Sensory Couple

Sensory Couple (The Girl Who Sees Smells) is a webtoon turned Korean drama that aired in 2015 from April 1st to May 21st starring a brilliant cast. From Park Yoochun as Detective Choi Moo Gak to Nam Goongmin as the mastermind serial killer Kwon Jae Hee, this drama seemed to have potential from different perspectives.

Plot

Choi Eun-seol (Shin Se Kyung) is a high school student close to her mother and father that are known as the fishermen couple. One day she comes home from school to find her parents murdered and a man dressed in black straying in dark corners. Startled, Eun-seol manages to escape but with the murderer quick on her heels. In the midst of running out into the streets, Eun-seol is hit by a car. Suffering from stress and trauma of the accident and the scene of the murder, Eun-seol falls into a comatose like state and is rushed to the hospital.

It's the same night that another young girl by the name of Choi Eun-seol (Kim So-hyun) is being treated at the same hospital for minor injuries for an accident. Choi Moo Gak (Park Yoochun), her older brother, comes to visit only to find her throat slit in bed.

When the fishermen couple's death comes to light, they are added to a case Lieutenant Yeom Mi (Yoon Jin-seo) is heavily processing. When finding evidence of barcode carvings on the underside of the victim's wrists, she immediately realizes the works of the Barcode Serial Killer who seems to pick and choose victims of all ages and gender. Knowing that there is a child of the fishmen couple, she's on the prowl to find what is known as the sole witness that has survived these chain murders, but Oh Jae Pyo (lead detective on the case), feels sorrow and pity for Choi Eun-seol who wakes up six months later and suffers from amnesia. He adopts her as his daughter, giving her the name Oh Cho-rim and protects her with this new given life.

After awakening, Eun-seol realizes that her left eye has turned green and she can see visible scents as colors or shapes while also finding other people's scent trails. Without telling anyone of this odd ability, she wears a dark contact to keep her eye hidden.

In the same time frame, the story also resonates around Choi Moo Gak who is traumatized from his sister's murder. After two months of no sleep and constant pain of the thought, he faints and is rushed to the hospital. He is proclaimed to be clinically dead for 10 days before waking up with no senses. He is unable to taste, smell, feel pain and is far from the happy-go-lucky man he was. It is then that Moo Gak vows to become a detective and re-open the case of his sister's murder to find the killer and bring him to justice.

Character Development/Story

This is the first drama I've watched with Shin Se Kyung playing as the lead actress. In all honesty, she's nothing special. Her acting was decent, nothing more or less. There were times in which her character seemed annoying or overly naïve. Oh Cho-rim is in general a happy-go-lucky character full of pep. But Se Kyung trying to portray this made it seem forced or fake. It just wasn't believable for me.

She sold me on the progressing relationship between her and Choi Moo Gak. Yoochun and Se Kyung's chemistry on screen was definitely there placed within a cute setting. When she finds out of her true nature and begins to remember her past, the sentimental aspects of the drama seen in the middle/end with a grieving process was elaborate and definitely a point for Se Kyung concerning acting skills.

Park Yoochun on the other hand has done yet another interesting job with his on-going acting skills and landing lead roles in drama's. From the beginning, his heart and mind is placed deep within this drama and he really fits Choi Moo Gak. Befalling trauma, losing someone close to his heart, and becoming stoic really had me falling for him over and over again. I loved seeing the progression of this drama because as closed off as he was, he started to open up with vulnerabilities falling out due to Cho-rim's blossoming friendship/relationship.

His need to become a detective from the first episode onward until he accomplishes this want is an intricate process. He is ridiculed within the precinct and humiliated yet hell bent on doing whatever it takes. Moo Gak's greedy nature plays hand in hand for his coincidental meeting with Cho-rim as he uses her ability for his own benefit.

The human side of him shows through guilt when he lets her down over and over again which was interesting to see. He goes out of his way to feel emotions for the skits he's supposed to play concerning Cho-rim's work for the Frog Troupe which made him cute and adorable at times, but it seemed inappropriate as the plot really revolves around this ongoing serial murder case he's soon placed upon and the many deaths that are being brandished by the Barcode Serial Killer.

That leaves us with Nam Goongmin playing a heinous murderer with a dark past that's never revealed. All the audience is given is a meek sentence which seems to hit hard. The scene between Yeom Mi and Jae Hee's face-to-face conversation reveals more than it should after she vaguely mentions abuse he's faced after being adopted. Even as he played the role of a mastermind, I felt a lot of sympathy for his character.

My in-depth analysis made it obvious of the man he truly was. Soft-spoken, serene and handsome was just an outward expression though on the inside Jae Hee held a lot of pain and anger that was shown through this chain murders. Though he didn't cause his victims painful deaths, he did use them more as a comfort piece. By getting them to write personal biographies after kidnapping them, Jae Hee lived a life through their eyes and was at peace with written words. Their experiences were something he never had.

Nam Goongmin was a perfect fit for this character. He has charm and quite a handsome face, but also holds that demonic intent that's enough to creep you out. Him suffering from prosopagnosia (inability to recognize faces) was a plot twist. When Cho-rim begins to remember certain things, Jae Hee is thrown off guard and nearly goes insane trying to find her as she's the sole witness.

While starting off innocent and sweet, the bulk of his mind and character enhances with each episode. You start to get more of a creepy vibe from him.

Nam Goongmin was probably the only reason why I continued watching Sensory Couple. Yoochun's characters in every drama I've currently seen are repetitive. In Missing You, he was also a detective rising to the occasion after losing someone he loved. He married the lead actress like he did in Sensory Couple and Rooftop Prince. So seeing him as a detective in Sensory Couple didn't spark anything for me even though he's one of my top actors.

I don't like the fact that this drama couldn't settle a genre. Going back and forth between romance and comedy to action and thriller was way too much and seemed very inappropriate for a large portion of the drama.

Prime example: When finding the deceased Joo Ma Ri in a car that's fallen into the river, it was a serious turning point for the detective group. Yet even in close proximity of the body, there were signs of humor that was apparently supposed to be triggered for the viewer like playful antics of who was leading the case and who was going to be on what team.

Like I've repeated a million times, Kwon Jae Hee was my all-time favorite character, so why did I start to hate this drama near the end? He is a man that knows how to cover his tracks and not make stupid, silly mistakes. So for him to openly fall over himself again and again infuriated me. If the writers decided it best to try expressing his insane mind and obsession to catch Oh Cho-rim, that's understandable. But still, it doesn't justify the silly things.

Cho-rim's ability to see scents are only seen more towards the end which was baffling. All these things were happening and she could've used this ability time and time again but waits until the plot thickens against Kwon Jae Hee to really figure out the missing pieces? A large portion of the drama contradicted The Girl Who Sees Smells as really, she only sought smells when it seemed like she wanted to.

I also don't agree with the turning point of the drama in which we are to assume Jae Hee's dead. Instead, he makes a grand appearance at Cho-rim and Moo Gak's wedding, kidnaps the bride and leave this messy trail. He goes out of character when nabbing a bomb in hopes of blowing Moo Gak to pieces and has separate plans for Cho-rim. That's definitely not the character I fell in love with. He as a serial killer continued a repetitive pattern and I don't remember the last time he used a bomb on his victims. But if desperate times called for desperate measures, I wished it wasn't that tacky.

Moo Gak also figures out that bulk of this bomb by noticing a picture frame difference in a video that's sent to him by Jae Hee. I thought it was ridiculous. And Jae Hee's death wasn't satisfying. He deserved a better ending than that. Falling off a roof? Not so much.

Overall

This drama was very promising from the beginning and I had hopes of it being just that, start to finish. It had originality and became one of my favorites until the cheesiness started to bother me. If you're a fan of Nam Goongmin, Park Yoochun or Shin Se Kyung and tacky endings, then give this a try.

It was very unfulfilling for me despite the cast, acting and story-line.