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 4.44% which was about 1.29 million viewers , 120,000 less than episode five.
Subs were done by Sallyuchi.
Main Cast: Wrote this up after viewing the first episode so will be tweaking the bios and possibly adding in a few characters. For this recap added in Alex and Sa-Ha
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 the successful Morning Nature 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 him and his two partners have now enrolled in the SANDBOX startup prgram.
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, actually the two SAMSAN partners roles are really increasing with each episode.
Eom Hyo-Seop as Won Doo-Jong.... In-Dae's stepfather who is quite wealthy. He gave her the funds to begin her own company and still owns 72% of the stock. However think he let her run the company so it would become successful, then his son would take over.
Moon Dong-Hyeoko as Won Sang-Su.... In-Dae's inept stepbrother, he's been her secretary at Nature Morning and his father is about to install him as CEO for the Korean branch.
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.
Stephanie Lee as Jung Sa-Ha.... Was recruited by Dal-Mi to join the SAMSAN Tech team in episode five and what a snobby woman but Chul-San think's she's 'perfect'.
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.
Cho Tae-Kwan as Alex Kown.... Had been living in America but has moved to Korea to be the CEO for the '2STO' tech company's Korean branch. He's also become a mentor at SANDBOX, he wanted to be teamed with Do-San but it didn't pan out.
Seo Yi-Sook as Yoon Sun-Hak.... Director of SANDBOX and she briefly knew Dal-Mi's father as the company she ran fourteen years ago was going to invest in his startup.
SANDBOX is an organization that will be a very important part of the story. It helps up and coming startup teams and individuals realize their dreams. They have their own set of buildings where those accepted can have rent free offices, get tutoring on many business subeects and meet very many influential people plus much other help.
Recaps for the prior episodes
That took place outside of the SANDBOX hall while the competition was taking place. Choi, the grandmother, filled Ji-Pyeong in about some of Dal-Mi's life with the main detail being she never went to college. She had all plans to attend and worked hard to save up money for tuition but instead of going to school Dal-Mi used that cash to purchase Choi's corn dog truck so it's hurt Dal-Mi as far as her work goes as she's always unqualified for positions though she's extremely bright. Ji-Pyeong was kind of furious hearing that and told Choi she should have contacted as Ji-Pyeong would have helped out in a heartbeat. Think hearing about Dal-Mi's life has endeared him even more to her but it seems these days her eyes are set on Do-San though I wouldn't count Ji-Pyeong out quite yet.
As mentioned the goal of Alex was to meet Do-San and work with his team, he feels Do-San is so intelligent and just needs the correct guidance. However at individual meetings the CEO's could choose their own mentor, to Alex's amazement Dal-Mi chose Ji-Pyeong to work with them. He too was shocked with Dal-Mi's selection and said didn't she know who Alex was? Yes she replied but Ji-Pyeong is someone who has helped out her team so much though Dal-Mi doesn't know the true reasons yet. We're getting close to the mid point of the series and she has no clue yet that Ji-Pyeong was the letter writer fifteen years ago but she does feel he has some connection to her past but can't get him alone long enough to find out what. Ji-Pyeong's assistant at SH Venture is Park who filled in for him as a mentor at the Hackathon, he's ben hired by the SANDBOX CEO Yoon to be a special vice-president for the program. Didn't know it until this show but Yoon is also the main CEO at SH Venture.
The SANDBOX program and organization is quite an impressive one that may be impossible to top. All of their 'students/teams' are assigned a huge office with top of the line tech equipment and free access to anything in their large computer network. Also provided are free snacks and other perks plus if teams hit their goals they'll be rewarded monetary bonuses so everything is set up for them to be successful at their future dreams. But the atmosphere is also very intense as one team imploded with their members almost having a melee, seems they may no longer be around. Soon the intensity will hit Dal-Mi's team which will be coming up. In the next office is her sister In-Jae and don't know yet what kind of product her team will be developing but their progress is going well and the person In-Jae asked to mentor them was Yoon who readily agreed and In-Jae is still such a sly devil.
Think I'll discuss all of what took place with In-Jae and her team, still can't get over how incredibly attractive Han-Na is. In that bottom screenshot she's having a mini chat with her sister Dal-Mi, seems all of their talks are brief and In-Jae wants to make sure she buries her sister. After her team's handwriting program at the Hackathon competition put Do-San's to shame he worked all night to turn the tables. He was successful at bettering In-Jae's team program and Dal-Mi wanted to show her sister how she now has the upper hand but never had the chance.... yet. Back in the first episode there was a flashback scene with a very young Dal-Mi and her father. She kept falling off a swing and skinning her knees, her father then brought in sand to make any fall much more safer which worked. On the day of the father's death he had met up with Yoon whose company at the time was willing to invest in his new app which was to be for ordering food online, fourteen years ago it was a bit unique. But on his way to the meeting Dal-Mi's(and In-Jae's) father had been hit by a car while crossing a street, he was able to walk away but the internal injuries were quite severe as he died about five hours later on a bus.
The father had told Yoon the story of putting sand below the swing, he thought it may have been a bit lame but Yoon was quietly impressed and that gave her the inspiration to name her startup program SANDBOX. While she was at the SANBOX hall for an orientation In-Jae overheard Yoon telling that story and did such a devious trick. On her application she mentioned the story of what her father did though of course the girl in it was Dal-Mi. That jogged Yoon's memory and after so many years she was able to meet the girl behind the SANDBOX name. In-Jae brought that up during her interview to select a CEO which of course as mentioned was Yoon. In that meeting was Ji-Pyeong and from the letter writing knows the truth behind the story yet has kept his mouth shut about the lies In-Jae told. Obviously this is going to be something that is going to become a major point in the story at some time and the true 'heroine' Dal-Mi is clueless about everything that's taking place. One final In-Jae note is that she did bump into her stepfather Won on an elevator where he said wasn't she going to thank him for what he did at the Hackathon? The answer to that was a huge NO as Won had actually tried to bring her team down thinking that Do-San's program was better than her team's and even it wasn't Won could take credit for giving In-Jae the chance to prove hers was better. The stepfather is also a mentor and was in the meeting with In-Jae but she completely ignored him.
Will devote the remaining recap to Dal-Mi and the lads from SAMSAN Tech. Of course their new teammate is Sa-Ha whose role hasn't been huge yet but would think it will be soon, she's such a snobby woman and is proving so difficult to work with. After working in a shabby attic office for two years the trio were in seventh heaven with this top of the line equipment and all of the other perks that were provided free. So much that none of them really got much work accomplished, first on the agenda which hasn't been quite completed yet is to come up with a business plan but they'll need a product. It'll still be an AI creation but the question is to start a new project now that they have all of this superb equipment or continue on with their old AI idea? Time isn't quite of the essence yet but will be soon as the mentor's position is to guide all of the teams and of course Ji-Pyeong will be their leader though a reluctant one. His first meeting with them was to discuss the shares each would own in the company, usually the CEO will have the majority as it impresses investors much more.
Do-San. He stormed out of their office saying he quit and to change the company name.
So does that mean two of the five new teams will have imploded in the first week due to the intensity and above all the money? In that bottom screenshot above is Chul-San on the right, with him is the other partner Yong-San who is his best friend. He can't decide what to do either but before meeting up with Chul-San he did some reflecting on things and when Yong-San looked at the whole picture he had to agree that Dal-Mi was the best fit for their CEO and didn't mind her having the most shares. The pair had met up on the rooftop where their old office was and reminisced about the old days. As Yong-San pointed out this SANDBOX program is what they've been striving for and does Chul-San want to throw all of his hard work away? That talk hit home and the next day Chul-San did apologize to his team and is all gung ho to get things rolling, unknown to the pair in their old office at the time was Do-San who overheard everything and realized this could be the first of many struggles.
Dal-Mi was so impressive pitching their handwriting project and if it wasn't for her the team may not have entered the SANDBOX program. But she hasn't been forceful enough and was told that sternly by Ji-Pyeong who arranged another meeting. At this one Dal-Mi took charge and told everyone she's the boss and what she says goes! Her four teammates were actually impressed with her new style and she's decided that it'll actually be Do-San who will be the person with the most shares, for now 67%. So that settles things with Dal-Mi's team and think we should be getting into real action in the next episode as far as creating a new product goes. At the end there were two short scenes, one was of Dal-Mi bringing the real Do-San to her house to meet her grandmother. The two share the secret of Ji-Pyeong's letters and wonder when the cat will be let out of the bag? In the final scene the SANDBOX CEO Yoon was walking across a bridge and it was actually a flashback. It was during the Winter and she noticed a man about to jump into the Han river but when she arrived at his location the man was gone. Have a feeling this young man may have been an ex-student and one who had failed so he ended his life?
The paragraphs may have been a sentence or two longer but was able to cut the segments from four to three which should make for an easier read which you may know if you've gotten this far. Did omit one scene which was of Chul-San having a bottle of milk explode in his face as it wasn't important and almost seemed like it was a bit of filler. That middle part did drag a tad as the scenes were longer than they needed to be but overall still another fine show. As mentioned in the beginning was once again late with these pair of recaps, hopefully in the future they'll be done before a Thursday.
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