroine. 

Our heroine comes into the restaurant and sees the Goblin kissing another woman. She goes upstairs so that she doesn’t have to watch.

At home she’s drinking and sighing and thinking about him kissing the girl. (Getting hard to deny those romantic feelings, isn’t it? We’re firmly in the denial of feelings in the romance arc.) Goblin comes running out of the bathroom and grabs onto her looking scared. She asked him was wrong and he says that the shower curtain moved by itself and he didn’t touch it. His new emotion is fear. She tries to explain to him that it was only the wind but he insists that he is still scared. He ends up laying his head on her lap and falls asleep (common Kdrama trope). While he is sleeping she puts her hand on his face. He wakes up and she pulls her hand back quickly. He thanks her for the comfort. 

(Talking about feelings)

She tells him not to look at her the way that he looks at other girls when he tries to get them to kiss him. 

He says he doesn’t like kissing the other girls but he has to. 

She leans into him and asked if he feels anything with her. 

Visually we see that he does and he turns his face away from her and says that he doesn’t know about those things. (Looking away is lying)

She grabs his face by the cheeks and turns them towards her (hands to face) and gets closer and asks him one more time if he feels anything and he says no nothing at all all.

She loses her temper and tells him that she doesn’t understand why he even came into her life at all because all he’s doing is confusing her. (semi-confession)

She gets a phone call and it’s the friend who asks her to have another drink and while staring at the Goblin she accepts the invitation and heads out.

Goblin is obviously distressed.

Analysis:
The romance arc is building, we’re getting to the point where these two are going to have to confess their feelings because the jealousy is getting to be too much. The writer is slowly working their way through the stages of intimacy with touching and direct eye contact. These two are also having intimate discussions that skirt around their true feelings. We also saw how the Goblin Queen was being used as a plot driver and perhaps as a foreshadowing agent.

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