Bittersweet Hell – K-drama Episode 5 Recap & Review

Episode 5

Episode 5 of Bittersweet Hell begins with Jae-jin and Young-won’s anniversary, where they spend quality time together, but always under the watchful eye of Sa-gang.

The scene shifts to Young-won and her team finding Jae-jin’s submerged car. Fortunately, or unfortunately, they do not find a corpse with it. The police question the two women and inform them that Jae-jin’s car was seen entering the port.

While investigating Jae-jin and Se-na’s tracks, they find the room where the two were living, having paid a month’s rent in advance. Inside the room, they discover a suicide note from Jae-jin, apologizing for his drastic decision.

While the police now believe that Jae-jin committed suicide, Sa-gang asserts that she feels her son is still alive. Yeong-min also arrives at the police station, hysterical over the news of Jae-jin’s suicide. The police and the family review Jae-jin’s movements on CCTV but to no avail.

Sa-gang decides to stay the night to search for her son, while Young-won returns to her own son, feeling betrayed and disillusioned by her so-called “family.” When she calls home, Mun Tae-o picks up, and he seems up to no good.

The next day, she drops Do-hyun at school, briefly noticing his crush, who smiles at him. Yeong-won remembers the number 6 written beside Do-hyun’s picture in their family photograph. She then visits Dr. Oh to learn more about Jae-jin. Dr. Oh tells her that she knows nothing about Jae-jin but mentions that she followed him to the vacation home that night. There, she was struck in the head by Lee Se-na, who whispered that they would all die.

Elsewhere, Sa-gang hypothesizes that since Jae-jin never left the port, he might have travelled beyond it. Sa-gang and Kang-sung begin their investigation and eventually come across a ferryman who claims to have taken Jae-jin and Se-na across. She pays him, and they decide to track the couple’s trail.

Meanwhile, Young-won begins her search to know more about her husband. She looks through surgery files and CCTV footage. Discovering that all the data has been deleted, she restores the CCTV footage to find that Jae-jin never conducted his surgeries. He just stood or sat aside with headphones on. In the meantime, she receives a picture of Jae-jin’s watch that she gifted him on their anniversary and breaks down.

The next morning, through a bank call, she finds that someone terminated their funds at a different branch. At the same time, news breaks about Young-won’s strained family life and her connections to the suicide case of a certain Mr. Choi.

Later, in her office, Young-won reasons that Jae-jin looked too cheerful to die in the CCTV footage. He seemed to be making a show. She wonders if they fled with the money. This is when she receives a video of Jae-jin pushing his rented car off the shore at the port, saying, “Se-na, I think I can become really happy now.” It’s clear that Jae-jin’s death was a setup.

Since the news of Young-won’s involvement in a suicide case has broken, journalists flood her office and her home. She also comes across a viral video of Sa-gang refuting the rumours about her son’s death while on her way home. It’s revealed that Sa-gang and Kang-sung found Se-na and Jae-jin on the CCTV footage when they landed on the other side of their ferry ride.

Sa-gang meets with Young-won, who declares that Jae-jin is akin to a dead person in her life, meaning she won’t involve herself with his case anymore.

Elsewhere, at a hotel, Se-na watches Sa-gang’s viral video, irritated, while Jae-jin swims. She calls him and instead of helping him up, dunks him into the water and tries to drown him.

The Episode Review

Bittersweet Hell has a famously predictable plot but remains mysterious like a whodunnit, which is its charm. Apart from the actual events in the plot, it’s more interesting to learn about Se-na and her reasons for vengeance against the Choi family.

Now that Jae-jin’s truth is out, it’s only a matter of time before Se-na changes her plan. What does she have in store for them? Why is she doing this? Is someone helping her? We don’t know yet, but stay tuned to find out!