Fantasy Romance Kdrama Lovely Runner – Ep 5&6 Review

This is the review + recap page for episode 5 & 6 of the 2024 kdrama Lovely Runner.

TRIGGER WARNING - this kdrama contains depictions of self harm and worse.

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Episode Recap

SPOILERS BELOW

Episode 05 Recap

Seon Jae and Im Sol start the episode riding home, soaking wet, in a taxi. They talk, and Im Sol learns that Seon Jae had met her long before she came back in time. She was confused because she didn’t remember meeting him, and she presses for more details. He doesn’t admit that he rented the adult video by mistake (he was startled when she awoke suddenly) and pretends to sleep.

Im Sol has the inner realisation that while she thought Seon Jae was super far away, he was actually there by her side for longer than she thought. She begins to wonder if she came back in time in order to realise those moments she missed out on, and take full of advantage of them instead.

The next day, she wakes him up to show him a rainbow in the sky. He can’t see it from his building, so she sprays water in the sky to help him. We can see how touched he is. But disaster! Her mum gets wet from the water and comes running up to scold her. In the middle of running around, Im Sol’s pink bra gets thrown over to Seon Jae’s building!

He’s embarrassed, but returns it to her and then walks to school with her. There they have some more cute moments. She saves him from being hit by a motorcyclist, and he’s once again touched by her actions. Then she gives him a time capsule, and tells him that she wants to meet up in the future to talk about it. She wants to meet up on the day when he takes his life in the future, to be specific. She hopes that this meeting will prevent him from feeling down or doing anything drastic.

Then at school, Im Sol realises she’s forgotten her uniform tie! But Seon Jae comes to the rescue and gives his to her. Tae Sung sees it and gets jealous. He goes with Seon Jae to get punished by the teacher, and tries to compete with him athletically. Seon Jae comes out victorious, though. While cleaning up, Tae Sung’s friend says he’s been acting weird. He asks if he fell for Im Sol for real.

The next day, Im Sol takes Seon Jae to go see a movie. Her motive? To prevent him from watching his rival win at the Olympics. He’s excited to watch it with her, but the fire alarm rings at the very beginning! Somehow, this leads to Seon Jae witnessing his rival win at the Olympics. He’s not upset. He tells Im Sol that he came to peace with it, and let it go. He wishes she wouldn’t dance around it to save him.

After some cute side character moments, things take a dark turn. Im Sol is called by the police because they retrieved her wallet, although they didn’t find her phone. They tell her they’re busy because a body was found in the same area. She goes to check it out for herself and sees the ongoing investigation. But then she hears a keychain ringing – it’s a sound she heard before. But she doesn’t remember anything about it except that it must be related to her accident.

Creepy music plays as we find out that the man who owns the charm...is the same man who has collected her phone. He looks at her picture as he drives away from the scene, giving off major creepy vibes.

Then we see a cute cut scene to Im Sol and her mother shopping for apples for the family memorial (it’s the anniversary of her father’s passing). She tells her mum to feel free to date, and they share a few cute moments together. But then the scene cuts to Seon Jae meeting her brother. Her brother thinks Seon Jae got his sister drunk, and gets angry with him. He makes him do military exercises. But then Im Sol and her mother come by.

Im Sol gets mad at her brother and they fight. But quickly, their mother grabs them both and drags them home for the memorial. Im Sol admit's that she’s scared, and she asks her dad for help. She also decides to try riding a bike. Her dad had tried to teach her, but she failed. She regretted not being able to after her accident.

As she’s teaching herself, Seon Jae shows up! He tries to coach her, but they both get impatient and have a hard time. Finally after many tries, though, she gets it and is able to ride around freely. The moment turns cute, and Seon Jae runs beside her as she rides around.

Meanwhile, Seon Jae’s friend has been scheming to get Seon Jae to sing for the band. Their original member was terrible, and had a strict family that didn’t let him practice much. At one of their gigs, the singer doesn’t show up...so they ask Seon Jae to sing instead. Im Sol is surprised. But she realises that he really does do a great job at singing. Im Sol sees the entertainment CEO approach Seon Jae after the gig, and she loses track of them.

When Seon Jae returns home, Im Sol is waiting outside for him. He hands her a new phone. It was his payment for singing at the gig. He seemed excited to give it to her, until she got mad at him. She wants to prevent him from going into the idol life. But he doesn’t know that so he’s confused. She tells him to be selfish and do what he wants.

He gets angry and goes inside, but he thinks about it. The next day on their way to school, he runs after Im Sol. She’s playing around with her recorder from before, though, that had recorded her drunken night. Just as Seon Jae reaches her, she hears the part where he said, “I like you.” She finally realises that he had a crush on her the whole time.

Episode 06 Recap

We start the episode of a cute snapshot where Im Sol was listening to Seon Jae on a radio program (as an idol). He talked about his first love, and we (the viewers) know that he's talking about Im Sol. But Im Sol has no idea. After learning that context, we're put back in the past. It's just before Im Sol hears the confession her recorder captured.

She finds out Tae Sung has been using her, and she breaks up with him. He looks crushed. Then Seon Jae catches up with her and asks her if she can break up with the boyfriend at the same time she hears the confession. She's so shocked that he could like her that she runs away and gets on the bus before he can follow.

Later on during an errand for her grandmother, Seon Jae sees her come out of a store holding alcohol (and crying from onions). He assumes she's drinking because she's sad, and tries to take it from her. She tries to explain but can't get the words out. Her brother sees them, and he knocks Seon Jae down. The alcohol goes flying and lands into Seon Jae's mouth, who is immediately knocked out cold (he can't handle alcohol).

So Im Sol and her brother bring Seon Jae back to their house. She checks on him while he's sleeping, but he wakes up. A cute moment follows, but the brother walks in! So she hides under the blanket. The brother won't go away, and ends up catching them cuddling close. He tries to chase his sister, but Seon Jae snatches him and holds him in place.

They then spend a lot of time getting close to each other without stepping over the line. Neither of them want to make a mistake and scare the other away. But in the middle of it all, Tae Sung asks to talk to Im Sol. Seon Jae is super jealous, but lets them go. Tae Sung apologizes for letting Im Sol get bullied, but she won't take him back.

Not long after, Im Sol's mother goes on a trip. She says its one with her friends, but Im Sol thinks it's to be with a man. She says some harsh things, but secretly feels glad that her mum is getting out and meeting people.

Meanwhile - it's approaching the date of her accident. So she goes to the police and asks them to be vigilant on that date, but they refuse to help her and say she's being ridiculous. Another detective takes interest, but doesn't get the full details. At home, the grandmother gets a call from the creepy taxi man...and gives out their address since he says he will return Im Sol's phone.

Tae Sung, upset at losing Im Sol, ends up distracted while driving his motorbike and gets into an accident. He ends up in the hospital, and sees Seon Jae and Im Sol celebrating a giant sports match at the Olympics. Seon Jae gets emotional and confesses to Im Sol in person, but gets a call from Tae Sung right after. Tae Sung had seen them at the game, and knew they were together. He called because he saw Im Sol's mother in the hospital and wanted her to know.

Im Sol rushes to the hospital to be by her mum's side. But she also makes time to turn down Seon Jae. She wants to say yes, but she doesn't because she's worried about the time travel aspect. It's because she doesn't know when she'll go back and her past self will forget everything. She goes and cries silently along after rejecting him.

On the day of the accident, Im Sol refuses to leave the house so she can try to avoid her accident. But in the last few hours, she gets a message from Seon Jae that he'll wait for her at the park. She tells him not to, but he didn't see the message. It starts to rain, so she runs out to give him an umbrella. Just then, the creepy taxi man arrives. She sees the flashback of being tied up, and realises what's about to happen.

Sure enough, he takes her. And then Seon Jae just barely misses it and sees her abandoned umbrella in the street.

My TMI for this recap:

I WAS RIGHT ABOUT THE TAXI MAN AND THIS IS SO SAD. I was hoping against hope that writer-nim would let us off the hook, by allowing Im Sol to change her fate entirely and avoid this guy. But it looks like she couldn't, even though the lead up to it was different this time. Insert crying emoji! I can't believe they left us on this kind of cliffhanger. It looks like whatever she does ends up changing things for her, but...I'm still anxious about it!

Also - ep 5 really creeped me out. I hate true crime stuff, but I learned something a long time ago (that I'm not sure if it's from a true crime show or actual psychology). But someone somewhere said that perps like to visit the crime scene to see how the news is being handled by people. And so when Im Sol recognized the sound of the charm, and we found out this guy also had her phone, PLUS we saw him being shady in episode 4....it makes me think that he's the one who did the previous murder.

I don't know why they add these dark subplots into cute romances but this makes things very high stakes. I'm kinda curious what Seon Jae in the original past did to save her, and how he knew. Or if this guy was ever caught. Since it's a 16 ep drama, I'm a little scared thinking about all the directions they could go with this.

If you're also watching this drama, let me know what you think over on X (Twitter)!