Summary
Episode 4 maintains Doctor Slump’s strong run of early form and is especially rich in chemistry between the leads.
This relationship is quite lovely, isn’t it? And I don’t say that lightly. All on-screen romances are designed to be lovely; they’re beautiful people working through idyllic love stories. But Doctor Slump has a note of honesty and sincerity to it that works. It knows to use its leads and their dynamic as a lens through which to view important cultural biases and issues, not just as an excuse to heap trauma on everyone for the sake of cheap drama. Episode 4 exhibits the chemistry vividly without moving away from Season 1’s underlying notes and ideas.
Give it a week or two, and this will be the hottest K-Drama airing right now. Netflix have another winner on their hands here.
Doctor Slump Season 1 Episode 4 Recap
Episode 4 picks up where Episode 3 left off, delving into Ha-neul’s friendless past – she was too focused on studying – to contextualize the importance of her present-day friendship with Jeong-woo. And it remains a friendship for now, even though they end up spending the night together (not like that!) and deeply panicking Ha-neul’s mother when she realizes her daughter hasn’t come home.
A Blind Date
A lot of this episode is about gradually deepening this friendship into something more explicitly romantic. Ha-neul’s friend Hong-ran lets slip about Jeong-woo being Ha-neul’s first love right in front of him, which strokes his ego and makes him think that Ha-neul is just making an excuse to be closer to him, but Ha-neul’s mother is fretting about her daughter having been out all night with someone who might have killed a patient, so she asks Hong-ran to set her up on a blind date. The crossed wires when Ha-neul asks Jeong-woo to go dress shopping with her is pretty funny.
The date is funny too, mostly because it’s disastrous. The blind date turns out to be Jeong-woo’s friend and rival Dae-yeong, who a) thought he was going to be dating Hong-ran and b) has a teenage daughter who ruins the whole thing even more. Jeong-woo is naturally pleased to hear this, but things take a nastier turn when Han-neul’s aunts visit and just judgementally ridicule the entire family, especially Ha-neul for losing her job. However, she does get the last laugh, since Jeong-woo lays into them about all the work he’d do for them as a plastic surgeon.
Does Ha-neul get a new job?
Things continue not to go especially well for Ha-neul in this episode, though. She is offered a job interview at a hospital she applied to, which she’s excited about and Jeong-woo encourages her to pursue it. Still, when she heads off Kyung-min tells Jeong-woo that he had received a call from the same hospital and revealed Ha-neul’s problems and exit there. Jeong-woo rushes off to find her, but by that point, she has already received a call that she won’t be getting the job.
How does Doctor Slump Season 1 Episode 4 end?
Even though Ha-neul doesn’t get the job, Jeong-woo is immediately there for her for support and to tell her that nothing that is happening to her is her fault – which is probably just what she needs to hear.
In the epilogue, we get a bit more tease for the ongoing plot about Jeong-woo’s place being bugged – it turns out the anaesthetist who was working in the surgery is responsible. What’s going on here? Maybe we’ll find out next week.
What did you think of Doctor Slump Season 1 Episode 4? Let us know in the comments.
