Poong the Joseon Psychiatrist: Episodes 9-10

by Unit

Our hero is faced with a choice when confronted with his past: run away or run towards it. Running away might mean safety for him and his loved ones, but with his strong sense of justice, our hero isn’t one to just give up without a fight.

 
EPISODES 9-10 WEECAP

We begin with Shin-woo admitting to Poong that he has been ordered by the second state councilor to kill him. But because Poong saved his life last week, Shin-woo tells him to leave the village and never return. Poong refuses to run away and despite Ji-han’s objection, he decides to face the matter squarely by going to Hanyang to uncover the truth about the second state councilor’s role in the late king’s poisoning.

Eun-woo, who doesn’t want Poong to leave, tries to stall him under the guise of going home to return some of his things, but she’s startled by a thief on her way and she faints. Anyway, her mission still ends up being a success because Poong now has to stay back in the clinic to look after her. Lol. But Shin-woo is upset at the incident, believing that Poong’s refusal to leave is inevitably putting Eun-woo in harm’s way.

After some back and forth on how they’re individually in the best position to protect her, Eun-woo’s knights in shining armor are forced to team up to investigate the incident. They visit the house where the thief was escaping from, and though the madam of the house tries to cover up the incident, they learn that a bossam (men who kidnap widows for remarriage) almost kidnapped her daughter. Poong finds the incident odd because the young lady is single and not widowed, and her symptoms are more of heartbreak than shock at her attempted kidnap.

The thief breaks into the clinic to drop off some herbs (and escapes again right in the midst of all the family members, pfft), but Poong is able to trace his house thanks to smart cookie Jang-goon who knows all the village herb collectors and the specific type of herbs they collect. The herb collector is found passed out at home and when he’s brought to the clinic, Poong realizes he has the same symptoms as the young lady – symptoms synonymous to love sickness. Apparently, both of them are in love and planned to run away by staging the botched bossam-like scenario.

The herb collector is soon arrested at the clinic, and Poong begs Shin-woo to release him since they now know he’s not a thief. Shin-woo wonders how Poong can comfortably ask for favors from someone who’s under orders to kill him. However, he relents when Poong tells him that he’s a person who doesn’t follow unjustified orders. Shin-woo actually looks touched by Poong’s words, and I want him to officially join the clinic team already.

Eun-woo and Poong arrange for the lovers to meet in the woods, and encourage the lady to express her feelings aloud. Eun-woo gives the lady an example, but really, all she does is express her feelings to Poong, saying she doesn’t want him to leave. Awww. The lady then gets the courage to admit that she loves the herb collector and wants to be with him. Voila, the love of her life comes out of hiding, and the lovers happily run away with each other. Shin-woo is furious with Poong and Eun-woo for allowing the lovers to escape, and Eun-woo scolds him, saying he doesn’t know the burning feeling of love. But that’s not true since he’s totally in love with her. Lol.

Shin-woo questions his father as to why he has to kill Poong, and the second state councilor, deciding that he has outlived his usefulness, sends an assassin after him. But while Shin-woo fights the assassin off, he is literally stabbed in the back by Commander Im who previously alerted the second state councilor that Shin-woo is investigating the curious case of the color-changed needle. As Shin-woo drags his bloodied self away, the needle slips out of his possession, and gets into the hands of Commander Im. Ugh!

Meanwhile, Eun-woo learns about the late king’s death and the second state councilor’s involvement from Poong. Wanting more answers, they go in search of Shin-woo, and hear that he has been transferred to another station. Poong guesses that Shin-woo is in danger and true to his guess, they find an almost passed out Shin-woo in the woods. Shin-woo tells them that no one must know he’s still alive, and they hide him in what looks like the isolation center from last week. This is the second time Poong is saving Shin-woo’s life, and Shin-woo should be grateful that he didn’t torch down the place.

Due to Poong and Eun-woo’s frequency in sneaking out of the clinic with food for Shin-woo, the rest of the family conclude that they’re moving in together. Ji-han also jumps into conclusions when the king disguises as a scholar on a visit to the clinic in search of Poong. He sees it as an opportunity to extort a rich scholar, and Poong almost enters the ground on seeing him being all flippant with the king. Heh. The king has found the court maid who witnessed Poong’s father’s assassination, and brought her for treatment because she’s still traumatized by the incident.

When the family learns that the scholar is the king, they turn on Ji-han who actually looks like his soul is about to leave his body. And in another case of jumping into conclusions, Poong recognizes the maid as one of his former patients in the palace when he sees the birthmarks on her chest while Eun-woo performs acupuncture. But all Ib-bun and Eun-woo hear is his oblivious description of the birthmarks and assume he was in some kind of playboy relationship with the maid. Lol.

Commander Im reports to the second state councilor that Shin-woo (who is now missing from the isolation center) has been taken care of and receives new orders to confirm that the maid is in the clinic — like it wasn’t enough to have previously ordered for the slaughtering of her family, the second state councilor wants to silence the maid himself. Commander Im also has a new business proposal for the second state councilor that involves the sale of an addictive drug, and I wonder why we even need this when the drama is ending next week.

Poong and the clinic family take the maid to her childhood home to relive happier times, but the house is a mess when they arrive, and they clean up the place so that the maid comes to a near perfect home rather than one that has been set upon by destruction. Awww. While Jang-goon unpacks, he puts together some papers the maid has been scribbling on and the resulting image is the picture of a butterfly – the shape of an ornament worn by the assassin.

On seeing the full picture, the maid finds her voice and tells a shocked Poong that his father was murdered by the butterfly assassin. Poong is even more shocked when he recalls that Shin-woo also wears a butterfly ornament, but Eun-woo refuses to believe that Shin-woo is an assassin and maintains that it’s someone else with a similar ornament. Man-bok soon spots Commander Im and the second state councilor marching towards the house with some men in black, and runs back to alert the family of the imminent danger.

Poong instructs the rest of them to head back to the village while he runs off with the maid. But like every Joseon chase scene ever, the maid trips and sprains her ankle forcing Poong to hide her and run off in the opposite direction to misdirect the masked assassins chasing after them. Eun-woo returns to the woods and runs into Poong, but when they go back for the maid, she’s no longer in her hiding spot. Worried, they head back towards the house, but from afar, they’re stopped by the sight of one of the assassins who carries a bloody mat to the house.

Poong and Eun-woo watch in tears as the mat is unwrapped to reveal the limp body of the maid stained with blood which also drips from the sword of the assassin. And when the assassin takes off his mask, it’s none other than Shin-woo! Eun-woo can hardly believe her eyes, and to be honest, same here! I thought Shin-woo was on our side now — why would he join hands with the father who wanted him dead?

This better be a ploy to make the second state councilor trust him again, so he can stab him in the back once and for all. Then again, I suppose I shouldn’t be too surprised with anything going on in the show right now. I mean, there’s already a number of head-scratching plots on ground, so what’s one more?

Anyway, as we head into the finale next week, I’m assuming the writer has a plan to successfully tie up all these loose ends, and I will be expecting the satisfactory conclusion that I deserve after faithfully sticking with this drama for six weeks.

 
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