RECAP: Nine ep 5

Hi, this is Laugarza. I will be recapping episode 5 of Nine: Nine Time Travels. The unexpected twist at the end of episode 4 is just the beginning of how the future is changing.

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Episode 5 retraces its steps back to the call Park Sun Woo and his friend Dr. Han Young Hoon. Sun Woo is waiting for Joo Min Young at the restaurant and hasn’t decided to go back in time to spend Christmas Eve with his mother yet. They discuss why nothing has changed in their memories if Sun Woo went back in time, saved his Jung Woo’s ex- girlfriend (Yoo Jin), and gave her daughter (Shi Ah) his brother’s number.
Young Hoon is called in for surgery but stays on the phone talking to Sun Woo who states nothing will change until Shi Ah makes the phone call in the past. (The events may be 20 years apart but they are occurring at the same time.) The friends hang up and Young Hoon heads into surgery.
While Young Hoon is performing surgery in the present day Shi Ah is dialing Jung Woo’s number in 1992. Jung Woo answers the phone just as Shi Ah was about to hang up. (This is where episode 4 left off). The effect of this phone call has unexpected consequences.
As he is operating, Young Hoon is suddenly bombarded with memories and drops his instrument. He is shocked but he must go on with the surgery as the person starts bleeding from the open incision. In 1992, Jung Woo races to the hospital after getting out of a taxi.
Young Hoon shakily walks out of the operating room. He races away from the room ignoring the concerned questions from the waiting family. He hasn’t even bothered to wipe the blood that squirted on his face during the operation.
In 1992 Jung Woo races down the hospital halls to reach his ex-girlfriend while Young Hoon races down the same halls in the present day. Young Hoon can’t believe what he now remembers and keeps muttering to himself as he gets in an elevator.
Back in 1992 Jung Woo finds Yoo Jin (his ex-girlfriend) and Shi Ah. He cries as he sees Yoo Jin lying in the hospital bed. Shi Ah assures him that she is not dead and Jung Woo hugs her stating that he will take care of everything.
In the present day, Young Hoon runs around the hospital a bit crazily until he finds what he is looking for. He found Jung Woo’s office (which is quite shocking as he had died months earlier). As he stares at it Jung Woo appears and asks him why he is standing there.
Meanwhile Sun Woo is back in the restaurant where he had been speaking to Min Young at the end of episode 4. Min Young had just revealed that her name used to be Shin Ah. Sun Woo stares in shock at where she was sitting because just as Yoon Hoon is bombarded with memories so is Sun Woo. The consequence of changing the past is that Min Young is no longer sitting next to him in the present day. He drops the glass he had been holding and when a restaurant employee approaches to see if he is okay Sun Woo replies “Did I come with anyone?” He dazedly answers his own question stating he was alone from the beginning. His head starts hurting again. As the employee leaves to get him another drink Sun Woo’s phone rings and barely able to see the screen he answers. However, Sun Woo collapses before he can say anything.
New memories appear to flash through the Sun Woo’s mind and suddenly it's time December 30, 1992. Sun Woo is injured in a fire while looking for his father and ends up in the hospital. It is while recovering there in 1993 that Jung Woo comes to introduce Shi Ah to him as part of his family now. From their Sun Woo’s memories progress to Jung Woo’s wedding where Shi Ah tells him they are going to America. By December 1993 Shi Ah has changed her name to Park Min Young for some reason and wrote Sun Woo a letter to tell him how they are doing in America. Sun Woo’s mother has already fallen into her current illness by this point.

Sun Woo wakes up from his collapse in the present day to find himself lying in his bed with Min Young sitting beside him. He asks what happens and she states he fainted and was brought home after refusing to go to ER. They had Dr. Han stop by to give him a shot instead. As she pats his head with a wet cloth he starts to tell Min Young of the dream he had about his dead brother being alive again. She pauses and asks if Sun Woo means her “Dad”. He just stares at her until finally she protests why “Uncle Sun Woo” is looking at her like that. (Poor Sun Woo was definitely not expecting this to happen!)
A News staff member suddenly enters Sun Woo’s bedroom and asks if he will be able to make it in to work later. Seeing him Sun Woo asks both him and Min Young to leave for a bit. Outside Sun Woo’s bedroom the staff member asks why they had to leave and Min Young says that something is wrong.
Sun Woo jumps out of bed and goes to find the incense sticks in his wardrobe. He has 5 sticks left. Looking around his room he sees items like the pager and old record he brought from the past with him so he knows that he did not imagine going. He remembers what happened after he collapsed at the restaurant and several new staff members came to get him. They suggest the ER and calling Min Young as her dad is a doctor. Sun Woo disagrees on the ER mumbling for them to take him home after telling them to call Young Hoon. He faints again.
While Sun Woo was unconscious Yoon Hoon arrived at Sun Woo’s house to find Min Young tending him. Min Young no longer knows that Sun Woo is dying and asks Young Hoon if Sun Woo is sick because she found the pills in his pocket. He brushes the pills off as being vitamins to stabilize him due to always overworking.
Sun Woo sees Min Young’s employee badge in her purse and remembers the day he found out she applied at the news station in the summer of 2007. When it was found out they knew each other she introduces herself as his niece. Sun Woo sits down and clutches the badge in his hand at the memory.

Meanwhile Min Young has gone downstairs to chat with the station employee and states that she thinks there is something more to the pills she found. She plans to ask her dad about them later. The station employee wonders at the size of the house and asks why her family doesn’t live with Sun Woo as well. Min Young states she would want to but her dad doesn’t and she can’t move in alone.

Sun Woo comes downstairs on his way out and tells them they can leave. Ignoring protests from the station employee about work he yanks the pack of pills that Min Young holds away from her and asks her who she thinks she is to be sniffing around. When she demands to know what the pills are threatening to tell her dad, Sun Woo says they are Viagra and leaves.
The next day Sun Woo finds Young Hoon at church for Christmas mass. Sun Woo asks him to teach him how to pray as he suddenly feels the need to do so. Young Hoon loudly calls him a s.o.b and says he had to come as he didn’t want to go crazy. He rants about freaked he is now that the dead Jung Woo is alive and talking to him. He says it is up to God to decide life and death and so he is praying looking for answers. Sun Woo, who was quiet during this, says of course he wouldn’t find answers praying because Sun Woo got the sticks in the Himalayas where they practice Hinduism which means it is not Jesus’ doing. Young Hoon protests Sun Woo must be out of his mind or not human to joke around like that.
Sun Woo states he is human so fainted at the shock of the changes and not from being sick. They discuss how things changed with Min Young and Jung Woo. Sun Woo is disappointed that Jung Woo still disappeared from his and their mom's life. The only upside is he became a great husband and father. This causes Young Hoon to wonder aloud what to consider the incense sticks power to be now. Are the sticks a miracle, a curse or what?

While they leave the church Young Hoon tells Sun Woo about how he reacted to seeing Jung Woo. Sun Woo is relieved he won’t have to see Jung Woo yet while his brother is on vacation. Young Hoon asks what Sun Woo plans to do now and Sun Woo admits that despite his trips to Nepal never having occurred, he still has the incense sticks, and souvenirs from his time travels even if the memory that goes with it doesn’t exist in that reality anymore.

Young Hoon returns to the hospital and is seen by one of his residents Kang Suh Joon who was talking on the phone to his girlfriend about not being able to see her. Young Hoon passes by and goes to look through Jung Woo’s office. Suh Joon follows him to ask about yesterdays surgery. Young Hoon suddenly asks if he set Suh Joon up with a blind date last summer because he suddenly remembers that the person was Min Young. During that meeting Min Young asked him not to tell Sun Woo about her dating and at the memory, Young Hoon curses and asks if Suh Joon could just break up with her, in shock Suh Joon asks why and Young Hoon tells him to leave, cursing to himself after he is gone.
Meanwhile Sun Woo is driving home while ignoring calls from Min Young. He ignores gets home he see her car in front and Min Young waiting inside. She tells him she will be staying with him for awhile since he was sick or else her mom will kill her for not caring for him. Sun Woo goes upstairs where his phone rings with an international call. It’s Jung Woo who called to ask how Sun Woo feels. He says he worries about Sun Woo going after Chairman Choi but Sun Woo says if that is okay with Jung Woo then everything is fine.
At this time Young Hoon is having dinner with his family. He has been in a daze and when his wife gets mad at him for acting like that since yesterday he excuses himself to the restroom. He calls Sun Woo who is washing up at home. He suggests Sun Woo goes back in time to change things back to when Jung Woo didn’t get married.

Back in 1992 Jung Woo visits Yoo Jin who is in bed with a sleeping Shi Ah. She tells him to leave but he says no and that he will never leave again.

In the present time Young Hoon’s argument is he thinks it is a test for Sun Woo as he had been treating changing someone else fate to lightly. Young Hoon says the ability may be a curse. It changed Jung Woo’s life but what did it do for Sun Woo? Sun Woo disagrees as he is happy that his brother is back. They hang up and as Sun Woo is looking in the bathroom mirror he hears a song from “The Bodyguard” playing. (How sad! It’s the same record that was playing when he spent the night with Min Young in Nepal)

Sun Woo goes downstairs to see Min Young is listening to the record. They sit down to dinner and she again asks about the pills she found wondering whether they really are Viagra. Sun Woo makes up a story about fainting from taking too many pills because he was planning to go pick up girls and that is why he called Young Hoon since it was so embarrassing. Min Young laughs in relief believing he is feeling better and joking. She starts talking about the places he should go if he ever visits Nepal and Sun Woo remembers the time he spent their with Min Young. (He was so happy with her during the time they spent together)

Min Young states that is where she plans to go for her honeymoon and this sparks the memory Sun Woo has of her arriving for their honeymoon in Nepal. Seeing how he wasn’t eating his food, Min Young asks him what is wrong. He curses as he remembers. He wonders how he can live with two memories especially when he misses that alternate life. A picture of the family portrait is seen behind him as he stares at Min Young across the table and the episode ends.


Episodes Recapped: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20