As If You Couldn’t Get Me Off Your Mind – As episode 3 begins in the middle of the night, Koo Gi-Ho (Choi Jung-Hoo) will be shown running to the Lakeview Motel, carrying what sounds like a backpack full of empty bottles. He will briefly pause before entering a room on the second floor. The view of the room is obscured by what almost resembles to be two bright headlights but the voice of another child can be heard taking note of his late arrival.

In the not-so-distant past, a slightly younger and anxious Jeon Yeong-Ha (Kim Yoon-Seok) meets Director Kim (Kwak Min-Suk) for lunch where they briefly debate several issues. The biggest takeaway appears to be that Yeong-Ha’s wife has just been diagnosed with a grave illness and Yeong-Ha is giving up everything to care for her, including their apartment in Seoul. Despite the discovery greatly troubling Kim, Yeong-Ha will later admit that he would gladly pay any cost for more time with his wife.

In the present, Yeong-Ha has just learned of Yoo Seong-A’s (Go Min-Si) arrival. Although they pretend as if they are just meeting, he is clearly shaken and her inquiries about vacancies do not help. To make matters even worse, Jeon Ui-Seon (Roh Yoon-Seo) and Song Ji-Su (Nam Ji-Woo) have just pulled in. It won’t take Jeon Ui-Seon long to sense something is off, but it is Yoo Seong-A that will address it by mentioning her out-of-the-blue appearance. Much to Yeong-Ha’s displeasure, he will also learn that Ui-Seon and Ji-Su will no longer be spending the weekend. They’ll be leaving promptly after dinner thanks to an ailing puppy. Ui-Seon will take it upon herself to offer the room, which Seong-A gladly accepts.

Although Seong-A makes herself scarce during the dinner, she returns with a bottle of wine as penance for the room. The dinner appears to go great other than, Yeong-Ha probably coming off as cold because he’s in a bit of a haze. It isn’t long after this before he’s saying goodbye to Ui-Seon. Yeong-Ha will have a hard time falling asleep and when he finally does, he dreams about his wife with Song-Ah’s face.

When Yeong-Ha wakes the following morning to find Seong-Ha gone, he will use the opportunity to go through her room. She will catch him but surprisingly enough, only asks if he’s already had breakfast to which he doesn’t offer a response. Later that day by the pool, he practically tells her that he remembers her from last year’s visit. She will deny it but it doesn’t go much further than that for the moment.

Another flashback shows that Seo Eun-Gyeong (Ryoo Hyoun-Kyoung) has begun relying on alcohol to help cope with the hotel incident. Her drinking on the job will eventually lead to a very public confrontation with her boss.

Eun-Gyeong’s situation begins to slowly improve when one day at the lumber mill, Koo Sang-Jun (Yoon Kye-Sang), receives an offer on the motel from a local Realtor (Choi Yong-Jin). Despite Eun-Gyeong’s earlier hesitation, she now jumps on the opportunity to move the family out of town. She will return home later that evening not only to cook dinner for the first time in a long time but to pour out all her alcohol. This is not before a young Gi-Ho can get his hands on a few.

Sang-Jun will joke about Eun-Gyeong giving up the drinking when he spends much of that evening with Park Jong-Du (Park Ji-Hwan). This brief encounter will also reveal that they are not brothers as was earlier intended. Park quotes himself as being a washed-up old gangster who is now living off his mother, Kim Gyeong-Ok (Cha Mi-Kyung) while Sang-Jun is a bit of a drifter who learned the construction trade after a gambling uncle ran with his inheritance.

Eun-Gyeong will continue to have nightmares about the motel incident and one particular frightful night will lead to her learning that Gi-Ho has been plying his peers (Park Seung-Joon) with her alcohol and cigarettes. She only learns about this after Gi-Ho gets his hands on some of her sleeping pills and the boys mix them with alcohol. The police and parents eventually get involved after several of the boys nearly die from mixing sleeping pills with alcohol. Although everything is blamed on Gi-Hi, Eun-Gyeong will later tell a very upset Sang-Jun that he was being bullied into providing the paraphernalia. This doesn’t sit well with Sang-Jun and leads him to the school where he ends up attacking one of the bully’s parents. This particular parent just happens to be friends with the developer interested in the motel, resulting in a complete retraction of the earlier offer.

As even more time passes, Kim Gyeong-Ok and Park will take on Sang-Jun as one of their own. Kim Gyeong-Ok will not only use her influence with the local police to help in his assault case but Park will nearly get into a fight with two customers (Myung Jae-Hwan/Lee Su-Hyung) at the store who are callously talking about visiting the Murder Motel. Before this confrontation gets out of hand, a very young Yoon Bo-Min (Ha Yoon-Kyung) will randomly show up. Surprisingly enough though, she appears to be in the company of a reporter Yeom Dong-Chan (Lee Ga-Sub) who is doing a piece on the anniversary of the hotel incident.

Although Park isn’t initially happy about Dong-Chan’s interest in the motel either, the reporter changes his whole outlook when he tells him why he’s interested in doing the piece. Park will later not only introduce Dong-Chan to Sang-Jun but he will try to convince him to do an interview with Dong-Chan.

Returning to the present, Yeong-Ha will do a bit of shopping before sitting down to dinner with Seong-A. Much to his surprise, she will very vainly admit that he was right all along. She did stay at his place last year. The discussion doesn’t go much further because Yeong-Ha will soon find himself unconscious. The cause isn’t clear but his slow, frantic movements indicate he was likely sedated. Although there are no clear signs of struggle, he feels the need to frantically race to the police station. When his nose begins to randomly bleed, he will feel in his pocket for a tissue but only finds a note that isn’t revealed. Whatever it says sends him racing back out of the station where he briefly passes Yoon Bo-Min (Lee Jun-Eun).

At this point, the story will very briefly return to the past where a much younger and more frantic Bo-Min races to the Lakeview Motel to find Eun-Gyeong unresponsive. After failing to revive her, Yeong-Ha will return to the road leading to his cabin resort. Halfway through he stops to read the note, which isn’t a note at all, but rather, the family photo he keeps on his desk. In it, Jeon Ui-Seon’s face is circled several times in red marker. This is where the episode ends.

 

The Frog Review

Episode 3 was equal parts confusing and revealing. I am sure the questions will be answered in the upcoming episodes. That said, I very much enjoyed the time in the past. I am not usually a big advocate for flashbacks and memory scenes, but Sang-Jun and Eun-Gyeong’s backstory was incredibly intriguing. Everything from Gi-Hi getting bullied to steal alcohol to Gyeong’s supposed death was intriguing. I must say that it also helped because the story actually stayed in the past. Instead of taking the ping-pong approach like many series do these days, this one stayed in the past.

Although the episode was still entirely too long, it did cover a lot. I also enjoyed what little bit was gleaned from Park’s past. This episode deserves an easy 6.2.

Get more of The Frog review recaps here. Join our newly established forum to see what others are saying. Support our site by donating. Learn about our advertising packages here.