Behind Your Touch (2023) Episode 1

In episode 1 of Behind Your Touch, our protagonist, a teenaged Bong Ye-bun, runs to the scene of an accident. A car is being lifted out of the ocean, and a body is lying on a gurney with a sheet over it. Ye-bun runs to it and lifts the sheet. It’s her mom. Ye-bun cries and tells her to wake up.

A flashback shows Ye-bun at home, which doubles as a vet clinic. It’s her first day of high school. Her mom asks her father to take her to school, but Ye-bun’s grandfather, Dr. Jung, ignores her. At school, she becomes fast friends with a chatty girl named Ok-hui. Ok-hui tells a boy at school that Ye-bun likes him, and Ye-bun comes to Ok-hui crying when he says that she is lame. After school, Ok-hui intentionally runs her bike threateningly close to him, telling him to watch out.

Later in life, Ye-bun and her mom share with Dr. Jung that Ye-bun got into vet school, but he is not impressed. Now it has been eight years since Ye-bun has been running the family clinic in her small town of Mujin. Her aunt and the clinic’s live-in receptionist, Jung Hyun-ok, push Ye-bun to hand out tacky-looking flyers for their office, much to her disdain.

Ye-bun starts pasting them throughout the town and hands one to a newcomer who arrives at the bus stop. The stranger, Moon Jang-yeol, goes to the police station and immediately gets pulled to work on a “violent crime.” The team rushes to the crime scene and starts to seriously prepare for the dangerous encounter. Jang-yeol strikes a defensive pose, and Ye-bun suddenly comes out of a clearing on a cow, screaming for help.

Jang-yeol is shocked that the “violent crime” they prepared for is just a woman riding a cow. The police chief, Won Jong-mook, says, “What’s more dangerous than a cow running wild?” Detective Bae Deok-hee asks Jang-yeol why he transferred from the regional investigative unit. He evades but says that he plans to go back to Seoul as soon as possible. Jong-mook learns that Jang-yeol hasn’t found a place to stay yet and asks Deok-hee to help him.

Deok-hee takes him to his sister, Ok-hui, who provides him with a room in their boarding house. Deok-hee tells him that Ok-hui is crazy and that he became a detective so that he could eventually put her in jail himself. He starts crying, and Jang-yeol comforts him.

At the clinic, Ye-bun winces, having been kicked by the cow she treated earlier. She argues with Hyun-ok about treating cows and farm animals. They’re interrupted by a client asking if Ye-bun can look at his pregnant cow. She reluctantly gets in the man’s truck to go treat the cow.

They run into a traffic jam due to the large number of visitors that are there to see a meteor shower. Eventually, they make it to the man’s barn, and Ye-bun, dressed in a wet suit, hesitantly starts examining the cow. Just as she rests her hand on the cow’s rear, a bright light comes down from the sky and blinds her.

She passes out and wakes up to an apparition of her mother, who looks at her and then walks away and disappears. She goes downstairs, and Hyun-ok tells her that she has been asleep for three days. She picks up her pet cat and sees the cat’s memories in black and white in her head. Then she places a hand on her dog Arfie’s rear, sees his memories too, and starts freaking out. Then Hyun-ok brings her a fish, and the same thing happens again.

She starts walking to the doctor’s office and sees a chicken. Curious, she holds the chicken’s rear and sees its memories. She goes to the doctor and gets some brain scans, but he tells her that she is perfectly healthy. At home, Ye-bun stares at Arfie’s butt, slowly touches it, and sees more of his memories. She goes out to drink and passes out. Ok-hui finds her, and Ye-bun tells her that she thinks she is possessed.

The next day, Ok-hui takes Ye-bun to see a shaman, Mr. Park, who has a deity alter-ego called General MacArthur. He tells her that he knows the events that happened to her in the last three days. He places a cheap toy fish into a basin of water with markings around the outside to determine that she has been chosen by “Jane the Goddess,” AKA Jane from Tarzan, to become a shaman.

Ye-bun says she doesn’t want to be a shaman, but he tells her that her family will fall into harm’s way if she doesn’t. At home, Dr. Jung is rushed inside after injuring himself while campaigning for a local election. Ye-bun gives a credit card to Hyun-ok and tells her to go eat whatever she wants and that the hospital is closed for the day.

Ye-bun joins Mr. Park for a rite of passage. While shaking random objects and bells, he tells her that she needs to release everything. She says that her dad died while she was in elementary school, that her mom committed suicide, and that her grandfather never approved of their marriage. She became a vet to get him to like her, but he never has. She had saved up money to have a family, but now she spent it all on the rite of passage ceremony.

Mr.Park then tells her to stand on sharp iron straw cutters. She says that she’ll stand on them after he does. The second he puts his foot down, he cries out in pain. She asks if that was the general stepping on the iron or if it was Mr. Park, and he says that it was Mr. Park.

She asks him to “call” the general. Mr.Park turns into the general, and Ye-bun asks him why he did not protect Mr. Park. She continues questioning him until she finally realizes that he is a fraud.

In a café later, she watches a video on psychometry and wonders if her ability works on people, too. She gets on a bus to go home and sees a man take something from someone’s pocket. She stands next to him and “accidentally” stumbles and touches his butt. She doesn’t see any of his memories and reaches out to touch his butt again, but Jang-yeol appears and snaps a handcuff on her wrist.

At the police station, she protests the arrest, but Jang-yeol whips out his phone and shows her a video he took of her reaching for the guy’s butt. At Ye-bun’s house, Ok-hui runs in and tells Hyun-ok that Ye-bun’s been arrested. Hyon-ok throws some lip gloss on and heads to the station.

Jang-yeol decides to let Ye-bun go, and she walks home. She walks into Hyun-ok’s room and sees a diary lying out. She discovers that Hyun-ok and Jong-mook dated when they were in their 20s, that they were both fencers and then became enemies.

At the police station, Jong-mook holds a cane toward Hyun-ok and asks her why she is there. After a slow and dramatic moment, he throws the cane aside and walks toward her. She shuts her eyes, thinking that he is going to kiss her, but he places handcuffs on her wrists. Another cop pulls her away while she screams at him.

Meanwhile, an old man asks Ye-bun to look at his 15-year-old dog. She places her hand on the dog’s rear and sees the man struggling to take care of him. She tells the man that his dog was sorry that he was taking the old man’s food and that he thought the man was getting ill because of him, so he stopped eating and drinking. Through much emotion, the man reassures his dog that he makes his life meaningful, and then the dog takes the food that the man offers him.

Outside, Ye-bun is surprised and unhappy to see Jang-yeol moving into the place next door. He walks up some stairs while supporting a mattress and is about to fall backwards until Ye-bun rushes forward and supports him by placing her hands on his butt.

She sees Jang-yeol punching some people and chasing a man who is holding a case. He holds the shirt of a man who he recognizes, and then that person is punched by someone else. She takes her hand off Jang-yeol’s butt, and he calls her a dirty pervert before punching her.

The Episode Review

Well, this is supposed to be a rom-com crime drama, but there has been no romance, just a pinch of crime, and it is really not as funny as it could have been. The humor really lies heavily in the storyline rather than in its scenes. I think there was really only one truly funny moment in the whole show.

Some things are a little random, like Ye-bun suddenly appearing on a cow. The scene could have been built up better if it had shown Ye-bun’s struggles beforehand and how she ended up on the cow. It also felt awkwardly placed, as in the last scene we saw her in, she was handing out a flyer. Basically, the cow scene is intended to be funny, but it is only mildly so, probably because it lacks foundation.

And why could Ye-bun see Jang-yeol‘s memories but not the guy on the bus? Hopefully, we’ll get an answer for that in the following episodes. Ye-bun definitely seems to be a character who is pretty ditzy and naive. But she just has a very weak personality and doesn’t seem particularly likeable or unlikeable.

So far, there is not much mystery afoot. But something tells me that Ye-bun’s mom’s death may not have been a suicide, and what was up with that glimpse into Jang-yeol’s head? So there are still a few pull factors here. Ye-bun’s ability is unique and bound to take her to unexpected places. The episode 2 sneak peek also showed a handsome stranger coming to town, so there’s that, too.