Love Alarm – Season 1 Episode 5 Recap & Review

Past & Future

In the midst of grief, Episode 5 of Love alarm sees Sun-Oh come to the rescue and saves Kim Jojo from her despair. After sharing dinner, they talk afterward, leading to the two embracing and growing closer. The next day, while Sun-Oh and Jojo hold hands, Gul-Mi corners Hye-Yeong and asks him if he wants to know Jojo’s secret. He sticks up for her though, telling Jojo’s cousin she did nothing wrong. After dancing for the high school, she confronts Duk-Go about him filming her dancing and brutally bemoans his obsession with her.

Later that night, a group all join together to play a game of truth or dare. As they all hold out their phones, showing off who likes who, Jang-Go and Il-Sik uncomfortably keep their phones off before they’re teased by the others. This prompts Jang-Go to storm out the room, allowing Jojo to chase after her. She asks her former best friend about Il-Sik before admitting to Jojo she was the one who took the photos.

As she rushes back to the room, she hallucinates and sees smoke and fire, eventually leading to a panic attack. Embarrassed, she runs away as flashbacks of her painful past flash up in her face. She hurries away and into Sun-Oh’s arms. They decide to get away from the trip, heading to the bay where they hold each other until sunrise. As they drive back in the morning, a nasty accident befalls them both as they fall off their bike and slide across the road. Drifting in and out of consciousness, it’s here where we see Jojo’s past and what happened with her parents.

We then jump forward to 1500 days after Love Alarm’s official release and this app has escalated into almost facet of the country’s infrastructure. Jojo has completely paid off her debt with her Aunt though but her disdain for the app, translates into the opening segment of the show, which now holds more weight given we know who these characters are. Sun-Oh is across the street with Hye-Yeong, who greets him and the two walk past Kim. It’s here we learn Sun-Oh now has another girlfriend but Hye-Yeong evidently doesn’t. However, he does spot Jojo across the street.

We then jump back to the past, with Jojo and Sun-Oh out of the hospital. Duk-Go finds her and asks whether she regrets ringing his love alarm. He tells her that once you start having feelings for someone, it’s hard to turn back. Smiling, he tells her he doesn’t want her to be heartbroken like him and walks away, leaving her to her thoughts. However, he does send her an interesting add-on to the love alarm – a shield that blocks any notifications,

As we flick between the past and present, we eventually stop on something far more shocking and profound.; a mass grave housing multiple dead bodies with their phones on the ground. As the phones ring out the familiar “no one in 10m loves you”, it appears all of these people died lonely and believing no-one loves them.

Love Alarm’s latest episode brings up some interesting ideas, especially as the past and future begin to merge together into a more cohesive storyline. If I’m honest, I like this future-romance angle and as the characters have evidently matured, so too do the problems they face in this time. The mass suicide grave is a pretty shocking moment and along with The Ringing World painting that eerily flashes up at the end of the episode, Love Alarm teases glimpses of a darker story at work here.