Race (레이스) is the latest K-drama addition to Disney+ Hotstar’s catalogue of Korean content, and it has been directed by Lee Dong-yoon and written by Kim Roo-ri. Starring Lee Yeon-hee as Park Yoon-jo, Moon So-ri as Goo Yi-jung, Hong Jong-hyun as Ryu Jae-min, Jung Yun-ho (TVXQ’s Yunho) as Seo Dong-hoon in the titular roles, the workplace drama premiered on May 10, 2023, with its first 2 episodes.
Race Episode 5 has a runtime of 55 minutes.
The closer-to-life workplace dramedy and its fun ensemble follow Park Yoon-jo’s drive and professionalism at a PR agency. Despite not pursuing a formal education, her undeterred work ethic is her biggest strength. After landing a job at a Korean conglomerate, she believes that she’s finally on her way to achieve great things until the truth of her employment is revealed and brings her down again. Nevertheless, she keeps treading on the same path, charting a journey to prove she’s right where she belongs and deserves to be. Yoon-jo’s Race will stand as a testament that hustling through hardships does make a difference and that one’s worth can’t be defined by their CV.
– Race Episode 5 Review Contains Spoilers –
Race Episode 5 Recap
Race episode 5 starts with the employees of Yoon-jo’s office losing their minds over the diversity hire scandal. In the midst of this Jae-min tries to get the eval reports for the new hires, which Team Leader Ga is completely against. The latter asks Jae-min to get permission from the higher-ups in order to go through with the request, leaving Jae-min disappointed.
However, he refuses to give up and starts asking around for a copy of it. Unfortunately, that, too, ends up not working out. Meanwhile, Yoon-jo starts getting harassed online and makes her Instagram profile private. A bevvy of things happens that day as Sun-tae asks his subordinates to sniff out the rat who got this news out. In between that, Jae-min and Sun-tae get into a verbal spat as well when the format accuses the team of not handling the hiring process itself well.
A tense Yoon-jo asks Jae-min privately whether what everyone is saying is the truth, and although he tries his best to assure her that she was not underqualified, she can see that he, too, is doubtful at this point.
The next day, Yi-jung calls the head of the special recruitment project, Jae-min, to her office bright and early, which makes Sun-tae tense. He immediately texts Team Leader Ga about the fact, who assures him that Jae-min doesn’t know everything. They both eventually agree that they can’t publish the evaluation report since it wouldn’t be fair to the others.
As Jae-min meets Yi-jung, Yoon-jo goes up to meet Sun-tae and asks him why she was hired and whether it was a publicity stunt. Everyone is left feeling awkward while Sun-tae stammers his way to explain that it was a blind test wherein everyone voted for her since she was the best candidate for the job. However, it is revealed to the audience that Yoon-jo’s hiring was linked to her presentation from PR Joa, and Sun-tae knew exactly what he was doing when he hired her. Meanwhile, Yi-jung grills Jae-min about how the PR team handled this debacle.
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A chance meeting with Dong-hoon outside the office results in Yoon-jo opening up to him, and he validates her feelings of hopelessness and not being good enough. His words of encouragement help her to get some perspective and feel a little better about herself. Inside the office, Jae-min tells his curious colleagues that Yi-jung asked him about work and how things have been holding up, and he is shocked to learn about Yoon-jo’s antics previously.
Meanwhile, the team leaders are shocked to learn that the company is making Yoon-jo take the fall for their bad decisions, much to Eun-jeong’s disbelief, who is not ok with going through with this. However, the decision seems to have already been made.
That night, Jae-min visits Yoon-jo’s place, and after witnessing her get into a fistfight with Hae-jo, the two sit down and share a drink together.
The next day, Sun-tae tries to force Yoon-jo to shift to accounting, and the decision blows up in his face when she goes straight to Eun-jeong and asks her whether she pushed for this change. Eun-jeong refuses to let Yoon-jo go to another department which angers Sun-tae, who starts to force Yoon-jo back to his office to discuss (or pile on) the issue further. Jae-min steps in then and asks him to discuss the matter in front of everyone, which results in them getting into a verbal spat that culminates in Yi-jung witnessing the entire exchange.
Also Read: Race Episode 4 Recap and Review: Diversity Hire is Difficult to Sell
She calls a meeting with everyone in PR immediately, and it is there that Eun-jeong gets to know that the decision was made in a bar the other night and was agreed upon by Byung-man and Yeon-soo. She is left stunned at the revelation, but before anything more can come out, Yi-jung makes an entrance and immediately gets to business.
She tells the PR team that they handled the situation poorly, and the fact that the team itself didn’t believe in their own poorly-written statement speaks volumes about their preparedness. She then targets Sun-tae and asks him to detail the recruitment process down to every little detail. Confused and unsure, he tries to find help with Byung-man, who refuses to make eye contact with him. As it turns out, she has the evaluation reports with her (and as the audience comes to find out, Jae-min had told her to get her hands on them in the meeting previously), which makes Sun-tae even tenser.
He tells her that the decision to hire was eventually taken by the team leaders in the end and not in a blind vote and was taken based on the candidates’ merits. He doesn’t tell her that Yoon-jo was hired for her very valuable presentation (of course), instead lying that it was a decision that was taken blindly. Yi-jung asks Eun-jeong next why she chose Yoon-jo, and she tells her that Yoon-jo was the one who designed the Celltics promotional proposal.
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In the end, Yi-jung comes to the conclusion that although the hiring was a blind process, the team was not informed that the final deciding votes were taken by the team leaders. She further mentions that the company owes Yoon-jo an apology since she is the one who suffered the most because of their poor handling of the situation. The meeting leaves Yoon-jo feeling positive, and she eventually goes to meet Yi-jung to thank her for helping her. She has a full-on fan moment with her, and Yi-jung helps her get comfortable.
Meanwhile, Sun-tae asks Jae-min why he is acting erratically lately. Sun-tae tries to get him to talk and even suggests that if he doesn’t like working at Seyong, if he can’t accept how the managers work without question, then he should leave. However, in the end, he tells him that maybe he should thank him for showing that he cares.
Race Episode 5 Ending
Meanwhile, Eun-jeong gives the Celltics project to Yoon-jo and warns her that this is the beginning of hell.
After a night of heavy drinking, Jae-min gets left on the sidewalk by his cab after he throws up post a heavy drinking session. While sitting down, he calls Yi-jung and asks to see her that night. She thinks about it for a minute before agreeing to do so.
Race Episode 5 Review
I don’t know whether I am in some sort of denial or what, but the thought of Jae-min and Yi-jung having some past affair that is coming up now would be too much for me to take. I don’t know why but if this is romantic, I wouldn’t be able to accept it. Similarly, if they are related somehow, it would also be weird. But I am also curious to know what the nature of their relationship is because that soft romantic background song hints at only one thing.
Anyway, Race episode 5 sees Yoon-jo finally catching a break thanks to the CCO, and the workplace drama gets more dramatic by the second. The scenes between Jae-min and Sun-tae are always tense, and it’s great watching them bicker while everyone just looks on in horror. However, what will Jae-min do now that Sun-tae has had enough of his lashing out? Either way, I am here for the drama in the show that just keeps on getting more delicious by the second.
Race is now streaming on Disney+ Hotstar.