* This review contains spoilers for Episode 4 of A Time Called You
In the last episode, we saw Jun-Hee adapting to life in 1998, while interacting with Min-Ju’s family and friends. We also learnt that she was attacked by someone, but before she could investigate further, she woke up in 2023. She decides to call Yeon-Jun’s phone, and is shocked when someone picks up. Will she finally meet the mystery man?
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Keeping secrets
We see the mystery man staring at his phone and reading messages Jun-Hee sent to him over the past year. She writes that life without him has been empty, and asks him to visit her in her dreams. He receives a call from her, and after hesitating, decides to answer it. Upon hearing her voice, he cries silently and eventually hangs up without saying anything.
We then find out that the mystery man is actually living with Min-Ju’s uncle. He tells the older man that he rode on the same bus with Jun-Hee earlier, and read her messages to him. He says he did not speak to her, “otherwise this would have all been in vain”. He receives another call from Jun-Hee, and he rejects it, telling the uncle that they “can’t have any distractions”.
The next morning, Jun-Hee tells her colleague Na-Eun about the phone calls. They ask another colleague to help them hack Yeon-Jun’s phone in order to locate it. They then discover the phone is currently located in Min-Ju’s uncle’s café. A shocked Jun-Hee learns that the phone bill was last paid by someone named Nam Si-Heon.
Jun-Hee returns to the café and asks if “Nam Si-Heon” works there, but the staff member denies it. Jun-Hee eventually leaves, and we see the mystery man watching her from inside the café. We learn that he asked the café staff to pretend that they do not know who Nam Si-Heon is.
Returning to 1998
Jun-Hee runs into Yeon-Jun’s artist friend and the two head over to the workshop he once shared with Yeon-Jun. She tells the friend about her ‘dream’ of the past and meeting someone who looks like Yeon-Jun. She later visits a doctor, and we find out that she has been experiencing insomnia for some time. She tells the doctor about her ‘dream’, and he says it might all be a hallucination, which she appears to agree with.
She later meets up with Min-Ju’s uncle, and she reveals her ‘dream’ about her time as Min-Ju. He then tells her that there was a time in the past when his niece Min-Ju had claimed that she was “Han Ju-Hee”. He hands her a package, telling her she might want to read what’s inside.
Jun-Hee takes it home and opens the package, revealing Min-Ju’s diary. She finds the pages that she wrote while she was Min-Ju, in her own handwriting. She realizes that her ‘dream’ was actually real, and that she did go back to 1998. She flips through the diary and sees several pages have been torn out. She also finds an entry in Min-Ju’s handwriting dated Aug 29, 1998 that reads: “That boy is Koo Yeon-Jun.”
She decides she needs to return to 1998 and listens to Seo Jin-Won’s Gather My Tears on the cassette player. It works, and she wakes up as Min-Ju at the moment the police arrive at the record store. After confirming that she has returned to the past, she runs out of the store.
An eternal love
We get a flashback of Yeon-Jun and Jun-Hee discussing his love of time travel movies. Yeon-Jun says he does not mind not knowing the future, because he knows he “will always be with Jun-Hee”. He adds that he would travel back to a time before he ever met her, and would tell his past self to not let her go. Jun-Hee replies that she would also like to tell Yeon-Jun’s past self that she would be “the only woman he would ever love in his life”.
Jun-Hee runs to the school and finds Si-Heon, but decides not to tell him about her feelings just yet. She then remembers that in 1998, Yeon-Jun would still be a child, so there is no way for Si-Heon to really be him. She wonders why Min-Ju wrote the line in her diary, and when she met Yeon-Jun.
Later, Si-heon invites In-Gyu to meet up with Min-Ju, saying that she looked as if she had been crying earlier. In-Gyu says that he will go and meet Min-Ju alone, and that he has told her about his feelings. This seems to bother Si-Heon, but he puts up a brave face and lets In-Gyu pursue Min-Ju.
More complicated feelings
Jun-Hee later attempts to return to her own time by listening to the tape, but realizes that she is unable to. Meanwhile, the friendship between Si-heon and In-Gyu begins to fracture because of their mutual feelings for ‘Min-Ju’. We also see In-Gyu being approached by the detectives investigating the attack on Min-Ju.
Si-Heon later takes ‘Min-Ju’ out, and begins to discuss their confusing situation. He says that they need to set boundaries so that they can continue to hang out. However, by the time he finishes speaking, he realizes ‘Min-Ju’ has fallen asleep. He then tells a sleeping ‘Min-Ju’ that he will always be there for her.
We then see the rest of the flashback between Jun-Hee and Yeon-Jun, where he tells her that she would not need to tell him, and that he would always know that she was the one for him.
Back in the past, Jun-Hee wakes up and looks at Si-Heon. She realizes that while he is not Yeon-Jun, she has begun to develop feelings for him as well.
Our opinion
This episode had plenty of emotional moments where the cast really got to shine. While very little happened plot-wise, we can already see the drama being set up for the future. And of course, all the unanswered questions. Was it really In-Gyu who attacked Min-Ju? Exactly who is the mystery man? And what about Jun-Hee and Si-Heon’s growing feelings for each other?
Join us as we explore the next episode of A Time Called You!
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