Recap Korean Drama "Trolley (2022)" Episode 8

Episode 8 of Trolley starts with Hye-joo meeting Ki-young at the café. She’s nervous, and even more so when we cut back in time and see more of their moments together at school. Ki-young admits that he likes Hye-joo but she doesn’t reciprocate, pointing out she doesn’t think of him as anything more than a classmate.

With this tie between them, it makes the whole Seung-hee/Hye-joo situation all the more difficult in the present. After some pleasantries, Ki-young gets down to brass tacks. He wants Hye-joo to apologize for the whole Seung-ho situation. He reveals that Seung-hee is restless and her mother is crazy and this could be just what’s needed to try and alleviate the situation. To make him feel better and to try and stabilize everything, Ki-young believes this is the right thing to do. That is, until later on when he has a change of heart.

Back home, Soo-bin starts hoovering but when Yeo-jin requests her to do the whole house she refuses, remembering Hye-joo’s words about not going in her room. And, of course, Joong-do’s warning about not overstepping her boundaries too. Soo-bin is on thin ice right now, and she certainly doesn’t want to cause problems for herself.

That night, Hye-joo finds Soo-bin wandering around outside in the cold and pouring rain. It turns out she went off to check on Hye-joo’s book restoration office, remembering the words she said originally about the rain. Hye-joo eventually hugs the girl and tells her she wants Soo-bin and the baby to stay safe. Only…there’s a problem. Soo-bin actually has had a miscarriage but so far she hasn’t told anyone.

Back home, Hye-joo runs a bath for Soo-bin and while she’s in, heads off to speak to her daughter, who has been absent for the past few episodes. Anyway, Yoon-seo is working on the Trolley Dilemma we heard about before and is struggling to make a decision. Hye-joo decides to stick around and the pair spend time together, while Joong-do reminisces on his time with Ji-hoon.

In the morning, Hye-joo checks on Ms Cho, who’s on the mend and not actually dead after all. Meanwhile, Soo-bin is encouraged to come by the studio so she shows up and takes a look around.

While Kang Soon-hong has Joong-do’s son Ji-hoon investigated further, Ki-young returns and finds himself in the firing line with Yoo-shin immediately. He takes Seung-hee aside and tells her not to pursue this Hye-joo issue right now. If she does, it’ll stress Yoo-shin out further and given how erratic she’s been lately, that’s not going to end well – especially given who Joong-do is and the influence he has. Seung-hee is furious but eventually agrees.

Over at the Book Restoration Office, Hye-joo takes a picture of Soo-bin at her request. After, Hye-joo asks Soo-bin whether she has any pictures of Ji-hoon. She doesn’t, unfortunately, but given she’s meeting her friend later, Hye-joo asks whether she can speak to Ji-hoon’s friends and try to get more pics. There’s definitely something suspicious about Soo-bin, and she’s wracked with guilt given her miscarriage and even worse, she’s suffering by herself with pain in her stomach.

That night, Hye-joo smashes her bowl and ends up crying in the kitchen. In doing so, she reveals to Yeo-jin the truth about what happened in the past and why she’s been so erratic lately. From the top of the stairs, Soo-bin overhears and watches as Yeo-jin hugs her friend, offering some words of encouragement.

Hye-joo is convinced that the apology is the best way forward, just like what Ki-young said earlier. Yeo-jin is dead-set against it though, pointing out that saying sorry could be used as a weapon against her. In fact, she could be blackmailed.

That night, Hye-joo learns about Joong-do’s current campaign strategy, including using Ms Jo’s story to encourage his reforms to go through. He’s already asked for permission to do this, but Hye-joo throws a curveball and asks him to stop, pointing out thy should try to bury all of this. Joong-do refuses, telling her that he’s going to fight for what’s right and make this a nationwide issue. He needs her support to help but she’s not exactly happy with him. “Collateral damage is inevitable for the greater good.” He says. However, Soo-bin is again overhearing all of this and slumps against the back of her bedroom door, contemplating what this means.

In the morning, it turns out Yeo-jin is aware of Soo-bin’s issues, and she promised to keep all of this a secret. When she leaves the house, the postman drops by a package which happens to hold pictures of Ji-hoon inside. She needs an envelope to forward the documents on so she heads into Joong-do’s study and begins rooting around. Only… she finds something. Within the bottom drawer, she uncovers a red phone – Ji-hoon’s phone to be precise.

Although Joong-do told her that the police hadn’t been able to find it, it turns out he was actually lying. Reading the messages, it would seem that Soo-bin caused Ji-hoon’s death, and the pair were on the verge of breaking up. Ji-hoon also sent a message saying he was going to kill himself, causing Hye-joo to begin spiraling out of control.

The Episode Review

Things are heating up in Trolley but the show is still taking its sweet time to get to the good stuff. The writing has been a bit all over the place and that much is now evident with the way the narrative is see-sawing between this whole Seung-hee situation and the Soo-bin problem at home. The latter is far more interesting and now that we know about the past, there’s just not a whole lot to explore with Trolley’s Seung-hee subplot. Hopefully they wrap that up soon and we can focus on the familial drama instead.

It’s quite amusing that Yoon-Seo – the other child Hye-joo and Joong-do have – has basically just been skulking around in the periphery right now, while Soo-bin has done very little while this Seung-hee problem has surfaced again. They’re both barely in the show despite promising differently early on, which is a shame.