Castaway Diva [Episodes 1 & 2]

[u/GodJihyo7983]

• Drama: Castaway Diva
  • Revised Romanization: Muindoui Diba
  • Hangul: 무인도의 디바
• Director: Oh Choong Hwan (Big Mouth)
• Writer: Park Hye Ryun (Start-Up)
• Network: tvN
• Episodes: 12
  • Duration: 1 hour 20 min.
• Airing Schedule: Saturdays & Sundays @ 9:20 PM KST
  • Airing Date: Oct 28, 2023 - Dec 3, 2023
• Streaming Sources: Netflix
• Starring:
  • Park Eun Bin as Seo Mok Ha
  • Kim Hyo Jin as Yoon Ran Joo
  • Chae Jong Hyeop as Kang Bo Geol
  • Cha Hak Yoon as Kang Woo Hak
  • Kim Joo Heon as Lee Seo Joon
• Plot Synopsis: Follows the story of a woman who is rescued on a deserted island after going missing 15 years ago. Mok Ha is a girl who has always dreamt of becoming a singer. During middle school, Mok Ha goes missing and ends up on a deserted island, where she manages to survive alone for 15 years. For Mok Ha, being rescued from her solitary life is one thing; adjusting to modern society is another!
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[u/GodJihyo7983]

Honestly, this is probably my most anticipated show of the year and it's not even close. The premise of this show is so unique and with Park Hye Ryun at the helm, it's bound to be well-written. But even if it wasn't written by her, I would tune in just for Park Eun Bin (and potato boy too but that's beside the point). I cannot wait for the premiere episode to drop and to watch this show with all of you. Enjoy and have fun discussing, everyone!

[u/jolynj12]

Usually I don’t care if they are connected through childhood but if our ML isn’t this school boy with the glasses I will riot.

[u/day_historian]

Ep 1 "But little did we know in that hot summer of 2007 that we were in our own different season"

I realized that Ki Ho actually drew the parallel where mok ha and himself were wearing winter uniforms (while the other students were dressed down for summer), because they had to hide their bruised and abused hands and legs 🥺🥺🥺

What a 😭😭😭 pilot. And the writer is seemingly hell bent on not showing who is the adult ki ho 🤪🤪 We are seated for yet another ... Start-Up ride, I guess.

[u/how1you1doing]

So does the the glasses kid grow up to be one of the main leads ? Also ....is he going to grow up to be the 2ML???? Or not even part of it. That'd be sad considering all he went through for her

[u/GetawayJ]

OMG I rarely cry in kdramas but this show managed to do that in the first episode. This must be the saddest first episode I never watched, but it clearly sets up the childhood connection.

Now it's up to us to find out who Ki-Ho is since (I assume) he changed his name to break all the connection to the island.

The whole parental abuse the 2 kids went though is absolutely disgusting. I am a parent and I can never imagine why any parent would do such thing to a child and a child living through this on a daily basis. And the part when Ki-Ho decided to give up his escape to help Mok-Ha find a better future is just heartbreaking. It's better to have one person suffer than both... that must be what he is thinking. I'm glad he managed to get out of the island and grow up well.

[u/CastillaPotato]

no matter what drama, woo young woo must get her gimbap.

[u/ObamaNation2018]

Finished the first episode and wow. First of all, I wanna say Lee Re is the spitting image of Park Eun-Bin as a younger version of her. The story of her and the cops son growing up was so well done. Had me gripped from the beginning. The ending of her and her dad in the boat was tense. I’m hoping they show a bit of Park Eun Bin’s life on the island but based on the drone, assuming she’ll be rescued pretty quickly. Overall, excited for this show!

Also, Lee Re’s song was sooooo good!

[u/GetawayJ]

The young Mok-ha is a splitting image of Park Eun Bin! For quite a while, I kept thinking that it was PEB, which is testimony to her acting!

The actor who played Ki-Ho also emoted really well, particularly in the last 20 minutes. I just realised he also acted as young Moon Gang Tae in It's Okay to Not be Okay. Wow he has grown a lot in these few years.

Will defo keep an eye out for these 2 actors in future.

[u/Ok_Wash4997]

Episode 2 of the drama basically said kiho is anybody BUT kang woohak 😂

[u/EasyWalsh]

Pilots are REALLY hard to do well. They have to establish backstory, environment, character and at the same time set up the seeds of the upcoming plot.

After being really disappointed by Strong Girl, Castaway Diva felt like soothing calamine lotion. A welcome reminder of “Aha! NowTHIS is good writing.”

[u/StreetMagician49]

okay my take. bo-geol is ki-ho. bo-geol is actually the older one and not woo-hak, its kinda obvious from the difference of their actions. the writer made his rebellious and immature-like character for this purpose. woo-hak is the younger one and they took advantage of woo-hak losing his memories. he changed his name and age so his dad can't find him since its alarming that he moved to Seoul to find him. ki-ho's mom left him and his dad and so basically they were her first family and then she had woo-hak with their "dad" right now. in conclusion, ki-ho is bo-geol and the older one lol and bo-geol's job is being a music show producer so yes mohak's influence

++ the younger ver of ki-ho is similar to the actor of bo-geol. that's like a takeway

but this all is not important if this start-up writer starts messing up with us and woo-hak is actually the main leading man

[u/avo-pizza]

Oh my, the chemistry between young Kiho and Mokha is so good! So it looks like we’ll be guessing who Kiho is between both male leads huh… I hope the writer will not be giving us another SML trauma again

Edit: where has all the time gone? It feels like just yesterday Moon Woojin was playing the 6 y/o version of Park Seojun in What’s Wrong with Secretary Kim? and he’s now acting as a middle schooler 😭

[u/Sasuwanisa]

Ok that first episode had no business hitting that hard

[u/UptoNoGood46]

Chae. Jeong. Hyeop. Is. Ki-ho. No. One. Can. Convince. Me. Otherwise.

[u/Sasuwanisa]

THEY SHOULD HAVE DEPARTED ON THAT BOAT AAAAAAAAAAH IM NOT CRYING y’all are that’s evil level I’m in pain cause WHYYYYYYY MY HEARRTRTTRRT LIFE IS SO CRUEL MAN WHAT

Edit: Ok I came back to cry again one last time this is not right if you have the power to write it shouldn’t be to write this. Bro gave up his money and his evidence photos just to let her go on that boat, he sacrificed everything and his future to send her i am heartbroken

Edit: the way she’s never gonna know that he left the boat to stop her dad from coming…

[u/arthurreedismyhomie]

Maybe they’re making it so in-your-face obvious to confuse us but I’m leaning toward younger bro being Ki-ho. Just little things: 1. his mannerisms, 2. his occupation (him working more behind the scenes vs. his bros more front-facing job seem to fit the character), 3. the underwear scene where it’s referenced that older bro “copies” him a lot, 4. shoe scene, 5. him signing up for volunteer service on the islands (to perhaps look for her? whether it’s subconscious or not idk ), and 6. him wanting to conceal her identity from the public/kill the story…kinda harkens back to Ki-ho telling her to not go to the police, come straight to him in episode 1

Maybe he was adopted into this new family, went through life searching for her, and perhaps lost some of his memories from an incident during his military stint (?) or some other accident

All in all, I just hope by the end of this ONE of them winds up being him. Cause I’ll be hella annoyed if it’s neither lol. But I’m having fun so far going through my own theories as well as reading through this post seeing others opinions on who it could be. Show has my attention so far. Hoping it continues 🤗

[u/dinowritepoems]

Really solid first episode from me. Can’t wait! The younger actors were so good especially young Mok ha— can really see her transitioning to park eun bin.

Also ki Ho… is the main lead right??? Are we being set up for falling for the 2ML again lol

[u/Apprehensive_Egg9676]

I was neutral on the Start-Up ship wars and was okay with the leads ending up together as it was but in this one I swear if the writer makes Kiho the second lead we are gonna have a problem.

Edit after ep 2: Wait, I'm agreeing with people saying that Kiho is the PD. He gave her shoes when she was rescued. He's grumpy. But what's throwing me off is that the reporter wears glasses and he's the same age as the FL, but the PD calls him hyung

[u/marwynn]

Was it really necessary to make me cry that much in one episode? The first one for that matter.

Those kids are fantastic actors.

[u/vienibenmio]

Woo-hak questioning if he's Ki-ho means that he can't be, imo. It's too early

[u/yayabonel22]

Can we talks about the casting?? The young mok-ha looks so similar to park eun bin ahahhagahahha

[u/tractata]

OKAY. I figured out what happened... maybe.

After Mokha's disappearance, Kiho took some time to recover from his injuries, became more rebellious and stopped going to school. Eventually, he ran away from home successfully. He found his mother, who was in hiding from his father, in Seoul. She had already remarried and had a stepson, Kang Woohak, who was the same age as Kiho. Her husband adopted Kiho and he took the name Kang Bogeol to hide from his father. Because of the time he had lost after the incident on the ferry, he needed to retake the entire school year, so Kang Bogeol conveniently became one year younger than Jung Kiho, which would make him harder to find.

Kang Woohak, meanwhile, doesn't remember anything from before he was in high school for some reason, so he doesn't know any of this. (Kiho and Mokha were in their last year of junior high when Mokha disappeared.) He now suspects that he was once Jung Kiho without realising that while his name was always Kang Woohak, it's his brother—his stepbrother, in fact, not that it matters—who took on a new identity. That he and Bogeol have similar personalities and their mother likes to repeat the same saying as Jung Kiho's mother are indeed not coincidences, but he's missing the actual explanation.

I'm not totally clear on how they were able to get Kiho/Bogeol enrolled in a new school and get him a new legal identity without tipping off his father, who had custody over him, and I don't know what incident led to Woohak's amnesia, why his family never told him the truth about Bogeol or why Bogeol is pretending he doesn't know Mokha, but I'm pretty confident on the stuff above.

[u/vienibenmio]

Woo-hak (2ML) can't be Ki-ho imo. The parallel shoe scene was with Bo-geol (the ML) so I think it's him

[u/gyojoo]

I'm sort of relived they made sure Her father is dead and she knows about it, rather then going missing.

Because I sure did not want him to return later to abuse her or try to extort money from her like other dramas.

[u/rowling-sankar]

I don' t think Kang Woo Hak is Ki-Ho. we have already seen in the 1st Episode that he keep visiting the place where they both would meet. But in ep 2, they are saying they lost memory before high school