Blood Free – K-Drama Episode 5 Recap & Review

Ja-yu Saves Chae-woon

Blood Free Episode 5 begins with Ja-yu and the others getting caught in a shootout. Ja-yu’s AI sends an emergency alarm to the office. On San tells Yeongsil to send the drones out and emergency services are called as well. Chae-woon ends up getting shot while throwing a bomb back towards the attackers. But help soon arrives.

Since Chae-woon is bleeding out, Ja-yu tells Yeongsil to activate the basement at HQ. On San, Seo Hui and Ja-yu take Chae-woon there and put him in a medical contraption. Yeongsil shows that he’s still alive.  They plan to use cultured cells to heal the tissue around his heart and save him. Hong Sae-ip enters and claims they aren’t ready for this but Ja-yu believes this will be a success.

Seonu Jae, meanwhile, finds that the attackers were hired by a gang named Basque Archi. Meanwhile, Hae-deun keeps trying to call Ja-yu but can’t get through. Everyone is focused on the procedure to save Chae-woon. They find an old wound that affects his hearing in one year. The good news is that Chae-woon’s body reacts well to the cultured cells and begins to heal.

Hae-deun arrives with news that the police are here. Ja-yu instructs her on what to say although it seems Hae-deun doesn’t know about the basement. Ja-yu then goes to a room Where she curls up and succumbs to the noises of gunshots and shouts in her head. Afterwards, she goes back to the basement and decides to stay there for the night.

An interview with one of the captured terrorists shows that they were hired to carry out the attack by a gang. The reporters then move on to Ja-yu and the effects of cell culture technology. Seonu Jae watches the report and then gets a call from his father, who assumes Jae organized the attack just so they could see if BF’s technology could heal Chae-woon. Jae insists it wasn’t him.  

After a meeting with the board members, Ja-yu goes back to Chae-woon’s house. She puts out food and water for Mansik, the cat. Back at the basement, Chae-woon wakes up and puts on his clothes. He walks around and sees the cell culture work with artificial organs in glass cases.

Ja-yu is still at Chae-woon’s house and jumps at small noises. Chae-woon calls and asks her how she fixed him. He knows she’s culturing human organs. Ja-yu promises to explain everything later. Despite being told not to leave, Chae-woon grabs his coat and heads out. He removes the hidden camera and memory card from his shirt and puts it in a pocket. His left ear hurts when he gets a call.

We then see Chae-woon entering the room where he usually meets Lee Mungyu. Seonu Jae is there this time and says his grandfather is asleep. Jae probes about his quick recovery but doesn’t get a reaction. He also believes that the real terrorist is in prison and his grandfather’s suspicion is false. Chae-woon makes it clear he believes otherwise. Chae-woon leaves and the encounter reveals to him that his left ear can hear sounds much louder than before.

Elsewhere, Seonu Jae’s father speaks with an NBA player about finding a way to stay youthful forever. Later, he meets Jae and says he wants to dissect Chae-woon’s body and study BF’s technology.

Ja-yu reaches her office, where Chae-woon is waiting. Chae-woon is told how they used cultured blood cells and muscle fibre to heal his wounds. When he asks about his ear, On San reveals he used an electronic chip to heal the ear and allow him to hear sounds that aren’t in the human range. Chae-woon says he never got the surgery to fix it because it could have hit an important nerve and rendered him useless. He also claims he never asked Ja-yu to fix him.

Chae-woon grows angry at On San and pushes him against the wall. Something inside his body changes. Could he be stronger now? Ja-yu instructs On San to reduce the level of the ear chip and Chae-woon, who’s still angry and assumes Ja-yu is doing this all for money, leaves. Ja-yu then goes to another section of the lab and opens a door, looking at something inside at the end of Blood Free Episode 5.

The Episode Review

Episode 5 of Blood Free makes things more interesting as it puts Chae-woon in a complicated position. He was meant to spy on Ja-yu but the cost for finding her secret ended up being very high. Her artificial cells are now in his body and already having unprecedented effects. Will we see Chae-woon go into superhero-esque territory now? It will be interesting to see how far into the sci-fi territory Blood Free is willing to go.

It also seems clear that Seonu Jae and his father don’t really care about the terrorist attack. They only want to know about BF’s technology. Was Lee Mungyu behind this as well? Did he simply use Chae-woon for a tech race rather than for justice? Blood Free definitely takes things up a notch in this episode.