Kokdu: Season of Deity (2023) Recap Episode 5-6

You know what Kokdu: Season of Deity and its titular character have in common? Both have too much time on their hands. It was never more obvious than with this week’s episodes that Kokdu (the drama) is really struggling to fill its eighty-minute time slot, and Kokdu (the character) embodies the overall laziness of the plot every time he reclines in his seat and watches from the sidelines while Gye-jeol and his demi-god minions do all the work.

Neither the drama nor Kokdu have the right to be idle — not when writer and director have thrown every genre and gum ball machine worth of plot devices at us. And yet, this week it felt like all the major plot points that have been introduced thus far — like, oh I don’t know, the fact that someone just tried to kill Gye-jeol last week — were put on the back burner to simmer while Kokdu and our story underwent (yet another) identity crisis.

This time the prevalent genre is small town slice-of-life romance, which means introducing a group of meddling neighbors who are overly invested in the pretty new town doctor’s love life. Apparently, all it takes to win over the townspeople and drum up loyal customers is to explain that one man’s WebMD self-diagnosis is actually scurvy — not leukemia. Suddenly everyone wants to pile into Gye-jeol’s examination room and vet her rumored boyfriend. Of course, by the time the neighbors have rallied to interrogate Kokdu and measure his worthiness, the situation between him and Gye-jeol has hit a brick wall.

You see, after finally getting confirmation that Gye-jeol was the curse-breaking woman Kokdu had been looking for, Ok Shin put in motion an epic proposal dinner intended to woo and wow her into kissing Kokdu. Unfortunately, before the romantic dinner gets underway, TAE JUNG-WON (Dasom) shows up. And she’s there to mark her territory and claim the amnesiac Jin-woo as her boyfriend.

Gye-jeol, however, is suspicious of her former best friend. After all, if Jung-won is capable of lying and stealing Gye-jeol’s boyfriend, then it’s not implausible that the b***h (Kokdu’s word, not mine) would also take advantage of the fact that Jin-woo has amnesia. Even so, Gye-jeol decides it’s best to put a pause on her relationship with Kokdu until Jin-woo recovers his memories.

During their romantic hiatus, Gye-jeol begins to question if her own intentions were pure. Perhaps she was the one being greedy, wanting a successful and rich boyfriend. Did she take advantage of the fact that he lost his memories in order to get closer to him? She later explains her fears to Kokdu and vows to make up for her lapse in judgment, but he responds from the insider knowledge that Jin-woo is very dead and so not coming back. He asks her what she would do if Kokdu is the personality that’s here to stay…

Gye-jeol’s immediate reaction is to reject the possibility because she needs Jin-woo to wake up and set the record straight. In her emotional, drunken state, she gets riled up and wishes for Kokdu to disappear — and, well, he does. Kokdu clutches his chest, and when his body hits the ground, his spirit has returned to the afterlife.

Luckily, Gye-jeol unknowingly says the magical words needed to bring Kokdu back, but the incident has both of them on edge. Gye-jeol is concerned about Kokdu’s health, and when Ok Shin tries to break Kokdu out of his hospital room using his rich earthly CEO persona, Gye-jeol puts her foot down and commands that Kokdu get back in bed. Kokdu, on the other hand, leaves the experience terrified that if he doesn’t get on Gye-jeol’s good side, she will wish him gone — and back to the afterlife — again. And if he goes back to the afterlife, then there’s no opportunity to kiss and break his curse.

Once again, Ok Shin is a demi-god with a plan. If it’s Jin-woo that Gye-jeol wants, then why not pretend to be Jin-woo? Thankfully, Jin-woo kept a meticulous set of diaries, so Kokdu reads up on Jin-woo’s life, learning just enough to fake his way through his next encounter with Jung-won. Turns out, Jung-won and Jin-woo did date, but Jung-won had the unbecoming habit of breaking up with him over the slightest infraction. (Man, this drama really wants us to hate her.)

Shortly before Jin-woo died, though, he called it quits — presumably with the intention of never getting back together. Jung-won, of course, cannot accept that they’ve broken up permanently this time around, and refuses to believe it until Kokdu proves he’s recovered Jin-woo’s memories. Jung-won may be excessively narcissistic, but she’s smart enough to suspect that Kokdu read Jin-woo’s diaries. Thus, she asks Kokdu out on a date in order to test Kokdu’s memories, which means Kokdu, Ok Shin, and Gak Shin pull an all-nighter studying Jin-woo’s journals.

The date test goes smoothly — right up until the moment an unexpected medical emergency falls in their laps. Ok Shin, however, was prepared for the worst case scenario and had a team of doctors on standby to feed Kokdu medical knowledge through an earpiece. Kokdu successfully fakes his way through a diagnosis, but he does so well that he has to accompany Jung-won and his pregnant patient to the hospital.

At this point, the drama decides it wants to be a thriller again, and while Jung-won tests Kokdu on Jin-woo’s memories, Choong-seong pays Gye-jeol’s clinic a late night visit. He heard from Yi-deun that she was friends with Jin-woo, the doctor he’d given his malpractice evidence to, and came to confirm the unsettling news that Jin-woo now has amnesia. Gye-jeol is happy to report, though, that Jin-woo’s memories have returned! (Huzzah!) Except for, you know, the fact that this whole conversation goes down in front of the hidden cameras Joong-shik installed in Gye-jeol’s clinic.

Before our bad guys — who have been mostly inactive since Joong-shik pushed Gye-jeol off the lighthouse — make a move, chaos erupts at the hospital. At the same time Kokdu’s patient needs an emergency C-section, the abusive husband of one of Jung-won’s patients sets the hospital ER on fire. As the hospital calls for an evacuation, Gye-jeol realizes two things. One, if they don’t help the patient, she and/or her baby will die. And two, Kokdu is still, well, Kokdu, and his lack of medical knowledge couldn’t come at a worse possible time.

She readies herself to do the surgery herself, even though she hasn’t performed a C-section since med school, but her own lack of experience and doubts have her turning to Kokdu in desperation. Jin-woo could easily perform the surgery…if only he could remember the ten-plus years of medical training he’d forgotten. She pleads and begs for Jin-woo to come back, thinking the adrenaline of the moment might send his memories rushing back to him. Instead, Kokdu collapses to the ground, but this time when his soul vacates Jin-woo’s body, Jin-woo’s soul returns.

Can’t say that Jin-woo’s return was all that surprising because, once they established that she could wish Kokdu to the afterlife, logic indicated that she could also wish for Jin-woo’s return. Given how much genre hopping this drama has done in its three weeks, I can’t help but wonder if the next phase of this story will be something along the lines of Ghost Doctor. Will Jin-woo and Kokdu now share Jin-woo’s body and swap out whenever there’s a medical emergency? I joke, but at the same time, it feels entirely too plausible.

I’ve obviously lost my patience with the plot, but at least the situational comedy still amuses me. Sadly, Kim Jung-hyun’s physical comedy — and penchant for walking over tables as though they were boulders on a hiking path — can’t carry this show much longer. For the sake of those still tuning in each week, I hope the story starts utilizing the plot devices it’s already introduced instead of piling on more. If it can do that — and keep on delivering these hilarious character interactions — then this drama might get back on track.