Bad Memory Eraser

The drama opens in the childhood days of the tennis prodigy LEE GUN, who’s just one point away from winning the World Junior Championship. His younger brother LEE SHIN serves as his ball kid, cheering his hyung on from the sidelines. At the pivotal moment, the opponent’s racket slips from his hand, soaring straight toward Shin. Instinctively, Gun leaps to shield his brother, taking the brunt of the impact — and though he wins gold, the injury irreversibly alters the trajectory of his life.

All grown up now, Gun (Kim Jae-joong) rewatches the video of his match while on a plane with his family. At the first class bar, fellow passenger KYUNG JOO-YEON (Jin Se-yeon) overhears Gun’s self-pitying lamentations, typing up an armchair diagnosis on her tablet PC. They’re equally all up in their heads, with Joo-yeon mistakenly assuming Gun is flirting with her — when really all he wants is to point out her lipstick has smudged. A sudden bout of turbulence sends Gun’s thumb landing right on Joo-yeon’s lips, and then she lets him fall to the floor in order to save her tablet from shattering. LOL, these two are a mess.

Gun and Joo-yeon’s mishaps don’t end there. While distracting the horde of reporters and fangirls in tennis star Shin’s place, Gun accidentally crashes into Joo-yeon again, unknowingly mixing up their identical luggages. Then he realizes his family’s car has accidentally driven off without him, not even noticing he hadn’t boarded.

A heartbreaking flashback shows that Gun’s parents had left him with his grandmother for a few years, so that he wouldn’t have to endure through watching Shin practice tennis without him. While chasing after his parents’ taxi, Gun had dropped his medal into a lake, then fallen in after it — and a young girl had saved him from drowning.

In the present day, poor Gun is the black sheep of the family. His parents fawn over the golden child Shin (Lee Jong-won!), catering to his every need, while Gun deals with Mom (Yoon Yoo-seon) barging in for the kimchi refrigerator in his bedroom. Needless to say, Gun thinks about as highly of himself as others do of him — that is to say, not at all. Amidst his horrible day, he can’t muster up the energy to answer Joo-yeon’s frantic calls asking for her luggage back.

Gun’s trauma manifests in phantom pains that plague his right hand, and that’s how he crosses paths with Joo-yeon again. She’s a psychiatrist, and she diagnoses his ailment with a cold pragmatism — it’s all in his head. Her words come across as dismissive of Gun’s predicament, but once she reviews his case file, she leaves him a sincere voicemail clarifying her stance and validating his pain.

See, Joo-yeon’s latest research project is a pioneer study, proposing a neurosurgery that can remove negative memories. In other words, a “Bad Memory Eraser.” Despite starting off on the wrong foot with Gun, she can’t help but feel sympathetic to his plight.

That is, until the latch of the cage transporting her team’s lab rat comes undone, and the poor animal winds up crushed under Gun’s tire. Devastated that months of painstaking research have just gone up in smoke, Joo-yeon lashes out at the dismissive Gun, lecturing him for undervaluing a precious life. “Have you ever been a meaningful person to anyone?” Joo-yeon criticizes. All he’s doing is wallowing in his own self-pity.One rat funeral later, Joo-yeon boldly asks the conference panel to permit a second trial — but on a human this time. Coincidentally, that night, the perfect test subject arrives. Gun is wheeled into the hospital, unconscious and bleeding profusely after jumping off a bridge.

Shin is acquainted with Joo-yeon’s senior teammate HAN DONG-CHIL (Kim Kwang-gyu), whom he’s secretly receiving prescription medicine from, presumably for his camera anxiety. Having inadvertently caught a glimpse of Joo-yeon’s research files on Dong-chil’s desk, he desperately entreats Dong-chil to save his brother.

Joo-yeon watches the surgery, guilt-ridden over her last words to Gun. The operation turns out to be a success — but when Gun wakes up, his mind has superimposed Joo-yeon onto the image of his childhood first love, and he greets her by pulling her into a hug. That isn’t the only peculiar side effect, though. Gun’s memory loss has resulted in a 180-degree personality shift, and he’s now overflowing with confidence, strutting around like a proud peacock. Noooo, the secondhand embarrassment! *cringe*

Gun’s flamboyant poise may raise a few eyebrows, but it’s still miles better than the browbeaten meekness of before. In an attempt to protect his brother from the painful truth and explain away his amnesia, Shin fibs that Gun simply fell down the stairs. As for Joo-yeon, she’s faced with the potential ruin of her clinical trial should news of the peculiar side effect spread. Yet the alternative is to play into Gun’s misattributed fantasy, and Joo-yeon isn’t quite sure which fate is worse.

Alas, Gun’s memories aren’t likely to stay repressed forever. An offhand mention of his lost medal sends him right back into the hospital with a sharp pain piercing his head, prompting flashbacks that shed further light on Gun’s suicide attempt. At his elementary school reunion, Gun had found his long-lost medal hung on the Christmas wishing tree. Giddy with the prospect of reuniting with his first love, he’d chased after her, only to find her kissing Shin in the carpark — reinforcing how he’s always losing everything he’s ever had to his little brother.

Mom confesses as much to Joo-yeon, when the doctor finds her crying next to a sleeping Gun, guilt-ridden over her callous treatment of him before. The night of his Han River plunge, he’d repeatedly snatched the crab Grandma sent him off the plates Mom offered to Shin, then finally blew up at his family regarding their blatant favoritism. When Mom harshly reprimanded him, Gun delivered the cold hard truth — she may be a mother to Shin, but she’s never been a mother to him.

That night, Gun wanders onto the hospital tennis court, where Joo-yeon finds him unconsciously shedding tears. Just then, the ball machine shoots, and Gun whirls her around, catching the ball with his right hand. Realizing that Gun is finally able to use his hand again, Joo-yeon resolves not to render his progress futile. “You can always start over,” she reassures. “Whether it’s sports, or love. That’s right. I’m your first love.”This show may seem wacky and shallow at first glance, but it also revisits earlier scenes to recontextualise characters’ actions, adding pathos to their motivations. Gun complains that Mom only cooks healthy boiled chicken for Shin’s sake, but the next day, she makes grilled chicken for him. The up-and-coming tennis player CHA SHI-ON (Lee Ruby) has a photo of young Gun as her phone wallpaper, proving her words about looking up to him as her inspiration.

As for Shin, he may seem content to bask in the spotlight at his brother’s expense, but after his agency director demeans Gun in front of everyone, Shin immediately threatens to terminate his contract. It’s echoed in the scene where a post-op Gun mistakenly takes over Shin’s room, and Shin simply lets him, immediately clearing away his own photos. These characters may have failed Gun in several ways, but they’re standing up for him too, in ways he does not realize. Next episode coming very soon so stay tuned.

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