Bad Memory Eraser: Episodes 15-16 (Final)

by solstices

It’s time for our characters to revisit their past and heal the wounds that have been festering amidst forgotten trauma. Ultimately, Bad Memory Eraser wraps up in a pat ending, but with as many holes in its narrative as there are in its leads’ memories.

 
EPISODES 15-16

It took us many meandering paths and inexplicable detours to finally arrive at our last stretch, which our drama decides to cram decades’ worth of unresolved baggage and hasty resolutions into. Again, that means we’re saddled with confusing editing and tonal whiplash, so buckle up for the ride.

Abruptly reverting back to his gloomy self after his reset surgery, Gun mopes around and lashes out, still smarting from Joo-yeon’s betrayal. Meanwhile, his parents reflect on their behavior at long last. Dad steps up as the head of the family after learning the truth of the bridge incident, shutting Mom’s scolding down and ushering everyone out for a day of family bonding.

As for Mom, she finally realizes she’s been putting her sons’ achievements before their personhood. That night, she opens up about her unfulfilled volleyball dreams, and apologizes for putting undue pressure on her sons. The whole family crams into Gun’s room to sleep together, just like old times when Gun’s athlete career was in its nascent stages. Moved to tears by the family warmth he’s always yearned for, Gun even cracks a small joke, feeling comfortable at long last.

In a bid to take responsibility for covering up the side effects, Joo-yeon resigns from her position. At the ethics committee hearing, Joo-yeon steps out to give Gun space, which means she doesn’t hear his testimony. Gun’s realized that the persona he slipped into after the experiment is in fact a part of him — the past can’t be changed, but he can change himself. In a way, the clinical trial taught him how to live differently.

In the end, Joo-yeon gets off with a three-month suspension, the institution pulls their funding from the memory project, and Teo gets hung out to dry as the scapegoat. Gun returns to his office, where he finds thoughtful sticky notes from Joo-yeon encouraging him to take care of himself. But her deceit is still a fresh wound, and Gun crumples every last message.

After updating Joo-yeon on Gun’s recovery, Shin returns Gun’s old medal back to him. Then he comes clean, informing Gun that Sae-yan is his real first love — but a flashback tells a different story. After returning to Korea, Sae-yan had discovered Gun’s medal in her childhood home, then brought it to her alumni reunion. Her father had followed her there, and that’s how he’d seen the Lee brothers and developed a vendetta against Shin.

In the present, possessive dad Hyo-myung responds to Sae-yan’s request to go outside by drugging her drink. Sae-yan awakens trapped in his basement, horrified by the wall of stalker photos and aghast at her father’s cruel obsession. Now she finally knows why her mother had been adamant on keeping her away from him. Regretting her obstinance, Sae-yan resolves to escape. She finds a POS terminal in a basket of tools, and uses Joo-yeon’s credit card on it to send a message through the transactions. Smart girl!

Joo-yeon receives the text notifications, and the payment amounts translate to “112. SOS. Come quick.” Recognizing the call for help, Joo-yeon almost goes searching for her with Shin, until she gets texts from Sae-yan saying she’s on the way to meet her in the hospital after hours. And of course Joo-yeon believes it without thinking twice. *deep sigh*

Needless to say, it’s a trap laid by Hyo-myung. He’s convinced that Joo-yeon’s family is out for revenge against him through Sae-yan, and so he’s come for Joo-yeon first. Hyo-myung had murdered her father upon witnessing his own wife kindly share oranges with him, and in a similarly possessive vein, he’ll make sure no one can take Sae-yan away from him.

Upon seeing her childhood stuffed toy, Joo-yeon freezes in terror as her repressed memories flood back in. Then she recognizes Hyo-myung as her father’s killer, and promptly passes out. Hyo-myung prepares to bash Joo-yeon’s head in with a wrench, but before he can strike, Gun bursts into the office. Having recognized Hyo-myung from the police’s mugshot and Sae-yan’s photo of her father, Gun found the news article about his murder and realized Joo-yeon was in danger. Powering through the phantom pains in his wrist, Gun rushes to Joo-yeon’s rescue, and though his wrist gets hit by Hyo-myung’s wrench, the police arrive in the nick of time.

Rewinding back to earlier that night, Shin heads to Hyo-myung’s car center alone after gleaning the transactions’ location from Joo-yeon. His instinct leads him into the empty shop, where he hears Sae-yan’s cries for help and busts the door open. Free at last, a tearful Sae-yan launches herself at Shin in a grateful hug, all traces of their former antagonism forgotten.

Back in the present, Sae-yan approaches her father as the police escort him out. She’d been the one to lodge the report, and she pleads for him to stop harassing the people around her — the people who have grown to become like family to her. When Hyo-myung lashes out that he’s her one and only family, Shin immediately rushes to protect Sae-yan from his rage. Then her scummy dad is carted away at last.

In the aftermath, both mothers lean on each other in shared remorse, while Joo-yeon reassures a guilt-ridden Sae-yan by initiating a hug. As for Gun, he still can’t bring himself to face Joo-yeon, despite clasping the bracelet she gave him around her wrist while she was unconscious. Even after the surgery, his memory of his childhood first love remains the same — and now that Sae-yan has clarified that she isn’t actually his first love, Gun can’t reconcile the implications of his memory with the betrayal of the clinical trial.

Circling back to Joo-yeon, the return of her childhood memories gives us the full truth of our leads’ past. Joo-yeon had witnessed Gun falling into the creek, and she’d been the one who saved him. After diving in again to retrieve his medal, however, she’d resurfaced to find him gone. (He’d wandered off and collapsed on another path.) Joo-yeon ended up going back home, where she’d left the medal that Sae-yan would find later. Then she went to visit her father at his clinic, witnessing his murder — and thus she forgot all the memories of that day, medal and all.

Our leads have been confronted with so many new truths to grapple with, but there’s still one left. The research results are in, and it turns out the side effect of the bad memory eraser hadn’t been the misattribution of Gun’s first love, but rather the sharpening of a blurred but true memory. Gun almost races to Joo-yeon upon hearing the news from Dr. Han, but his pallid reflection in the taxi window gives him pause.

Cue a time skip, and we catch up with our cast three years later. Joo-yeon has continued pursuing advancements in scientific research abroad, bolstered by Gun’s words about healing the heart. Meanwhile, Gun’s regained his confidence and achieved success as an agency director, while little star Shi-on is hitting a career high. Sae-yan video calls Joo-yeon’s family from Italy — yay, they kept in contact — and she’s as bright and energetic as ever.

As for the rest of the Lee family, Mom and Dad are rekindling their romance in their spare time. Shin’s attending school again, and he’s slowly easing out of his compulsive tendencies, now that he’s finally free from the suffocating weight of expectations and a career path he never asked for.

After flying back into the country for a research award ceremony, Joo-yeon visits the creek one last time. Gun (somehow) finds her there, having heard from a mutual acquaintance that she’s returned. Smiling at each other, as their childhood selves and then as their grown-up ones, they reunite in a tender hug.

And so the drama ties its loose ends up in a neat bow, except it doesn’t feel all that earned. Speeding through the Lee parents’ remorse in barely more than half an episode means that their redemption feels paltry and awkwardly shoehorned in, without sufficient redress or reparation. It’s difficult to believe that Mom put the kimchi refrigerator in Gun’s room as an excuse to check in on him, when her behavior all along has painted her as self-absorbed. For a reconciliation to resonate, it has to take us along on its journey, and the healing process ought to be as fleshed out as the pain that necessitated it. Otherwise, it just feels like a cheap band-aid.

The same goes for the girls’ trauma, which remained as oblique references right up till the final episode’s outpouring of flashbacks. I would’ve loved more scenes of Joo-yeon and Sae-yan reconnecting as adults and balancing each other out, especially since Joo-yeon had been the only one who stood up for the bullied Sae-yan when they were kids. She even gave Sae-yan her first wish bracelet! Alas, the show prioritized its comedy sketches and its unsurprising twists over its character development. Quantity does not equate to quality, and the numerous side plots weighed down the narrative by needlessly complicating it.

Honestly, this drama could’ve been so much better had it focused on its familial and platonic relationships. Cutting out much of the hospital nonsense and comedy filler would have freed up plenty of time for a simpler and more cohesive tale about healing from trauma and treasuring the bonds around oneself.

Also, it’s quite ironic that despite its insistent focus on romance, the show never capitalized on the pairing that had the most chemistry. Not even crumbs for Shin and Sae-yan in the final stretch? And after the show paired basically everyone else off, too! *grumbles* At least we got to watch real-life uncle-niece pair Ahn Nae-sang and Yang Hye-ji as family, even if the cuteness didn’t last long.

In any case, this hodgepodge of well-worn tropes and bemusing turns has come to an end. While I can’t say I’m sad to send it off — given its wasted potential and simplistic mental health depictions and underdeveloped character dynamics — it did have its occasional poignant moments. I just wish it had a clearer direction that did justice to the uplifting messages it wanted to convey. Oh well.

 
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