Reflection Of You – K-Drama Episode 1 Recap & Review

Someone Like You

Episode 1 of Reflection of You begins with a woman named Hee-Joo (Hui-Ju according to Netflix subtitles) reflecting on the hell she’s been through. Blood spatters up a family portrait and soaks the floor as Hee-Joo weeps. As she heads out into the middle of a lake, dumping a crate and watching it sink, we cut back in time to an art gallery featuring numerous paintings.

Hee-Jo is a successful artist, having appeared on the cover of numerous monthly magazines. She’s even had books published too. Midway through her latest sketch, Li-Sa rings and urges her to show up at the hospital. The girl sports a nasty cut across her cheek where she’s been bullied at school. Only, it turns out it was actually a teacher that struck her. Outraged, Hee-Joo storms into school and demands a meeting. Her mother is there to lend a helping hand too, demanding that they fire this woman and issue a public apology too.

That evening, Hee-Joo speaks to her husband, Hyun-Sung, who happens to be over in Ireland, in a small town called Sligo. He’s in hospital, there to visit a mysterious man who’s unconscious. As the camera pans down, the nametag reads “John Doe” so it seems like they don’t know who he is. Does Hyun-Sung?

Back in Korea, Hee-Joo finds out who this substitute teacher is that struck Li-Sa. It turns out her name is Gu Hae-Won and she’s clearly in a rough way. Hanging her head, she greets Hee-Joo and nonchalantly apologizes for her actions. Hae-Won claims what she did was punishment for what Li-Sa originally did, going on to justify hr actions.

Hee-Joo is not happy and eventually smacks the teacher with a book, watching as she falls to the floor like a sack of potatoes. However, she does all of this in view of a security camera, which doesn’t help her case much – especially when Hae-Won decides to press charges and sue her.

Now, Hae-Won claims she had a good reason to slap Li-Sa but she must have hit her pretty hard. In fact, the slap seems to have ruptured Li-Sa’s eardrum, who heads in to get seen to by a specialist.

Despite this teacher being suspended, Hee-Joo can’t stop thinking about her influence and what may have transpired between her and Li-Sa in the past. When Hyun-Sung returns to Korea again, the pair chat about whats transpired.

However, they don’t have to wait for long before Hae-Won shows up again. In fact, it’s Hee-Joo’s mum who notices first, given Hae-Won has filed a medical report following her initial assault charge against Hee-Joo.

That evening, Li-Sa heads back and bemoans that she’ll bee given a new tutor. She’s pretty nonchalant over Hae-Won being dismissed from school though, and it soon becomes clear why as night turns to day. Li-Sa’s room is locked and with little Ho-Su leaving with Hyun-Sang, Hee-Joo is left alone with her thoughts. When she looks out the window, she finds Hae-Won staring from afar.

Banging on the door soon follows, prompting our protagonist to drop her cup on the floor in fright, shattering the china into pieces. Hae-Won is staring at her, and eventually knocks on the door, dropping to her knees and apologizing. Apparently she recognizes Hee-Joo from the past, prompting our artist to drag her into the house to confront her properly. In fact, Hae-Won is going to drop the charges completely and marvels that she’s now a painter after all these years.

It turns out Hae-Won was originally going by the name of Hannah, which was her German alias. She’s lost her passion for art though, despite being so enthused in the past, and is now struggling to make ends meet. Hae-Won keeps losing her patience because of this too, apologizing for her anger. Hee-Joo has heard enough and decides to call security, determined to escort Hae-Won off the premises.

Remember that unconscious man in the hospital? Well, it turns out someone called Hannah arrived beforehand and requested he be released. She even came prepared with paperwork to confirm as much too. Hyun-Sung is certainly confused, but so far we’re not actually sure to the extent of this family’s history with her.

As the episode closes out, Hee-Joo realizes that Hae-Won didn’t actually come to the house to apologize – there’s an ulterior motive at platy here. As Hee-Joo heads out to try and find the young woman, Hae-Won grins in secret and utters “I found you” before skipping away.

The Episode Review

Well, that was certainly mysterious! Reflection Of You gets things off to a suitably chilling beginning with echoes of Sky Castle in the divides between the rich and poor being showcased. Quite what Hannah’s ties are to this family and how everything is connected remains a mystery, but it’s clear there’s more going on with these two women than we’re being led to believe.

There’s a pretty stacked cast with this project too and JTBC’s latest mid-week K-drama certainly brings a good amount of talent to the table. With a simple 60 minute episode to kick things off, there’s enough intrigue and mystery with this one to keep you coming back for more.

It seems likely that something big happened between Hae-Won and Hee-Joo in the past to sour their relationship, and it’s anybody’s guess just what this is. Given Hae-Won knows about her kids it would appear as it they were very close but that’s speculation at this point.

Either way, there’s a lot to like about this one, sporting an eerie atmosphere, lots of drama and plenty of characters to chew over. Roll on tomorrow’s follow-up!