[Drama Recap] Remember You: Episode 2

On the second episode of KBS 2TV's "Remember You", Lee Hyeon (Seo In-guk) heard a message left by Lee Joon-yeong (Do Kyeong-soo). Lee Hyeon returned to Korea to meet Lee Joon-yeong, who was his father's murderer and was the only one, who knew about his past when he used to be called "Monster".

When he came back to Korea, he recovered most of his memories little by little. When Lee Hyeon heard the recording of the conversation between Lee Joon-yeong and Lee Hyeon's father, he could recall the time when Lee Joon-yeong had turned around towards him and said 'Look, it's done as you wanted' after Lee Joon-yeong had killed Lee Hyeon's father. Later, he found a recording left by Lee Joon-yeong himself. The recording said, "Hyeon, do you remember this? I said I would be curious how you'd turn out when you grow up" and "By the time you hear this, I should already be right next to you". Lee Hyeon reacted to the message with such a bloodcurdling smile.

The chain of events that explains how Hyeon came into his present-day position as an eccentric professor are mostly clearly defined. His motivations are what's more difficult to grasp. In most dramas the death of a father and the disappearance of a younger brother would be the spur to a lifetime of seeking revenge. Yet bizarrely, Hyeon doesn't even seem to be taking these events all that personally. It's the psychology of motivation that keeps Kyeon engaged rather than any kind of emotional attachment. It's for this reason, and this reason alone, that Hyeon is willing to tolerate Ji-an's generally peskiness. Part of it is just that Hyeon likes showing off. I refuse to believe that the incident with the rolling chair was a mere coincidence. I strongly suspect that Hyeon deliberately placed it at the top of that ramp for the sole purpose of hoping that someone would try to get his attention and end up embarassing themselves by rolling all the way down to the bottom. Ji-an, for her part, as the well-matched trait of excessive persistence.

Hyeon won't go after his father's killer for the sake of revenge- and neither does Ji-an seem to care about getting back at Hyeon. Ji-an really just wants to solve the case, and she's smart enough to realize that Hyeon made important deductions about the crime scene which eluded her and the rest of the actual police squad. From an analytical perspective this all seems very inventive and fresh. So I'm at a bit of a loss as to why I still feel somewhat lukewarm about "Remember You". It might be an issue with the supporting cast. To this point they're all still mostly simple archetypes or ciphers. Part of this might just be their general proximity to Hyeon. Because Hyeon flips so many of the genre assumptions upside down, that makes people who want to find out what happened just for the sake of finding out what happened a little stale in comparison.

 Even so, "Remember You" is still only just starting out, so I'm withholding serious judgment for the time being. Curiously enough, the characterization is so strong that I actually find the temporary case more intriguing than the larger mystery, just because it gives a better idea as to how Hyeon operates in terms of problem solving. And the more I think about it, the more difficult is is for me to guess how Hyeon and Ji-an can possibly pull off a convincing romance when they seem genuinely disinterested in anything that isn't some sort of solvable puzzle. That's something at least.