Kokdu: Season of Deity (2023) Recap Episode 7-8

I went into this week’s episodes with a lot of apathy, so imagine my surprise when I found myself fairly entertained by what Kokdu: Season of Deity served up. I still wouldn’t say this drama is on the path to redemption — in fact, the inconsistency of its enjoyment factor is a whole separate can of worms — but at least I didn’t get bored and start online shopping on my phone this time. That’s gotta count for something, right?

So can we attribute the uptick in viewing pleasure to the triumphant return of Jin-woo? Ehhhhh… I wouldn’t go that far. While Jin-woo certainly contributed to the plot progression, as a character he’s about as consistent as the rest of this drama — which, as we all know, isn’t something to celebrate. And I’m not sure if I should blame the directing or — I’m sorry to say this — Kim Jung-hyun’s acting, but either way, someone decided that the best way to distinguish the two personalities was to make Jin-woo a stone-faced foil to Kokdu’s wacky expressiveness.

From the moment Jin-woo’s back in the driver’s seat he’s nothing but somberness and haughtiness. All signs point to him having an absolute shit bedside manner as a doctor, but he at least jumps in to perform the life-saving surgery on the pregnant patient and points out what we’re all thinking: that the hospital’s emergency protocols suck and Gye-jeol’s decision to perform a surgery with an amnesiac sidekick was beyond stupid. Okay, so maybe I don’t hate Jin-woo as much as I previously thought — because he’s got at least one thing going for him that every other character in this show seems to be lacking: intelligence.

Although Jin-woo initially thinks his afterlife meet-and-greet with his deceased mother was a dream, he quickly pieces together the truth. On the one hand, I applaud the fact that he was able to figure it out with very little evidence — just strange tinkling bell sounds and weird people (a.k.a. Ok Shin and Gak Shin) lingering around him and jumping in unexpectedly to provide an alibi when Cheol finally corners Jin-woo and interrogates him about Kokdu’s murderous activities and the 24K gold goblin-mobile.

But on the other hand, if that’s all it takes for Jin-woo to figure out his body was possessed by Kokdu for 40 days, then why the hell can’t anyone else figure out a god has been walking among them? Then again, not everyone — like Cheol — has witnessed Jin-woo disappearing into thin air, so I guess it’s easier to believe that Jin-woo is the amnesiac illegitimate child of a chaebol family than to imagine he’s a grim reaper-like god cursed to roam earth for 99 days.

After returning from the afterlife, Jin-woo also has the sense to keep his trap shut about the attempted murder that initially led to the soul-vacancy that Kokdu filled. Unfortunately, this is where some of his characterization gets sloppy. We were set up in Episode 1 to believe that Jin-woo — despite his stoicism — was a man who followed a path of righteousness and intended to expose Chairman Kim’s evil doings, and that’s what got him killed.

But when Choong-seong tracks him down, Jin-woo lies, claiming he accidentally fell from his apartment rooftop because the medication he was on had some gnarly side effects. Jin-woo’s choice to play dumb put a target on Choong-seong’s back, and Choong-seong definitely deserved to know that the threat was real. Jin-woo’s silence was a massive jerk move, especially since Jin-woo wasn’t aware that Joong-shik installed spy cameras in Gye-jeol’s clinic and was listening in on their conversation.

So why did Jin-woo lie? Well, the story wants us to believe that Jin-woo has had a massive change of heart — for the worse — since he faced his own mortality. He’s now afraid of dying, and he believes that Gye-jeol is the lucky talisman that will stave off the reaper Kokdu before he’s had the chance to have grandkids. It’s totally understandable that Jin-woo’s survival instincts would have kicked in and made him want to cling to Gye-jeol in this situation, but why not warn Choong-seong that their search for the truth will get them both killed?

Oh well, no need to dwell on it too long because Jin-woo’s days are still, in fact, numbered. And that number is 49. You see, even though Jin-woo is back in his body’s driver seat again, he can’t escape fate. He was destined to die those 40-odd days ago, and once his number is up, his soul goes poof! Unfortunately, while this may seem like a positive thing for Kokdu, it’s not simply a matter of biding his time until Jin-woo’s body disappears with due time.

Instead — and this is totally how I’m interpreting the drama’s logic — without Kokdu’s godly magic keeping Jin-woo’s body rosy and fresh, Jin-woo is kind of like a zombie. Jin-woo’s soul is keeping the body animated, but because he’s a dead soul, the body is still slowly decaying… or something like that. Thus, if Kokdu wants to reinhabit Jin-woo’s body, ideally he should do it sooner rather than later (a.k.a. before Jin-woo’s body is a rotten mess).

And so, Team Kokdu hatches another asinine plan in order to trick Gye-jeol into calling for Kokdu’s help. It’s a plan so dumb that it just might wor– wait. No, it fails. Much to Kokdu’s frustration, before Gye-jeol gets the chance to say the magic words that will supposedly trigger her smart watch’s “emergency safety feature” (and summon Kokdu), Jin-woo shows up to save Gye-jeol from the intruder — who turns out to be neither Joong-shik nor Team Kokdu’s fake henchman.

Because the drama wants to slip in a quick message about how crappy it is for people with pre-existing medical conditions to exist in a work-at-will society, the burglar was one of Gye-jeol’s patients, who was trying to steal her own medical records. But — and this should surprise no one — the seriousness of this topic is set aside five minutes later so we can return to our regularly scheduled programming.

In the aftermath of the burglary, Jin-woo and Gye-jeol have a sit-down and discuss his feelings — or lack thereof. Gye-jeol, who is an expert on crushes, is well aware that Jin-woo isn’t interested in her romantically, and this has her all sorts of bummed because she realizes that she misses Kokdu.

Jin-woo, for his part, claims he wants to get to know her because he’s curious to find out why he was so drawn to her when he lost his memories, but the truth is that he doesn’t want to give her a reason to miss Kokdu and wish for his return. And maybe, just maybe, there’s a part of him that is drawn to Gye-jeol, but his motivations (outside self-preservation) are still a bit murky.

Unfortunately for Jin-woo, our villains have decided to make their next move, so he doesn’t get the opportunity to win Gye-jeol over. After first torturing and killing Choong-seong, Joong-shik tampers with Jin-woo’s car. The ensuing accident kills Jin-woo and — boom — Kokdu’s back, baby! He immediately teleports — with Joong-shik as a hidden onlooker and witness to Kokdu’s cosmic powers — to Gye-jeol’s side.

She’s not as receptive of Kokdu as he’d hoped, though, because she assumes that he’s Jin-woo, who she has already rejected. Although Kokdu is pleased to hear Gye-jeol admit she prefers him over Jin-woo, this is actually a major setback for Kokdu. Not only does he have to win her over again, but this time he has to do it with the disadvantage of seemingly having multiple personalities. Cue: Ok Shin using Kill Me, Heal Me as a dating guide for navigating this peculiar set of circumstances.

But before Kokdu does anything dumb to try and win her over, Gye-jeol figures out on her own that he has returned. Does she realize that he’s actually a god possessing Jin-woo’s body? Nope, but she does believe — because of situational evidence — that she has the “power” to summon and send him away, so she promises to never wish for him to disappear. I don’t think this is the last we’ve seen of Jin-woo, though.

Reunited, our couple goes on a date. Their first stop is a museum, where Kokdu is appalled by the crude depictions of what he supposedly looks like. Gye-jeol just laughs at his reaction — because a woman with a medical license should totally humor a man with obvious delusions. Like, how desperate for love and affection must Gye-jeol be for her to forgo all concern for his mental health and embrace what she believes to be a second personality conjured up by a severe physical trauma?

After going on a classic K-drama outfit shopping spree, the mood turns sour when Gye-jeol reads an article about Yi-deun being sponsored by Pilseong. Gye-jeol’s concern for her ex-boyfriend and Choong-seong annoys Kokdu, so he seeks out Choong-seong to put her mind at ease. Alas, Choong-seong is dead, and his death has been staged to look like a suicide.

Back when Kokdu was trapped in the afterlife and could only watch Gye-jeol and Jin-woo through the magic mirror he had Gak Shin set up in the clinic, he witnessed Choong-seong and Jin-woo’s conversation about the patient list. During that conversation, he heard Choong-seong name-drop Chairman Kim, and Kokdu (correctly) suspects that the clinic was bugged.

He finds Joong-shik’s spy cameras and decides to put an end to all the murderous shenanigans around Gye-jeol once and for all. He teleports and pops right into Chairman Kim’s office, and it’s so delightfully aggressive. Sadly, it’s also too aggressive and a massive end-stop for the plot which is (*checks calendar and whimpers to see that this drama is*) only halfway over. So, of course, just as Kokdu is about to choke Chairman Kim and put him — and this murder mystery side-plot — to death, Gye-jeol barges into Chairman Kim’s office.

The how and why she was at Chairman Kim’s office is explained by the reveal that he has offered to give Gye-jeol her job back. I don’t know which is more ridiculous: the idea that Chairman Kim thinks having Gye-jeol work for him and be under his thumb will somehow protect him from a literal god who can pop in and out of his office undetected, or the fact that Gye-jeol is thinking about accepting the job. What about that sweet, sweet gig she’s got going on at the seaside clinic with the impossibly cheap rent?

I guess logic doesn’t compute when the drama is clearly taking another turn towards a different story arc — the one where it’s Gye-jeol’s job to redeem Kokdu’s soul and make him a better person (*yawn*). I don’t know about you all, but I really thought this drama was going to go somewhere interesting and have Kokdu kill off the villain mid-way through the story. Talk about massive subversion of our expectations! Except, you know, it didn’t actually go there, and now I’m super bummed that it didn’t.