Strangers Again – K-Drama Episode 3 Recap & Review

Battle of Love

Episode 3 of Strangers Again begins at the pub where Ha-Ra is having a drink with Jae Gyeom. Eun Beom walks in with Seo Hee. She excuses herself from the date and says she wants to go to the bathroom but instead follows Eun Beom and Seo Hee. She finds them waiting for an elevator, and Eun Beom is surprised. She asks if they are on a date and confronts Seo Hee. Ki Seo Hee fights back and tells Ha-Ra it is not her business.

Ha-Ra seems troubled by the confrontation and keeps her friend Bi-Chwi awake, complaining about her ex-husband and mistress. The anger goes on into breakfast, where she is angry that they could team up again in front of her. She is confused why Eun-Beom was being good to her and helping her with the pervert attorney if he knew he was pursuing the mistress.

When Eun-Beom arrives at the office, Ha-Ra is sitting at his desk holding a pen, which is dramatically shown to look like a knife. She asks when Eun and Seo start seeing each other again. Eun Beom tells her it was a misunderstanding. He is helping Seo with a custody case to take her child away from her ex-husband. He is just her legal representative.

Ha-Ra says if he wants her to believe him, he should give up the case. However, since Eun-Beom already used the commission, he must represent Seo. Ha-Ra takes it to mean that Eun cannot leave his mistress alone, and he does not care about her feelings.

In her office, she searches for the ex-husband, and after her TV show, she approaches one of the media teams close to Seo Hee’s ex-husband. At the law firm, CEO Seo is coming up with new rules. To encourage better communication in the office, they should stop using honorifics and address each other casually. Attorney Kwon is conservative and says he would not stop using honorifics. CEO Hong tells everyone to try not to use honorifics for a day and see how it goes. However, when Attorney Kang addresses him as Han Gil without the honorifics, he does not like it.

At the meeting, Ha-Ra updated that she took a custody case and that the client is Seo Hee’s ex-husband. CEO Hong calls Ha-Ra and Eun-Beom to her office and asks one of them to drop the case. Ha-Ra already signed the commission contract, and Eun Beom already used the commission. CEO Hong agrees just to let them be. Eun tries to talk Ha-Ra out of representing the husband, but she reminds him she already told him that she would only believe nothing was going on between Eun and Seo if he agreed not to represent her. Eun Requests that they be civil, but Ha-Ra reminds him that a custody case means war.

On the first day of the custody hearing, Eun Beom is late. The hearing almost starts without him. During the hearing and submission of evidence, Attorney Oh and Attorney Goo are at each other’s throats. Eun Beom also finds out he is late because Ha-Ra asked her friend to do something to his drink the night before.

The assistant team started a bet on who would win between Attorney Goo and Attorney Oh. During the team dinner, they get the whole office to join in the bet. Attorney Kang and CEO Seo make a side bet about using honorifics. After dinner, Si Wook is having a cigarette outside when Bi Chwi joins him. They get into an altercation, and Bi-Chwi realizes he has put on the cologne he likes. Si Wook did it to impress her.

Eun-Beom and Jae Gyeom are playing a pool game. To distract Eun, Jae calls him a shameless adulterer. Later Jae confronts Eun for having an affair. He knew Eun always praised Ha-Ra, saying she was flawless, yet she went ahead and cheated. Eun says it just happened at the moment. Jae believes Eun has his reasons since the person he knows would never cheat. His words seem to mean something to Eun-Beom.

Jae Gyeom updated that they were not on talking terms since the incident at the bar. Ha-Ra does not answer his calls. He admits he might like Ha-Ra more than he thought and is scared she might break up. He also tells him that Ha-Ra is still in love with Eun Beom.

During her mother’s birthday party, Ha-Ra confronts her aunts since she is still unmarried. She pretends to take a call to avoid arguments. In her bedroom, Seo Hee’s ex-husband calls to tell her that her daughter does not want to meet the mother. She said she would submit a request about the visitation. She wants to write something down, and as she pulls a paper from the drawer, she sees a photo of her younger self with Eun-Beom. In retrospect, we are taken back to how they met and fell in love in college.

After leaving the party, she finds Jae Gyeom waiting outside her apartment. Jae Gyeom apologizes for the disagreement they had. Ha-Ra says she felt terrible and embarrassed since she had been caught. She was not over Eun-Beom, and he found that out. Jae holds that what would be more embarrassing would have been getting over Eun quickly. She admits she is not confident yet, and Jae Gyeom agrees to keep waiting for her. On the other side of town, in a hotel, Si Wook and Bi Chwi are just waking up from their drunkenness. They slept together.

Eun-Beom is taking Seo Hee for visitation with her daughter. After the meeting, Seo Hee is devastated since she cannot talk to her daughter because her father has brainwashed her into hating the mother. The observer’s report will not be in her favour, and she was worried she would lose. They decide to use a card they had been holding back.

Bi-Chwi finds out that Eun-Beom was planning to submit evidence of physical abuse, which would mean he would lose custody if proven guilty. After discussing it with her client, she confirmed that it was true. Her client pushes him to submit their ace card too. She decides that before doing that, she will talk to Eun-Beom first. When she arrives at the building and calls him, he does not answer. She is getting ready to go to his room when she sees him walk Seo Hee to her car. She gets angry.

During the hearing, Eun-Beom submits the physical abuse evidence. Ha-Ra also decides to submit the evidence that she has just found. Ha-Ra intends to prove that Seo did not run away from her husband simply because of depression but because she had an affair. Eun-Beom starts to panic as the judge goes through the submitted data and finds out the cheating affair was with attorney Goo.

The situation pushes Eun-Beom to the wall, and he has to come clean. He admitted wanting a divorce and asked Ki Seo Hee to fake a relationship with him. They never had an affair. Eun Beom apologizes. Ha-Ra is so surprised that she cannot talk.

The Episode Review

When Jae Gyeom said he did not think Eun-Beom was the kind of person who cheats, I was more convinced by my previous instincts that there was more to the divorce than just cheating. This episode proved it at the courthouse, but I still wonder why Eun-Beom would go to such extents to divorce Ha-Ra.

I feel empathetic toward Jae Gyeom though. He is falling in love, but Ha-Ra is still stuck on Eun-Beom. Also, doesn’t Eun-Beom have any feelings for Ha-Ra anymore? It has been three episodes, and we are certain Ha-Ra still loves him. We are yet to see any signs that he might still be into her.

The office opposites did it; will the conservative Si Wook be able to live with having a one-night stand with a person he has feelings for?