Now, We Are Breaking Up – K-Drama Episode 6 Recap & Review

The Online Broadcast

Episode 6 of Now, We Are Breaking Up begins with Jae-guk’s confession that he took the photo Young-eun bought 10 years ago. We then get a montage of all Young-eun’s pivotal moments with Jae-guk.

The next day, Chi-sook looks over the identical designs Young-eun and In-a have handed in for Sono and Claire Marie respectively.

Young-eun’s design team is outraged. Chi-hyung and So-yong go to speak privately and he accuses her of leaking the design. So-yong denies it and puts him in his place when he tells her to put real effort into her job.

Back in Chi-sook’s office, Chi-sook admits that she knows Young-eun would never copy someone else’s design. Unfortunately, now that Chi-sook oversees Claire Marie, she’s also unwilling to reprimand In-a or let Sono use the design. Young-eun wants to begin an investigation into the leak but Chi-sook talks her down. Young-eun finally stands up for herself, calling out Chi-sook and In-a’s obnoxious behaviour.

Do-hoon calls Chi-sook to tell her she left her scarf at his place. Chi-sook lets him keep it as a gift to signal that they’ve progressed within their relationship. Do-hoon takes this as a romantic sign.

Jae-guk is out taking photos of a popular mural artist in action for Vision PR, Do-hoon’s company.

While Mi-sook researches the chances of a misdiagnosis, Soo-ho and Min-kyung plan an overnight trip for the weekend.

Chi-hyung continues to hound So-yong. He’s confident that he saw her on the CCTV, but she’s equally confident that whatever he saw won’t prove she’s the leak.

Young-eun goes to find out which fabric is left for Sono to use. There is only basic jersey. While she plays around with it in the storeroom, Jae-guk arrives with a lunch offering after hearing about the fabric fiasco from Do-hoon.

In a more high-end setting, Chi-sook has taken Do-hoon, clad in her scarf, out for lunch. She asks him how to sway Jae-guk and Do-hoon goes from hopeful to dejected. A freelance model named Pete comes up to their table to greet Chi-sook. Do-hoon gives Pete a once-over before handing over his business card. Chi-sook mistakes this as Do-hoon making a move and hurries to excuse herself.

Pete stops Chi-sook, telling her that Do-hoon is straight (how Pete knows this is a mystery). Do-hoon storms out with Chi-sook on his heels. When she trips, he catches her with an arm around her waist, sending her heart racing. Do-hoon proclaims that he’s a man with emotions and a heart before leaving.

Back in the storeroom, Jae-guk shows Young-eun his photos of the mural artist. She’s struck with inspiration for Sono’s new designs.

Out in the hallway, a promotion list has been released and So-yong isn’t on it. In-a passes by and shoots a smug look at Ahn Sun-ju, another designer on Young-eun’s team. When they reconvene at Sono’s office space, Sun-ju breaks into tears and admits to leaking the designs in exchange for the promise of a promotion.

Young-eun overhears and goes straight to In-a. Young-eun berates In-a for toying with her team and declares that she’ll take In-a to court if she tries it again.

Chi-hyung and So-yong talk privately again. So-yong explains that she was secretly studying Young-eun’s old sketches so that her weaker skillset wouldn’t be judged by those around her.

Young-eun calls everyone on the team, including Sun-ju, to the storeroom. When they arrive, she tells them her idea to use the jersey fabric for a collaboration with the mural artist that Jae-guk photographed. For the lead design, Young-eun wants to use one of So-yong’s submissions.

Everyone but Sun-ju voices their agreement. When Young-eun questions her silence, Sun-ju says that she doesn’t feel right about staying at Sono. Young-eun lays out all the effort Sun-ju jeopardized and tells her to apologize to the team by getting results this season.

The team begins contacting influencers to publicize the collaboration. When Chi-hyung suggests Hye-rin, everyone rules her out as impossible. So-yong tells Chi-hyung that she’ll forgive his false accusations if he can convince Hye-rin to join them.

Mi-sook gets a second doctor’s opinion, and he confirms that she has pancreatic cancer. As she drives out of the hospital parking lot, she is hit with a wave of pain and crashes her car into the wall.

Jae-guk is editing his photos when Taek-soo calls him, wanting help with screenshotting proof of the scam. As they talk, Taek-soo learns that Jae-guk is a freelance photographer. He asks Jae-guk to photograph an upcoming sports day at the school where he is the vice-principal.

Later that night, Young-eun gets a call from Jae-guk. She tells him she misses him and wants to meet, sending him running to her. When they reach each other, she agrees to “break up” like he previously suggested.

The next day, Gwang-soo makes a fuss after finding out that Young-eun offered Ms Choi a contract. Chi-hyung exerts his influence as the CEO’s son and steps in to remind Gwang-soo that he put the factory list together.

Young-eun’s team partners with Vision PR and Jae-guk to organise a live internet broadcast for the debut of the collaboration collection. Hye-rin participates after Chi-hyung, who’s also her ex, agreed to answer all her calls for 100 days.

Yoo-jung watches the broadcast and notices Jae-guk’s pictures. We flash back 10 years to Yoo-jung dissuading Soo-wan from dating Young-eun. She tells Soo-wan that she won’t do nothing if he insists on continuing the relationship.

The broadcast is a huge success, raking in a high viewership and 20,000 pre-orders. The collaboration team goes out for celebratory drinks. While there, Young-eun’s phone rings. The name on the screen is Soo-wan and she’s too shocked to pick up. As Jae-guk arrives to celebrate, a message asking how Young-eun has been comes through from Soo-wan’s number.

The Episode Review

Both this episode and the last opened using a clumsy format that had us returning to cliff-hanger scenes that you’d think would be turning points in Young-eun and Jae-guk’s relationship. But instead of extending those scenes, we were launched into tedious montages and the consequences were ignored. Do we assume Young-eun heard Jae-guk’s proposal to “break up” and simply… walked away? Even though they acted friendlier than ever afterwards?

Skipping ahead to our new cliff-hanger, Yoo-jung is almost certainly the person at the other end of the call Young-eun received. That would have us going down the usual manipulative ex arc that has been done in too many K-dramas already. While impersonating a dead fiancé would be on the extreme end of the scale, Yoo-jung is not compelling enough as a character to breathe any new life into such a tired story.

On the flip side, this episode was slightly more watchable than the rest, owing in no small part to Chi-hyung and So-yong’s budding dynamic. So-yong’s career anxiety reacting with Chi-hyung’s silver spoon creates the only interesting relationship so far. It helps that So-yong has a refreshing belief in her own worth and Chi-hyung is spoiled but not insufferable.

Another score for this episode came from the focus on Sono’s artist collaboration and the workplace politics at The One. With the Sono team cast as our underdogs, the online broadcast was a welcome success. If the writer had been willing to lean into more fashion plot-lines like this one with added depth then we could have actually gotten a decent drama.