Hyde, Jekyll, Me: Episode 2

by girlfriday

With our basic setup in place, the kidnapping mystery takes over and further entangles our characters in a dangerous investigation. But given that a certain damsel in distress is what brings out our hero’s, well, inner hero, a little danger is actually a good thing. And even though they’re just teeny tiny cracks, we’re already starting to see that our leading man might not be as cold and unfeeling as he’d like to think he is.

 
SONG OF THE DAY

Park Bo-ram – “Falling” for the Hyde, Jekyll, Me OST [ Download ]

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

 
EPISODE 2 RECAP

After losing six hours of his day and no memory beyond losing consciousness in the elevator, Seo-jin is further horrified when Hana enters his room to ask if he’s the one who saved her in the water.

At the word “save,” Seo-jin’s secretary audibly gasps, and Seo-jin’s eyes widen. Hana says that she doesn’t remember much either, but she does remember someone holding her in the water.

Seo-jin covers his ears and tells her to get out, because he’s not the type of person to go rescuing women. But she notices his necklace and asks if it’s his with an air of recognition in her voice, and turns to go before she gets an answer. Seo-jin grabs his broken glasses and stares down his reflection in the window: “Why have you come back, Robin?”

Hana leaves the room and sneers back at the closed door, jumping to the conclusion that Seo-jin ushered her out before she could bring up her circus troupe’s contract. The necklace niggles at her though, and she thinks back to the moment when she was hanging off the edge of a bridge 15 years ago.

Her fingers start to slip, but a boy catches her hand just in time. He’s wearing that same Big Dipper necklace. He loses grip and she falls into the river below, so without hesitating, he jumps too, and pulls her up to the surface. She briefly opens her eyes to see the necklace, and in voiceover when she thanks him, he just says that this is who he is.

She shakes away the thought that it could be the same guy, calling it too much of a coincidence. Well that’s certainly true, but we know that it also fits the timeline for when Seo-jin’s split personality Robin first appeared.

Seo-jin’s parents arrive in country, and his bodyguard/chauffeur reports to Chairman Dad about the day’s events, and his suspicion that Robin has come back. The parents seem just as horrified as Seo-jin is.

In the hospital room, Seo-jin finally remembers Dr. Kang and asks to see her, and Secretary Kwon sweats another bucket as he stammers, “Dr. Kang is missing…” We switch over to the police department where a detective is giving a presentation on the case. Handy, that.

The crime scene looks the same as when Hana first saw it, except for the very important fact that Dr. Kang is no longer lying there in a pool of blood. The police think she’s alive because she made an emergency call asking for someone to save her, and all the CCTV cameras in the offices were shut off before the crime.

As Seo-jin hears the news, he remembers seeing Hana fleeing from a masked man in black, and realizes that this could be the kidnapper/killer. The detectives split up the work, and a Detective Na gets assigned to investigate Seo-jin and Hana as possible witnesses.

Chairman Dad comes to see Seo-jin in the hospital straightaway, but it’s not concern that brings him there. He tells Seo-jin to get out before Robin ruins everything. They only have a month until the vote (presumably for Seo-jin to inherit the company), and Dad only sees Robin as a liability.

Seo-jin swears that it’s not what he thinks, and reminds Dad of how he’s been living for the past five years to control this thing, and how hard he’s worked to show that he can run the company. “You know that I’ve been closing my eyes, closing my ears, closing my heart for five years and didn’t change once!”

Chairman Dad sees Robin as a weakness and says that if Seo-jin hadn’t lived that way, he wouldn’t be standing in front of him now. Seo-jin says he did his best so that he could stand before his father, and plans to keep it that way in the future. He asks to be left alone, but Dad just says with disappointment that Robin will always come back.

Dad orders the bodyguard to keep close watch, and Secretary Kwon rushes in to give a little fist-pump “Fighting!” of encouragement, which Seo-jin shuts down immediately. Heh.

Seo-jin heads home and makes his way into a secret security room locked away behind a wall in the greenhouse, and scrolls through footage of Robin running to people’s rescue in Wonderland over the years.

Oh, he wasn’t kidding—Robin actually does save people. It’s all he does, apparently, like he’s got some kind of hero complex. Curious. Also, why is his alter ego named Robin and not Batman?

Seo-jin logs in to record a video message for Robin, which is standard practice for them. He looks into the camera and tells Robin to remember Rule 19, and that he’s changed so there’s no reason for Robin to come back anymore. “I don’t want you anymore. Go ahead and come back… and I’ll get rid of you forever.”

He then mediates to calm his nerves, repeating the chant over and over, “This too shall pass.” With his eyes still closed, he stifles back tears.

The next day, Seo-jin makes his rounds at Wonderland and asks about Dr. Kang’s investigation. Secretary Kwon says that there’s no CCTV footage and no witnesses, but Seo-jin knows there IS a witness, and looks over at the circus packing up their things with an exasperated sigh.

Hana is already being questioned at the crime scene, where Detective Na gets antagonistic the second he receives a phone call confirming that Hana is the only person who wasn’t seen entering the building before the security feed got cut. Hm, zip-lining and climbing through a window doesn’t look very good in light of the crime.

He demands to know how she got inside, suddenly treating her like his prime suspect, when Seo-jin arrives to tell the rather absurd-sounding truth and back her up. She says it’s his fault for trying to give her the brush-off, but he doesn’t let her get very far in the argument because he wants the case to come first.

He breaks the police tape to step into Dr. Kang’s office and Hana follows, leaving Detective Na sputtering between them and totally lost. Hana shows them how she climbed through the window and where she saw Dr. Kang, and then recalls feeling like someone was standing behind her. She turned around, and looked up…

Seo-jin grabs her shoulders and asks repeatedly, “Did you see who it was?” Hana struggles to picture the moment again, and says in a daze, “I did see. But I can’t remember.”

They consult a doctor, and Seo-jin calls the diagnosis before the doc can. Ha, who tells someone they have PTSD with an eyeroll? He accuses her of acting like she can’t remember, because the timing is too suspicious and it’s the perfect way for her to stick it to him.

That’s news to her, since she’s just learning that his case is important to him, but she lights up to know that she’s just unintentionally ruined his day. Seo-jin tells the detective to get a hypnotist ready, and Hana balks at the way he’s going about this, giving orders when he should be asking for her help and offering up ways to repay her. She reminds him that he knows exactly how to repay her, and adds sarcastically, “You must not be very bright.”

I love that she drives him crazy. Minutes later, he’s sliding over a copy of the new circus contract for her to sign. She wants an apology too, and he mumbles one out of the corner of his mouth, and she insists on a better one, from the soul.

Seo-jin: “I. Am. So-rry. Are we done?” Heh. She frowns to see that the contract is only for two years, and writes in ten years instead. He offers three, then four, but each time she comes back with ten years and an insult on the side, until he finally gets sick of sliding the contract back and forth and agrees to her terms.

He immediately gets up to take her to the hypnotherapist, but she stands up to look him in the eyes and asks again if he was the one who saved her. She steps close, which unnerves him, and says sincerely, “Thank you. This is how you do it, from the soul.”

She turns back to ask if that necklace has always been his, but then thinks better of it and mutters that it must be a coincidence. He follows her into the elevator, agitated and demanding an explanation for why she keeps asking about the rescue and the necklace.

Hana says it’s nothing and reminds him that he’s the one insisting he didn’t save her. Seo-jin grows increasingly distressed and asks what if it was him, and slams her against the wall as he asks what she is to show up and do this to him. Blech, quit manhandling her! It sends his heart rate skyrocketing though, so he backs off to breathe and calm down.

Seo-jin takes her to the police consultant hypnotherapist (a student of Dr. Kang’s, according to the detective), and Hana looks around in his car with curiosity. There are religious symbols hanging everywhere, but they’re a mishmash of various religions, from Buddhism to Christianity, used almost like talismans more than anything.

She assumes he’s really devout, including his belief in hypnotism. He scowls and calls hypnotism science, not faith. She’s a skeptic, though she tells him she learned hypnosis herself once. She takes off her necklace and swings in Seo-jin’s face, then tells him he’s been hypnotized to bend a coin in half.

He bends her trick coin and doesn’t find it amusing in the least, but she says this stuff goes over really well in Las Vegas magic shows. He grouses that real hypnosis isn’t a joke.

He drops Hana off and reminds her to come back with a sketch of the suspect, and she gets in the elevator with a man in a long black coat. He’s going to the same floor and once they arrive, he introduces himself as YOON TAE-JOO (Sung Joon), and already knows her name.

Up in his apartment, Hana goes through this roundabout explanation for how he knew it was her in the elevator, but he says Detective Na simply sent him a text. She wonders why he didn’t say anything right away then, and he explains that the moment he did introduce himself, she must’ve been a little impressed that this doctor could read people. He plays a song and says it was the same song that played when he introduced himself. And from now on that song will be her trigger to make her feel like she can trust him.

Chairman Dad calls Seo-jin to his office to hand him a plane ticket. Apparently all Dad knows to do is kick Seo-jin out at the first sign of trouble. He says that if Robin is back, it means he’ll be back more often, without warning, and who knows what he’ll do once he’s loose. Seo-jin refuses to back down this time and says that Dr. Kang was about to cure him for good. He promises to find Dr. Kang, and if it doesn’t work this time, he’ll leave and never come back.

Tae-joo tells Hana that they won’t have a real session today, and takes out a rope to play cat’s cradle with her while they chitchat about her life. The activity makes her answer his questions freely without having to think, and he steers the conversation to what she did yesterday.

Suddenly he turns on her trigger song and tells her recall what she was doing yesterday afternoon, and snaps his fingers. Just like that, her eyes shutter closed and she falls back into her chair.

She remembers discovering Dr. Kang on the floor, and Tae-joo leads her to turn around slowly and face the attacker. She starts to struggle with her hands on her throat, as we see in flashback that he strangled her against the desk. She grabbed the nearest thing—a pair of scissors—and stabbed him in the arm. That’s when she made a break for it and ran into Seo-jin.

She starts to struggle again, and gasps that the man is strangling her. This time it’s on the rooftop, and we see her try to fight back. As she does, she pulls the attacker’s mask off… but Tae-joo snaps her back to the present.

Hana wakes up gasping and choking, and tells Tae-joo that she saw the attacker’s face. She just can’t remember it now. Seo-jin gets word and jumps to his feet in excitement. But then it dawns on him that if she pulled the mask off, the attacker knows that she saw his face… and that puts her in danger.

Detective Na drives Hana home after her session, and she cries as she remembers Tae-joo’s words that repressing a violent memory like that is just her survival instinct kicking in, and perfectly normal. He tells her gently that they have to address her fear first, after which she’ll naturally come to remember. Do you think maybe you could address her fears over dinner and a movie? I know, I know. But why is he so pretty?

The kidnapper wastes no time in coming after Hana, and lurks outside Wonderland waiting for her to arrive. He follows her in, and she starts to feel someone creeping behind her, and quickens her step.

Just when he’s about to overtake her, she runs right into Seo-jin, and when she says someone’s following her, he instinctively pulls her behind him. Huh. This from the guy who bit a lady and made her monkey bait?

He wrist-grabs her and takes her to the circus theater himself, and then blocks the door with a team of security guards. He asks where she lives and declares it too far, and takes her to a penthouse suite that overlooks Wonderland.

She takes in the view breathlessly, but comes back down to Earth and calls it overkill. He points out that you can’t even come up to this floor without a security key, making it safe. He leaves it up to her to take the security team home or stay here, and bans her from all circus activities.

Hana takes issue with that, but Seo-jin thinks she isn’t taking this threat very seriously. He steps closer and points out that if Dr. Kang is discovered dead instead of missing, that makes her a witness to a murderer. She takes that in, as he tells her to hurry up and remember because that’s the best way out of this.

She reminds him that he was there too, and he abandoned her, making her the sole witness. And then when he needed it, he sent her back into that horrifying memory, without so much as one word of comfort.

He says that’s why he’s protecting her now, but she doesn’t really know if it’s protection or prison. She refuses to stay if he’s going to be like this, and asks how he could be without an ounce of understanding or kindness. He doesn’t see the point, and says if she doesn’t like it, she can leave Wonderland.

Hana: “Wonderland was yours from the moment you were born, wasn’t it? It is now, and it’ll always be. But do you like Wonderland?” She says it’s never been hers and never will be, but she likes Wonderland—it holds all of her happy memories, of her childhood and her father.

She asks how he can be so flippant about telling her to leave all the time, and asks if he could abandon all his memories and go like that. But all he remembers is fear (we get a quick flash of two children in Santa hats screaming as someone drags them away in a haunted house).

He tells her that he can throw it all away because he has no happy childhood memories of this place: “Do I like it? Why would I like it? Is it a person, a woman? It’s just mine.” He tells her to stay if she likes it so much, before he gets rid of it all.

She follows him out to the elevator and says that he’s right, her voice icy now. She says that there’s no way he was the one who saved her, back then or the other day. She calls “that person” someone who saves people, leaving Seo-jin aghast that she might be talking about Robin.

He chases after her to ask what she meant by that, shouting at her to answer. He asks warily, “Does he… look like me?” But she replies coldly that they’re nothing alike and stalks off.

Seo-jin recalls his violent physical reaction to seeing Hana in danger twice, and the lingering question why Robin would resurface now for the first time in five years. Seo-jin watches Hana walk away and the thought occurs to him: “Could it be because of you?”

As he runs after her, the sight of a red heart balloon reminds him of his dream. In fact, everything looks the same, which is kind of creepy. We’re having premonition dreams now? Just like in the dream, the giant mirror ball starts swinging overhead, and Seo-jin calls out, “Jang Hana!” But then he starts choking and falls to his knees on the ice.

Up in the rafters, we see that it wasn’t chance that put Hana in danger, but Glasses Strangler, setting a trap. The mirror ball snaps from its chain and starts to fall, and Hana looks up, wide-eyed. I hate it when people stare instead of running away.

But of course Robin grabs her out of the way just in time, sliding onto the ice and breaking her fall. He cradles her in his arms, and when she opens her eyes, the first thing she sees is that necklace again. LOL, you’re telling me that the first thing he did was yank off that tie? Because it’s not like there was a damsel to save or anything.

When her eyes move upward, she’s even more shocked to see Seo-jin’s face, but with a smile on it. A big, toothy smile with dimples. Guh.

She’s made utterly speechless when he checks her and checks her again to make sure she isn’t injured, and asks tenderly if she’s okay. But that’s when the security team arrives in the distance, and with one glance, team leader (and Chairman Dad’s spy) Seok-won recognizes Robin.

He takes out a taser, and the other bodyguard prepares a baton. What is he, the Hulk? What’s with all the artillery? Robin sees them coming and makes sure to tell Hana to go to the hospital, and then makes a break for it.

She watches in confusion as his own guards chase after him, and happens to catch a glimpse of him peeking out from his hiding spot. Then he suddenly launches into these acrobatic flips and jumps around all the stage props, and Hana gapes, wondering what it is that she just saw.

She chases him all the way up to a balcony that overlooks Wonderland’s castle, and finds him standing with his arms outstretched. He drinks in the freedom and says aloud, “I’ve come back out.” Closing caption: If there is another me inside of me… [I hope] that he’s a better person than I am.

 
COMMENTS

I hope he’s better too, because the reaction from Chairman Dad and the security staff has me worried that Robin has a dark side that we haven’t been privy to. What if he’s an impish trickster or something? Still, he seems genuinely good so far, if his driving force is saving people. Dr. Kang said in her notes that Robin came from Seo-jin’s guilt, so I can only assume that his guilt over failing to save someone is making him reenact this savior role over and over. I like this twist because it gives Robin an interesting story too, rather than just making him the warm fuzzy version of Seo-jin. Even though, okay, I wouldn’t mind spending loads of time on a smiley doofy Robin who’s just nice for the sake of being nice. Also, Robin has better hair.

But it’s actually Seo-jin’s moments of vulnerability that capture my interest most, like his obvious fear of losing control, or most interestingly, when he starts breaking his own rules around Hana. He’s got endless codes of conduct and all these no-touching rules, but he’s the one repeatedly touching her and being overly protective when he insisted he didn’t do things like that. Their relationship is almost all antagonism, but it doesn’t seem at all unbalanced because Hana dishes out as much as she gets back, and she’s not afraid to stand up for herself. She’s self-reliant and proud, and pretty good at going toe-to-toe with Seo-jin, which makes their bickering banter pretty fun (especially when someone like the detective is standing between them with his mouth hanging open, unable to keep up with their rhythm).

Mostly I like the way she calls Seo-jin out on his bullshit, and that she finds him rude and unappealing. It makes the flipside more interesting—when Robin will inevitably sweep her off her feet and confuse the crap out of her, especially if he’s the dreamy hero she’s been searching for all these years. I dislike the go-to first love trope, but it’s pretty much unavoidable in dramaland, so I guess we just have to go with it—Twu Wuv and Destiny go hand-in-hand, of course, because no one’s ever heard of two adults meeting, overcoming their deep psychological issues, and then living happily ever after. What are we, low on conflicts with a split personality love triangle?

Anyway, I’m more interested in Hana (or rather, Hana in danger) being Robin’s trigger, because it means she’ll matter to Seo-jin. I’ll love it if he insists on keeping her safe at all times in an attempt to keep Robin from surfacing, only to fall for her. And overall I’m glad we’re already at this point in the story after the second episode, with all the right questions being asked along the way instead of our characters just sitting back and waiting to react to things. Dr. Kang’s case is a good motivator in that regard, because Seo-jin has a personal stake in finding her alive; plus it forces our leads to be together as they solve the mystery. I was sad about her disappearing so quickly, but Dr. Tae-joo made up for that in a jiffy. And here I was thinking that Seo-jin’s biggest competition would be Robin. Be still my heart. I keep telling myself that so far we can’t trust either Robin OR Tae-joo (he of the suspicious long black coat), but I have a feeling that that’s going to be a losing game.

 
RELATED POSTS

• Hyde, Jekyll, Me: Episode 1
• Hyde, Jekyll, Me teases fleeting fanciful romance
• Wonderland romance on ice in Hyde, Jekyll, Me
• First preview for split personality rom-com Hyde, Jekyll, Me
• Cast of Hyde, Jekyll, Me gathers for first script read
• News bites: December 13, 2014
• News bites: December 6, 2014
• Sung Joon signs on as second lead for Jekyll and Me
• Han Ji-min confirms Jekyll and Me opposite Hyun Bin
• Han Ji-min courted to romance Hyun Bin(s) in Hyde, Jekyll, Me
• Hyun Bin returns to dramaland with split personality