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.
Dong-eun describes what she loves about 바둑 (baduk), the Korean name for the board game Go. In baduk, players build territories called '집' (jip, literally 'houses'), and the goal is to surround and collapse your opponent's houses. Her framing — fighting to the death in silence and tearing down what someone else carefully built — signals that baduk is more than a hobby; it's the blueprint for her revenge.
Hyun-nam says she wanted Dong-eun to stomp on Yeon-jin so hard her heart shrivels up like a 미더덕 (mideoduk), a small, wrinkly sea squirt popular in Korean stews. Using a common seafood as a simile for a crushed heart is very everyday Korean humor — it's the kind of colorful, kitchen-table expression Hyun-nam reaches for constantly.
The grandmother proudly announces that the Gucci outfit is baby Ye-sol's first designer item, using the English phrase '퍼스트 구찌' (first Gucci). Gifting luxury brands to infants is a status flex common among wealthy Korean families, where a child's 'starting point' — the family's wealth and taste — is seen as shaping their entire future. The mother-in-law's silent scoff ('what does a baby know?') captures the generational clash around this habit.
Do-yeong's mother mentions the 배냇저고리 (baenaetjeogori), the tiny plain white gown a baby wears in its first days of life. Korean tradition holds that keeping and occasionally showing a child this garment reminds them to work with everything they have, down to the strength they used while breastfeeding. It's a humble counterpoint to the flashy Gucci outfit — old Korea versus new money.
Dong-eun tells Yeon-jin she 'encouraged' a child who can't perceive colors or ripening fruit — a veiled reference to Ye-sol, who appears to have a vision condition. By framing her classroom as a place where 'color doesn't matter,' she signals she has already used her teacher's authority to quietly observe and protect Ye-sol, making Yeon-jin powerless to act without exposing herself. The calm tone makes the threat more chilling than any shouting.
Hyun-nam misremembers the famous Hermann Hesse novel 데미안 (Demian) as '래미안,' which is actually a well-known Korean apartment brand by Samsung. The opening line of Demian — 'the bird fights its way out of the egg; the egg is the world' — is a beloved quote in Korean literary culture, so mangling its title into a construction brand is a classic comedic slip. Dong-eun's deadpan correction is the show's rare moment of lightness.
Sa-ra's church service features Romans 12:19, which instructs believers to leave vengeance to God. The verse is placed here as dark irony: the show's title 더 글로리 (The Glory) draws on the idea of divine retribution, and Dong-eun literally walks into a church to recruit Sa-ra moments after this scripture is read aloud. The drama treats the verse not as comfort but as a contract Dong-eun is about to renegotiate.
Dong-eun corrects Sa-ra's use of '이판사판,' pointing out it's originally a Buddhist term. 이판 (ipan) refers to monks devoted to meditation and study; 사판 (sapan) refers to monks who handle temple administration. When the two roles collapsed together it meant total disorder — hence the modern meaning of 'all or nothing, no way out.' It's a small detail but very in-character: even in a tense confrontation, Dong-eun notices the etymology.
When Sa-ra accuses Dong-eun of being on drugs, Dong-eun coolly fires back that Sa-ra is the one who takes them — 'in variety, frequently.' This is a callback to earlier episodes establishing Sa-ra's habitual drug use. Korean law treats recreational drug use very harshly, so the implication that Sa-ra uses multiple substances regularly is both a personal jab and a serious legal threat Dong-eun is quietly banking.
시알리스 (Cialis), known generically as tadalafil, is a prescription erectile dysfunction drug. Dong-eun found a box belonging to a man who visits a shaman with Yeon-jin's mother on a regular schedule, and she asks Joo Yeo-jeong — a doctor — what it is. The fact that someone is secretly using this drug while meeting a married woman's mother, arriving in separate cars, becomes a potential piece of leverage in Dong-eun's plan.
'떡튀순' is shorthand for 떡볶이 (spicy rice cakes), 튀김 (fried snacks), and 순대 (blood sausage), the classic Korean street-food trio usually sold together at a 분식집 (snack restaurant). Ordering this set in a small local joint is the ultimate ordinary Korean meal — the scene uses the mundane comfort food to underline the surreal darkness of the conversation happening over it.
'메멘토 모리' (Memento Mori) is Latin for 'remember that you will die,' a classical phrase with roots in Roman philosophy. Myeong-o has it tattooed on his neck but covered it sloppily with a 파스 (pas), a Korean adhesive pain-relief patch similar to a medicated plaster. The joke is that the partial cover accidentally created a different — and apparently embarrassing — phrase in Spanish. The scene gently mocks his pretension while foreshadowing the death motif.
Vladivostok is a Russian port city reachable by ferry from the eastern Korean port of Sokcho — it's a route Koreans associate with cheap, spontaneous escapes rather than planned holidays. Buying a one-way ticket there, as Myeong-o requests, signals he intends to disappear rather than return. The travel agent's barely-contained excitement ('I've always wanted to do this') plays against the grim reason Myeong-o actually needs to flee.