13 timestamped notes explaining the Korean cultural context in this episode — customs, idioms, food, honorifics, and history, at the moment each appears on screen. These notes discuss events across the whole episode. To see them revealed scene-by-scene as you watch, use the episode page to find an airing.
Onions (양파) are one of the most important crops in Korean home farming and rural communities. Planting them by hand in rows is a common autumn and spring task that older Koreans, especially grandmothers, take very seriously — far more pressing, in their minds, than any romantic interruption.
In Korea, when a family moves into a new home, it is traditional to give neighbours 떡 (tteok, rice cakes) as a greeting gift. The grandmother is pointing out that if the new family is moving in, they should already have brought rice cakes around — skipping this is seen as a breach of neighbourly etiquette.
기우제 (gi-u-je) is a traditional Korean rain-summoning ritual, historically performed by shamans or government officials during droughts. Ga-young has been searching it repeatedly, along with '인공 강우' (artificial rain-making), because she needs rain to satisfy the rules she invented for a second kiss.
Cheongpungho (청풍호) is a real reservoir in Chungbuk province, and its annual spring cherry blossom festival is a well-known regional event. Street stalls, live performances, and fireworks are standard features — which explains why the whole village has emptied out to attend.
산천어 축제 (Sancheoneo Festival) is a famous winter ice-fishing festival held in Hwacheon, Gangwon province — one of Korea's most attended local festivals. The gang is teasing the outsiders by invoking it as their own turf, implying that festival territories between rival crews are serious business.
흑기사 (heuk-gi-sa, 'Black Knight') is a Korean pop-culture term for someone — usually a man — who steps in to defend or protect another person, often used in the context of romantic rivalry or school dynamics. The older man is proudly claiming this role as Ga-young's long-standing guardian.
The drama draws on the Quran's account of creation: angels were made from light, and jinn from 'smokeless fire' (연기 없는 불). This is genuine Islamic theology, not invented mythology. The show uses it to explain why Ibliss and the angel Izrael are ancient enemies — they are literally made of opposing substances.
South Korean high schools offer a second foreign language elective, and in the 1990s–2000s Arabic briefly surged in popularity because of booming Korean construction contracts in the Middle East. The officer's proud claim that Arabic was his second language is a very recognisable generational joke to Korean viewers.
Throughout the show Ga-young describes herself clinically as a 사이코패스 (psychopath/sociopath), treating it as a neutral self-diagnosis rather than an insult. Here she links it to avoiding caffeine, a deadpan quirk that her old acquaintance recognises immediately — showing this self-labelling is a long-established habit, not a new affectation.
치맥 (chimaek) — fried chicken (치킨) plus beer (맥주) — is Korea's most beloved casual eating combo, especially at outdoor events. Shouting '치맥?' as a spontaneous plan after a festival is an extremely common and instantly relatable suggestion for Korean viewers of all ages.
Ga-young is calmly describing scenarios designed to look like accidents — deep-sea equipment failure, a slip on a difficult hiking trail. This is darkly comic because she is framing her own anticipated death as a logistical project, consistent with her established emotionally flat self-presentation throughout the episode.
호상 (ho-sang) is a traditional Korean concept meaning a death that can be considered fortunate — usually because the person was elderly, lived a full life, and passed peacefully. Neighbours often say it to console the bereaved. The older woman's sharp reply — that there is no such thing as a good death — reflects how emotionally charged the word can be despite its consoling intent.
Ga-young's second 소원 (sowon, wish) is a sharp emotional pivot: instead of a grand ambition, she asks for her grandmother to be rejuvenated to the same age as herself. In Korean family culture, a grandchild raising a grandparent is already unusual; wishing to become peers hints at both her fierce attachment and her fear of being left alone.