Soundtrack #1 – Season 1 Episode 1 Recap & Review

Track 1 – Echoes of Love

Episode 1 of Soundtrack #1 starts with our two characters at a camera shoot, playfully flirting. Sun-Woo takes photos of Eun-Soo, who reflects back on how they’ve been friends since they were 9. He’s helping with some pictures, and after snapping a couple, they head back to Sun-Woo’s workshop to get them developed.

While getting those uploaded and printed, Eun-Soo marvels over the pictures up on the walls. Eun-Soo quizzes him on his upcoming exhibition.

While Sun-Woo is excelling when it comes to photography, Eun-Soo is a lyricist and heads to the studio where she awaits Wooil, the composer she’s trying to impress. However, he’s not blown away by her lyrics. Given she hasn’t ever experienced unrequited love, he worries that her words are too lighthearted and don’t have the knock-out power needed to really connect with people. For now, she’s rejected…until Eun-Soo begs for two more weeks to show what she’s worth.

When Sun-Woo finds out, Eun-Soo sits with her best friend and suggests they live together, just for a few weeks. Between Sun-Woo leaving in a fortnight and Eun-Soo’s deadline, it seems like a match made in heaven. As it starts snowing, the pair walk home, with Sun-Woo admitting that he’s not actually going to do the exhibition after all; he wants to start from scratch.

With Sun-Woo’s best friend taking the living room, courtesy of his girlfriend heading over, Sun-Woo is left with sleeping in the work room for the time being. And naturally, he mulls over the photos he took of Eun-Soo earlier on.

Cut back 4 years ago and we see the relationship dynamic between Sun-Woo and Eun-Soo a lot closer. There’s definite feelings between them but for Eun-Soo, she refuses to indulge in this. They’re so close as friends that an inevitable break-up would leave Eun-Soo unable to live.

In the morning, Sun-Woo heads over to Eun-Soo’s place with a suitcase all packed up and intending to take her up on the offer of living together. For now, he helps her out with tidying up. Sun-Woo clearly has feelings for his friend, and that much is apparent over lunch when she gushes over the composer she’s trying to impress. There are pangs of jealousy from our protagonist!

The pair end up drinking though and for Eun-Soo, she gets a bit too drunk and ends up cuddling up to Sun-Woo on the ground in her drunken state. Eun-Soo sleeps peacefully all night, while Sun-Woo can’t help but stare at his friend. When Eun-Soo opens her eyes, she looks back but doesn’t move from his arms.

The “Bonus Track” (epilogue) of this episode sees Sun-Woo wrapping up a big plush teddy while Eun-Soo encourages him to head inside and drink with her.

The Episode Review

So Soundtrack #1 gets things off to a decent start here, with a simple but solid opening chapter. With only four episodes and Disney+ releasing these once a week (thanks House of Mouse…) this looks to be a pretty quick watch, spread out across the month.

The set-up is simple but the soundtrack is actually pretty good and it’s helped along by the two lead actors, who have good chemistry together. The story wastes absolutely no time getting to the heart of the drama either, with Sun-Woo very clearly keeping his true feelings bottled up while Eun-Soo is just oblivious to her best friend, unwilling to take the dive for fear of getting hurt and ruining their friendship. Of course, the ending seems to hint that they will be taking the next step on their romantic journey.

Four episodes is an odd stylistic choice though and I worry that we won’t see very much of their time together. When you compare this to something like What’s Wrong with Secretary Kim, which took its time with the subplots and character chemistry (albeit perhaps with 3 or 4 episodes too many), this one doesn’t have that same room to breathe.

However, it does set everything up nicely for the chapters ahead, where it seems romance is on the cards!