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.
Young-joon says burying something is the most reliable method — a cold, practical logic that reflects how powerful men in Korean crime dramas (and real scandals) treat inconvenient evidence as a logistical problem to be managed rather than a moral one. The matter-of-fact tone is part of what makes the line chilling.
Young-joon wants to wait for a rainy day before doing the burial work because rain washes away soil disturbance, footprints, and trace evidence. This is a real forensic concern — Korean crime investigators note that rain dramatically complicates soil and biological evidence collection at outdoor scenes.
The nurse explains there are no CCTV cameras in the procedure room because of the 개인정보보호법 (gae-in jeong-bo bo-ho-beop), South Korea's Personal Information Protection Act. Korea has strict regulations on surveillance in spaces where bodies are exposed, making operating-room-style spaces a legally protected zone from recording.
Dong-eun tells Do-hyun she doesn't want him to be Yeon-jin's 영광 (yeong-gwang, glory/pride) — she wants him to be her 폐허 (pye-heo, ruins). In Korean, these two words form a sharp moral contrast: 영광 is the triumphant highlight of someone's life, while 폐허 is what's left after total collapse. Dong-eun is saying a living, present husband is more devastating to Yeon-jin than an absent one.
Yeo-jeong explains he wants to treat Dong-eun's burn scars using a method where new laser wounds are made over old scar tissue — this is a real procedure called fractional laser resurfacing (분할 레이저 치료). The skin is deliberately re-injured in a controlled way so it heals with smoother, less fibrous tissue. His framing of it as "letting me make the wound" is both clinical and deeply personal given their relationship.
The shaman (무당, mu-dang) mentions travelling to 계룡산 (Gyeryongsan) for 치성 (chi-seong), a ritual offering prayer. Gyeryongsan in South Chungcheong Province is considered one of Korea's most spiritually powerful mountains and has been a centre for shamanist and new religious rituals for centuries — many shamans make pilgrimages there to seek divine power.
Sun-ah thanks Dong-eun for helping her 도망치다 (do-mang-chi-da, run away/escape), and Dong-eun corrects her: it's 희망 (hee-mang, hope), not escape. This word swap is significant in Korean — 도망 carries shame, the stigma of a coward fleeing, while 희망 frames the same act as a brave choice. Dong-eun is rewriting the story Sun-ah tells herself.
Dong-eun asks Seong-hee whether she still has contact with 몸에 그림 있는 오빠들 — literally "older brothers with drawings on their bodies," a polite euphemism for tattooed men associated with organised crime. In South Korea, full-body or prominent tattoos are still heavily stigmatised and closely associated in the public imagination with criminal gangs, even though tattoo culture is growing among younger Koreans.
Yeon-jin's mother panics about a body that has been in a hospital for 18 years without the family claiming it. Under Korean law, a 무연고 시신 (mu-yeon-go si-sin, unclaimed body) should eventually be transferred to a public crematorium through local government. A hospital secretly keeping one — especially frozen — would violate mortuary regulations overseen by the 보건복지부 (Ministry of Health and Welfare), which is exactly the legal angle Young-joon starts probing.
Hyeon-nam's letter is addressed to 'Laura Wilson,' the overseas homestay host. The 홈스테이 (homestay) system is a common pathway for Korean students studying abroad, especially in English-speaking countries. Families pay a placement fee to a 유학원 (yu-hak-won, study-abroad agency) — shown earlier in the episode — and students live with a local host family while attending school.
Yeo-jeong has just purchased a shuttered 장례식장 (jang-rye-sik-jang, funeral hall). He deflects the agent's curiosity with a riddle about wanting the chocolate inside the box — hinting the building's value lies in what (or who) it contains, not the property itself. Closed funeral halls in Korea often have refrigerated storage and private access, details that take on an ominous meaning given what the group needs to do with Myeong-oh.
너울 (neo-ul) are deep-ocean swell waves that travel vast distances and strike the coast without the usual warning of choppy surface ripples — one moment the water looks calm, the next it surges over a breakwater. Korea's east coast issues 너울 advisories because fishermen and visitors have been swept away with no visible warning. Dong-eun uses the word as her central metaphor for revenge that builds invisibly and then destroys everything at once.
Yeo-jeong compares himself to a 망나니 (mang-na-ni), the historical royal executioner who beheaded condemned criminals in Joseon-era Korea. A 망나니 carried out 어명 (eo-myeong, the king's command) without questioning the reason — his job was execution, not judgement. Yeo-jeong is saying his role beside Dong-eun is exactly that: to act, not to ask why.