Rewatch: Healer
Spoilers to ep 5
Originally I was hesitant to rewatch Healer because… surely it couldn’t have been that good. It’s probably gonna be dated, it probably won’t hold up. Well - it is dated but it DEFINITELY holds up.Is the show a little silly at moments having Healer break into his targets home while EVERYONE is still there? Having him parkour over rooftops to catch up to running vehicles? Yes. I don’t care. I am having So. Much. Fun.
The super-hero secret identity trope is a solid fav and just LOOK at how cute and bumbling my puppy is. I love Chang Wook’s character work when he switches from his Healer character to his Bongsu character and how both are different than JeongHu just himself in his lair.
I love that there isn’t an instant attraction between our leads. It gives us somewhere for this story to go. Healer is here to unravel a mystery about himself and slowly over time will get sucked into his affection for her. He was a little taken aback by her fighting him when he stole her backpack but as he starts to fall for her reframes that as a character trait that is particularly attractive to him.
This show is laying the foundation for WHY he is going to fall for her. He is impressed with her courage and fight - despite her fear. His little smile at the end of episode 5 after he’s orchestrated their getaway and she, none the wiser, swoops in to ‘save’ him. It’s so telling what Ajummah says to his master in ep 6: he’s never left anyone, he’s always the one left. No one has ever fought for him and here, Youngshin fights for him again and again despite her own terror and trauma.
Overall the show does such a good job with its arcs. It establishes JeongHu as someone who is completely disconnected from the rest of humanity. He isn’t malicious, he just doesn’t see himself as part of it. He lives because… he isn’t dead. He watches humanity like they were one of his nature documentaries. He relates to Youngshin first as a doomed panther from one of those documentaries because that’s the closest frame of reference he has. So this is a story of him, slowly, returning to humanity. Moments like him eating a typical Korean breakfast are important because they show the beginning of that process.
I’ll be honest I’d completely forgotten that he was connected to Youngshin and Munho’s pasts so that was a fun reveal (and generally I’m not as against the They Knew Each Other as Kids trope that most people seem to despise, it has its narrative place)













