Like Flowers In Sand – K-drama Episode 7 Recap & Review

New Day, New Incident 

Episode 7 of Like Flowers In Sand begins with a young Baek-du trying to sleep when a knock at his window wakes him up. It’s Du-shik. She turns away from Baek-du’s eyes and cries silently while Baek-du cheerfully talks about football matches and things that they are going to do together. She’s silent and then tells Baek-du to promise her that he’ll become a ssireum champion and when he does, he should discuss about her so she knows that he still remembers her.

Baek-du finds this exchange odd but they part promising to meet the next day. As Baek-du is trying to sleep, he becomes suspicious and runs out of his house to see Du-shik leaving. He screams her name, crying but Du-shik and her family are already up and ahead.

Fast forward to the present, Hyeon-wook asks Yu-gyeong if she’s Du-shik and she finally spills the beans about the mysterious story of Du-shik. She tells him that her father was the ssireum team’s coach when one of the wrestlers died. Rumours arose that her father had asked the wrestler to fix a match and when the wrestler refused, they got into a fight leading to the wrestler’s death.

People blamed her father and even though his father was acquitted, they did not believe him. So, Yu-gyeong and her family left. She explains to him that she came back because Choi was there at the time of the murder so she is suspicious that he has a connection with both the cases. 

The next day, the day before the championship match, Baek-du makes his family promise to stay away from the match as his oldest brother tries to convince Baek-du to wear the last of his championship underwear (lol). At Yu-gyeong Hyeon-woo relays to Yu-gyeong that Mi-ran kept talking about Du-shik, almost like she had a purpose making her seem suspicious. 

Yu-gyeong and Baek-du meet at the arena. Baek-du was supposed to meet the team there as they leave together for the championship area together but it turns out that all of them had left Baek-du and were on their way already. Yu-gyeong, while driving Baek-to scolds him about not getting a driver’s license only to find out that he failed the written exam twice and gave up! 

At the meet-up spot with the coaches, everyone realises that Baek-du’s missing. The team confesses that they didn’t know that Baek-du was competing in the match and so they left without him. In the car, Baek-du is having the time of his life. He suggests to stop at the rest stop and comes back hands full of food.

When questioned, he says that he doesn’t gain weight. Since wrestlers are to fight in a weight category, any alteration in the weight becomes important. When he meets with everybody, he gains about 1.2 kg of weight and gets scolded by both the head coach and Jin-su. All the members above their weight category are made to lose weight urgently. They make Baek-du carry Yu-gyeong on his back while he makes jokes about Yu-gyeong eating well for the past 20 years. 

At the official weighing time, he safely scores a perfect 80kg mark and evades disqualification. At dinner, Yu-gyeong receives a call from Mi-suk who tells her that they found multiple calls to Choi from a payphone. She says that there was someone involved besides Choi and Yeon. Baek-du joins Yu-gyeong and asks whether she’d like to eat ramyeon (ramen) in his room, later at night. Well, he receives a smack since ramyeon at night is a widely used euphemism for sexual activities.

Baek-du clarifies that he has “pure intentions” and just because they’re over 30, it doesn’t mean everything about ramyeon has to be sexual. Further, Yu-gyeong scolds him for not being greedy for the champion title pulls Baek-du up and throws him, flat on the ground. Baek-du tricks her to the same and they share a moment before Baek-du breaks into a run with Yu-gyeong following him, yelling. When Baek-du comes back, he is as red as a strawberry. 

The next day, the entire team (who were gorging on raw fish for dinner the previous night) gets food poisoning except Baek-du and Yu-gyeong. The entire team has to pull out. It’s revealed that Yu-gyeong asked Mi-suk about Mi-ran and also that Mi-ran was aware of the fact that Hyeon-wook was a cop. Suspicious, he has been visiting the cafe and finds it odd that she hasn’t opened the cafe for a few days. 

The Baek-du’s match begins. In the first round, he is opponent wins. The second round starts with great anticipation as Baek-du remembers Yu-gyeong telling him to remind people about his talent. As he is picked up by his opponent, Baek-du pushes his weight to make the wrestler lose his balance and fall to the ground. Baek-du bags the second win amidst many surprises and cheers.

The third round begins with Baek-du being lifted again after much struggle but he is able to shift all his weight downwards. As the wrestler is engaged in lifting Baek-du back up, Baek-du pulls at the back of his knee, making him fall. He wins!

He goes on to beat his opponent, not by strength but by techniques and quick wit! Meanwhile, Yu-gyeong has apparently left while Mi-ran comes back to the cafe from someplace. She comes back to Geosan and meets Mi-ran in the cafe. Mi-ran’s real identity is finally revealed. She’s the daughter of the wrestler who was murdered 20 years ago. The episode ends as Mi-ran says, “Time flies. Right? Du-Shik unni.”


The Episode Review

The show is getting interesting! The Mi-ran’s identity reveal was quite unpredictable since until now, she just came across as an eccentric outsider with not many significant scenes. The three subplots have now been integrated in a way that the main narrative has come to the forefront but at the same time, the murder case from 20 years ago has taken a new kind of an appearance.

It no longer feels detached from the main narrative or as fluff content, and as we know more about different characters, there’s a new perspective revealed every time about the case. The series is unveiling in an interestingly layered manner, one at a time. Every new character or backstory reveals a new clue for the viewers to better understand the worldview and events of the show! 

At the same time, the highlight of the show was definitely Baek-du’s championship matches. What he lacks in strength, he makes up with his techniques and wit, making him win each match as he goes closer to the championship title. With the new revelation about Mi-ran and the finale of Baek-du’s matches near, the next episode is going to be quite a ride, so stay tuned! 

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  • Episode Rating
    (3.5)
3.5

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