Memories of Alhambra, the K-drama currently airing on the Total Variety Network (tvN) weeknight slot, has gained even more traction after airing its 3rd and 4th episodes.
At the latter’s conclusion, we come to a point when Hyun Bin’s character Yoo Jin-woo can’t seem to differentiate the real world from the augmented reality (AR) world he is playing in.
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In the end of the second episode, viewers got a taste of the supposed blurring of the real world and augmented reality. In a time jump scene, Yoo Jin-woo is having a gunfight with antagonists on a high-speed train.
It is assumed Jin-woo is in the AR game right now but other passengers on the train are reaction to the situation too. Ergo, it is possible the gunfight is happening in the real world, but we are unsure if Jin-woo is in the real world or in the AR game.
That little taste of things yet to come will eventually be given revelation further down the K-drama. With the 3rd and 4th episodes, viewers start to see the initial blur of the real world with the AR game.
Viewers learned from the previous episodes that Yoo Jin-woo is in a race to purchase the AR game for his company, Jay One Holdings. That is the primary reason why he is in Spain, to sign a deal with the AR game’s creator.
However, he isn’t the only one aiming to get the AR game. Cha Hyung-seok (Park Hoon), a former friend who also helped co-found Jay One Holdings but is now the CEO of IT company New World, also wants to sign a deal for the AR game.
Where it gets interesting is that both Yoo Jin-woo and Cha Hyung-seok both have beta copies of the hardware and software of the AR game. They are both play testing it in Granada, Spain, the hometown of the AR game’s creator. Given their past, they naturally turn and fight each other in the game.
During one fight, Yoo Jin-woo defeats Cha Hyung-seok, utterly destroying him. It suddenly gets interesting when the next day, Hyung-seok is found dead in the same spot where Jin-woo left him, sitting on a bench in the park. Now Jin-woo is in a bit of dilemma. How did Hyung-seok die? Did killing Hyung-seok in the game mean Jin-woo killed him in real life too?
If that wasn’t enough to confuse Yoo Jin-woo if the real world and the AR game are blurring together, he comes across a support character in a bar that looks exactly like Jung Hee-joo (Park Shin-hye) named Emma. It is apparent that Jin-woo is enamored by Emma but will he be able to differentiate the non-playable character in the AR game from Hee-joo?
Growing in popularity
Only time will tell what will happen to Yoo Jin-woo and everyone else in Memories of Alhambra. It also seems that many viewers want to know what happens too as the fourth episode recorded the highest ratings Memories of Alhambra have garnered so far.
As a matter of fact, both AGB Nielsen Korea and TNmS Media Korea recorded double-digit viewership for Seoul for the fourth episode, an accomplishment for a K-drama airing on a cable (pay) channel.
To find out what happens to Yoo Jin-woo and Jung Hee-joo in this fantastic K-drama, Memories of Alhambra airs Saturdays and Sundays at 9 p.m. KST on tvN. For international viewers especially in North America, it airs on Netflix.