Can This Love Be Translated? Episode 5 Recap: Mu-hee Chases Seven Lucky Clovers

By Mira Vance · Editor & Lead Reviewer

Mu-hee wants one impossible light in the sky, then spends the day learning how badly hope can bruise when the wrong person arrives.

Can This Love Be Translated?, Episode 5 of 12 Netflix

Cha Mu-hee begins Episode 5 with a hot dog, a Japanese word, and a smile that makes everyone around her start guessing.

But Mu-hee is too happy for the day to stay professional.

She asks what “delicious” is in Japanese. Hiro gives her “oishi.” She repeats it, eats the hot dog, and turns a tiny translation lesson into something Nanami notices later. To Nanami, Mu-hee looked like she was on a date with someone she liked.

Hiro hears that and immediately gets vain about it, because of course he does.

The funny part is that Nanami is wrong in exactly the useful way. Mu-hee is glowing, yes, but the glow is not really about Hiro. It is about Joo Ho-jin, who keeps turning other people’s words into something Mu-hee can hold.

Cha Mu-hee tells Joo Ho-jin why the sunset feels different

After the hot dog shoot, Mu-hee sits in the grass searching for a four-leaf clover. Ho-jin watches from a distance, first amused, then quietly worried when he notices her legs will fall asleep.

Mu-hee does find one. She is delighted by it in a way that looks almost childish, except the feeling underneath is not childish at all. She wants luck. More than that, she wants to see the Northern Lights with Ho-jin.

The sunset gives her a way to say it. Mu-hee tells him she normally does not like sunsets because the sun going down reminds her of being alone. Today feels beautiful because she is with someone.

Ho-jin receives it with the caution of a man who knows too well what wanting can do. He says she might remember this moment forever. He does not ruin it. He also does not step all the way into it.

The next day should have been another workday, but Producer Kim has flown back to Seoul because of an emergency. Producer Park says another producer will arrive soon, and tomorrow’s shoot is canceled. The aurora, however, stays on the schedule. The Northern Lights are the reason the team came to Canada, and Mu-hee wants luck on her side.

So when the crew suddenly has a free night, Mu-hee grabs at the chance to drink with Ho-jin.

She says she is only going there to drink. Then she changes clothes like someone trying to appear as if she is only going there to drink.

Cha Mu-hee and Joo Ho-jin spend the night locked out

The hotel-room drinking plan immediately becomes ridiculous. Yong-u gets drunk and falls asleep. Ho-jin goes to a bookstore because he has already read every book he brought. Mu-hee drinks with Yong-u, then lingers in Ho-jin’s room after he returns.

She borrows his glasses while reading, walks out with them still on, and claims she forgot because the prescription matched her eyes. Ho-jin tells her they are nonprescription protective glasses.

There are many ways to survive embarrassment. Mu-hee chooses momentum.

Ho-jin offers to lend her the book. She accepts because borrowing it might make the glasses incident less humiliating. Then she realizes she forgot her key. A second later, Ho-jin realizes he forgot his too.

They are adults. They have jobs. One of them is famous enough to have a whole crew orbiting her. The other reads tourist pamphlets in different languages for fun. Yet here they are, standing in a hallway because neither can get into a room.

Ho-jin tells Mu-hee to go knock on the writers’ room door. Mu-hee says she doesn’t want to wake Ms. Cho, and decides to stay. Neither leaves. Instead, they sit together in the hallway and talk about the mystery novel Mu-hee pretended to read.

Ho-jin spoils the reveal almost immediately, then tries to keep explaining the plot anyway. Mu-hee snaps at him, then asks him to continue. He gives her murder, ostracism, villagers, a widow, and a dead man who supposedly comes back to life.

By morning, Mu-hee has fallen asleep beside him. Ho-jin is still locked out, Yong-u is still useless, and the market in town gives them another excuse to keep walking together.

Shin Ji-sun arrives while Joo Ho-jin tries to find Mu-hee

The market trip starts bright. Mu-hee buys carrots. Ho-jin warns her not to walk under a ladder because a vendor says it is bad luck. Mu-hee panics because she is superstitious enough to believe in the ladder, the clovers, and any small ritual that might help the aurora appear.

Ho-jin, naturally, answers with science.

He explains that an aurora happens when charged particles collide with Earth’s atmosphere. He tells her the clovers have nothing to do with it. Mu-hee wants “You can do it,” not a weather report with particles.

Ho-jin does try. He wishes her luck. It is awkward and not quite what she asked for, but it is effort from a man who treats anticipation like wasted anxiety.

Then Mr. Kim texts him about a deadline, and Ho-jin steps away for a quick errand. He gets lost. Mu-hee waits. He calls, admits he is near Calgary Tower, and tells her to breathe and wait by the tower so he can rescue her, “princess.”

That word briefly makes her whole face change.

Then Shin Ji-sun appears.

Ji-sun is the new producer replacing Jeong-su. She has come straight from the airport, taken over the shoot, and found Ho-jin by chance. She is also getting married to Na Jin-suk next week, which makes her Ho-jin’s almost sister-in-law and the old love he still has not escaped.

Mu-hee understands enough to go quiet. Ji-sun speaks to Ho-jin with easy history. She knows he cooks. She calls him organized. She trusts him to take care of things. The intimacy is ordinary for Ji-sun and sharp for Mu-hee.

Do Ra-mi, Mu-hee’s darker screen self, chooses this moment to twist the knife. The “happy you” will not last, she says. Only the lonely one. Mu-hee already believes it too easily.

Cha Mu-hee tells Hiro she no longer wants the Northern Lights

Ji-sun’s arrival throws the whole day off balance. Ho-jin says he did not know she was coming. Mu-hee knows that is true. It does not fix the part that hurts.

Ho-jin does not comfort her. He gives her his jacket, but when she refuses it, he does not fight hard enough. Do Ra-mi’s voice tells Mu-hee that if he did not comfort her, she must be nothing to him.

Later, Mu-hee finds one more clover and runs into Hiro. He has come to a meeting, but their broken Korean-Japanese-English exchange fails almost immediately. He thinks she came to meet him. She is trying to send him toward the people waiting for him. Neither understands the other.

And then, because they cannot understand each other, Mu-hee says the truth.

She tells Hiro she collected clovers because she wanted to see the aurora with the person she likes. Now the girl he likes has arrived and will be at the shoot. If the Northern Lights appear, he will see them with Ji-sun instead. So Mu-hee does not want them to appear anymore.

It is selfish. It is honest. Mu-hee knows the production needs the shot. She knows everyone else is hoping for clear skies. She still wants the sky to deny them because she cannot stand imagining Ho-jin sharing that wonder with someone else.

Hiro catches almost none of it. He repeats “aurora,” “clover,” “I’m sorry,” and “thank you,” then stands there baffled after she leaves.

Joo Ho-jin pushes Mu-hee away after Ji-sun postpones her wedding

The crew celebrates Ji-sun’s arrival, and the aurora forecast suddenly looks excellent. Mu-hee’s wish has lost before the night even begins.

Dinner makes it worse. Everyone learns Ji-sun’s wedding will be delayed because she is staying in Canada. Everyone praises her work ethic. Ho-jin quietly suffers through the news while Mu-hee watches him mope.

Their conversation afterward is ugly because both of them are afraid. Mu-hee asks whether Ji-sun and Jin-suk have a problem. Ho-jin says it will pass. Ji-sun can love his brother and accept his free spirit. Mu-hee asks whether the wedding will really change Ho-jin’s feelings when Ji-sun will still be in his family.

She is trying to help. She is also trying to find out whether there is any room for her.

Ho-jin hears pressure instead of care. When Mu-hee suggests he could run with someone else nearby, someone who might protect him from Ji-sun and keep him safe, he reaches for a defense that cuts. Unless Mu-hee wants to be used as a rebound, she should go away.

Mu-hee fires back that he can stay in his zombie-like love until he dies.

Both lines are too much.

By the time the aurora shoot begins, Ho-jin is missing because of a fender bender. Nanami has to interpret for Mu-hee and Hiro. Mu-hee immediately believes the accident is her fault because she cursed Ho-jin while angry.

She is not being rational. She is being Mu-hee. Hope, guilt, superstition, and loneliness all live too close together in her.

Cha Mu-hee and Joo Ho-jin watch the aurora together

The shoot fails. Clouds gather. Snow threatens. At 1:00 a.m., the team gives up. Ji-sun wraps the night, and Hiro decides to stay behind in case the aurora appears later as stock footage.

That is when Hiro finally starts to understand something important. Nanami says her interpreting might have fallen short because Mu-hee always heard Hiro through someone else. Hiro realizes Mu-hee has always heard another voice in her ear.

“So it wasn’t me?” he asks.

Poor Hiro. Also, finally.

Mu-hee texts Ho-jin through Papago and asks whether he is okay. She promises to stay awake and wait. When he returns, she runs to him, checks whether he is hurt, and apologizes. He tells her the accident was the other driver’s fault.

Then he shows her the sky.

The aurora has appeared.

Ho-jin kept one of her clovers because he saw how much effort she put into collecting them. He also found one more while the accident was being sorted out.

Mu-hee says their dream came true. It is nice to see it together.

After all the day’s bruising, the smallness is the gift. No grand confession. No promise. Just two people standing under a rare sky, both aware that this is the memory Mu-hee wanted before she got scared of wanting it.

Then she tells him the chopsticks story: a woman teaches her boyfriend how to use chopsticks so he will remember her every time he uses them after they break up. Ho-jin calls it brainwashing. Mu-hee cheerfully applies the same logic to the aurora. From now on, whenever he sees the Northern Lights, he will think of her.

Then she softens it with a joke. The aurora will never happen in Korea, so he can relax.

Ho-jin knows better. Knowing Mu-hee, she will make it happen there too.

He is probably right.

Verdict

The romance is charming when practical failures lead to the big luminous image. The locked doors, borrowed glasses, spoiled novel, ladder superstition, clover hunt, and Papago texts all point to the same question: what if the person translating for you is the person you need to understand you?

The Ji-sun material adds needed ache. Ho-jin is still trapped in an old feeling, and Mu-hee is still too proud to ask directly whether she has a chance. A few beats run in circles, especially the repeated clover anxiety, but the final aurora stretch has the softness the earlier scenes keep reaching for. Mu-hee does not win Ho-jin outright. She wins a memory. For now, that is enough to make the sky feel personal.

Rating: 8.3/10

More episodes from Can This Love Be Translated? — A global star and the interpreter who speaks for him, episode by episode. Jump to any episode in the season:

Reviewed by Mira Vance · QuizFandom Editor & Lead Reviewer. Every rating is an honest per-watch assessment from the desk that also writes the quizzes — not a press release rehash.

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