8 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.
Min-hyuk casually mentions he eats only once a day — 1일 1식 (il-il il-sik), a popular intermittent-fasting lifestyle that gained a big following in Korea in the 2010s after a bestselling book and several celebrity endorsements. Practicing it became a minor status marker among diet-conscious urbanites. The joke here is that he then immediately demands a large, lavish breakfast, completely undermining his own claim.
Bong-soon calls her fist a '핵 주먹' (haek jumeok), literally a 'nuclear fist.' The prefix 핵 (haek), meaning nuclear or atomic, exploded in Korean slang around the 2010s as a super-intensifier — like saying 'mega' or 'ultra' in English. It works on anything: 핵인싸 (mega-popular), 핵꿀 (insanely sweet deal). Here she's hyping her own punch to herself while playing a video game.
Bong-soon sarcastically uses the terms 갑 (gap) and 을 (eul) — literally the first and second characters in a traditional contract — to mean the powerful party (her boss) and the weaker party (herself). In Korean workplace and legal culture, 갑질 (gap-jil) refers to the abuse of power by the stronger party, a social problem so recognized it regularly makes headlines. Bong-soon is mocking the whole dynamic with deadpan formality.
The neighbourhood women consult a 무당 (mudang), a Korean shaman who communicates with spirits through rituals called 굿 (gut). She uses a fan and hand bell — classic ritual props — and speaks in a heightened, rhythmic way. While Christianity and Buddhism are Korea's largest religions, shamanism (무속, musok) is deeply embedded in folk life; many Koreans quietly visit a 무당 for guidance on business, marriage, or health, even if they wouldn't admit it publicly.
Min-hyuk says the breakfast Bong-soon laid out feels like the table his mother used to set for him. A 밥상 (bapsang) is not just food — it's the whole spread of rice, soup, and side dishes (반찬, banchan) arranged together, the image most Koreans associate with maternal care. The comment quietly reveals something lonely about Min-hyuk's home life, because a home-cooked 밥상 is precisely what a wealthy bachelor living alone doesn't have.
Teenage Guk-du says he likes a girl who is like a 코스모스 (koseumosu) — the delicate cosmos flower — someone he can protect. This is a very specific romantic archetype in Korean culture: the slight, gentle woman who needs a man's shelter. Hearing this crushes Bong-soon, because her supernatural strength makes her the exact opposite. The moment explains why she has suppressed her power ever since — not just to avoid trouble, but to be loveable in Guk-du's eyes.
Bong-soon's mother prays at a Buddhist temple during college entrance exam season, begging Buddha to get her son into a medical school (한세대 의대) and her daughter into any university at all. Visiting temples to perform 108 bows or light incense for exam success is a nationwide ritual in Korea every autumn — so common that temples near exam prep hubs stay open all night during 수능 (Suneung, the national college entrance exam) season.
The detective confirms the driver used a 대포폰 (daepofon), literally a 'cannon phone' — a prepaid SIM registered under a stolen or fake identity. In Korean crime dramas and real-world investigations, 대포폰 are the go-to tool for criminals who need untraceable communication. They're illegal to use for fraud but were widely available through grey-market channels, and tracking one quickly goes nowhere precisely because the registration is fictitious.