Doctor Cha (2023) Episode 8

Doctor Cha Episode 8 Recap

Reeling from the hug Roy Kim gave her, she separates herself from him and goes back to the hospital, where she has been tasked with bringing this patient back to the ward. When she meets Doctor Jeon, she is somewhat solemn. The older resident explains that the psychiatry department will be involved from now on. However, Jeong-suk is concerned that they didn’t do that in the first place. She lets Doctor Jeon know that she did comment on this and was dismissed. This is on all of the residents.

But there are more pressing things to deal with, like Seo In-ho’s affair. He has been meeting Seung-hi, but his meetings with their daughter are always strained. This time Eun-seo has come second in a national art competition, and so Seung-hi wanted to celebrate with In-ho. He feels like she hates him, and he isn’t wrong, but Seung-hi feels they need to connect more. When Seung-hi tells this news to Eun-seo, she grins from ear to ear, especially now that she is sitting next to I-rang.

The only reason Eun-seo became friends with I-rang was to see what kind of life the other family was living. Meanwhile, In-ho is just generally excited to see his other daughter. When they’re all together and celebrating, Eun-seo asks her father some uncomfortable questions, and at the moment, he doesn’t mind it. But this meeting is about to worsen because I-rang walks into the restaurant and sees all three of them together. She is wondering why they’re all together.

A still from the episode

Eun-seo beats In-ho to the punch and tells her all about her father’s affair, and I-rang cannot deal with it right now. She has been working for her art school and dealing with her father’s disapproval of her career choice, so this is truly concerning. She goes back home dejected. In-ho rushes through his front door to find his mother reading the Bible verse about infidelity. I-rang comes in after him and tells his mother everything about the affair and the kid.

His mother is absolutely livid. She beats him up and asks him about the timeline of this relationship. He explained that when he was in the States, she was also there, and when he came back home, Seung-hi was pregnant, and so was Jeong-suk. Seung-hi kept the kid because In-ho was being very clueless, and she knew she would have to take care of this kid by herself. So she wanted to meet her kid even before it was here. When they moved back to Korea, Seung-hi and he were back to being a thing.

Seo In-ho looks apologetic, but not enough to stop meeting his mistress. His mother is even more concerned because they all work in the same place. It is a disaster waiting to happen. What’s even more weird is that Jung-min also works there, who is literally the next person to find out about this. He sees his father and his mistress by the emergency exit in an embrace. Confronting his father just leads him to understand that everyone in the house except for Jeong-suk already knows about this.

A still from the episode

He becomes extremely annoyed and is deeply disappointed in his father. When they are all together at home, they decide not to tell Jeong-suk about it and keep it a secret. Meanwhile, Roy Kim is fully excited because now everyone in the house knows, and only Jeong-suk is left, but he is also aware that telling her anything would hurt her beyond comprehension. To make sure things stay the same, all the other family members have been over-compensating in their behaviour.

Moreover, the household has been tense, and Jeong-suk wanted to spend time with them, but they were happy to send her out with Mi-hee. The two besties go to a psychic, and she gives them their fortunes. She tells Mi-hee that she could come back with a man next time. Meanwhile, Jeong-suk gets told that men will revolve around her the older she gets. So when Roy Kim wants to confess something, she thinks it’s about him having feelings for her, but he wants to tell her about In-ho.

But she finds out about his transgressions anyways when a fellow resident is looking at Choi Seung-hi’s social media, and all the dates seem to be aligning with In-ho’s work trips or important conferences. She goes back to her dorm and starts comparing all the posts from her social media to the dates on her calendar when her husband wasn’t there. All of them, once again, align perfectly. She is absolutely devastated by this development, and we can even see that in the way she is crying.

A still from the episode

The next scene, though, shows her walking out of the room with her head held high. Going to her birthday dinner in a beautiful black dress, she walks in slowly and deliberately to make an impact on everyone at the table, including Seo In-ho, who has picked up on the fact that his wife now knows everything. Funnily enough, Seung-hi is also there at the hotel. Perhaps we might see a big conflict in the next episode.

Doctor Cha Episode 8 Review

The drama in this episode, folks, is top-notch. So far, the show has been funny, heartfelt and upbeat, but this dramatic turn has surely worked in their favour because all the conflicts in this episode are fantastic. The writing is a chef’s kiss, and the character dynamics created between the different combinations of actors are crazy.

It is so weird that something so unfunny can be made humourous in this episode. Infidelity doesn’t have to be funny, but the way Kim Byung-chul brings hilarity to the most tragic things is truly the reason why this show’s most traumatic plotline continues to function like a too-fragile house of cards.