Summary
It’s starting to get spicy! We’re slowly getting deeper into the mysteries of Gongjin and Chief Hong’s whereabouts.
This recap of the Netflix K-Drama series Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha season 1, episode 5 recap contains spoilers.
Read the recap of the previous episode.
Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha season 1, episode 5 recap
Another weekend with our dimple couples. The episode starts with Hye-jin astonishingly waking up next to Doo-sik who sleeps soundly beside her. She rushes her way to home where Ms. Jo, the center of all the gossip in town, caught her coming out from Doo-sik’s house. Well, the next thing that happens is the gossip about their spending the night together spreads at the speed of light throughout the town. Suddenly the two become hot topics and everyone is so invested. There’s no safe place for Hye-jin. At home, Mi-seon quickly asks her about the gossip. Meanwhile, Doo-sik, who is half-awake, finds Hye-jin’s umbrella and smiles at her clumsiness. Unlike Hye-jin, he freely walks around the town without knowing all the rumors to buy tofu.
After gathering her senses, she slowly starts to remember all the things she did while her head wass on cloud nine, which Doo-sik later describes as “a variety show.” From dancing on a pole, singing, acting, even playing with all the equipment at the park. Hye-jin anxiously tries to dodge the rumors between them by asking him out for a breakfast. Of course, the Gongjin squad does not want to miss the show. They follow our dimple couple only to watch them eating together. After their breakfast, Hye-jin spontaneously asks Doo-sik about his feelings towards her which caught him off-guard. He dodges the question by awkwardly denying it which brings a sense of relief for Hye-jin. She thoughtlessly put the “social position” barriers between them which indirectly says how he’s not worth it for her which later offends Doo-sik. “Don’t be so calculating,” He says. Ouch.
Later at the clinic, Hye-jin tries to settle her mind while seeking validation about who’s better for the relationship with Mi-seon. She indirectly chooses Doo-sik instead of her which upsets Hye-jin. Well, Mi-seon knows more than her anyway. Before hitting the clinic, Mi-seon joins the squad. Everyone is busy talking about Doo-sik and Hye-jin’s compatibility. Everyone has mixed opinions, but mostly, the squad is rooting for Doo-sik and finds him too good to be true, even for a dentist like Hye-jin. Mi-seon also learns how Doo-sik is known as a prodigy, a pride of Gongjin who graduated from Seoul National University, one of the most prestigious universities in Korea, and majored in engineering, which shocks Hye-jin.
She later tries to knock Hye-jin’s sense by nagging her that love shouldn’t be a competition and what matters lies in what your heart says. Stubborn as ever, Hye-jin argues that everything needs to be measured. From the family background, education, job, wealth, and other superficial things. Mi-seon drops the conversation by mentioning how her perfectionist and calculating tendencies do not bring her any good. She blurts out Lee Gang-Uk, Hye-jin’s ex-boyfriend, which automatically ends the conversation. Hye-jin saves herself to the bathroom where we get to see a glimpse of a flashback to our Hye-jin’s youthful days with a guy named Lee Gang-Uk. As a dental student, Hye-jin was once nerdy and didn’t know how to dress. That’s where she accidentally heard her beloved (ex) boyfriend badmouth her style and appearance to the extent that he wants her to go home instead. Well, that’s her turning point over there.
On the other side, due to the conversation being brought up again, everyone is suspecting many things about Chief Hong’s whereabouts five years after he graduates before going back to Gongjin. From being a North Korean spy; being a part of a National Investigation Team; to murdering someone and being locked in the mental asylum. Doo-sik’s whereabouts remain a mystery of Gongjin after the reason of Ms. Yeo and Mr. Chang’s divorce. Meanwhile, the person that everyone is talking about is busy collecting memories through his camera lenses. While taking photos at the shore, Doo-sik quickly saves Sung-Hyun from falling off to the ocean due to his clumsiness. Both of them quickly bond over a rare, limited, vintage camera. Since Sung-Hyun is bad with direction, Doo-sik comes along to take him to the observatory area. Both of them enjoying the view together. After their bromance, things got a little tangled after both they got into an intellectual argument about a very different perspective of raw and fermented fish, which I find entertaining. We can expect more of their arguments later, especially when Hye-jin enters the scene since Sung-Hyun also knows as her crush. But as for now, our Hye-jin is busy taking meditation to clear her mind. Unfortunately, she can’t seem to keep her focus off all the things she says to Doo-sik out of embarrassment for what she says.
The next day, Hye-jin goes to the local elementary school to teach cavities where she finds out Doo-sik becomes Mi-seon’s substitute due to her diarrhea. Another drama enters the scene as Ms. Yeo brings herself, all dressed up and wearing make-up, to the battleground between Mr. Chang and Yoo Cho-hui’s first love moment after being tempted numerous times. The tension is real for Mr. Chang, who also has a hard time trying to pursue his heart at the moment. During Hye-jin and Doo-sik’s cavities class, Mr. Chang is having a crisis with two women. But Ms. Yeo notices how her ex-husband keeps on glancing at his beautiful first love. It’s kind of irony actually, how she has to feel insecure about her aging and appearances over her when in fact, she’s always been an excellent mother to their son. Another thing is how Ms. Yeo tends to hold her emotion, like every time she sees Mr. Chang looks smitten with his first love, which results in her habit of clenching her teeth that cause her to suffer a possibility of myofascial face syndrome.
Moving on, we can see Hye-jin is slowly drawn to the man who can fix and do everything, Doo-sik. Hye-jin agreed to pay Doo-sik’s service by paying for his lunch. To avoid more rumors, Hye-jin drives far from the town. While waiting for the order, Hye-jin apologizes for her words about “social position”. But to prove everything, Hye-jin asks him to solve CSAT problems, to which he agrees. Bewildered by his genius, Hye-jin’s childlike behaviors creep in where she keeps on asking him to solve more. He later asks her to solve a math problem. We all know how Hye-jin keeps her pride. She gladly takes the challenge by bragging to be the top math student on her school days but later, she never solves it in the end and both of them just laugh it off together.
The ending
The rain suddenly pours heavily that evening. Even though Hye-jin is seen as conservative and calculative, we always see how clumsy and childlike she gets wherever she’s with Doo-sik. Hye-jin offers her umbrella without noticing that she leaves it at Doo-sik’s house. Trying to make her feel something beyond her expectation, Doo-sik grabs her hand and invites her to the beach drenched in rain. He asks her to feel the rain that is pouring down on her head and provokes her to play together. After having a blast playing by the beach and soaking in rain, Hye-jin nags that she might catch cold tomorrow. Doo-sik touches her forehead to check on her temperature. With one single touch, Hye-jin starts to remember what happened at night. She kisses him. Yup, our so-called conservative woman who always sets boundaries is the first one who makes the move. Hye-jin vaguely asks him, twice, about what’s happening between them that night. But this time Doo-sik plays dumb, not remembering anything, which leaves her wondering.
As Mi-seon says, there are 3 mysteries in the Gongjin. The first one is the reason behind Ms. Yeo and Mr. Chang’s divorce. The second one is Doo-sik’s whereabouts five years after graduating. And the third one is yet to be revealed. The scene shows Doo-sik sitting face to face with a psychiatrist who asks him about the nightmares that he’s still getting. By the shirt he’s wearing, I believe it’s from the second episode. Later, we get to see Doo-sik anxiously try to find his way out from a neverending room where there’s a lot of tension and emotions going on. Moreover, a mysterious bloody hand approaches the back of his back. Before he reaches to see it, Doo-sik wakes up and finds himself drenched in sweat. In episode 2, we’ve seen Doo-sik take his pills after a nightmare, but this time, there’s Yoon Hye-jin at the palm of his hand sleeping peacefully beside him. There’s a great sense of comfort and relief that fills the air. He gently places her head on a pillow, smiles, and goes back to sleep. No pills, just a companion.
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