Hyde, Jekyll, Me: Episode 9

by girlfriday

It’s becoming quite the juggling act to maintain this twin cover story, especially when our baddie seems to be closing in on the truth faster than anyone would like. Meanwhile, Hana discovers another point of connection to Seo-jin, and Robin gets a crash course on what it takes to be the uptight bossypants around here. Hint: lots of hair product.

 
SONG OF THE DAY

J Rabbit – “Wonderful World” for the Hyde, Jekyll, Me OST [ Download ]

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EPISODE 9 RECAP

Now that Dr. Tae-joo has revealed himself to be the creepy mastermind behind Dr. Kang’s kidnapping, we watch him adjust his expression before opening his door to Hana. He’s got his usual pleasant smile plastered on, until he looks up and sees Robin standing right behind her.

Tae-joo haltingly greets him as Seo-jin, noting how different he looks today, and Hana quickly explains that this is Seo-jin’s twin brother Robin. Uh-oh, the look on Tae-joo’s face says he’s not buying it.

He excuses himself for a few minutes, and Robin gets a little jealous, pointing out that Hana used to come here alone to meet the handsome single doctor, and tonight he looked disappointed when she brought a friend. “Or, because the friend is a boyfriend?” he asks cutely.

She doesn’t disagree, and decides that she’ll have to set Tae-joo up with a friend or something. Robin notices a photograph of Tae-joo with Dr. Kang, and it makes him quiet. Hana asks if he knew her too, but he doesn’t say anything.

Tae-joo is quite sure that Seo-jin doesn’t have a twin—he’d probably know, since he’s the real Lee Soo-hyun, which means he grew up with Seo-jin (though it comically works to their advantage how believable a chaebol twin birth secret is). He watches Robin and Hana interact, and then it dawns on him: Robin is the guy who ran to Hana’s rescue that day on the hospital roof.

Hm, I don’t like the extra-evil glint in your eye. He sets up a video camera to record the session, and Hana goes under as Robin watches. Tae-joo leads her back to the hospital roof, where she panics when she finds herself trapped up there with a man looming behind her.

We see that it’s Tae-joo, but she’s too terrified to turn around and face him. After a few attempts, Tae-joo counts to three and has her open the door and wake up, only when she does, she’s still stuck in a trance and starts gasping for air like she’s being choked.

Robin moves toward her in alarm, but Tae-joo holds him back, calmly trying to wake her. He finally lets Robin run over to her, then counts down again. This time Hana wakes up for real and Tae-joo watches closely as Robin wipes away her tears.

While Hana collects herself in the bathroom, Robin asks Tae-joo if this kind of trance state is normal, surprising Tae-joo with his knowledge of hypnosis. Tae-joo says that she’s reliving the moment she nearly died over and over again, pointedly adding that she’s not even enduring this pain for her own benefit.

Tae-joo’s meaning isn’t lost on Robin, and now both boys’ hackles are raised. As soon as Hana steps out from the bathroom, Robin steps in between them like a guard dog, refusing to let them get close. Hana worries about her slow progress and what it means for Dr. Kang, and Tae-joo adds that the case has become even more complicated, now that Dr. Kang is a suspect.

Outside, Robin grabs Hana in a hug, amazed that she’s been doing this on her own for weeks. He doesn’t like any of it, from the pain she’s experiencing to the looks of Tae-joo, and she calls him cute for being jealous. He hates that he couldn’t do anything to help her, but she hugs him back and says he’s by her side, and that’s enough.

As they head out, she worries about how Seo-jin is doing and suggests that they go check on him, and Robin quickly comes up with an excuse that he’s probably in shock and needs time to process everything on his own.

After reviewing the session recording, Tae-joo doesn’t find anything weird about Robin in his behavior. Cousin Seung-yeon then comes by for a visit to follow up on his hunch that dissociative identity disorder could explain a lot of Seo-jin’s strange incongruities.

Tae-joo demonstrates the use of images to implant new memories, saying that the human mind is a very eager participant, because people remember what they want to remember and forget what they want to forget.

Up until this point, Seung-yeon is voluntarily playing along, but Tae-joo uses the chance to snap his fingers and put him under hypnosis. He asks Seung-yeon if that kidnapping story he told last time was his own, and he says no, as expected. Tae-joo then asks if Seo-jin has a twin, and Seung-yeon again says no. Tae-joo smiles, since this only leaves one last theory to confirm…

After coaxing Hana back to work, Robin continues storyboarding for her Angel Bridge circus presentation, and says he’ll go with her to her hypnotherapy sessions from now on. She sees right through his concern that this is about Tae-joo, which he doesn’t really deny. In fact, once she calls him out on his jealousy, he adds another request while he’s at it: “Stop worrying about Seo-jin.”

He knows that she’s the only one helping Seo-jin right now and that she’s just worried, but what she’s putting herself through is worrying him. He holds up a yellow pencil case to yellow-card her a warning, and she agrees with a laugh.

She flips through his latest sketches of the bridge story, and at the one of the boy walking downcast along the bridge, she asks Robin why he came every night looking so forlorn like this. This is news to Robin, and Hana explains that she was there for a whole year before their actual first meeting, and every night he came with this same sad expression on his face and nearly jumped.

Robin lets her words sink in, and wonders aloud: “You were there for that long, worrying, watching… Seo-jin?” She’s just as surprised, and Robin explains—the boy who came every night to jump was Seo-jin, and the boy who caught her over the bridge was Robin.

It hits her now that this fits with what she knows about both of them: “So the one I saved was Seo-jin, and the one who saved me was Robin?” She picks up the drawing of the sad young boy and muses, “No wonder… It was Seo-jin…”

Robin turns her to look into her eyes and reminds her that Seo-jin is fine—he’s survived this long and will continue. She knows and says that it must be because of Robin that Seo-jin survived, which puts a smile on his face. If only you knew how true that was.

He inches closer, looking at her lips like he wants to kiss them… but the circus members crash the moment. They can tell they interrupted impending smoochies, and Eun-chang cutely demands an official statement. So Robin holds Hana’s hand up and declares officially that they’re dating now.

Robin goes to have a drink with Editor Min, who urges him to get back to webtoon work instead of spending all his time on dates. The way he worries about Robin “keeping secrets” from Hana makes me think he really does know the real story. Robin gets quiet at the mention of it.

Hana comes home and can’t stop thinking about Seo-jin being that suicidal boy on the bridge. As she looks at the drawings again, Robin tells Editor Min in voiceover that the reason that Seo-jin wanted to die was the reason that Robin was born… but he doesn’t know what that reason is. He wonders, “I don’t even know the reason I exist. So what could I tell Hana about the person that I am?”

In the morning, Seo-jin wakes up as upset as ever, since finding out that Dr. Kang could be the culprit rather than the victim in this case. Detective Na briefs his team on the newest possibility that Dr. Kang has some sort of connection to Seo-jin’s childhood kidnapping, and Secretary Kwon reports to Seo-jin that they’re looking into possible reasons that Dr. Kang would have it out for him.

Seo-jin is barely holding back his anger, and Secretary Kwon feels terrible for even suggesting that this is a possibility. But for now, they have to explore any connection that would give her motive to brainwash Ahn Sung-geun into thinking that he’s Lee Soo-hyun. The one thing they found out isn’t looking good: Dr. Kang treated Sung-geun as a patient for three years.

Seo-jin is an implacable wall when Hana comes downstairs, and she stops him to say with certainty that Dr. Kang isn’t guilty. She swears by the fact that she saw Dr. Kang lying in a pool of blood in her office that day, but Seo-jin remains cold and distant, and tells her to head to work on her own.

Seo-jin visits Tae-joo to ask what he knows about Dr. Kang’s research into mental hacking, and Tae-joo notes Seo-jin’s anxiety. What he offers doesn’t make things any better for Dr. Kang, naturally—he says that she’s the only person in the country that he knows of with the skills to pull off the kind of brainwashing that was done.

Tae-joo focuses on Seo-jin’s kidnapping, and he asks about the suspect’s insistence that Seo-jin was lying about the events. He asks if Dr. Kang knew everything about the kidnapping, and how she could implant memories that Seo-jin insists on not knowing.

Seo-jin leaves the meeting with a list of Dr. Kang’s research to look up, and ignores Secretary Kwon’s nervous insistence that they have a lot of work to do. He wants to go back home, and squeezes his eyes shut as he repeats Hana’s earlier statement over and over in his head: “Trust me. It can’t be Dr. Kang. Trust me.”

Hana calls Tae-joo to schedule another session the next night, but he urges her to take it slow and not overextend herself. She takes his advice, and after hanging up, he chides her for showing up that day at the hospital and getting mixed up in this. Huh, maybe that caring demeanor isn’t all an act when it comes to Hana?

But then he looks at his computer screen, where he’s pulled up video of Robin and Seo-jin side-by-side, and ominously says he’ll see them soon.

Hana comes home to find Seo-jin knee-deep in Dr. Kang’s research, agitated even more than usual and giving himself paper cuts as he flips through pages in mindless fury. She grabs a band-aid and just puts it on his finger, already familiar with his brand of stubborn refusal.

He lets her, and then pulls his hand away and goes right back to flipping pages. She asks why he’s doing this when he knows Dr. Kang didn’t do it. He was her patient for ten years and he knows he can trust her—he wants to trust her.

But Seo-jin spits back angrily that his own father didn’t come for him, so why would he ever trust a single soul? He denies that he ever trusted Dr. Kang: “I’ve never trusted anyone.” Hana looks at him with sympathetic eyes and tells him the story of a young boy who used to come to a bridge every night, intending to jump.

She asks if he remembers, and she says that she watched him every night because he seemed sad and in danger. She was out there because she fell while learning a wire trick, and for a while she was afraid to go back up because she was scared of wires.

Her father told her that it wasn’t the wire she was afraid of, but herself. She shares what her father told her: “Trust yourself. Then everything you fear in the world goes away.” She tells Seo-jin to trust himself if he can’t trust anyone else, and leaves him deep in thought.

He considers her words, and even Robin’s offer to help him start living. But Seo-jin just clutches his head to stop the swirling thoughts of the kidnapping and declares in defeat, “It’s too late for that.” He falls asleep right there on the floor from exhaustion.

That’s exactly how Robin wakes up that night, and he gets a call from Woo-jung reminding him to get back to work on his webtoon. She makes sure to warn Hana that Robin needs time to work tonight, so he locks himself up in his room to draw. Hana asks him to check on Seo-jin, since he’s not doing too well.

In the morning, Seo-jin wakes up in bed… only it’s not Seo-jin. It’s still Robin. Ruh-roh. He calls Secretary Kwon, who flips out to hear Robin in the daytime. He runs into the house and finds Robin staring at his reflection in the mirror, and continues to unravel some more.

Neither of them understands how this happened, since this is the first time, and Robin went to sleep like he was supposed to. But he points to the stacks of books, and notes that this isn’t normal Seo-jin behavior, and he wonders if maybe what happened with Dr. Kang is scary enough that he doesn’t want to face it.

Omg, has he retreated indefinitely? Can he do that? Secretary Kwon asks the same thing, eyeing Robin suspiciously just in case he did something to keep Seo-jin from coming out. Robin makes it clear that he doesn’t have that kind of control, and this is just as startling to him.

Of course it has to be the one day that Seo-jin can’t call in sick—there’s a board meeting today, where he’ll invariably be subjected to a round of questions from the vultures on the board. Seo-jin has been preparing for this for months, and now he’s nowhere to be found and Robin is standing there looking befuddled.

Chairman Dad calls to check on them, and when Secretary Kwon starts tripping over his words, Robin hisses at him to say that they’ll be there. Secretary Kwon has a breakdown within a breakdown, but Robin says he can’t just let Seo-jin lose everything he’s worked for, and plans to play the part. This is going to be fun.

Robin heads to the bathroom and puts on a pair of glasses with determination, and asks how that looks. Secretary Kwon cries, “You look like Robin with glasses!” But then he reaches up to his hair: “It’s okay, it’s okay—we have The Part.” HAHAHA.

Secretary Kwon tries out Seo-jin’s signature severe side-part, only to get confused over whether it goes left to right or the other way. Ha. Robin snaps that it’s left to right, and Secretary Kwon hands him the pomade and comb like it’s a weapon, both of them watching warily as Robin starts working his hair over to the side.

Getting dressed as Seo-jin is the easy part, and Secretary Kwon trains Robin to look over people, and to glare ice-daggers. Robin tries to make ice with his eyeballs, and just looks like he’s confused, scared, and a little constipated.

Secretary Kwon tells him he can’t smile at all today, and his default mode should be to dismiss everyone and everything. Robin tries his best to memorize all the faces and names and all of Seo-jin’s prepared answers to the likely questions, not at all putting Secretary Kwon at ease with his furrowed brow.

Seung-yeon makes sure to meet with a few of the board members to gang up on Seo-jin during the meeting, and looks triumphant when Robin-as-Seo-jin arrives late. To Secretary Kwon’s horror, Robin goes around the room shaking people’s hands in greeting, which is already so un-Seo-jin-like.

Robin gets through the presentation smoothly, but it’s the questions that trip him up. When he’s asked about Dr. Kang being his physician and whether that means he’s being treated for psychological issues, Robin doesn’t back down, and says he’s been seeing Dr. Kang since the kidnapping, in an effort to be as healthy and well-adjusted as possible. When asked if he can prove his mental stability, he agrees immediately, though he adds that Dr. Kang can’t do so at the moment because she’s missing. Phew.

They ask about Hana and why the circus contract was extended instead of being terminated as planned, and this time Chairman Dad steps in to defend the decision and add that it’ll end when Dr. Kang’s case is resolved.

Robin starts to agree, but then cuts in to say that the contract will remain in effect, reminding them of the long history of the Wonder Circus. He says that Hana’s passion for the circus is the spirit that he wants to maintain as he leads Wonderland, to be a place that excites people and touches them.

The meeting ends successfully, but that speech is enough for Chairman Dad to know that this isn’t Seo-jin, and he confronts Robin and Secretary Kwon about it. Robin hangs his head and admits the truth. Dad is ready to call it quits on Seo-jin and have him hospitalized, but Robin says that Seo-jin is hiding behind him right now, and that he wants to help Seo-jin come back out.

Dad doesn’t trust Robin when he could just run off with Seo-jin’s body for good. But Robin counters that he could already have done so if that’s what he really wanted. It’s a good point, and Dad doesn’t have a smartass remark for that.

Secretary Kwon looks like he aged about ten years in one day, and as they ride the elevator down, he admits that Robin is better with people than he realized, impressed with the temporary plan to keep Chairman Dad from exploding. Robin says they weren’t empty words—he really does intend to help Seo-jin.

He admits that he doesn’t know for sure if it’s to help Seo-jin or himself, and says that the most truthful answer is that he’s curious. He wants to know why Seo-jin is hiding, because it’s the same reason why Robin exists—the one thing he’s never known.

He lights up when he sees Hana walking around Wonderland, and it’s messing with my head that he looks like Seo-jin but is smiling at her so widely. She doesn’t notice him before she heads to the circus office, and he just stands back, grinning like a goof.

Robin nearly jumps out of his skin when Woo-jung appears and acts friendly, but he quickly realizes that she thinks he’s Seo-jin, and frowns when she declares them allies—split-Hana-and-Robin-apart allies. She assumes that he’s here to see Hana and runs in to get her, leaving Robin completely turned around.

Hana comes out to meet Seo-jin and sees him already walking away, so she follows. Up ahead, Robin gets a call from a blocked number, and the distorted voice on the other end tells him it’s time to meet… and to do exactly what he says or Dr. Kang dies.

Robin starts looking around, but we see that Tae-joo is there in the background, watching him as he gives instructions over the phone. Tae-joo tells him to put his hand in his pocket and walk ahead, and Hana follows from a distance.

Tae-joo leads him to the haunted house where the kidnapping first began, and says over the phone, “It’s me, Lee Soo-hyun. Let’s meet.” But… Robin doesn’t know who you are, does he? Eeek.

Hana reaches the foot of the haunted house and she looks up, alarmed to see Seo-jin heading inside…

Closing caption: What I need right now is the courage to look directly at my scar.

 
COMMENTS

I can’t decide if it’s good or bad for Robin to be going in there. On the one hand, he doesn’t have any of Seo-jin’s phobias or traumatic memories, so he can walk right in and confront Tae-joo head-on, and we know he won’t have a panic attack meltdown. On the other, he has no idea what happened to Seo-jin during the kidnapping, so everything he could say will be the wrong thing. Not to mention the horror if something were to happen to make Seo-jin wake up inside that haunted house.

I have to say, Tae-joo’s obsession with what happened to them as children is making me curious about the kidnapping, whereas before, I mostly just figured the situation was horrible and he was crazy. Don’t get me wrong—I still think he’s crazy. It’s just interesting that what seems to infuriate him the most is Seo-jin not remembering what really happened, as if a child blocking out a traumatic memory isn’t perfectly normal. Isn’t that kind of his professional specialty? But it does make sense that his sole obsession is with making Seo-jin face the past, because he feels justified in his rage, but no one else is around to verify that he’s in the right. If a crazy person stomps his feet in the forest and no one’s around to hear it, did it really happen?

I’m pretty sure Tae-joo already guesses that Robin is Seo-jin’s split-personality, which is the part that’s far more dangerous than making empty ransom threats over the phone. I really don’t think he’ll kill Dr. Kang, because there’s not much reason to keep her locked in a secret closet if he wanted to off her. He even seems sympathetic to Hana, which creeps me out more than if he were to just find her an annoying thorn in his side. If anything, killing her would keep his secret safe, but instead he’s hypnotized her not to remember his face, and is forming a bond with her as a patient so that she trusts him. THAT creeps me out.

I would’ve been pouty about the lack of Seo-jin today, if it weren’t for the reverse undercover hijinks we got (though he WILL be back tomorrow, riiiight?). I’ve been waiting for Robin’s turn to play Seo-jin, and just the hair jokes were worth it alone. I wish his day hadn’t been spent in the board meeting though, which I get is motivation for him to dress up and play the part, but what I want to see is Robin’s reaction to Hana’s relationship with Seo-jin. I found his jealousy cute, but I kind of want each of them to take the other more seriously, as competition.

Is that weird? There just isn’t a whole lot of conflict in this drama, crazy kidnapping doc notwithstanding, plus I think he’s underestimating Hana’s concern for Seo-jin. He certainly didn’t help matters when he told her that the suicidal boy on the bridge was Seo-jin—now she knows that of the two “twins,” that makes Seo-jin the one she was watching over for a full year. Her feelings for Seo-jin are still very much worry and sympathy, but I can see how Seo-jin the wounded puppy makes her heart ache in a way that happy, well-adjusted Robin doesn’t.

And because of the growing love triangle, I find that I’m relieved that we’re playing the twin angle when it comes to Hana, because I feel like it’s important for her to see them as completely separate. Is it wrong to hope that she never finds out the truth? I know that can’t happen, but part of me wants the version where she helps Seo-jin face his fears so that he’s strong enough to stand on his own, and she falls in love with him in the process and never knows the truth about Robin. I don’t know, maybe I’m splitting hairs, but her choosing one over the other sits better with me than her loving both, but I guess we’ll cross that inevitable bridge later. Till then, more Seo-jin-as-Robin and vice versa please. We barely cracked the surface with the hair jokes. And we haven’t even gotten to the flower pants.

 
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