K-Drama Reaction: Circle: Two Worlds Connected

More secrets have been unearthed but the identity of the Human B chairman is still unknown. Yeo Jin-goo continues to impress me as the day goes by. Now that we are on the other half of the series, I expect this drama to solve the conflicts rather than complicating the situation further.

Part 1: Beta Project (2017)

Detective Hong finds out that Kim Gyu-cheol and Prof. Park are conducting a covert experiment on the college students. Though the main objective of the experiment is still unknown to the authorities, he suspects Kim Woo-jin (Yeo Jin-goo) and Han Jung-yeon (Gong Seung-yeon) to have something to do with the mystery experiment since they are both so engrossed in solving the suicide cases.

Our poor Kim Beom-gyun (Ahn Woo-yeon) is still locked up, but this time he recognizes that he is staying in a very familiar place… it’s their old family house where they used to stay as children with Byul, appa, and halmeoni. I like how Ahn Woo-yeon is stepping up his game in this drama. He is not falling short in terms of heavy acting alongside Yeo Jin-goo.

I want to trust Prof. Park Dong-geon this time, but my gut feel tells me not to. I smell something fishy about his character that even though he was left out of the loop in the experiment, he is still the one who made the blue worm (brain bot found in the corpses). I just hope he will turn out to be on the good side and help Woo-jin and Jung-yeon track Beom-gyun down.

I wanted to cry with Woo-jin during their visit with halmeoni. The fact that his grandmother, his only living relative as of the moment, did not recognize him because of dementia but was able to recognize Byul is just so heartbreaking. Props to Jin-goo for pulling the scene (and my heartstrings) off. But wait, my (almost) tears dried up as fast as the flash after seeing that the research files that appa left (aka USB drive) were with halmeoni all along! She was using it as a pendant for her necklace! Woo-jina, halmeoni has the key to end all of these!

And in the K-drama twist of things, Detective Hong’s partner is on the bad side! So that’s why they were not able to find leads to solve the case. This man is blocking every evidence that may lead to the discovery of the Prof. Han as the culprit.

Speaking of, Prof. Han is now gearing up to be a full blown villain, spewing monologues about how the twin’s brother disappeared while they were about to succeed in conducting their covert experiment. He is slowly becoming a psycho scientist who is ready to abduct (and kill?) anyone just to get his hands on the precious files. Just like Woo-jin, he believes that oblivion is the answer to human suffering. Bad memories should be eliminated to treat post-traumatic stress. This new technology with control memory loss, thus preventing people from committing crimes. Hmm, sound like a very familiar theory. Does the Human B system ring a bell, anyone?

Part 2: Great New World (2037)

Just when Beta Project is unleashing every secret one episode at a time, Great New World gets more secretive and full of twists. So, apparently Jung-yeon (now Bluebird) already suspected Woo-jin to be the chairman of Human B. Since Woo-jin previously stated his stance on oblivion as cure for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and his portrait inside the Human B chairman’s office surfaced, it is highly possible that the sly chairman is indeed our Part 1 hero. I still don’t want to believe it because the show can always trick us into believing that he is, but will later reveal that the culprit is right before our eyes.

Our poor heroine Jung-yeon dropped a hint about Woo-jin’s disappearance. Her last conversation with Woo-jin was before he met Prof. Park 20 years ago. Jung-yeon also apparently saw Beom-gyun in the past, with his memories gone and seemingly happy with it. This scenario might have been the biggest push for Woo-jin to pursue his theory about memory loss, thus forming the Human B system. I still don’t believe this after just watching the intense conversation between Woo-jin and Prof. Park in Part 1. Woo-jin may believe that this theory can cure PTSD, but he will never interfere with the natural flow of the human brain. I would want to believe that he will not.

Ho-soo (Lee Gi-kwang) is capturing my heart slowly. I was really disappointed in him after teaming up with the Human B peeps but now that he witnessed the severe impact of memory loss to his life, I hope he will turn the tables and side with the good this time. His late girlfriend Soo-bin’s adoptive father had no knowledge that she existed (and even committed suicide), which is the most painful part of oblivion. One’s demise is painful enough, but the fact that even your loved ones cannot remember who you are feels like death all over again.