Castaway Diva season 1 episode 5 recap & review: Regret vs. Pride

Open Go TV / November 12, 2023 / Reviews

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In the fifth episode of Castaway Diva, Woo-hak starts investigating Ki-ho’s father, while Ran-joo meets an old acquaintance to find a way to sell more albums. The episode is now streaming on Netflix.

Recap

Bo-geol rescues Mok-ha from Ki-ho’s father, Mr. Jung, and rebukes her for being naive. This is the reason why he did not want her to make her personal issues public. He only stops criticizing her when she starts crying.

He then assures her that Ki-ho has not contacted her because he is hiding from Mr. Jung but does not tell her how he knows that. He refuses to answer her when she asks him about his reasons for saving her.

Woo-hak reaches the bus station to save Mok-ha, but she has already left with Bo-geol. Woo-hak sees Mr. Jung there and follows him to his house. Woo-hak remembers that he has been to this house before.

Woo-hak returns home, and Mok-ha sees him crying in his car. When she talks to him, she tells him that Ki-ho’s wish to live in a world without his father came true and that she does not regret running away from home with him, even though she got stranded on an uninhabited island for 15 years. She also comforts him.

Woo-hak wants to report Mr. Jung, but Bo-geol asks him not to do that, as he does not want Mr. Jung to find Mok-ha’s house. Bo-geol thinks that the two of them can protect her from him.

Woo-hak and Bo-geol’s parents have started treating Mok-ha like family now. Mok-ha also gets her driver’s license and finds out about President Lee recalling Ran-joo’s albums.

Yong-gwan, who was Ran-joo’s temporary manager, has video evidence of Mok-ha singing for Ran-joo. By threatening to leak that video, he stops Mok-ha from confronting President Lee, as he believes that President Lee’s actions are driven by desperation.

Ran-joo meets President Hwang. He is the owner of her old agency, Sugar Agency. As she needs to sell more albums, she requests him to rerelease the albums that she recorded before leaving Sugar Agency. However, President Hwang will only consider it if she sings at his daughter’s wedding.

Bo-geol asks Mok-ha to make him her emergency contact. Mok-ha does not fail to notice that the conversation is very similar to a conversation she had with Ki-ho. Bo-geol’s responses resemble those of Ki-ho’s.

Ran-joo returns home drunk. She is upset about President Hwang’s demand and takes out her frustration on Mok-ha. Later, she wants to apologize to Mok-ha, but she cannot bring herself to do it.

In the future, an older Ran-joo regrets not apologizing to Mok-ha. She thinks that she destroyed herself. She also believes that this is the reason why she is all alone in her old age.

Ran-joo does not attend President Hwang’s daughter’s wedding, but Mok-ha and Bo-geol do. President Lee also comes to the wedding and offers a profitable deal to President Hwang in exchange for not rereleasing any of Ran-joo’s albums.

Dae-woong meets Mr. Jung, who tells him that he has found Ki-ho. Dae-woong tries to convince Mr. Jung to stop looking for Ki-ho. This offends Mr. Jung, and he leaves hornets in Dae-woong’s car, which results in him getting into a bad car accident.

When Mok-ha sees President Lee at President Hwang’s daughter’s wedding, she calls Ran-joo and convinces her to come to the wedding. Mok-ha recognizes President Hwang as Ran-joo’s old music teacher.

President Hwang quit his job to make Ran-joo a singer. He managed to open an agency, but his wife left him, and President Hwang lost his family’s love. Years later, Ran-joo abandoned him to help President Lee establish his agency.

When Ran-joo was in school, Mok-ha heard her sing once and instantly fell in love with her voice. This is Mok-ha’s oldest memory, and she claims to be Ran-joo’s first fan. Mok-ha wants Ran-joo to make President Hwang proud, as she knows that Ran-joo will later regret letting President Hwang down.

Ran-joo comes to the wedding. As she can no longer sing properly, Mok-ha sings with her. Mok-ha’s voice hides all of Ran-joo’s imperfections, and Ran-joo thanks Mok-ha, whose dream of singing with Ran-joo finally comes true.

Ran-joo does not disappoint President Hwang this time, and he apologizes to her for being hard on her when she worked for him. His behavior led to her leaving his agency for President Lee’s. They talk out the differences between them.

It is revealed that President Hwang did not accept President Lee’s terms. Due to this, President Lee calls Eun Mo-rae and asks her to sing with Ran-joo, and Mo-rae agrees. She returns to Korea, but she is not happy about it.

Woo-hak, who now believes that he is Ki-ho, stakes out Mr. Jung’s house. He tells Mok-ha that Ki-ho is alive and that she can meet him after some time. He continues following Mr. Jung but does not tell Bo-geol about it.

When Mok-ha hears Woo-hak and Bo-geol’s mother utter a saying that Ki-ho learned from his mother, she asks her about it. Woo-hak and Bo-geol’s mother tells her that she made it up, which leads to Mok-ha asking her whether she knows a boy named Jung Ki-ho.

At the same time, Woo-hak breaks into Mr. Jung’s house and finds a family photograph of Mr. Jung, Woo-hak, Bo-geol, and their mother. Bo-geol follows Woo-hak there, and Woo-hak questions his brother if Mr. Jung is their father.

Review

The episode balances the light-hearted parts and the mystery of Bo-geol and Woo-hak’s past very well. It is pleasant, mysterious, and even tense at times.
Mr. Jung’s character comes across as a truly delusional and dangerous villain. The man is ready to hurt people for something as insignificant as giving him advice.
It is hard to dislike Ran-joo’s character, even when she needlessly hurts Mok-ha, as the show makes her suffering evident. She has to fight and plead with the men who used her to become successful.
Ran-joo and President Hwang sorting out their differences is as mature and realistic as it gets. A single conversation does not make them forget their past and become close again, but it allows them to move on from the past.