ORANGE MARMALADE - EPISODE 4

Herbie the Love Bug found, to his horror, that his attempt to go incognito had taken a deadly turn...

Okay. Wow. This was just...what the heck did I just watch?

Jae Min walks Ma Ri home. Arriving home himself, Jae Min overhears a conversation between Shi Hoo and his stepfather, learning for the first time of Shi Hoo's vampiric nature. They tussle, and neither seem to get the upper hand, though Shi Hoo supernaturally heals any damage Jae Min can do to him. Jae Min warns the young vampire to stay away from Ma Ri. The next day, attempting to help a little boy, Jae Min instead is injured and rescued by Shi Hoo.  Ma Ri tends to Jae Min, but the sight of his blood causes her vampiric side to dominate and she leans over him to drink his blood. Ah Ra sees this and informs the other students, as well as Jae Min. Because Shi Hoo used his powers in public, he is summoned by the VCS (Vampire Control System). Unwilling to submit to their judgment, Shi Hoo commits suicide via the morning sun. That night, a typhoon lashes the tiny island of Jeju. Ma Ri hides away from everyone in the lighthouse, but Jae Min finds her. He is rescued from drowning by Ma Ri, who is herself summoned by the VCS for also using her powers. After Jae Min awakens, he has amnesia and has no idea who she is. Two months later, our vampire girl introduces herself to him on the same MRT where they first met, riding to school. Somehow, they flash back to the Joseon era, where both Ma Ri and Jae Min are washing clothes in the river, and they look at each other in recognition...


Or did I really put the poison in my cup, knowing you would switch glasses with me when I wasn't looking?

Just when I think it's predictable and cute, the writers pull this. It's almost like they spend the first three episodes setting the scene, getting us comfortable with a romance that seems to be going rather well, despite the obstacles in their way. Then Bam! They pull out all the tropes they possibly can pack into an episode and send it spinning off into the twilight zone. One of the main characters dies. Another has amnesia. And we still don't know what's going on at the school or what happened to Ma Ri. And I'm not sure what the Joseon Era has to do with it, although it's more than likely a past life thing. As confused as I am, at least the plot has more meat to it now.  

It almost seems like an ending, doesn't it? Or at least a whole new drama, and we're four episodes in. We don't have Shi Hoo in the way anymore. The star-crossed lovers may not remember meeting? I'm not sure about Ma Ri's situation. What happened when she met with the VCS? Our young lovers apparently shared a past life together a couple centuries back. And we don't know anything about the rest of the cast. They couldn't have shaken things up more if they shifted the drama to a new set of students at a different school.


And don't let me hear you trash-talking CNBLUE again!

Jae Min seems to get rescued an awful lot here.  Maybe he should change his name to Lois Lane? I mean, he gets saved twice.. in the same episode. By vampires, no less. As cool as that is, how likely is that in the same lifetime, much less the same episode?

I'm going to miss Shi Hoo. His part is done. He's gone, right? In some ways, I hope not. The actor, Kang Han Byeol, plays a very intense character. He comes a bit close to being the emo vampire that I hate, but he plays it differently, angrier, I think. To me, depression is not all that appropriate an emotion for a vampire. Unbridled rage, built up over a longer-than-human lifetime? That's a good emotion. Maybe he'll pop up in the Joseon Era.


I really think you'd be more comfortable in a bed

Overall, the episode was more edge-of-your-seat type stuff than we've seen in all three previous episodes combined. It's going to be near impossible to maintain that, but I don't think that's what they're going to do. It does really have me curious about what's going to happen, and why they changed everything up? What happened to Ma Ri? Is the music still a big part of the drama? Is Shi Hoo really dead? Did Jae Min's memory loss change everything for him? And what's with the past life stuff? Stay tuned. Should be fun!

SEE ALSO: Veteran singer Yoon Soo Il thanks BLACKPINK's Rosé for the revival interest in his classic 1982 song "Apartment"