Things aren’t getting easier for Yeol-chan who’s faced with an increasing amount of challenges at work. As the leader of his team, everyone has always relied on Yeol-chan during times of difficulty and hardships. However, with the tables turned, he learns for himself just how valuable his team is. The love and support between the two go both ways and the bond remains mutual. Yeol-chan needs them just as much as they need him.
Kkondae Intern: Episode 5 Recap
Man-sik drops the news on Yeol-chan about the restaurant owner of the ox head rice soup place who he visited five years ago. Unlike what Yeol-chan had originally thought, the owner isn’t dead. When Yeol-chan and Man-sik visit the man in the hospital, they find him laying on the bed unconscious. While Yeol-chan stays behind to spend a few more minutes with the man, Man-sik secretly leaves the room to talk to a nurse about the hospital bills. He’s willing to pay for the man’s hospital bills, but just needs a little bit more time to do so. However, the nurse urges Man-sik to pay as soon as possible. Yeol-chan overhears Man-sik pleading with the nurse so he has a talk with Man-sik outside about it. Yeol-chan is even concerned about Man-sik and suggests that he gets examined by the doctor especially since his nose was bleeding earlier. Executive Goo learns about Yeol-chan and Man-sik’s visit at the hospital together thanks to a man who she’s hired to follow Yeol-chan. Our General Manager ultimately learns from a doctor that the restaurant owner has been brain-dead for over five years. However, Man-sik never gave up any hope and even persuaded the man’s family into letting him take care of him. On the drive back home, Yeol-chan reflects on the entire situation. Maybe Man-sik does have a sense of humanity in him after all.
Man-sik panics upon receiving a check-up by a doctor at the hospital. He’s afraid something is deathly wrong with him. However, he is doing just fine and is eventually upgraded into a private room when Executive Ahn and Joon-soo comes to visit him. They assume he was overworked by Yeol-chan and instruct Man-sik to report his boss. Man-sik is to get a doctor’s note and then file his hospitalization as an industrial incident. Man-sik isn’t so sure this is necessary, but Joon-soo forces him to do so if he wants to move up in the company and overthrow Yeol-chan. Man-sik is also close to spilling the truth about the ransomware incident to Joon-soo and Executive Ahn, but he keeps his mouth shut. He explains instead that Yeol-chan is allergic to dogs which Joon-soo uses to his advantage. He has something up his sleeves for Yeol-chan. Oh boy. Back at home, Yeol-chan reflects on what he learned about Man-sik back at the hospital and how our senior intern has been essentially looking after the restaurant owner for the past five years. As a result, Yeol-chan decides to pay all of the man’s hospital bills for Man-sik. This doesn’t mean he’s necessarily going to forgive Man-sik entirely, but it’ll make things easier for everyone. Yeol-chan sends money to the hospital to cover the man’s hospital bills. Aww.
Another day at work, another situation arises. This time, a man who ate some spicy chicken ramen claims that he found a cockroach inside his wrapper when he was cooking his ramen. The man, named Park Beom-jun, hasn’t been easy to work with for the Response Team from the company so Yeol-chan decides to take it upon himself to visit the man. Executive Ahn interjects that they should bring Man-sik along for the visit so Yeol-chan has no choice but to let him join. Along with Assistant Manager Oh, the three set out to visit Mr. Park later on that night after work. Before entering, Yeol-chan warns Man-sik to just stay quiet, but it’s much easier said than done. Right after greeting Mr. Park and entering his studio apartment, Man-sik comments about the interior of the place. While Man-sik is busy creating small talk with Mr. Park, Yeol-chan takes a good and close look at the studio apartment. He eventually chimes in and asks Mr. Park to give a re-enactment of what happened on the night he ate their spicy chicken ramen.
Mr. Park does as he is asked and he shows the team how he discovered the cockroach once he poured the ramen into his pan of water. Through a series of questions that Yeol-chan kindly asks Mr. Park, he questions how Mr. Park was so sure the cockroach came from inside the wrapper. He didn’t look inside the wrapper so he didn’t actually see if there was a cockroach inside of it or not. There’s also a possibility that the cockroach could have came from his studio and, therefore, got stuck on the outside of the wrapper. Mr. Park denies all the claims and firmly believes that the cockroach came from inside of the wrapper. There’s no way the cockroach was from his apartment. Eventually, our Joonsoo Foods team goes at it against Mr. Park, but behold, their mediator enters the studio apartment shortly afterwards. Tae-ri enters the studio with two additional boxes of their noodles as compensation for the incident. When Mr. Park and Tae-ri finally notice each other, they freeze in shock. It turns out the two actually knew each other because they used to date back in college. Mr. Park eventually settles with the team and signs a non-disclosure agreement only because of Tae-ri. She ends up staying behind to have a private talk with her former partner.
Back at the office, Yoon-soo shreds some documents. When the shredder jams, he opens the cabinet to check and see what’s wrong with the machine. Upon taking out the trashcan full of shredded pieces of documents, he finds pieces of his proposal that he presented in their last staffing meeting. Curious as to why it was thrown away, Yoon-soo grabs all the shredded pieces to his proposal and meticulously puts it back together that night in his room. After putting together the first page of his proposal, Yoon-soo finds a comment criticizing his idea. Who could have possibly written the comment?
Meanwhile, Tae-ri has a talk with Mr. Park at a cafe. Since he signed the agreement just because of her, he asks if they can start over with their relationship. Tae-ri is uncomfortable with the idea and she exits the cafe only to be followed by Mr. Park. He threatens her to get back with him or else he’ll reveal everything to the press about his cockroach incident. Just when Mr. Park forces Tae-ri to kiss him, Yeol-chan interrupts by pushing Mr. Park away from Tae-ri. Yeol-chan rips the NDA in front of Mr. Park and encourages him to do whatever he wants. However, he’ll have to take responsibility for damaging the reputation of Joonsoo Foods and he’ll also have to apologize for what he did to Tae-ri. Yeol-chan eventually takes Tae-ri away to his car. She panics as to what they’ll do next which Yeol-chan also doesn’t have an answer for. However, all he knows is that they need to get away from Mr. Park as soon as possible.
Yeol-chan eventually drops Tae-ri off to her apartment. Before heading inside, she follows up on the case. They won’t get in trouble, right? Yeol-chan is confident that they won’t be blamed for the cockroach incident; there’s no way the cockroach was inside the wrapper. Yeol-chan also reminds Tae-ri not to meet up with Mr. Park just to protect the company’s name. Yeol-chan cares for the company, but his team members are also just as important. Whipped for Yeol-chan, Tae-ri asks him to repeat his comment once more. Yeol-chan does as Tae-ri asks and reiterates his comment about how his team members are just as important to him as the company is (omg, this is too funny!). Tae-ri gushes over her interaction with Yeol-chan and how he rescued her from Mr. Park earlier that evening. I myself am squealing and smiling too. Hehe.
Yoon-soo glues another page of his proposal packet together and discovers another set of demeaning comments written on the page. To figure out the person behind the writing, Yoon-soo heads back to the office to compare the writing on his proposal to the writing found on other documents in the office. After going through each desk and comparing the handwritings, he eventually settles with either Jung-eun or Assistant Manager Oh as the suspects. Since neither of them have any documents or notes on their desks for him to compare, he assumes one of them must be the person behind the harsh comments.
The next morning at work, Mr. Park sets the stage for a war against Joonsoo Foods. He appears on a news broadcast to talk about the cockroach incident and the team’s visit to his studio the night before. He discloses details about how they tried to settle with him using a contract and how he felt as if they were also mocking him for being an unemployed man renting a small studio. Mr. Park is eventually invited to the company to have a meeting with our team. They discuss how they will analyze the evidence thoroughly using the catalase test (as a former Chemistry major himself, Mr. Park is familiar with these concepts and terms. Lol) and the two go at it on what the results will be with this test. To sum up the meeting, Mr. Park threatens Yeol-chan and his team that he’ll file a lawsuit against them if they don’t prove their innocence with the test. Our team remains in disbelief at how bold and daring Mr. Park is.
Chairman Namgoong has a discussion with Executive Goo about the cockroach incident. With things blowing up, Chairman Namgoong is frustrated at the approach that Yeol-chan took in resolving the issue. They could have just settled by giving Mr. Park some money, but now things have exploded. Chairman Namgoong then switches the subject and follows up with Executive Goo on Yeol-chan. Has he changed? Is there anything suspicious about him? Executive Goo lies that she hasn’t noticed anything different about him and gives her thoughts on what Chairman Namgoong can do about Yeol-chan. When she exits his office, she encounters Joon-soo outside so the two have a brief talk. Executive Goo assumes Joon-soo must have been the person behind the incident, but Joon-soo claims his innocence. He does have a few bombs planted, but the cockroach incident isn’t one of them. When there’s a will, there’s a way and this one happened to come about naturally.
Joon-soo’s bomb that he planted does come to light and Yeol-chan is placed on standby as a result of the cockroach incident as well as the doctor’s note that Man-sik submitted for being hospitalized. Although Man-sik vehemently denies the accusations and his involvement in submitting the doctor’s note, Yeol-chan believes the claim and grows upset at Man-sik. As part of his punishment, Yeol-chan is isolated in a waiting room without any way to contact anyone in person or through phone. Man-sik visits Joon-soo at his office to talk about the situation regarding Yeol-chan. However, Joon-soo is indifferent and stands his ground. He did tell Man-sik to submit the doctor’s note and to file an industrial incident. Since Man-sik didn’t do as he said, Joon-soo took it upon himself to do it for him. Back in the office, everyone panics with Yeol-chan’s disappearance. Assistant Manager Oh and Jung-eun blame Man-sik for the doctor’s note. If it wasn’t for that, Yeol-chan wouldn’t be on standby. However, Tae-ri comes to Man-sik’s defense. If he was being overworked and was hospitalized for it, he should have the right to file the incident. While everyone else is fighting in the office, Yoon-soo is occupied in finding out who exactly commented on his proposal packet.
Tae-ri manages to quietly sneak into the room where Yeol-chan is held captive since the employee at the front desk is asleep. She pulls out a chair and stands on it to peek inside the waiting room. When it finally hits 6pm, Yeol-chan is released for the day. Upon getting his cell phone back, Yeol-chan calls his mom to reassure her about the situation at work. However, his call is cut early when he discovers Man-sik walking out and about in the company building. Yeol-chan chases after Man-sik and attempts to hunt him down, but the senior intern is a few steps ahead of our General Manager. Man-sik eventually manages to escape from Yeol-chan and surprisingly doesn’t get caught. When Yeol-chan gets home that night, he recalls the conversation that he had with Executive Goo. Chairman Namgoong wanted to dismiss Yeol-chan from his position, but Executive Goo managed to barely persuade him from doing so. Yeol-chan has to eat some of his anxiety pills to calm himself down. Sales for Joonsoo Foods has rapidly declined which only stresses Yeol-chan out even more.
Things aren’t going so well for Tae-ri either. Mr. Park is willing to drop everything if Tae-ri gives him another chance at a relationship. While exiting work that evening, she comes across Joon-soo in the elevator. He proposes once again the idea of them getting together; she’s still the only woman who’s ever saved him since his mom passed away. However, Tae-ri rejects him just like how she rejected Mr. Park. Joon-soo claimed he’s already in a relationship and that he has no plans of breaking up so why would she get into a relationship with him? (YOU TELL HIM, GIRL!). Tae-ri knocks some good sense into Joon-soo (literally) and reiterates that she does not want to get into a relationship with him (leave her aloneeee). Tae-ri suffers a breakdown once she exits the company building. Why are there so many jerks around her in her life? (LOL, SAME GIRL. SAME)!. Before calling Mr. Park to meet up, Tae-ri sends Yeol-chan a few messages of support. She encourages him not to blame himself for all the recent events. Yeol-chan grows outraged after reading Tae-ri’s messages. She was the reason as to how he got himself in this mess; he would have never gotten involved if he knew just how crazy Mr. Park was. And to also think that he acted all cool and smooth in front of Tae-ri too. LOL. Yeol-chan has his doubts about rescuing Tae-ri as well as paying the hospital bills for Man-sik. He shouldn’t be so nice on Man-sik just because Man-sik exhibited some acts of kindness.
Yoon-soo visits the office late into the night a second time to continue his investigation on the person behind the harsh comments. He finds notes on Jung-eun and Assistant Manager Oh’s desks after some searching and scrambling and compares their handwriting to the ones on his proposal. However, their handwriting doesn’t match so he rules both colleagues out of the race. Yoon-soo, at one point, considers Yeol-chan as a possible contender, but he quickly changes his mind. There’s no way Yeol-chan would have written the degrading comments found on his proposal packet.
Man-sik gives things some thought before meeting with Executive Ahn at a restaurant. He’s doubtful about his plans to overthrow Yeol-chan, especially after learning that Yeol-chan paid all the hospital bills. When Executive Ahn joins Man-sik, he rejoices in the fact that the chairman is now going against Yeol-chan. Yeol-chan used to be his favorite, but now the chairman himself is acting against the general manager. Things are going as they wanted. But Man-sik has his doubts about Chairman Namgoong and questions if the chairman can be trusted. Executive Ahn excuses himself after hearing the question from Man-sik and goes to use the restroom. While he’s away, Man-sik catches a sign about a pest control on the restaurant window. He inquires the restaurant owner about the sign and the claims that there were cockroaches found in the restaurant’s food a few years back. He wants to learn more about the cases and what the restaurant owner did as a result.
Another day at work, another day of being stuck in the waiting room all day for Yeol-chan. Our Sales and Marketing Team take it upon themselves to visit him so they break into the general room where Yeol-chan is held and communicate with him through the window. They push any food and snacks they have under the door into Yeol-chan’s waiting room and update him on the results of the analysis done on the wrapper. Unlike what they originally thought, there were no remains found on the outside of the wrapper that Mr. Park used to cook his ramen. It’s not good news at all.
However, not all hope is lost. After work, Man-sik and Yeol-chan visit a surgeon who specializes in performing autopsies on cockroaches (LOL, yes, the drama is really doing this). The doctor, Dr. Kong, conducts his autopsy on the same cockroach that Mr. Park found in his pot of ramen noodles. Yeol-chan has a hard time comprehending and understanding the doctor’s method to examining the body of the cockroach, but he eventually goes along with it. It’ll take some time before the results are out so they’ll have to wait a few more days. Yeol-chan and Man-sik exit the building together after the autopsy. Yeol-chan confronts Man-sik about the doctor’s note; how could Man-sik do such a thing, especially when Yeol-chan uploaded the recorded file of Man-sik explaining his idea to Assistant Manager Oh to prove his case? It takes a few seconds for Man-sik to register the information, but he confronts Yeol-chan about the ransomware. Why didn’t Yeol-chan say anything about that to him? Why did he frame Man-sik for it? Yeol-chan puts Man-sik in his place and reminds him to speak formally to him.
Results to the autopsy are out! Yeol-chan, Man-sik, Tae-ri, and Mr. Park hear the results for themselves at Dr. Kong’s surgery room. There was DNA from a duck found on the cockroach’s body which confuses our Joonsoo Foods Team. Duck? Where did the duck come from? As we will come to learn, there’s a restaurant on the first floor of the building Mr. Park lives in that sells duck. The cockroaches found in Mr. Park’s studio must have traveled from the restaurant and into his studio. There’s no way that a cockroach who ate duck three months ago would still be found with duck DNA inside of it so the cockroach in Mr. Park’s bowl of noodles must have been recent. Tae-ri, Man-sik, and the rest of the team also confirmed this for themselves when they visited Mr. Park’s studio and discovered a bunch of cockroaches throughout his place. Mr. Park’s studio has been infested with cockroaches for a while so the cockroach came from his place, not from the wrapper like his original complaint claimed.
Mr. Park’s studio is examined by Dr. Kong and his team and he reveals the truth in another appearance on the news. Our team celebrates the case being resolved as well as Yeol-chan’s return to the office. No more waiting rooms and no more being on standby. However, the celebration doesn’t last for too long. Executive Ahn reports to the team that Man-sik has been dismissed from the company due to the ransomware that he caused to spread on the computers. Yeol-chan isn’t so happy with the news and he gets in contact with Man-sik to go find him. He eventually discovers Man-sik on a bench at the park reading some newspapers and searching for job postings. He scolds Man-sik for sitting on the bench and grabs his wrist. While dragging the former senior intern with him, Yeol-chan is convinced that he needs Man-sik. Man-sik is the savior of his life who also came to ruin his life.
My Thoughts:
Phew, this was one silly episode, but a wholesome and fulfilling silly type of episode. Who would have thought that an incident involving a cockroach would make for an entertaining episode?! I sure didn’t! Although I do have to admit, as entertaining as this episode was, the use of the doctor who conducted the autopsy on the cockroach was hilarious and also a bit too much for me. But at the same time, I also shouldn’t rule anything out with ‘Kkondae Intern.’ The drama has been wacky and silly since the beginning so something like this was somewhat expected.
Of course, an incident of this type was bound to happen sooner or later. People are sensitive about food and you have to be be careful about the type of claims and accusations people make all the time. However, I like that the drama amped things up by having the accuser connected to Tae-ri. That made things ten times more complicated and only made the situation a lot worse than it originally was. It also made things so much more rewarding in the end when the truth prevailed and our team won in the end. Dramas that are procedural can get boring and repetitive after a while, but I’m liking how ‘Kkondae Intern’ is executing its use of the procedural cases and situations. In episode three, our team had to scramble together to take care of the village. In this episode, they came together to defeat Mr. Park who accused them of basically poisoning his food with a bug. I actually enjoy watching the various types of incidents and challenges that our team faces at work because 1) they’re entertaining and 2) it’s nice to see our team come together and unite in times of hardships. I almost shed a few tears when they broke into the waiting room to feed Yeol-chan and to update him on the cockroach incident. As divided as the team is when they’re amongst themselves, they’re all united when it comes to Yeol-chan which I find endearing and heartwarming.
I also love that our team came together to help Yeol-chan in this episode when it was the other way around in earlier episodes. As the leader of the team, Yeol-chan feels this responsibility and need to be there for his team and to protect them at all times. While this should be part of his job as the team leader, I loved that the team was there for him in this episode. Yeol-chan isn’t going to be perfect or strong all the time. Although a leader, he’s not going to be the perfect leader all the time and he’s going to make mistakes or he’s going to take the fall for things that aren’t his fault. In trying times like these, it was nice to see our team be there for him and support him as much as they could. Yeol-chan was the one leaning on them in this episode to help him out which was so sweet and touching.
Yeol-chan got a real taste of reality for the first time in this episode which was frightening for him. Like Executive Ahn mentioned, Yeol-chan’s been on Chairman Namgoong’s good side this entire time so it was scary for him to suddenly face these consequences and essentially be on the chairman’s bad side. He’s never had to deal with these type of situations before and a huge part of that is because of Man-sik. Now that Man-sik has returned into his life, things have started to spiral downwards for him and he dislikes it. However, it’s also so hard for Yeol-chan to continue his revenge scheme on Man-sik because he’s starting to realize that Man-sik isn’t as bad as he thought he was. Man-sik isn’t the evil, wicked, and mischievous person who he interacted with five years ago. Yes, Yeol-chan’s experience with boss Man-sik in the past traumatized him and he assumes this impression of the senior intern hasn’t changed ever since, but as he learned in this episode, there’s also more to Man-sik than what Yeol-chan saw and experienced five years ago. Yeol-chan is starting to soften and his stance on Man-sik is beginning to change after learning the truth about the restaurant owner. As much as Yeol-chan wants to deny these thoughts and he wants to remain strong in his fight against Man-sik, he also can’t help but feel for Man-sik. Whereas before Yeol-chan viewed Man-sik as an enemy of some sort, Yeol-chan now considers Man-sik as his own team member. He now views Man-sik as an essential value to his team who he also needs to protect.
Man-sik is also starting to slowly change which is proving to be an interesting case. It was interesting to see the shift in his mindset and work ethic from when he first started the internship to where he was before he got dismissed. He first went in with the goal of conspiring with Executive Ahn and Joon-soo to overthrow Yeol-chan to working with Yeol-chan and getting involved with the team to overcome challenges in the workplace together. Man-sik has to be reminded about his original goal in entering the company or else he forgets why he’s an intern in the first place. I think that speaks volume about how much being a senior intern has changed Man-sik and how his thoughts about Yeol-chan is slowly starting to shift. It’s only when he’s with Joon-soo and Executive Ahn that he’s reminded of why he’s doing the internship in the first place and how his end goal is to get Yeol-chan booted. Otherwise, when Man-sik is with the team or with Yeol-chan, he works hard to adjust and to fit in. Now, things aren’t so much about Man-sik wanting to go against Yeol-chan, but more of Man-sik wanting to work with the team. Man-sik denying his involvement with the doctor’s note proves that he still wants to be seen as a team member. Man-sik doubting Chairman Namgoong’s intentions and trustworthiness was a sign of him questioning his role in all of this. Him suggesting Yeol-chan to Doctor Kong was another sign of Man-sik helping Yeol-chan out so Yeol-chan could prove his innocence and case. Man-sik is slowly starting to change and things will only get harder for him the more he treads the fine line of working with Yeol-chan and the team as well as with Executive Ahn and Joon-soo behind the scenes. Who will Man-sik side with when neutrality is no longer an option?
I’m glad that Yoon-soo got some more focus in this episode. Although it was heart-breaking to read the type of comments he got on his proposal packet, I’m afraid that it’s going to be even more heart-breaking once he realizes who it was that wrote those comments. I have a feeling Yeol-chan is the one behind the comments since we have yet to see his handwriting be compared to the comments on the proposal, but I also don’t want to be disappointed just yet. When the revelation does happen, I’m afraid Yeol-chan’s true colors will come out if he is revealed to be the one behind the comments. Everyone so far has this image and perception of Yeol-chan as this warm, kind, and sweet-hearted guy who can do no wrong and has no ounce of evil inside of him. I think this rings especially true for Yoon-soo who’s always had an endearing view of Yeol-chan since the beginning. He’s going to be so disappointed and heart-broken if he learns that it was Yeol-chan who wrote those harsh comments on his proposal. The drama is leading us into thinking that at the moment, but I’m hoping it’s not like what it seems.
Yeol-chan and Tae-ri continue to remain ever so adorable together. Tae-ri gushing over Yeol-chan is still so relatable and the scene of Yeol-chan repeating his comment to Tae-ri twice was hilarious. I can’t even blame her for being whipped for Yeol-chan because I definitely feel the same way as well. It was one thing for him to rescue her from an entitled and creepy Mr. Park, but for him to clearly show his concern towards Tae-ri and comment that she’s just as important to him was another thing. Things are only getting sweeter and sweeter between the two, I think I might need a few of Tae-ri’s candy to keep myself calm (;
Extra screenshots from the episode~
MaryMeKpop 