Recap Korean Drama "Strangers Again (2023)" Episode 5-6

We open with Ha-ra wet-haired in a towel, fresh out of the shower at Jae-gyeom’s house. He’s so completely flustered and smitten with her that it’s adorable. But it’s also sad, because with an opening scene like this (i.e., we miss all the action between them) it’s clear as day that poor Jae-gyeom ain’t endgame.

What happens instead is his mother (pitch perfect cameo by Jeon Soo-kyung) walks in — surprise I’m back from the States and in your living room — and Ha-ra is so shocked she drops her towel. It’s all very rom-com ridiculous (*cringe*), but it also leads into the next thematic phase of our drama.

Previously, the plot — supported by the legal cases — took a look at faithfulness in marriage, or the lack thereof. Now, our drama widens that lens to look at another aspect of marriage: what it’s like to be in-lawed to your spouse’s parents, and how much marriage can be affected by family.

We first see Ha-ra confronted with this. Even though she’s agreed to be an official couple with Jae-gyeom, she’s having a hard time with his mother. The woman merely wants to apologize for their super awkward first meeting and start over, but Ha-ra is used to her previous relationship with her in-laws. Which was basically none.

This, in turn, leads us to Eun-bum, of whom we are now seeing more of — and I’m pleased to announce he’s back in my good graces. He’s been on the outs with his mother for some time, and it seems to be weighing on him. Over a workplace kitchen chat, Ha-ra says how nice it was not to worry about in-laws when she was married to him. But that’s basically the only positive thing she’ll say about him… and yet their bickery, playful, comfortable relationship continues this week. (The drama is at its best when they’re in the same scene, so no complaints here.)

Ha-ra might not want to meet Jae-gyeom’s mother, but Eun-bum finally decides to meet his. Things are slowly changing for him. Earlier — despite being undeniably adorable with Seo-hee’s young daughter — he turns down Seo-hee’s offer to couple up. He claims he’d be a terrible father, but his actions around her say otherwise (and so does the way he’s so tender and obviously broken about the loss of what I assume was his younger sister). Then, he makes up with his mother, and takes her for her hospital check-up.

But, before we can dig too deep into their family trauma, Eun-bum spots Ha-ra’s father in the hospital with a young girl and *cue Pandora’s box*. Turns out, Dad has fathered a daughter with another woman many moons ago, and has been hiding it from his wife and daughter even since he found out. Yearrrrrrs ago. He’s distraught that Eun-bum of all people is now witness to his double-faced lies and begs him to keep the secret from Ha-ra. He’s gonna come clean, he swears.

I don’t know about you, but this plot arc seemed to come out of left field. We haven’t seen that much of Ha-ra’s family as yet, so it was a little harder for me to connect with her future devastation upon learning about all this. Still, we’re told she adores her father — and of course, no one wants to be blindsided in this way. (Although I’ll add that I have heard a lot of real-life stories of grown adults — that I know personally — learning they have a half-sibling they never knew about, so I guess it’s not very far-fetched at all.)

The part that is far-fetched, though, is that Ha-ra’s next case is eerily similar to the one going on in her family — you know, the one that no-thing-as-a-poker-face Eun-bum is currently trying to hide from her.

As fate would have it, Ha-ra’s client is a woman with a daughter in middle school who’s been lied to for years that the father of her child is going to leave his marriage for her. And the legal battle at hand is to put the young girl on the family registry and thus, bring the whole thing to light.

It’s not enough of a coincidence that Ha-ra is fighting the opposite side of the case she’ll soon be experiencing in her own life. No, the women is the actual woman who her father had an affair (or whatever) with! Another stroke of drama fate? Actually, Eun-bum realizes it right away, and it becomes clear the woman chose Ha-ra on purpose. Not looking too good.

While the shoe is about to drop on Ha-ra, she also has to come to terms with her relationship with Jae-gyeom. He says he loves her, and I believe him. She, however, doesn’t love him, but says so anyway… because she should love him. Well, this is a recipe for disaster (and also an irrational fear of mine), so I hope Ha-ra scrambles out of this mess before she’s dug herself too deep. Or before she gives me nightmares.

Speaking of dug in too deep, Bi-chwi and Shi-wook continue to sleep together… except with very different understandings of what is going on. Shi-wook thinks they’re in an exclusive relationship; Bi-chwi thinks they’re just “coworkers with benefits.” This storyline is totally not growing on me, but I did like how the divorce case CEO Hong assigns them helped the two understand each other more.

While working with the husband and wife on a reconciliation (for ulterior motives, which was totally uncomfortable), Bi-chwi finally realizes that Shi-wook is not a pig or a stick in the mud. That role belongs to the husband they’re representing. This man’s awful ways actually shed a nicer light on Shi-wook, and Bi-chwi begins to see that “old school” doesn’t mean chauvinist loser. It just means that Shi-wook wants a committed relationship instead of a string of flings.

We also get more of CEO Hong’s backstory this week when she’s visited by her estranged daughter and sees full well the havoc her husband wreaked on their family after she left. The case digs not only into the treatment of spouses by the families they marry into, but also brings up some great points about marriage. Yes, CEO Hong agrees, you also marry into the person’s family, but marriage is truly between two people, and third party father-in-law problems shouldn’t necessitate divorce. She successfully saves her daughter’s marriage, and gets her daughter back into her life, so that’s a double win.

Gil Hae-yeon is an actress with such a strong, strong presence — I’m finding it super refreshing to see her as CEO Hong: mature, motherly, full of wisdom for the younger generation, and also still full of fight. While Gil Hae-yeon excels at playing an antagonistic character (see: Trolley, Pretty Noona Who Buys Me Food, etc.), it’s nice to see her be the person whose office everyone goes in to cry.

We’ve somehow made it halfway through our drama, which happened in the blink of an eye. While I miss the raucous tone in which we started — and acknowledge the drama has dialed back its comedy in favor of its more dramatic themes — it’s still quite a good story that is able to pull threads that really resonate. While I’m hoping the drama doesn’t resort to using Ha-ra’s upcoming family crisis to get her ~closer~ to Eun-bum again, I’m also looking forward to seeing them navigate the love and affection that is so clearly still between them. I’m ready for flirting and hijinks — not more family trauma.