Doctor on the Edge: Episodes 1-2

by DaebakGrits

As an alternative to completing mandatory military service, a plastic surgeon is assigned to work as a public health doctor in a small, isolated island village. While this city doctor struggles to adjust to the island critters and limited amenities, his greatest challenge is overcoming a trauma-induced fear of the ocean that makes life on the island especially difficult.

EPISODES 1-2

Our latest ENA drama opens with leading man DO JI-EUI (Lee Jae-wook) engaged in a series of military drills, and given the way he’s struggling with his pushups and floundering as he crawls under the barbed wire through the mud, it goes without saying — although Ji-eui says it anyway — that he’s decidedly not a soldier. Instead, he’s a public health doctor slated to serve a three-year term in a medically underserved area in lieu of his mandatory military service. Don’t let the fact he’s a board certified plastic surgeon fool you into thinking he’s unskilled outside his concentration, though, because he jumps into action when a (real) soldier takes a nasty spill down the climbing wall. It’s only after Ji-eui assesses the soldier’s other injuries that he volunteers to use his precision stitching to sew up the soldier/aspiring actor’s cheek and (hopefully) prevent the soldier’s face from scaring and avoid crushing his dreams of stardom.

Once Ji-eui is done suturing the soldier’s face, he and the other doctors undergoing their crash-course in military training gather to discuss their still-pending location assignments. Unanimously, they agree that an island would be the worst possible rural location, and rumor has it that island assignments also come with the added risk of no return. All it takes is the right incident, people, and love interest, and they can kiss the mainland goodbye forever. And if that wasn’t enough foreshadowing for this story, Ji-eui concludes the conversation with a cardinal hero mistake, saying he “could never be that unlucky.” (This is the part where Morgan Freeman would normally chime in and say: “He was, in fact, that unlucky.”)

To no one’s surprise, Ji-eui is assigned to the remote island village of Pyeondongdo, but his aversion to island life is not as simple as him disliking the lack of city comforts or fearing he might fall in love and get stuck there. No, the fact he nearly has a panic attack before stepping onto the ferry and has to take medication — pills his sunbae warns him come with some extremely gnarly side effects — is a strong indication that our hero has a trauma-induced phobia of the ocean.

Unfortunately, Ji-eui’s plan to sleep through the two-hour ferry ride to the island goes awry when a group of ajummas wake him to have him settle a dispute, but with the drug still pumping through his system, he’s disoriented. In the distance, he sees a woman standing near the boat’s railing, and fearing that she’s about to jump in the water he stumbles forward to stop her. He’s too late, though, and after she falls into the ocean, he jumps in, too, presumably to play the role of hero and good samaritan — except…the whole incident was a drug induced hallucination.

Ji-eui wakes up in the very public health center where he’s supposed to be working — much to the amusement of nurses UHM JEONG-SEON (Lee Soo-kyung) and HWANG SHIN-HYE (Joo In-young) and traditional Korean medicine doctor YONG JU-CHEON (Kim Yoon-woo). He’s insistent that he saw a girl jump overboard, but the clinic staff just give him the patent “bless your heart, you’re a little crazy, aren’t you?” look. His island welcome goes from bad to worse when he has an uncomfortably close encounter with a creepy, crawly centipede in his new bedroom, and then he realizes his luggage was switched with the very woman he hallucinated jumping overboard.

His quest to retrieve his suitcase is fraught with more inconveniences as a red sports car speeds past him and covers him in a thick plume of dirt. Then, after being directed by the village elders, he finally locates YOOK HA-RI (Shin Ye-eun) and his missing suitcase — but she’s being chased by a dog! Ji-eui doesn’t stop to ask questions and commences evasive actions, too, quickly running past Ha-ri and sprinting ahead to climb safely into a tree. Come to find out, the dog was friendly and a wee bit overeager to lather Ha-ri in doggy kisses.

With the dog incident safely behind them, Ji-eui and Ha-ri swap their matching suitcases, the insides of which reveal that they have decidedly opposite packing styles. Ji-eui notices — but doesn’t comment — on the medications Ha-ri has packed next to her bras, and likewise, Ha-ri doesn’t say anything about his ridiculously perfect OCD packing skills. She does, however, warn him against taking the medication with the adverse side effects.

Ji-eui, still believing he’d seen Ha-ri jump overboard, isn’t receptive to her advice, so Ha-ri takes him down a peg and explains what really happened during his drug-induced hallucination. You see, instead of trying to jump overboard, Ha-ri had been on a video call with her grandmother when the wind blew her cardigan into the ocean. Ji-eui, thinking she’d plunged into the water, had tried (unnecessarily) to rescue her in his comically impaired and incoherent state, and Ha-ri had knocked him unconscious in order to prevent him from foolishly following a hallucination into the water. She’d then carried/dragged him to the clinic, but does Ji-eui remember any of this after hearing Ha-ri’s version of events? Nope, not at all.

Ji-eui returns to the clinic, where he meets fellow public health doctor — and owner of the red sports car — HYUN CHI-YEON (Hong Min-ki). Their meet-cute, if I can call it that, seems like a scene cut straight from Absolute Value of Romance and one of Eui-joo’s BL stories, but these two don’t seem destined for a (bro)mance. Instead, Chi-yeon takes a jab at Ji-eui’s chosen concentration, accusing plastic surgeons of being money grubbers — but methinks the handsome doctor is a bit of a hypocrite considering he brought a hotrod to a remote island village and has deemed house calls a waste of time.

Once Ji-eui is properly acquainted with everyone working at the clinic, he’s roped into buying the other doctors lunch at the island’s only restaurant, but Ji-eui takes one bite of the questionable cuisine and jumps at the chance to return to the clinic to treat a walk-in patient. The village head, PARK CHUN-SIK (Woo Hyun), complains he’s got a bad case of indigestion, but Ji-eui is concerned his symptoms are more in line with a heart attack. Chun-sik, however, is insistent that he’s fine and leaves the clinic, despite Ji-eui’s warnings that he could die if his condition is not treated.

Given the drama’s set-up, I largely anticipated that Ji-eui would be incorrect in his diagnosis — you know, seeing zebras where there were only horses because he’s either used to treating more complex cases or a bit rusty after being a plastic surgeon — but Chun-sik does have a heart attack. Thankfully, because Ji-eui couldn’t let the matter rest, he and the clinic staff were on site at the docks when Chun-sik collapsed, and they were able to call a helicopter to transport Chun-sik and Ji-eui to a mainland hospital. Less fortunately for Ji-eui, though, it was a one-way helicopter ride, and because he missed the last ferry back to the island, he had to unexpectedly stay overnight in a hotel.

The next day, Ji-eui finds himself needing to take the ferry back to Pyeondongdo, and as he stares at the boat, his anxiety amps up. Brief flickering flashbacks reveal his trauma stems from some sort of ocean related accident that led to the death of a friend and the possible demise of his relationship with his girlfriend (cameo by Lee Seol). Sensing he’s on the verge of a panic attack, Ha-ri comes up behind him and places her headphones over his ears, intending to relax him with her music, but what starts out as a touching moment of compassion quickly turns humorous when the battery dies and the music stops. (whomp, whomp)

Not liking that Ha-ri is aware of his weakness, Ji-eui goes on the offensive and accuses her of crossing a line — a phrase that Ha-ri continuously holds against him going forward. When she buys up the last of the beer at the convenience store, she’s not going to cross a line and give him some. When he stumbles and she catches him — uh oh! That’s crossing the line again. (**drops him on his ass**) Suffice it to say, Ji-eui is on Ha-ri’s shit list now, and that’s mighty inconvenient seeing as she’s the new nurse at the clinic.

And wouldn’t you know it, when Ji-eui is tasked with going on a patient wellness check, he’s not able to use the excuse that he’s unfamiliar with the island to get out of it because Ha-ri is assigned to go with him. But what would have been a five minute boat ride to a remote area of the island to see their patient, turns into a 40-minute walk because of Ji-eui’s phobia.

Along the way, a spider lands on Ji-eui’s shoulder, and as he freaks out, Ha-ri gets to pull the I-don’t-want-to-cross-the-line card once again. Ji-eui’s stubbornness, however, evaporates the moment the (supposedly venomous) arachnid crawls down his shirt. He begs her to cross the line — and cross it she does. Her hands are all over his back and chest as she searches for the spider. As easy as it would have been for this scene to have gone the awkward romantic moment route, it remains a pleasantly platonic means of stripping away their earlier friction.

When they arrive at their patient’s house, he’s belligerent and refuses to be examined. Ji-eui is quick to respect the aggressive man’s wishes, but Ha-ri, who’s sympathetic to his daughter who requested the wellness check, tries to persuade him otherwise. Ultimately, fearing the situation could escalate, Ji-eui pulls her away, but as they make the trek back to the village, he respectfully listens as she vents her frustration over patients who neglect their health and the loved ones left to worry when they deny themselves treatment.

“Some people try their hardest to live, but end up dying anyway,” she says, adding that she’s someone who would fight to live as long as possible. Upon hearing her words, Ji-eui recalls the medications he saw packed in Ha-ri’s suitcase — which Google says are used by women with a high risk of developing breast cancer — and seems to come to the conclusion that she’s either sick or using the medication as a preventive measure because she lost a family member to breast cancer.

Considering both of Ha-ri parents are dead, I’m hoping we’re dealing with the latter because I can’t handle a sad ending. Unfortunately, Ha-ri’s reasons for returning to the island, despite having a successful career as an ER nurse at a university hospital, remain a mystery, and if K-drama 101 has taught me anything, it’s to expect one of two reasons for her homecoming: an illness or a major professional screw-up.

The pensiveness of their conversation is quickly dispelled when Ha-ri realizes that they are very lost, and as the darkness and sounds of the nocturnal wildlife close in on them, city boy Ji-eui grows increasingly paranoid and unnerved by the eeriness of the woods — and Ha-ri’s teasing ghost stories aren’t helping him. So, as you can imagine, he’s quite relieved to see Chi-yeon ride up on an ATV — too bad it’s only a two-seater, though. Chi-yeon, who’s met Ha-ri before and has an obvious romantic interest in her, gives her the spare helmet and a ride back into town — and yet, Ji-eui somehow beats them there.

Supposedly, an ajumma who drove her four-wheeler like she was racing in the Monaco Grand Prix picked him up and dropped him off at the town’s only restaurant. Still sore from white-knuckling the back of the ATV, Ji-euin accepts a drinking challenge from village elder, LEE JANG-SOO (Kim Ki-cheon), who has a bone to pick with Ji-eui. You see, Ji-eui refused to prescribe Jang-soo more than a three-day dose of antibiotics after he found out Jang-soo was sharing his medications with his wife, and the busy fisherman was affronted by the inconvenience.

Surprisingly — because Ji-eui definitely looks like a lightweight — Ji-eui drinks Jang-soo under the table, but afterwards Jang-soo, who the islanders acknowledge as being a bit violent when drunk, decides to pick a fight with his own reflection. He cracks a mirror and cuts open his hand. Unfortunately, because Ji-eui and Chi-yeon have both been drinking, it would be unethical for them to stitch him up, but after Jang-soo passes out from alcohol, they decide to wait until they’re all sober in the morning to suture his cuts.

Ha-ri stays at the clinic with Ji-eui through the night and assists him with the suturing in the morning. As she cuts off the knots he ties, she admires his professionalism and ability to separate his patient from the man who goaded him into a drinking match. Although they had a bit of a rocky start, this moment truly highlights their compatibility. Ji-eui and Ha-ri both care for their patients and believe strongly in their oaths as medical professionals, and it isn’t hard to believe that their like-mindedness — and close island proximity — will transition their professional rapport into something more romantic.

After Jang-soo wakes and finds his hand in a bandage, he causes a bit of a scene, but afterwards, Ha-ri comments that his outburst was likely due to his embarrassment, as anger is often a tactic used to avoid uncomfortable situations or misdirect others to keep something hidden. Ha-ri’s words remind Ji-eui of their patient from the day before, the one isolated in the mountains, and suddenly he sees their encounter with the belligerent man differently. What was he hiding from them?

Once again, Ji-eui and Ha-ri hike to the man’s house, but this time they’re a little more insistent and forceful. As Ji-eui suspected, the man is diabetic and suffering from foot necrosis, but he still won’t agree to let them treat him. Ji-eui is prepared to walk away again — can’t force the man to get treatment — but Ha-ri tells him to wait while she tries one last time. From a distance, he watches as she gets down on her knees and, obviously channeling her own feelings as a survivor to two deceased parents, beg the man to think of his daughter, who he’d be leaving behind if he died.

Her plea doesn’t result in an instant change of heart, but later that night, as she and Ji-eui share ramyeon at the clinic, the diabetic man shows up — looking like the serial killer in a horror film, mind you — to have the puss drained from his foot. Once they’ve cleaned and bandaged their patient’s foot and arranged for him to see a mainland doctor the next day with his daughter, Ji-eui grabs a first aid kit to take care of the cut on Ha-ri’s ankle.

While she watches him work, she brings up a previous conversation in which he deemed “treatment the answer to a suffering patient’s secrets” and tentatively broaches the topic of his anxiety. If he tells her his secrets, then she can help him heal — from a strictly professional standpoint, of course. (Yeah, sure. We all see the way you look at him.) Ji-eui doesn’t give her a response, but his silence and hesitation to respond suggest he’s wavering.

Because the city-doctor-relocates-to-a-rural-clinic plot is as cliché in Dramaland as contract marriages, I went into Doctor on the Edge fully expecting it to be mid. Instead, I found the premiere surprisingly captivating, and much of that comes down to Lee Jae-wook’s performance and Ji-eui’s characterization. While it’s never explicitly stated, Ji-eui appears to recognize that his own outbursts mirror those of his recent patients, stemming from the same embarrassment and desire to hide from the past. When Ha-ri gave him the headphones, the vulnerability of the moment prompted him to lash out as a way of masking his weakness. The parallels between Ji-eui and his patients in Episode 2 are obvious, but the drama avoids spoon-feeding its message or veering into overly melodramatic territory. Instead, Lee Jae-wook subtly conveys his character’s internal struggles and emotional growth — when he isn’t stealing scenes with his impeccable comedic timing and delightfully exaggerated physical comedy, of course.

I also like the fact that Ji-eui is clearly a very skilled doctor, but he’s neither cocky nor flashy. Unlike similar dramas, where small-town life on the island is used as a device to humble the protagonist and make them more likeable — and thus more appealing and compatible with their love interest — the island in this particular story is obviously going to serve as a means of healing Ji-eui’s trauma. Of course, Ha-ri will be a contributing factor, too, and I think she makes a solid companion for him. She’s just bubbly enough to offset his lingering gloom, but not so exaggeratedly effervescent that her dynamic with Ji-eui feels imbalanced. Overall, this drama is giving more slice-of-life story than a traditional medical drama, and while I doubt it will achieve the iconic status of Hospital Playlist, it shows plenty of promise as an enjoyable and engaging watch.