Hyper Knife: Episodes 1-2 » Dramabeans Korean drama recaps
Hyper Knife: Episodes 1-2
by starrygazer
Hyper Knife had more surprises in store than expected in its opening week, and if you were hoping for a clear villain in this thriller you may be disappointed. As we learn about our protagonists’ complicated past, personality traits, and the cause and effect of their actions, the waters are muddied and we have a stalemate at the end of our first week.
EPISODES 1-2
It’s important to know what once happened between JUNG SE-OK (Park Eun-bin) and CHOI DEOK-HEE (Sol Kyung-gu) to understand their relationship now. So first, we venture back into the past and see when Deok-hee moved from Boston to work at a university hospital in Korea as a professor. There, he was warned about a genius student Se-ok who is a “loose cannon.” Both Deok-hee and Se-ok started medical school at seventeen, and they both have an unhealthy obsession with their work – very similar in their motivations and egos.
Se-ok’s ability in the OR gives her an unparalleled arrogance, and her obsession/love/hyperfixation on operations feeds her god complex. When she loses something she deems as hers, all bets are off. When Deok-hee first found his new office, Se-ok had barged in and demanded he mark her quiz paper then and there, which he did. He marked it “perfect” in red ink, and this recognition is something Se-ok craves. Se-ok had been waiting for Deok-hee to return to Korea, and she begs him to teach her everything in his mind. (This feels a little stalkery and desperate somehow; I can see why others think she isa loose cannon.)
Deok-hee has surmised that Se-ok has no self control, but he teaches her anyway. This leads to our initial big conflict which explains why Deok-hee and Se-ok are where they are in the current timeline. Se-ok is obviously Deok-hee’s most talented pupil, so when she loses the chance to go to Boston and further her knowledge she absolutely loses her sh*t. After Se-ok barges into Deok-hee’s office and sees he is entertaining the winning resident’s wealthy mother, Se-ok goes berserk at the nepotism. This behavior earns her a good slap from Deok-hee. This actually has me sympathizing with Se-ok, as the best resident should have been chosen; it would be hard not to feel betrayed in her shoes.
To add insult to injury, Deok-hee bans Se-ok from surgery and she is treated like a ghost within the neurology department. Around a year later when Deok-hee is away at a conference, an emergency comes into the hospital, and Se-ok is given permission by a department head to do surgery. This does not go down well with Deok-hee when he barges into the operating room and has Se-ok removed — while this poor patient’s head is open on the table might I add. Outside, Deok-hee slaps Se-ok and swears she will never operate again. This is the thing Se-ok loves the most in the world, making it the biggest punishment.
But it doesn’t end there. Se-ok follows Deok-hee down the corridor and tries to strangle him with a tube and a shed load of witnesses around. (Se-ok is ever-so -lightly unhinged lol.) When Se-ok is pulled off Deok-hee, he slaps her again and promises to have her medical license revoked. And with that, the scene from the trailer where Deok-hee coldly walks past Se-ok when she’s on her knees in the rain and she screams in anguish has been explained. (Is Deok-hee threatened by Se-ok’s talent or is this because he knows how unhinged she really is? It’s not clear yet.)
Back into our current timeline, we see what Deok-hee and Se-ok are doing now. Let’s start with Deok-hee, who is greeted by police at work who ask him to take a look at video footage from an illegal operation. After watching the video, it’s clear that this surgery is very difficult and Deok-hee is the only known surgeon in Korea to complete a surgery like this successfully. Without giving anything away to the police, Deok-hee asks for a copy of the file – yeah, he knows it’s Se-ok performing the surgery in the video.
It is important to note that Deok-hee has a brainstem glioma, and is suffering from ringing in his ears, tremors, and spells of passing out. (I suspect this is the only reason he did not divulge to the police that Se-ok was the one operating illegally.) Deok-hee is keeping his condition hidden as much as he can, because he won’t be able to operate if the hospital found out about his health. Even his doctor who is supplying him with what I assume is pain meds lives in the U.S.
Deok-hee asks his friend MRS. RA (Kang Ji-eun) to find the broker the police are looking for — is he really going to start looking for Se-ok? When Deok-hee and Mrs. Ra find the broker, he has no idea who did the surgery, since he only deals in livers and kidneys and stuff. (Lovely.) Mrs. Ra eventually finds Se-ok’s home and makes light of how Deok-hee and Se-ok are very similar: they both want to die in the operating room and they are both crazy. (That’s an understatement! If Deok-hee is really going to ask Se-ok to do his surgery after what he did to her, I think he is completely nuts.)
Deok-hee brazenly goes to see Se-ok. He shows her his scans and says the surgery needs to be perfect so he has no post-op side effects like tremors that will stop him operating. And it’s not surprising to me at least, that Se-ok is not interested. Se-ok tells Deok-hee to retire— he’s old and this happens. Deok-hee ignores what she says and tells her he’ll sort out the equipment and operating room —she just needs to operate. The maniacal laughter that comes out of her just goes to show how angry she still is.
Deok-hee tells Se-ok she has to do it if she doesn’t want him to tell the police she’s doing illegal operations. (Se-ok is already a woman on the edge; I wouldn’t push her if I were you.) Se-ok yells at him for always trying to break her down, mould her into what he wants, and bend her to his will. As Deok-hee leaves, he makes it to the front yard but has a funny turn and reaches for his medication, dropping it to the ground. Se-ok literally jumps up and down on the ampule smashing the medication like she’s doing a rain dance, laughing and shouting that she won’t call him an ambulance because she doesn’t want to.
And Se-ok coldly walks past Deok-hee, mimicking how he coldly walked past her when her world was ending. SEO YOUNG-JOO (Yoon Chan-young) — who is Se-ok’s manager/bodyguard because she saved his life by operating on him — sees Deok-hee collapse and calls an ambulance. (Well, Se-ok wasn’t going to do it…) After recovering, Deok-hee tries a different tact to force Se-ok’s hand and he visits Se-ok’s anesthesiologist DOCTOR HAN HYUN-HO (Park Byung-eun). Even though Deok-hee insults him, Doctor Han feels sorry for him and tries to encourage Se-ok to do the surgery.
Se-ok is furious that Deok-hee went through Doctor Han and even said he would get her medical license back for her if she did the surgery. So, she burns all of her stuff from when she worked at the neurosurgery department in a fit of rage. Next, Deok-hee sets up a fake illegal surgery so Se-ok turns up and they can talk. Now Deok-hee is offering her a place in Boston as well as getting her license reinstated— she just needs to do his surgery.
Well,it’s just shocking how this doesn’t go down well. *smirks* However, Se-ok really doesn’t like being pushed around and takes it a little too far when she puts Deok-hee in his place. Deok-hee tells Se-ok that he knows she won’t kill him in surgery because she has too much pride, even though she threatens to leave him paralyzed. Se-ok wishes him dead and hopes he spends his days in diapers reliving his glory days in a nursing home. (You get the gist – a very unpleasant exchange.)
In Se-ok’s life right now she runs a pharmacy as her day job and does illegal operations by night, with a side of murder to keep her amused. Yes, you read that right. The first of Se-ok’s illegal operations we are privy to seems to be a mob boss, and the gangsters bring in a nurse to aid the operation. That being said, this nurse knows Se-ok from when she worked at the hospital and tries to extort her for her illegal activities — big mistake, sister. Se-ok finds this nurse annoying and is angered. She wants what she perceives as her money for the operation, so Se-ok decides to drug and kill the nurse while letting out a bone-chilling laugh. (Props to Park Eun-bin because she has me seriously unsettled throughout both episodes.)
Poor Young-joo is aware that Se-ok has a proclivity for murder and is well versed in cleaning up after her. But the thing that shocked me the most was Se-ok telling a little old lady she was helping in her pharmacy about the murder and the little old lady telling her she did a good job getting rid of someone annoying. Wait. What? Did that just happen? Does everyone in Se-ok’s neighborhood know she’s a murderer and they’re okay with it? Weird!
The next annoying person to cross Se-ok’s path is the man from the diner across from her pharmacy who’s wearing an ankle monitor. Ankle monitor dude is watching Se-ok, which she doesn’t like, and he is coming onto her in a creepy way which she also doesn’t like. (Who does.) To top it off, the ankle monitor dude is beating his sister up for money because he is a horrible human. When his sister puts the diner on the market to give him money, Se-ok takes this personally. Se-ok eats at the diner everyday so the diner is hers. (Did I mention she’s a little unbalanced…?)
Se-ok ignores Young-joo’s pleas not to murder the ankle monitor dude — Young-joo is studying and needs to focus on becoming a nurse to help her, so he can’t be cleaning up crime scenes this week. The way these two bicker together over murder it feels like they’re siblings in a spat. It is crazy casual, but at least Young-joo seems to have a conscience. The jury is still out on Se-ok.
As expected, Se-ok goes through with her plan: lures, drugs, then slits the ankle monitors dude’s throat.And I swear I will see her smiling face and hear that disturbing laugh in my dreams. Chills.
At the end of this week’s episodes, Young-joo is cleaning up the murder scene at the house he shares with Se-ok when the police stop by. Se-ok is digging a hole for burying the ankle monitor dude in the woods when she sees the beam of a flashlight. And the person on the other end of the flashlight is Deok-hee! Wow. Now we have a stalemate between Deok-hee and Se-ok on our hands, he has her well and truly backed into a corner. Will Se-ok do the surgery? Not sure about you, but I’m looking forward to finding out.
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