Dr. Romantic 2: The Lemming Crew
Doctor Romantic 2: The Lemming Crew
*****spoilers*****
In Korean dramas, Seoul is often portrayed as the centre of the universe as it is the locus of all the country’s wealth, culture and opportunity. It is the New York/Chicago/Los Angeles of South Korea all in one, and therefore, also the main setting of almost all kdramas. Yet, a drama like Doctor Romantic 2 (also known as Romantic Teacher Doctor Kim 2) turns this trend on its head by proposing an interesting question: what happens in places an hour outside of Seoul? After watching the SBS network series, I can firmly say that the answer is: nothing good. This is not an average hospital drama where real-life traumas can be mined for viewer enjoyment. No. This drama also serves as a cautionary tale about a small country hospital that has a textbook case of the “cults.”
The story chronicles an unnamed dissident organization that was formed and is maintained at Doldam Hospital, hitherto, referred to as Doldam Abbey. A place where every conversation has a witness and privacy is a myth. Like the quaint countryside setting, the hospital serves as an almost perfect place for this analogue nightmare to play out. The truly horrifying aspect of the cult embedded within Doldam Abbey’s walls is its ability to hide in plain sight. Its members present the country hospital as a scrappy, antiquated, under-resourced institution where only the most authentic doctoring takes place, however upon closer inspection, it is also a place of intense violence that nurtures a weirdly desperate group mentality.
The earnest cult members use the country backdrop to explain (and excuse) the gross lack of modern medical technology or codes of ethics or institutional protocols that are designed to preserve life within the healthcare system. But who needs any of that jazz when you have one permanent doctor/cult leader, who only refers to himself as Teacher Kim (played with a grimace on loop by Han Suk-kyu)? I mean, why would patients need or want to know their doctor’s real name anyways? They just need to know he’s the best, right? And those employed at Doldam Abbey are lining up to shout that in every patient’s face.
While Season 1 of Doctor Romantic showed how this cult leader was able establish power in a country hospital, season 2 provides a gripping portrait of how he manages to maintain dominance over his followers. His many talents which are worshiped by his errant clan include: performing dangerous bedside surgeries; performing surgeries immediately after being involved in a massive bus accident (his second in recent memory); creating his own emergency room “hotline” to bypass the hospital director’s orders; guilting and humiliating patients in front of their children; making scrapbooks of his subordinate’s family tragedies; never going home; grimacing; putting cult members in their place; emotional manipulation; and making tragedies last as long as they can by getting people to relive them over and over. While ruggedly handsome in a Keith Richards (circa 2020) kind of way, his “romantic” nature is not linked to his seduction skills (as it stands it is virtually impossible to get between him and his Bob Dylan tapes) but because he is a passionate idealist. He is the Lord Byron of surgical practice and old timey morality that his cult members just love to defend at every moment and at any cost.
In Season 2, when Teacher Kim isn’t avoiding treatment for his many ailments or injuries (such as carpal tunnel syndrome, multiple sclerosis and chronic shoulder injuries), he spends his time losing consciousness on the floor of his office. This makes the cult members uneasy and they decide that their reliance of him may be taking a toll on their leader. As they collectively decide to develop some independence, he sulkily plots increased dominance over the Abbey by ensuring conflict exists everywhere and between everyone. He is angered that his cult members are “ignoring” him by giving him space to recover and heal in peace. He wants none of these kindnesses. He detests them.
What is this guy up to? (Photo courtesy of SBS)
According to Teacher Kim, Teacher Kim doesn’t make bad decisions. In Season 1, it seemed like he made some questionable moves like leaving the emergency room mid-shift to go to the local casino (for some authentic off-site doctoring). But it was all for the health of the cult because this act was meant to show new recruit, Dr. Kang Dong Joo (current status unknown…uh oh!), where he stood at Doldam Abbey. You would think that being promoted to 2nd in command after only an hour of employment might make some of the other cult members nervous or jealous but they just thanked Teacher Kim for understanding Doldam so well. Only one decision in Season 1 seemed to ruffle a few feathers. He attempted to demote resident zealot Dr. Yoo Seo-jeong (played by Seo Hyun-jin), who is affectionately known as “the crazy whale”, to an orderly. Her multiple breakdowns where she threatened violence to herself and others with a scalpel were relatively easy to manage and staff were strangely offended at even the mere suggestion of the personnel change. Why would anyone think that maybe she should take some time off from doctoring and figure some things out before she was entrusted with the care of the most vulnerable? At Doldam, surgeons are believed to be at their best when teetering on the brink of sanity and nursing a debilitating wrist injury. D. Romance practices like this throughout the entirety of Season 2! Her co-workers/enablers understood that her questionable sanity was merely the result of head trauma, dirty feelings for the new doctor, and a whole lot of misinformation about her previous hospital relationship. If only she had been exposed to the constant eavesdropping in Seoul that she is at Doldam, she would have never been in the dark about her ex’s cheating scandals! An orderly? Really, Teacher Kim!? But this punishing “lesson” was all a part of his plan!
Season 2 reveals Doldam Abbey for what it really is….a receptacle for reject doctors who rat on their superiors or who drug themselves to unconsciousness to avoid throwing up into open body cavities. After a few tantrums and foiled attempts at escape, this new collection of social deviant doctors seem more than content to stay and serve their Chief Surgeon overlord.
With Kang Dong-joo “gone,” a new heartthrob doctor, Seo Woo-jin, is recruited. Dr. Seo is played without effort by Ahn Hyo-seop whose face originally convinced me that he was good at acting but eventually made me realize that he was just ok at it. He seems to know his way around an operating room but given his age and visage, I suspect he may be a male model who has simply participated in his fair share of medical re-enactments to pay for fine arts school. No one at Doldam cares if he is without a medical licence though, he’s one of them. They recognize this as soon as the gangsters who want him to repay their debt start stripping off their clothes and camping out in the lobby. Their behaviour and his violent reactions are just par for the course at Doldam Abbey where laws or human decency don’t exist. He also immediately over-identifies with Teacher Kim as a long-lost father figure, which scores him big points with the hoarde. Like, Kang Dong-joo before him, Woo-jin’s painful past makes him open to Teacher Kim’s obvious grooming. While the former needed a lot more convincing to join the cult’s ranks, Seo Woo-jin was frankly ready to serve any cult leader who happened to look in his direction.
The other recruit, Cha Eun-jae (played by Lee Sung-kyung), is an entitled charlatan who is asked to leave her position at a prestigious Seoul hospital. Why, you ask? She falls asleep during surgeries due to her dependency on drugs. This can’t happen in Seoul, so she is transferred to the country where the patients are expendable. As someone who is completely unable to accept her mistakes, her shortcomings or any sort of accountability, she is more difficult to woo for D. Romance. Nonetheless, once a third party gossip chain reveals that she was “chosen” to come to Doldam, she was immediately on board! Teacher Kim awards her faithfulness by ignoring her history of drug abuse and slipping her some “special” pills he made to calm her gag reflex. Prioritizing cheapness and efficiency, he simply gives her a bunch of digestive mint placebos that changes her life and allows her to perform surgeries sans vomit. Baller cult leader move, Teacher K!
The real doctor romance! (Photo courtesy of SBS)
Now that Cha Eun-jae is able to enter and leave an operating room without passing out, she is off to the surgical races…and steals the heart of Seo Woo-jin. This is a bit tricky because she originally had feelings for the resident orthopedic doctor Bae Woo-jeung (played by Shin Dong-wook) whose hair and facial expressions are less impressionable than a mannequin. The unfortunate part about the latter attraction is that the ortho doctor appears to be in another relationship with “Jessie”, a mock skeleton hand that he takes everywhere and talks to about any manner of things. Mostly emotional topics but sometimes surgical ones. I really thought him and Jessie had a good thing going but he is later revealed to be sweet-talking “Elizabeth,” a full-bodied skeleton right in front of Jessie. What a two-timing varmint! Why do jerks get all the good ones?
Dr. Bae and Jessie (Photo courtesy of SBS)
Teacher Kim’s head nurse/stepford wife Nurse Oh is pretty one-note. She often has me wondering if Nurse Ratchet had an insufferable and volatile doctor as her mentor too. I can’t tell whether she is demonstrating confidence in her job or symptoms of PTSD. Maybe both?! As the cult matriarch she is both feared and revered. She rules the emergency room with an iron fist and the deafening threat of two frightening words: “Mr. Gu”. This summons her henchman/minion to sort out any situation with brute force and violence. She also seems to be “involved” with the resident anesthesiologist, Dr. Nam (played by Byun Moo-win) who could accurately be described as the ghost of a one-note character. He doubles his surgical responsibilities with those of the head chef at a restaurant down the street where he enjoys preparing meals for large parties after performing several consecutive surgeries. His chef job sometimes takes precedent over performing surgeries and he is eventually fired by the no-nonsense hospital administrator Park Min-Guk (played by Kim Joo-Ho). Despite Dr. Nam’s termination, the cult members wait patiently for him to show up and perform random surgeries. And he does without fail or authorization!
The other mainstream romance narrative in the drama features the unlikely duo of Nurse Park (played by Kim Min-jae) and Dr. Yoon Ah-reum (played by So Joo-yeon). While they never converse or learn anything about each other throughout the entire drama, they are drawn together by their total physical isolation from the rest of the healthy, functional world. Dr. Yoon’s obvious lollypop addiction has weakened her judgement as she is no match for Park’s devilish mix of charm, false encouragement and emotionless facial expressions that he has obviously perfected after studying the cult lover playbook every night.
Dr. Yoon!
No cult is complete without a ritual killing. Luckily, they are provided with a willing volunteer, in the former hospital director Yeo Woon-young (played by Kim Hong-pa). When Dr. Yoon recognizes that the Director has a terrible, life-threatening disease, she is asked by Nurse Park not to disclose it to the sensitive Yeo for fear that he’ll have a bad day. Though seemingly aware of his imminent demise anyways, he signs DNR (Do Not Resuscitate) papers which Teacher Kim takes a direct challenge to his authority. Director Yeo is revived against his will only to have Teacher Kim end his life for real, while everyone watches through the glass doors. Sure its devastating….but Doldam’s home.
Only two men are trying desperately to eradicate the cult and expose Teacher Kim for the fraud that he is. Doldam Abbey’s new hospital director Park Min-guk is trying to ensure order, protocol and VIP doctoring for Seoul patients that know how to drive and use a GPS. His two trusted sidekicks gather information on Teacher Kim and his followers as a full-time job because reeling in this big fish will mean even less pesky doctoring for their boss and themselves. Park Min-guk is joined by the long-suffering Board Chairman in Seoul, Do Yoon-wan (played by Choi Jin-ho), who is trying everything he can to keep control over Doldam. He merely wants to destroy the hospital by bulldozing the building probably with D. Romance inside. Plus, he also believes that the poor don’t deserve to be “sick” and that they should just die in the same place they were born…the gutters. While the two men join forces, Park Min-guk’s proximity to Teacher Kim gives way to a dangerous idealization. At the beginning of the drama, you are rooting for him to eradicate the plague that has infested Doldam Abbey but by the last episode he is so on board with Teacher Kim that he actually begins seeing patients….poor ones…at the hospital where he is employed as a doctor! Unthinkable! He put up a valiant fight but that wiley bastard, D. Romance was just too strong.
The show presents one moral dilemma after another to people who may in fact be incapable of spelling dilemma. These dilemmas are so neatly integrated into each episode plot, it is almost as if someone is orchestrating them…someone from inside the Abbey.
While most of this review was in jest, I really enjoyed the show and the bombastic nature of the storytelling. The acting was pretty great with a standout performance by Lee Sung Kyung. I can’t tell you how delighted I was to see Shin Dong-wook as well after missing him so terribly since Soulmate (2006). Han Suk-kyu is pretty unbeatable in terms of captivating audiences with a couple of key retorts and dumbfounded looks.
In summary, this is how I would encourage you to proceed in watching this drama: Remember the time that you first listened to that kpop song by that artist you deeply loved but you turned it off halfway through and pretended that it didn’t exist because for you to live on, it simply couldn’t exist? That is what you have to do with your disbelief when watching this show, turn it off and believe it doesn’t exist as an act of self-preservation.