Coma Ghosts
Episode 2 of Ghost Doctor begins with Young-Min receiving an urgent message. He races out the hospital, almost running over Seung-Tak on the way out. His destination is the familiar spot from before, that which he used to meet Se-Jin. Etched on the bench is a familiar scribble that seems to hold some significance. But before we can find out, the Chairman takes a turn for the worst, forcing Young-Min to hurry back to the station. On the way, he receives a call from Seon-Ho, confirming the patient’s symptoms. On the road, a strange motorcycle delivery driver watches him at the intersection, intentionally following him as he races through the streets of Korea. The motorcyclist turns into him, causing Young-Min to swerve and…hit a white truck. Yep, the white truck of doom strikes once again! This whole series of events catches us up to what happened to Young-Min and why he was hit out on the road. After this brief recap, we cut back to surgery where Seung-Tak (while being possesses by Young-Min) manages to save his own life. In doing so, Young-Min’s soul momentarily heads back in his own body… until the blood pressure drops again and spits him back out. Young-Min is too weak to possess Seung-Tak again, but a tear in the left ventricle sends the other surgeons, including Dr Ahn, in to take over and stitch up the tear. While the surgery is a successful, they all need to wait for Young-Min to wake up. His blood pressure was low for a long time and that’s certainly cause for concern. Specifically the turn-around time is predicted to be around 5-6 hours so for now, they all need to wait and hope Young-Min recovers. While Young-Min waits, he causes quite the ruckus in the ICU, prompting Ms Kim (the woman telling the ghost story last episode) to burst in and help replace a waste fluid tube. Young-Min is shocked but as he follows her outside, a strange ghost that seems to have been possessing her jumps out. He warns that as a coma ghost, if Young-Min tries to jump in someone else’s body then he’ll be stuck there. His spiritual guide’s name? Well, it’s Tess Hyeong and he promises to see him again soon. Seung-Tak has been struggling with what’s happened to Young-Min for a while and now he arrives to see Young-Min while he’s in the ICU. With the ghost Young-Min watching on, Seung-Tak hilariously urges his supervisor to wake up so he can bow graciously at 90 degrees and thank Seung-Tak for saving his life. Oh, and take him off night shifts too of course! The thing is, Young-Min’s prospects right now are shaky. He’s in a coma and no one seems to know when he’ll wake up again. This leaves him in ghost limbo, with Hee watching on from afar. He eventually follows Young-Min when he hits the “radius of action”, preventing him from going further than that which his body is stuck in. So this means his boundary is from the ICU to the front entrance, and not much further. As Young-Min sits and wonders what to do, Chairman Jang arrives and has a bone to pick with his ghost counterpart. The thing is, he too has his own boundary given he’s in a coma and quickly hits his own green boundary. His doesn’t extend as far as Young-Min’s, given he’s kept in the VIP ward. There’s certainly more going on here than we’ve first seen with the chairman, specifically that of the sibling tensions between Se-Rin and Min-Ho. Young-Min watches all of this unfold, before listening to the doctors as they discuss how Doctor Kim Jae-Won may have given the wrong instructions to Seung-Tak, who was responsible for administering the medicine. As Young-Min approaches Seung-Tak, he inexplicably manages to jump inside his body. It seems the pair have a link and with Tess’s guidance, he helps encourage Young-Min to jump out before things get hairy. The thing is, if Young-Min continues to jump inside Seung-Tak, it could delay the doctor ever waking up properly again. So naturally Young-Min’s ghostly form arrives to see the Chairman, who patiently awaits Young-Min finding a solution to curing him. He’s not happy about Young-Min leaving and promises that Min-Ho’s wrath will be enough to sue the hospital. Only, when Min-Ho shows up ranting and raving, it becomes clear that he’s the one responsible for messing up the surgery and keeping the chairman in his precarious state. And guess who he’s working with? Yep, the slimy Vice Chairman. On his way down from the roof at his private meeting, he passes Seung-Tak and tells him to keep up the good work. Hearing this, Young-Min isn’t sure what side the intern is actually on, unsure whether Seung-Tak would have actually killed or helped him. Before he can ponder that further, Seung-Tak receives a call regarding Young-Min. He’s called out to the ICU, prompting him to hurry there. Only, en-route, Young-Min manages to transfer his soul into Seung-Tak again.
The Episode Review
So more of the hospital politics starts to bleed through as it becomes apparent that the slimy Vice President and the chairman’s son are working together to get rid of the Chairman. Or at least keep him in an isolated state away from the business he owns. We also learn a lot more about the ghost rules of this show too, with the boundaries and various other coma ghosts doing a great job of fleshing out this world and allowing for some consistent rules in the process. Whether Young-Min will actually return to his body anytime soon though is still left up for debate. In the meantime, Ghost Doctor has thrived on its character dynamics and simple but incredibly gripping story. This certainly paves way for a lot more drama to come in the episodes ahead, and that cliffhanger ending makes the enticing prospect of the next episode an absolute must-watch.
