It’s D-Day! It’s finally here!
(I know I have been slacking with this blog, will you take this recap and forgive me, maybe?)
Episode 1 Recap
We open at the hospital: Neurosurgery doctors, “Yat Kin Tau” Cheung Yat Kin (Kenneth Ma) and Hong Mei Suet (Mandy Wong), are frantically searching for an elderly patient Mui Por Por (Grandma Mui). This seems to be a regular occurrence as Mui Por Por is a troublesome patient who often sneaks away and disobeys directions. They eventually find her.
Yat Kin runs into Orthopaedics specialist trainee Andy Lo On Dik (Kyle Tse) and their conversation tips us off that tonight is the wedding reception of nurse couple Lui Siu Yik (Derek Kwok) and To Ka Man (Paisley Wu). The nearby TV also tips us off that there is a outbreak of the H5N1 influenza. Golden rule of drama watching: if show zooms in on any detail, it’s going to be the problem.
Cut to: “Onion” Yeung Pui Chong (Him Law) shopping at are a cosmetic store for beauty supplies for Jing Jing, who has relocated to the UK to further her study. The two are obviously not an item (yet). Onion is still waiting for her but it seems Jing Jing doesn’t reciprocate his feelings.
After work, everyone arrives at the wedding reception. Cardiothoracic surgery specialist “Yu Zai” Fan Zi Yu (Tavia Yeung) just got off work and is running late. She receives a phone call from hubby who is on his way to the reception as well. Yat Kin dotingly reminds Zi Yu not to wear stilettos with teeny tiny heels because, wait for it…YES! SHE IS PREGGERS! She pouts but relents.
Yat Kin is stopped by a auto collision and he rushes to help. It is a darn serious collision and everyone rushes back to the hospital mid-reception to prepare for the influx of patients. Turns out, one of the injured women from the collision is a possible carrier of the widely reported mutated H5N1. Pathologist Lok Man Sang (Lawrence Ng) suggests that everyone, including medical providers, who have contacted the potentially infected patient must be quarantined. Unfortunately, the patient is undergoing surgery and her surgeon? None other than our precious Zi Yu.
As if there are not enough chaos in one hospital, Mui Por Por adds on by sneaking off again. She hides by the stairways to munch on chocolate (though she is not to have any food 8 hours prior to her scheduled surgery). Can’t blame her, who can resist the power peanut M&M’s? Anyway, she falls, injures her neck and is paralyzed. Yat Kin rushes over to perform surgery on her.
Both surgeries go well. However, Zi Yu and her medical team are quarantined after the surgery. Yat Kin stays close outside the quarantine room to be by wifey’s side. Sadly, their phones die and Zi Yu sends away Yat Kin despite obviously scared. Later, Zi Yu returns and sees Yat Kin still in the same place. He does the sweetest Love Actually-esque notepad messages to cheer her on and leaves. Ugh, he is the best husband ever.
Mei Suet is agitated and worried over her sister. She takes it out on the housemen. Her boyfriend, Lau Bing Chan (Benjamin Yuen), presents her with a bouquet of chocolate as a pick-me-up. Mui Por Por wakes from her surgery and have a bonding moment with Mei Suet sharing the chocolate.
Later that night, Mui Por Por’s condition worsens and she becomes unconscious. After some rescue effort, she passes away. Mui Por Por’s passing is clearly a big hit to the housemen and Mei Suet. Yat Kin offer his condolences, “Mui Por Por has been through a lot in life…but at the end, she cares most about eating chocolate. Why don’t we learn from her? Live life more simply. Remember only the happy moments, the blissful things or the people around us who love us. And that is enough.”
After that, Yat Kin returns to the Zi Yu again and surprises her with a Happy 60th Day Pregnant cake. D’aw. He gestures for Zi Yu to make a wish and Zi Yu wishes for “safety of big and small” (safety of herself, the mother, and child). Yat Kin holds up his palm to the glass panel to reveal the same message written.
Thoughts:
Let me preface by saying that I don’t think I can commit to day-by-day recaps. This recap was made possible because I am so stoked about this drama and have to talk about it ASAP. But don’t worry, I think I will cover this in a weekly recap format as I did before for The Hippocratic Crush.
I also suck with medical terms, so bear with me!
With that said, for now, I can’t tell just yet if I will love this sequel as much as I loved the first one. But then again, I fully expect this to take a good week or two to go full swing, like all other TVB dramas (including Crush I). In general, I think this episode wasn’t particularly exciting given that its sole purpose is to throw all of our characters out there (and man, if it’s wasn’t an overload of character introductions but I am glad we got that out of our system). However, I think it’s solid and a good start. It even managed some pathos at the end of episode 1. Mui Por Por’s plotline is reminiscence of Andy’s Grandma from the first Crush where it serves as a life lesson for the trainees. Sadly, the episode was cluttered with a lot of other things and there wasn’t as much build-up to Mui Por Por as there were to Andy’s grandma and thus, Mui Por Por is less impactful.
To be quite honest, the teasers made me a tad weary about this drama because, gosh, if it didn’t look like EVERYONE and their mothers get some sort of illness or cancer in the course of this drama (including Yat Kin)! I am afraid that all this dramatic plotting means we have to sacrifice the heart which was what I liked most about The Hippocratic Crush. In addition, I am actually disappointed that Lawrence Ng didn’t reprise his role as Paul Cheng Zi Mei. Imagine the awesomeness! But I guess that would require a lot of explaining for his character. Also, it would mean that both of our male leads are in the neurosurgery department and we can’t have that (or can we? But it would make for so much clashing goodness!)
Last, HOW FRIGGIN SWEET ARE YAT KIN TAU AND YU ZAI?! How much do you love that Yat Kin made three separate efforts to cheer the obviously worried Yu Zai up? They are so perfect and wonderful together that my shit-is-about-to-hit-the-fan radar is pinging loudly. What is it going to be? Will they take turns having cancer? Are they going to lose their baby? Blah, don’t hurt my precious! And definitely DO NOT pull a Paul-Jackie of Healing Hands on me!
TV with Rice 