'Alice' Episode 1: Joo Won, Kim Hee-seon's time travel show starts with tragic murder, a mystery to be solved
'Alice', the new show on SBS begins on a tragic note with the murder of a world-renowned physicist in 1992. This physicist owns a book that a team of time travelers lusts after and from the few pages that we saw in the first episode, it seems that this book is the key to keep time traveling a reality. Two individuals from the future -- Tae-yi (Kim Hee-seon) and Min-hyuk (Kwak Si-yang) -- are assigned to get the book, but before they could, another man visits the physicist and stabs him when the scientist refuses to give up the book. He also gives the last page of the book to his daughter and tells her to hide it while he deals with the intruders. So despite getting their hands on the book, the time travelers from the future may still not have what they want.
At this point, Tae-yi learns that she is pregnant and that she traveled through the wormhole while she was 12 weeks along. Having already opened herself up to radiation, if she were to return to the time that she belonged, the baby might be born with medical conditions that cannot be dealt with. So Min-hyuk who also happens to be Tae-yi's lover tells her to get an abortion. She tries to convince him otherwise, but when he doesn't seem open to be considering her point of view, she instead uses an opening to disappear from Min-hyuk and members of Alice.
She decides to stay behind in 1992, has the baby and be a mother instead of traveling through time going through different missions. She names her son Park Jin-gyeom and when her son is three years old she realizes that her son, unlike the other kids, has developed a medical condition as a result of coming in contact with harmful radiation. He doesn't understand social behavior, and from what the doctor says, it seems to a condition similar to antisocial behavior disorder. So his mother tries her best to train him, and educate him about human emotions so that he can behave in an appropriate manner in society.
In fact, she teaches him so well that he grows up to be able to empathize with people. When a fellow student attempts suicide, Jin-gyeom (Joo Won) tries to stop her, but fails. When people become suspicious of him because of his medical condition and call him names, his mother trusts him and even manages to prove his innocence. However, her fellow time travelers track her down and someone even shoots her. Jin-gyeom finds his mother on the floor, just a breath away from death but she manages to tell him one thing and that is to stay away from her if he came across her in the future.
Initially, Jin-gyeom doesn't understand. He is more worried about his mother and when she dies, the cops are unable to solve the case. So Jin-gyeom forgets his mother's warning and instead decides to not give up on the investigation. He also decides to become a police officer and soon enough, Jin-gyeom finds a lead. The strange drone that Jin-gyeom had seen flying over his house on the day his mother died reappears and this time it is in connection to a kidnapping case. While he follows the drone, he comes across something extremely strange and that is someone who looks exactly like his mother.
It is at this point that he remembers his mother's warning. Yet, he approaches the woman who looks like his mother. We know her as Tai-yi and while Ji-gyeom runs towards her, he experiences time to freeze and that is where the episode ends. So what about the book? Was the killer able to get hold of the book? If not where is it now and who is the little girl who holds the last page of the book? We will have to wait how things pan out in the next episode.
'Alice' airs on SBS on Fridays and Saturdays at 10 pm KST.
