Here’s What Made Episode 1 of Love Next Door on Netflix So Captivating

The first episode of the Netflix K Drama Love Next Door has many great moments. You can check out Soap Hub‘s recap of episode 1 here.

Delightful Oh Eun-Seo

I think Oh Eun-Seo, the actress playing the young Bae Seok-ryu, is a delight. From her first appearance, where she is fighting with her mom about taking a bath, you know that she is a no-nonsense hellraiser.

In her second appearance, she is fighting with a bunch of kids and accidentally pushes Choi Seung-hyo into a barbed wire fence, where he has a scar on his back until the present day. When the adult Bae Seok-ryu realizes that he still has the scar, he tells her, “My body is bruised and battered from everything you put me through.” 

In her final appearance in the episode, young Choi Seung-hyo is being teased by other kids because he won’t talk. They say it’s because he was born in another country so the bullies tell him “to speak something in another language.” He remains silent, so one kid pushes him and asks, “Are you dumb?”  A kid yells, “There is Bae Seok-ryu; she will kill you if you make fun of this idiot,” and she then threatens them all, “I will kill you if you bother my baby again.” The young actress brings so much energy to the role that she helps define the adult version of the character. 

Solid Character Development

There are many enjoyable scenes that really allow you to get a solid initial feeling for the characters. When Jeong Mo-eum, Bae Seok-ryu’s friend who became a paramedic, is giving a gift and message for the people at the hospital front desk to give to the drunk she helped earlier, we get to see her walk away with confidence as she is approached by the stranger who failed to save her earlier.

She asks him about his hand, which he hurt in his failed attempts at heroics. He apologizes for interfering and she tells him it’s okay because she has a soft spot for kindness. He asks her for her name. She says in her six years of being a paramedic, no one who asked her name and number ever called, so she confidently walks away without giving her name. At the end of the scene, he says to himself as he writes in his book, “I have a soft spot for touching stories.“

With each episode of Love Next Door clocking in at over an hour long, there are many great moments. Please tell us your favorites in the comments.