Recap: Memorist, Episode 1
Our latest recap looks at the first episode of new tvN drama, Memorist, starring Yoo Seung Ho and Lee Se Young as two unique and highly-skilled police officers. Yoo Seung Ho stars as the telepathic detective, Dong Baek, who can see into the memories of those he touches. Lee Se Young plays genius profiler, Han Sun Mi. Together they go after a serial killer with his own unique skills. Let’s check it out!
Recap: Memorist, Episode 1
The scene opens in a dark police interrogation room. A criminal is being questioned regarding a ten years old crime. The criminal smirks and taunts the police officer who has been chasing his boss ever since losing him 10 years earlier. It seems that the statute of limitations will run out on the crime in only 3 hours.
A flashy sports car pulls up in front of the precinct with a police escort. Dong Baek exits the car and enters the interrogation room. He approaches the criminal and reaches out a hand to grip the man’s throat. The scene transitions through Dong Baek’s eye into a warehouse where the crime boss is hiding out.
The police enter the warehouse and a fight ensues between the police officers and the criminal gang. The crime boss tries to bribe Dong Baek to wait just a few hours until the statute of limitations expires. Instead, Dong Baek leaps up, kicking the crime boss in the face.
News Story
A montage of images accompanies a voice-over news program regarding Dong Baek’s extraordinary abilities. It appears that his psychic abilities manifested during puberty. He has the ability to read the thoughts of anyone he touches. We see that he has undergone many different trials and medical tests to try and discover the source of his abilities. He has become famous throughout the country.
The scene continues into an interview with Dong Baek. The reporter asks him why he chose to join the police force. He says that he has received a lot of monetary support from various research agencies. All he needs now is to work with the police.
Han Sun Mi’s Office
The scene transitions to Han Sun Mi running on a treadmill while watching the interview. Later she examines evidence from an older murder. She analyzes photos and works through the night. The wall of her office is covered in pictures and theories. Han Sun Mi leaves her desk to make some coffee and turns on the television where a news show reports on the arrest from the night before.
Seoul Police Station
A large crowd stands outside of the station. Many reporters are reporting from this distance. Reporter Kang Ji Eun shows her credentials to the police officer at the barricade who lets her through. She talks with another officer as she enters the station. This officer is Oh Se Hoon, Detective Dong Baek’s partner. He leads her to what seems more like a fan room than a police precinct. It is full of gifts and displays. A team of officers says that Dong Baek is elsewhere prepping for the interview. The captain comes in yelling and looking for the telepathic detective.
Elsewhere in the building, Dong Baek is being fed by a cleaning woman who wishes to set him up with her daughter. He flatters the woman and compliments the daughter’s pictures. He says that he’s not too picky.
Another cleaning woman comes to call her away. While working, the two discuss the handsome young man’s single status. The second woman says that no one would want to have sex with a man who could read their thoughts with a touch.
Oh Se Hoon comes to tell Dong Baek that he is on the news again. Footage of him assaulting a criminal has gotten out. This is the evidence needed to bring out the human rights advocates. Ultimately though, it’s not the use of excessive force they question, but the use of Dong Baek’s psychic ability to draw out secret thoughts.
Disciplinary Board
Dong Baek stands in front of a group of senior officers. This is his eighth time assaulting a criminal. Only 4 times have resulted in a disciplinary hearing, but 4 times is still too many. Another, obviously more high-ranking, officer enters the room. He tells Dong Baek to take a break for a few months suspension. Dong Baek objects and learns that the prosecution will be pressing charges this time.
Outside the hearing room, Oh Se Hoon is overjoyed to learn that it will only be a two-month suspension. Han Sun Mi is walking past when she hears Oh Se Hoon call Dong Baek “the psychic detective”. She stops in her tracks. After watching them for a moment, she continues on her way.
Debriefing
Han Sun Mi reports to the superior officer from the disciplinary hearing. She reports on two separate murder cases involving sexual assault on young women. The crimes were committed hours away from each other over the course of the week, but she is sure that they were committed by the same person. She is put in charge of the case but warned not to let Dong Baek learn about the case. She is warned that her drive to solve crimes will be a detriment to her career and that she should be more focused on climbing up the ranks as the youngest ever Senior Superintendant.
Bus Stop
A bus pulls up to a stop on a dark night. A girl gets off and begins walking down the road alone. Her phone rings. It’s her mother worried about her. She hears a woman scream briefly. A woman comes running out of the trees near her and then runs off. The first girl searches frantically for her dropped cell phone. She hears more screams and looks up to find someone standing nearby with a rock in their hand.
Police Station
People outside protest about Dong Baek’s continued employment. His team argues with each other. Meanwhile Dong Baek sits in an isolation “waiting room” for punishment where he reads through his fan mail.
The cleaning lady from earlier comes running into the room crying. Her daughter has gone missing the night before after stepping off the bus. She begs Dong Baek to please save her daughter while the other officers in the room indicate that they cannot begin to search until the 24 hours are up. Dong Baek regrets that he can’t even conduct an investigation since he is on probation.
Later he sneaks out of the station only to get caught by Oh Se Hoon who agrees to take him out and investigate. They see that a detective from the Metropolitan Investigation Unit (MIU) is already there questioning people. Dong Baek gets out to talk to him. The detective backs away from Dong Baek and stops his partner from shaking hands with the telepath. The man clearly has bad blood with Dong Baek. He puts on gloves before punching Dong Baek in the face. The two get into a fight where Dong Baek is beaten badly but manages to get the information he needs. A victim has been found still breathing and he heads to the hospital to see what he can learn.
Dark Room
The girl from the bus stop lays on a bed in a dark room. Someone enters the room and shuts the door behind them. The girl begins to cry and a video plays a religious-sounding message. The girl begs to be let go and the other person leaves the room.
Hospital
Dong Baek and Oh Se Hoon sneak into the hospital and look for a way to get into the victim’s room. They are discovered by other police officers, including the head of the MIU. He agrees to let Dong Baek “question” the victim, saying that he will take responsibility if there is trouble. Dong Baek touches the girl but discovers nothing but fragments. He sees another victim but can’t gain more detail. Dong Baek sees a hammer raised and dropped, and then he falls to the ground unconscious.
Police Station
Han Sun Mi strides purposefully into her workroom. Her team snaps to attention and begins to bring up all the information they have on the victim in the hospital. She was a child actress, appears to have gone missing 2 weeks earlier, and was last seen at a bus stop. Han Sun Mi realizes from watching the footage of the victim that she had two cellphones. They immediately begin to look for and track the information for the second phone.
Memory
A woman whimpers, a young boy cries for his mother. We see the hammer again and Dong Baek awakens.
Police Station
The head of MIU approaches a cluster of reporters who ask if this is the work of a serial killer. He tells them that from this moment forward there is an embargo against reporting anything about the case. He tells the reporters that there is another victim who might still be alive but will definitely die if they start publishing the news.
Meanwhile, the team finds the signal of the second cell phone. It was turned on a week after the victim went missing. Officers are sent to follow the GPS signal to the second phone. Dong Baek calls in to let the team in charge know that there is another victim.
He says that he saw a red pig and also a hammer that the criminal held in their hand. They tell him ‘thank you’ for the report but that they already have the location and hang up the phone. Dong Baek runs out of the hospital with his colleagues following him.
The Hospital
In the hospital hallway, Dong Baek brushes past a man and sees the victim and hammer in his thoughts. He begins to chase after the criminal who loses him in the crowd outside. Dong Baek walks through the crowd touching people until he learns which direction the criminal went in. When they catch the man, they learn from his thoughts that he is not the murderer but was stalking the victim months earlier. He has only now been released from detention. The man yells that the victim wound up like that because of the police leaving her vulnerable to someone he calls a devil and a dirty guru.
As Dong Baek reads the man’s thoughts again, we see police officers converge on a farmhouse. In the basement, the video continues to play in the victim’s cell. She hears another woman’s voice. The woman tells her that she has to listen to the doctrine video. If she fails the doctrine test, then she will die.
Meanwhile, at the farm, the officers enter the building but their cameras cut off. The farmhouse has a group of teenagers in it. They found the phone and were using it themselves.
Police Station
The reporter we met at the start is on the phone telling her boss that they cannot report the story if it puts people’s lives in danger. She enters the press room only to find that all of her fellow reporters are already filming and writing stories on the case.
Outdoor Cafe
That night as the news of the serial killer spreads throughout the city, Dong Baek sits down opposite a man drinking a coffee. The man passes him a business card. The card is for Hammer Management, and the man is a pimp who used to prey on young, hopeful women who wanted to become famous. We learn that the most recent victim worked for a similarly slimy agency run by this man’s friend. Dong Baek has seen in the victim’s memories that she was sexually assaulted by this manager and asks him if he murdered a woman with a hammer 20 years ago.
The man calls people over to see the famous psychic detective and in the commotion puts in a Bluetooth earpiece and dials his phone. We see a girl in the basement watching the doctrine video. A phone rings in the room and a hand picks it up. Dong Baek suddenly realizes what is happening and attacks just as the man calls out through the phone to a man holding a hammer to “Get rid of it!”
Final Thoughts:
This show is well made and well-acted. I very much enjoyed the interaction between Dong Baek and his partner, and the lighter moments were pretty fun. There was no interaction yet between the two main leads, but I suspect it will be enjoyable to watch when it happens. That said, I personally found the dark to be too dark for me and I think that I will ultimately be passing on this drama. Serial killers and cults are not really my cup of tea at the best of times. In the current state of affairs worldwide, I think that I will be happier to stick with lighter fare. Maybe I will come back and check it out at a later date, but I doubt it.
Check Out More First Episode Recaps:
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