Dramatic Friday Review: Dr Jin ep 9

When last we left Dr Jin, he was just revealing to Young Rae that he was from another world and a far distant future.  So, how'd she handle the news?  Pretty well actually.  She basically said, "Yeah, I knew it had to be something like that, what with your weird stuff and knowledge and all."  Yup, she was pretty much unfazed by it.  Lucky for him.  That could have gone a lot worse.

After hearing Jin's revelation, she goes to see Kyung Tak and to beg him to let her out of the engagement.  She swears that it has nothing to do with Dr Jin or the fact that he's a concubine's son.  She just says that her heart has not and can not go to him.  This shatters the poor guy.  In pieces.  

He becomes depressed and distressed.  He slashes the Young Rae mark on the stone and stalks off.  When we see him next, he's sitting in the gisaeng house with a bloody hand that's been cut to shreds by a cup that we assume he broke in his hand.  Choon Hong attends to his wound and he drunkenly and sadly discusses the coldness of a woman's heart.  He even goes as far as to ask Choon Hong if he were to sleep with her, would that win her heart?  She declines him and he's left to wallow in his loneliness and heartbreak.  

It's not enough that I've watched (i.e. loved) her for 20 years?

If I sleep with you will it make you love me?

Awww, poor sweet sweet Jaejoong Kyung Tak.  Look how sad he is.  :(  Will somebody just please love that boy?

When he approaches his father, he takes the blame on himself, saying that he wishes to be released from the engagement.  Daddy takes it all in stride.  Too bad Young Rae's mom has a slightly different reaction.  She's maa-ad!  Kicks Young Rae out of the house and more or less disowns her.  

This brings Young Rae to the clinic looking for a place to live and declaring that she wishes to be a doctor.  This is the path she has chosen for herself - to care for the sick.  She doesn't wish to be a typical Joseon woman, she wants to practice medicine instead.

There is a bit of a hullaballoo at the clinic.  Several people show up claiming that the medicine they were given killed their loved ones.  They accused the doctors of giving them poison.  The cops show up and after hearing the accusations, arrest the doctors.  Remember how Kyung Tak just had his heart shattered into a bazillion pieces?  He's taken that heartbreak and thrown all of it into his work.  He's out to get Jin more so than ever.  There is a "trial" of sorts in front of PigDog, the royal doctor and the laughing hyena guy.  The doctors are found guilty, thanks in large part to one of the doctors who, unlike everyone else, claims to remember giving these people the medicine (uhm, hello?  I think we've found our doctor spy here), sentenced to a flogging and the clinic closed down.

I think we've found our Dr Snitch

PigDog McNasty enjoyed this waayy too much

Bet 2012 is looking a lot better right about now, isn't it Dr Jin?  Flogging in place of malpractice suits?  Hmm... I wonder which is worse?

Meanwhile, Prince Heung Seon has visited the Queen Dowager.

She requests a visit from this Dr Jin fellow she has heard so much about, but when they return together, they are denied entry.  It seems as if Byung Hee has been busy.  There is a ban on all relatives of the King from being allowed entry into the palace.  Good thing Dr Jin isn't a relative of the king.  He is allowed in and meets with the Queen Dowager.  She asks him about his successes and then brings up the subject of the "poisoned medicine", at which point the Royal Doctor is called in.  He more or less convinces her that Jin is a fraud and that the healings from the so-called medicine was due to luck, not skill or good medicine.  Things aren't looking good for the clinic.  They had hoped that the Queen Dowager's favor would reopen the clinic, but it seems as if they've failed to gain her approval.  Enter convenient medical emergency.  Duh.  Of course that was coming.  I expected it to be the Dowager Queen herself as she had mentioned she wasn't feeling all too hot in her earlier conversation with Heung Seon, but this time I was wrong.  No, instead, the medical emergency was with one of the performers that had come in to entertain the court.  The tightrope walker is rolling around on the ground in agony.

The Royal Doctor declares it to be a simple stomachache, but after examination, Dr Jin diagnoses it as a perforated stomach ulcer.  The fix?  Surgery of course.  Surgery right there in the palace in front of the Queen Dowager.  Yummy.

Supplies and Dr Huh and Young Rae are sent for.  The surgery commences.  It's bloody and gory and I probably should have gotten a screenshot or two of it, but then figured that you could be eating while reading this and then you'd be sick and blaming me, so I skipped them.  The surgery goes well and the Queen Dowager is impressed and grateful and not only reopens the clinic but also grants permission to Heung Seon to hold a banquet in her honor.  There's a revolution beginning to take shape.  Prince Heung Seon is leading the charge against the current powers in control and he's looking for all the help he can get.  Young Hwi and his merry band of robbers, Choon Hong, gisaeng spy extraordinaire, and now the Queen Dowager, an important and influencial person in the palace.


And now, just a little back information that didn't fit in to my narrative, but might be important to note for the future, so I'll toss it in here at the end.

Choon Hong's role in this story begins to unfurl just a bit more.

Choon Hong is revealed to Prince Heung Seon to be the spy for Young Hwi.

We get a flashback to when Choon Hong was a brand new gisaeng in training and encountered Ha Eung while hiding from her gayageum lesson.  She doesn't want to be a gisaeng.

He tells her to grit her teeth and become Joseon's best gisaeng and that the entire world could be at her fingertips.

"Have I not become the best gisaeng? I will become a woman who moves Joseon."

We get a history lesson from Dr Jin.  Thank goodness he had to study this stuff and can tell us how history is supposed to play out, otherwise I'd be lost.  He really makes a great narrator at times.

This is Queen Dowager Shin Jeong from the Jo family.  She is the representative of Poonyang Jo family. With Prince Heung Seon, she is the one who made Ahn Dong Kim family's power collapse and is one of the important historical people in the end of Joseon.

Prince Heung Seon is out to get the Ahn Dong Kim family. The only person who can keep them in check is the Queen Dowager who, when combined with his other forces he is gathering, will have power that will be able to go against Ahn Dong Kim's power and save more innocent people from dying.  He also announces that he intends to do this by making his son, Myeong Bok, the king.

 Oh, and Young Rae's mom is sick.

And that should about cover us for today.  We'll see what episode 10 has to offer coming up next time on Dramatic Friday Review: Dr Jin.

As we conclude today's review, I have one final request.  Do we have any volunteers to help cheer up our poor heartbroken Kyung Tak?  Look at him there.  He really needs a hug.  How can anyone refuse that most perfect and so sad face?  I'll send around a sign up sheet and we'll just see if we can't help him feel better, okay?  I know that together we can do it, we can mend a broken heart and give love to one starving for affection.  

Doesn't anyone love me?

Of course, if I have to just do it myself, then so be it.  Hey, a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do.  ;)