Edited by anissa_kyra at 22-1-2015 06:26 PM
Hyde, Jekyll, Me: Episode 1
SBS’s new Wednesday-Thursday series Hyde, Jekyll, Me got off to a good start today, with solid character introductions, a mystery, and a touch of whimsy. As expected, it’s the Hyun Bin Show, but he doesn’t disappoint, managing to be funny, grumpy, assy, and swoony all in one episode. I’m pretty happy with this drama’s presentation of the split-personality premise because it’s rooted in an interesting lead character, and more importantly because it flip-flops the Hyde-Jekyll expectations that the dormant personality is the monster inside. This drama asks, What if the Hyde that Jekyll wants to keep desperately hidden is in fact every nice, wonderful, amazing thing about him?
Song of the day - Who Are You (download)
EPISOD 1 RECAP
 
An overhead shot takes us through Wonderland, an amusement park where children laugh and play, with every corner decorated in colorful lights. A child runs with a red heart balloon in hand and runs smack dab into a stone-faced man, who coldly knocks the balloon out of his face and sends it flying up into the rafters.
The child cries, while the man watches the balloon and suddenly notices the giant mirror ball fixture overhead begin to shake. He looks down in alarm to see a woman walking right into its path, and at the last second, he grabs her out of the way and they go sliding on the ice rink below, as the giant mirror ball crashes behind them.
He wakes up with a start. It was a dream… or was it?
This is our hero, GU SEO-JIN (Hyun Bin), who looks rattled as he sits up in bed and scrambles for his glasses. They’re super hi-tech glasses that give him a digital reading of his pulse, along with other biometrics. His rapid heartbeat seems to freak him out more than the dream itself.
He gets out of bed (omg, what are those crazy pants, and why do you look better in them than I would?) and walks through his palatial house to go meditate in his greenhouse garden. He chants, he breathes, he clutches the necklace he’s wearing (which appears to be in the shape of the Big Dipper), but he doesn’t seem satisfied with how fast his heart is still beating. Something tells me stressing about meditation is not an effective strategy, but what do I know.
Seo-jin’s secretary rushes to find him while chatting on the phone with Seo-jin’s doctor. Clearly other people are hooked up to his biometric alerts as well, because Chief Secretary Kwon approaches with trepidation to ask if he’s okay.
Seo-jin remains calm as he finishes his morning yoga, gets Secretary Kwon to confirm that his heart rate is back to normal, and then yanks his monitor off. After showering (thanks for wasting no time with the requisite army abs!), he’s quick to put the monitor back on, and worries that it’s the first time in five years that his numbers have been this high.
Secretary Kwon says that as long as they stay under 150, they’re safe. But Seo-jin says he did go over 150… in his dream. He looks into the mirror and adds, “It wasn’t me.” His chauffer arrives, so Secretary Kwon whispers as they head out, wondering if he saw Robin in his dream. Seo-jin snaps, “Don’t talk about that bastard.”
At the airport, a woman arrives and spends her time on the moving walkway showing a little girl a magic trick. This is our heroine JANG HANA (Han Ji-min), and she lights up when she passes by a sign advertising Wonderland.
It turns out that Seo-jin is the boss at the theme park, and he makes his morning rounds with a team of security guards scurrying behind him. He stops in his tracks at the sight of a stray balloon flying towards him, reminiscent of his bad dream. He catches it and refuses to give it back to the little girl, making her erupt in tears.
He barks at Secretary Kwon that balloons are banned for the day, and bans everything even remotely balloonish—the inflatable dancing clown, the spinny hot air balloon ride—with no concern for lost revenue.
 
A group of children holding the red heart balloons grabs his attention, and Seo-jin smirks at the man who’s with them. This is some sort of publicity stunt for Wonder Group, the chaebol conglomerate that owns the theme park, and Seo-jin faces off with the man, speaking to him in banmal.
His name is RYU SEUNG-YEON (Han Sang-jin), and all we know for now is that his managing director title is equal to Seo-jin’s, and they dislike each other immensely. Seo-jin asks if he got a permit for this event, and kicks them out of the park, confiscating all the balloons.
Seung-yeon gapes, “You banned balloons? At an amusement park?” Seo-jin just snipes back that this is HIS amusement park, and the balloons give him a bad feeling. Seo-jin calls this stunt ridiculous and says he feels bad for the children who are being used, and notes sarcastically, “You know I have a weak heart.” Hur.
 
When they leave, Seo-jin decides to invite ten thousand children to the park for charity. Secretary Kwon guesses exactly what his intent is—to show up Seung-yeon in their never-ending pissing contest.
As the tram takes Seung-yeon away, one stray red balloon flies up into the sky. Uh-oh, it’s the bad omen that Seo-jin was dreading. And on cue, someone starts screaming in the distance.
Seo-jin whips around and his eyes widen to see the crowd behind him part… as a giant gorilla (seriously?) stomps down the main causeway. Everyone runs screaming, and a woman runs up to Seo-jin to grab his arm and scream her head off for him to do something.
But he just stands frozen in place. He’s so terrified that he can’t move, and looks over at the woman like she’s crazy. He tries to pry her off his arm, and when she won’t let go, he bites down on HER arm to wriggle free.
HA—and then he pushes her to the ground right in King Kong’s path, giving him time to run away like a coward. His security team surrounds him while he scrambles up to the roof of a street stall, and Secretary Kwon hurries up there to give him headphones.
Seo-jin races against his racing heart to put the headphones on and meditate, and it’s pretty hilarious to watch King Kong run around and scare people while the mediation track plays.
Hana is stuck in traffic just a block away from Wonderland, and she perks up to hear the park mentioned in a radio broadcast. At the same time, Seung-yeon gets a call from one of the workers at the park, who reports with a satisfied smirk that Seo-jin is seconds away from passing out.
Seo-jin manages to get his heart rate down and braces himself to face King Kong. Now that he’s calmed down, he asks for the walkie-talkie and makes sure that the security and animal control teams are on the way.
They arrive looking pretty scared, and one guy fires a tranquilizer dart with perfect precision… only it bounces right off of King Kong’s chest. Um, what? That just pisses off the gorilla, and he starts charging right at Seo-jin.
 
Suddenly a voice calls out, “Bing Bing!” The gorilla skids to a halt and the crowd parts to reveal Hana, waving and calling for Bing Bing like they’re friends. The gorilla turns around and starts running at full speed for Hana, and Seo-jin notices that his heart rate suddenly shoots up into the danger zone.
He asks what’s happening, and starts convulsing and choking. The gorilla goes for Hana and takes a flying leap right at her, and Seo-jin’s heart rate spikes, nearly at 150.
But then he hears laughter, and looks up to see the gorilla dancing in circles around Hana, who’s smiling and dancing too. Immediately Seo-jin’s pulse slows, and he wonders what is going on with him.
 
He goes to his office and yanks his heart rate monitor off and tells Secretary Kwon to have it fixed, because it must be broken. When he says he neared 150 just now, Secretary Kwon takes a step back and asks suspiciously, “Robin?”
Seo-jin snarls and tells him not to overreact, but Secretary Kwon sneaks a taser out of his pocket and asks what they had for lunch yesterday. Seo-jin rolls his eyes but says they had bibimbap, and Secretary Kwon lunges with the taser, only to be reminded that he’s the one who’s misremembering.
It’s extra amusing because Secretary Kwon speaks to Robin in banmal, and hurriedly switches back to jondae the second he realizes his mistake.
 
Secretary Kwon guesses that Seo-jin’s heart rate spiked because he was scared, but Seo-jin says that’s the confusing part—he only went up to the 130s when he was in immediate danger, but it wasn’t until the gorilla was lunging at the mystery woman that he went up 148. He decides that this is about her, and asks for her to be brought to him.
Outside, a reporter interviews Hana about the gorilla scare, and introduces her as the daughter of the late circus troupe leader of one of the country’s last few remaining circuses. She asks the reporter to please include the fact that Wonderland failed to reconstruct the cages after multiple requests from the circus to do so.
Secretary Kwon arrives to interrupt and take her to see Seo-jin, and since she’s just arrived, she has to be informed that he’s the boss. Seo-jin straps his monitor back on just as Hana arrives in his office, and she introduces herself as the new Wonder Circus leader.
He just stares at her without a word, and then all of a sudden yanks her close. Really close, like kissing distance, without so much as a word of explanation. She squirms and asks what the hell he’s doing, but he just holds on and looks right into her eyes.
What he’s really looking at is his heart rate, of course, and smirks that lopsided grin of his, satisfied that it must’ve been a fluke. She’s not making his heart race anymore, and he just rattles off his current physical state aloud to himself, as if she’s not even there.
Hana grows increasingly agitated, especially when he just dismisses her. She wants to talk about the gorilla, which he sort of remembers as an afterthought and just cuts her off with, “The circus is fired.”
 
She argues that he can’t fire them when they have a contract, but he counters that the circus brings in no money anyway, so paying them the fee to break contract is better business in the long run.
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Post time 22-1-2015 03:46 PM
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