Summary
“Reunion” has some weaker segments, but you can definitely feel the overarching plot, tone, and theming beginning to really come together here.
Episode 4 of Strong Girl Nam-soon Season 1 begins right where we left off in Episode 3, so our recap might as well start there too. I don’t imagine anyone truly thought that either Nam-soon or Geum-ju would be seriously injured after plummeting from a burning skyscraper. Still, it’s nice to have confirmation either way. Geum-ju grabs her daughter in the air and hits a safe superhero landing on the ground below, cradling Nam-soon in her arms.
That’s one way to be reunited with your long-lost mother. Anyway, spoilers ahead.
Strong Girl Nam-soon Season 1 Episode 4 Recap
In the manner of all wealthy people, Geum-ju’s immediate instinct is to reward everyone who has ever been involved in Nam-soon’s life with money. That includes her Mongolian parents, who she plans to build an apartment building for so they can use their ger for fun and live off the rent, and the young couple from the Han River whom Nam-soon befriended.
Nam-soon is also promptly introduced — or reintroduced, I suppose — to Bong-go, and then to Nam-in, whom she’s assured is indeed her twin brother but the uncanny likeness is just obscured by his surplus of flesh.
READ: Strong Girl Nam-soon Season 1 Episode 1 Recap
“Reunion” lives up to its title for much of its runtime, and it’s the first episode thus far that began to tire me a little. It remains very funny and charming but it’s also a little aimless in certain subplots, especially — at least for now — anything involving Joong-gan. The basic fish-out-of-water comedy and anti-capitalist messaging do work, but an episode like this could stand to be 15 minutes shorter and more compact.
Anywho, most of “Reunion” is indeed devoted to the titular reunion, and it has its emotional touches, but it’s mostly played for laughs. Geum-ju arranges for Nam-soon to have a makeover, and there are throwaway bonding sequences between Nam-soon and her newly discovered family that work pretty well.
But it’s the margins that matter most. Here, Si-o gives a speech to some assembled investors about Doogo’s expansion plans, including the hiring of many deliverywomen. This turns out to be a twofold strategy. For one, it improves the company’s image and meets certain diversity quotes, but also increases the likelihood of him finding Korea’s “strong women”, specifically Nam-soon.
Both Geum-ju and Hee-sik’s squad begin investigating Doogo, with some eventual overlap. Geum-ju, in fact, personally visits Hee-sik to retrieve the rest of Nam-soon’s belonging’s, and odd sexual chemistry notwithstanding it builds to a funny gag in which Hee-sik’s mother think’s Geum-ju is his sugar mama.
READ: Strong Girl Nam-soon Season 1 Episode 2 Recap
You can tell all roads are going to converge at Doogo, though, since Hwa-ja applies for a job there in order to make enough money to disappear, Geum-ju begins investigating more closes, and Hee-sik and Nam-soon both go undercover as delivery drivers in order to investigate further. The odd-couple buddy-cop dynamics between the two provide some of the best comedy in the episode, so it’ll be fun to see this sustained moving forward.
Strong Girl Nam-soon Episode 4 Ending Explained
“Reunion” ends with Nam-soon happening across the woman who scammed her when she first arrived in Korea. She takes the opportunity for some revenge by throwing her purse all the way to what looks like Mongolia, which is a pretty hilarious form of payback but also kind of melds into the show’s ongoing theming.
See, if turns out Nam-soon doesn’t like capitalism after all. Whatever will Geum-ju think?
The episode proper ends with Nam-soon and Hee-sik breaking into one of the Doogo warehouses, but whatever they find in there will remain a mystery until next week.
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