The Antidote
With Melting Me Softly’s ending just around the corner, the show offers up even more drama and moves the story forward quite a bit, ready for the expected climactic ending. Mi-Ran and Dong-Chan are also fast becoming the serious couple here, while continuing to battle all their obstacles. We begin with Hyeong-Du about to kill Professor Hwang, but after remembering Ha-Young’s words, stops himself. Heading to the location given, he comes across an empty house. Dong-Change arrives at the hospital and asks the doctors to contact Professor Ki-Beom. As he starts getting better, the assistant explains that the toxins are building up and that the antidote he gave will only last 48 hours, and not work a second time. A worried Mi-Ran arrives to check on Dong-Chan and they both notice a strange bruise on her arm, concluding that she may be suffering from the same condition. Ki-Beom desperately tries to contact Professor Hwang but frustratingly, he’s unable to reach him. After spending a romantic evening with Dong-Chan, Mi-Ran leaves, but not before promising to keep in touch. Back in her house, she calls her teacher to tell her she will do the love essay as she feels she needs to tell her story before it’s too late. Missing him, she heads out just as he arrives at her house too. While having drinks together, she vents about not being able to do whatever she wants around him and about the little time they have left. She leaves frustrated but Dong-Chan catches up and reassures her. Dong-Chan then heads to the lab to find it completely ransacked. Ki-Beom thinks that Professor Hwang has been abducted and relays that Ha-Young called to ask for Seok-Du’s location. We then cut to Ha-Young, meeting with the chairman, who orders her around as he has Professor Hwang with him and is the only who can save Dong-Chan. Dong-Chan himself arrives at the airport to pick up Lee Jung-Woo, Suok-Do’s son, but as they drive away they notice they’re being followed. However, Dong-Chan manages to lose them and successfully brings Jung-Woo to his father in hospital. He then visits the chairman and offers him a deal – Professor Hwang for his brother. The next day, Dong-Chan is not happy when he sees Mi-Ran at work as he asked her to rest. As they both meet privately, they notice more strange bruises on each other. Dong-Chan then goes into the president’s office to relay the true identity of Seok-Du. Mi-Ran receives a call from Young-Sun soon after to meet for a drink where they have a heart to heart about life. Also arriving at the coffee shop is Hyun-Ki, who has been tracking the person who posted the article about Mi-Ran. After meeting with Ki-Beom to discuss their next course of action, Dong-Chan confronts Ha-Young about her reasons to meet with the chairman. She tells him that he needs to feel the way she feels; rejected. He then tells her that he needs to find Professor Hwang as he’s running out of time. This prompts her to call the chairman, demanding he release the professor or she’ll reveal what she knows on the news. The chairman doesn’t take her threat seriously though as he plays a previous recording of her asking him to put Mi-Ran in a cryonic capsule. Remembering her conversation with The Chairman, Ha-Young calls Dong-Chan to warn him as she believes Professor Jo is in danger because of her. We then cut to the lab where a dark figure is approaching Mi-Ran and the professor just as he is about to discover the antidote. However the menacing man is spooked when the police arrive as well. The next morning, Mi-Ran decides to take the injection first without telling Dong-Chan in case it doesn’t work. Dong-Chang arrives and after berating her for always doing everything first, takes it too. Professor Jo tells them it’s only an antidote and will not work on their body temperature. The next day, they see on their bodies that the antidote has worked as they head into work for the first day of the show airing. After the first few minutes of the show, everyone is shocked as it cuts to a footage of the cryonic experiment from 1999, showing Mi-Ran and Dong-Chang uncovering the truth behind who the chairman is and his responsibility in everything that has been happening so far. The episode then ends with Dong-Chang leaving work and looking very happy with himself. With only a few weeks left to go, Melting Me Softly has certainly raised the stakes with the latest episode, injecting even more drama and twists throughout. The toxin story line was another obstacle for our protagonists to overcome, but it was resolved today which was quite tense to watch. Ha-Young has been getting a lot more desperate as well, ready to do anything to get Dong-Chan back, including making an alliance with the chairman and getting rid of Mi-Ran. It’ll be interesting to see what will happen to her character at the end of the show while the episode itself ends with a very intriguing twist, showing Dong-Chan editing the first episode of the upcoming show and revealing the whole truth. Seeing what will happen next and how everyone will react certainly promises to be quite dramatic and quite how this one will end, remains to be seen.