Kill Me, Heal Me: Episode 4

by Saya

This episode takes some time to slow down, giving our main trio some time for introspection. But there’s no shortage of new news, as hints pile up around the locked room that is everyone’s hidden past.

The biggest developments come for Do-hyun, who takes direct hits on more than one front and has to come up with new ways of dealing. On the up-side, nobody can complain that life’s boring. Time flies when you’re having…multiple personas? Something tells me that’s nobody’s definition of fun but ours.

EPISODE 4 RECAP

Ri-jin reminds Do-hyun he promised to tell her his name if they survived. It’s a long moment before he answers, “With this face, and this look in my eyes, I am Cha Do-hyun.” Feeling the weight of the moment, they smile at each other, eyes moist.

A current of doctors and nurses flows down the hospital hallways. Dr. Park asks what all the commotion is about, but is fearful when he hears the booking guy is here to see Ri-jin (“in an expensive suit and a foreign car!”). But curiosity gets the better of him, and he follows.

Ri-jin asks after Do-hyun’s injuries and he assures her that he took care of them himself. Dismayed, she darts in and examines his work — not bad for an amateur. Impressed, she likens him to Batman, following up with a dorky bat-flying impression. This unguarded smile of his is so sweet.

She remembers to ask why he’s here, and he tells her he had something to ask her. But their moment is broken by a literal revolving door of hospital staff ogling and waving, while they so caaaasually pass through. Horror makes Ri-jin beg a favor of Do-hyun first.

She explains that she’s sorry for making Do-hyun fix a problem caused by Se-gi, but she has a reputation to repair. He can only apologize, again and again.

She makes a round of the biggest gossips, starting with the hospital’s biggest gossip and putting on a good show. Do-hyun tells him how much he’s heard about him from “our Ri-jin,” laying the flattery on thick while the doctor just eats it up.

Hilariously, the two of them speak to each other through their teeth as they make the rounds, maintaining the huge grins they’ve got plastered on their faces. Getting the hang of it, Do-hyun strolls up to a nurse and charms her socks off (while Ri-jin makes the best yuckyfaces). The nurse begs Ri-jin to tell her about the club they met at.

Another doctor thinks she made up the whole story and sent herself flowers and balloons. Arms around each other, the fake couple laugh it up, and Do-hyun promises to treat the doctor to dinner sometime.

But when they come upon Dr. Park, he runs at the sight of them. Ri-jin explains to Do-hyun that last time, Se-gi had the doctor by the neck. Do-hyun chases Dr. Park down, and the terrified doc protests that he didn’t do anything wrong.

To his astonishment, Do-hyun drops to his knees in front of him. He apologizes to Dr. Park, saying that he made a big mistake. “When I drink alcohol, I become a different person,” he explains. Affected by his sincerity, Dr. Park stammers that anybody can make a mistake when drunk, and urges him up.

The scene gives Ri-jin pause. She remembers Dr. Seok’s words about how Do-hyun is constantly fixing what the other alters do, and how he fights alone in his never-ending battle against his selves.

Ki-joon takes a report from the secretary he previously dispatched to investigate whether Do-hyun had checked into any hospitals. Do-hyun was recognized for being involved in a scandal at Kanghan with Ri-jin, and he notes she’s a psychiatrist. He also hears Chief Ahn met with Dr. Seok, a prominent psychiatrist who used to work in the U.S. “It didn’t seem like they were meeting for the first time,” the secretary adds. Uh-oh, Do-hyun’s not going to get found out already, is he?

Ri-jin thanks Do-hyun for his cool acting and reminds him about his question. He asks if his alter sought a favor from her. After a moment’s thought, she says yes, Se-gi wanted her to play. But that’s not it, and Do-hyun asks if Se-gi requested anything of her as a doctor, angling to find out if she was recruited to get rid of him. That’s not it either, since Se-gi was disappointed when he found out what she was.

He’s suddenly struck by the thought of Se-gi’s first love. “Could it be that it’s not Chae-yeon who is his first love, but Oh Ri-jin?” he thinks. Agitated, he questions if she’s certain she had never met Se-gi before that night — when Se-gi’s voice cuts across his consciousness: “You called me.”

Suddenly, Do-hyun imagines that they’ve swapped places, that he’s trapped behind a reflection while Se-gi sits across from Ri-jin. Se-gi continues, “Since a really long time ago.”

But a moment later he’s back to himself, and Do-hyun grips Ri-jin’s arms anxiously and tells her to stay away from him no matter what. Hit him and run away if need be, “Because it isn’t me, it’s Se-gi. He’s very dangerous.”

In a mixture of impatience and compassion, she asks him, “Did you always send people away like this?” He’s frantic to obtain her promise to stay away, but a sudden pain makes him clutch his head. Ri-jin runs for medicine, but when she comes back, he’s gone.

Do-hyun drives away. He answers Ri-jin’s call, only to reiterate his warning to be wary of him. She asks a string of doctorly questions, and he dispassionately points out he’s not her patient and she’s not his doctor.

She says she’ll speak as a friend, then. Do-hyun: “I don’t make friends. I don’t need friends.” He also says he won’t answer her call again and hangs up.

Ri-jin fumes. After what they’ve been through together, she thinks he’s being a twit. If he really thinks he’s a spellbound beast because of his multiple personalities, “Then he should get help from a beauty!” Exactly! Think logical, Do-hyun! But her fuming is fueled by worry about him.

Meanwhile, Do-hyun replays his mental blip and wonders what the hell happened.

A dreamlike sequence shows us a boy and a girl playing on a trampoline together, happy laughter filling the background…when all of a sudden the boy is replaced by a sparkling Se-gi, who asks her to play.

…and Ri-jin wakes up in her bunk. She takes a proffered drink and a man’s voice asks if she had a nightmare. She confirms, saying she hasn’t had one for a long time. Suddenly she bolts around and belts a long shriek, but it’s only Ri-on, who screams along mainly for the lols, which earns him a smack. It turns out Mom sent him — on the phone, she tells her daughter to come home after work.

Dad is disappointed Ri-jin won’t be home since she’s already gone back to work. He brags about her full marks in the college exams to the visiting produce supplier and the ajusshi wonders whom she takes after. Mom gets visibly perturbed when the man says that the kids look remarkably unalike for twins, and the implications upset her so much that Mom refuses to buy his goods and sends him packing.

Dad consoles her that he only said those words because he didn’t know. Didn’t know what, Dad? Are they BOTH adopted?

Ri-jin tells Ri-on about her dream, and novelist plays interpreter for psychiatrist (while also demanding an appearance fee for showing up in her dreams, lul). He sums up: She was jumping on the trampoline with a boy, both of them about 7 years old, and it was as vivid as a memory. Ri-jin asks if he remembers any real trampoline from when they were kids.

The hospital staff spy on Ri-jin, wondering if she’s some kind of femme fatale to be with yet another man, until a nurse adds that Ri-on is her oppa-twin.

Heo Suk-hee pops up and says the way he looked at her while she was sleeping suggests otherwise. It takes them a second to register the party-ready escapist and run after her. Kim Seul-gi is such a scream.

Ri-on asks if there was anyone else in the dream apart from the two kids, and latches on to the idea that there was a man. She eventually admits it was the guy who told her he liked her. He convinces her to divulge Se-gi’s pick-up line (“You called me/Now play with me”) and interprets it for her as “Go to a hotel with me.” Man, their chemistry sure isn’t siblingly. Mad, she hits him and chases him out.

At the door of his car, he “remembers” the trampoline, and places it at a park near their house. He warns her against meeting her admirer again since he’s probably a con man, which leads to another round of beating, but they cutely make up as he winks at her and drives away alone.

Ri-on is sorry to her for lying about the trampoline, and wills her to forget about it. He wonders if she’s tired of his oppa’s concern for her. It’s a rare moment of real solemnity from him.

Ri-jin receives a call from Chief Ahn. Between them, they figure out Do-hyun hasn’t checked in since he left her the day before. At that inopportune moment when he hangs up, he sees Ki-joon at the door. Not knowing how much the boss heard, he covers for Do-hyun, saying he’s in a meeting elsewhere. Ki-joon doesn’t seem to be buying it.

Ki-joon meets with his father, who asks after Do-hyun. He notes that the board directors liked their first impression of him, and warns Ki-joon to up his game. Ki-joon asks Dad if he isn’t too determined, but Dad has been preparing for this fight for twenty years. His own father’s ownership rights were unjustly taken away in favor of the older son (Do-hyun’s grandfather), he tells Ki-joon. Now, he’s thinking of swallowing Seungjin Group whole.

That means Do-hyun is Ki-joon’s natural enemy, and Dad tells his son not to underestimate him. Ki-joon says he may have something on Do-hyun — a “silent gun” — but has to confirm it first.

Ri-jin and Dr. Seok try to figure out Do-hyun’s whereabouts. Ri-jin recounts that he’d asked if Se-gi sought a favor of her as a doctor, then describes his abrupt behavior and Dr. Seok thinks he could be experiencing co-consciousness — an alter coming out while the master-identity is still aware. But Do-hyun has never displayed this symptom before.

Dr. Seok expands: If Se-gi becomes stronger after co-consciousness, he could even dominate Do-hyun and control his actions. He deduces that something must be inciting Se-gi’s outings, and that may be the cause of the co-consciousness and battle for ownership.

Ri-jin tries to call Do-hyun again and leaves a concerned voicemail, uring him to hold onto his consciousness and sanity no matter what, and be strong.

Do-hyun opens his eyes. He lies on a bare floor, a bear clutched in his arms. He’s in a dark playroom filled with children’s drawings and toys — this must be a dream or a memory. A closer look reveals mutilated toys and beheaded teddy bears.

A child backs into the corner, and the scene intercuts between little boy and grown man. A shadow approaches child-Do-hyun and adult Do-hyun cowers. This is freaking me out — what the hell happened to him back then?

A woman’s voice cuts in, and the ominous playroom morphs into a wine cellar at Grandma Seo’s, a surprised ajumma looking on. He tries to get a grip on himself, and starts to leave when he sees a hidden message chalked onto the floor: “I’m NANA,” accompanied by a drawing of a teddy bear.

The ajumma takes him up and tells him that his aunt, Ki-joon’s mother, is here for dinner. Seeing his condition, she tells him to take his time washing up.

Meanwhile, Grandma Seo takes dinner with Madam Shin and Madam Yoon, aka Do-hyun’s and Ki-joon’s mothers. The latter was summoned to explain the golf-course fracas and Grandma holds her responsible for not being the better woman. Do-hyun’s mother berates her in-law, and Ki-joon’s mother sniffs to Grandma that this proves her point.

Inflamed, Do-hyun’s mom hurls her glass of wine at the other woman and accuses her of trying to drag her down so she can be at the top. Unable to beat irreproachable daughter-in-law Min Seo-yeon, she must have been relieved by her death, she says. That makes Grandma lose her temper: “Don’t wake up a person who’s sleeping in heaven!” She orders Do-hyun’s mother out of the house.

This makes Mom flash back to her visit to her husband, Do-hyun’s father, who lies comatose in a private room. She tells him that Grandma’s been holding Seungjin for his return, with no intention of giving it over to Do-hyun: “That’s why it’s been a while since I changed my dream. Instead of you, the son of that woman, my son Do-hyun will become the owner of Seungjin.” With tears in her eyes, she apologizes to her husband, and asks if he can just not wake up.

Mom wonders to Grandma if Seo-yeon is really at peace, or if she died full of bitter feelings — and her words carry an ominous tone that actually make Grandma look scared. Mom threatens to spill Seungjin Group’s worst secrets if Grandma insists on kicking her out, adding that if Do-hyun were to recover his memory, a lot of people would get hurt. She cautions Grandma not to touch her if she doesn’t want to get bitten.

Do-hyun overhears the last of this encounter and drags his mother away to confront her: What secret does he know? She laughingly pretends that she made it all up as a way to stay alive in the household. Disturbed and not taken in, he leaves right away.

In his car, Do-hyun checks his phone and sees all his missed calls from Chief Ahn and Ri-jin, and finally listens to her voicemail. In a flashback montage, he thinks about his conversations with her — how she isn’t scared of him, and her offer of friendship. Then Chae-yeon calls, and he ignores it.

Chae-yeon meets Ki-joon for lunch, and is crabby with him for being late. She complains about Do-hyun being too busy for her, and asks oppa to try calling him instead, since he might take his boss’s call. Ki-joon lets her in on the fact that his cousin skipped out on work today — he was too busy dating.

She fires off a round of questions about the woman’s status and background, and Ki-joon notices her interest. She covers with the excuse that she’s she’s just curious, and he replies that she’s a psychiatrist.

Finally back on the grid, Do-hyun checks in with Chief Ahn. The chief worries if he’s okay, and asks if he’s been in touch with Ri-jin, but Do-hyun simply excuses himself from the office for the day. He confides that he’s in a dangerous condition.

He tells Dr. Seok over the phone that a completely new alter appeared, one that he’s never seen before — a young child. The doctor asks if he knows what might have triggered it, and Do-hyun struggles with anxiety and confusion. He asks the doctor, “Am I going crazy? Or am I…becoming a monster?”

Ri-on surveys his Cha Dynasty info-board. That really looks creepier every time I see it.

Fresh from the shower, Do-hyun scrolls through Ri-jin’s many calls. Just as he’s about to leave, his reflection twitches and Se-gi asks him through the mirror if he’s scared. “If you find your lost memories, do you have the confidence to face that pain?” he asks.

Do-hyun tells himself this isn’t real, but Se-gi continues that he knows the full truth of the things Do-hyun can’t handle. He taunts him to carry on living like he doesn’t know anything, and reminds him:

“That time, too, you ran away because you didn’t have to courage to handle the pain, and I fought that pain instead of you. Do you understand? If it hadn’t been for me, you would already have died, miserable and alone. But who is calling whom a fake?”

It’s too much for Do-hyun, and he tries to shut the hallucination up by throwing a fist into his reflection. When he takes his hand away, everything is flipped around and Do-hyun is trapped inside the mirror. Freed, Se-gi tells him that he’s the owner now — of time and this body.

At the hospital, Ri-jin takes a break from research and studies her phone. Do-hyun’s number is saved as “Shin Se-gi,” and after a moment’s thought, she changes it to “Cha Do-hyun.”

A new message arrives from him right then, asking to see her. She runs down to meet him with a great big grin on her face. An arm snakes out to catch her, and she comes face to face with Se-gi, all guyliner and red coat. “Did you forget the look in my eyes already?” he asks her.

Her squawk of dismay is priceless. She examines him toe to tip, and shudders at the overflowing cheese-slick. He remarks that she looks disappointed not to be meeting the person she expected. But he needs to check something, so he makes off with her.

They speed away in a red Ferrari and Ri-jin’s lungs get a whole lot of exercise from all the shrieking she does.

Unruffled, Se-gi tells her, “I don’t have much time allowed to me. We should get rid of things that get in our way,” and goes even faster.

COMMENTS

It took longer than I thought to see Se-gi again, but it was worth the wait. Now that transition is what I’m talking about, and it would be hard to overplay the horror Do-hyun feels. It strikes at both literal and figurative levels, and the way the scene was crafted taps into a darker vein that amplifies not only how trapped and helpless he becomes, but also how confusing his sense of self is. Similarly, the earlier scene with Ri-jin at the bleachers was practically poetic, playing all of those contrasts against each other — Do-hyun, blurry and lost in the reflection, while Se-gi was sharp and there.

The appearance of co-consciousness adds a new layer of conflict in the personas’ battle to dominate. So far, Do-hyun’s alters have been completely self-contained, without any memory-overspill between them. With this development, it raises the question of whether there’s more safety in their complete separation. If Ri-jin’s fears prove to be true, he’s in danger of becoming Se-gi’s unwilling puppet. On the other hand, as Dr. Seok said, there could be positive implications for his treatment. If the general aim is to reintegrate his alters back into the core identity (Do-hyun), then this could be a first step. The only problem is that it’s Se-gi fighting for the wheel.

But…is it really? As the last few minutes make clear, among the alters, Se-gi is the survivor and fighter, and the one who holds the keys to the locked room of Do-hyun’s lost memories. To me, getting Se-gi on his side sounds like a good game-plan for Do-hyun, if that’s viable (or even doable). Because however antagonistic he seems, Se-gi is still ultimately a fragment of Do-hyun’s psyche, who is the way he is because he remembers the truth.

As for what that truth could be, all I know is that it must have been terrible if it literally shattered his mind, so I don’t want to know either. The wine cellar makes me wonder if it really was the scary playroom in the past, which means the bad things that happened to him happened in that very house. So creepy.

What I’m loving about the show is how effortlessly it handles its emotional flow, going smoothly from light comedy to deep pathos and back. I was affected by his humble apology to Dr. Park. He’s like a man carrying the weight of the world — which some misplaced sense of guilt dictates — and he carries it ALL THE TIME. But I’m with Ri-jin here, because he doesn’t need to, and that makes him both pitiful and infuriating to her. But maybe that’s the medicine he needs, especially with his emerging fear that he is becoming a monster. He needs a friend who can look him right in the eye, unfazed and unafraid, and Ri-jin’s got that. Her profession is a testament to her being dependable and steadfast, and her sense of humor will certainly light her way. So come on, Do-hyun. She’s already rooting for you.

Ri-jin’s question to him is an incisive one: Does he always push people away? Once again, Do-hyun’s isolation is at the fore, but this hour shows how much of it is also elective — perhaps habit driven by fear. But he made the choice once not to be afraid, when he decided to battle Se-gi head-on, he just needs to keep making it.

The family relationships on both Ri-jin’s and Do-hyun’s sides are (deliberately) tangled. Most of us already knew Ri-jin and Ri-on weren’t biologically related (how else could he be a second lead, huh?) but I don’t know where that leaves us. Her dream suggests she really might have some previous connection with Do-hyun/Se-gi, and there are also multiple hints that there is some repressed trauma in her past — from her nightmares, to her reaction to the warehouse explosion when she was with Perry. On Ri-on’s side, his investigation highlights Min Seo-yeon (he has her name circled on his info-board), so I’m beginning to wonder if neither of them are related to their parents — which makes their family bond even more moving.

I hope Nana shows up next week — it shouldn’t be a spoiler to say at this point that the character descriptions tell us she’s a 7-year-old girl. I’ve been touched by the vulnerability with which Ji Sung plays Do-hyun, and his depiction of Se-gi is edgy with a touch of madness. He’s shown three completely different faces so far and man, I’m curious to see what he does with Nana. I don’t want to see a grown man acting like a little girl — I want to see a little girl inhabiting a grown man’s body. Bring it, Ji Sung!

RELATED POSTS

• Kill Me, Heal Me: Episode 3
• Kill Me, Heal Me: Episode 2
• Kill Me, Heal Me: Episode 1
• Hwang Jung-eum romances Ji Sung(s) in Kill Me, Heal Me
• Park Seo-joon and Hwang Jung-eum as Kill Me, Heal Me’s rowdy twins
• Kill Me Heal Me secures leads and supporting cast
• Ji Sung the latest leading man in contention for Kill Me, Heal Me