Healer: Why I’m loving it

Not juz cos of the kisses…I swear. (ok…maybe, partly, somehow cos of the kiss…) :p Anyway, I am glad I didn’t write off this show. Honestly, the trailers didn’t really draw me in. I was puzzled over the title, the concept, and also I’m not a fan of Park Min-young, and never really caught much of Ji Chang-wook‘s shows (didn’t watch Empress Ki, cos…sageuk). I gave Healer only 15mins in ep1 to convince me that I should continue, and it did. 🙂

And now, we are approaching the mid-show mark. It is still good (which says a lot — juz see how Beauty kinda disintegrated midway), and there are many reasons why I love it:

1. The whole Superman-Clark Kent thingy

Nothing beats a superhero that goes under cover. Regardless of whether it’s Superman or Spiderman, or in Jung-hoo’s words…”whatever-man”. There is bound to be hijinks coupled with excitement — loads of it. From the nervous tension we feel whenever Jung-hoo shifts gears from geeky reporter to parkour errand boy, the fear that his cover will be blown each time he disobeys Min-ja’s orders to lie low, and fist pumping sense of relief when he saves the damsel, and manages to keep everyone in the dark on the rescuer’s identity.

The funnies come from having to keep up with the 2-left-feet Park Bong-soo persona, who is the polar opposite of smooth operator Healer. Bong-soo faints, pukes, and generally skedaddles whenever there’s gonna be trouble, he stutters, and is perceived to be clueless to whatever’s going on around him. Unlike Healer, who is no stranger to violence, has no problem leaping acrobatically around rooftops, multi-tasking and juggling different jobs at the same time while keeping an eye on the objective. No wonder nobody links the two guys together.

Not even Young-shin (for now, at least), who is the closest in terms of proximity to Healer/Bong-soo. It’s so hilarious she goes around telling Bong-soo her deepest, darkest secrets about her Healer crush…not knowing she is actually talking TO the object of her (very major) crush. And how crushing it is for Healer, to be told that Young-shin sees him as a “noona”. (lol) I can’t wait to see what she is going to squee about to Bong-soo after the kiss in ep8. And more importantly, how will Healer/Bong-soo react to her feedback? 😛

2. The batty, but super capable shi-fu(s)

In case you are wondering, “shi-fu” in Chinese means “teacher”, usually in the pugilistic sense. In Healer, we have two rather formidably…batty teachers. Min-ja ahjumma, the hacker and middle(wo)man who takes orders for the Healer business, while knitting woolley socks and/or eating kimbabs.

Recently, we are introduced to Young-jae, who is Jung-hoo’s parkour teacher and is in charge of training the Healer lineage. He’s not the stern, no-nonsense sensei types…rather, he comes across a little like Stresemann in Cantabile Tomorrow, eccentric and a little rovy-eyed when it comes to women. Juz look at the way he describes Young-shin (i.e. in terms of physical attributes) while he spies on her with Jung-hoo at their office, dressed as a cleaning ahjusshi ahjumma.

But you can trust the both of them when it comes to getting the jobs done. Although they may not be the ones on the frontline, they are the puppeteers pulling the strings behind scenes. That doesn’t mean they are callous creatures who only make use of Jung-hoo (and Dae-young) like commodities. In fact, despite them warning Jung-hoo that they will “dump” him if his cover is blown, I get the feeling that Min-ja and Young-jae will swoop in to rescue him or do damage control if that really happens.

3. The unwilling villain?

Recent developments on Moon-shik’s backstory, and the introduction to this mysterious elderly bartender (who seems to be THE mastermind-puppeteer), have kinda led me to re-assess Moon-shik’s “villainy”. Granted, we do know in a flashback that he has abandoned young Young-shin (or Ji-an), borne by a fear that Myung-hee may not submit to him if he brings her daughter (aka her only link to Gil-han) back.

But Moon-shik may not be directly involved in killing his friends. The bartender clearly uses Moon-shik as a pawn, in ep8, he calls Moon-shik “one of his best pieces”. And Moon-shik’s telling hallucinations suggest that he may only be guilty of abandoning Young-shin (Ji-an) and not murder. If Moon-shik is already so haunted by his decision not to bring Young-shin (Ji-an) back, the act of killing his friends in cold blood would have already unhinged him.

By giving us a non-cardboard villain, it amps the interest factor to see how involved Moon-shik was wrt his friends’ death and how much he actually guessed/knew. And more importantly, will he redeem himself later on by helping the children of his friends? Or will he slide down the slippery slope to damnation since he has invested too much and is too involved?

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