Love Next Door is a K-drama set in contemporary Korea, and you can stream it on Netflix. Soap Hub is excited to bring this new type of soap opera content to viewers and fans.
Episode 1 Recap
It opens with four middle-aged women enjoying each other’s company on a hike. The four women are chatting about their beauty regimen. As their conversation continues, it appears that two women, the one in blue Seo Hye-sook, and the one in red, Na Mi-sook, have been neighbors and in friendly debate for years. Na Mi-sook brags that her wonderful Kor-tek red jacket was a gift from her super-successful daughter, Bae Seok-ryu. Seo Hye-sook retorts that it’s a Gor-tek jacket and continues on to say that her son Choi Seung-hyo, as an award-winning architect, is even more successful. During the debate, we are treated to flashbacks of the awesomeness of the two children that only a mother could provide.
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Cut to an exquisite event where the young architect, Choi Seung-hyo, is about to receive a major award, and his boss is freaking out because Choi Seung-hyo isn’t at the event yet. Choi Seung-hyo is at a cemetery when he receives a call and gets to the event in the nick of time. He is so cool that he just says thank you instead of a long speech.
The ladies reach the top of the mountain and a lovely viewing area looking over the city. Na Mi-sook wins today’s debate by sharing the invitations to her daughter’s upcoming wedding, with the complaint from Seo Hye-sook about why they are giving us invitations for a wedding in America.
We cut to a young woman being woken up in her first-class airplane seat. She looks out the window and says to herself, “I have arrived.” We find out she is Bae Seok-ryu when her friend Jeong Mo-eum yells her name while picking her up at the airport. The scene ends with them driving away from the airport.
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Back to the event where his boss is upset with Choi Seung-hyo because he didn’t mention the firm’s name at the event. Choi Seung-hyo is still so cool that he just nods to the beautiful Roh Yoon-seo (an actress playing herself) as he heads out. As he drives away, his car passes a hungry Bae Seok-ryu in her friend’s car. The ladies decide to get food not at Bae Seok-ryu’s parents’ restaurant but at another restaurant they frequented in high school. In the restaurant, we are introduced to Bae Seok-ryu’s brother as they duck down to avoid being seen by him. As the two young ladies walk the final distance to Bae Seok-ryu’s home, Jeong Mo-eum is called for an emergency shift at her job as a paramedic.
Bae Seok-ryu walks by a new building that replaced the public bath and sauna that was there when she was younger. They flashback to her childhood when she and Choi Seung-hyo were both taken there by their respective mothers. In this flashback, we find that Bae Seok-ryu was a grimy brat who didn’t like to take baths and that Choi Seung-hyo didn’t like having to bathe with her in the women’s bath. At the end of the flashback, they finally meet after many years apart. The four older ladies are returning from their hike, and Choi Seung-hyo helps Bae Seok-ryu hide from her mother and the other three ladies. They go into the building, which is his new office, where she accidentally hurts him by knocking over a bookcase that has heavy, expensive artwork on it onto him, and we have another flashback to another time she hurt him as a child.
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We cut to Jeong Mo-eum at the hospital, where we find out why she was called in and follow her on an emergency call to help a drunk diabetic who becomes violent when they try to take him to the hospital. A young man with glasses and a book tries to defend her, but he fails miserably, and she uses her black belt to defend herself and her medical skill to treat the drunk.
It’s now sundown, and Bae Seok-ryu and Choi Seung-hyo are walking together as she is avoiding going home. Her family sees her in the street, and she tells them that she broke off her engagement. Her father collapses with the news, and her mother calls her nuts and starts beating her. Bae Seok-ryu also explains that she quit her job. The discussion goes back and forth until it devolves to a point where she runs away, dragging Choi Seung-hyo with her. They flashback to her dragging him in the same way when they were kids.
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They run away until they have time to rest and talk. At the overlook where they are resting, they run into another couple who ask them to take their picture. When the other couple asks if they want a photo together they reply in sync, and the other couple says you guys must have dated a long time to be so in sync. They receive a call saying it would be okay for them to come home, and they head home. Back at the hospital, Jeong Mo-eum, the paramedic, doesn’t give her name or phone number to the stranger who tried and failed to help her. The stranger sees she left a kind note for the diabetic drunk, who picks it up while leaving the hospital.
Bae Seok-ryu makes it home, and we are treated to one more flashback, this time of her defending Choi Seung-hyo against a bunch of young bullies. The episode ends with Cho Seunh-hyo walking away smiling.
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