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Dae-young and Ji-woo are able to easily catch up from where they left off in college, but it’s not the same for others. Some relationships have been broken and put behind in the past while new relationships are formed in this episode. We focus on our characters in the present and witness how drastic their college days were from their current situations.

Let’s Eat Season 3: Episode 2 Recap

Episode two starts off with Dae-young introducing himself to Ji-woo as her new next-door neighbor. Right when he needed a new place to live, there was a vacant spot at the apartment complex next to hers. They head out to a restaurant to celebrate another year to being neighbors again.

This time, they eat some cutlass fish together. After another food rant and lesson on the importance of the fish, Dae-young and Ji-woo digs into the food and enjoy their delicious meal together. While they finish eating, Dae-young comments that cutlass fish is good for indigestion which is beneficial for Ji-woo who he remembers suffered from indigestion. It seems like Dae-young still remembers these small details about Ji-woo which makes her smile.

They walk back home together and catch up on life, including updates about Ji-woo’s relationship with Seo-yeon and the current struggles they’re each going through. Ji-woo informs Dae-young of her wish to not speak about Seo-yeon; they no longer keep in contact so she would like it if Dae-young doesn’t bring her up. Meanwhile, Dae-young shares with Ji-woo why he moved in to the place next to hers. He’s been feeling a bit lost and stuck lately, but seeing Ji-woo reminded himself of how energetic and upbeat he used to be. He hopes to return to those ways with the new move. He receives a phone call from an unknown stranger so Ji-woo leaves him alone to pick up the call.

Dae-young meets with Sun Woo-sun (Ahn Woo-yeon), the team manager of the New Product Development team at a food company called CQ Food. He’s working on a new project and wants to scout Dae-young to help him with the project. As a food blogger and expert, Dae-young’s knowledge and intelligence would be extremely beneficial and helpful to the project. Dae-young doesn’t reject the offer, but he needs some time to think about the sudden request.

Back at home, Ji-woo reflects on Dae-young’s comment about Seo-yeon. Eating the cutlass fish reminds him of the time back in college when Seo-yeon would get angry and upset at Ji-woo for cooking fish which she personally didn’t like because of the smell.

So the drama takes us back to 2004 again. Ji-woo’s busy watching an episode of ‘Full House’ while eating some cooked fish. Seo-yeon isn’t too happy and complains about the smell that’s permeated the entire room, including her clothes and shoes. As she prepares to exit the apartment, she puts on Ji-woo’s fresh, clean, new shoes and walks out. Ji-woo finally realizes what’s happened and chases her younger sister out onto the street. They fight over the shoes and even Dae-young who comes across the two battling it out on the street can’t stop the sisters from fighting. Ji-woo manages to eventually retrieve her shoes and walks back to the apartment. Omg, they are so wild!

F4 are walking on campus when Sung-joo leaves his friends to spend some time with his girlfriend. The three remaining guys envy Sung-joo, but remain hopeful. They might have a chance with either Ji-woo or Seo-yeon so not all hope is lost.

Seo-yeon returns to Ji-woo’s unit, but they get into another argument again over living expenses. One by one, they start throwing each other’s belongings and items out the door. F3 (Sung-joo excluded) walk back to Dae-young’s unit brainstorming how exactly they will charm the two sisters into falling for them. They run into all the chaos and even try to calm the girls down, but it’s of no use. Seo-yeon gets kicked out of the unit and begs F3 for some money. Byung-sam and Jin-seok automatically give her any remaining money they have, but Dae-young refuses. He knows her tears are all an act. Hahaha. He’s not going to fall for it.

After witnessing the fight, Dae-young heads to his part-time job. He’s a server at a restaurant and hopes to save enough money so he can attend the 2006 World Cup in Germany.

Meanwhile, it’s night time and Seo-yeon hasn’t returned to the apartment. Ji-woo grows worried that something bad might have happened to her so she waits outside at the bus stop for her. While waiting, Dae-young encounters a concerned Ji-woo and together they wait for Seo-yeon. Fortunately, Seo-yeon is safe. At the same bus stop that Ji-woo and Dae-young are waiting, she exits from a taxi with a handful of shopping bags and even gifts Ji-woo a pepper spray that she got for her. Dae-young watches as the two sisters make up and go back to talking like normal. It’s like nothing ever happened at all.

The two sisters almost get into another argument until their mother stops by to visit them. Mom decided to make a quick visit to cook Seo-yeon some food since her birthday’s coming up. Mom gets started on cooking Seo-yeon her favorite dish – kimchi dough soup – instead of the usual seaweed soup one would eat for birthdays.

Ji-woo invites Dae-young to eat with them only under the condition that he doesn’t reveal to Mom about the two sister’s living situation. Dae-young agrees and the four of them celebrate Seo-yeon’s early birthday dinner together. As usual, home-made cooking is the best and Mom’s many dishes as well as Ji-woo’s kimchi pancake are delicious. Dae-young offers to treat Seo-yeon and Ji-woo out at the restaurant he works at as a birthday gift.

Two days later and the two sisters visit Dae-young’s workplace. He serves them their food that Seo-yeon was an expert at ordering and the birthday dinner seems to be going well until Dae-young’s best friends join them at the restaurant with a birthday cake and a stuffed doll. Seo-yeon is obviously embarrassed, but Dae-young is more embarrassed when he has to sing Seo-yeon a happy birthday with his co-workers. Hehe.

Back in the present, Seo-yeon is reminded of that specific birthday celebration as she stares at her passport at the airport. She’s finally returned to Korea after 12 years and posts a few pictures on social media to document her return. She visits a restaurant to grab her favorite kimchi dough soup and as always, she can’t forget about the pictures and posts them on her social media for others to see.

Dae-young and Ji-woo grab some chicken and beer after he takes her dog out for a run. How cuuute. He shares with her the job offer he received from Woo-sun about the food project they’re doing and ponders whether he should take it or not. Ji-woo then learns about his popular food blog which wouldn’t have been possible without Ji-woo herself. Dae-young credits her for being the one who exposed him to the food world and he hopes to repay her by bringing her back into the food world like she once did to him. Ji-woo leaves Dae-young alone while he happily texts someone on his phone.

Seo-yeon finally gets to taste the popular kimchi dough soup that everyone seems to be raving about. However, it’s not as good as she expected so she leaves the restaurant. Just as she’s exiting, she comes across Woo-sun, the team manager who wanted to scout Dae-young to work for his project. He asks her if she had borrowed money from his cousin when she was in the United States. Alarmed and afraid, Seo-yeon runs away from Woo-sun, but is chased down by him. After catching her, he contacts his cousin who had her money stolen by Seo-yeon and Seo-yeon’s business partner. They don’t talk for long though as Woo-sun’s cousin is currently in the hospital for her pregnancy so he’s left responsible for Seo-yeon until his cousin herself can travel to Korea.

Woo-sun – who was able to track Seo-yeon down through her social media – keeps Seo-yeon trapped in a hotel room that night. After paying for her hotel room, he grabs her belongings and takes it with him to his house. Seo-yeon plans an escape, but realizes that she can’t go anywhere without her belongings or any money. She has no choice but to stay at the hotel.

Woo-sun is to keep Seo-yeon on lockdown until his cousin can travel to Korea to talk to Seo-yeon herself. He’s a little frustrated and upset and knocks down Seo-yeon’s luggage in anger.

Ji-woo wants to grab food with Dae-young again. She texts him and waits for a reply, but grows concerned when he doesn’t reply. However, it’s not because he’s uninterested that he didn’t reply back. Instead, he calls her out from outside and they make plans to eat some buckwheat noodles. Asdkfd. You could have just texted her Dae-young! Ahaha.

The next morning, Woo-sun hands Seo-yeon her luggage back. He’s letting her leave and escape and warns Seo-yeon not to post anything on social media so that his cousin won’t bother him to track her down. All is well until Seo-yeon is unable to find her passport. It turns out that the passport had fallen out of the suitcase in Sun-woo’s house the night before when Sun-woo kicked it out of anger.

Once Seo-yeon discovers her passport at his house, she finally realizes how big, amazing, and beautiful his house is. She tries to gain his pity by putting on her usual act of tears, but it doesn’t work on him. The timing couldn’t be any more perfect when Woo-sun’s cousin contacts him and asks him for an update on Seo-yeon. Seo-yeon purposely intervenes with the FaceTime call and shows her face to Woo-sun’s cousin. Woo-sun now has no choice but to keep Seo-yeon with him and Seo-yeon now has a nice place to live in for the time being. This is gonna be so fun.

Ji-woo searches for possible restaurants she can visit with Dae-young. She tries to make dinner plans with him that evening, but he has other plans instead. Ji-woo then receives a call from a nursery home and hurries on over.

Another incident caused by her mother has taken place at the nursery home. Ji-woo apologizes for making the nurse do extra work on top of her already heavy workload. Ji-woo goes to visit her mother who suffers from alzheimer. Though they know each other’s names, Ji-woo’s mother isn’t aware that Ji-woo is her daughter, but she still treats her like one. The two go out for a walk and have some small talk about dating. Mom encourages Ji-woo to date and get married and have children, but Ji-woo can’t afford to do that right now… at least not in the current situation she’s in. She gives Mom a warm and sweet hug.

We discover where Dae-young was going that evening that he couldn’t make any dinner plans with Ji-woo. He visits a charnel house where his ex-girlfriend Soo-ji’s (Seo Hyun-jin from season 2) ashes lay.

The drama then shows us how Dae-young and Soo-ji’s relationship concluded in tragedy. As the two bid farewell and go their separate ways after a weekend of spending time together, Soo-ji gets on the bus while Dae-young drives back home. It’s not long until the two talk to each other on the phone and already make plans of what they’re going to do the next time they meet. However, Dae-young almost gets into a car accident while driving and fortunately swerves just in time to miss the oncoming truck coming his way.

However, it’s not the same for Soo-ji who gets into an accident while on the bus. She remains unresponsive and unconscious as she lays on the road badly injured and bleeding. On her finger is the same ring that Dae-young still owns and wears in the present.

After staring at Soo-ji’s memorial site, Dae-young places a bouquet of flowers on top of it and then leaves. He returns back to his place to find Seo-yeon awaiting his arrival. He assumes she must be waiting to meet Ji-woo, but Seo-yeon remains confused. Just then Ji-woo arrives and finally meets Seo-yeon after a decade of separation.

The two stare at each other, but no words are exchanged between the two.

My Thoughts:

The ending to Dae-young’s relationship with Soo-ji was so sad. I didn’t even watch the second season with Seo Hyun-jin, but being shown in this episode how their relationship ended was so heart-breaking and sorrowful. There were many ways the drama could have taken to end their relationship to make room for the new blooming romance between Dae-young and Ji-woo, but I’m not sure if they had to go with this one (couldn’t they have just broken up?! Was that too much and too mundane drama?! Lol). Regardless, the drama wanted to show us and give us some closure on Dae-young and Soo-ji’s finished relationship and I’m not complaining that they did that. Though it was surprising and shocking and very sad, the drama needed to do that to move forward for Dae-young’s new relationship with Ji-woo.

Clearly, there’s been many changes since their college days, the biggest one being between Seo-yeon and Ji-woo. I’m curious as to what happened that caused the two to no longer keep in contact and not even consider the other in each other’s lives. Something bad and big must have really happened for the two to completely cut each other off years later. More so, I’m curious as to how the two will make up (if they do) and how they will repair their broken and shattered sister relationship if they choose to do so. They’ve gone a decade without talking and now they’ve seen each other again after so long. Maybe Dae-young might play some kind of role in helping the two connect and mend their relationship, but I ultimately hope it’s the two girls themselves who decide to do that more than anything.

We also witness that Dae-young is going through some difficult times which greatly contrasts from how he used to be back in college. This might have to do with losing Soo-ji as well as feeling stuck with work and not feeling like he’s advancing anywhere. He hasn’t been making as much progress as he would like so the results are disappointing and frustrating for him. I assume that his relationship with Ji-woo will help get him back on track and help him rediscover himself and who he used to be. It’ll be very cute and fun watching his journey to self-discovery with the help of Ji-woo.

Ji-woo’s interactions with her mother reminds me of Oh-reum’s relationship with her mother in ‘Miss Hammurabi.’ Both of their moms have alzheimer and don’t remember who their respective daughters are. In an effort to maintain a relationship with their mothers, they visit them and build a relationship with them even if it’s not the mother-daughter relationship that they desire. It’s bittersweet watching Ji-woo interact with her mom knowing fully well that her mom doesn’t recognize her as her daughter. Although Ji-woo’s relationship with her mom isn’t like what she might want it to be, she’s ultimately grateful that she’s still able to visit her mom and have a good, caring, and healthy relationship with her.

I expressed in my recap of the first episode my excitement for the fun interactions between Woo-sun and Seo-yeon. This episode did not fail to impress me and I was certainly entertained by our two second leads. They did not meet on the best grounds so it’ll be funny watching the two now live together and put up with each other. Since Seo-yeon has the connections that Woo-sun needs to get Dae-young for his project, I’m assuming he’ll let Seo-yeon stay with him as long as she can recruit Dae-young to work for him. Woo-sun has a place for Seo-yeon to stay and she has the connections to Dae-young that he so desperately needs. I’m really looking forward to more of their humorous antics and relationship development.

One aspect that stood out to me is the filming of this drama. A lot of times, the drama is in a standstill where it zooms out to show the entire scene which makes things SO much easier for me to screenshot. That’s one of my favorite things about this drama actually. On the other hand, the camera angles and the filming sometimes makes the drama.. a little boring and dry. There’s not a lot of camera movement and I’ve noticed that it’s your usual zoom-out and face close-ups and the camera seems still most of the times. I don’t think it’s necessarily doing any damage to the drama and the drama still looks nice even with the typical average camera movement. I’m not bothered by it so much right now (because once again it does make recapping a lot easier), but I wonder if they’re going to try different filming techniques in the future to lighten and captivate the scenes a little bit more. It’d be nice and would make the drama a little bit more lively than it already is.

This is my second time watching the second episode and oddly enough I enjoyed it a lot more the second time around. I’m not sure what it was, but by watching this episode a second time around, I realized that this drama is very mellow, subtle, and laid-back. There’s not a lot going on so it’s easy to watch and follow and you learn more about our characters as they learn more about each other. Once again, I’m loving and enjoying the college throwbacks, but I’m also glad that the scenes in the present are starting to get just as fun. Things in the present are starting to pick up and now that our four leads are pretty much acquainted in some way or another, the ball is rolling. Thing are so far, so good.