Bittersweet Hell – K-drama Episode 1 Recap & Review

Episode 1

Episode 1 of Bittersweet Hell begins with a brief clip of Dr. Noh Young-won traveling through a snow-laden landscape to reach a secluded house where her mother-in-law, Hong Sa-gang, lives. Through many short flashbacks, we learn that the two have endured significant hardships related to their family. These flashbacks foreshadow the storm that’s brewing in their lives as we jump back in time.

Young-won is a celebrity psychiatrist who often appears on TV shows while also maintaining a seemingly perfect family. Her husband, Choi Jae-jin, is a successful surgeon, and together, the couple is set to receive awards for their performance. Her mother-in-law, Hong Sa-gang, is a digital novelist who struggles to gain popularity among her audience. Young-won’s father-in-law, Choi Go-myu, is a former prosecutor.

Go-myu and Sa-gang clearly have a strained relationship, with Sa-gang appearing to be the difficult one initially. After breakfast together, Young-won arrives at her workplace. We see that she is so popular that her schedule is booked for the next six months. She emphasizes a work-life balance.

A new patient, Lee Se-na, visits Young-won and talks about being in love with a married man who is unhappy with his family but stays married to maintain a façade. It’s an unsettling scene as Se-na questions whether Young-won knows everything about her own family. Young-won replies that it’s impossible to know everything about one’s family.

The next day, the family visits the church where Young-won is the center of attention. Later, Jae-jin drops off his son, Choi Do-hyun, at school, and they discuss Do-hyun’s love life and his mother’s controlling nature. Back in Young-won’s office, her younger brother, Noh Young-min, visits her. It seems he has quit yet another job and wants to start a business with Young-won giving on-call consultations. He is promptly kicked out of her office. At the same time, a beautifully wrapped present arrives addressed to Young-won. When she opens it, she finds a bird with its head cut off, a picture of her family, and a sole question: “Is your family well?”

Shortly after the bird incident, Young-won reminisces about her father’s teachings: “Young-won, life isn’t always this smooth. You might fail, and sometimes you might slip like you just did. Life goes up and down, and that’s how people become resilient.” Reflecting on this memory, she resolves to herself, “I’m not going to slip.”

Elsewhere, Jae-jin has a panic attack after surgery, and his colleague, Dr. Oh Ji-eun, comforts him. As the surgery team leaves for lunch, Jae-jin meets an old acquaintance, Moon Tae-oh, and they leave together, much to Dr. Oh’s dismay. At the restaurant, Jae-jin and Moon Tae-oh meet Young-won, who is on a lunch break with her team. Jae-jin introduces Tae-oh, but Young-won finds him odd.

Meanwhile, Sa-gang visits a designer to choose her outfit for the award ceremony but is displeased when the designer praises Young-won instead of Jae-jin. Sa-gang later comes across an old Chinese restaurant, and it is revealed that she might have a shared past with the head chef, Park Kang-sung.

Back to Young-won, while she’s driving back to work from the restaurant, her manager informs her of a viral video discussing her father’s suicide. It’s revealed that her father was involved in charges of embezzlement and sexual assault. We also learn that he was friends with Jae-jin’s father, who had refused to help him. Young-won, then in high school, asked her father to protect his family and prove his innocence. However, shortly after, she found him dead after he jumped from a building.

Simultaneously, Go-myu comes across the video too. He asks Jae-jin to drink with him, but Sa-gang interferes. Jae-jin leaves for bed and decides to eavesdrop on his parents’ conversation. It is revealed that Sa-gang and Go-myu have had a terrible marriage, with Go-myu cheating on Sa-gang with multiple women. Go-myu feels that she’s ruining her life and their child’s life and leaves.

The next morning, while walking his dog, Go-myu slips but survives until a huge boulder from a landslide kills him. Young-won receives the news of his death. While at the funeral home, Young-won meets her patient Se-na, crying profusely. She assumes that Se-na loved Go-myu based on their previous conversation at the clinic.

Back at the Choi household, Young-won finds a hidden safe behind their family picture in Go-myu’s former room. She opens it to find a notebook and a pen drive. While exploring the pen drive’s content, she comes across a recording that reveals her father was innocent and that Go-myu was one of the people who made her father a scapegoat. Feeling distraught and shocked by Go-myu’s betrayal, she roams around the house and finds Sa-gang cheerfully dancing in her room, overjoyed by Go-myu’s death.

The Episode Review

Bittersweet Hell began with an intriguing plot. A strong sense of uneasiness and impending doom shadows the entire episode. From the initial scenes, it’s clear the Choi family has many more shocking events ahead beyond Go-myu’s sudden and equally suspicious death.

Every character in the show seems to be living under a hidden mask. Young-won, despite emphasizing the importance of family members being conscious of their controlling attitudes, is subtly controlling herself as she makes her husband wear the clothes she picks. Jae-jin appears to be hiding a past event that Young-won and his family are unaware of. Sa-gang is another suspicious character, given her mini celebration right after her husband’s death.

Moreover, Se-na’s character is definitely up to no good, and it’s highly possible that she’s behind the horrifying dismembered bird present that Young-won received. Could she be the culprit behind Go-myu’s death as well? What do you think?