Once Upon a Small Town episode 6 recap & review

Episode 6 of Netflix’s comedy Kdrama ‘Once Upon a Small Town’ picks up after the shocking events of its predecessor. While Ahn Ja-young recovers and resumes her job, Han Ji-yul contends with mortality while also remembering the traumatic incident of his past.

Recap

Ji-yul continues to pound on the car window, trying to smash it while the scene is cross-cut with a flashback to Ji-yul’s traumatic past. In the flashback, Ji-yul is sitting at the back of the car playing a game with his parents, who are sitting at the front.

Momentarily jolted by a crossing animal, Ji-yul’s father tries to take back control but the car swerves out of it, eventually crashing down. A man spots the accident and rushes off to save the survivors.

The man tries to get the child — Ji-yul — out of the car as he’s the only conscious one out of all the passengers. He gets him out and takes him to his daughter, who is a young Ahn Ja-young. She tries to console and take care of a young, traumatized Ji-yul.

Cut to the present, and Ji-yul gets Ahn Ja-young out of the car and gets her admitted to the hospital. Sang-hyun eventually arrives as well and thanks Ji-yul for saving Ja-young.

Some time passes, and Ahn Ja-young tries to message Ji-yul, to thank him, only to fall short of appropriate words. Meanwhile, Ji-yul visits his parents’ graves. On his way back, he encounters Ja-young but before they can have a significant chat, duty calls and Ji-yul has to visit Mr. Pyeong Sik’s house where his bull has been very sick for the past weeks.

Ji-yul runs a diagnostic and tells Mr. Pyeong Sik that the bull is beyond saving bow. The old man knows it and tells Ji-yul that he’s called him to euthanize the bull, to relieve him of his suffering.

Meanwhile, Ja-young and Sang-hyun attend a meeting where the location for the National Singing Contest has to be decided. The women and men association from both Huidong and Majeong butt heads over who’ll host the contest.

Jang Se-ryeon and Park Mal-geum get physical and others join the scuffle while Ja-young tries to get them to stop. But the two opposing leaders don’t stop and Ja-young gets thrown around amid the fight.

Ji-yul talks about the euthanization with Yun and later prepares for the process. In an emotional scene, Ji-yul performs the euthanization, and Pyeong Sik bids farewell to his bull, who was also like a family member to him.

Later on, Mr. Pyeong Sik tells Ji-yul how he recalls him from his childhood and later on also talks about how he and Ja-young used to play together. That’s when it dawns on him and the memories come flooding in, of a sweet time when he was secret friends with Ja-young.

Once Upon a Small Town episode 6 ends with Ji-yul going to Ja-young but before either one of them says anything, the episode ends and the credits roll.

Review

• Episode 6 of Once Upon a Small Town keeps the trend alive, of slowly unraveling the next chapters of the story. The plot hasn’t been progressing at a satisfying speed so far.
• The latest installment delves a bit into Ji-yul’s past and gives the viewers an explanation for why he couldn’t remember Ahn Ja-young all this time.
• Apart from a rather emotional and perhaps the best part of this episode where Ji-yul confronts mortality, both in his present and in his past, the latest entry in Once Upon a Small Town fails to do any good from its b-plots.
• However, Ji-yul’s story does warrant some meditation. The euthanization of the bull doesn’t just serve as an opportunity for Ji-yul to remember his past, but also as an allegory for Ji-yul helping decrease his suffering as well.
• Ji-yul has been suffering from a jaded and isolated life after the traumatic deaths of his parents — a memory he has been repressing all this time. While trying to save Ja-young, those memories resurfaced and while euthanizing the bull, Ji-yul must’ve found some help in letting some of the pain go, like Pyeong Sik did, with his own pain of seeing his bull’s suffering.
• Once Upon a Small Town episode 6 is an improvement upon the last episode and leaves the viewer craving for the episode to come.

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Also Read: Why doesn’t Han Ji-yul remember Ahn Ja-young in Once Upon a Small Town?