To be a malfunctioning cogwheel

Episode 1 of Somebody starts with Kim Sum dressed in a high school uniform and heading to Namseoul Shopping Center. There, she meets a man who runs a gambling shop. He hires her to help with his computers and she does an exemplary job. He then allows her to use the computers and the machines for a programming project in school. Kim Sum uses the machine to create a one-of-a-kind chatbot that gets the attention of another programmer, Jung.

Years later, Kim Sum and Jung create a dating app named someone which helps people meet their soulmates. Kim Sum and Jung are even officiating weddings for their clients.  From the outside, it looks like Kim Sum is living a great life but she is desperately lonely. She has no one to talk to apart from the app she created. Her only friend other than the app is Gi-eun who has not been visiting lately.

There is also another problem Kim Sum is facing, the dating app she created is being used to target, victimize and murder women. The police are hounding them to release the files of the victims to them and Sam is trying to get to the bottom of it but she needs Jung’s approval. However, Jung is not feeling particularly inclined to help the police with the investigation more than legally required of them.

One night, as Kim Sum investigates the link to the murders and the dating app site, she hears a cat being hit by a car. She tries to call the relevant authorities but they keep her on hold. During this time, she was on the app talking to two different people. One of them advises her to take the cat to the vet while the other tells her to do whatever she wants with the cat. She decides to kill the cat and the second user tells her she did the right thing ending the animal’s pain.

After killing the cat, she shares a meeting location with the second user and they plan their first meeting. They meet and she agrees to go to dinner with him. In the car, on their way to the restaurant Kim Sum tells the man, Seong Yun-o that she is the creator of the app. She also tells him that the messages he sends on the app were characterized as non-human and Yun-o jokes that he got caught as a robot.

Yun-o drives to a secluded parking spot and Kim Sum tells him she is not looking for sex and doesn’t want to get raped. She asks him to take her to his office and he obliges.

At his office, she calmly takes a look around and questions him about some of the things she finds there. She goes on and opens up about her condition, Asperger’s syndrome which makes her different from other people.

She finds an old piano in his office and they play it together. She starts telling him more about her condition and her childhood experiences. She confides in him that she has trouble interacting with other people and goes through life imitating others. At the end of their date, he gifts her a razor blade.

The next day, Yun-o gets a call from one of the women he is currently chatting with on the app. Her name is Rose and they make plans to meet, once they meet he kills her.

The Episode Review

This first episode created a perfect introduction for Kim Sum, and in a way, we can understand her loneliness and desire to meet someone who understands her. She is a smart woman so she has probably picked up that there is something off with Yun-o.

Her desire to meet someone who she can love and be loved is likely the reason that she ignores these instincts. Looking forward to how this thriller will unfold, after a promising opening!