"Cheese in the Trap" Episode 6 recap

The opening dream sequence demonstrates a lot of the contradictions at play in "Cheese in the Trap". Seol is paranoid that there's something not quite right about Jeong, yet the fears in her imagination frequently have little if anything to do with Jeong's actual character conflicts. Jeong is sweet and thoughtful even when Seol isn't around- but only when thinking about Seol. That's because Jeong genuinely doesn't seem to like any other character in "Cheese in the Trap".
There's good reason for this- people tend to be jerks. One encounter Seol has takes on special relevance, because remember how Jeong seemed like such a big stalker in the first episode? Apparently Seol actually has past experience with stalking on a substantially more serious scale, which begs all sorts of questions about how Seol views men. Or for that matter about how the men in Seol's life view themselves- as if they're characters in a grand romantic comedy.

...Which is, in its own way, actually pretty accurate. I've always found men to be much more romantic thinkers than women, at least in the early stages of a relationship / non-relationship. I don't know if it's socialized or hard-wired or just personal experience speaking, but it always seems like guys are expected to show a certain minimum level of aggressiveness that at times feels rather absurd. As embarassingly stupid as the stalker's dialogue sounds, if I bend my head hard enough I can actually kind of understand where he's coming from.
That doesn't change the absurdist element of the tone, though, which at times feel like one of those nature documentaries where male are butting heads against one another to prove dominance. It's from that context that the late scene in Seol's rather tiny apartment takes on some rather adorable undertones. Given all the real demonstrated danger in the world, Seol seems unusually trusting. But then if she can't show basic trust, how is Seol ever supposed to get to strong trust?
That, I think, is the main point "Cheese in the Trap" is building up to, and why the drama feels ever so slightly different than most romantic comedies. The romance isn't what's at focus here- it's trust. Seol is learning to trust that men aren't necessarily threatening. And Jeong is learning to trust that people aren't necessarily deceptive. For all her complicated thought processes, Seol is really just coming up with rationalizations to explain why she's shy.
Review by William Schwartz
"Cheese in the Trap" is directed by Lee Yoon-jeong, written by Go Seon-hee and Kim Nam-hee and features Park Hae-jin, Kim Go-eun-I, Seo Kang-joon, Lee Seong-kyeong, Nam Joo-hyeok, Kim Gi-bang, Park Min-ji and more.

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