"Age of Youth" drama season one: Episode two recap

 Air Dates: July 22nd to August 27, 2016 on JTBC, Friday and Saturday nights at 10:30 pm

Rating- 0.473%, ratings are low due to JTBC being a cable network
Video at the top is a promo for this episode, will have a new one for every post

Also goes by the title of 'Hello My Twenties'

Main Cast:

This first episode we only met the five major female characters along with a few others briefly so will be adding on to this once new people enter the scene.

 The five roommates

Park Hye-Su as Yoo Eun-Jae.... twenty year old freshman at college majoring in psychology, a rather timid gal who was picked on by her new roommates in the beginning

Han Seung-Yeon as Jung Ye-Eun.... the 'starlet' of the apartment house who always has to have her way, she's a 22 year old junior majoring in nutrition and constantly lies to make herself more impressive to others

Park Eun-Bin as Song Ji-Won.... also 22 years old and is a dance major, we didn't meet her until the final eight minutes so will hold off a bit on her bio

Ryu Hwa-Young as Kang Yi-Na.... the third roommate who is 22 years old, her major is art and is known as the apartment's 'exhibitionist' and may be considered a 'hooker'

Han Ye-Ri as Yoon Jin-Myung.... at 28 the oldest of the rooommates, she's that old because she's been working part time to help support her family and pay her tuition.

 The rest of the cast, we did see a bit of these three so once someone gets introduced will be adding to the list as mentioned

Shin Hyun-Soo as Yoon Jong-Yeol.... college student and Eun-Jae's soon to be boyfriend?

Ji Ii-Joo as Go Do-Young.... Ye-Eun's boyfriend

Moon Sok as the owner of Belle Epoque apartment building
Yoon Park as Park Jae-Wan.... works at Yoon's restaurant and may have a crush on her

 That rating listed at the top was the lowest I've ever seen for a drama, 0.473% may be a record and was about a third of what the first episode received but. The ratings did rebound and actually hit 2.5% for episode eleven. JTBC being a cable network means much lower ratings but they had to be impressed with this show as there was a second season.
 Will keep the same format that I used in the first recap. That's giving a brief breakdown of what all five roommates did by themselves and then describe what they did together. Very rarely do that for recaps but for some reason it may work out better for this drama though who knows what format will be used in the final ten posts.

 Will start off with the group but very seldom do we see all five together. This show began off where the previous one ended with the five sitting around their kitchen table drinking beer. It was a 'reveal your secret' session but no one came right out and said what their darkest secret was. To the others that is as a few said it to themselves, Eun-Jae had let us know that she killed someone(!) but don't know if she means that literally.
 She seems to hang around the most with Ye-Eun, they've really the only roommates who talk with each other but Ji-Won has become more of a presence. The main theme of this show dealt with a pair of men's underwear which you can see above. Ye-Eun and Eun-Jae try to discover what gal there may have had a man leave them, Ye-Eun does have a boyfriend but it wasn't his. Of course it wasn't the oldest housemate Jin-Myung as she's always working and never seems to be around men. The same is somewhat true for Ji-Won who can't find a boyfriend to save her live so the girl most suspicious to the pair was Yi-Na, she's featured in the video at the top and she's quite a looker. Wasn't her either but what an important role she plays in this drama, won't keep the suspense(!) building much longer as let's get to the character recaps for this show and number one will confess about the underwear.

 For the second show in a row took so few screenshots of Jin-Myung, she's gotten a fair amount of air time but not compared to everyone else. That's her holding the men's underwear in the middle screenshot, it was her who confessed to hanging them on their landing. But it because of a request their landlady had made, there was a man who had been hanging about on the streets recently looking at the girl's apartment, perhaps if he thought a man also lived there he'd leave. That wasn't the case and more on this mysterious man later on in the recap.
 To date Jin-Myung is the most dour of the five roommates, so far it's hard to take any kind of liking to her. Her depressing way isn't all Jin-Myung's fault as after all she is 28 years old and should have graduated from college many years before. But she's had to work part time jobs to help support her family, the pressure of that and school has really taken a toll on her. Sure Jin-Myung will eventually snap out of it but for now her character hasn't been all that important or as mentioned likable. But could there be a budding relationship in her future? Jin-Myung works as a waitress in a French restaurant, unknown to her there's a chef close to her age named Park who seems to have taken a liking towards her. For now it's going nowhere but have a feeling that'll soon be changing.

 In the first episode the story revolved around the new roommate Eun-Jae, bet she had 80% of the screen time. So thought she'd be the major character in the drama but may have been mistaken about that but then again all five need to have a show or two devoted to them. Eun-Jae did have quite a bit of screen time again but she wasn't an important element to the happenings, most of the time spent was with Ye-Eun and trying to uncover the mystery of the men's underwear. That bottom screenshot is how the first show ended and the second one began but could Eun-Jae really kill someone?
 She's got a dark and seemingly depressing background. Only bits and pieces of it have been revealed through flashbacks she has, it appears she lost her parents at an early age and grew up with an uncle. Things like that are what makes dramas much more interesting waiting to learn the mysteries of a character. And Eun-Jae may be the most likable character or to me she is, she also may have a budding romance in her future. That's with an older classmate named Yoon which to date has gone nowhere, she's petrified of him though seems Yoon's thoughts are the complete opposite.

 Main reason for watching this series was because of Eun-Bin who is my fave Korean actress and has a shot at being #1 on this year's top faves list. In that first show she didn't make an appearance until there were only eight minutes left, episodes last from 61 to 64 minutes. However much more of her character Ji-Won in this show and at first didn't think I'd like Eun-Bin's hairstyle for this show. But after watching this episode will change my thoughts on that as it looks pretty darn good on her, it's also needed to suit her somewhat daffy personality.
 Ji-Won's only dream in life is to have a boyfriend, the chances of that happening are slim to none. She often goes out on group dates which have never worked out mainly due to Ji-Won. She loves to party it up and there's no better pleasure in life for her than drinking alcohol. That could be a bit of a turn off to some guys and never once after a group date has one of the men asked Ji-Won out on a regular date. Around her roommates Ji-Won seems like an everyday gal though still claims she can see ghosts, have a feeling she may develop into my fave character.

 Much of this show was devoted to the senior Yi-Na who is the most attractive and alluring of the five roommates. Also she's quite a chronic liar as isn't the character that will end off the post. None of the roommates are quite sure of Yi-Na's background, does her father own a tableware or hosiery factory or perhaps neither? Every night Yi-Na is out on dates but not the kind where they visit a restaurant but one where she ends up in a hotel room. These 'dates' often shower Yi-Na with presents and cash, one man she sees often is giving her over two million Won a month. None of the roommates are aware of what's going on behind the scenes, Yi-Na is quite an attractive woman of 22 so they presumed she was just such a popular gal men wanted to date.
 That mysterious man hanging outside of the girl's apartment went unnamed but was there in hopes of getting Yi-Na to go out with him. This man had the right intentions as he just liked Yi-Na, he knew of what she was doing and wanted to save her. Yi-Na had rebuffed him one evening on the street while two of her roomies were watching from a window but the following night there he was again. Yi-Na had finally had enough of this man and told him flat out to leave her alone, there ended up being quite a confrontation which ended the episode.
 Yi-Na couldn't understand what this man meant by 'saving her', he's a few years older and does have a college degree but zero was said about how the two had met. Three of the roommates came dashing out of the apartment to quell the commotion which was the worst thing that could have happened to Yi-Na. With the girls present he announced to them what Yi-Na had been doing at nights with her dates, now to her roommates Yi-Na really may be nothing more than an everyday prostitute. Solid ending to the show but still have one more character to go.

 Ye-Eun may end up being the most important character in this drama, Seung-Yeon who plays her won a pair of awards for her performance. As is the case of Yi-Na Ye-Eun is also a chronic liar, perhaps worse as it seems to her every minute of the day she's living a lie. She has a boyfriend who really only wants to be with Ye-Eun because of the sex. They had their one year anniversary during this show, while she got her boyfriend Go a nice shirt all he got was a small box of perfume, she does spend too much time making herself up. But that perfume was a free giveaway from a new store that just opened, Ye-Eun kept her mouth quiet as image is so important to her. Ye-Eun's perception of perfection is having such an impeccable image, having a boyfriend was an important part of that.
 The lying that comes out her mouth to impress everyone just never stops. Ye-Eun had told her roommates her boyfriend Go was bringing her to a seaside tourist mecca for their anniversary, 100% of that tale was a lie. Ye-Eun did go to the seaside resort but by herself for as mentioned her image was everything to Ye-Eun, her boyfriend never even knew she was taking a trip alone. Ye-Eun does realize what she's doing and how the lies are controlling her life to a much too high extent. But she just can't stop herself and at times as a viewer you do feel for her but then again doesn't seem as though Ye-Eun wants to stop that way of life. More did happen to her but this recap may be getting a bit long, however there's plenty of screenshots to fill in the other happenings.

 Screenshots are an important part of my recaps as they do fill in some of the missing events or details, they do go in chronological order. Having mini descriptions of the characters seems to be working out well so far for this drama but don't think the same format will be used for other shows. To date it's been an enjoyable series but it's still way too early to give any kind of ratting or recommendation. Published this on April 1st but actually wrote it up on March 28th, thought having all twelve recaps in a month would make it easier to go back and read the other posts.