Motel California – K-drama Episode 5 Recap & Review

Episode 5

Episode 5 of Motel California begins at the ice cream shop. Nan-woo finds Yeon-soo there and he says he’s buying it for someone else. She tags along with him inside and they don’t spot Kang-hee, who hides from them.

A flashback to 2010 shows Kang-hee being upset after seeing the police break up a fight at the motel. That’s when Yeon-soo suggests ice cream. They go to the ice cream shop and promise that they’ll only have ice cream with each other and no one else.

At present, Kang-hee leaves the shop and sits on a bench near a field. She’s badmouthing Yeon-soo when he turns up. He asks her why she’s crying and she simply responds that he’s changed and walks away. She tells him not to follow. He does but hides when she turns around, which leaves her annoyed because of course, she didn’t really mean what she said.

When she’s closer to home, she comes across Seok-kyung and they walk together. Yeon-soo stops following her for real this time. When he reaches the motel, he gives one of the long-standing staff members, Mr. Kwon, a bag of ice cream and tells him to give it to Kang-hee.

Kang-hee and Seok-kyung arrive at the motel to a crowd of townspeople who want to speak to Kang-hee, now that her presence isn’t an open secret anymore. He shields her from them and ushers her inside the motel. There, her father’s planned a surprise welcome party for her. Chun-pil tells Kang-hee to go on the roof.

She goes up to see her friends, the “Gangsters,” in matching t-shirts that welcome her back home. As they eat around a bonfire, Kang-hee recalls their childhood. A flashback shows little Kang-hee standing up for Yeon-soo in school when he was teased. We see how the Gangsters all became close friends, particularly in the face of a bully like Heon-yeol. At present, Kang-hee catches up with her other friends. When the topic comes around to her, she suddenly says she has to leave.

Ah-reum insists on Yeon-soo dropping her home. On the way, she tells him that Kang-hee has Seok-kyung and she doesn’t want to see Yeon-soo suffer more. Meanwhile, Kang-hee takes a walk with Seok-kyung and admits she feels like a loser in front of her friends. She says she wants Otel Hana to prove that she’s doing well and made the right call by going to Seoul.  

In the morning, Nan-woo gets a call for a veterinary emergency. Kang-hee notices her struggling with the van and offers to drive her instead. They go to Han-woo’s farm where Nan-woo sees the distressed cow and decides they need to insert a tube in its stomach. Han-woo’s father doesn’t trust her but Nan-woo does a good job.

On her way home, Kang-hee sees a sign for the upcoming beef festival in the town. She realises it will derail their construction of Otel Hana and discusses it with Seok-kyung. She says their concrete mixer won’t be able to enter the area due to traffic control. Yeon-soo overhears this and ends up offering free home services for a month in order to convince the festival committee to shift the festival’s stage.

A flashback shows a drunk man telling little Kang-hee that her father is living this measly life just for her sake. He badmouths her and her mother. Later, little Kang-hee locks the man inside his warehouse. At present, Kang-hee has to speak to the same man regarding the festival. When the man tries to force her to kneel and apologise, Yeon-soo comes out and stops him. He reminds the man what he had said to Kang-hee in the first place.

Kang-hee gets angry at Yeon-soo for getting in her business. She finally admits that it’s embarrassing that he knows all the parts of her dark past. She goes to the work site, where Seok-kyung says he convinced the townspeople to make the necessary changes. He also says he got help from the Gangsters and we see Han-woo, Yeon-soo, and Seung-eon convince the police to help. Later, Kang-hee tells Seok-kyung that she wants to thank her friends but can’t bring herself to.

At the festival, everyone praises Yeon-soo and Nan-woo’s pairing. When Yeon-soo’s mother assumes that Kang-hee and Seok-kyung are together, she doesn’t correct her. She asks Seok-kyung to let her use him once more. He says he has a condition.

Elsewhere, Ah-reum is wondering how to ask Seung-eon to go with her to the beef festival. She comes across him and he’s the first to ask her to go. After some time, Yeon-soo asks to speak with Kang-hee. He’s about to say something about him and Nan-woo when Kang-hee interrupts.

She muses about how the same townspeople who badmouthed them are now congratulating them. Their conversation is interrupted by Nan-woo, who thanks Kang-hee for driving her the other day.

A flashback shows Yeon-soo and Nan-woo discussing the rumours about them dating. Nan-woo suggests they fake date for a while since it protects her from being nagged about marriage and going on dates. Yeon-soo says he likes someone and Nan-woo says they can pretend to date while he waits for her.

Back at the festival, chaos ensues when Soon-ja sees her husband snuggling with another woman. The conflict spirals into a fight where he begins to attack Soon-ja. Chun-pil intervenes and puts a stop to it. Kang-hee watches on, looking sad. We see a quick flashback of her mother being sick and asking Kang-hee to get Chun-pil. At present, she accuses Chun-pil of prioritising Soon-ja over everything.

Kang-hee goes back to the motel where Mr. Kwon serves her the ice cream Yeon-soo got her. She realises it was him and goes to his room in the motel. She finds the door open and enters to pet Yeon-soo’s cat. She’s surprised to see the giant teddy bear Chun-pil gifted her sitting in his room.

She keeps trying to reach him and runs out of the motel, looking for him. She finally finds him playing a guitar on a bench. This time, she straight up asks him if he likes her and why he keeps helping her. He replies that this is all he can do. Oblivious of her true intention, he says he doesn’t want to burden her or make her feel angry, so he asks her to give him time to get over her at the end of Motel California Episode 5.


The Episode Review

Motel California Episode 5 leans into Kang-hee’s push and pull with the people from Hana-eup. The episode uses multiple flashbacks to give us context about her hot-and-cold behaviour towards this place and it works. The flashbacks, both happy and sad, fill in the blanks for all the complex feelings Kang-hee is experiencing.

All the same, her tendency to push everyone and everything away can be a tad monotonous. Particularly in the face of wholesome scenes, like the way her friends hosted a welcome party and helped her get through the issue with the beef festival. These people go out of the way for her and she struggles with a simple thank you.

Her forced detachment is the point of the K-drama, but pushing away people who care about you is not a good look and, even worse, not a fun trope when it is stretched out this much.

We see a similar thing in the misunderstanding between Yeon-soo and Kang-hee about their respective relationships. In all the miscommunication and interrupted conversations, their actual relationship is stagnant and doesn’t move ahead. But say what you will about tropes though, this show is doing angst really well.

The melancholy, the symbolism of the ice cream and the teddy bear, the years of longing — the show uses these to build up quite the atmosphere. Kang-hee running towards Yeon-soo while his lonely guitar strumming fills the background score? A nice touch.  

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  • Episode Rating
    (3.5)
3.5

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