Summary
Just as things are finally looking up for Ha-neul and Jeong-woo, new problems begin to emerge.
The logical question coming out of Doctor Slump in the previous episode was where it might go next. I’ve raised a few times that Season 1 has seemed keen to vault over potential plot obstacles unusually quickly, dealing with the court case early and the break-up and reunion of the leads in the space of an episode. As it turned out we needn’t have worried, since Episode 11 is quick to drop a new problem on our protagonists.
After Episode 10, Ha-neul and Jeon-woo are very much back together. They enthusiastically spend more time together, stay up late snacking, and fall asleep with one another.
Jeong-woo and Ha-neul try to keep their relationship a secret
As we saw in the promo for this episode, Ha-neul’s mother catches Jeong-woo in bed with Ha-neul, though she doesn’t immediately recognize her daughter. There she is tending to her cabbages, and suddenly she thinks she has uncovered a conspiracy. Ha-neul decides to keep the relationship quiet from her now since they do tend to interfere, but it gives Ha-neul’s mother a chance to run wild with the idea that Jeong-woo has already moved on.
With all this secrecy at home, Ha-neul and Jeong-woo also decide to keep their relationship quiet at work, which, to be fair, is more sensible. However, trying to keep up a ruse does cause some problems, especially for Jeong-woo, who clumsily tries to maintain the air of a bachelor and inadvertently ends up mildly insulting Ha-neul.
A Family Affair
Eventually, Ha-neul’s mother figures out what’s going on and thinks it’s great news, if only because it’ll give her something to shut her sister-in-law up with. Jeong-woo is invited for dinner, and the excitement leads to openness, which is good for everyone. In seeing how happy Ha-neul is with Jeong-woo, and learning of the lengths she has gone to to help him, her mother knows she’s on the path to healing.
This is hard for Jeong-woo to relate to in some ways, since he has never really enjoyed the love of his parents. Even now, his being a plastic surgeon is somehow less than ideal for his cardiologist mother and father. Ha-neul had intuited some of what his home life was like back in the day after overhearing his mother downplaying Jeong-woo fainting in class, but she’s worried that her more positive relationship with her own family might feel like rubbing it in.
Likewise, she’s worried that her previous problems with Kyung-min might have stripped Jeong-woo of his only meaningful confidante, but Jeong-woo apparently had his suspicions about Kyung-min anyway.
Speaking of Kyung-min, he’s now the director of a hospital, working with the same professor who used to mistreat Ha-neul.
The episode ends by positioning Kyung-min as a kind of Big Bad for the remainder of the season. Jeong-woo recounts a story in which he suspected Kyung-min of spiking his drink when he got into medical school, but the Ambien found in his system was written off as a sleeping aid, and nothing more was said about it. Kyung-min went back to acting like Jeong-woo’s best friend. He clearly has a sinister undertone, and he certainly has ulterior motives and unhealthy relationships with dodgy people. Let’s keep an eye on him.
What did you think of Doctor Slump Season 1 Episode 11? Let us know in the comments.
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