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Delivery Man: Episodes 7-8
by quirkycase
Our ghost and taxi driver duo continues slowly unraveling the mystery that ties them together. A new ghost client provides some useful information that points them in the right direction, but the more they learn, the more questions they have.
EPISODES 7-8
We get a lot more information this week about our protagonists’ situation, but they’re still in the dark about most of it. I’m not a huge fan of giving the audience a lot more info than the characters in a mystery since it removes a lot of the tension having the characters be a step behind. I think I’d feel much more invested if we discovered clues alongside Ji-hyun and Young-min, rather than constantly waiting for them to catch up.
As it stands, our duo does get a few pieces of info to point them in the right direction in their investigation. First off, Kyu-jin and So-ri both recognize the photo of Ji-hyun and recall she was a cop who died of cardiac arrest after an accident. Kyu-jin acts a little shifty – what’s new? – and seems to know more, but that’s all we get out of him for now.
The detectives on the case aren’t much more helpful, underplaying the connection between Young-min’s mom and Ji-hyun and calling their meeting on the day they died a coincidence. That leaves Young-min and Ji-hyun on their own to track down clues. Young-min meets with the PI Ji-hyun remembers, but that’s a bust. We see in flashback, though, that he met with Ji-hyun’s father who knew about the photos of the bereaved. The only other clue they have at this point is the hospital. Ji-hyun is sure it’s central to her memories, but she can’t remember why. So that’s not super useful.
We then spend more time than I’d like following the detectives as they try to solve Ji-hyun and Young-min’s mom’s murder. In a short drama like this, I’m not sure why we need to follow the detectives around. They feel like extraneous side characters feeding us info – again, I would rather learn the info alongside Young-min and Ji-hyun as they investigate, but oh well.
Things do spice up a bit for the detectives when Jung-woo, the anesthetic-stealing ex-resident, dramatically returns to the hospital with a knife for a standoff in the lobby. He (mildly) slashes Kyu-jin’s arm, but everyone is otherwise fine.
After this incident, Kyu-jin has a cryptic, tense conversation with head nurse HEE-YEON about being careful of “dangerous tasks,” whatever that means. Later scenes reveal that Kyu-jin and Hee-yeon go way back – she was his grandfather’s personal nurse and protected him from his grandfather’s physical abuse. He leans on her a lot and in one scene, on the verge of tears, asks if she’ll always be on his side. I’m not sure what to think about these two, but there’s something going on under the surface.
Moving on from Kyu-jin’s sketchiness, the Jung-woo incident does lead the cops to investigate him further, and that leads to another clue in the form of a suspicious apartment building. Not only do Jung-woo and Hee-yeon both live there, but Young-min’s mom died in front of the building.
Adding to its ill reputation, multiple taxi drivers claim to have spotted a female ghost nearby. SEOK-JIN, the son of the taxi company owner, even goes to the shaman about the issue, which leads to the shaman calling Young-min for backup to check if the building has a ghost. Sure enough, they do spot an evil spirit the shaman takes care of with one of his talismans.
Meanwhile, Young-min and Ji-hyun have feelings to deal with. The shaman informs Young-min that love could make Ji-hyun move on, so Young-min decides to push down his feelings and distances himself from Ji-hyun. Still, he can only distance himself but so much, and luckily, he and Ji-hyun talk things out pretty quickly.
Ji-hyun admits she pushed him away due to fear and knows he did the same. But they both realize that no one is guaranteed forever, so despite their untenable situation, Ji-hyun asks Young-min to stay with her. He agrees and then kisses her (logistics of kissing a ghost unclear).
They’re both in the giddy stage, but the giddiest of all is Boon-ja. Young-min has never dated, so when she hears that he’s got a girlfriend, she is over the moon. Of course, she doesn’t know his girlfriend is dead, but that’s for another time. For now, she enthusiastically helps prepare him for a date, and it’s adorable that we get the typical makeover scene but with halmeoni dolling him up.
Although she doesn’t have much screentime, I love Boon-ja. She’s so cute and fun, and I love that even she gets a dating prospect this week! Halmeoni is out here living her best life, and it’s great.
Besides the obvious issue, Young-min and Ji-hyun dating reveals another potential problem because Ji-hyun doesn’t move on, as ghosts in love are supposed to do. The shaman poses three scenarios: Ji-hyun doesn’t really love Young-min, she is an evil spirit, or she’s something else entirely. My bet is on door number three, but more on that later.
We’ve got another ghost client, and this one ties directly into our main mystery. DOO-KANG is a former cop who now haunts our ever-present hospital and offers intel in exchange for help meeting his estranged daughter. Not only is Doo-kang a cop, but he was partners with Ji-hyun’s father Hyun-soo, which gives us a roundabout way of having Ji-hyun encounter him.
Every time Ji-hyun sees Hyun-soo, she gets inexplicably emotional, so Young-min takes point on this case and helps Doo-kang meet his daughter. After his wife died, Doo-kang left his daughter Se-ra in his sister’s care and focused on work, leaving Se-ra feeling abandoned and resentful. I was afraid they’d belittle her legitimate reason for resenting her dad, but while she did come to understand her father and let go of her resentment, she didn’t excuse his decision to not be in her life.
In exchange for Young-min and Ji-hyun’s help, Doo-kang gives them intel on Jung-woo, so they head to his apartment. They meet the ghost that’s been haunting the building — a young woman who died in the apartment. She insists Jung-woo Oppa didn’t kill her, but she can’t remember how she died and admits she was high on drugs at the time.
Making Jung-woo look even more suspicious is his creepy photo wall of people grieving at funerals. And one of those photos is of Young-min. While Young-min and Ji-hyun stare aghast at the serial killer wall, Ji-hyun begins to flicker. Across the city in a secret hospital room, Ji-hyun’s monitors go haywire while her father sits by her bedside. Because yep, she is not dead-dead, but instead in a coma.
Well, that’s not exactly a surprise. I had a feeling we were going that route – how else could there be a happy ending? – but I’m disappointed it was so obvious; I was hoping for something a little more creative. Since Ji-hyun’s father is hiding her and pretending she’s dead, I’m guessing he knows more about her death than we’d been led to assume. Or at least that he doesn’t trust his colleagues.
I’m sad some of the fun and zaniness dropped out as the investigations took over. The drama’s still got a light-hearted vibe, but it’s turned into just another crime-mystery drama. And I can’t say I’m really feeling the romance here. You’d think a love story between someone alive and someone who’s mostly dead would have a stronger feeling of urgency or intensity. I honestly like them better as platonic partners granting last wishes, but I guess that wouldn’t be as dramatic.
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