These were a pair of interesting episodes because it revealed A LOT. Now we know backstory, that the PM seems to have a crush on Ja Yoo, that his father is probably a psycho who tried to kill his grandad, and that his grandad is in the dark about basically everything. Poor Ho Seung, he was growing on me. Well here we go back half, I hope this lands well.

Thanks for the recap @solstices. I had a feeling Bodyguard Kim's days were numbered when there was suddenly a lot more of him in Ep. 6. Like you said, it's unlikely the miracle/illegal operation will happen twice.

I'm quite thrown by the turn the story took with Chae-woon. I can understand him being part of the reveal around treating diseases and healing injuries but the super-hearing (and possibly super strength?) took me out a bit.

Still the entire rescue operation in the beginning with drones, hacking, alarms, and a SWAT team to boot was kinda cool to watch.

This show is so stressful in such a good way. That's the only way I can explain it.

I have to give particular salute to the setting for Blood Free. It is a futuristic world, and gosh! BF's basement is freaking futuristic. The architecture and technology. The tour around BF this week made me wonder if this sort of world building to match the setting is what made it take so long to air. A lot of work was done.

I was kinda laughing when PR Lady found out there was a basement building she didn't have access to. While it made sense to her that On San had access, I'm sure she was miffed that Sae-ip also had access to it. I, for one, was surprised when she opened it door with her own authorization.
Massive respects to Sae-ip.

BF's tech guy. I hope the guy knows he an open book. One interrogation by any of the Quid and he will break. He should simply comport himself instead of trying to cut deals here and there.

Is this a romance subplot I'm seeing rearing it head. I'm enjoying it though. Seonu Jae, Yun Jayu and Woo Chae-won are selling the chemistry. Now I know why Seonu dad was whining to his son about his longing for Jayu. It kinda is both strictly business and mesmerism for him. He is displaying some major control juggling both aspects of his life without one seeping into the other, my own definition of a cutthroat professional falling in love with strings and no strings attached.

I wonder why Ho-seong took off his bio suit. Especially with a man who's wielding a knife. I sort of understand if he put it off so as to level the playing ground between him and this guy.

Am talking about this guy, can I scream how much I'm glad to see Choi Young-joon throw punches. Not just punches, but solid ones that are deadly. Any time I see his character get into a fight in movies or dramas, I always go back to Our Blues where he was dealt black and blue by Park Ji-hwan's character. Just my own personal trauma that has gotten resolved.

What just happened. It felt like a tonal shift. Joppa is now Hulk and XMen with super powers????
The entire backstory fell flat. An ambitious scientist business woman is a perfectly acceptable reason. I did like the whole dominant species and breaking of the food chain angle. I would have left it at that debate.
And why would a body guard throw away his protective gear??? Made no sense. This seemed to be written to bring back our male leads trauma of losing his friend.

Also, a bunch of people taking you to their basement to conduct a lab test aka saving your life made me super uncomfortable.

Rants aside, I think the Prime minister is the most intriguing character right now. So it does seem like he likes her? The father character’s obsession with immortality came as a surprise. So everyone has a motivation which makes no one your friend 😅

The leads together look great. And JJH looks best in the black turtleneck and overcoat.

I would not have been as forgiving as Woo Chae-woon was to the leaders and researchers of the Blood Free Corporation for what they did to him, even if my life had been at stake. If I were to learn that I was now--without my express permission--forever made up of parts, both living and machinic, that were not native to my own body's capacities and experience, I am not entirely sure what I would do--but forgiving these bodily invaders within a day or so would not be it. It's one thing to decide to take on such responsibility as part of one's own life choice; it's quite another to have it foisted onto you such that you then have to move forward into the future with the unknown physical consequences of someone else's decisions about your own body, in your own body.

In the narrative arc belonging to the rival CEO (the PM's father), such medical technologies are a part of the long tradition of fulfilling an old man's dream of living forever. And just like it was in Stealer: The Treasure Keeper, it's clear that this is the motive of a selfish villain.

Is it any less villainous, then, to want to be able raise your sister, quite literally, from the dead so that you can talk to her again?

In a fictional world filled with Star-Wars-adjacent "international" hologram meetings, and, indeed, an entire corporation's headquarters whose set design is directly reminiscent of the spaceships in Star Wars...perhaps it is not worth too much time thinking about such things.

We can just stay distracted by Joo Ji-hoon's bare feet, which I assume his native DNA both produces and maintains.

It would be nice that Ja-Yoo use her intelligence to think more about the consequences of her researches. Because she should have learnt since that the humanity is very good at hijacking or making things very expensive.

I don't think Chae-Woon's wound justified the fact they used like lab rat, no organ was hurt, the heart was good, he lost a lot of blood. Sure, it would have been a longer convalescence.

The PM still has a patriotic feeling when the father is just very interested at gaining things for himself and the ex-president blinded by his hatred. For the attack, he looks innocent but very interested by Chae-Woon's health.

So between the 2 "man in a suit", if I need a bodyguard, I choose Reese, Chae-Woon doesn't seem so good at his job and talking way too much with the ex-president.

I literally was questioning their right to operate on him with experimental procedures when they didnt even get any consent from family members. I get tbe decision is time sensitive but they shouldve atleast considered it. If it was me, I'd probably be pissed as him. Thankful I am alive but still pissed they put stuff in my body that are on clinical trials.
Otherthan that I am pissed at JJH for leaving BF with bloody clothes amd not even giving himself time to recover. He could've given himself time to rest and get changed first before leaving in a huff.
I will still wait and see where writer nim will take the story. The side effects of the cultured human tissue is very interesting. I wonder why would it give the patient super strength. Was it the injection to help bond the cultured tissue to the human tissue? What is the cultured tissue made of? Their hidden technology is a major gamechanger. No wonder the hyenas are on the prowl to get Jayoo and BF to give it up.

Thanks, @solstices for the interesting recap that highlighted the Gilgamesh analogy. I give the writer credit for thinking that up--its a way to make the villain's desire for immortality a little less of a comic book aspect.

I did find the question, which I assume will be brought up again, of whether humans can ever "escape the food chain" which I take to mean, escape nature, kind of interesting. It reminds me of the debates about the meaning of nature now that almost every aspect is influenced/controlled by humans, that is, now that we live in the anthropocene.

I also don't mind the show's considering the idea about the nature of human-ness when many body parts are cultured, rather than developed within our own bodies--although that's has been a theme since Frankenstein, and was pretty much completely analyzed by that philosophical masterpiece of a show, The Six Million Dollar Man. (Full disclosure: I myself have an artificial hip, so I'm kind of interested in the idea that, as the philosopher Donna Haraway, put it, we are all cyborgs, although whenever I move there isn't a beeping noise as in the t.v. show.).

I think that one possible angle the show could take is that the procedure on Chae-woon will not be lastingly successful, which might again bring up the ethics of human experimentation, which was addressed a bit with the death of the chief scientist's wife. There was some foreshadowing of this in the car when Ja-yoo was describing to to an upset Chae-woon the dangers of the procedure. It would be an ironic twist if the developing romantic chemistry between them was ended by failures of biochemistry!

Thank you @solstices for the recap! Some thoughts/ramblings:
1) I don't personally see anything immoral regarding the emergency procedure that was done on Chae-woon esp. given the do-or-die circumstances. But of course San's "secretly repairing" Chae-woon's ear was just plain wrong, not only was it not necessary for life-saving purpose so of course you need consent, San's intension itself was like 1 part benign 9 parts malicious.

2) The only thing I deem unethical about Ja-yoo & co researching & developing the cultured human organs/tissues technology is that they are bypassing any form of monitoring & regulation by authority. But then again, this specific government in the BF universe is shady as hell so that wouldn't have been the better way to go about it in practice lol. Also, seeing that in the real world artificial/man-made mechanisms have for years been placed into human bodies (pacemakers, cochlear implant, artificial hips and limbs etc), I don't get the big fuss over the ethics aspect of making cultured organs. If anything, at least one would be rest assured that the organs being transplanted into their body weren't harvested from another person 10000% against their will, or purchased from black market supplied by desperately poor people being forced by loan sharks or their own impossible circumstances.

3) What I really love about characters in writer Lee Soo-yeon's universe, is that they are always complex, flawed, and very /human/. Making Ja-yoo's grief over losing her twin sister to illness her biggest driving force, while the idealistic goal of giving people better lives just her secondary motivator, renders her a realistic human being and not just another admirable stock character as protagonists often are in K-dramas. I love that Chae-woon's reasons for being determined to find the culprit behind the bombing is also not simply because that is the right/just thing to do, but a personal vengeance for him as well. Also both Ja-yoo and Chae-woon are the ends-justify-the-means type of morally grey people, as evidenced by when Ja-yoo was invading her employees' privacy in her quest to find the culprit behind ransomware attack, Chae-woon not only did not disapprove he took a step further and suggested her to look into the employees' money transfer transactions lol. Him secretly recording her & the BF facilities with the micro camera hidden in his shirt is also just plain unethical, no matter how much he suspects her, he's not a police and doesn't have investigative authority, so really Chae-woon is not in a position to feel morally superior. I guess this is part of the reason the two of them get to bond with each other so fast despite their mutual suspicion, because they are really alike, both doing (the greater) good using ethically questionable methods, and both loners who hide their true feelings, vulnerabilities and intentions from those around them.

How about the current PM having that pill bottle that fell on the carpet when he was retrieving something? Would that have some significance? That his interest on JYoo is not romantic at all. He might have that mad cow disease himself. Now that the very existence of CWoon proves the success of BF, evil father of PM wants CW so he can be dissected, yikes. Weighty themes on this show. I have not thought of breaking the food chain as motive and it’s novel(for me). Also thought of ethics of no consent on the procedures done. What’s lame is the PM’s father, a bit of a caricature.

I found this on Hulu and started watching to see if it would interest me---indeed! I zipped through all 6 available episodes in 2 days! It is so compelling and interesting that I'm hooked. I'm going to hire Joo Ji-hoon to be my body guard for sure. (at least in my dreams).