'Start-Up' Episode 6: Fans dislike In-jae for using Dal-mi again, say she 'doesn't deserve any pity'
'Start-Up' Episode 6 saw the founder of Sandbox, Yoon Sun-hak, led to mistakenly believe that the little girl who inspired the founding of Sandbox is none other than Won In-jae (Kang Ha-na). Previously, In-jae had overheard Sun-hak tell the story behind Sandbox's logo to one of her employees and decided to use the same in her application to ensure that she got a leg up in terms of mentor selection among other things. While she left her stepfather's company behind to ensure that she would no longer be accused of using her connections to becoming successful, she is still searching for ways to manipulate people into giving in to her requirements. She does successfully manage to get Sun-hak as her mentor despite her stepfather trying to step in and claim ownership over In-jae's victory. However, this has only got fans riled up as they now believe that she is beyond redemption. Especially since she continues to mock Dal-mi's (Bae Suzy) choice even in the face of her father's achievement, in that he is the man who inspired the idea of Sandbox.
One angry fan wrote on Reddit, "I really really dislike In Jae at the moment. She pisses me off so much. She abandoned Dal Mi, act like she's above all that, and now gets to benefit from her dad being the inspiration behind sandbox though she looks down on him and thinks leaving him and going with mum is the right choice? I know there's a lot more behind and she's inherently unhappy and all but she really really doesn't deserve any pity at this point."
This is a sentiment that many others shared and so do we. While it is understandable that In-jae had her fair share of struggles in life, it is no reason for her to mock her sister or look own on her father's life. The more In-jae tries to assuage her guilt by telling herself that she made the right choice, the further away she is moving from her sister. It is also hypocritical of her to want to move away from her stepfather now that she had realized that he would never hand his shares over to her despite all the hard work. Doesn't her choice now to move away from him prove that her choice in the past was flawed? One would think that this would make her empathetic of her sister's choices too but instead, she is provoked into hurting Dal-mi because of the unwavering belief that Dal-mi has power over the choices that she has made so far in life.
Another fan observed how she would have had more respect for In-jae's character if only it had centered on portraying the difficulties of what it meant to begin something of her own without any support and wrote, "Same here. If she had rejected that sneaky developer's idea, I would have some respect for her. But seeing that she used her dad's story to help her get into the Sandbox, it seems like nothing is too low for her at this point. I really wish they gave her more substance. Now everything she does just feels like she's going against Dal Mi just because she doesn't like that mum is on her side more or she wants to justify her choice. She 100% didn't need to use the same data set to compete with her. I know it leads to the scene with the 2 sisters having it out in the competition but really that scene is not even that important Imo. I wish they focused on her striking out on her own instead of making her character so shady and gross."
'Start-Up' will air on tvN on Saturdays and Sundays at 9 pm KST, and can be streamed on Netflix in the US.