Resident Playbook: Episodes 7-8 » Dramabeans
Resident Playbook: Episodes 7-8
by DaebakGrits
As the members of our Playbook Quartet settle into their residencies, they grow confident enough to handle the easier tasks on their own, but progressively complex cases continue to push our favorite residents outside their comfort zones. And the increasing difficulties inside the operating room are accompanied by the ups and downs of their love lives, as crushes — past, present, and maybe even future — come to the forefront of our story.
EPISODES 7-8
In the event you’ve miraculously forgotten everything about our main characters, Episode 7 opens with a cheeky summary of their diverse personalities provided by two interns on rotation at Yulje Hospital. One of them is TAK GI-ON (Cha Kang-yoon), the intern who previously drove Yi-young crazy with his incompetence — or lack of experience, depending on how nice you want to be — but this week, he is shadowing Nam-kyung, who is a slightly more patient mentor than Yi-young. However, a large portion of her tolerance for the young doctor can be attributed to Professor Seo and Professor RYU JAE-HWI (Lee Chang-hoon), who played to her ego by suggesting she is the interns’ favorite OB-GYN in hopes that she’d convince more interns to choose their department for their future residency.
If it were not for the conversation with her professors, it’s hard to believe that Nam-kyung would have found the inner serenity required to maintain her composure after Gi-on mistook LEE IK-SOON (cameo by Kwak Sun-young) for another — significantly older — patient with the same name and incorrectly informed her that she had cancer. The incident causes Nam-kyung to get a gentle scolding from Professor AHN CHI-YONG (cameo by Kim Joon-han), who stopped by the ER to see his friend. As always, I love this spin-off’s callbacks to the original source material, and it was extra cute that Ik-soon’s tissue dove trick and Chi-yong’s shoes each got an obvious nod, too.
While Nam-kyung grows increasingly frustrated by Gi-on, her fellow residents are butting heads with the doctors in other departments. Jae-il is tired of being called to the ER for ailments that aren’t related — or not being called fast enough in an actual emergency. Sa-bi is frustrated with pediatrics because they get mad when she can’t accurately predict when her patients are going to go into labor, and they object when she insists on adding another baby to the already full nursery. And Yi-young, well, she can’t stand anesthesiology’s arrogance and the way they complain about how frequently she calls on them to alleviate her patients’ pain.
Do-won, who listens to their griping and complaining over a group dinner, reminds them that there are two sides to every coin. After all, OB-GYN is known as the “thugs of Yulje” because they have a tendency to leverage babies as a means of bossing people around and getting their way. He wisely encourages them to get along with the other departments because OB-GYN relies on them — not the other way around. Sa-bi and Jae-il heed his advice and slowly come to unspoken truces with the departments at center of their ire, but Nam-kyung and Yi-young’s frustrations resolve under different, equally unique situations.
Nam-kyung’s patience with Gi-on grows thinner with each of his screw-ups — but not because his failings are increasing in severity or endangering patients. Instead, the more she tries to mentor and correct him, the more her teachings are undermined because, as his luck would have it, his incompetence inadvertently makes him their patients’ favorite doctor. For example, when when the son of a famous mung bean pancake lady — who also donates a lot of money to the hospital — asks Professor Ryu, Nam-kyung, and Gi-on to keep his mother’s cancer diagnosis a secret until after she’s had surgery to remove the “cyst,” Gi-on predictably slips up and tells her the truth. Pancake Lady is thankful for his (accidental) honesty, but the rest of her attending doctors are put in a difficult position because their deceit has her reconsidering her surgery.
Ultimately, Pancake Lady agrees to have her tumor removed, but I’m left scratching my head over this particular situation. Morally, I don’t agree with the doctors’ decision to keep Pancake Lady’s diagnosis a secret from her, but in this particular situation, I’m going to assume her guardian had the legal authority to make such a request since Nam-kyung’s professor obliged. And if that’s the case, it bothers me that Gi-on, Nam-kyung’s foil in this story arc, bumbles his way into being the morally correct person while Nam-kyung’s conscious attempts to improve her skills and her bedside manner have less favorable consequences. Case in point: when she enlarged the font of the consent form so Pancake Lady could read it but was later scolded for failing to remember that Pancake Lady is illiterate.
Nam-kyung should definitely be more focused on her patients than whether or not her on-again-off-again boyfriend had returned her text, but when her failures are shown in parallel to Gi-on’s accidental successes, the drama’s execution of this particular lesson backfires. In my opinion, I don’t feel like Gi-on has effectively learned that his mistakes have consequences, and given that Nam-kyung is motivated by positive reinforcement and praise, it seems probable that she will walk away from this experience feeling discouraged and less motivated to improve her rapport with her patients.
That said, on a more personal level, Nam-kyung has learned a valuable lesson this week — in matters of the heart. Namely, don’t be a shitty girlfriend. Up until this point in our story, the details of her relationship with her boyfriend have been limited and mostly portrayed as a running joke between the other first-year residents, who’ve continuously betted over how long their frequent breakups will last. But even without many details, it doesn’t surprise me that she was the problem in the relationship.
She’s always been portrayed as a bit narcissistic and selfish, so it’s believable — albeit extremely disappointing — to learn that she has repeatedly threatened to break up with her boyfriend as a means to dominate their arguments and leverage control over him. Despite her flaws, though, in this situation she’s able to see the error of her ways and come to terms with the consequences of her actions. So, even though her patient cases this week provided little character growth, hopefully this revelation in her personal life will indirectly contribute to her professional development.
While Nam-kyung comes to terms with the fact that her relationship is officially over, Yi-young is thrust into an extremely stressful situation when she becomes the only OB-GYN doctor available to perform an emergency C-section on a pregnant foreigner with a breeched baby. It’s a trial by fire, but under these intense circumstances, Yi-young learns first-hand what Do-won meant when he said that she and the other first-years rely on the other departments — not the other way around. Doctors and nurses from anesthesiology, pediatrics, and the emergency room all assemble like the medical version of the Avengers to help her with the C-section and provide the moral support, but just as she makes a shaky first cut, Do-won — who was supposed to be on vacation, BTW, but accidentally slept through his flight — arrives in the OR, yelling, “On your left!” “Make the cut deeper!”
If Yi-young wasn’t already in love with him, she certainly would have been after his timely rescue, but the question still on everyone’s mind, though, is: does Do-won like Yi-young? And after this week, I think it’s safe to say: he’s getting there. He’s showing an increased interest in Yi-young’s personal life, and — more importantly — the look on his face when he overhears HAM DONG-HO (Kim Yi-joon), the anesthesiologist who helped with the emergency C-section, ask Yi-young out to dinner? Well, that look says everything the audience needs to know. (And I love it!)
As if we need additional evidence of Do-won’s growing affection — we don’t, but I love every second of their on-screen time together — he deviates from his scheduled morning coffee with Eun-mi and Da-hye to drive Yi-young to work. For Mr. Creature of Habit, this is, like, a big deal. I mean, he says he overslept, but no one except Yi-young is buying that excuse. I mean, the man connected her phone to his car’s Bluetooth (unprompted) so she could listen to music. Of course, his car’s connection to her phone is also how he sees Dong-ho’s name pop up on her caller ID.
Dong-ho, it turns out, was very serious about his dinner invitation, and he’s quite persistent in getting an answer from the too-busy-and-forgetful-to-respond Yi-young. After several phone calls and texts, Dong-ho corners Yi-young and makes solid dinner plans with her while she’s waiting for an elevator — an elevator that has the best possible timing ever because it opens its doors to reveal Do-won. He’s subtly anxious to see them together, and that feeling escalates when Dong-ho tells him that he and Yi-young will catch the next elevator. Poor Do-won. He clearly wants an excuse to get Yi-young on the elevator with him, but he can’t think of one so he begrudgingly leaves her behind with her new dinner mate.
Yi-young may have accepted Dong-ho’s dinner invitation, but she’s questioning his motives. Is it a date… or not? Did he ask as a friend and colleague… or as a guy who likes her? Should she mention that she has a crush on someone else even though she’s technically single? Unsure how to proceed, Yi-young does what any K-drama lead would do in her situation: she tells Nam-kyung and Jae-il residents about her “friend’s” predicament and asks their opinion. Nam-kyung isn’t fooled for one second that the person in Yi-young’s story is anyone other than her, and she and the more oblivious Jae-il do their best to give their advice. Nam-kyung tells Yi-young to just go to dinner and then turn him down if he makes it clear he has a romantic interest. Jae-il, however, is extremely confident that Yi-young was asked out on a date.
Initially I was in agreement with Jae-il, but it turns out his insight into matters of the heart is not as reliable as I’d previously believed. I mean, the poor guy was so delusional that he believed he stood a chance with his first love JANG GYU-WOOL (Shin Hyun-bin), who is still in a very committed relationship with Jung-won. (Not that Jae-il was aware of that last bit.) This was probably my favorite Hospital Playlist cameo to date. As soon as Jae-il started describing his first love, I knew exactly where the story was going, but I still let out a surprised chuckle when Nam-kyung and Yi-young agreed that it sounded like he was talking about Sa-bi. (Do we have another official ship on our hands?)
And speaking of Sa-bi, she undergoes significant character development this week after undergoing surgery to have a fibroid removed. For the first time, she’s the patient, and she comes away from the experience with a deeper understanding of her own patients. The anxiety they feel in the operating room before being put under anesthesia, the pain of recovery, the uncomfortably itchy unwashed hair, and the FOMO that comes from being stuck in bed while everyone else goes about their day — she gets it, and as a result, she becomes more sympathetic and less robotic around her patients.
During Sa-bi’s recovery, she and Nam-Kyung spend a fair amount of time bonding because Nam-kyung’s mother also underwent her own surgery at Yulje, and she shares a room with Sa-bi. Nam-kyung clearly loves her mother, but she’s also extremely embarrassed to have her at the hospital, telling embarrassing childhood stories about Nam-kyung to very captive audiences. Nam-kyung’s reaction to having her mother around is a bit juvenile, and further perpetuates the idea that she’s not matured much since high school. But her recent breakup and her mother’s surgery have matured her — enough that I’ve come to realize that, unlike her peers, the focus of Nam-kyung’s journey isn’t about becoming a better doctor. Instead, becoming a doctor and making friends is slowly making her a better person. She’s still my least favorite first-year resident, but I appreciate her more after these latest episodes.
With Sa-bi (begrudgingly) out of out of commission, Nam-kyung preoccupied with her mother and learning to be a more appreciative daughter, and Jae-il off (presumably) licking his wounds after Gyu-wool rejected his love confession, Yi-young is in charge of looking after the high risk pregnancy patients. One mother-to-be turns out to be a wealth of knowledge and experience, and her pregnancy-safe home remedies for insomnia (origami and embroidery) and constipation (prune juice) are a hit with her fellow patients and Yi-young.
Sadly, the helpful mother-to-be miscarries, and even though Do-won offers to break the news to Yi-young’s patient, she rejects his proposal. As was the case with the little girl who lost her mother, Yi-young finds the appropriate balance between being clinically factual and sympathetically understanding of her patient’s circumstances. And, once again, she draws on her personal experiences, having witnessed from the sidelines her sister’s miscarriage, and encourages her patient to eat now, while she can, because when she’s fasting later she will feel guilty about her hunger.
After making us feel all the feels, Resident Playbook rewards us with some much needed happiness in the form of more deliciously juicy Yi-young x Do-won scenes — and a clear answer in the “Date or Not a Date with Dong-ho” debate. It all begins with Do-won popping into the first-year lounge and learning from a very gossipy Nam-kyung that Yi-young is “out with a guy.” While Do-won processes this information, we cut to a fancy restaurant. Yi-young is led to a private room (date?), but she’s greeted by not only Dong-ho but the entire surgical team that helped Yi-young with the emergency C-section patient (not a date?).
Just when I started to accept the whole situation was a misdirect (because that’s such a Hospital Playlist thing to do), it turns out Dong-ho is, in fact, romantically interested in Yi-young and invited the other doctors at the last minute to make her less uncomfortable. But here’s the kicker: he knows she has a crush on Do-won. Anesthesiologists have the best seat in the operating room, and he saw how easily she gets flustered around Do-won. Dong-ho accepts her rejection, but he’s also not shy about admitting that he hopes her crush goes unreciprocated so he can swoop in and win her heart one day. (Daw, he turned out to be a cutie.)
After dinner, Yi-young makes a quick stop at the hospital to retrieve her phone, which she accidentally left in the first-year lounge. When she checks her messages, she sees that Do-won has asked her to call him. She assumes he waited at the hospital to discuss work, but it’s clear to the audience that he waited around so he could escort her home — and low-key ask about her dinner with Dong-ho. He’s visibly (and adorably) relieved to hear that she and Dong-ho didn’t dine alone, and after letting out a relieved laugh upon realizing that she was more interested in what she ate than who she ate with, he gazes meaningfully at her while she’s not looking.
When she turns back to him and expresses a desire to do “that,” he looks in the direction she was staring. His love-addled brain misinterprets her words and assumes she is referring to the couple that’s making out next to the bus stop. Do-won is flustered, but — more importantly — he doesn’t say no. I repeat: Do-won does not say no to making out at a bus stop. Instead, he looks around, as if to check if there’s an audience, before bowing his head and confessing he’s developed feelings for her.
Yeah… too bad Yi-young wasn’t nearby to hear his confession. Turns out the “that” she wanted was to sit down, and after a space freed up on the bench, she quickly ran over to claim it. Completely embarrassed by his mistake, he bashfully accepts the offered spot next to her, but it’s a tight squeeze and his smartwatch beeps to let him know his heart rate is elevated. He turns to anxiously stare at the object of his affection, and this time she catches him looking at her.
These were probably my favorite episodes to date. Yes, my opinion is largely swayed by the fact that my ship got a lot of screen time and is about to set sail (hip hip hooray!), but aside from romance, there was a lot of progression with other aspects of our story — namely Yi-young’s steady growth as she shapes up to be the bravest and most emotionally mature member of her cohort. Once again, she’s at the center of our story when our drama demonstrates its ability to pull at the audience’s heartstrings, but I suspect that this pattern in the storytelling will reveal that her biggest strength as a doctor — her empathy — was also what led her to quit her residency the first time around.
Even though it was directly suggested in Episode 1 that she quit because her father’s unexpected bankruptcy ruined her long-term plans, the way the story has been drawing attention to Joo-young’s infertility issues makes me suspicious that Yi-young quit her job around the time her sister had her miscarriage. Assuming the timeline syncs up, I can’t imagine it would have been easy for Yi-young to be around new mothers and experiencing the ups (and downs) of childbirth after watching her sister’s emotional distress the day she “cried the most in [her] life.” However, if that is the case, time and the right mentors and companions are clearly helping find her confidence and purpose for becoming a doctor.
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