Korean drama "Start-Up": Episode two recap

 

 Air Dates: October 17th until December 6th on tvN... Saturday and Sunday nights at 9:00 pm

tvN is a cable network so the ratings for it will be a bit lower, for this show it was 4.28% which was about 1.15 million viewers or 50,000 less than episode one

Main Cast: Wrote this up after viewing the first episode so will be tweaking the bios and possibly adding in a few characters

Bae Suzy as Seo Dal-Mi.... 27 year old(?) woman who soon will have dreams of beginning her own startup company but in what is currently unknown. She's lived with her grandmother for the past fourteen years since her father died and has helped her out at her two food cafes. She's the younger sister of the next character who had gone fourteen years without seeing each other until episode one.

Kang Ha-Na as Won In-Jae.... The reason for their different last names is that In-Jae lived with her mother after she got divorced from the father. The mother remarried a wealthy man, she's been living off and on in America for fourteen years. In-Jae is the CEO of a successful company which she began with money from her stepfather.

Nam Joo-Hyuk as Nam Do-San.... Main leader of SAMSAN Tech which is struggling so bad it may never officially sell a product. That could change as at the end of episode two he went over a massive transformation and could be hooked up to Dal-Mi soon.

Kim Sun-Ho as Han Ji-Pyeong.... Grew up in an orphanage but at sixteen was kicked out for being too old(?), he then lived with Dal-Mi's grandmother until attending college in Seoul. When he lived with the grandmother be pretended to be Do-San as he wrote Dal-Mi letters to comfort her after the divorce. He's now a team leader at SH Venture Capital.

Kim Hae-Sook as Choi Won-Deok... The grandmother of the top two characters but hasn't seen In-Jae in fifteen years. She's raised Dal-Mi since she was thirteen and they still live together, Choi used to run a cafe but now owns a small corn dog truck. She was also responsible for Ji-Pyeong being successful as she let him stay with her when he left the orphanage.

The characters who aren't major ones but are important

Kim Do-Wan as Kim Yong-San.... A partner of Do-San's at SAMSAN Tech.

Yoo Su-Bin as Lee Chul-San.... Another partner at SAMSAN Tech.

Kim Won-Hae as Nam Seong-Hwan.... Do-San's father who invested much $$ into his son's venture but is coming close to withdrawing.

Kim Hee-Jung as Park Geum-Jung.... Do-San's mother.

Song Seon-Mi as Cha A-Hyun.... Mother of Dal-Mi and In-Jae.

Kim Min-Seok as Park Dong-Chun.... Ji-Pyeong's underling at SH Venture.

There's a few others who will definitely be added in but will wait until they're introduced, did add in everyone after Choi for this recap.

 These first two episodes totaled 164 minutes so we're looking at 1300+ plus for the drama. That's almost the length of three Japanese series and about 340 more minutes than a regular Korean drama. But the quality and pacing of these first two episodes was so superb, if it can keep up can live with these 80+ minute shows. In that first recap about 70% of the action took place in the years 2005-06, for now on it should remain in 2020 and it's the end of April, start of May for this episode. We see plenty of Suzy and she just looks so incredible but hasn't she always? This show begins off where the previous one ended with Ji-Pyeong meeting Dal-Mi's grandmother after not seeing her for fourteen years, he's been quite successful unlike her granddaughter.

 Hope you read the above post as I won't be talking too often about what's taken place. As mentioned we ended off the previous episode with Ji-Pyeong meeting up with Dal-Mi's grandmother Choi after not seeing her for fourteen years. She runs a corn dog truck stand along the ocean and it was a chance meeting as he had been following Dal-Mi after hearing her name, Ji-Pyeong had heard so often in the past but why? Choi jogged his memory as it was him who wrote letters to Dal-Mi starting in 2005 and continuing for a year in order to help her though the difficult time of her parents divorce. That flooded Ji-Pyeong's brain with memories and in those letters he had used the name of Nam Do-San, a name you'll be hearing quite a bit of. The reunion went well between Ji-Pyeong and Choi, he was truly glad to have seen her again after all those years and without her help Ji-Pyeong wouldn't be where he is today.

 Where he is today is a main director for SH Venture Capital which helps people start up a company and sometimes invests in them. Choi said she didn't need any help but Ji-Pyeong left his card in case a situation ever arose, it was kind of funny how Choi fled to him the following day. That's because she desperately needs Ji-Pyeong's help to locate the real Do-San and it needs to be done in a matter of days. Dal-Mi is looking for her long lost 'secret admirer' as she's told her sister In-Ja she'd be bringing her business partner, Do-San, to an exclusive event that Friday. It was a pair of lies as she's not starting up a company nor has she ever met Do-San. Though those letters from 14-15 years ago helped Dal-Mi through her parents divorce they've also dragged her personal life way down.

 Dal-Mi is 27 and has never had a full time boyfriend and rarely goes out on dates. When she does she always compares her date to the words the fake Do-San wrote in the letters and to Dal-Mi no man can compare to him. So the race is on to find the real Do-San before the event happens with the main reason Choi and Ji-Pyeong needing to find Do-San first is to fill him on on the scheme they did. Also to perhaps persuade Do-San to attend that event with Dal-Mi, it'll be a long shot to find this Do-San after so many years. That feat was accomplished fairly easily and the person who should have gotten the credit was Park who is Ji-Pyeong's assistant at SH Venture. We only see him on occasion but he is very good at his job which comprises so many different tasks, he's discovered that this Do-San person has submitted plans from his company many times and has always been rejected. 

 There was no time to waste in meeting Do-San so Ji-Pyeong rushed right over to the address that night and got caught in a 'family feud'. Do-San was a math wunderkind back in 2005 and had such a rosy future but things all flopped for him. He never did attend college nor has he had a full time job, with his two mates they've started up the SAMSAN Tech company and as Ji-Pyeong says above it's based on their SAN names. Do-San's father was the main investor and after two years is getting antsy about the lack of progress and is thinking about withdrawing his sponsorship. Do-San and his two cronies are working on an AI program that identifies things such as a table, pieces of fruit and whatever but aren't there already devices that can do that?

 So a huge melee broke out though it was more of an hilarious scene as it spilled out to the street where Ji-Pyeong has been waiting. Not for long as he thought it'd be better to visit the next day and quickly fled the family fight but Ji-Pyeong needs to get moving for as you can see above Dal-Mi may have located Do-San too. What may make her search easier is that Dal-Mi is now an unemployed person or at least we got that impression. She had been working as a temp clerical aide at Lucca which has a line of coffee shops. Seems Dal-Mi had also worked in those shops at one time as on her way to work one day she pitched in to help at a nearby shop. They had been swamped by a crowd as their was a concert going on across the street, with Dal-Mi's help that shop set a new company record with 10 million Won in sales, her reward was a measly 30,000 Won gift card.

 Two days later she had ben called into the HR director's office, with her sparking work and what she did at the coffee shop Dal-Mi figured she would be getting a promotion to a regular employee. To her amazement the HR man told her he wanted Dal-Mi to resign! He explained how it would be easier for her to quit and come back to work in another month as it would increase her chances on becoming a full time employee. That 'logic' left Dal-Mi and us bewildered, she just nodded her head during the talk and we never saw Dal-Mi back at the office so presume she did leave. So now Dal-Mi has some free time to find Do-San and convince him to attend her sister In-Jae's event that Friday, she was able to locate him rather quickly and a meeting had been set up that day, their first one ever.

 We didn't see too much of In-Jae in this episode though her character is a very important one. The main scene involving her was meeting the sister's mother, though In-Jae had lived with mom after the divorce the pair hadn't seen each other for many years and had the impression they wished it stayed that way,

In-Jae did invite her mother to her company's event being held that Friday and told her Dal-Mi would be there, the mother just rolled her eyes at that. Back to Dal-Mi and her quest to find Do-San went much quicker than she expected. The reason was because Do-San had put many of his 'prized objects' on sale after his father ceased being an investor in his SAMSAN Tech company. This way their startup could continue for a while but what happens after that?

 Dal-Mi pretended she wanted to purchase an autographed baseball and a meeting was set up for later in the day. Do-San and his mates were a little confused over Dal-Mi's message as she wrote that they knew each other which of course they didn't. Dal-Mi was waiting in a plaza and was noticed by Do-San, their meeting was about to take place in twenty seconds when out of nowhere popped the figure of....

Ji-Pyeong! Dal-Mi's grandmother had clued him in on the meeting and there's no way they could let that happen, Ji-Pyeong intercepted Do-San just before he met Dal-Mi and whisked him away in his car. They went back to Do-San's shabby office where the entire situation was explained. Ji-Pyeong had saved all of Dal-Mi's return letters which were read by Do-San and his two partners, now could he understand why the pair shouldn't meet.... or at least not yet.

 Not yet meaning that Ji-Pyeong would like Do-San to escort Dal-Mi to her sister's event that Friday for an hour, then he would never have to see her again. Ji-Pyeong had also offered to give Do-San a sum of two million Won($1,750) for his troubles and his company sure needed the money. Ji-Pyeong knew that and figured there was no chance of Do-San refusing the offer. But he did and had a different request if he was to pretend being Dal-Mi's partner at the event. Him and his partners would rather be accepted at the SANDBOX company to work on their designs, Ji-Pyeong should have connections to get them in. SANDBOX is a 'high tech' community where they help struggling young startup people or companies with their dreams, it's a rather large set of buildings and being there would help them much more than two million Won. To that Ji-Pyeong had to say no, he said he didn't have any connections which was probably a lie. He had some harsh words for the trio and said they would always be failures which did hit home, Ji-Pyeong left in a fury but it also means Dal-Mi won't have Do-San with her on Friday.

 The fateful day of Friday has arrived and there will be no date to impress In-Jae at her company's function. After reading those letters over and over Do-San got in contact with Dal-Mi and said the ball had been sold and they couldn't meet up. That was the final straw for Dal-Mi who would have to attend the presentation by herself and would probably have to listen to her sister's barbs about that, also meant Dal-Mi may have to come clean about her lies. So off to the event went Dal-Mi who did look sparkling in her new outfit her grandmother purchased. But perhaps remaining alone at the event won't be happening as after reading those old 'love letters' over several times Do-San had a change of heart.

 He jumped into high gear and within an hour or two had visited a salon, borrowed a suit from one of his office mates and became such a different looking man, a dashing one at that. After reading those letters Do-San figured he knew what kind of person Dal-Mi was plus all about her past life, he should easily pass as the writer of those letters. So off to the event went Do-San who still had the VIP invitation from Ji-Pyeong who also was at the startup presentation. There he noticed Dal-Mi by herself and you can see his reaction to that above. What he had been viewing was Dal-Mi hiding from her mother who was there with In-Jae, neither had an interest in seeing each other.

 Just when it appeared In-Jae would make her way to the lone figure of Dal-Mi a grand entrance was made by a new arrival. That person  entering the hall was none other than the new and improved version of Do-San who made his way over to Dal-Mi. It was their first ever encounter and the only words said at the time was Dal-Mi uttering 'I missed you'. As the two stood there gaping at each other this 81+ minute episode finally cane to it's conclusion and sure the next show will be picking up right at this scene.

 My first priority at the moment is finishing up the final four recaps for "Do You Like Brahms", the show has it's final two shows tomorrow. So will put all other all other viewing and recaps aside to concentrate on that drama and with any luck should have everything completed by Sunday. Then will get back to this series so the next pair of updates may not be until the middle of next week, these episodes air on Saturday and Sunday nights. So far will give this drama a rating of an A as these have been two terrific shows, am a bit amazed at how theere hasn't been one second that dragged which is hard to do for an 80+ minute show.