Recap: The Spies Who Loved Me Episode 1
This is going to be my first drama recap on the iQIYI streaming site, so we’ll see how that goes. The KDrama is currently open and not locked under the VIP content so you can check it out for yourself too if you’re interested. The Spies Who Loved Me is described as being about a woman twice married, both times unknowingly to spies. It should be interesting.
The Spies Who Loved Me: Episode 1 Recap
The scene opens on a woman sewing some finishing touches into a wedding dress. Her staff burst in to tell her that the bride has arrived. The bride enters the room very agitated. The press have surrounded the building and she is furious that news of her venue has been leaked, possibly by the dressmaker’s staff. Moments later we see what the concern is. This popular actress is visibly pregnant. She is desperate not to have the news get out.
The dressmaker calls her staff in to help sew the bride into her gown and prepare her hair and make-up for the wedding. Under the cover of large umbrellas, the staff rush multiple brides outside and quickly into a cavalcade of identical black vans. The reporters rush to follow the vans which split off into different directions. Meanwhile back at the dress shop, the real bride quietly leaves in another van. The other brides are revealed to be decoys but it’s too late for the reporters.
The dressmaker, Kang Ah Reum (Yoo In Na) thinks about marriage and what a wedding dress means. She speaks of the promise involved and the plans that are made and the way that some marriages eventually fall apart. We learn from her voice over that her first marriage ended badly. Her current husband is a diplomat who loves her very much and who won her over to the idea of remarriage. “He is always on my side”, she thinks, “and it doesn’t hurt that he is handsome”.
That Evening
Kang Ah Reum’s husband, Derrick Hyun (Im Joo Hwan) picks her up from work. On the ride home she drives while he takes a work call. They discuss some of his work colleagues. She thinks that one of the Americans he has worked with is certainly a CIA agent, which he laughs off. Discussion moves on to the upcoming wedding of a close friend. It’s going to be a big wedding with guests from America and Korea. Ah Reum will be going to Jeju Island for the bachelorette party.
Ah Reum drops Derrick off at a garage where he is going to spend the evening tinkering with the mechanics of cars. As long as it’s not motorcycles she doesn’t mind his little hobby. Inside the garage we learn that his “little hobby” is that he’s restoring a car for her for their one year anniversary.
Restaurant
A chef chops the head off of a fish as Jun Ji Hoon (Eric Mun) enters the room. He sits down next to a European looking man at the table. The Chef leaves the room and the man is revealed to be a CIA agent and an industrial spy. He passes a thumb drive to Ji Hoon. The chef returns with a phone in a bowl. Ji Hoon says that the deal is off and the two begin to fight. The CIA agent flees from the restaurant with the thumb drive. Ji Hoon catches up with him and retrieves the thumb drive. His higher ups tell him to let the man go. Frustrated, Ji Hoon goes to the head of the local CIA office who refuses to hand over his agent without solid proof. He wants to know who the informant is. They agree to meet on Monday with both the informant and the corrupt agent in attendance.
Spy Office
Jun Ji Hoon returns to the office. The sign says Gulliver Publishers, but the letters change to let us know that this is an Interpol office. The chef, Kang Tae Ryong (Jung Suk Yong) is there as well as their analyst Kim Young Gu (Bae In Hyuk). There are stacks of books in one corner of the office. Apparently Ji Hoon’s cover is that he is a travel writer, but not even his family members will buy his books. A video call comes in from their agent in the field, Hwang Seo Ra (Cha Joo Young). Young Gu seems to have a crush on her. He wants to get out in the field and stop riding his desk. We learn that Ji Hoon will be travelling to Jeju Island to pick up his informant.
Five Years Earlier
Hotel in Jeju
The Gulliver team is staking out an hotel on Jeju Island when Ah Reum arrives. She is meeting to discuss selling her wedding dress designs in the South American market, but the room they are meeting in is the one marked for surveillance. When she leaves the room, the people she is meeting with steal her design files from her tablet. They are planning to create and sell cheap knock offs while paying her only the down payment for delivery of a few samples.
Jun Ji Hoon records all of their plans and then notices Ah Reum talking to her partner in the hallway. He feels sorry for her, and knows the people she is meeting with are wanted criminals. He convinces his boss that they can take down this bad guy while waiting for the other bad guy to arrive. The agents waiting in the parking garage rush in to arrest the criminal and his associates. The man grabs Ah Reum’s designs before escaping from the room. She finds him in a closet and Ji Hoon takes him down in what appears to be an accident.
Meanwhile, Team Gulliver’s boss is trailing the criminal the team came for. He’s about to arrive at the hotel. The team panics slightly, but in their guise as hotel staff they all enter the elevator with their target, pressing buttons for different floors in the hope to slow him down. Exiting the elevator early on, Tae Ryong lets Ji Hoon know that their target is on his way up. Ji Hoon is in the hallway talking with Ah Reum. He hands her back her tablet and she thanks him for his help.
Another man enters the elevator and talks with bad guy Min Sung. He’s carrying a briefcase but Min Sung suggests they go eat first. The final Gulliver agent exits the elevator on the next floor. Ji Hoon is back in his surveillance room and the room has been tidied up and is ready to go. When he arrives in the room at the hotel restaraunt, Min Sung immediately knows that something is up and hurries to escape. He gets off the elevator and hides in a pile of laundry. Ji Hoon finds him and another fight scene ensues.
After wrapping up with the team, Ji Hoon packs up to leave the hotel but sees Ah Reum sitting drinking by herself. He approaches her to see how she’s doing. When he sees the wedding dresses laying next to her, they have a discussion about her dress shop.
Ah Reum tells him how her heart has been broken by this deception and that the dress is torn. Ji Hoon offers to buy the dress from her. He says that he will give it to someone celibate.
Hallee Catholic Church
The next scene shows Ji Hoon and Ah Reum entering a church where a nun calls to him by name with a smile on her face. She’ll be happy to take the dress and fix it up herself in her sewing room.
The two sit outside the church and discuss the life and loves of a travel writer. They watch the sunset and flirt together. They apparently spend a little more time together on Jeju Island, getting to er… know each other better.
Present Day
Arriving at the airport, Kang Ah Reum calls the bride to let her know she’s on her way. Walking out behind her is a man I presume to be the groom. He is looking at his phone with pictures of the bride-to-be. He gets an incoming call that he does not seem very happy about. Arriving at the bride’s place, Ah Reum is excited to see her friend and get her to try on the wedding dress. She doesn’t seem to notice that the bride is uneasy about something.
Meanwhile, Jun Ji Hoon is meeting with someone from higher up in interpol. They discuss the informant and the secrecy. Why did the informant come forward, his boss wonders. Because they wanted a new life says Jun Ji Hoon…
Back in the bridal suite, Ah Reum and her friend Sophie discuss marriage and fresh starts. They talk about how Sophie was the one who introduced Ah Reum to her second husband. When Ah Reum is busy pinning the hem of the dress, Sophie intentionally rips the lace of her veil. Sophie seems regretful over introducing her friend to Derrick. Ah Reum scoffs at this and says that nobody is perfect, but that Derrick will stand with her against the darkness.
When Ah Reum finds the ripped lace, she gathers up the veil and runs off to a place she knows where she’ll be able to fix it. A place that her former husband also goes to visit whenever he returns to the island.
Hallee Catholic Church
Inside the church, Ji Hoon asks about a smuggler that used to bother the migrant workers on the island. The Reverend Mother says that he’s been gone for about a year. She heard he went to Busan. Outside, Ah Reum sits on a bench enjoying the view and checking the veil. Leaving the church, Ji Hoon sees Ah Reum. He approaches his ex-wife slowly as her gaze lifts to see his face.
Ji Hoon sits down next to Ah Reum on the bench. She learns that he knows she’s remarried. He tries to keep the conversation light and friendly, but she is clearly still very angry over what went wrong in their marriage. Ah Reum’s phone rings and she answers the call from her current husband. When Derrick hangs up the phone, we see him scan the empty hallway before approaching a door marked “International Energy Security Division”.
Back on the bench, Ji Hoon swipes Ah Reum’s phone to see what her new number is. His cavalier attitude annoys her. Apparently his inability to be serious is one of the things that drove them apart.
Ji Hoon’s phone rings and he seems surprised by the response on the other end. Ji Hoon stands to take his leave but Ah Reum stands too. She’s too angry to let him leave first. After giving Ji Hoon a piece of her mind, Ah Reum stalks off, leaving Ji Hoon to his phone call.
Restaurant
The man from earlier at the airport who was looking at pictures of Sophie on his phone walks into a bar and sits down with his back to another man. The other man asks him if he’s been crying.
The man in the suit is a lawyer. Apparently the other man is a former cop named Jang Doo Bong, one who has dealt in corporate espionage in the past. They have been working for opposing teams of corporate spies. The former cop is looking to go into business for himself now. He wants the lawyer to join him in his new venture. Doo Bong says that he knows the lawyer’s cover has been blown and that interpol has an inside source who is willing to spill everything about their operation, including the boss named Helmes.
At the hotel, Sophie is looking at plane ticket to Singapore. She hides it in the lining of her purse. She looks around for a place to hide a thumb drive.
The lawyer asks Doo Bong how he knows it’s Sophie. She’s been working on some super secret technology and taking money from the lawyer’s side in order to sell it to them. Meanwhile, Doo Bong says, she also tried to shop it to their side for a higher bid. The lawyer rises to leave, presumably to find Sophie and kill her. He pats his frenemy on the back as he leaves and then jabs him with a taser.
At the Lighthouse
Ah Reum sits in her car at the lookout where she once kissed her first husband 5 years ago. She is visibly agitated. Ah Reum looks at her phone and unlocks it with the same code that she started using back when she first met Ji Hoon. She flashes back to a happier time.
Laying in the sun, the two discuss the reasons why they don’t like marriage. Ah Reum says that she knows that marriage is hard work. That’s why she makes wedding dresses, to pass some starting luck to the brides at the beginning of their new lives. Ji Hoon who doesn’t want to get married suddenly proposes to his love who hates marriage. She accepts his proposal.
An Office Somewhere
Back in the present day, Ji Hoon is meeting with someone (A witness? An informant? Another cop?) He’s seen a criminal named Jang Doo Bong around here locally. A phone call from his home office confirms the worst. Doo Bong is on Jeju Island for their witness. While on the phone, Ji Hoon receives a message from his informant. It’s an invitation to her bachelorette party. She tells him that he must come protect her. He’s given a dress code for getting in.
The Bachelorette Party
That night the party venue is filled with Sophie’s friends from both Korea and America. They all wear cute little bridal veils in their hair as part of the dress code for the party. Sophie lets the doormen know that she’s expecting a sheriff later and to let him through when arrives. The shifty lawyer sneaks in through a back door when security isn’t looking. Meanwhile at the front door Ji Hoon has arrived.
Both Ah Reum and Ji Hoon wander (separately) through the party looking for the bride. Sophie has stepped outside through a back door and bumped into the sketchy lawyer spy who loves her.
The man tells Sophie that he will protect her. He tells her that her cover has been blown and they know she is a traitor. He offers to help her escape if she just gives him her research files. Sophie calls a security guard to drag her “stalker” away. Inside, Ji Hoon has been dragged up onto the stripper stage.
Sophie comes back inside and passes through the room without seeing Ji Hoon. Ah Reum follows her out. She chases her friend down a set of stairs and out a side door. Starting to run, Ah Reum gets knocked over by a man in a suit who is being chased by somebody in cowboy boots.
The man in the suit pulls out a gun and turns to aim it at the man in a Sheriff costume. He pulls the trigger just as fireworks go off in the night sky. Still on the ground, Ah Reum chases after her veil that is blowing away. She finds a cowboy hat on the ground as well. Looking up, she sees that the cowboy has come back for his hat, and then she sees who the cowboy is.
Final Thoughts:
This drama was fun and pretty light given what it is. There is definitely the potential for it to get a lot darker. But ultimately it reminds me of action romcoms like This Means War or True Lies where the action is second place to the romance. Hopefully it stays that way. I’m not too sure how I feel about the whole ex-husband as endgame thing. I know that we are meant to believe that Ah Reum’s current husband is bad news, but at the moment he is still her husband. They will have to sell me really hard on him being a super bad dude if they want me to root for cheating. I’m curious if he will turn out to be the Big Baddie or if he’s going to also be some sort of undercover spy/double agent working for the good guys. I could see it going either way.
This is the first time I’ve watched a drama on iQIYI. I liked the interface on the desktop better than the one on my phone, but both worked well and the subs seemed pretty good. So far, this is one of the dramas that is open to watch without a VIP membership. I have heard of this site locking dramas into VIP status later in their run but for the moment it is free to check out. If you have checked it out, what did you think? Are you going to keep watching? Let me know in the comments 😊
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