“Backstreet Rookie” Episode 3 Recap

Glimpses of Saet Byul’s past and Dae Hyun’s stagnant relationship are highlights in the 3rd episode of Backstreet Rookie!

Whoever is writing the witty lines on Backstreet Rookie, especially those from Saet Byul’s friends, deserves a raise! While Dae Hyun raises vexation for taking to bits the love-is-blind banner, I can’t help but be understanding of his situation.

Also, there’s more to Saet Byul’s goal of becoming a regular part-timer, than love. She is fulfilling a promise to her dad.

Episode Recaps:  01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | 05 | 06 | Mid-Series | 09 | 10 | 11 | 12 | Finale Week Feature | REVIEW

abbyinhallyuland watches Backstreet Rookie on iQIYI

Episode 3: The pretty part-timer working at Choi’s Convenience Store

“Excuse me. You have to clean up after yourself.”

We have to give it to Saet Byul for keeping her cool while tending the convenience store. Her tenacity to understand different types of customers require unwavering EQ.

One of the customers she bumped with apparently is Dae Hyun’s former office mate who starts his day at the office gossiping about the pretty part-timer at Dae Hyun’s convenience store. Taunting Yeon Joo, she confidently dismisses it and proceeds with the meeting.

Feeling spirited, Yeon Joo wakes up to check her horoscope for that day and happily preps for work seeing a luck badge in store for her. Hoping for some doting from her manager, Dae Hyun has only words of encouragement for her to boost the store’s sales even more. She even tells him how he needs to stay close with her, a Leo, since he, a Libra, has a bad luck that day.

Luckily, Saet Byul’s day turns brighter when a celebrity walks in the convenience store, (a cameo from Jung Joon Ho from SKY Castle). He even extends extra fan service of preparing his own autographed picture to give her.

“Thank you for being at the perfect place for me to beat you all up!”

Saet Byul treats Geum Bi with a drink and inquired how her sister Eun Byul is doing at school. The latter assures her friend not to worry about her sister.

Just then, the trio slacker, who visited the store without cleaning up their food, arrive to steal goods nonchalantly. Finally hitting the bottom of her patience, Saet Byul goes to look for them to straighten them up.

Beating the pretentious gangsters to a pulp, Saet Byul orders them to return the money of whatever they stole to raise up her chances of securing a permanent part-time job.

Spotting Dal Shik in the sidelines, Saet Byul just know what to do in case he tattles on Dae Hyun about her little backstreet lesson.

“Gosh, what are you doing here, Yeon-joo?”

Bothered about the eye-candy part-timer hired at Dae Hyun’s convenience store, Yeon Joo finds herself on a “royal inspection”. But since Saet Byul took care of the neighborhood slackers, she finds the unkempt looking Geum Bi, and felt baffled about the intel she sniffed.

Dae Hyun meets with his former colleagues and shuts his junior up on his idea that the son of the chairman likes Yeon Joo. Saet Byul and Geum Bi reunite and play a historical skit as Saet Byul reports her victorious feat.

Arriving for his shift, Dae Hyun asks if his expected package arrive and calls Yeon Joo. The latter blabs about not minding her previous thoughts about his part-timer and tells him to be nicer to her.

Turns out, the sweater Dae Hyun ordered is for Yeon Joo’s father who is soon celebrating his birthday. Hoping he could meet her parents, she makes an excuse that her father is not feeling well and wants a small private gathering with the family.

Rubbing salt to his wound, Saet Byul confirms his spoiled plan and Dae Hyun takes the disappointment on her for eavesdropping. She reasons how his voice is so loud and tears the label of the sweater in annoyance ,which flustered Dae Hyun since he will be going for a refund and in need of the paper label.

“Dad, has been stressed out with house chores.”

Feeling dejected, Dae Hyun drags his father for a drink and went home together tipsy and noisy. His parents start to bicker and it escalates mom’s rage when his father mentions the name of a woman.

Trying to appease his furious mom, Dae Hyun mediates but rushes to his room when his mother declares war. The morning after, his father is still alive with broken arm from his mother’s punishment.

Dae Hyun greets Saet Byul and preps to attend a school reunion in a quite fancy place. His school friends tease on his relationship with a capable and successful woman. When he leaves the room for a quick break, he stumbles on his girlfriend’s family having a dinner in one of the rooms with the CEO’s son, Director Cho.

“Don’t mind me. Just focus on your lives.”

Dae Hyun wallows in alcohol and shares how he has not met his girlfriend’s parents yet after dating for two years. He ignores the comments of the absurdity of his situation.

Back at Yeon Joo’s house, she reminisces memories with Seung Joon through her childhood pictures.

Dae Hyun finds Saet Byul who is contemplating new menus they can implement in the store. Sensing his somber mood, she asks what’s wrong, but he ignores her question.

Shyly asking her to download the “daily guru” app, Saet Byul teases him more of having a bad day. Carrying his bag of beer cans, he brushes off Saet Byul’s intentional report of drawing big number of customers that day.

Popping another can of alcohol, Dae Hyun thinks of his girlfriend’s lie earlier. He gets his phone and checks his fortune thru “daily guru” who has put the exact words of what happened to him that day.

“We’re trying hard to make sure, we don’t disappoint you”

Saet Byul and Eun Byul visit their father at his resting place. They tell him not to worry as they are doing well.

At the convenience store, Dae Hyun struggles to find the right words to confront Yeon Joo. His mom cuts his reverie reminding him that the school girls are approaching.

Preparing for the usual photo session, he halts and answers Yeon Joo’s phone call which enraged his groupie, feeling disappointed of him having a girlfriend. Even more furious is his mom who chides him on losing the afternoon customers.

“Yeon-joo was honest with me, but I was a coward.”

Yeon Joo meets Dae Hyun for dinner and tells him that she wants to be honest with him. She confesses about the CEO’s son attending her father’s birthday because they are childhood friends. She adds that both their fathers are good friends. The two go to the bar they usually frequented, but finds it changed to a new one.

Coincidentally, Saet Byul and her friends go to the same place to chill. When the handsome server came, Geum Bi and Yoon Soo wage focus-on-me-pretty-boy war. Yoon Soo checks how Eun Byul is and Saet Byul replies she is doing great thanks to her amazing sister. However, right at that moment, Eun Byul is at the mercy of annoying bullies.

“She’s the part-timer you told me to be nice to.”

The same annoying bullies move to the newly-opened bar where Saet Byul is enjoying her father’s favorite song which Yeon Joo hates, but Dae Hyun also likes.

Yeon Joo excuses herself to go to the wash room and offends the bullies who are insisting to enter the place. They follow her in the wash room to extort some money. Enter Saet Byul, who was stopped by the two minions looking out for possible interference.

Super girl Saet Byul pushes the lookouts and tells the main bully to take what they are doing outside. Refusing to budge, Saet Byul dumps the arrogant bully to her other two friends slumped and beaten on the floor.

Just then, Dae Hyun comes to his girlfriend’s rescue, and accidentally pushes Saet Byul who is trying to coax Yeon Joo out of the wash room cubicle so she can use it. Recognizing Dae Hyun, the three are baffled on the situation, as Yeon Joo realizes that her boyfriend’s part-timer is really pretty.

Peak Points & Musings

I’d like to besties with Saet Byul and her friends to be honest. Their genuine bickering draws laughter every time. We now know that Saet Byul has stopped school to become the breadwinner in the family when her father died.

While the main and side love lines are shaping up, I am honestly curious on how the story will be expounded apart from the projected romance. This series has been covering typical issues in family and social communities that anyone can relate to: household without parents, the plight of house husbands, the burden of a wife with a house husband, relationship struggle between rich-poor couple and bullying.

Albeit, these topics and more to come, Backstreet Rookie has been teaching a lot about finding purpose. Like how Saet Byul’s bleak life is made brighter by a couple of trusted and functional friends. Hopefully, we will get one from Dae Hyun, that will feature giving up on love because there’s someone better out there that would appreciate all the small and big things you do for her.

Backstreet Rookie‘s episode 4 airs on June 28 via SBS.

*Screencaps from iQIYI

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