Familiar Wife Season 1 Episode 4 Recap

Wu-jin comes closer to Ju-Hyeok and asks him if he has recently lost his phone. When Ju-Hyeok confirms it, Wu-jin says she’s the one who found it. Then Wu-jin asks him who the woman is on his lock screen‘s background. “She’s my wife,” he replies, referring to Hye-won.

Wu-jin does an excellent job at work on her first day. A man who is a regular customer walks in. And because all the employees have had a bad experience with the customer, they all hope they don’t end up dealing with him. Unfortunately, Wu-jin has to face the customer. The man asks for a withdrawal, so he has to put his pin. The two attempts fail, so Wu-jin lets him do it for the third time. When he puts the pin and it still fails, Wu-jin says he’s unable to make a transaction because he failed three times. She asks him to return with his ID and family relation certificate to set up a new PIN. Everyone watches as if they already know what is about to happen. “I don’t have time to prepare all that stuff,” the customer says. He keeps negotiating, but Wu-jin remains firm and tells him what he asks is against the rules. She swears at him after he swore at her. Later, while Wu-jin rides her bicycle home, she loses her balance after Ju-Hyeok’s sister, Ju-Eun, appears from the street corner. They immediately get along after that, so Ju-Eun asks Wu-jin to visit their restaurant when she’s free.

The next day, Ju-Hyeok makes a move to ensure that Wu-jin doesn’t stay in his workplace for long. He calls someone to ask about an open position in a different branch. Then he makes an excuse to talk to Wu-jin in private. “You were unlucky to be assigned here. The workload’s physically demanding,” Ju-Hyeok says. “I love working hard,” Wu-jin replies. Ju-Hyeok talks about Ms. Jang and tells Wu-jin she is difficult to deal with. He tells Wu-jin there’s an opening in the Deposit team at the Mapo branch, the bank‘s main office. “Why don’t you transfer? You’ve only been here for two days. If you stay here longer, you’d miss your timing,” he says. Wu-jin stays positive, saying there are difficult bosses to deal with anywhere she goes, and she likes her new workplace. She thanks Ju-Hyeok for looking out for her and then returns to work.

Ju-Hyeok scolds Wu-jin for little mistakes like making a colored copy of a document. Even his friend asks him why he would pick on Wu-jin over nothing. Their branch has received complaints about the incident between Wu-jin and a customer. It reads: She’s not only unkind and insincere, she revealed the customer’s information by saying the PIN number out loud.” Wu-jin defends her actions and says the customer raised his voice, so she just repeated after him. 

The team leaders and branch manager put the gifts on the table to apologize to the customer. Wu-jin walks into the room and apologizes, but the customer is not satisfied with the apology. He thinks Wu-jin is not sincere. “Should I kneel down?” Wu-jin asks. The customer knows that if Wu-jin kneels, it will only make him look bad. Instead, he asks her to bow to him at 90 degrees, apologize formally, and say I’m sorry three times. Wu-jin does as she’s told.

Ju-Hyeok meets his parents after a long time of not seeing them. He brings them home since they don’t visit often. Ju-Hyeok’s mother goes straight to the fridge to check what food they have. Hye-won arrives and is surprised to see her in-laws there. Her mother-in-law tells her to buy food from the supermarket near their house instead of the department store. “There’s a huge difference in quality,” Hye-won says. She even adds that the housekeeper that comes twice a week is paid by her mother, so there’s nothing to worry about. Ju-Hyeok and his parents are not impressed. Hye-won tells them she’d book them a suite with a king-sized bed, then goes upstairs.

Ju-Hyeok excuses himself and follows his wife. They argue about how Hye-Won acts cold toward her in-laws. Hye-won says her in-laws are rude for barging in without calling. She complains she has to wake up early the next day to cook them breakfast, and because they arrived unannounced, she doesn’t know what to cook. Ju-Hyeok rushes downstairs when he hears a door close — his parents have already left. He chases them and asks them to stay because they don’t have a place to stay. “Just live a good life by yourself,” his father says.

When Ju-Hyeok comes back home, he argues again with Hye-won. “She disregarded my background and tried to fit me into her world. She’s talking about her way of living, not ours. In my world, we don’t call this excessive. It’s ‘dignity maintenance cost, ‘” she says. Hye-won leaves to stay at a hotel. The customer who complained before returns to the bank drunk. He talks to Wu-jin and wants to give her money because he won a jackpot. Wu-jin gets pissed and gives him the finger as she pushes the money back to the customer. The customer gets frustrated again. Jong-hu tries to stop him, but the drunk customer pushes him to the floor. Suddenly, they all get surprised when Wu-jin engages in self-defense. She tells them that she watches self-defense martial arts videos since she lives with her mom. After drinking with their colleagues, Ju-Hyeok follows Wu-jin to her house. He’s curious to know how his mother-in-law is after he heard that she’s sick. When Wu-jin comes out and finds him outside their house, Ju-Hyeok lies and says he’s lost. Suddenly, Wu-jin’s mother comes out and sees Ju-Hyeok. “Dear Ju-Hyeok,” she greets him.

Our Thoughts

Well, Hye-Won is pretty, but what’s a pretty face if she is rude toward her in-laws? It’s not like her mother-in-law was trying to argue with her. We think Hye-Won only likes Ju-Hyeok, so she doesn’t want to deal with Ju-Hyeok’s family. But why did she have to take off her wedding ring whenever the university student was around? If the student asked her out, was she going to say yes?

Because Wu-jin was always shouting and angry toward Ju-Hyeok, we felt like Ju-Hyeok was taking revenge. Still, Wu-jin is tough, so every time Ju-Hyeok says something mean, she just listens to him. Ju-Hyeok has memories of Wu-jin, so he gets curious about how she’s living her life without him. Maybe it would be best if he just lets her go since he’s the one who wanted to leave their relationship. He finally has what he wants, so he should just follow his decisions. We want Wu-jin to find a boyfriend because we want to know how Ju-Hyeok will act.