Backstreet Rookie Ep 5 Recap (and Daehyun keeps lying)

We start out with Daehyun’s huge uh-oh moment.

Daehyun stammers that of course she’s not interrupting anything and yells at Saetbyul to get off, literally tossing her on the floor again. But Saetbyul gets the urgency of the situation and isn’t too pissed about it.

He tells Yeonjoo that this looks bad of course, but that’s not what she thinks. Yeonjoo sweetly says that she trusts Daehyun and guesses that he was congratulating her. Saetbyul rapidly agrees that they were just joking around. Both look really nervous. I almost feel bad for Yeonjoo. Daehyun tells her to get back to work and makes to leave on a date with Yeonjoo but Yeonjoo invites Saetbyul for dinner. Daehyun’s really worried about this and tries to say that she has work but Dalshik chooses right then to come in and, of course, he gets relegated to taking care of the store. And thus begins episode 5!

Yeonjoo takes them to an expensive hotel, holdings hands with Daehyun while Saetbyul trails behind looking annoyed. The place is familiar to Daehyun and her because they were here for their second anniversary. Even the manager knows them by face. Saetbyul feels very, very out of place. The manager looks down on her and she can’t read the english menu.

But Yeonjoo’s so busy trying to show off that she doesn’t notice that Daehyun can’t read the menu and is looking pretty baffled as well. Saetbyul asks Yeonjoo to order for her because she would know what’s best at this place. Yeonjoo gets pretentious even when it comes to wine names. Daehyun’s equally confused by all the English and Italian being spoken her, and Yeonjoo’s unimpressed by his lack of knowledge.

Dinner is a pettiness contest. Saetbyul promises to work hard at everything she does, not just work. Yeonjoo’s equally petty and gives her a fake non-apology right in front of Daehyun. 

Saetbyul grouses internally that Yeonjoo’s not apologizing to the end. Daehyun happily buys the non-apology. Dinner continues to be petty as hell.

It doesn’t get much better after dinner. Daehyun takes a call from the convenience store’s food supplier (which wants to deliver an unpopular kind kimbap this week instead of fire noodles). Daehyun loudly tries to haggle with the supplier in the middle of the fancy restaurant and Saetbyul, who understands the situation and what it could mean for sales, cheers him. To Yeonjoo, this is ‘lower-class’ behaviour and she gets really pissed.

So pissed that, once Daehyun ends the call, she snaps at him to get back to the store and get things sorted out. She tells him to “make things clear for certain” and it’s clear that she’s not just talking about the food supplier, but I don’t think Daehyun got the message. Daehyun wants to take her home, but Yeonjoo scoffs that he seems to think she can’t get home without him. Right then, Seungjoon shows up and offers her a ride, Yeonjoo happily accepts. Daehyun looks hurt, Saetbyul smiles (yikes, come on! Don’t smile when he’s upset!!!!)

Daehyun and Saetbyul head home via bus instead. Yeonjoo stares forlornly out of the window as Seungjoon drives her home. On the ride home, Daehyun warns Saetbyul to stop doing things that could make Yeonjoo misunderstand them and to leave her alone. He tells there are are lots of lines in their relationship and to stop trying to cross them.

Seungjoon asks Yeonjoo how she’s feeling, and she sighs that relationships don’t go as expected. Seungjoon watches her go sadly.

Back at the store, after solving the supplier crisis, Daehyun leaves and Saetbyul immediately starts to mock Yeonjoo and the long names on wine bottles. She calls Eunbyul, thinking she’s at home, and asks after a package. Eunbyul lies that she’ll ask the front desk at their apartment building. In reality, she’s still hanging out with those iljins, and looks damn proud of herself.

Daehyun lies on his bed looking worried. Yeonjoo hasn’t responded in 2 hours and 10 minutes. He thinks back to the pettiness at dinner and Yeonjoo relying on Seungjoon to get away from him. He hits his head on the wall looked worried. The next day, he shows up to take her to work. He apologizes, saying he finally realized where she was coming from and it took him way too long to do so.

(This is a pretty grand promise and I really hope he can keep it) Yeonjoo’s much happier after and warms up to him again. In the meantime, Saetbyul picks up her mystery package, which turns out to be a pretty sundress to wear to her interview that day. She’s being interviewed as best employee of the month. She makes breakfast for Eunbyul and sweetly reminds her to work hard and graduate. Eunbyul doesn’t care. Saetbyul reminds her that once she enters the real world, she won’t have Saetbyul to make her food all the time but Eunbyul still doesn’t care and steals Saetbyul’s dress. Poor Saetbyul ends up having to wear a shirt and jeans to the interview but looks stunning as ever.

Meanwhile, Daehyun’s mom and sister are about to show us just how dysfunctional a family can be. They’re both shopping for the interview. The sister promises to pay for her own clothes but takes them and tells the cashier her mom will pay. Poor Boonhee ends up unable to afford the $67 shirt she’d picked out because her selfish trash daughter took a super ugly $250 shirt without paying. I hate people like this. 

Even worse, at the store, Daehyun’s dad has found the sweater Daehyun bought for Yeonjoo’s dad and is wearing it to the interview. Boonhee’s even more upset, thinking her son bought his dad a sweater and nothing for her, his mom. She overdoes her family, and Saetbyul’s shocked at the mess that greets her when she arrives but is polite anyway. It’s even sadder when the journalists and give Daehyun’s family a reality check.

Saetbyul honestly answers everything but is forced to use Daehyun’s spiel (which he borrowed from Dalshik) about a convenience store being a lighthouse. The interviewer rolls his eyes at Daehyun’s family’s attempts t get 15 minutes of fame in the background. After the interview, the interviewer wants a picture but Daehyun has to give Saetbyul a piggyback ride. Daehyun refuses, remembering his promise to Yeonjoo but his parents, the interviewer and literally everyone around him keep yelling at him, in the end he has no choice.

Right then, Dalshik showsup and Daehyun’s mom and sister make a DISGUSTING quip that Dalshik should shower. Dalshik says that he just came out of a sauna and both mom and daughter sneer that he sure doesn’t look clean. [Okay, what the fuck? They’re only saying this because he has darker skin than the milky-white bullshit that Korean people prefer. As a person with darker skin who loves Kdramas, this shows me that Korean people think that people of my skin colour are trash. Apparently, according to this bullshit, we don’t shower if we just showered hard enough our brown skin would become white. WHAT IS THIS FUCKING SHIT. This show’s writers should be ashamed of their racism. Not that they care, they just wan to sell kdramas to darker-skinned folks and make money off us while demeaning us. Disgusting. I don’t think highly of Ji Changwook and Kim Yoojung for playing along with this garbage. Eric Nam always stands  up against racism, but these people are a shit tone more famous but just don’t care I guess.]

Anyway, the photo gets taken and the interviewer promises Daehyun that this interview will only be circulated internally, the head office shouldn’t be able to view this.

Daehyun’s so pleased, he promptly lies to Yeonjoo about being so eloquent during the interview and etc etc etc. Saetbyul gets pissed at all his lies but Daehyun doesn’t care. On the other end, Yeonjoo’s happy at Daehyun’s obvious eagerness to make everything up to her. She also scores a sales win and her team plus Seungjoon will have a team dinner that night.

Saetbyul makes fun of the afternoon’s low sales because Daehyun was constantly on the phone with Yeonjoo. Daehyun laughs that she’s just jealous because she has no one to call her.

She pulls up Kang Jiwook and says she knows him personally. Daehyun doesn’t believe her and tells her to bring him to their team dinner tonight if she’s telling the truth. Saetbyul calls Jiwook in front of Daehyun but get hung up on in 0.1 seconds. Daehyun laughs that lying in a burst of temper is a bad habit, getting Saetbyul even more pissed.

Things don’t get better when Geumbi calls Saetbyul to inform her that Eunbyul’s not at school. Saetbyul says she saw Eunbyul head out though and she even stole her dress. She checks her horoscope which tells her she’s about to be disappointed by someone. Uh-oh.

Geumbi finds out that Eunbyul went to an audition. We see her at the audition in Saetbyul’s dress. She passes and is asked to come to the second audition in 2 days. She calls her friend, and hears that Geumbi found out and that Saetbyul’s on the way. Saetbyul pops up right that instant and chases Eunbyul all the way back to school. However, Saetbyul herself can’t pass through the school gates as she’s not a student. Eunbyul tells Saetbyul she’s doing this to give her a better life (somehow, I doubt that).

Saetbyul tells her to get ready for a beating. Eunbyul leaves but Saetbyul thinks back to the aftermath of their father’s funeral. Her aunt (father’s sister) had wept nonstop and vowed to take care of Saetbyul and Eunbyul, only to verbally abuse at them everyday for eating her out of house and home and treat them like garbage. After months of abuse, Saetbyul and Eunbyul packed their things and left.

Tears fills her eyes as she remembers how much she did to put food on the table and pay Eunbyul’s school fees.

Meanwhile, Kang Jiwook’s so excited about seeing Saetbyul again that he tries on outfit after outfit to impress her. Saetbyul cheers right up when he texts her saying he’ll come visit her. Daehyun’s at the store and busy mocking Saetbyul for what he believes to be her lies.

Saetbyul can’t wait for the look on his face lol. And sure enough…

Saetbyul happily rubs it in Daehyun’s face. Daehyun immediately calls Yeonjoo and tells her that Jiwoon’s even going to their team dinner. He invites Yeonjoo but she can’t due to her own team dinner. She thanks Daehyun though, telling him that she landed this client because he came through for her the day her broke down. Daehyun calls Saetbyul and Jiwook out for the dinner, and Dalshik takes over the store.

Dalshik runs into his editor who tells him his webtoon isn’t getting any views to make it more steamy and less romantic. And oh gosh, oh goodness, I don’t even know how to recap this next scene so I’m going to leave this screencap here.

So get this. A Nigerian man enters the store in the most stereotypical clothing you can thing of and ASKS DALSHIK IF HE IS JAMAICAN??? EXCUSE ME IN WHAT UNIVERSE???? Dalshik says he’s an ‘original Korean’. I don’t know how I’m going to type the rest of this scene. Someone save me.

NO YOU’RE NOT!!! You’re a Korean man, using Jamaican culture as costume without any respect for Jamaican culture or tradition. You’re just doing it because you think it’s cool. I’m so disgusted I don’t even know what to do. Compounding this blatant racism is the fact that Dalshik doesn’t NEED TO BE HERE. His character is UNNECESSARY to this story save as a potential loveline (BLEGH) with Geumbi (DOUBLE BLEGH). They could’ve made him just a regular Korean webtoon artist but they had to pull this shit because this show is not funny enough on its own so it needs a brown-skinned person to make fun of for humour. Garbage. I’m not going to pretend that Dalshik doesn’t exist because that’s pretending racism doesn’t exist, but I’m going to call out every second of it. And I hope that doesn’t bother anyone reading these recaps because we should all know by now that racism is wrong.] 

Meanwhile, Daehyun’s team dinner is going very smoothly, kinda. Saetbyul and Daehyun bicker away, making Jiwook feel like he has no chance with Saetbyul until Daehyun mentions his girlfriend being on the planning team for a product Jiwook endorses. Jiwook correctly guesses that Daehyun’s girlfriend is Yeonjoo and looks glad that Daehyun’s taken. Daehyun’s family’s at this team dinner as well and they take picture after picture with their famous guest. Speaking of pictures, right then Daehyun gets a copy of the picture that’s to be published in the article. Only they’ve cropped out the other four people (his dad piggybacking his racist mom, and Dalshik piggybacking Daehyun’s racist sister).

Daehyun gets even worse news that the picture’s going on be on SNS and their website. He yells at the interviewers but they don’t care. And of course, Yeonjoo finds out the hard way. She’s pretty happy at their team until the manager on her team who’s always been out to hurt Yeonjoo happily shows her the picture. Seungjoon looks worried on Yeonjoo’s behalf and Yeonjoo looks incredibly betrayed as the picture spreads around the entire team. A mutual friend on that team calls Daehyun and tells him where they are. Daehyun goes running off and Saetbyul worriedly looks on. Jiwook tries to cheer her up and frankly, I wish she had the sense to fall for him because I support this romance. Daehyun and Yeonjoo’s character arcs could involve her becoming less insecure and self-absorbed and him being more considerate and less of a liar. Saetbyul could finally grow up and Jiwook seems like a super sweet guy. But of course…this is not that kind of show.]

Because right then, Jiwook’s manager shows up and tells him he needs to leave. Daehyun’s racist sister posted a picture of him on social media and his manager’s furious.

Meanwhile Daehyun arrives at the team dinner restaurant but Yeonjoo’s left with Seungjoon. He searches and searches but can’t seem to find her.

Daehyun finally arrives at Yeonjoo’s home right when Yeonjoo arrives with Seungjoon. She’s stone drunk and asks Seungjoon for a favour. Daehyun hears her ask Seungjoon for a piggyback ride. He obliges and Daehyun watches on looks upset. Yeongjoo says she’s never ever had one.

She cutely hugs him and says he’s the first one who gave her a piggyback ride. Right as she turns to go home, Seungjoon grabs her hand. Her mother comes out to get her then and all of them head inside. Daehyun looks upset. Once inside, Yeonjoo cries that Daehyun keeps giving ‘that woman’ piggyback rides.

Back at the store, Saetbyul’s cleaning up the patio when the red-haired iljin leader that heads Eunbyul’s gang, sees Saetbyul’s picture in the article, sneaks up behind her and whacks her on the head. Saetbyul passes out immediately and that’s where we end.

Thoughts:

Yeonjoo’s right in this case. The issue isn’t that Daehyun gave Saetbyul a piggyback ride. The issue is that he lied to her and wasn’t honest about the fact that he did so. He called her right after the interview. How hard is it to say ‘hey, just so you know I was forced into doing this’. He just wants to appear better than he is, but he never lives up to the fake image he builds up, which naturally disappoints Yeonjoo.

Yeonjoo has many flaws (insecurity, snobbishness and being self-absorbed) but she’s more honest with Daehyun than he is with her. She came clear about Seungjoon and her father’s birthday from the start. Daehyun, on the other hand, is insecure which is why he tries so hard to pretend to be as educated and competent as Yeonjoo, but he just isn’t and Yeonjoo always finds out the hard way. What girl wouldn’t find it disappointing when your boyfriend keeps making these fantastical promises and never keeps them or is honest to her?