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Today, we’ll be discussing the special filler episode on When The Phone Rings, the over-the-top, twist-filled K Drama starring Yoo Yeon-seok as Baek Sa-eon, Jeon Yeo-been as Hong Hee-joo, and Kim Ji-seok as Ji Sang-woo. We discuss:

• The songs we featured during the recap, including:
  • Homme Fatale – the dramatic track playing when Baek Sa-eon struts into a room
  • Say My Name performed by Yoo Yeon-seok in the finale
• The absolutely bonkers premise: a high-profile political spokesperson secretly married to his childhood love, who he keeps hidden from the world, and whose existence triggers a web of blackmail, kidnapping, and revenge plots.
• The layers of hidden identities — from Baek Sa-eon being a secret replacement for the original Baek Sa-eon, to Hong Hee-joo living her life pretending to be mute, all due to family politics and trauma.
• The stunning reveal that Baek Sa-eon is not only adopted but actually the son of his own grandfather.
• The selective mutism plotline — how Hong Hee-joo’s silence started as a survival tactic but became a powerful tool that gave her a successful career.
• The role of Ji Sang-woo, the caring friend turned investigative psychiatrist, who didn’t realize what he was wading into by investigating the case of the missing boys from the orphanage.
• The use of the mysterious phone as a plot device — how the sinister calls were the catalyst for uncovering the hidden marriage and Baek Sa-eon’s many secrets.
• The moment Baek Sa-eon realized the “kidnapper” on the phone was actually his own wife, and how that discovery changed their entire dynamic.
• The ridiculously high kidnapping count — Hong Hee-joo gets kidnapped not once, not twice, but FOUR times across 12 episodes. We discuss how this woman even manages to sleep at night.
• The "Argan" subplot — how a fictional war-torn country becomes both Baek Sa-eon’s self-imposed exile and the backdrop for the show’s most ludicrous romantic reunion.
• The utterly bizarre "sunset" motif that comes out of nowhere in the final episodes — how sunsets are suddenly a metaphor for their love despite never being mentioned before.
  The final episode’s chaos: political scandals, revenge murders, family betrayals, a rescue mission in a war zone, and a surprise happy ending that left us asking — did we just watch a romance or a thriller?
• The controversy around the mistranslated Middle Eastern conflict scene — how a clumsy translation sparked accusations of political bias, and why inserting geopolitics into a makjang drama felt so unnecessary.
• What we’re watching now! Joanna and Sung Hee are watching Love Scout and loving it!

Next week, we will recap and analyze episode 1 of When Life Gives You Tangerines. Although four episodes are expected to drop, we will only watch and recap one episode at a time.

References

• What is makjang?
• Fans call for boycott of popular K Drama for thinly veiled references to israel’s war on Gaza