Hi everyone!

Today I’m sharing my episode 1-2 notes on When The Phone Rings, because I am completely sucked in right away, and I was wondering if you’d like to join me? 🤗

These are my episode 1-2 notes, exactly as they appear on Patreon, ie, without screenshots (I’m saving those for the actual review).

I hope you all enjoy, and I hope you’ll consider joining us over on Patreon, for the rest of the discussions! ❤️

ALSO – I’m currently having a Year End Sale with 20% off all membership tiers on Patreon (details here!), so now’s a great time to join! 🥲❤️

Episode notes:

E1-2. What a surprising pair of episodes these turned out to be; I am pretty darn well sucked into this one, my friends. 😁

I hadn’t really known what to expect, coming into this show, and so, I’d figured that whatever Show served up, I’d just roll with it – almost like, if I had no specific expectations, I shouldn’t be surprised..?

At least, that was the theory, but that wasn’t at all how it went down, coz Show managed to surprise me on a pretty regular basis – and it’s just setting up its premise, at this point.

It makes me wonder what else Show has up its sleeves, for the rest of our episodes. 😁

One of the first things to surprise me, is the fact that Chae Soo Bin’s character Hee Joo, is introduced as non-verbal; someone who uses sign language to communicate.

I hadn’t come across any mention of Hee Joo having a disability, in Show’s promos, and seeing her be a sign language interpreter, in itself was a surprise to me.

I naturally then wondered if she was deaf, because that’s often the case, when someone uses sign language to communicate.

But then, I realized that she seemed to be able to respond to vocal cues, so I wondered if she could hear, and that’s when Show stated that Hee Joo has selective mutism.

That was the first time I’d come across the term, so I looked it up, and the internet tells me that selective mutism is an anxiety disorder that makes it difficult for a person to speak in certain social situations.

..Which made me assume that something traumatic had happened to Hee Joo, to cause her to suffer from selective mutism.

It’s only much later in the episodes, when Hee Joo visits her father at the nursing home, that it dawned on me that Hee Joo was literally only pretending to have selective mutism (because she blurts it out, to Dad). Like, what?

All this time, I’d also been somewhat puzzled over the way Mother Dearest seems to have no real affection for Hee Joo, and it’s only at this point, when Dad re-enacts his earnest request to Mother Dearest, in his dementia, that it comes together in my head that Hee Joo isn’t Mother Dearest’s daughter all.

(I take that back; Elaine and MC pointed out to me on Patreon, that Mother Dearest is very likely Hee Joo’s real mother, which, gosh, she’s awful! 😪)

In fact, it seems that Dad had sent Hee Joo to Mother Dearest, in a bid to give Hee Joo the best future that she could have, that he couldn’t give her.

Putting that together with the supposed selective mutism, it looks like Mother Dearest had likely made Hee Joo pretend to have selective mutism, for the sake of protecting.. family secrets, perhaps?

All that to say, it really feels like nothing is as it appears, in this drama world, which makes for a very absorbing, rather trippy sort of watch experience, at least so far.

And then there’s our male lead Sa Eon, whom Show establishes very quickly as a very successful man, who’s quickly become the face of the Blue House, and is well-respected and admired, wherever he goes.

Show establishes very quickly, what a busy, important person he is, and judging from the hard lines of his jaw, he’s a very focused, no-nonsense, all-business sort of guy.

Show also establishes very quickly, the kind of relationship that Hee Joo has with Sa Eon – or at least the kind of opinion she has of him – via the way she disgustedly gives his image onscreen the finger, while her colleague Yu Ri basks in fangirl admiration.

Quite quickly, we get to the part of episode 1, where Hee Joo gets attacked, and I have to tell ya, I was totally creeped out with the way Attacker Dude had her entire car under control.

Like, eep, this looks and sounds like a plausible real danger, with how smart cars are nowadays, and how that means that they can be hacked, just like any other computer.

I found the idea that someone could potentially control my car, such that I had no ability to control where my car took me, or even whether I could unlock the doors to get out, utterly unsettling, and I can only imagine how terrifying it must be, to be in Hee Joo’s shoes.

And then that moment, when Attacker Dude actually gets into the car, despite her effort to lock the doors, felt even more terrifying than anything else that had gone before, and I was completely horrified and terrified, on Hee Joo’s behalf. 🫣🙈

The thing with Attacker Dude calling Sa Eon and making demands of him, while holding Hee Joo hostage, is that Sa Eon has every reason to be suspicious, because I’m sure he comes across all sorts of potential scammers and other threats, particularly in his line of work.

Heck, any regular person living in the world today, gets spammed with all kinds of scam messages, too, yes?

And so, after Sa Eon hears from Mother Dearest the (fake) information, that Hee Joo is safely with Mother Dearest, having dinner, it makes complete sense that he would act tough with Attacker Dude, and be all unbending and provocative, in response to Attacker Dude’s demands.

It’s truly unfortunate though, that Hee Joo hears every heartless word that Sa Eon says to Attacker Dude, because I can only imagine how much worse her impression of him gets, and how distressed, shocked and enraged she must feel, to hear him act like he doesn’t care about her safety, to the point that he would even dare her attacker to only call him, when he has a corpse.

Ugh. I really feel for Hee Joo, because all of this stuff put together – the stress of being in a show marriage, the shock and trauma of being held for ransom, and the shock and horror that Sa Eon would devalue her very life – is literally enough to make her lose her mind.

I was honestly both impressed and bemused, that Hee Joo would be able to behave in such a normal manner, upon reaching home.

I mean, Attacker Dude had not only tried to strangle her with a rope, he’d also stabbed wildly at her headrest (which in itself is terrifying), and had left a gash on her neck.

Ack. The stuff of nightmares, truly.

Hee Joo’s composure after this terrifying incident really makes me wonder what other horrors she’s had to endure in her life, to be able to remain so calm, after going through something like that. 💔

At this point, the thing that intrigues me about Sa Eon, is that he does seem to care about Hee Joo’s safety – but he seems intent on not showing it?

Like, he makes arrangement for her security and protection, but then is curt and businesslike when he tells her about that he’s arranged for her to attend the event at the British Embassy as a sign language interpreter.

In this moment, there’s even a quick moment where he tenses his jaw after saying his piece, right before he turns to walk away, and that tensing of his jaw, vibes like annoyance to my eyes.

I’m relieved, though, that at least Hee Joo finds out from Mother Dearest, that Sa Eon had been under the impression that Hee Joo had been with Mother Dearest.

At least this way, she has some insight into why Sa Eon might say such horrible things, without regard for her safety?

The curious thing, though, is that we do get a hint that Hee Joo might not have always felt so negatively towards Sa Eon.

In that scene at the office, when her director Jin Yi (Yang Jo Ah looking verrryy different from her recent outing in Romance in the House; eyeliner makes such a huge difference! 🤯) walks in on her practicing to a video, and reminds her that she’d used to like Sa Eon’s briefing videos, saying that they were like textbooks to her, and that she wanted to be onscreen with Sa Eon, even if it was just for a brief moment.

That makes me think that there was a time when Hee Joo had actually liked Sa Eon, and had wanted to win his heart. 🥲

I have to say, the scene at the party, at the British Embassy, where Sa Eon and Hee Joo talk with the Ambassador and his wife, was pretty cringey. 😅

For one thing, I would have expected that someone like Sa Eon, who clearly would have a lot of international interactions as part of his work, would have better spoken English, and wouldn’t need a translator.

For another, I thought it the tone of the conversation between Hee Joo and the Ambassador’s wife was odd.

ALSO. Is Show trying to say that the Ambassador’s wife uses Korean Sign Language? Because the internet tells me that Korean Sign Language and British Sign Language are different.

Yes, I’m being a bit nitpicky, it’s true; it’s just that details like these do take me out of the story, somewhat, and I guess I’d had higher expectations of Show, that we wouldn’t get these types of things, that would require suspension of disbelief.

Anyway. I guess the whole point of this scene, was to show us that Sa Eon gets flustered when he realizes that Hee Joo’s told the Ambassador’s wife that she has no personal relationship with Sa Eon whatsoever.

So yes, we do get a few glimpses at cracks in Sa Eon’s armor; he definitely cares more about Hee Joo than he’d like to admit.

The big twist in episode 1 – that Hee Joo’s got Attacker Dude’s phone, and is now calling Sa Eon, pretending to be Attacker Dude – totally took me by surprise.

I was like, Wait. WHAT. 😱🤯

I totally hadn’t seen that coming! 😅

And yet, when Show puts it in context, that Hee Joo had practically lost her mind with anger, at the things that Sa Eon had said to Attacker Dude, and then had managed to take Attacker Dude’s phone, I can see why she might think that this was her chance to get out of a very unhappy, suffocating situation.

As an aside, I really do have to wonder what happened to Attacker Dude, that night?

I mean, we see that he’d suffered a knock to the head and passed out in Hee Joo’s car, so.. what happened to him after that?

Clearly, she hadn’t called the police, and so he hadn’t been arrested or anything, but.. he also wouldn’t just conveniently vanish into thin air, right?

I feel like Show’s not telling us what happened after that point, before the tow truck came to tow Hee Joo’s car. Hrmmm. 🤔 Very curious to know what had transpired then!

It’s really quite arresting to see how incensed Sa Eon is, when he hears of how Hee Joo had actually been in danger, the night of the attack.

The fact that Sa Eon punches the wall so hard that his knuckles get all bloody, and the way he can barely control his voice, while the color’s drained from his face, say a lot, actually, about how Sa Eon feels.

That said, it is rather confusing, where this anger is coming from, particularly given how businesslike and almost terse we’ve seen him be, with Hee Joo.

As Hee Joo rationalizes, it could be a territorial thing; like, how dare you lay a finger on something – someone – that’s mine.

At the same time, it could also be indicative of Sa Eon’s feelings for Hee Joo, which, from the various clues that we’ve been given, are there; we just don’t know how strong those feelings are, yet.

Whatever it is, though, all of that emotion makes for a very electric scene, when Sa Eon pulls Hee Joo into that darkened room, and asks her, voice low and quivering, about the accident.

All that emotion charges the entire scene, and that translates into sooo much tension that I’m holding my breath, as he undoes Hee Joo’s neck sash, to check her wounds.

Dang. I felt like I could cut through the tension with a knife. 🔥

After this, for a good chunk of episode 2, I was on tenterhooks every time Hee Joo uses that phone to call Sa Eon, because Sa Eon’s determined to track down the caller, and is pulling out all the stops with a team working to trace the call every time it happens, and I’m sooo nervous that he’s going to find out that it’s Hee Joo. 🙈

As it is, Hee Joo hasn’t told Sa Eon anything about Attacker Dude taking control of her car, and so, it’s even getting to the point that Sa Eon’s arriving at the completely inaccurate conclusion that Hee Joo might have let Attacker Dude into the car, since the CCTV footage shows Attacker Dude entering the car so easily.

And then we have the introduction of Heo Nam Jun’s character Sang Woo, who, by all accounts, seems to be a genuinely normal guy, who just happens to have a soft spot for Hee Joo, from their time together in school.

I have to admit though, that after seeing Heo Nam Jun play a rather unhinged sort of character in Your Honor, I can’t help eyeing Sang Woo with some suspicion.

Like, could he be related to the attack? I don’t think he’s Attacker Dude, because Sang Woo’s voice is very distinctive and Attacker Dude sounded nothing like that in the car, but still. I can’t help wondering if he’s involved somehow. 😅

Also, I wonder if the cold case that Sang Woo’s taking on, has anything to do with our main story (by Drama Law, it probably does).

Later in the episode, we also have Sang Woo running into Yu Ri and even catching her in a princess hold, with hot coffee dripping onto his arm, while he doesn’t even flinch, ha.

I’d suggest that there’s a potential loveline to be had between these two, but for now, it seems that Sang Woo’s much more interested in Hee Joo, so I don’t think that’s likely, at least for now.

Of key interest, of course, is the fact that Sa Eon gets all unsettled and jealous at the idea of Hee Joo smiling with another man, heh. Yes, your Jealous Husband side is showing, Sa Eon. 🤭

And then we get that whole thing where Hee Joo takes that picture of her bare thigh and sends it to Sa Eon, while saying things to provoke him, about Sa Eon maybe not recognizing his wife’s thigh, because he’s never seen it.

This is obviously not very rational thinking on Hee Joo’s part, especially the part where she dares Sa Eon to verify it by checking his wife’s thigh, so clearly, Hee Joo’s moving in a much more emotional sort of space here.

She keeps pushing Sa Eon to agree to leave his wife, in order to get herself out of this fake marriage, but at the same time, she’s also taunting him and getting him riled up – thus putting herself in a precarious situation, where Sa Eon would likely enter her room and get up close and personal with her, which she supposedly doesn’t want.

Also, can I just say, the tension between Sa Eon and Hee Joo is consistently sparky, but when we get moments of hyper-awareness and hyper-proximity, it’s positive electric.

Like when Sa Eon enters her room, presumably to try to check the mole on her thigh, and she resists his pull on the covers, and he ends up thrown forward, hovering over her, eyes blazing, breath ragged.

Ahem. 🔥 It’s all very tantalizing, not gonna lie. 😅

It’s quite fascinating, honestly, to consider where Hee Joo’s coming from, and try to decipher exactly what she’s thinking and feeling.

Right now, it seems like there’s a part of her which smarts from being rejected by Sa Eon, and maybe even kinda wants him to realize what a catch she is, and what he’s missing out on, by rejecting her.

I also find it fascinating, that Sa Eon would treat Hee Joo in such a cold, distant, brusque sort of manner, when, in the flashback, we clearly see him smiling at the way she’s fallen asleep at the dining table while waiting for him.

Is it because he doesn’t trust her family and thinks that forming a genuine connection with her would jeopardize his career plans..?

But.. in the present, he still cares enough to make her breakfast. Innnteresting. 😁

As we close out episode 2, there are two key things that have my interest.

1, it seems like Attacker Dude’s set fire to Sa Eon’s office?

But.. how is it that the news has a recording of the so-called threatening phone calls? Plus, if I’m not mistaken, the report is credited to the reporter dude who’s working with Sa Eon?

I’m starting to think that this is all a set-up, to lure Attacker Dude out of hiding?

For the record, I do think we still need to be wary of him, even though Hee Joo’s the one making the phone calls lately, because, how does he even know that Hee Joo’s married to Sa Eon, since it’s such a well-kept secret?

And then we have Sa Eon, looking all roughed up with soot and blood, staggering into the house, determined to check Hee Joo’s thigh, gulp.

How will this land, and what will Hee Joo do, in response?

2, We get that flashback to 3 years ago, when Hong In Ah had threatened to expose all of Sa Eon’s family secrets, if he didn’t call off the wedding – and Sa Eon had requested, instead, upon hearing that Hee Joo was set to marry some trash dude, that they change the bride, to Hee Joo.

Woah. That’s quite the reveal, because all this time, I’d assumed that Sa Eon hadn’t known of Hee Joo prior to Hee Joo taking over In Ah’s place, but now, that doesn’t look to be the case at all.

Just what was Sa Eon’s prior connection to Hee Joo, that he would want to save her from being married to some trash dude?

And then, if he’d had positive feelings towards Hee Joo, why would he be so determined to keep her at a distance?

It’s surely not just because he doesn’t want to see her force herself to try to be a real wife to him..?

Given Show’s ability to pull off surprises thus far, I wouldn’t be too shocked, really, if all of my guesses are wrong, heh.

Whatever it is, I am actively looking forward to more episodes of this, to see what else Show has, up its mysterious sleeves. 😁

*This show is being covered on the Early Access Plus (US$10) Tier on Patreon*

To view episode 1-2 notes in Patreon, along with everyone’s comments, you can go here!

You can find my Patreon page here, and for all future episode notes for this show you can click here.

Episodes 3-4 notes will be out soon! I hope you’ll consider joining us!

It’ll be a way to have fun, and support me at the same time? 🥲❤️

PS: For more information on what the Patreon experience is like, you might like to check out my Patreon update post for December, which you can find here!