Bad-Memory Eraser – K-drama Episode 1 Recap & Review

Episode 1 Recap

[trigger warning – suicide attempt]

The recap of Bad-Memory Eraser Episode 1 begins with a flashback to kid genius, Lee Gun playing his last tennis match. He happens to be the first South Korean to win an international medal. His little brother, Shin looks up to him. However, during the match, the opponent accidentally throws his racket towards Shin. To save him, Gun jumps in front and the racket hits him in the head.

While Gun recovers, he overhears that his parents have used up all their savings to hire one of the best coaches. To not let it go to waste, they plan to leave him with his grandmother and have Shin replace him. He tries to run after them as they leave but he is soon exhausted. His medal falls in the river and in trying to catch it, he falls in. A young girl saves him and disappears.

At present, Gun is manager to Shin who is a successful tennis player. The family is on a flight to South Korea and the parents are sitting with Shin. Gun is busy drinking in the lounge and sitting next to him is Kyung Ju-yeon, a psychiatrist who is studying PTSD.

She believes that even 1 or 2 bad memories can imprint and affect one’s personality, leading to low self-esteem. Her research describes Gun accurately as he is paranoid and feels like everyone is judging him. He confides in the flight attendant that there is a class reunion where he may finally find his first love, the girl who saved him but he is afraid of disappointing her.

Ju-yeon is annoyed with his lamentations which worsen when there is turbulence – in trying to help her wipe a stain off her lips, he cracks her veneers. More turbulence has them falling, her saving her laptop instead of him and him accepting that he is worthless.

Once the flight lands, he has to pretend to be Shin to distract the tennis fans. He once again bumps into Ju-yeon and they accidentally switch bags. Yeah, he is also responsible for the family’s luggage and is left behind while handling it. His family doesn’t go back for him and advises him to charge a taxi to his brother’s card. Well, he is freezing as he stubbornly heads home on a bus.

We see that he lives in the storage room of the house, his parents taunt him about his clothes and he is constantly in a self-pitying mood. It doesn’t help that he prefers fried chicken but they only make boiled chicken since it is Shin’s favourite and everyone including the dog gets better pieces than Gun. To make it worse, while playing with the dog, he gets bit.

Later, we see Gun’s friend, Guk-bong calling to ask about the reunion so he can find his first love. However, Gun is afraid and instead asks his friend to search for the girl. At work, Shin’s agent looks down on Gun. It is revealed that Gun is hired as manager only upon Shin’s request. This has the agent mocking Gun for mooching off his brother.

Gun also runs into Shi-on, a promising young tennis player who is a fan of his. She asks for his input but he naively comments on her knee injury. The agent is furious and humiliates him by throwing papers at him. Gun is sad as he believes his last remaining fan will now consider him a nobody. And while trying to pick up the papers, his wrist starts paining.

Meanwhile, Ju-yeon gets ready to present her research for funding – she is working on a bad memory eraser which will erase all bad memories that cause trauma in a patient. However, she realises her bags are switched as she searches for her documents. She finds Gun’s number on the bag but when she calls him, he abruptly cuts it.

Her frustration is short-lived when Gun shows up in the ER with his wrist pain. But there is nothing physically wrong with his wrist. Ju-yeon shares about PTSD and phantom pain but he doesn’t believe in it as therapy hasn’t worked for him. She berates him and distracts him by pinching his other hand. By the end of their bickering, she points out that he is not in pain anymore and he storms off.

On seeing his file, she realises he is the same Lee Gun from the flight and suitcase fiasco. Feeling sorry for him, she leaves him a voice message sharing that she can help him come to terms with the trauma. A sort of truce is formed as he promises to return her luggage the next day.

The next day, while Gun drops Shin at the hospital, the latter spies the reunion invite. He tries to joke but Gun is frantic. An upset Shin wishes Gun would let go of his trauma and loosen up. We then learn that Shin secretly visits Ju-yeon’s colleague, Dr. Han for therapy. He happens upon the bad memory eraser trial and is intrigued by it.

At that moment, the doctors are busy carrying the successful test subject, a mouse to the board meeting when they fall and the mouse is set free. Having wrapped up, Shin texts Gun to come to the main entrance. And as luck would have it, his car runs over the mouse. 

Distraught, Ju-yeon takes out her anger on Gun. He takes it as the mouse’s life is worth more than his. She agrees and hammers in the final nail – if she were Gun’s first love, she would never accept him since he will be stuck in the past till he dies. 

But despite the hitch, Ju-yeon confidently tells the board that the research is enough proof of the trial’s success rate. And for her next subject, it won’t be a mouse, it will be a human. During the board’s investigation on the ethics of erasing memories, she shares that trauma can be isolating. The patient believes no one loves them and construes others’ actions as hate.

It cuts to Shi-on still looking up to Gun, his parents making fried chicken for him, and Shin dropping the agent for humiliating his brother. A flashback also shows a young Ju-yeon being shocked by something. At present, she shares that they will be helping desperate patients with the trial and the board greenlights it.

However, her words about him being worthless stick with Gun and he jumps into the river. He is taken to the hospital by Shin, and the doctors decide to make him their subject. Ju-yeon feels guilty and stays by his side the whole time. However, something goes wrong while Gun’s bad memories are being erased. He spots Ju-yeon in front of him while he relives his first love saving him. And so, when he wakes up, he instantly hugs her believing that she is his first love. And that is the end of the Bad-Memory Eraser Episode 1 recap.

The Episode Rating

Bad-Memory Eraser Episode 1 starts off on quite a sad note with Gun believing that the whole world is against him and he is all alone. It is quite brutal especially since we don’t realise that the first half of the episode is all from his perspective. It doesn’t help that his parents and the female lead are horrible to him.

But once we get that monologue from Ju-yeon to the ethics board we see the truth of it. Sure, Gun’s family is careless but they do worry about him. It also warns us about the dangers of flippantly sending hate as we never know what someone may be going through. It is unfortunate that Ju-yeon’s anger leads to Gun’s drowning. 

It would also be interesting on how they tackle the first love angle. It would be a little too obvious if she happened to be the same girl. In fact, it would be refreshing if we had a different girl playing the first love, Gun going after her but realising that he actually has feelings for Ju-yeon instead.