Glitch K-Drama – Episode 2 Recap & Review

Si-guk Goes Missing

Episode 2 of Glitch starts way back in May 2007. A voiceover tells viewers that a US study showed that 2% of men and women had claimed to made contact with extra-terrestrial beings. The voiceover explains the different types of contact, focusing on hypnagogia.

We see a young Ji-hyo looking through a scrapbook full of clippings about alien abductions and UFO sightings. The voiceover says hypnagogia is easy to achieve. The girl lays down on an open rooftop and puts on headphones, listening to audio that guides her into lucid dreaming. Her body slowly floats upwards. In reality, she is running around the roof, with her eyes closed and arms stretched out.

Another young girl arrives, her headphones tuned in to a baseball game and a cigarette in her hand. Young Ji-hyo realises and is about to leave when the girl spots one of the news clippings and asks her if UFOs are real.

At present, Ji-hyo is at a bus stop, talking to her father on the phone. She gets a phone call from Si-guk’s real estate agent saying that he hasn’t paid his rent and hasn’t answered the phone for days. She goes to his house but only finds his cat there. Through one of his digital tablets, she finds the location of his smartwatch. She goes to the location and finds the watch on the ground. The watch glitches and she realizes that when she brings it closer to her phone, the phone glitches too.

She tries making a report at the police station. The detective she met before tells her that they can’t do much in the case of adult males but they will try their best.

At home, she does some research and finds reports of people who have gone missing where electronic device errors occurred. She sees a page by a person called Moonhole and sees a logo of an alien on the website — a little, green alien in a baseball helmet.

At work, she leaves a comment on Moonhole’s page and finds out that the UFO forum is having a meeting on the coming Saturday.

On the day, she peeps into a café to see three people discussing UFOs. She is about to leave and borrows a lighter from a girl sitting outside the café. They strike up a conversation about why she is here and Ji-hyo ends up calling the UFO meetings ridiculous and baseless. The other girl heads inside the café and Ji-hyo realises she insulted her.

Ji-hyo quietly enters but ends up calling attention to herself as she moves a chair. The others welcome her but during a game of Mafia, the other girl calls Ji-hyo out for her previous insults. As she storms out, Ji-hyo notices the same green alien as a badge on the girl’s bag. The girl rushes off on her scooter but Ji-hyo gives chase and is able to ask her about the badge. The girl says that it was Ji-hyo herself who drew that. Doesn’t she remember? We see a flashback to the two girls inside the van. Ji-hyo realises the girl is Heo Bo-ra, who was once her friend in school.

Ji-hyo relates this all to the counsellor, Doctor Ma. She says Bo-ra was a Unicorns fan and that is why the aliens in her visions were wearing Unicorns helmets.

She goes to Si-guk’s house again and finds that the apartment has been emptied. The person conducting an open house over there tells her that the previous tenant took his stuff and moved out two days ago. She then gets a call from the detective saying that Si-guk’s bank statements show that he booked a plane ticket, seemingly to go somewhere abroad.

Ji-hyo, who is already in trouble at work, takes a leave of absence. She is lying down on the bench where she found Si-guk’s watch when she sees the alien again and throws the watch at it. She goes to pick it up and when she does so, she sees that hordes of butterflies and other insects have gathered in the shape of a strange symbol on the ground.

The Episode Review

Glitch continues to be a bit slow in the second episode too. While Si-guk does disappear, the mystery doesn’t get very intriguing until the last few minutes. And no sign of alien conspiracies yet either!

Bo-ra makes an impressionable entry in this episode but unfortunately, we don’t get to see a lot of her either. Watching her and Ji-hyo team up is definitely one of the show’s draws, so it would be nice to get there quicker.

Unexpectedly, we do get an explanation for the alien visions Ji-hyo sees. But it’s only episode 2, which means not everything can be trusted. There’s bound to be more to the story and fingers crossed, it doesn’t drag on at this pace.