"While You Were Sleeping" drama: episodes seventeen and eighteen recap

 Air Dates: September 27th to November 16th on SBS, airs Wednesday and Thursday nights at 10:00 pm, two episodes per night

 Ratings(Nielsen) for the two episodes- 7.3% and 8.9%

Main Cast:

Bae Suzy as Nam Hong-Joo

Lee Jong-Suk as Jung Jae-Chan

Lee Sang-Yeob as Lee Yoo-Bum

Ko Sung-Hee as Shin Hee-Min

Jung Hae-In as Han Woo-Tak

Shin Jae-Ha as Jung Seung-Won

Hwang Young-Hee as Yoon Moon-Sun

Park Jin-Joo as Moon Hyang-Mi
Kim So-Hyun as Park So-Yoon
Lee Yoo-Joon as Oh Kyung-Han

 Slight drop in ratings for Wednesday's two episodes but the competition is quite tough on that night. The first show did start out a bit too slow but after about the twenty minute mark it became much more interesting and there were a few new developments I never saw coming.

Not much of a cliffhanger to end the sixteenth episode, just another recurring dream that Hung-Joo has been having about Jae-Chan and will talk about that a few times in this post. The last few shows revolved around the death of Yoo Su-Kyung who was an Olympic archer and most think was killed by her internet technician Do Hak-Young. He's a friend of the officer Woo-Tak and Hak-Young took his advice about turning himself in as he felt perhaps he'd get justice that way.
 Hak-Young was innocent and there was really no solid evidence to convict him, all the details are in the previous recap for the drama. Hak-Young didn't go to trial as Jae-Chan decided he didn't have a winnable case and released Hak-Young. Su-Kyung was a popular figure and had won a gold medal, to most of the public even though he's free Hak-Young is still guilty in their eyes.
 Above is Yoo-Bum who is representing Su-Kyung's family, if a guilty verdict was reached he could have sued Hak-Young and his family but if he's innocent then no huge payday will be coming his way. Yoo-Bum held a press conference blaming the prosecutor's office for letting Hak-Young go free, it's not the last we'll hear of the case. Bottom pic above is of Hung-Joo who ran to Jae-Chae'a apartment as 3:00 am after having another dream about him.

 Hung-Joo has been having dreams of Jae-Chan dying and it looks like the tragedy will be striking soon. After having her latest one she fled to Jae-Chan's residence and sobbingly told him everything in detail. But for the first time ever Hung-Joo has noticed certain events changing in her dreams, for instance at one time Jae-Chan had been killed by being stabbed and now the cause of death has changed to him getting shot.
 Hung-Joo's dreams had changed after Hak-Young had been released, could that event in real life changed her dreams? Though Hak-Young is currently free of the murder charges his friend Woo-Tak doesn't believe he's 100% innocent, of the murder yes but not of the crime that will be taking place in Hung-Joo's dreams.

 That man above is the one Hung-Joo has been seeing in her dreams though she has no idea who he may be, he may end up being Jae-Chan's killer. The unnamed man is among the protesters outside the prosecutor's office as the public is not happy with the charges against Hak-Young being dropped and the number of people outside the office grows every day. Most of them hate Jae-Chan for what he did, he needs to disguise himself just to enter his office.
 Actually the case against Hak-Young isn't 100% complete yet, Jae-Chan still needs to file some official papers and if he wants to could still try to convict Hak-Young. Jae-Chan was going to lunch with his assistant Choi when they were intercepted by Yoo-Bum who wants the case to go to trial. He has some words with Jae-Chan though not many, Yoo-Bum realizes it would be fruitless to try to change his mind about the case.
 So instead Yoo-Bum whisks Choi away, he uses the excuse they have to go to an old colleague's wedding. Instead as they were driving Yoo-Bum had threatened Choi in a way, not personally but was using him as a middle man to get at Jae-Chan. If the case doesn't go to trial then Yoo-Bum has some secrets which could destroy many lives and he's such an evil hearted guy that would use them.

 There's one mystery lingering from Su-Kyung's death, if it was an accident then how did a pentagram get drawn on the floor with her blood? That question has been nagging Jae-Chan which is one reason he hasn't officially dropped the case yet. He has one more person to interview who was Su-Kyung's part time maid that went to her apartment three days a week.
 During the interview the maid revealed that Su-Kyung had a robot vacuum cleaner which was timed to a schedule. After she passed out and hit her head on a counter's edge the vacuum went into motion. It was just random that it created a pentagram, the vacuum kept hitting into objects and by doing that it somehow drew the diagram.
 Jae-Chan wants to bring in the vacuum as evidence, if it has the blood of Su-Kyung on it then he'll officially clear Hak-Young. The problem is the cleaner went out of the apartment's open window and is missing. With a little digging though Jae-Chan has found where it is, the problem is that it's now at a city dump With no alternative Jae-Chan heads there with Choi who in the beginning would do anything to undermine his boss but is now a dedicated employee.

 That dump was the most lively place in Seoul at the time as there was a group of people there when Jae-Chan arrived. Of all people Hung-Joo was there along with her supervisor, also in attendance was Woo-Tak with his police partner. Hung-Joo had also deduced that the robot vacuum had created the pentagram which may be the clue to clear Hak-Young once and for all. It's a huge dump though and those cleaners aren't that big plus it's the middle of the night to find such a small item.
 The group eventually found six of the cleaners, red was the color they were looking for. They were sent to the forensics unit to see if Su-Kyung's blood was on any of them, after a couple hours wait their patience was rewarded as her blood was found on one of the machines. There was no more wavering for Jae-Chan who starts to assemble the paperwork to finally close the case and to call the cause of death an accident.
 Very few people are happy with his decision even though it's the right one. He had a talk about the case with his slightly older colleague Hee-Min. She agrees with Jae-Chan's findings and even though he's right she feels the case should still be sent to trial. Her thinking was which made sense that if it went to trial and a jury found Hak-Young innocent then it wouldn't make Jae-Chan appear as though he didn't try to do his job, after hearing her advice he's so perplexed on what to do.

 Will try to do a post in the next few days for Ko Sung-Hee who plays Hee-Min, her name can also be spelled with a G instead of a K and she doesn't need to wear red to be hot....

 After much thinking about the case Jae-Chan was approached by Hee-Min again who presumed would take her advice. He almost did but Jae-Chan needs to go through with dropping the case against Hak-Young regardless of how unpopular his decision may be, to him it's the right move. Plus even if Hak-Young is entirely innocent that doesn't mean the verdict in court will turn out in his favor and he couldn't take a chance on that.
 One problem will be with the media who have labeled Hak-Young as a killer and have called the prosecutor's office incompetent. Just because the evidence clears Hak-Young and it proves the death was an accident don't expect the media to make any apologies for what they've reported, they'll let a story die rather then to report the truth and that they may have been wrong. Except of course for Hung-Joo who along with her supervisor wants to report the entire truth about the case.
 The head of her department at SBC says no to her idea but after a long speech from Hung-Joo and her immediate boss she's allowed to have a mini feature that exposes all of the errors. She's even allowed to have Hak-Young appear on camera to tell his side of the story. He couldn't say that much as he broke down in tears trying to explain how he had nothing to do with Su-Kyung's death.

 The first show started out a bit slow but can't believe how much happened after that, think more than any other pair of episodes. One major thing we learned towards the end of the 18th episode was through a flashback that Jae-Chan had. His father was killed by a runaway soldier when he was fifteen, shortly after that the soldier went on a bus with an explosive and blew it up. However the driver was able to evacuate the bus so he was the only other person killed, he had managed to get his daughter off safely.
 The daughter was someone most of us thought was a boy at first because of the way she looked and how good she was at baseball. Her name had never been mentioned but she had predicted the death of her father and was powerless to stop it. The girl was around sixteen years old and at her father's funeral she had met the fifteen year old Jae-Chan who though the same age looked much older. The two got to know each other a bit but for only one day and then they never saw each other again.
 But Jae-Chan had recently been thinking about the girl and had come up with the conclusion that it was Hung-Joo!!!! Wow, as I've said in many recaps what a small world it is and though Jae-Chan was able to finally figure out they knew each other years ago think Hung-Joo has known it all along.
Jae-Chan rushes to find her but can't, instead he asks Hung-Joo's mother a few questions. Back in those days Hung-Joo went by the nickname of Chestnut due to the color of her air and the fact she looked so much like a boy. Jae-Chan was so ecstatic about his discovery he ran to a jewelers and purchased an engagement ring for her.

 We're now to the final two or so minutes of the show and Jae-Chan is meeting Hung-Joo to give her the ring. Just like Hung-Joo's dream the pair meet at an intersection with each on the other side of the street. Hung-Joo's dream appeared as though it changed slightly again as when both were waiting to cross the street a car stopped at the corner which she had never seen in a dream.
 Quickly the window was rolled down, a gun was pointed out the window and shot Jae-Chan in the stomach. He didn't know at first he was shot but then slowly crumpled to the ground as Hung-Joo was finally able to cross the street. She held him in her arms and was screaming for someone to call an ambulance, with that tragedy the episode came to it's conclusion.
 There's too many shows left for Jae-Chan to die but the main thing will be to find out who the shooter was and why he did it. My money may be on the unscrupulous Yoo-Bum being behind the event, he had threatened to destroy a few lives and had started the wheels turning on that a bit before this incident but he could be too obvious.

 It's rare when you find that drama where you can't wait for the next episode(s) but for me that's been the case for this show. Many out there I know aren't too enthused about the series but I'm enjoying this drama immensely and for now it has the inside track on being my #1 of the year. Haven't watched the next two shows yet but am about to and the recap for those are in the following post.