Hyde, Jekyll and I ep 8: Finally!

For anyone who a) is waiting on the fence unsure as to watch this drama or b)anyone who maybe gave it up officially or unofficially, this may be when you want to jump on board. Maybe it is just me, but I watched this episode and thought "YES! Finally! We have a story!". Then there was the part of me that said, "NOOOOOOOO!!!!" Any idea when that one came up?

If you guessed this part, well, you've been a good lil reader, haven't you? Either that or you see things the way I do.

These writers think they are sooooo funny. Just last week, I brought up the idea of TGHU, or, Thank Goodness He's Ugly in reference to our Bad Guy, meaning, it's unfortunate when good looks are wasted on the evil ones. Well, haha. Joke's on me. The sad thing is that I actually suspected this might happen (I did - swear!), but I decided to throw caution to the wind and crush hard on Hypnotic Hot Doc anyway. *sigh* What a loss. What a sad, sad, tragic loss. Good thing he's not that cute, or we'd really have a situation on our hands here.

Yeah, I said it. You can't be evil and expect to keep all your Hotness Points

That's right, not to jump ahead or anything, but Hypnotic Hot Doc is the real bad guy of our story.

If we are to define the 'real bad guy' as the kidnapper of one Dr Kang. Oh, HHD...wae? Wae you gotta play us like this? Just when we were getting on so well. *frowny face* The Formerly Bad Guy claims to be this kid, Lee Soo Hyun, that was childhood friends with Seo Jin. Soo Hyun and Seo Jin were kidnapped together in the haunted house at Wonderland. Seo Jin managed to escape by standing on his young friend's shoulders, only he was then unable to pull that friend up, leaving the poor kid still in the grasp of his kidnappers. While details are not forthcoming, we are led to believe that things didn't go so well for the boy left behind. Fast forward to today and he's angry and bitter towards Seo Jin for abandoning him. Seo Jin literally created Robin in an effort to protect his psyche from the overwhelming guilt and horror that he felt from the whole traumatic incident. It would appear that Formerly Bad Guy is now out to exact his revenge on Seo Jin by removing the Dr who says she has a cure, thus leaving him in his split world indefinitely. Except that Formerly Bad Guy isn't who he says he is. He isn't the actual boy from all those years ago. He didn't actually kidnap Dr Kang. No, that "honor" belongs to Hypnotic Hot Doc. *sniff sniff* He has used his hypnotic powers for evil and is using this guy as his pawn, posing him as the Bad Guy in order to act out his own personal revenge against Seo Jin undetected. He has Dr Kang stuffed away in a hidden room in his office. Why? Because she figured out who he was and wanted the two guys to have a sit down and hash out their "differences" in an effort to heal Seo Jin. That was her perfect fix she had eluded to in the beginning. Except that HHD/The Real Lee Soo Hyun was obviously not game to that that plan and so he kidnapped her instead and "programmed" a stooge to take the fall. Diabolical HHD, purely diabolical. *tsk tsk*

And just who was it to blow the cover off of the fake bad guy? None other than the slimey cousin.

Well, poo. I suppose he turned out to be useful for something and so I guess it's a good thing he hasn't dropped dead quite yet. Darn it all. See, he and HHD/The Real Lee Soo Hyun used to be close friends as kids too. As Slimey Cousin claims, he was even closer to HHD/TRLSH than Seo Jin was. Sheesh. Competitive much? Anyway, there was a time back in the day where the kiddos had a little incident resulting in a burn scar on the back of this friend's neck. Lo and behold, Formerly Bad Guy is lacking in this scar.

As you can see, there ain't no scar on me.

Sure, he's been hypnotized and thinks that he is this guy, but the proof is in that smooth, unscarred neck of his. Oh my. Now, obviously at this point, we know who the real bad guy is, but our cast of characters does not. They know that FBG isn't who he claims to be, but they don't know who the real kidnapper is.

Now, let's back up for a moment. Regardless of who the real Lee Soo Hyun is, we still have the fallout from the discovery that he is still around to deal with. Or, more accurately, Seo Jin still has the fallout to deal with. Initially, he falls apart at the news. Full-on panic (maybe Robin about to come out?) attack that is interrupted by Ha Na.

He pulls himself together and puts on a cold, emotionless act in facing it. Oh, how my heart wept for this poor, broken soul. We get a little bit more of the story and points that I just wanted to mention in case they become important later on. 1 - Lee Soo Hyun was the son of the family chauffeur. 2 - The boys were kidnapped and a ransom demanded. 3 - Seo Jin's father refused to pay the ransom. 4 - Lee Soo Hyun's father stole money from Seo Jin's dad and was on his way to pay the kidnappers when he was killed in a car accident. 5 - Soo Hyun is upset that Seo Jin leaves out the full truth as to how he escaped and this is why he ends up continuing with his diabolical plot, using that as evidence that Seo Jin hasn't learned his lesson yet. 6 - He may be a super hypnotist, but he sucks as a shrink. 7 - Seo Jin unfairly has placed the guilt of recent events on his own shoulders, stating that it is his fault Dr Kang was kidnapped and that she must be found or he will have to live with that guilt the rest of his life. Oh, sweet boy. You didn't kidnap her. You didn't do anything wrong. Honey, you gots to just let it go.

After all this initial revelation, it quickly becomes evident that Seo Jin's cool, calculated demeanor is a total charade when he falls violently ill from the shock/stress of it all. Thankfully, Ha Na is there to nurse him back to health. Now, my husband is always accusing me of finding him more attractive when he is sick. I guess there must be something to that, because I swear, Seo Jin/Hyun Bin has never looked so good as he does lying there in bed all weak and sweaty.

Hearts? How did those get there? *innocently whistles and steps away*

What does that say about me and my weird psyche? I'd rather not know. Enough crazy going on around here anyway - let's not add to it. There's an amusing part where Ha Na calls a medical assistance line and they tell her to undress him and cuddle with him. *giggle* And then they fight. Pretty badly. Yet, goodly at the same time. ;) She's telling him to shut up and let her help him - arguing that he is obviously not fine and needs to stop pretending all the time that he is and that the reason he is sick is because he's clearly under so much stress that his body is quitting on him. He is stuck in self-destruct mode and has developed feelings that he doesn't feel confident he is deserving of or capable of nurturing, so he turns on her. He blames her for Robin's existence. He tells her that everything started going wrong when she showed up in his life. There's a nasty exchange between the two of them that ends in her leaving and two heads being thrown back in dramatic despair.

Ah shucks you two, just admit that you have feelings, kiss, and let's move on. The agony of this torturous back-and-forth, on-again-off-again denial thing we have going on is getting old.

Enter Robin. After going to bed sick, Seo Jin wakes up as Robin and the night time of fun timez begins. His first thought upon waking is that of his smooch with Ha Na. Now, I found the puppet kiss to be less creepy than Kmuse did. Honestly, the puppet thing didn't bother me. My only issue with the kiss was the awkward 90 degree angle and the utter lack of lip movement.

Definitely not best Hyun Bin kiss ever. It left a lot to be desired. I'm hoping that it's just because Robin isn't the one she's actually supposed to be falling for. I'm holding out hope that when she and Seo Jin kiss, we'll see passion and fireworks. She can't get all lip-locked and hot-n-heavy with the child-like Robin, that's just kind of weird when you think about it. And now I'm dreaming of a hot-n-heavy HB kiss and need a moment....

*ahem* Sorry, where was I? Ah, yes, Robin time. I love how he plays intermediary between Seo Jin and Ha Na. Sure, he curses him out and helps her come up with things she should have said back in the fight, but he also defends Seo Jin at the same time. I love how he made fun of Bad Dad's crazy eyebrows.

Too funny! He also tells a sweet story about how when they were younger, Seo Jin was friendless and getting bullied at school. Robin tried to help by showing up and doing some cool skateboard tricks. It worked, sort of, for a short time. Seo Jin had a temporary fan club -- that faded just as fast thanks to his "stellar" personality.

Look how adorable young Robin/Seo Jin was!

This part where Robin talks about how he refuses to leave because of Ha Na was sweet. Especially the part where he is thinking to himself about how, if somehow she can accept him/them when she learns the truth, how he'd never be the one to leave.

It really makes me wonder what is going to happen with the split personality love triangle angle. At times, there appears to be major jealousy...with himself. But now it would almost seem as if a sort of cooperation might be budding. The end goal would of course be a melding of Robin and Seo Jin - a healing of the mind and heart to where Seo Jin can exist as a whole person, no longer fractured. It would seem as if even Robin is starting to sense this and admit to it, as evidenced by his conversation/video message left (gives new meaning to the phrase "talking to oneself", doesn't it?).

In it, Robin talks about how he was created by Seo Jin in order for him to just survive, but here he is, surviving, but living a miserable existence while his alter ego lives happily. Even Robin admits that this is totally unfair to Seo Jin. I loved the line, "I only exist because of you, but it's only because I live that you're able to live." Talk about a co-dependent relationship. Robin then offers his help to Seo Jin. All Seo Jin has to do is ask. When Seo Jin is ready to be "fixed", Robin will be there to help him. It is in his nature after all, right? Huh. Interesting. I just made that connection. Robin was created to help save after he was unable to save his friend. Deep stuff right there that.

We end the episode with an interesting cliffhanger. HHD/The Real Lee Soo Hyun/Bad Guy has left captive Dr Kang to open the door, knowing that it was Ha Na and diabolically plotting to mess with her some more. He's shocked though when she has brought along a friend in the form of none-other-than Robin to join their psycho party. Awk-ward. This should be fun.

Okay, so, better episode, right? Things have started to pick up, don't you think? I feel like we finally are getting somewhere good with our story. Bonus - we're not spending a lot of time in the circus. Thank goodness for that. Double bonus - still going heavy and strong with the Hyun Bin close-ups, and yeah, still not tired of them. He looked extra yumm in this episode if you ask me. I wasn't going to do another "wall o' hot", but I may have no other choice. All these gorgeous screenshots that will just be deleted if I don't use them. What a waste, you know?

I know I have said this before, but I will reiterate once again - I am sad that this drama is getting such a bum rap. It's not a bad drama. Has there been some stupid in it? Yes. I will never forgive the magical rope scene for example. Or anything having to do with the circus concept of lame. It is far from perfect and certainly not "best drama ever" caliber, but it is also far from being bad. Sure, it took a good 8 episodes for me to get excited about where the storyline was heading, but, hey, at least it got there. I refuse to write this one off as a loss. I think that the potential is there. It's hanging on...by a magical rope tethered to...well, tethered to Hyun Bin if you want my honest opinion (not that I'm biased - yes I am). So, yeah, if you're still on the fence and unsure about this one, I for one am willing to give it a tentative and hopeful YES vote. If you have the time, definitely lend some in its direction. For Binnie!!!

-dongsaeng