Summary
Ha-neul and Jeong-woo learn to live apart after their recent break-up, but fate quickly conspires to bring them back together.
As we settle into the back half of Doctor Slump, we’re taking the first few steps on a path of healing after Episode 8 took a rather miserable turn. Thus far in Season 1 the Netflix series was very much about Ha-neul and Jeong-woo learning to live with each other, but Episode 9 pivots slightly to primarily focus on them re-learning how to live apart.
Ha-neul’s justification for breaking up with Jeong-woo is that she felt he considered her a bit of a mug, not taking a great career opportunity for her sake, as though she was a charity case. We come to understand in this episode that this is a deep-seated feeling rooted in her past with Kyung-min.
As we know, Kyung-min was Ha-neul’s superior in the hospital. He was the reason she got the job in the first place, but that was simply because he saw a person he could readily exploit. Ha-neul was so organized and so hardworking that she’d do all the necessary work and Kyung-min could just claim credit for it. Ha-neul eventually spoke up, but the damage was done.
Another Blind Date
As understandable as Ha-neul’s decision-making is, that doesn’t do much to sugar the pill for Jeong-woo. He takes the job with Dae-yeong, where his presence is very much appreciated, but through Dae-yeong confessing he told Hong-ran to get Ha-neul to persuade Jeong-woo to take the position, he begins to figure out Ha-neul’s potential thought process.
And this is before things get worse. After Ha-neul’s aunt tells her mother about a man in Busan who is looking for a daughter-in-law to inherit his hospital instead of his aimless son, she’s set up on a blind date that quickly turns calamitous. The terrible date only reinforces Ha-neul’s belief that her being unemployed and unsuccessful is the only part of her life that matters, and what’s worse is that she thinks other people – her mother, Jeong-woo – think the same thing.
Ha-neul and Her Mother Reconcile
Ha-neul makes her displeasure known to her mother, and her uncle stages a kind of intervention so that the two of them can hash things out. This leads to what is, in my estimation, one of the finest moments of the season thus far, wherein Ha-neul’s mother reveals that she and her father were always proud to be her parents, and not because she was such a hard worker or so smart or successful – simply because she was their daughter.
However, reveling in Ha-neul’s accomplishments also blinded her parents to how much she was struggling in the process. However, there’s still time to atone for that, and Ha-neul’s mother intends to.
Unfortunately, Ha-neul’s exploits don’t read especially well to Jeong-woo, who assumes from a blind date and a family dinner that she’s just having a great time without him. This notion is quickly dispelled, though, and Jeong-woo tells Ha-neul that he’s willing to wait for her until she’s better enough to come back to him.
It doesn’t take long to for this to happen, at least in one way. Throughout this episode, Jeong-woo struggles in his new job because of his PTSD, with surgery bringing back painful memories that prevent him from performing. He’s determined to push on and keep trying, but it’s difficult, and Ha-neul hears about his struggles through Hong-ran.
At the end of the episode, Jeong-woo goes in for another surgery and recognizes his anaesthesiologist – it’s Ha-neul, there for him once again when he needs her most.
What did you think of Doctor Slump Season 1 Episode 9? Let us know in the comments.
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