The 5th episode of the K-Drama Snowdrop is less about the lead characters’ love and more about the war that is the backdrop of the series. After taking the students of the Hosu university as hostages, Lim Soo-ho and his comrades, Joo Gyeok-chan and Lee Eung-Cheol try to negotiate with the ANSP heads and figure out a way of escape. Meanwhile, he has also taken Gang-mu, the leader of Team One in the Anti-Communist Investigation Bureau of ANSP as a hostage.
Spoilers ahead.
Yeong-ro gets the shock of her life when Soo-ho’s secret is revealed. Betrayed, she contemplates her actions of saving him and blames herself for the situation her hostel mates and friends are in. From here on, the series takes a more dark and political approach in its narrative and love eventually takes the back seat. After Soo-Ho and his two comrades take the students hostage and hold Yeong-ro at gunpoint, a fire erupts between the ANSP team and the spies, which injures Gang-mu. Later, the North Koreans hold the latter as a hostage to guarantee their safety.
Outside the university’s dorm, Chief Ahn panics that his superior Chang-su will be furious on knowing that his agents have been following Taedong River 1 aka Soo-Hoo despite being ordered not to. He calls his wife for advice, who asks him to get on the good side of Chang-Su. Here, an interesting thing plays out. In one of the previous episodes, a shaman had told Chang-Su’s wife that in order for her husband to be the president, 13 virgins need to die. No more, no less. The hostage situation gives her hope that it will end up killing only 13 young girls and will lead to her husband being the president. This plot point plays an important role throughout the series.
Back at the base of the ANSP agents, Han-na tries to shoot Soo-Ho when he comes out to collect the field telephone and it leads to her banishment from the case. Inside the dorm, her partner tries desperately to free himself, with Yoeng-Ro’s help, only to be caught again.
Meanwhile, the remaining North spies carry out their part of the mission of transporting Professor Han to their side, for the election strategy in the South to work. However, their covers are blown when their ship is intercepted by the coast guards, and one of them have to shoot Han as he tries to escapes. This results in gunfire that kills them all but not before severely injuring Yoeng-Ro’s brother, who was stationed at the post on that fateful night.
Parallelly, the ANSP leads guide the spies to an escape route so that the agreement between North and South can remain intact, but a misunderstanding causes the SWAT team to fire at them. This being the second attack from their side, Soo-Ho and his comrades find it difficult to trust the South people. The episode ends with Comrade Lee getting injured.
The intriguing bonus clip shows Madam Pi entering a secret door.
The fifth episode laid the groundwork for the spy thriller and it finally seems to have picked up the pace. The romance between Soo-Ho and Young-ro seems difficult to develop, given the situation and the episode took some time off of that subplot. Byeong-tae and Gwang-Tae’s tomfoolery provides the much needed comic relief in the seriousness of the episode.
The situation Young-Ro is in can turn her into a damsel in distress in the upcoming episodes. While we praise the fifth episode for showing her has her own person who utilises her brain (considering how exploitable the makers have made her seem), we hope that her character arch only improves and doesn’t become a tool to aid Soo-ho’s character development.
Another important factor that comes with Snowdrop is the controversies it was marred with when it was released on JTBC. The South Korean people had accused the show of being right-wing propaganda, and distorting the history of the democratization movement. Prior to the release, they had raised that point that the main lead posing as a student protestor, despite being a North Korean spy, aligns with the false claims that the authoritarian government had made back then against the pro-democracy activists being spies.
They had also pointed out that the fictional character of Lee Gang-mu is shown as a man with principles in the show but ANSP’s real-life counterparts were accused of human rights violations.
The intensity of the protests resulted in JTBC rushing the release of the first five episodes. While the fifth episode doesn’t show the ANSP as saints and indicates that in order to remain in power, they can harm innocent students, Gang-mu’s character continues to remain the upright person. Whether they have done justice to the portrayal and kept things accurate on the history front is something that the upcoming episodes will tell.
Snowdrop is streaming on Disney+ Hotstar.
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