Live (Korean Drama) Live Recap: Episode 5

I agree with the comments from episode 5, Sang-soon basically had the worst day ever where no matter what he did, it just didn’t work out right. Call me crazy, but I don’t think following your supervisor/mentor to his home and beating him up is the answer though. Hopefully Yang-chon isn’t too hard on him and gives him some good advice. (Also, I am still holding out hope that a supernatural element shows up.)

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Shorthand: Character Chart
Han Jung-oh – JO | Yeom Sang-su – SS | Oh Yang-chon – YC | Ahn Jang-mi – JM | Ki Han-sol – HS | Eun Kyung-mo KM | Lee Sam-bo – SB | Kim Nam-il – NI

How To Watch (Later): Netflix
Airing Time: March 24th, 21:00 Seoul
Countdown: AIRING!

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LIVE RECAP FOR TVN’s DRAMA, LIVE: EPISODE 5
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#1
OPENING
YC opens the door to him home and SS is waiting outside for him. Is he crazy? SS is angry and wants to know how YC can say 2 things from his mouth. Life is more importance than evidence! YC blows him off, is he challenging me? Crazy guy. He turns to leave and SS pins him against the fence. He says he can fight him because he will get fired anyway.

YC starts laughing and asks SS what he is going to do now? Then he hits him all upside his head a few times and SS moves away and covers. YC tells him that he needs a plan, he didn’t even know what he was going to do next. You are like some long fish, I should just fry you and eat you.

Grandfather comes back and YC yells at him, why are you here so late? Answer me when I tell you something. But halabogi just walks inside and ignores his son. SS is still standing there so YC comes back up to him. His evaluation is the lowest, that is why he is standing here right? YC starts listing all the reasons SS’s evaluation is low. SS was in the middle until he caught the congressman. But he said sorry. He doesn’t know why he is wrong, he just says sorry. That is why I gave you a low score.

YC leaves and SS says that he is just saying whatever he wanted to say. Why didn’t he just say that evidence is more important than people dying. SS walks away.

Cut to the inside of the house. YC and his father get into a little argument. But then SS comes inside. He asks if he can sleep there tonight? There is no bus and it is too cold to walk back. Just for one night please? YC thinks he is crazy, but SS just walks his self right in and asks Halabogi if he can stay there. He kneels in front of Halabogi and YC goes to the kitchen. He has never seen a crazy guy like that before.

POLICE STATION
JO and HR have to clean the restroon yet again because of all the drunk people. HR complains about it, they work all day and still have to clean the bathroom. Then she tells JO that she takes all the big cases. HR wants to be on the violence team and is angry that she doesn’t do any of that. JO throws her broom on the floor and throws all the gift cards in HR’s face. Then she leaves.

But she comes back and says that someone died, not just died, but stabbed all over and there was blood everywhere. Do you want to see that? Are you envious that I saw that? HR has a flashback of a memory of her father being stabbed. JO tells her that she never saw someone bleeding that much. She heard about it, she heard it happens, but she thought they were bluffing and that she would never see it with her own eyes. For you, those cruel murder caes are only for points, if you talk one more time about points or promotion or murder cases, then i will show you what kind of person I am.

JO leaves and goes to the rooftop. She stands among the snow.

TITLE: THE SNOW FALLING ON YOUR SHOULDERS
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#2
HR comes to the rooftop, apprehensive and apologetic looking. She yell, JO, let’s go home! And leaves. At the same time, MH comes to the rooftop to smoke.

HALABOGI’S HOUSE
the three men sleep together, but SS is still awake. He doesn’t fit fully under the blankets and is about to turn off the TV. But YC tells him not to otherwise his father will wake up. There are a lot of awards around the room and SS and YC start talking.

SS still wants to know what he did wrong. YC tells him that in an emergeny case, 2 people team is the law, but he just sent him to do whatever. It is his fault, if you called me or I ordered you, you could save the people and I can save the evidence. We would both win. There are no stupid trainies, always stupid mentors, so todays case is all my fault. But you and me on one team, do you think it will work out? I am under a lot of trouble and I don’t know what to do.

SS agrees and then he starts laughing. SS says he heard that YC is married, where is his family and why does he live with his father? SS turns around to look at YC but YC is glaring right at him which scares SS, lol.

In the morning, SS helps YC prepare all the food. YC prepares and SS sets the table. The two men wait for halabogi to eat and then they start eating. YC tells halabogi not to go to the hospital today since his leg hurts and he has IcyHot everywhere. A 6 hour walk everyday. If he goes to the hospital, then take a taxi or a bus, okay? YC turns off the TV and yells at his father to not go to the hospital today, if he gets sickt hen it is his problem and JM’s problem. You weren’t good to my mother and i became a policeman to catch men that hit women like you! It doesn’t matter if you buy fish or not. If you didnt’ buy this land then mom wouldnt have died.

Halabogi gets up, why do you talk so much in front of our meal? halbae flips the table and leaves. SS just sits and doesn’t say anything.

PART-TIME JOB
JO works at the cafe with her mother. She makes some smoothies to help out. But then her mother comes in and tells JO that she can quit her police job, it isn’t so hard, everyone can do it. JO leaves, but then she comes back and says, if he quits, who will take care of their loan. I saw a dead body, do you know how difficult that is to see a dead body? JO leaves again and the mother grumbles that her daughter is always angry, she shouldn’t come by if she will be that angry.

POLICE STATION
SS tells YC that he is too mean to his appa. YC is annoyed and asks him about his appa. SS tells YC that he doesn’t have a father, he died. They caught the man, but he was a policeman. YC wonders, did you become a policeman to get your revenge on the police?

COMMERCIAL BREAK
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#3
EXCERCISE ROOM
Several of the male cops are working out. HR is the only woman. But her mentor is there breathing hard as he works out and leaves. HR has to leave with him and is so annoyed that her mentor is this old man.

YC starts talking to KM, why did he accept Sam-bo to this station? SB comes back in and YC says he just worried about him. SB tells him to worry about his own business, not his. SB isn’t happy because he is recently divorced and almost retired.

Afterwards, the policemen go over some taser handling. HR asks JO if she is mad at her but the other one said she is too busy to be mad at her. They others keep talking. You shouldn’t’ use a taser on pregnant women or someone who is younger than 14.

They adjorn the meeting and the street walking halmoni comes in. HS greets her and says that he was worred about her since she hadn’t come in in a while. SB comes to talk to the halmoni too, but she doesn’t recognize him and gets a bit upset and says no one died. KM comes over and talks about the halmoni case. Several years ago, a step daughter assaulted a step daughter and the daughter killed herself. But why doesn’t the woman recognize him?

Cut to a police case. JM is at a game cafe talking toa sittle kid with skin problems. the kids is happy and eating some food. The mother passed out while there were there. SS shows up and JM says to watch the boy. The boy tries to give SS a snack but he says he can eat it.

JM goes into the hall and meets with YC, they talk about the case. the woman lived there for 10 months, she has depression, but she didn’t take her drugs. She is poor and the child has skin trouble, the mother didn’t hit him. SS comes out with the little boy and tells themthat he wants to go to the bathroom. JM continues, the problem is that the boy doesn’t have treatment for his skin, the mother is raising a cyber child and ignoring her own child. So they should send the kid to child services, she already contacted them.

YC asks her how long they are going to do this, it makes him mad. YC isn’t sure of the situation and it makes him mad. JM tells him that they should make it clear and separate. Child services shows up so SS carries the kid out to their car. He says he heard everything about them picking the kid up. But YC yells, you heard everything about our divorce?!?

SS and YC clean the womans house and grab some things. SS grumbles that Korea is only good for adults, kids should live with parents, but he doens’t even eat properly. YC wonders why he is so angry, that woman isn’t qualified as a parent.
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#4
Meanwhile JO is out with her mentor. they are on a case but then it ends so NL wants to take a little break. A police car drives by so her mentor says that those guys will take care of it, we don’t have to work so hard.

Cut to HR on a simple case. The taxi driver says this kid isn’t getting out of the car. HR goes to the back and tells him that she will pull him out in 5 seconds if he doesn’t get out. She starts counting, but then SB comes up and tells her to stop counting. then he talks to the kid on the car and gently gets him out of the car with another officer. The young man peed in his pants and was embarrassed to get out of the car. HR notices that his shoes are on the wrong feet.

Then HR gets in trouble for being to stern with this young man, she should recognize the situation. HR goes back to the station and gets a video call from her father. She shows her dad her friends, SS and JO, but they don’t great him. Then she says goodbye to her father and salutes him. HR sits at the table and tells JO that she should have greated her father. But JO says she isn’t in the mood to great him, she didn’t sleep and her mentor just stayed on the street.

HR tells her that she is sorry about that stuff from earlier. She saw a bloody scene before because her father is disabled, his hand was chopped off when she was little. She apologizes to JO again. Then MH comes in again so JO talks to him about how she isn’t a good cop. MH tells her that he is afraid of violent crimes, everyone is afraid of those things. MH asks the team leader if he is and he says….noooooo. One of the other ones tells her that she can quit if she wants.

But JO thinks that what he said is right, if police are afraid of a case then civilians are as well. HS tells her that it is okay to be afraid, but for civilians, if they are scared then they avoid it. But for police, they have to look at it. JO tells him that, for now, she wants to look at it.
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#5
SS washes up at home and his mom tells him to eat his breakfast. He says if she doesn’t eat then he won’t eat. He tells her that she should eat too, she worked over night so she should eat. It looks like mother and son are both working the night shift. SS remembers making ramen when he was a little kid. He ate a lot of snack food and make the ramen for his mother. His brother comes in and sees their mother all drunk. Brother brought some bread and gives it to SS.

But then the mother wakes up and starts hitting the older brother because he took money from a gangster. But the older son just yells at her. She only drinks and doesn’t do anything. He would rather go to an orphanage! He runs out and little SS runs agter him. the mother mutters that she is also having a hard time.

But in the present, it looks like SS and his mother have a good relationship as they eat at the table together. then he gets a call from his brother and says that it is great talking to him. SS is so happy to talk to his brother. they start to talk about things they did when they were little. He asks what happened to the boy from the PC room. SS says he doesn’t know, but he thinks about him. At least SS had his older brother when he was little, but that kid has no one.

JM AND YC’S HOUSE
JM pushes a folder across the table to YC. It is a divorce document. YC rips it up. JM tells him that he will have to take it next time. But YC says he doens’t want to get divorced, she will have to sue him. He gets up and goes to the fridge, he tells her that even judges won’t understand this case. What did i do that was so wrong? I didn’t hit you or have an affair or steal money. JM says it is because he just does his duty, that makes her miserable. YC says he loves her. But JM says she doesn’t love him and she isn’t happy.

YC leaves to the room, but comes back. He sits at the table again. JM says, in her life, at least once, she needed him a lot. But actually, she can do everything without him. Kids being born, taking care of the kids, taking care of her parents, their funeral. She could do everything without him. It would have been better if he was next to her, but when she was scared and needed him the most, he was never next to her, you A-hole.

YC drops his head. He says…..I worked. Noona, I wasn’t just playing around or something…..but still, I am really sorry. JM says, when she spread her parents ashes, she threw away all her love for him also. I can’t live with you anymore.

JM finally has a tear drop for YC, she wipes it away. She continues, I was a good wife for you, can you just divorce me quietly Oh Yang-chon? She gets up and grabs her things. She tells him that he isn’t a good husband, but he is a good police officer, you mentor, that was just an accident. the person who jumps into the water, you have to rescue him because you are a policeman, but you can’t talk care of everything. So don’t blame yourself for his death too much.

YC sobs at the table.

SS AND THE LITTLE KID
SS goes to see the little boy at the orphanage. He sits on a bench with him and the boy looks so happy to see him. He says his Mom will pick him up tomorrow. SS says that is good. But the boy says he doesn’t want to go to the PC bar. SS pulls out a subway sandwich and asks him if he wants to eat it. The boy smiles and SS smiles as well as he pulls out his own sandwich and eat with him. SS tells him to chew 50 times before swallowing and they happily eat together.

then we cut to YC telling SS, what you gave that kid your business card? Will you give his mom your salary too? SS says he will just try to do what he can do. YC gets up and says, he doesn’t know/whatever.

JM calls SS and tells him that the mother is released. She says she will take care of the kid. The mom is crazy and the kid is just a kid that can’t do anything. But JM tells him that their police work is done for the day. Forget about that kid and don’t be attached to it too much or it will affect your other cases.

COMMERCIAL BREAK
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#6
CASE
A woman is running with blood all over her, she runs to the elevator and someone sees her. She calls the police. A man chases the woman momentarily but then stops.

Cut to the police department on the case. They go to where the woman called but they turn off their siren. Cut to the room. It is a room with sex toys all around it and all the police officers look around the room for clues. It is an illegal foreigner sex trafficking case. The woman ran away but she can’t call the police since she is a foreigner.

JO looks around and takes photos with a camera. They check the CCTV an find out where the woman went. the woman had a cell phone and called someone. JM goes to the scene alone and walks through this huge building. But JO shows up as well as her assistance possibly? Or maybe she doesn’t know that she shouldn’t be there? I don’t know what is going on. JM looks at JO and they just stare at each other for a moment. maybe JO doesn’t know who JM is? OH, they know each other! JM gives her a signal to move to the side so JO hides out of sight of the peephole.

JM asks JO a lot of questions like, how does she know this place? JO tells her that she saw something on CCTV and she just wanted to check because the same person owns this place as the other place. So JO is pretty smart at figuring these clues out. JO opens the water meter reader and says someone must be inside, they won’t be able to get out from that high. JM bangs on the door and tells her to open it.

A woman opens the door and speaks to them in broken Korean. She says she isn’t guilty. But the police come inside and see all the foreigner woman in the place.

NI tells JO that they don’t have evidence and all the woman have passports, so they have to release them. KM asks JO if it was scary. She said it was but she wanted to look at the problem. KM tells her that she can do as much as JM, no more and no less. But it looks like JO wants to do more.

KM texts JM: be careful.

JM smiles and says that JO grew up well.
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#7
ANOTHER CASE
HR is on a small case and looks so annoyed. It looks like this case is about a couple that was arguing, but then the couple leaves together. It looks like 2 guys might have fought in the restaurant. HR was angry at something the man said, but her mentor pulled her away and said to not make trouble.

But then JO runs up for help, her mentor can’t come due to the traffic. JO talks to her mentor and says that she will be inside until he comes.

the owner runs out and says that she is scared, this drunk guy wants more to drink and she is scared. JO’s mentor told her not to do too much and just sit with the drunk man.

JO does that, but then the wife comes in. The wife wants to pull the husband out. But then the bad guy comes back in and a fight starts again. JO gets pushed to the ground and hits her head, she is lmost knocked out. The fight gets out of hand and the two men argue and fight. The wife is about to break a broken bottle over the bad guy, but then JO tasers her right in her heart. She fals and hits her head hard on the floor.

The man yells, my wife is pregnant, what did you do! The mentor comes in right at that moment and sees this crazy scene.

Fade Out
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COMMENTS
Okay, trying to hang in there with Live. It is definitely a quality show, but I need some kind of direction and happiness. Is the writer building towards something or literally just showing daily lives of police officers and the underbelly of Korea? Live feels like a pretty episode of Cops where I also know all the cops family drama and background story. I’m purposefully emotionally distancing myself from it because there are so many bleak scenes. I am left just sighing at a lot happening in each episode but nothing happening story wise (that I can see) that builds the anticipation for the next episode. I also feel kind of tricked by the production team. They made Live seem fun and light in all their promotional material, but this show is anti-fun, dark, and depressing (but beautiful!). Because of that, we might drop it. It isn’t set in stone yet but we are seriously considering sleeping in one more hour Saturday mornings instead of covering this show.

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