S̳h̳a̳k̳h̳i̳-̳l̳a̳c̳i̳o̳u̳s̳

EPISODE 1 RECAP

Our story opens with a stylized flashback sequence and newspaper clippings that give us the basic outline of the chaebol family Sabherwal Group, and its string of tragedies.

First, the chairman and his daughter-in-law are killed in car crash, and then his son, marked to take over, is killed in a suspicious house fire. Thankfully, the grandson is rescued from the fire, and grows up into our hero, Shaurya. Suspiciously, these newspaper clippings are collected, studied, and posted on a wall by an unseen figure.

We get our first glimpse of our grown-up her, who plays on an American football team while studying abroad. As his friend tells us, Shaurya is too nice for his own good. Dozens of extracurricular groups want him to join, knowing he's too kind to turn any of them down. A classmate asks Shaurya to pass some papers to another student, Jennifer, who hasn't been to school in a few weeks.

He agrees and arrives at Jennifer's house, where he hears sounds of a disturbance. Jennifer's father is giving her a vicious beating, and when Shaurya intervenes, he gets beat up as well. The shock of the assault triggers a memory of being trapped in a room when Shaurya was younger, with a shadowy figure advancing upon him. His eyes flash violet, back in the present, but before anything happens the police arrive. They ask Jennifer who attacked her, only for her to lie that Shaurya trespassed and her father saved her. Shaurya is led away by the police, protesting the entire way.

When Shaurya returns to his apartment, a close employee, Chief Makkhan, calls after receiving the police report. He says that Shaurya's family still doesn't know about what he's been accused of, and that he'll arrive shortly to sort things out. Shaurya is too preoccupied to answer the phone.

He searches for medicine in the bathroom, but he can't take it in time. Memories of his childhood trauma flash intermittently, his pupils dilate, and eventually his trembling ceases. His mouth curves upward into a grin that spells trouble-looks like Shaurya's not calling the shots anymore.

Now calm and sporting a trendier look, Shaurya's alter ego heads outside. He returns to Jennifer's house and coldly, methodically beats the crap out of the abusive father. When he's done he leans over and warns that if the man ever touches her again, he'll come back and break every bone in his body. Jennifer catches his eye from the second floor and mouths "thank you."

Shaurya wakes up confused, still wearing the outfit he went out in. Chief Makkhan arrives at Shaurya's apartment, takes in Shaurya's cuts, bruises, and new fashion choices, and asks what happened. But Shaurya can't remember a thing. "I first realized it then," says Shaurya in voiceover, as we see a flashback of him choking someone we don't recognize. "That I had a monster living inside of me."

We see Shaurya explaining this in a flashback to a therapy session, and he identifying each of his personas : Ronny is the violent personality, though Shaurya is quick to reassure the nervous doctor that he only fights when he's mad, and would never harm women or children. Because his multiple personalities take over his mind and body, Shaurya can never remember what happens after he loses control.

In one memory we see him wake up in the middle of getting a tattoo of the Latin words for "death alone."

Then we see Shaurya anger a women he can't remember meeting, because he first made her acquaintance as one of his alter egos. The woman throws water in his face, and apparently that doesn't satisfy her because we later see her directing thugs to bind him and dunk him repeatedly in a water trough.

Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, I guess. Poor guy.

Shaurya was diagnosed four years ago with dissociative identity disorder, also called multiple personality disorder, but he hasn't found any reliable way to treat it.