Doctor Cha: Episodes 3-4
by Dramaddictally
Flirting, jealousy, secrets — oh my. Our new medical resident is trying to do it all, but her personal life keeps getting in the way of work. Luckily, while her husband aims to make her miserable enough to quit, she gains a staunch supporter at the hospital.
EPISODES 3-4
Uh oh. I think I may have misread this one. I thought we spent the first week setting up tropes so we could knock them down, but now I’m nervous that the tropes are meant to provide the laughs. It’s still early, and I’m still hopeful this is all part of our protagonist’s journey toward growth, but for now, the funny feminism we saw in Week 1 is getting buried in a snowstorm of stereotypes.
We left off last week with a little bit of mystery, wondering how Jung-sook was able to obtain a residency at the last minute. It turns out, it’s not so bad to be older, wiser, and past the age of maternity and military leave. With younger candidates giving up their spots for these reasons, Jung-sook is shooed in.
While her goal was to join the family medicine team — which is how she wound up working under Seung-hee — she’s quickly moved to the surgery department. There, she works alongside In-ho and her son, SEO JUNG-MIN (Song Ji-ho), but it’s all a big secret that Jung-sook is related to them. Although there are some serious ethical issues with this arrangement, In-ho has problems with it for other reasons.
First, he just wants his wife to give up doctoring and go home. Second, Seung-hee is threatening to change hospitals if Jung-sook doesn’t leave. In-ho decides that the best he can do is try to get Jung-sook to quit by making her life miserable on the job. The pettiness begins right away when he refuses to give her a ride to work and then won’t even hold the elevator door when she’s running toward it.
While Jung-sook is getting acquainted with her new department, “handsome and single” Dr. Kim transfers to their hospital, leaving a trail of gawkers everywhere he walks — and putting all our main characters under one roof. Since Dr. Kim is the only other person that knows Jung-sook is In-ho’s wife, In-ho pays him a visit and asks him not to reveal their relationship.
Everything about In-ho seems to annoy Dr. Kim and, when he runs into Jung-sook at the hospital, the first thing he wants to know is when she’s getting a divorce. He thought she would be on her way out the door after the stunt In-ho pulled during her transplant surgery. But Jung-sook shrugs it off, saying that divorce isn’t easy and it takes way more courage than getting married. It’s one of a few instances this week where we see that, at the moment, our heroine doesn’t have any plans to leave her marriage.
But not having plans to leave doesn’t mean she’s not up for flirting with Dr. Kim. And man does their flirting make for some great moments. There’s the moment when he holds the elevator door that In-ho tries to close on Jung-sook (wearing a motorcycle jacket for maximum impact). The one where they sit next to each other, laughing and chatting, at afterwork drinks (where In-ho is also present and watching). And the one where Dr. Kim gives Jung-sook a ride home on the motorcycle that goes with his jacket (making In-ho super jealous).
It’s during the motorcycle ride home that we get a glimpse into how Jung-sook is really feeling. She looks up at the moon and around at the city lights and starts to cry. She tells Dr. Kim that she feels alive right now, but there’s also a burning weight on her chest. He wants to know why she stays with her husband, and she continues to make excuses like, “love fades over time” and “there are worse husbands than mine.” Dr. Kim points out that her husband doesn’t have to love her, but he should at least respect her. (Yes! I love Dr. Kim. Less In-ho, more Dr. Kim, please.)
While the drama is mostly about Jung-sook’s interpersonal relationships, we do see her on the job this week and it’s not a pretty sight. I’m not talking about blood and guts, either — it’s just the simple fact that she’s not very good at what she’s doing. Rather than trying to learn, she calls Jung-min and whines — cutting into his work time — and has him come carry out procedures for her.
Finally, he introduces her to the world of YouTube (or “Yutube”) so she can look up tutorials for basic medical procedures on her own. She had no idea such resources existed, and it gives her the confidence to start taking on new tasks. Unfortunately, in the process of trying to show this growth, the drama makes her seem truly incompetent and underqualified.
And I’m not the only one who feels that way. Her attitude toward her mistakes gains her the animosity of JEON SO-RA (Jo Ah-ram), a third-year resident who’s in charge of Jung-sook and Jung-min. The animosity is mutual, too, because Jung-sook doesn’t like the way So-ra berates Jung-min when he screws up.
Little does Jung-sook know that Jung-min actually likes it — and he and So-ra take that power dynamic with them into the bedroom after work (I mean, holy moly with these two: “You may be my senior at the hospital but not here”). The fact that Jung-sook doesn’t know they’re dating is just one more secret that Jung-min has to juggle, as he tries to keep his mom and his girlfriend from hating each other.
Work and home life keep colliding when Jung-sook finds an expensive gift receipt in In-ho’s coat pocket. It’s for a bracelet that he bought Seung-hee, but he lies that it’s a gift for Jung-sook’s birthday. Jung-sook is immediately happy and starts treating In-ho nicely, drawing him a bath and sitting with him to talk.
Throughout the episodes, we’ve seen a lot of jealousy from both spouses, with Jung-sook even admitting to her dermatologist friend, BAEK MI-HEE (Baek Joo-hee), that she applied to be a resident in family medicine when she found out Seung-hee was in that department. All this time, she had no idea Seung-hee worked at the same hospital as In-ho, but now, she wants to know why he never mentioned her. In-ho lies that he doesn’t know much about Seung-hee, and Jung-sook starts going on about how pretty Seung-hee still is. In-ho concedes that Jung-sook doesn’t look too bad either, and she brightens up and leaves him alone.
At the hospital, while Jung-sook is supposed to be reviving someone in the ER, she sees In-ho and Seung-hee together — and Seung-hee is wearing the bracelet that In-ho bought. Jung-sook is so worried about what she sees, she’s not paying attention and gets herself knocked out from electric shock at the end of the episode.
Oh boy, I feel like there was some backpedaling after our premiere week. My impression from these episodes is that Jung-sook really loves In-ho and that being a devoted wife and mother actually suits her personality. I didn’t feel the sense of indebtedness or independence that Episode 2 was careful to detail. It’s possible that the drama is throwing a kind of emotional red herring, but I also had this strange fear creep up that maybe the point of the show is to save their marriage. I hope not!
The thing that bothered me with these episodes is that I’m finding it hard to like our female lead. With so much setup to get us on her side, I was hoping we could see her journey of change without having her succumb to slapstick bits showing how scatterbrained she is. There’s nothing wrong with making mistakes, but I’d prefer if I could see her smarts shining through as she makes them. At the moment, we’ve got multiple competent female characters, so it’s hard not to compare — and I find myself siding with them over our lead.
I’m still hoping that all this wishy-washy behavior is just a part of the setup so we can knock down all these stereotypes later. I’m ready to go along for a laugh-out-loud ride, I just want to make sure our heroine is delivering the punchline, not being made the butt of the joke.
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Doctor Cha: Episodes 3-4
Source: Buzz Pinay Daily
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