Blood episode 8 recap Korean drama

Blood 블러드 episode 8

Patient Gong Ja Bok is in bad shape and placed in quarantine at the Director’s orders based on the fake blood test results from the New Drug Research Team. The Director takes the patient’s care out of the hands of Dr. Park and assigns the ID team and the Drug Research Team to handle the unidentified virus. Dr. Park, Dr. Yoo, Dr. Jung, and Dr. Choi meet in the hematology lab to discuss the suspicious results for patient Gong. They disagree that it is a virus and are certain the blood test results are fake. Dr. Jung suspects that an unrecorded medication was given to him and he had a reaction. He learns that Dr. Park is leaving and asks him to consider staying. He believes they are on the verge of uncovering something big. The patient is stabilized by Leader Suh to cover what she’s been up to. Director Wook is unhappy with the attention her carelessness has caused and leans in and whispers, “Please allow me to keep my promise I made to you. If you make one more mistake…the promise is revoked.” A vague threat is still a threat. Not that I’m looking out for the likes of Leader Suh.

When Uncle Chairman discusses the unsettling events in Ward 21A that have occurred in the past week – a discharged patient dying in a car accident and a patient in quarantine – the Director smoothly blames the patients’ past histories and poor screening. Uncle Chairman runs into Ri Ta who asks for a few minutes of his time. She mentions the New Drug Research Team, but he immediately cuts her off and asks if the Associate Director put her up to this. They argue over the New Drug Team’s unprecedented access to patients and the Director’s authority. He is agitated and tells her not to bring this up again or she will face disciplinary action. Uncle Chairman takes his frustration out on Assistant Director Choi. He suspects she is causing dissension among the doctors over the Director’s authority. He hits below the belt when he tells her she has been compensated well at Taemin and she shouldn’t be greedy. She is alarmed that the trust they’ve had over the years is corroding quickly with the Director around. Dr. Park, whose last day is at the end of the week,  makes final rounds to visit his patients in Ward 21A. He comforts the young daughter of the liver cancer patient who cries because her father’s one wish is to walk her down the aisle. She feels bad because she thinks he is holding on and is in pain because of her. Dr. Park checks on Sister Sylvia. They have a conversation about life and death. Sister expresses no fear of dying, and tells him that death is the great equalizer and it is all in His hands.

Feisty patient Na Jung throws her food tray across the room and says she will starve to death. Ga Yeon wants to bring her a new tray, but Do. Yoo tells her there will be no food or water, if that’s how she wants it. At the nurses’ station, they discuss Na Jung’s sad story: her parents died, Child Services took her in, and now she has cancer and doesn’t want to live. Ga Yeon chases after Dr. Yoo and asks if she really is going to starve Na Jung. Dr. Yoo tells her to bring her something that smells yummy from the cafeteria. Is there a jealous streak in Dr. Yoo when she tells Ga Yeon not to so easily approach her superior, Dr. Park? It is unconscionable that the Director is planning to use young Na Jung in the experiments. However, to lower suspicion of the New Drug Research Team, he tells Leader Suh to proceed with normal treatment for now. When Leader Suh asks why, he tells her to just do as he says. As Dr. Yoo preps for surgery Dr. Park looks on. She follows him into the hall and asks if she should throw him a good-bye party with just her in attendance. She has something she wants to hear from him and something to say to him. He tells her there is nothing he wants to say or hear. After he leaves, there is no reason to see or know anything about each other. Hyun Woo has more questions about the Director (don’t we all). He asks Ji Sang where they will go now that he is quitting. LUUVY spews all sorts of useless information about the Ukraine and Venezuela. But Ji Sang has changed his mind and says he is not leaving Korea or the hospital. ( Hyun Woo’s has on a Keep Calm sweatshirt, how adorable.

Lee Jae Wook has a cozy conversation in his apartment with Leader Suh and a vampire goon he’s kept around. He reveals Ji Sang’s most unique quality is that he is the only infected one who was born from two infected parents. Over the past 40 years, Dr. Wook performed experiments to fertilize infected eggs and sperms (gadzooks, things are getting even darker) and failed. Because Ji Sang survived, he represents the mutation of the virus that is stronger and still evolving. His phone rings. It is Park Ji Sang. He stops by the apartment and Ji Sang tells the Director he needs blood – just enough to control his symptoms so that he can finish treating his current patients before he leaves. The Director is pleased. Have no fear, it was all a ruse to get blood so that Hyun Woo can run tests. There is another development – the Kochenia information is back up on the hospital database. Dr. Park enters the hematology lab looking for Dr. Jung, but he is out of the office. He is about to leave when he is shocked to see the Kochenia gravesite pictures sticking out of a folder. He asks Dr. Choi to get him some coffee so he can sneak a peek. It is curious that the Kochenia information is back up on the database at the same time he discovers copies of the gravesite pictures in Dr. Jung’s lab.

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The surgery for which Dr. Park supposedly drank blood in order to be able to perform is about to start. The Director hightails it down to the observation gallery eager to watch Dr. Park in surgery. He is shocked when Dr. Yoo steps up as the surgeon and tells him Dr. Park has enteritis. The Director marches down to Dr. Park’s office and says he assumes he did not drink what he gave him yesterday. Forcing a calm demeanor, he tells Dr. Park that he hopes he will come to see him as his ally who is helping him accept the natural way of life as an infected one. Dr. Park is more uneasy than ever.

Dr. Park owes Dr. Yoo for performing the surgery. To her amazement, he thanks her, and says he will repay her. She asks him if he can tell her what is going on, and although there is a moment where it seems he might confide in her, he leaves it at that and walks out. Assistant Director Choi meets with a reporter. She counts on their longstanding friendship to ask a favor. She has confidential information that may result in whistle blowing. Without telling Uncle Chairman, she sends filesthat provide information on the recent events in Ward 21A.

With no apologies, Dr. Yoo brings a farewell fast food dinner for her and Dr. Park. She shares the story about a local boy who rescued her from wild dogs back then. Everyone told her she imagined it, that she’d had a head injury. For some reason she thought he might believe her. There were ten wild dogs, she begins. Right away, Dr. Park says that doesn’t sound right. The boy came flying out of nowhere, she continues. He must have jumped 30 meters. Dr. Park corrects her, and says it would be more like five meters. She tells him to listen-she is telling the story-the boy didn’t see normal. He was something like a vampire, pale and strong. Dr. Park, wanting to seem aloof, nonchalantly replies it sounds like a dream. Dr. Yoo pays no attention and says the boy killed the wild dogs. Then finishing the story, she wonders, “While looking at me lovingly, did he kiss my cheek and say I was pretty?” to which Dr. Park sprays his drink everywhere and sputters, “K-kiss?” One last thing, that was the day her parents passed away, she says, just like he found out in her background check. Caught! (Naturally, Dr. Choi told Dr. Yoo that he asked about her parents.) After telling him her dream-like real memories, she sends him off to pack since tomorrow is his last day. He tells her that he’s not leaving after all. She scolds that he should have said something earlier (so she wouldn’t have bought dinner). Dr. Park enters Dr. Jung’s lab and confronts him about the Kochenia gravesite pictures. Dr. Jung is clearly shocked when Dr. Park’s asks him if he put the information on the database and doesn’t know what he is talking about. When Dr. Park demands an answer to why Dr. Jung is researching the Kochenia gravesite, Dr. Jung volleys back that it is he who should be suspicious of Dr Park. Their conversation is interrupted by a call from Dr. Yoo.

The Director and Leader Suh discuss what to do about the patient in quarantine. They decide to release him (read: kill him). She tells patient Gong to get something to eat, and walks him outside. He is in a stupor, no doubt the effect of whatever she injected into his IV just before she helps him out the back door of the hospital. Poor patient Gong doesn’t stand a chance. Dr. Yoo happens to see him wandering, but he shoves her to the ground when she tries to restrain him. She calls Dr. Park. Patient Gong shuffles along like a zombie when suddenly a vampire strangles him and throws into the path of – you guessed it – the truck of doom. (That’s the second vampire/truck of doom death attempt, not very imaginative.)

Dr. Park comes out of nowhere, vampire strength tosses the patient out of harm’s way, and is struck face on by the truck. The vampire’s mission has failed. Dr. Yoo sees everything from the sidelines.

Comments:

• Blood episode 8 recap made possible by a pot stickers lunch (it was so-so), and a cod, couscous, and bok choy dinner (quite tasty)!
• Dr. Park’s ice-cold heart is warming up to his patients to the ire of our increasingly evil Director. (gulp child experimentation and that other stuff? shiver)
• Hyun Woo works day and night on behalf of Ji Sang’s existence. They would have met after Ji Sang’s mother died, because we know he didn’t have any friends or outside human interaction. With Hyun Woo’s medical background, perhaps they attended medical school together, but that doesn’t answer the question of why Hyun Woo is exclusively devoted to Ji Sang.
• I love the frank, confiding way Ri Ta told her dream-like real story to Ji Sang. He acted unconcerned, but polite, and unconsciously corrected the exaggerations of her account. (“Ten wild dogs? That doesn’t sound right,” and “K-kiss?” sputter, sputter. How cute.) It takes a strong and confident person to hold on to her story even though no one ever believed her. She knows what she knows. I like that.
• Pa-leez, not a second truck of doom. Let’s see, that’s one cliff, two trucks of doom, and heaven only knows how many vampire blunders – it is a bit ridiculous, but then again, that’s the curse and the charm of kdramas.
• Uncle Chairman’s lack of accountability (that falls on him, completely) will be the downfall of Taemin. I admire the courage of Assistant Director Choi for taking steps to blow the whistle, as she put it, in light of the fact that any attempt she has made to open the Chairman’s eyes has resulted in reprimands and insults, at best. He has closed the door to all sense and reason and put everyone and everything at risk.
• Dr. Jung keeps himself out of the politics while he finds his own paths of access. He doesn’t play games and keeps a low profile which serve him well.
• I still think there are too many patients and side stories to keep track of. I just want more LUUVY and more vampire action.

• Ahn Jae Hyun
• Director Lee Jae Wook
• Dr. Lee
• Gu Hye Sun
• Hyun Woo
• Ji Jin-Hee
• Jung Hae In
• Kochenia
• LUUVY
• Park Ji Sang
• Ri Ta Yoo
• Taemin Hospital
• vampires