RECAP: The Virus ep. 1

We’ll be bringing you recaps of OCN’s newest drama, The Virus. It’s a 10 episode, high-stakes medical contagion series headlined by Uhm Kijoon. If that wasn’t enough to catch your interest (yeah right), it also stars more pretty in the forms of Lee Ki Woo & Park Minwoo (both of Flower Boy Ramyun Shop fame), Hyun Woo (of 24/7), as well as Yoobin (of the Wonder Girls). And for weird people like me, it also has loveable ahjusshis – Jo Heebong (I Do, I Do), Song Youngkyu (Ohlala Spouses), & Ahn Sukhwan (Shut Up Family).

---

We open on a stairwell with police chasing our hero, Lee Myunghyun (Uhm Ki Joon), who is quickly surrounded by SWAT.
He urges Jeon Jiwon (Lee So Jung) to go over the evidence again--that they missed something. He yells not to come closer, and we see his heart turn black.
  
He’s infected!! He starts to bleed from his eyes, mouth and ears, and then collapses. The Police Chief calls for backup, “Lee Myunghyun, Squad Leader of the Infectious Disease Crisis Response Team, is infected!"
Sirens blare in response to a fire on February 6th, 2013 at 5:20 AM, at Hwasangrok Medical Center.
Two firefighters enter and rescue a doctor, who’s bleeding from his eyes. (Can I just say- I know he’s in a fire, but dang he looks scary as heck!). “Run away,” he implores. (Holy smokes I think I just peed my pants). They put him in an ambulance, where he coughs up blood on a medic and breathes his last breath.
The ambulance passes a bus where a hooded boy sits.  A mother and her young daughter come sit next to him. He coughs and looks nervously at them, carefully wiping his mouth.  So we’ve found our Patient X (named Kim In Chul, played by Hyun Woo).

In a locker room the firefighters are changing, one goes to shower. We see blood in the drain and he’s dead on the floor, bleeding from his eyes. The other firefighter is lying facedown bleeding too. An ambulance speeds down the street and rear ends a truck. The EMT driver collapsed at the steering wheel and bleeds from his orifices. The mother sits dead at the kitchen table, while her daughter plays. Conclusion: “Fatalities from strange virus appears."
Back at the Medical Center, CDC agents in full protective gear examine the center, with police tape surrounding the area. Team Leader Go Soo Gil (Jo Hee Bong, pictured far left) is trying to shoo away a reporter. Team Leader Go Soo Gil accidentally lets slip that they don’t know what infection is spreading. Myunghyun arrives and tells the reporter straight, we don’t know what it is, but everyone dies. Myunghyun then informs the reporter that he has to get tested, and to keep his phone on so they can find his body later if he dies. The two enter the building and explore. Myunghyun finds it suspicious that an infectious disease occurred in a remote area and that there’s no CCTV.  He gets a call from Bong Sun Dong (Park Min Woo) to quickly come over to Nasan Hospital’s Isolation Ward.
Sun Dong (pictured left) briefs him, saying that the virus seems similar to H5N1 (avian) flu. Myunghyun scolds him, saying it’s impossible for the avian flu to occur in humans when no birds are infected. Kim Se Jin (Lee Ki Woo, pictured right) confirms it, showing them images of the virus, noting its similar protein structure. Se Jin explains that this virus is much more damaging though, and that Oseltamivir (the anti-avian flu drug) is ineffective to the new virus. From the start of infection to death is less than 3 days.
The toddler (from the bus) dies in the hospital, and Myung Hyun briefs government officials, emphasizing that the fatality rate is 100%.  He wants to contact WHO (World Health Organization). The officials are not impressed, asking that it's under control, correct? The Director of the CDC -Shim Tae Jin- jumps in after a long look at Myunghyun assuring them it shouldn’t spread. Myunghyun gets angry and “rude,” not understanding how they don’t see this as urgent (and me with him). The officials are outraged. Interestingly, when an official calls for Myunghyun’s dismissal, the Director refuses.
Outside, the director, Tae Jin, confronts Myunghyun. He explains that he can’t do anything because of politics, but if Myung Hyun wants to help, he’d better keep calm and get to work. Tae Jin also warns him to keep quiet about it, because if the news is leaked then people on his team will get fired.
Back at the office Myunghyun sends three teams to investigate possible causes and then assigns tasks to his own team members. He warns them to keep it quiet, even from their families. Soo Gil tells him to call his ex-wife, explaining that no one will say anything, because no one else has lost a family member to an infectious disease before.
The teams disperse for investigation, but no leads are found. Meanwhile, Patient X wanders around in Seoul.
Se Jin treats patients at Nasan, the lab/hospital Myung Hyun made the HQ for the outbreak. Se Jin reports to the Chief of the Dept. of Infectious Diseases, Yoon Il Jung (Song Young Kyu), and has to listen to the chief fume about the dropped research on avian flu 2 years ago. If it had been properly funded, it’s likely the outbreak wouldn’t have occurred. Se Jin pricks at the mention, his name was “accidentally” (how?) left off the list of researchers."
Meanwhile, Myunghyun reports to the Director with a whole lot of nothing, asking the Director to finally raise the alarm. Taejin replies that he agrees, but can’t officially agree. Instead, Taejin gives him a new member for the CDC team, Jeon Jiwon (remember her from the beginning?). Jeon Jiwon is given a cold welcome, and Myunghun proceeds to ask the team of their findings, which are few. When Jiwon interjects, Myunghyun shuts her down, and asks Jooyoung (Yoobin) about security footage of Hwasang, deciding to find the security office.
Jiwon tags along, making Jooyoung (the team's tech expert, pictured right) upset. Sun dong comments on Jiwon’s beauty which only sets off Jooyoung.



We cut to a scene with Myung-Hyun's wife, visiting her daughter's ashes. This is obviously the family member who Myung-Hyun lost to an infectious disease. Later on we find out that after the three-year old daughter died three years earlier, Myung-Hyun and his wife  divorced,  and he sank into depression. However, when he remembers what Team Leader Go told him, Myung-Hyun does not take his advice to warn his ex-wife.
Instead, we see him going back to the security office, where he and Ji-won are told that the CCTV footage that was supposed to be stored at the company's headquarters has been mysteriously damaged. Even resident techie Joo-young is unable to restore the film.
However, it seems as though another lead has come up, as Joo-young notes that 17 bodies were pulled out after the fire at the medical center, but only 15 of them were identified. The remaining two were likely visitors or others from the outside, meaning that there is a high chance that there could be others who were in the medical center and exposed to the virus, but who were able to flee before the fire. What this means: the disease is spreading!
Cut to In-Chul, who wanders into a convenience store. He happens to reach for the same package of ramyun as Myung-Hyun's ex-wife. As he backs away, he accidentally coughs/sneezes in her face. Oh no! This isn't going to end well.
Things aren't going well for our hardworking virus team either, as they find out that the reporter from earlier, Jung Woo-Jin, has released an article about the fire at Hwaseong and a potential infectious disease. Even worse, he has directly implicated Team Leader Go in the report--and as we recall, earlier on, the officials had threatened to fire any team member who lets slip information about the virus. Myung-Hyun calls up the reporter, and strikes up a deal: if the reporter deletes the article, Myung-Hyun will give him exclusive news later on. The reporter agrees and deletes the article, but then gets a mysterious email about the fire...
In-Chul returns to his friend's apartment, where his friend tells him that he's helped him get a job working at an internet cafe in Gangnam. His friend (who is already infected) thinks that In-Chul was on the run from loan sharks. However, we see that he was actually in the medical center, presumably as a patient. On the night of the fire, he escaped from the clutches of the dying doctor and managed to flee.
 Ji-won is hard at work studying case files, wanting to make herself useful, and get into Myung-Hyun's good graces. Sun-dong chats with her, revealing a few things: Jooyoung has a crush on Myung-Hyun. Team Leader Go is also a huge fan of the man, as he saved Go's life in the past. He also reveals Myung-Hyun's past, but warns Ji-won that they are never to speak of it to him.
Myung-Hyun pores over a map of the victims that did not have any relation to the medical center. He literally connects the dots, drawing a line connecting all the victims. Ji-won sees this, and she has an epiphany. She knows how the virus is spreading: through a public bus route. The team rushes into action. All of the extra victims rode on two specific bus routes, and at the bus company, they found out that one of their drivers has been AWOL for days. They send people into his home--and of course, he's already dead.
Meanwhile, Reporter Jung is trying to find out who sent him the mysterious email, but nothing turns up. He assumes that it's someone close to the case, however, maybe even the arsonist.
The team has gotten CCTV footage from the bus. They recognize the people there as the victims unrelated to the medical center incident. The only one there who is unaccounted for is a young man in a dark hoodie: In-Chul. To confirm whether or not he was a patient at the medical centre, the team pays a visit to the wife of the late chairman of the medical center. With her permission, they investigate his office and his computers, and find papers about avian flu in humans saved on his computer, dating back to only a week before the fire. This means that the chairman was definitely aware of the disease's existence.
They don't have much time to digest this new information, however, as Sun-dong calls with urgent news. There's a big case of the infection, with a whole district infected and the body count soaring. 
Myung-Hyun instructs Joo-young to check all the CCTV cameras nearby for a potential source. Team Leader Go and Sun-dong get into an altercation with a student who took cover footage of the team. An embarrassing video of them chasing after the boy makes it into the news, making Myung-Hyun very annoyed.
Finally the team gets a lead, as CCTV footage turns up showing the same young man from before. He's obviously sick and obviously infected...so why is he still alive? Maybe he's immune, or maybe he's a virus carrier. Either way, he's now important to their investigation, and so they need to get to him, asap.
 
Unfortunately, In-Chul enters the subway--basically drastically multiplying the chance for the disease to spread. He looks up at a CCTV camera, and we flashback to his time at the medical center. He remembers being pinned down and injected with various shots. Were they sedatives? Or strains of this deadly virus? But he managed to escape, and now he's wandering around the city, spreading the virus wherever he goes.

---

korindian's Comments:
Definitely off to a great start. The episode was fast paced, and sets up everyone quickly. It allows us to already get invested in our team. While it gave us a lot of information, it also raises a lot of questions –just what a thriller should do. I’m looking forward to finding out what exactly happened at the hospital, and how Inchul escaped. My head’s spinning with the possibilities. Inchul himself is a big mystery, because he knows he’s infected, but he still walks around without a mask--shady. And the relationship between Director Taejin and Myunghyun intrigues me, there’s something going on there. Otherwise, he couldn’t yell and blatantly disregard his superior like that, especially in Korean culture. Let’s hope Virus keeps its pacing and delivers on the suspense, I’m excited to beat this virus.

concreteroads' Comments:
Wow. What a first episode. I love the way this drama throws us into the thick of things. There's no time wasted in set up or clunky exposition. Instead, right away, we're given a mystery, and we're given the stakes-- we know, straight from the opening sequence, that Lee Myung-Hyun only has 24 days to investigate the virus and succumb to the infection. The pacing is wonderful and the story moves at breakneck speed; and since already 7 of our 24 days have passed, I'm betting that the story will only move faster from here.

Although we're already told what's going to happen down the road, that doesn't change the thrilling aspect of the drama. It's tightly written and tightly shot and edited, and the entire time I was watching, I was on the edge of my seat. Hints and false leads are dropped left and right, and it's really great how fast everything unfolds. This drama really exemplifies the whole concept of "show not tell". It's surprisingly low on dialogue, featuring a lot of nonverbal scenes. Much of the characters' backstories , and the relationships and tensions between them, is hinted at rather than shoved in our face.

I became interested in the drama because of Eom Ki-joon in the lead role and the other interesting actors. However, so far, the acting seems quite ordinary, while the writing and directing seem very well done. The drama has me hooked with its first episode. There are so many questions I want answered! What’s the deal with the two doctors, especially Se-Jin, who definitely seems to still have a grudge about not being on the research team? What about In-Chul? Why was he at the medical center? Does he know he’s the deadly virus carrier? If he does, is he doing this on purpose, as some kind of retribution? I am very excited for the upcoming episodes, and even if I were not recapping it, I would definitely continue watching.


Episodes Recapped: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10