Flower Of Evil – K-Drama Episode 5 Recap & Review

A Race Against Time

After last week’s dramatic cliffhanger, Flower Of Evil looks like it has no intention of taking its foot off the gas. The entire hour elevates the tension into a thrilling climax that leaves a massive question mark over the well-being of Hee-Sung.

Before we get there though, episode 5 of Flower Of Evil begins in the past as Hee-Sung heads in to see Ji-Won at the convenience store. As a blackout engulfs them in darkness, he calmly hands a lighted candle to her.

Silently, he walks outside and stands watching as snow falls from the sky. Suddenly, the lights come back on and as they do, Hee-Sung walks away. Only, Ji-Won follows and asks him to give her a piggyback ride home. Hee-Sung smirks in reply, asking if she wants to know who he really is.

Back in the present, Ji-Won looks in shock at the bagged watch while Hee-Sung steps in the taxi. There, he learns Kyung-Choon wants Mi-Sook. As they talk, Moo-Jin phones Hee-Sung with the bad news; that taxi driver is actually the killer. Unfortunately, he threatens Hee-Sung’s child and drugs him before he can slip away.

When news of Kyung-Choon’s kidnapping breaking out, the police officers start fighting amongst themselves after being wire-tapped. Meanwhile, JI-Won starts to crack under the pressure regarding her husband’s watch.

As they make it to the crime scene, Ji-Won finds Hee-Sung’s phone on the ground and immediately realizes her husband is in trouble. Showing the motel owner his face, Ji-Won quickly phones through to the officers and has them trace the cab.

A thrilling chase ensues, one that sees Ji-Won driving down to stop Kyung-Choon. Only, when he throws electronics out the window at them, it immediately stops the car in its tracks.

When Hee-Sung awakens, he finds himself in the familiar setting of the empty pool we’ve seen before. Kyung-Choon threatens him with a knife but Hee-Sung smugly smiles in reply. He calls the assailant boring and receives a knife to the stomach for his troubles. The taxi driver asks again, “Where is Mi-Sook?”

While Hee-Sung does his best to survive, Woo-Cheol arrives at Hee-Sung’s parents’ house and starts asking questions about Hyun-Soo. This immediately rattles Mi-Ja of course, who asks what’s going on with the case.

When the officers leave, Woo-Cheol admits that the family are suspicious given they’re more interested in the case than the well-being of their son. As we know from the previous episode, the real Hee-Sung is being kept sedated in their house.

Man-Woo comes up with a plan. He decides that they should pretend like they didn’t know anything about Hyun-Soo and feign ignorance. That way, people will come round to their way of thinking.

Meanwhile, Kyung-Choon starts filling the pool up with water and asks what happened on May 12th 2002. It turns out that’s the date Mi-Sok actually went missing. As the water starts to rise, things certainly look bleak for Hee-Sung.

As they talk about what happened in the past, Kyung-Choon shows him the fish key-chain and stops the man in his tracks. Despite all of his talk about the witness changing their story back then, he didn’t account for Kyung-Choon having this in his possession.

As it turns out, Hae-Soo was the one who had this and she handed it over to him as a good luck charm. After a brief flashback, we see Hae-Soo hiding out in her house and hounded by reporters.

At the same time, the officers rush to Kyung-Choon’s house looking for clues. Thankfully they find something, and just in time too given Hee-Sung is struggling to breathe from the water rising in the pool.

Ji-Won makes it to the pool and frees Hee-Sung from his watery tomb. While she does, Kyung-Choon stabs Jae-Sub. Holding him up at knife-point, a shaking Ho-Joon is unable to fire and watches in shock as Jae-Sub screams, backing up and smashing Kyung-Choon’s head into a pole.

In the past, we see a continuation of the scene from the beginning of the episode. Hee-Sung and Ji-Won kiss, with the latter telling him he should confront the spirit and tell them to leave. It seems to do the trick and Hee-Sung appears not to be haunted by this spirit any longer.

As Hee-Sung is pulled from the water, we’re left with one big question – will Hee-Sung survive this ordeal?

The Episode Review

With a thrilling race against time encapsulating much of this episode, the entire hour is almost non-stop action and tension. This works incredibly well too and helps to solidify this series as one of the better Korean dramas of the year.

There’s plenty of action still to come I’m sure, and the show has done a great job balancing this out with the investigative elements.

The way this watery scene ties back into the opening episode is excellent too and really helps add more weight to this scene. In fact, the entire Kyung-Choon element has been really well-written and definitely one of the highlights of this series so far.

Given that cliffhanger ending, all eyes now turn to the next episode as we’re left to wonder whether Hee-Sung has survived and more importantly, what this means for the future.