Read Episode reviews for:
Faith--Episodes 1-2
Faith--Episodes 3-4
Faith--Episodes 5-6
Faith--Episodes 7-8
Faith--Episodes 9-10
Faith--Episodes 11-12
Faith--Episodes 13-14
Faith--Episodes 15-16
Faith--Episodes 17-18
Contains Spoilers for Episodes 5-6
Hurray, Faith is back. I missed you, show.
Our villain Gicheol just accused time-travelling heroine doctor Eunsoo of being a demon. Kind of a lame accusation, but in this superstitious time period, the charge just might stick.
Adept at Accusing the Innocent, and Dramatic Finger-Pointing.
But King Gongmin laughs off the accusation and starts his own political battle of wits with Gicheol. The King wins for awhile, but Gicheol just won't let the heavenly maiden matter go, so the brainy Queen has to stand up and defend Eunsoo, saying that Eunsoo miraculously saved her life when no one else could. Yay for standing up for your friend! Then Gicheol starts cursing Eunsoo, and she dishes it right back to him. I love it. Modern-day girl is not going to take flak from an ancient nobleman.
Eunsoo even tells Gicheol that she remembers from her history books how he dies, but she's pointedly not telling him how, because she hates him. Then she walks out of court to tend to her patient Choi Young. I could tap-dance right now, I love this scene so much. She totally drained after the encounter, but still.
Fainting Onto the Doctor? I Think You've Earned It.
And now in sick Choi Young's dream, he's remembering his still-existing love for his dead girlfriend. I don't much care--I'm more than ready for him and Eunsoo to become a thing. Choi Young's dream about the girl is ambiguous, but I'm led to believe that she hanged herself after the incident with the evil king. Or maybe she merely left the country? Like I said, ambiguous.
We get a tad bit of Eunsoo backstory. She was a plastic surgeon in Gangnam (Oppan Gangnam Style!), but before that she trained to be a cardiothoracic surgeon, which explains her proficiency at serious surgeries. Doctor correctly deduces that she went into a low-risk job because she didn't want to watch any of her patients die. If Choi Young passes, it will devastate her because he'll be her first death.
Live, Choi Young! If Only For Her Sake.
Now Gicheol makes a personal appeal to the King, which is naturally a mere power play--will the King loan Eunsoo to Gicheol, to heal a dying member of his household? If she's really from heaven surely she can do this and if not, Gicheol can kill her quietly to save the King from embarrassment. But somewhere mid-conversation, the argument gets a little weirder and Gicheol says he wants to win the King's heart, and the King replies that Gicheol must win Eunsoo's heart first. Huh? Maybe my subtitles just rendered strangely, because it's odd to go from wantign to kill Eunsoo to winning Eunsoo's loyalty in the span of two minutes.
In the medical wing of the palace, Choi Young goes into cardiac arrest, but Eunsoo saves him, just barely. I admire her bravery right now, fighting to save a person she wounded, who is also her only chance of ever getting home.
Girl Has Been Through a Lot, This Week.
The Queen, however, is burned up that her husband would just let Gicheol possess Eunsoo for a week. I'm with you, Queen--ew. Also, the Queen wants Eunsoo to look after Choi Young, and the King wonders if the Queen favors Choir Young a bit too much; she seems to be more worried about him than about her husband. With tears in her eyes, she says she's sorry for disturbing the King and that she'll never find him and ask him any questions again in the future.
Gicheol's men go to the medical wing and take Eunsoo away by force. I hate how she's helpless against the King's order--if the King gives her to Gicheol temporarily, she can either go along with it, or die at swordpoint. Choi Young soon makes his recovery and wakes up, and his is greatly displeased that Doctor let Eunsoo be led away.
You Wouldn't Like Him When He's Greatly Displeased.
Believe it or not, the King is not the bad guy in this scenario. He has so precious few options open to him, and Gicheol presses him into the worst decisions. King Gongmin is nearly on the verge of weeping when he finds out the Choi Young has gone after Eunsoo--it means that in addition to his Queen, his best friend think he is an incompetent King who can lend him no aid. Oh, sweetheart. You are not a bad or a foolish person, you just need some guidance and support!
At Gicheol's house, Choi Young gets in a knock-down drag-out fight with the local goons. All goes well until Sephiroth pulls out his magic flute and plays the death note.
You May Joke About the Hair, But Respect the Flute.
Blood drips from Choi Young's ears and mouth, but he survives, due to his protective lightning powers. He finds Eunsoo, but Gicheol and his supernatural posse aren't far behind. Choi Young asks Gicheol to free Eunsoo before any more blood is shed because he likes her, and he can't let a woman he likes be held captive. Of course he's making this story up, but it's still pretty cool to hear him say it.
Gicheol invites Choi Young to have a drink or two with him. Choi Young samples Eunsoo's drink for poison with the excuse that it's better for him to drink the poison than her, since she can cure him anyway. At the meal, people keep trying to intimidate Eunsoo, but she just takes the wind right out of their sails. Choi Young cannot contain his mirth at Eunsoo causing trouble for other people besides him.
Finally Appreciates Her Brashness.
But Gicheol has more menace up his sleeve--he wants to take Eunsoo and make her cure the sick former king of Goryeo. Uh-oh. This had better not be the drunk molester-king from that flashback in episode 4, because we'd all like him to die. Eunsoo and Choi Young set off on a short journey to where the former king lives in exile, and she starts teasingly asking Choi Young when he first fell in love with her.
Choi Young is a bit of a brat and puts her in an armlock to get her to stop talking. But she just punches him in the chest and skips off happily, still teasing him about liking her and not letting him explain why he said that. He growls when she can't hear, "Why of all people did I have to bring that woman back from heaven? Why?" Tee-hee. Gotta love frustrated Choi Young.
Soon, They Are Bickering On Horseback.
When they arrive at the exiled king's house, it's clear that this is not the old bad king I expected--it's a king in between the bad one and Gongmin, a sweet child of about twelve who collapses into Choi Young's hug when he sees him. This scene stabs you right in the heart--the kid thinks of Choi Young as his big brother and has missed him terribly. He's also sick and living in poverty.
*SNIFFLEWEEP*
As Tiny King is getting his medical exam from a totally charmed Eunsoo, Choi Young excitedly describes "heaven" (modern-day Seoul) for him. Tiny King seems to have a form of cancer and Eunsoo wants to take him back to the palace for a surgery, but Choi Young tells her that he can't leave his rickety house or he'll be violating the law. Wouldn't you know it? Circumstances combine to ensure that Choi Young has to take the kid out of the house to save his life. And now he'll have to answer to the current King for it and look like a traitor. Noooo!
Things I Loved:
1. Animation. I like how Faith is keeping some artsy animation in each episode, when the story deals with dreams, flashbacks, or legends. It adds to the atmosphere and sets the show apart from other dramas.
Feast Your Eyes Upon the Lovely.
2. King Gongmin's Vulnerability. This guy's distress touches my heart. I feel sympathy for Choi Young, Eunsoo, and the Queen, but I also have complete assurance that Choi Young will battle his way out of any problem and that Eunsoo and the Queen's gutsiness and spark will see them through any challenge. But our king? I worry about him. His actor portrays him as a flawed but honorable man pushed to the brink of what he can bear, and we know if he snaps, everything goes downhill with him.
Hang In There, Your Majesty.
Complaints:
1. Silly Fight Scenes. They used to be awesome, but now that fight scenes involve so much overdone wirework flying, they become kind of abstract and disconnected from reality.
2. Gicheol's Villain Laugh. Possibly the most annoying laugh ever to exist.
Watch Faith on DramaFever.
Episode Evaluations: Nothing too shocking here, but we get even more character development and political complexity, and our hero and heroine get to know each other better, so it's a good pair of episodes.
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