I really really loved the first episode of Nice Guy - it's a very typical LKH drama -it should feel over the top and makjang given the premise but due to the excellent writing and acting instead feels painful and real. The drama is anchored by Song Joong Ki's performance - watching him go from a gentle, hopeful future doctor to this broken, hollowed-out, dark shell was crushing. He is amazing - when he's on screen, I can't look away. I've forgotten how LKH dramas can make you hurt - a lot of them start with the protagonists in the worst place and then attempt to climb out but with Maru, we start in a good place and thus his descent is all the worse. The LKH dramas this most reminds me of are A Love to Kill (hero wants to use a woman for revenge, falls in love, chaos ensues) and Sang Do, Let's Go to School (hero is a bright kid who threw away his future and got a jail sentence to protect the woman he loved and now is a gigolo (what's with LKH and gigolos?). Though in Sang Do, the girl he saved was his OTP and here she is a horrible conniving person. I only hope it ends happier than SD, though the hope is slim).
I confess I loathe, loathe, loathe medical dramas and wouldn't watch one even if starred Lee Min Ho, naked and oiled up. The last medical show I watched was a Polish soap opera in 1990. Still, it's probably wrong to wish the hero would stop being a doctor ASAP and get on with the gigolo and revenge thing. To compensate I bring two extra large caps of Doc Maru.
I love the brief scene with Maru and Choco - you see that he is a born caretaker. And despite my cracks about medical shows, I spent the first half of the episode in a constant sense of dread because I saw how sweet and happy and hopeful and adjusted he was - such a genuinely good human being - and I knew it was all going to be torn away from him, down to his very sense of self (if you think about it, not only did he wreck his life for someone who betrayed him, that, to him, calls into question his very basic sense of judgment and ability to read people or feel).
Except for the last scene of the episode, this was my favorite scene - the complexity, the emotion, somehow making me believe that Maru would do the insane thing he did. But how telling that PSY accepts his sacrifice and that the reason she won't turn herself in (though her punishment would be so much less than Maru's) is because she won't be an anchor - unlike for Maru, someone's love is not enough for her. It isn't surprising she ditches Maru for a rich old man - she is all about the externalities from the start. From the character descriptions and hints in this episode, it's clear that both of them came from disadvantaged backgrounds, but Maru somehow clawed his way to having his head on straight (except the caretaker thing - the very trait that leads him to this) while PSY did not.
Shivers...also I love that Eun Gi is this angry, closed off, damaged woman. It isn't a story about a messed-up woobie cured by the love of a saintly woman.
This sequence almost made me cry. Maru alone, contemplating the end of his life, for all intents and purposes. I keep wanting to yell at him to run. Except for the scene at the end, this is the last time we see his eyes alive.
6 years later and what strikes me throughout this scene is how dead his eyes look - it's not even indifference, it's tamped down pain, burned out soul, every other overwrought bad thing you can think of. It's someone who's been kicked too often and now has given up on life and people and hates himself and cannot stop. Also during the kissing scene, it's not even his eyes that freak me out - he doesn't even bother to take his hands out of his pockets. He's on autopilot.
I love the hatred between Eun Gi and stepmom but this scene does underline Eun Gi's damage and the fact that she isn't sunshine - that little kid is innocent but she still treats him like dirt. These characters love to spread the damage.
This scene! Gibber gibber gibber! First of all, the chemistry. How there is such insane chemistry when she's borderline unconscious I do not know, but there it is. More importantly, he starts out in his usual shut down and flippant mode, assuming it's yet another woman who wants a piece of him, but when he sees she is genuinely ill, for a moment, the mask comes down and the vulnerability is back and he looks human and he cares. And then it slams back on as soon as someone else comes along. These actors have no need for words.
He ignores the call for a doctor but, significantly, his friend does badger him into it. There is hope for your soul yet, boy!
Love to see him competent. He would have made an amazing doctor. Such a waste.
When he discovers who Eun Gi's guardian is and the world stops. It's like he's thawing, painfully, and I am shocked he doesn't start screaming right there, especially when he finds out Eun Gi is her stepdaughter and she has a child of his own.
I cannot wait to watch the next episode. This drama would be best to binge on but I have no patience for it and so will drive myself insane via weekly morsels.
I ended up feeling so deeply for Maru, even while realizing the amount of his damage and his darkness. To LKH's credit, she took a potentially insane concept and made it believable and relatable. I used to wonder what on earth would justify someone going after their ex via scorched earth policy, but watching this I understand. I actually want him to go nuclear on her. A pity he himself will be inevitably caught in the blast.
This is very much a Song Joong Ki show so far - he owns every second he is in. We saw less of Moon Chae Won as Eun Gi but I love what I see - damage and savagery and fragility mixed - no wonder she will commonality with Maru. Park Si Yeon excels at playing high-maintenance, solipcistic fragility, so she is at home in her role.
All in all, A+++.