Up to now we have been mostly involved with getting to know our robot, Shin III. Now it’s time to see human Shin’s side of the story. For a character who hasn’t done much but sleep for half of the drama, he’s really taking over. Is he going to turn everyone’s plans upside down? (Do you see those neck veins?) There will be SPOILERS for these two episodes.

Life is pretty fun, actually.

What do we know about Shin’s life before the coma? As a child he was threatened by his grandfather to send his mother away. Thus, he lost both his mother and his father at about the same time. We see that a similar thing happens when he is grown and tries to sneak out at night. He is surrounded by security guards and is threatened again. On top of that, his grandfather slaps Secretary Ji whenever Shin does something wrong. That’s not twisted at all. Shin sums it up when he gets out of the house on the pretext of taking a girl to a hotel and then sending her away so he can be alone. “Life is pretty fun, actually.”

Dropping bombshells

It’s good that they show Shin taking some time to recover from the coma; we see him in bed a lot and getting tired and stumbling. However he is now able to pop in and out and surprise people that assume he is Shin III. Part of the charm of these episodes is all the bombshells people drop of who is who and who knows what. The Chairman, who knows that Shin III is a robot, invites him to lunch along with Secretary Ji, who doesn’t realize that he knows. He talks about handing over the company. Shin and Ji trade suspicious glances.

When the Chairman goes out of the room for a minute, Shin says to Ji, “Don’t you recognize me?” Ji is shocked that Shin is impersonating the robot. But the Chairman suddenly realizes that Shin isn’t wearing a watch, which tips him off to who he is, and he comes back. He sends Ji out, and we agonize with Ji over what is going to happen next. Shin breaks the ice by asking if he is like his father. If he thinks he’s going to surprise the Chairman, he is disappointed. He asks Shin what he would do with the company, and I thought I had walked into A Poem a Day when Shin replies, “Sell it off. I’m just kidding; how could I?”

After the Chairman leaves, Shin yells furiously at Ji, “Have I ever wanted Grandfather’s position?” Secretary Ji, who is probably his only friend, blurts out, “Why are you like this? I did lots of things to protect you. Do you want to be someone who’s even worse than a robot?” Way to put your foot in it! Still…how would you react to that?

How would you feel?

In Episode 14 when So Bong gets after Shin for being antagonistic to Shin III, he asks her, “If one day something that looks like you shows up, wears your clothes, steals your dad, and people tell you that it’s better than you, how would you feel?” That’s his issue in a nutshell. She can’t answer, and we can see his point. He asks her, “Why don’t you get us confused?” He seems intrigued by her and why she would like a robot. “I know as soon as I see him,” she claims. (I can see that coming back to bite her!)

Back at the hideout, Shin calls Secretary Ji to complain. “I can’t stand that punk. I’m going back to work. I don’t care if you get mad.” He’s pretty taken aback when Ji agrees, “Let’s do that.” Hahaha. He thought Ji would want to keep him in cotton wool longer, but Ji is just, “Who knew I could ever get him to go back?”

We sympathize with Shin’s feelings, but we can’t justify it when he loses his temper and hits Shin III with a wrench. (Not that I believe that Shin could really hit him with enough force to break the wrench!) Mom comes in, sees the damage, and just quietly says, “Shin.” Shin III looks over at her and Shin freaks out, grabbing him by the lapels. “I’m the real Shin!” he shouts. It doesn’t help that he knows she lied to him about meeting Shin III to talk. At any rate, if you ever wondered how you repair artificial skin on a robot, now’s your chance to find out.

How does everyone else feel?

Secretary Ji sends Shin III to So Bong’s gym to get him out of the way, since Shin is now going to work. Her dad is still annoyed at his mere existence and assigns him a lot of menial work to do. The two trainees object to this treatment. “You could be arrested for human rights violations,” one warns. “It’s robot rights,” Dad mutters as he walks away.

The Chairman is busy thinking about who will run his company next; he doesn’t seem to be considering  Director Seo (who wants it). He asks Shin, Shin III, and Secretary Ji about it, all of whom turn him down. We can’t help wondering if he is being sincere or trying to psych them out, but he is getting dementia for real now and all of his thinking is suspect.

Rude for a young guy

We find out why Shin went to Czechia. We thought it was to see his mother, but he was going to ask her about his father. He had overheard his grandfather and Director Seo talking about a nurse they were bribing. She knows that Shin’s father’s death wasn’t a suicide. He actually asks Seo what he knows about his father. (He doesn’t admit anything.) Now, when he goes back to work at the company, the first thing Shin does is search for an address card he had hidden. He nearly faints and drops it, and Secretary Ji finds it later on the floor.

The card is from a nursing home. When Secretary Ji checks the place out, he finds that the person with that phone number doesn’t work there any more. Ji gives them his card, and the clerk exclaims, “Someone else from PK came by the other day.” Ji shows him Shin’s picture, and sure enough he’s the one. “He was rude for a young guy,” the clerk says. Ahaha! Yup, we know.

Dating a robot

To make up for being at work and not seeing him as much, So Bong invites Shin III on a date. They go to a fortune teller (“This isn’t the fortune of someone who’s alive. Are you a lump of metal?”) and listen as someone plays piano out on the sidewalk. So Bong admires him so much that Shin III downloads piano tutorials and plays a song for her. Then, seeing that other girls are admiring him, So Bong takes him off to a movie. She watches the movie and he watches her. It’s a sad one and she cries, but he says, “I know, I don’t have to hug you.”

He goes to fetch her some tissues. Returning, he gives her a small smile, wipes her tears, and turns to watch the show. She glances at him and then looks again; he has tears in his eyes. “I thought you didn’t get confused,” he says. We notice he has on a different sweater and has his feet up on the chair in front of him. I knew it! He took her up on it! The scene cuts to Shin III sitting slumped in the car without his battery.

What were they thinking?

Our two Shins look to be on a collision path. It comes to a head when the rude one challenges, “People should be with people. What if I pretended to be you?” The sweet one is stepping forward threateningly when So Bong suddenly appears, shining an angelic smile straight at him. The tension dissolves immediately. What is going on now? Is Rude Shin trying to annoy a robot? Is he getting revenge by taking away the thing Sweet Shin values most? How can Shin III be an independent person when it is so easy to turn him off? Stick with us, drama lovers, to see how it turns out!

Telzeytalks

Dramas with a Side of Kimchi