‘Drops Of God’ Episode 5 Recap & Ending, Explained: What Does Issei Learn From The Translator?

The fifth episode of the Apple TV series about a wine competition for a millionaire enologist’s inheritance, Drops of God, premiered today. In today’s episode, one of the two competitors, Issei Tomine, learned a lot more about himself than he’d bargained for. With wine expert Alexandre Leger’s inheritance on the line, being competed for by his daughter Camille and “spiritual son” Issei, the challengers are presented with the theme for their second duel in the fifth episode of Drops of God, and here’s what follows:

Spoilers Ahead


The Second Challenge

Drops of God Episode 5 begins with Issei and Camille, the two wine enthusiasts competing for Alexandre Leger’s inheritance, going into a room where Alexandre’s lawyer shows them a painting of some fruits and says the clue for the piece of art is “link.” The competitors need to return two weeks later and answer which wine matches the painting.


The Leger Guide

While researching the painting, Thomas informs Camille that it’s a still-life baroque painting from the 17th century, and they head to Luca, who figures that the wine must be Italian. To find out more, they need to look for grape varieties from the Milan or Lombardy regions which might’ve originated in the 17th century. Later, Camille meets with Luca, who offers her a position to head the Leger Guide, a wine guidebook with a legacy of almost two decades that is published in 70 nations. He asks her to meet him at her father’s place the following day and mentions a surprise.


A Chink In The Friendship

Later, Camille and Thomas go out drinking, and they have a great time, but upon returning to the hotel, she tries kissing him, and he rejects her because he’s set to marry Juliette. The next morning, Camille meets Luca at Alexandre’s home, and Luca introduces her to Alexandre’s associate, Jacques. He then asks her to sample a wine, and she’s unbelievably amazed by the flavor, aroma, and taste of the alcohol. She lists all the notes and flavors she can recognize. Luca confirms all that Camille guessed and then shows her a mock-up of the Leger Guide they want her to run with a picture of her father holding her from her childhood. She promises to think about the offer. Camille talks with Thomas about the previous night’s awkward situation, and they end up having a fight because he doesn’t think she’s fit to run the Leger Guide yet. Later, she goes up to his hotel room but is told that he’s left.


Disowned 

Later, Issei watches his grandfather do a press conference, where he says that, as a family, they’re extremely proud of Issei and his capabilities in wine, adding that his grandson must win the competition. Issei meets Honoka in her office, and his mother shows him the things her husband has left behind, along with a note that asks them not to look for Hirokazu. Issei mentions saying awful things to his father, and although Honoka chastises her son, she thinks there’s no point looking for Hirokazu anymore. The son heads to his office and takes a photograph of himself and his father, and then gets into an elevator with his grandfather to thank him for his kind words. The grandfather, however, all but disowns Issei, saying if he doesn’t win the competition, he’ll be out on the streets with nothing.

Issei heads to a police station and asks them to look for his father, but the cops are no help because they consider it useless to look for someone who voluntarily disappeared. He calls the journalist Yurika Katase and asks her to meet, and he requests that she look for his father when she shows up. In exchange, she asks for an exclusive interview with Issei but promises to be considerate and sensitive in her questions. Issei heads to the university where his parents met and where Alexandre Leger used to teach, and he learns from the archivist that Leger taught from April to June 1991, the same time his parents attended the university. However, the archivist refuses to disclose any more information until Issei pleads for a little assistance, which gets him the name and address of the college’s translator during that period.


Hirokazu’s Traces 

In the evening, Katase calls Issei to tell him that she got hold of CCTV footage of someone who looks like Hirokazu boarding a train and that, with some further digging, they can find where he went. Katase then asks if Issei can do the exclusive interview next evening at 7 p.m., and he agrees. Upon learning about this interview, Honoka calls Issei and demands an explanation, but he lets her know that all of them were equally complicit in making Hirokazu leave and that they couldn’t show him their love for him. Issei hangs up the call and heads to the translator’s address the following morning, but she’s not home and will return the next day.

During Issei’s interview with Katase, she asks him about the relationship he shared with Alexandre, and he mentions a very discreet student-teacher relationship with no room for affection. Contrary to his mother’s and grandfather’s fears, he doesn’t expose them for ousting him from the Tomine family fortune but says that he has no interest in the family business, irrespective of the competition’s outcome. Issei finishes by saying he wants to thank his father, Hirokazu, for all that he did for Issei and that he has a deep respect for the man—something that Hirokazu watches on TV while working at a small eatery.


What Does Issei Learn From The Translator?

Upon revisiting the translator, she shows Issei all the ledgers that detail the classes his parents were in and offers him a choice: he can take the ledgers and leave or cross the threshold and learn the truth. He chooses the truth, and the translator remembers the strong affection his parents had for each other and how deeply they loved each other, which makes Issei mention that he’s never seen his parents be affectionate. The translator checks herself and says Alexandre and Honoka were inseparable despite Hirokazu’s scrutiny of Honoka, and when he was found drunk on the campus one day, Alexandre was fired. The translator finishes her tale by saying that Hirokazu married Honoka a few months later, surprisingly, and gives Issei the ledgers to take home.

Issei finally comes to know about his parentage—a question that’d bothered him since the previous episode of Drops of God. He finds out that Honoka loved Alexandre deeply and that they’d had an affair despite her being betrothed to Hirokazu. Given the urgency with which Hirokazu married Honoka only a few months after Alexandre’s firing, the reasons that could’ve motivated this decision raise suspicion. In all certainty, Honoka must’ve gotten pregnant with Issei, and Hirokazu, ever faithful, decided to marry her so that she’d not be dishonored in patriarchal Japanese society. Issei comes to know all that the audience has figured out for a while, and he understands that he was an actual son of Alexandre and not just the cliched “spiritual son.” Upon getting back to his car, Issei decides to call Camille. How does this new information impact their competition? Only time will tell.


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Indrayudh Talukdar
Indrayudh Talukdar
Indrayudh has a master's degree in English literature from Calcutta University and a passion for all things in cinema. He loves writing about the finer aspects of cinema, although he is also an equally big fan of webseries and anime. In his free time, Indrayudh loves playing video games and reading classic novels.

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