Banking on the world of career dreamers who want to prove their mettle in the cutthroat world of viable business ventures, Start-Up has fully gotten our attention.
Watching Do-san, Dal-mi, Ji-pyeong and In-jae navigate to their personal goals and aspirations at Sand Box is definitely not a bad idea to fill our weekends ahead of the holiday season.
abbyinhallyuland watches Start-Up on Netflix
Start-Up Episode Recaps: 01 & 02 | 03 | 04 | 05 | 06 | Mid-Series | 9 & 10 | 11 & 12 | 13 | 14 -16 + Review |
Start-Up Episode 5 Key Moments
“Man is the most intelligent because he has hands.”
Wallowing on his depleted self-esteem, Do-san has thankfully geek friends who urges him to push forward.
Still bothered on how he is winning Dal-mi’s attention because of her beautiful first love memories with Ji-pyeong, he gets the needed advices from his friends.
That even if Dal-mi is only fascinated on his hands at the moment. Those capable hands of him can do more if he wants Dal-mi to like him as he is.
At that same moment, Dal-mi chats with Grandma over the phone and tells how Do-san’s hand is the coolest thing ever. She also wonders if her hands could also make her win against her sister.
“I’ll give you a chance to get angry when you successfully enter Sand Box.”
Rushing to check on the situation at Sand Box, Ji-pyeong learns from Do-san that he does not need to worry about anything anymore. That Dal-mi is also not a bit interested to his involvement.
All focused on protecting Dal-mi against her sister, Ji-pyeong also signed up as a mentor. When he was about to get the jellies Dal-mi gave her, he firmly get it back surprising Ji-pyeong.
The teams at Sand Box prep up for Hackathon, which will decide their fates on entering the renowned start-up business cradle.
Learning her sister got popular twin developers from MIT whose reputation is mainly made up of them going for anything because of money, Dalmi sets forth to improve the specs of the team.
It turns out that Dal-mi did not go to university which bothered Chul-san, but Do-san remains firm of their decision for Dal-mi to be their CEO.
Quick-witted Dal-mi signs up designer Jung Sa-ha (Stephanie Lee) to work with them.
“Do-san explained it to me. It’s a very romantic technology.”
Hackathon begins and the teams presented it one by one. They have to come up with a feasible business model and Sand Box provided them the resources to work on it. Another catch is that it has to be presented in three minutes.
Asking Dal-mi if she is familiar of artificial intelligence technology, she cheekily answered that Do-san explained it to her and understands it as a very romantic technology.
Apparently, Do-san explained it to Dal-mi last time in a Tarzan-Jane love story in an island where Tarzan works on doing a trial and error of what Jane might like.
Browsing on the list of resources for their business model, the penmanship from Jeonghan bank piqued their interest. Sa-ha providing a background on how bank has to have it to avoid fraud and forgery, Dal-mi suggests incorporating machine learning to detect handwriting forgery.
Team Samsan Tech agrees that it can be worked on as Dal-mi affirms how viable the project would be. Backing up the team secretly, Ji-pyeong was surprised to hear from Dong-chun that they already have an idea, which also impressed Ji-pyeong.
When one of the twins heard that Samsan Tech will be working on Jeonghan Bank’s penmanship, they convince In-jae to work on the same resources to challenge the geeks who turned her down.
“I never regretted it. But I wish things could’ve been different. I always wished I had met you sooner.”
Accidentally learning that Dal-mi did not go to the university, Ji-pyeong chases after Grandma when he saw her talking with Dal-mi’s mom. Fixing her untied shoelace, he whines at why she’s using worn out ones.
Confirming if she ever regretted giving him the opportunity she could have taken for herself and Dal-mi, Grandma gave another reassuring message. She tells her favorite “good boy” that her only wish before was to have met him sooner, so she could have played cards with him during the holidays and made bibimbap for his school trips. She would have also been there to fight for him if someone bullied him. It made her sad that she wasn’t able to do that much for him. *awww these two
Tears escape from Ji-pyeong’s eyes who hid it right away. Feeling touch, he walked away and looked for Dong-chun, fully decided to support Dal-mi because of Grandma.
“That gives you a Plan B even if you fail this.”
While polishing their pitch, Do-san goes to his two friends who are worried about the idea of a high school graduate having their fates in her hands. That slightly annoyed Ji-pyeong who heard their conversation.
Bluntly chiding on how they are not in the right position to look down on how Dal-mi would fair, Ji-pyeong pointed out how they have not been successful at the very least in their past endeavors.
Giving them a Plan B, he promises to fund their business if they don’t make the cut.
Mustering her strength is not easy as Dal-mi’s nerves act up as her turn approaches. She bumps on Ji-pyeong who checks on her notes and gave her pointers for her pitch.
The spotlight shines on Dal-mi, and while the crowd worries about her sudden silence, she gave her all and exceeded expectations with her amazing presentation. All the while Do-san looked back in all those blunt feedbacks of Ji-pyeong which finally made sense with Dal-mi’s keen insights and how she explained it.
“Why did you go to great lengths to help us even if it meant you had to lie?”
Team Samsan Tech received an applause for the well-executed pitch making the two Sans who initially doubted Dal-mi elated. Then came In-jae company which put a learning data using OCR to create handwriting fonts that usually take years to accomplish.
In-jae’s step dad suddenly made an interesting question to incorporate Samsan tech’s forgery detecting technology to see if In-jae’s font technology can be detected.
Holding everyone’s breath, Do-san runs their program, but unfortunately In-jae Company’s software disabled Samsan Tech’s created algorithm. Unsure of whether a miracle will still be set for them, Do-san looks for Dal-mi who lazily sleeps somewhere.
Ji-pyeong finds her and the nagging feeling of how his life choices indirectly affected Dal-mi settled in his thoughts again. She wakes up and realizes Ji-pyeong has been there. He finally obliges to the conversation that he kept avoiding about his connection to Do-san.
Just when Ji-pyeong is about to come clean, Do-san arrives and delivers the good news that they are in. Unable to hold her happiness, Dal-mi jumps straight to Do-san’s arms.
Start-Up Episode 5 Musings
Yay! for our victorious Start-Up underdogs! This series, packaged to follow the chasing-dreams-love trend, has honestly so much to offer. It is unapologetic in gifting lessons for budding youth who needed the right rationalization on their ventures.
That is specifically channeled from Ji-pyeong’s perspective. He is there to bluntly share feedback so Do-san can face the reality that success does not happen overnight, even with his remarkable skills.
Start-Up is also giving us a deeper look on how hard work matters more than connection, that building a well-respected branding goes a long way in whatever endeavors we wish to aspire.
Revealing Dal-mi’s educational attainment which seems to be not a weakness is a shoutout to how competence is not mainly dependable on whether or not you finish school. Just like Dal-mi, her experience and her eagerness to learn skills she can use make her such an inspiring character to root for. Her being street smart is definitely at par to all those with university diplomas who have boxed thinking.
What To Look Forward To?
Episode 5 hints a change in the direction of Do-san’s character and I definitely want that to happen because his character is making the least impact in the series to be honest. I hope that destroying that poor ball pen will be the final push for him to be confident enough for a whole new world that awaits him.
His parents briefly described how he has a self-sacrificing nature and would always give way for others. It will be interesting to see him develop into a man who knows his worth because he is more than just a coding peasant.
Another Grandma-Good-Boy moment is always welcome, and we are treated to another memorable scene of encouragement from Kim Hae Sook and Kim Seon Ho. I just hope that Ji-pyeong suiting up as daddy-long-legs to Dal-mi will not lead to romance.
I just want him to be in love with Grandma. That’s a safe bet. That’s for the benefit of us who does not want to be jealous and who root for Ji-pyeong-Do-san bromance. *chuckles
Catch up on Start-Up every Saturday and Sunday on Netflix.
Photos: tvN
Videos: The Swoon | VLENDING
[wpedon id=”3227″ align=”center”]
