Divorced 33 year old doctors! Let the hijinks begin!
Side dish: The last thing that you’ll want to eat once a marriage starts going south is wedding cake. So, while viewers of “Emergency Couple” are still in the honeymoon phase of their viewership, let them eat at Bobbette & Belle. The artisanal bakery has created some beautiful wedding cakes that are delicious, too.
Episode Recap
The story begins with a wedding couple running down a busy shopping arcade from a bunch of men. First impression: Choi Jin Hyuk playing the groom is super cute; much more expressive than his role in “The Heirs”. Second impression: Song Ji Hyo’s bride is wearing a dress that makes her look like a Lego figurine.
The couple bursts into a church, and are reluctantly married by the priest (Yoon Joo Sang from “I Hear Your Voice”). Turns out that before he became a man of the cloth, the priest taught the groom, Oh Chang Min in medical school. Chang Min seals the deal with a kiss for new wife, Oh Jin Hee.
A montage shows the transformation of Chang Min and Jin Hee’s wedding portrait from blissful to snarling, and the next scene takes place in a psychiatrist’s office. In one-on-one sessions with the psychiatrist, he’s complaining about her laziness, and she’s complaining about a growing bald patch and chest pains.
Having been cut off by his parents for marrying Jin Hee, Chang Min was forced to quit medical school, and has become a pharmaceutical sales rep. He endures the humiliation of trying to entice doctors who were his juniors in medical school to use his drugs. In a bid to network with a hospital director, a man-eating hussy, as evidenced by her red dress and grabby ways, Chang Min drinks to excess, and ends up singing and dancing on the table. I can’t help but think excitedly, “That’s Won shaking his ass!”
Meanwhile, at home, Jin Hee is clutching her chest in the aftermath of a call from her mother-in-law, and desperately rummaging through a tool box filled with drugs. Jin Hee has been taking pills prescribed to her by her husband.
After failing to make a deal with the cougar of a director, Chang Min manages to stumble home soaking wet, and is angry to find his wife lying on the couch. She accuses him of misdiagnosing her physical ailments, or, worse, trying to poison her with medication. The couple takes turns destroying each other’s beloved belongings. His valued possessions consist mostly of manly electronics, while her treasure trove consists largely of practical pottery from the kitchen. It is at this point that I question the writer’s decision to start a series by showing the lead couple at their worst.
Fast forward six years, and Chang Min is in an eerily wedding-like situation. He is wearing a tux, and mounts a platform that is raised before an audience. (“Is he a stripper?” my significant other asks). Turns out he’s about to sing at a wedding reception for his friend, the groom, while a friend of the bride plays piano accompaniment. Of course, the pianist turns out to be his ex-wife, Jin Hee.
They have a war of words, but Jin Hee clearly loses this round, because it turns out that she is wearing her wedding dress for the occasion. That seems, at best, like an attempt to upstage the actual bride, and at worst, an ill omen, but whatevs. Jin Hee drowns her shame in alcohol, and ends up in the ER being saved by a world weary doctor who is so clearly going to be the second male lead (Lee Pil Mo).
Meanwhile, we meet Chang Min’s extended family of doctors, and see what a pit of snakes that is. Chang Min is looked down upon, because his mom failed to become a doctor, and his father gave up the medical profession to go into…research! However, Chang Min’s stock is on the rise, because he returned to medical school after the divorce, and he is about to start interning.
Chang Min arrives at the hospital where he is to start his internship, and predictably embarrasses himself with being caught in a lie by a sexy fellow intern (Clara), as well as his ER supervisor, the world weary doctor who treated his ex-wife. As the ER chief does a roll call of his team of interns, he calls out “Oh Jin Hee”. Chang Min’s eyes widen in alarm. That is when his ex-wife bursts out from behind partition curtains, wearing the same wedding dress, having spent the night in ER recovering. The couple’s eyes meet, and sparks of hate fly. I think I’m warming up to this premise!
Comments
The first episode has been quite zippy, quickly establishing the key characters, and giving the background on the current combative situation. I am at my most forgiving at the beginning of a drama, so I hope they do not continue turning the lead couple into harpies in a duel to the death. That would be tiresome, and make me regret choosing to cover this series. I do have high hopes for this drama since the lead couple are in their early 30s, and having been married, will not have any virginal hangups. No young eye candy in sight, but there are 19 episodes left.
Junggugeo Kaenada 중국어 캐나다
Emergency Couple (응급남녀)
Noonas Over Forks 
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