When The Phone Rings – K-drama Episode 4 Recap & Review

Caller 406

Episode 4 of When the Phone Rings starts by taking us back to the moment Sa-eon receives a call from the nursing home regarding his father-in-law.

The president offered him his official vehicle to get there quicker. We circle back to Sa-eon, picking Hee-joo up by the roadside. Of course, he asks the officers to keep the matter private and promises to drop by the station to give a statement. He promises to take a picture with the policeman too.

After this, Sa-eon takes Hee-joo to his car and allows her to cry as much as she wants. He teases her for being ugly when she cries, but we know he doesn’t mean it. He promises to get a secure place for her dad.

Later, he reminds her they were supposed to meet with his parents for dinner. Instead of taking her home, he takes her to the hotel where he is meeting his parents and gets a room for her to rest. Before that, he asks her to talk and brings up the kidnapper. He starts by saying he can’t report the case to the police as the victim.

However, if he mentions Hee-joo, the police will start looking into her. He asks if there is something she is hiding, and she doesn’t deny or confirm. He realises there must be something, but he claims he won’t push her to tell him.

He attends the dinner by himself and fights with his dad. His dad is hoping that Sa-eon will quit his job and join his upcoming presidential elections. However, Sa-eon has no plans to stand by his father’s side.

In the hotel room, Hee-joo cleans her face and enjoys the snacks Sa-eon ordered for her. She falls asleep and only heads to dinner later. Of course, her in-laws are not happy she didn’t arrive soon even though Sa-eon explained she was sick. Ui-hyong starts running his mouth about how Hee-joo is mute and not doing her part. He argues that II-Kyeong played them, and now they are stuck with a good-for-nothing daughter-in-law.

Sa-eon gets up and asks the hotel staff to get the camera of the paparazzi stationed outside by his dad. He makes it clear that no threat or shady marketing will make him quit his job to help his dad. He humbles Ui-hyong by saying he got to where he was riding on his dad’s work.

Unlike him, Sa-eon has no plans to use his dad and clarifies he is no longer in his dad’s shadow. He grabs Hee-joo and they start walking out. Ui-hyong throws a wine glass at them, and Sa-eon quickly pulls Hee-joo from the line of fire. In the elevator, he asks her to disregard his dad’s comment because they are not worthy of it. Hee-joo is moved and shocked. She tries to free her hand, but he refuses to let her go.

Meanwhile, You-ri runs into Sang-woo at one of her favourite local restaurants. He asks about Sa-eon, and she narrates how Sa-eon helped her as a role model back when she was starting out. She informs him that Sa-eon is married to the influential daughter of a newspaper company. She also asks if Hee-joo is Sang-woo’s crush, and he nearly chokes from shock.

Sa-eon and Hee-joo head home. Sa-eon gets a call from Do-jae who informs him that the kidnapper used fake teeth and animal blood in his recent threat. Sa-eon is surprised and asks Do-jae for another favour. Hee-joo heads inside first and reflects on what the kidnapper said. She decides to throw away the phone but changes her mind when Sa-eon offers to throw away the trash.

As they fight over the trash bag, Hee-joo gets a call from her colleagues, wishing her the best in her interview. Sa-eon also wishes her the best, and she asks what will happen once she gets the job. She is worried their family will disagree, and Sa-eon suggests she stop being so obedient or worrying about what people will say. He walks to his room and gets a message from Do-jae about a new nursing home for his father-in-law.

The next morning, Sa-eon is late to work for the first time. Once he gets to the office, Do-jae is quick to report that they are about to discover the gender of the kidnapper by analysing the speech pattern. Sa-eon says he doesn’t care as long as he gets to unmask the person. Do-jae switches the topic to Sang-woo, reporting that the latter loves to cover arson and bombing cases. Sa-eon is intrigued when he learns that Sang-woo will appear in You-ri’s show.

After Do-jae, Young-woo reports that the interview for the sign language interpreter is about to start. Sa-eon opts not to attend and watch the interview in his office. However, when he watches Hee-joo, he changes his mind and heads to the interview room.

He calls her out for being too in sync with the trial video and puts her through multiple rounds with different videos. Each time, Hee-joo does well, and he finally asks why she is so good. She responds by saying she used to study his video enough to guess his next word based on how he forms his mouth. She says she used to be crazy, and Sa-eon is flustered but tries not to show it.

Finally, he asks to test her by reading a document on the spot. He starts narrating a story about a distant couple who love each other but refuse to tell the truth about their feelings. He questions if things would be different if the couple spoke the truth from the start. He wonders if they would have continued playing mind games with each other. Hee-joo interprets and Sa-eon walks out soon after. He reflects on his conversation with Hee-joo from the night before and wonders what she is planning.

Elsewhere, Hong I-na arrives back in the country. Later, Hee-joo gets an alert about her dad’s transfer and visits him at the new home. She is touched when her dad reveals that Sa-eon helped him move and got him new socks. She admits that she is unable to gauge Sa-eon’s motive. One minute he is sweet and kind, and the other he is cold and distant.

At the office, Sa-eon admits to Young-woo that he liked Hee-joo’s efforts. In a flashback, we learn that they met when they were kids at a dinner. He watched Hee-joo get ordered around by her mom while he refused to eat fish to satisfy his own mom’s expectations. In the end, he offered his food to Hee-joo since she liked it, but her mom had denied her more. He has liked her since then. As he reminisces, he gets a message from Hee-joo thanking him for taking care of her dad.

Later that night, Hee-joo learns her sister is back in South Korea. She starts recalling the night her mom asked her to take I-na’s place. The way Sa-eon gave her a wedding ring and asked her to take care of it until the real owner shows up.

She changes her mind and decides to keep the black phone. Meanwhile, Sa-eon calls You-ri on his way home to ask about Sang-woo. You-ri, being a blabbermouth, reveals that Sang-woo lived in an orphanage and Sa-eon guesses it is Nuri Dream Centre. After his call with You-ri, the kidnapper (Hee-joo) calls.

This time, she answers Sa-eon’s question about what he will get if he leaves Hee-joo.  Hee-joo brings up the return of her sister and asks if Sa-eon is okay with getting I-na back and divorcing her.

However, Sa-eon explains that he and I-na have a deal they made the night before the wedding. For this reason, he can never marry I-na. He hangs up before Hee-joo can ask further questions. He gets to the house and congratulates Hee-joo on doing well in the interview. He also informs her that he will attend the Chungwoon Daily News anniversary event the next day. Hee-joo assumes he is attending to see I-na.

The next day, Kyu-jin and Yeon-hui get into a fight at the salon ahead of the event. The event goes well, and Ui-hyong tries to make it look like he is working hard to convince Sa-eon to join him. Chairman II-kyeong worries the presidential election won’t do well without Sa-eon. Meanwhile, Yeon-ju scolds Hee-joo for letting Sa-eon find out about her real dad.

While she is in the ladies’ room, Hee-joo overhears the girls badmouthing her while speaking highly of I-na, who didn’t show up. She heads back inside and sees Sa-eon talking to the nasty women. Disappointed, she takes a glass of wine and heads to the rooftop.

At 10 pm, she calls Sa-eon as the kidnapper, and he hesitates to pick up . When he picks up, she asks how he felt when I-na left him. He explains there was no big difference. Hee-joo is offended and starts talking about how she was just a placeholder with no social skills.

She claims she is just a supplementary page of I-na and got blinded by the luxury. Sa-eon sets the record straight, coming to her defence and asking 406 not to speak of his wife in a bad light. Mind you, Sa-eon is on his way to the rooftop to bring a coat to Hee-joo. He talks about Hee-joo so lovingly that it shocks her to hear it. He admits that the first time he met Hee-joo, she was the only one who was quiet and made him feel at ease.

Hee-joo starts to cry as she asks why he treated her so badly. The elevator dings and Sa-eon walks out to find her talking on the black phone. In the epilogue, we discover that when he goes to give his statement and keeps his promise to the policeman about taking a photo; he learns Hee-joo’s secret.

He was shocked when the police narrated how hard Hee-joo screamed for them to stop the car. He asks for the footage from their dashcam and is surprised to hear Hee-joo’s voice for the first time. At first, Sa-eon was so pissed as he listened to the video, but then he suddenly calmed down and internally started questioning everything.

The Episode Review

We are giving this episode a standing ovation because it was so good. The storyline progressed perfectly, and the emotional scenes were edited flawlessly. This episode shows us Sa-eon’s yearning, Hee-joo’s vulnerability, and the walls between the two starting to crumble.

It is fairly accurate to assume that Sa-eon learned the truth the morning of Hee-joo’s interview. Is this why he asked her if she could talk during the interview? Is this why he mentioned the story of the distant couple playing mind games?

In hindsight, Sa-eon realised he had no right to confront Hee-joo because he had been doing the same thing. It will be too hypocritical! However, I doubt he saw the final twist coming. He didn’t expect her to be 406!

I wonder how Hee-joo explains this away because we see them getting closer in the trailer for the next episode. Maybe I am overthinking, but if Sa-eon loved Hee-joo since he was young, why didn’t he bother to learn sign language so he could communicate with her? Wouldn’t that make more sense? Anyway, with I-na back, will she be a foe or friend to the couple?