Making Sense Of The Present
Melting me Softly feels a lot more grounded now that it’s settled in the present, with an episode featuring hardly any flashbacks and predominantly set in 2019. We’re given more development into the mystery surrounding the attempted murder of the professor and the story moves along at a decent enough pace, giving us progression for most of the characters. We begin with Mi-Ran coming face to face with Byeong-Sim and while she doesn’t recognize him, he’s too shocked to say anything. After reading all the emails Kyung-Ja and Young-Sun have been sending her, Mi-Ran tells her parents that she’s looking for a good job. Her parents tell her that she doesn’t need to work hard like she used to because they’re now in a better position. She tells them they had 20 years but for her, it’s been one day and it’s hard to change how she thinks and feels. After breakfast, she heads to class where her teacher, Byeong-Sim, now uses a different name and she doesn’t realize who he is. Hyun-Ki arrives in the office and organizes a meeting, shouting at his staff for not doing a good job. Dong-Chan then takes the stand with some variety show ideas, but everyone looks a bit confused as these have been done before. After the meeting, Hyun-Ki mentions to Dong-Chan that he feels his creativity is gone. They then get a call from Mi-Ran asking for a meeting with everyone at the station. Meanwhile, the professor awakens from his coma and is visited by his old assistant Ki Beom, who tells him that his experiment has worked. Realizing that the professor has lost his memories, Ki Beom decides to do whatever he can to get them back. After trying some silly, unsuccessful experiments, Ki Beom takes him to the frozen chambers to see if it will trigger anything. Hyun-Ki catches Dong-Chan up with world events from the last 20 years while the other people in the office speculate about whether he’s the director who went missing 20 years ago. The day of the meeting with Mi-Ran then arrives. Hong-Seok tries to apologize but Mi-Ran rejects it as she’s after compensation, 70 million to be precise. They tell her they can’t afford that amount and try to make her see the positive side of things. While Dong-Chan drives Mi-Ran back, she despairs, thinking about all the good things she could have done if she hadn’t been frozen. He tells her that no one knows what could have happened and she could even have died in a car accident. Just after saying this, his old car breaks down. At home, Byeong-Sim carries on obsessing about Mi-Ran in his class while her friends, Kyung-Ja and Young-Sun, find out that she’s back and decide to meet her right away. As they do, they’re shocked to see she hasn’t changed. They ask her how she managed to look so young but she ignores the question and leaves to go to the bathroom. An article has just been published about Dong-Chan reappearing after 20 years, looking exactly the same. Hyon-Seok and Hyun-Ki panic when they see it and begin to worry about him. His mother sees it too and wants to confront the station about the article, but her grand-daughter stops her as she thinks that Dong-Chan becoming a celebrity could help their business. Dong-Chan meets with Ki-Beom who tells him their experiment was sponsored by Johnson McCarthy Foundation. We also find out that Dong-Chan and Mi-Ran’s body shouldn’t exceed 33 degree Celsius. A Detective shows Dong-Chan the suspect behind the car explosion which they believe could be the same person who killed professor Johnson many years ago. They weren’t able to carry on with the investigation as he’s now a Russian senator. Lee Seok Du, CEO of the Unsung group, finds out from his assistant that Professor Hwang might still be alive and that Dong-Chan came back after having been missing for 20 years. He tells his assistant that if the professor is still alive, they will have to get rid of him. We then cut to a man in one of the capsules who looks startlingly similar. After finding out that the police weren’t made aware of the experiment, an angry Dong-Chan confronts Hyun-Ki and asks him how he could have done that to him while Ha-Young watches on, feeling guilty. The episode then ends with Mi-Ran storming in and demanding a job at the station. The latest installment of Melting Me Softly moves the story forward with the addition of a new evil character, Lee Seok-Du. He looks to be the one behind the attempted murder on the professor too and possibly linked to the cryonics experiment. This development brings an interesting twist and it’ll be intriguing to see where the show goes with this revelation. Meanwhile, Dong-Chan and Mi-Ran continue to adjust to their lives which doesn’t always prove that easy. We’re seeing more hints at how temperature affects them and in true Korean Drama fashion, something dramatic is bound to happen when one of them exceeds 33 degrees. Dong-Chan and Ha-Young might still have some spark between them while it’s doubtful that Mi-Ran will have any feelings for Byeong-Sim. Having been frozen for 20 years, both protagonists are inevitably going to grow closer. Will it lead to the expected romance between the two? We’ll have to wait to find out!
