'Alice' Episodes 5, 6: Tae-yi, Min-hyuk's meet is an unintentional family reunion that leads to murder
At the beginning of this week's 'Alice' episode, we see Jin-gyeom (Joo Won) spend time in the past as he arrived on the fated day of blood moon when his mother was murdered by an unknown man. Of course, Jin-gyeom doesn't realize initially that he traveled through time and has arrived in the past, in 2010, when he was still a student, and his mother was still alive. It is only after he enters the university that Tae-yi (Kim Hee-seon) teaches at in the present to find her, that he realizes that things are different. Then he sees Tae-yi in the university, but she is not the professor. She is instead a student, who is in class listening to the lecture and that's when it strikes Jin-gyeom that he is not in his present but past.
He then confirms his theory by calling his mother's phone number and is shocked to hear her voice. It is later in the day that he realizes that it is the day when the blood moon had appeared and now that he was in the past, he attempts to find out what really happened to his mother. The only thing he does understand is that scientist Seok O-won was present on the day his mother died. Jin-gyeom even follows O-won and learns that his mother is in danger but by the time he returns, his mother is already shot. The only difference is, unlike in the past when Jin-gyeom arrived after his mother had passed, this time, the Jin-gyeom from the future is able to talk to his mother.
Sun-young (Kim Hee-seon) realizes who this Jin-gyeom is and she even tells him to not travel through time. After having traveled through time himself and having seen both his mother and Tae-yi at the same time, Jin-gyeom comes to a conclusion. He begins to believe that his mother doesn't have anything to do with Tae-yi and secondly, he also decides to learn as much as possible about the time card. So this time when professor Tae-yi ends up asking him for the card again to uncover its secrets, he hands it to her and also confesses to her that time travel is real.
Jin-gyeom also learns that radioactive particles are present in high percentage within the time card and also in the place Jin-gyeom had disappeared in, in the previous episode, indicating a connection between the two. However, he leaves the science of it to Tae-yi while he begins to track his father. He learns that no one who was around his mother in the past knows his father and that Sun-young had also not mentioned him even once to Jin-gyeom. However, while investigating who his father is, Jin-gyeom learns that his mother had met someone at a prison. It is the same man that Tae-yi from the future had saved a little girl from and we see Sun-young investigating the identity of the person that this man had called teacher. It was the teacher who had wanted the book and in the process, a kid was orphaned.
So will finding out this teacher's identity help solve Sun-young's murder? We also see Min-hyuk (Kwak Si-yang) figure out the coordinates of the time card in the present when the card's tracking system begins to work mid-way during Tae-yi's research. Min-hyuk is unaware that he would be meeting his lover Tae-yi from the past, and so he comes in gun blazing and attempts to get the timecard even if it has to be done forcefully. However, when he sees Tae-yi, he is shocked and this does throw a wrench in his initial plans. However, he doesn't lose sight of his assignment. Despite getting into a tussle with Jin-gyeom, he ends up getting the card before leaving.
Min-hyuk understands that the Tae-yi he had met is not the woman that he had fallen in love with, so he isn't heartbroken as much as he is sad at having come face to face with Tae-yi, a version who is unaware of Min-hyuk's presence. So mother, father, and son have an unintentional reunion, however, none of them is aware of the connection between each other. So while that is left to be unraveled over the future episodes, the other mystery is regarding the presence of "the Book". This book which was originally in Sun-young's care is now in O-won's care and how that came to be is a mystery that we want to see solved sooner than later.
'Alice' airs on SBS on Fridays and Saturdays at 10 pm KST and can be streamed on Viki Global.