This finale has everything: body swapping, hypnotism, damsels in distress, necromancy, gun fights, explosives, inspirational quotes, redemption arcs, and boss battles to end all boss battles. In other words, Tale of the Nine Tailed 1938 went out with a bang — literally and figuratively — and it’s going to be hard to say goodbye to these delightfully fun and wacky characters.
EPISODES 11-12
We ended last week’s penultimate episodes with Nyudo swapping his old-man body for Yeon’s much more sleek and spry physique. While the upgrade is obvious from an aesthetics perspective, this also gave Nyudo the opportunity to spy on Hong-joo and Moo-young and wait for an opening to steal the crystal.
At the same time, Yeon learns that there is a fifth Shinigami, and the last thing he wants is for the remaining anime villains to regroup and gain the upper hand while he and his fellow mountain gods are weakened and feuding among themselves. Thinking on his feet, Yeon convinces Yuki and Oogama that it wouldn’t be wise for them to appear before their boss with only one treasure in hand. Nope, instead they should totally try and take out the Joseon gods and steal the crystal so their leader won’t be angry over their lackluster performance.
Yuki and Oogama agree that his plan sounds like a good idea, so they seek out Hong-joo and Moo-young. Naturally, when the two teams converge, a fight ensues. Yuki’s freezing superpower — timed with a surprise attack from Nyudo-in-disguise — quickly gives the Shinigami the upper hand, but when Moo-young reveals his flame abilities, Yuki convinces Nyudo that he should swap Yeon’s body for the one with more fire power.
Yeon, who’d been hiding and biding his time for the perfect moment to reclaim his body, jumps into the smoke just as Nyudo uses his power to swap with Moo-young. Once Yeon is back in the driver’s seat of his own skin, Yeon summons a bolt of lightning and disintegrates Nyudo in an instant. (What, Yeon, you couldn’t conjure more lightning to end Yuki and Oogama, too? Or would that have been too easy?)
Yuki and Oogama scamper off, and the battered and bruised mountain gods take a moment to rest and commiserate, but their fight against the Shinigami isn’t over. There’s still the matter of their pesky leader SATORI (Seo Young-joo), who tries to keep them under his spell — but his illusions are no match for Yeon’s wits. When Yeon realizes that he and his fellow mountain gods are still in the hotel and not, in fact, recuperating at Myoyeongak as Satori’s illusion would have them believe, they exit Satori’s spell and come face-to-face with Satori and the rest of the Shinigami.
Of course, this latest villain has another trick up his sleeve, and quick flashbacks reveal that he’d already hypnotized the mountain gods the previous day when he’d been disguised as a hypnotist’s assistant. At the count of three, he orders Yeon to hand over the magical artifacts and has Moo-young and Hong-joo commence choking each other to death.
Once again, our heroes are in quite the predicament, but — as always — Yeon’s cunning and magical fox abilities come in handy. Lest we forgot from Season 1, Yeon also has the ability to mindf**k people, and while he was trapped in Nyudo’s body, he hypnotized Yuki and Oogama so that they would attack whatever opponent Yeon was facing when he said the magic word three times. On command, Yuki freezes Satori, and Yeon orders Oogama and Yuki to carry Satori up to the hotel’s roof, where they should all jump off together.
Admittedly, I find this turnabout a wee bit convenient, especially since all previous scenes indicated Nyudo retained the powers of whatever body he was possessing. After all, he was able to summon Yeon’s sword, and he wanted to swap bodies with Moo-young to gain his pyrokinetic abilities. So it doesn’t make sense that Yeon would still be able to hypnotize the Shinigami in Nyudo’s body. Whatever, I’ll roll with it. *shrugs*
With the Battle of Bando Hotel behind them, our heroes try to rest up as much as they can before D-day — the day of the eclipse and Eun-ho’s wedding. This includes Rang, who successfully cured Yeo-hee and prevented her from becoming a zombie. But sadly, his little mermaid is not safely out of harm’s way just yet. Kato has finally realized that Yeon is not only powerful but extremely crafty and sharp, meaning throwing a series of goons at Yeon isn’t going to work unless he comes up with an equally clever scheme to back Yeon into a corner. And to do that, Kato needs hostages. (You can probably see where this is going now.)
Poor Yeo-hee is taken by (not dead) Yuki while on a date with Rang, which nearly breaks him, as feelings of being useless and “not good enough” to protect his loved ones resurface. Yeo-hee isn’t the only one in distress, though, because Oogama (also not dead because — let’s be real here — Yeon was pretty dumb to think that jumping off a mere four-story building would kill such strong demons) takes Hong-joo’s eternally loyal puppy YOO JAE-YOO (Han Gun-yoo) hostage, too.
Why does Kato need two hostages? Well, he issues a challenge to Rang and Hong-joo: the first one to deliver the magical artifacts to him will have their loved one returned safely. If Kato actually expects to sow discord and have Rang and Hong-joo to go head-to-head, he is sorely mistaken, because neither Rang nor Hong-joo jump to play his game. However, as a stall tactic to keep the pair distracted and away from his wedding with Eun-ho, it’s fairly effective — especially since Yeon has a curfew that’s less forgiving than Cinderella’s.
Even so, Yeon rallies the troops and concocts a plan that has everyone working together to not only ruin Kato’s wedding (and kill the high-ranking Japanese general in attendance) but to also rescue Yeo-hee and Jae-yoo — with hopefully enough time leftover for him to catch his ride back to the future. It isn’t long before Rang’s gang and Shin-joo’s canine footmen locate our villains’ prison hideout, and so Rang and Hong-joo team up to rescue their loved ones. Meanwhile, Yeon, Eun-ho, and Hong-joo’s girls sneak into Bando Hotel to hide weapons and bombs around the wedding venue.
Rang and Hong-joo locate Yeo-hee first. She’s safe and sound because Jae-yoo put up a fight and destroyed one of the serum vials that Yuki and Oogama were going to inject into their bloodstreams. Unfortunately, there was still one vial left, and after injecting the serum into Jae-yoo, Oogama tied him to a tree — bait for Hong-joo, who immediately rushes to his rescue and releases him from his bonds.
The serum makes Jae-yoo go crazy and attack Hong-joo, but she refuses to fight back. She just holds him and pats his head lovingly when he bites her shoulder, and the familiar way she comforts him helps him momentarily come to his senses — long enough for him to fatally wound himself in order to avoid attacking her further. Not going to lie, this scene had me near tears, and I’m a bit resentful that their relationship wasn’t featured more prominently in previous episodes.
At the prison, Rang is fighting both Yuki and Oogama, and he’s not faring well. Physically, their combined strength overpowers him, but it’s the psychological beatdown that he’s taking that’s doing the most damage. While Yuki inflicts pain on Yeo-hee, Oogama and Yuki belittle Rang’s abilities, and when they compare him to Yeon, they find him lacking. Rang seemingly succumbs to his fate as the helplessness sinks in, and he asks Yeo-hee to look away so she won’t see him die. But then he remembers Yeon’s words.
Before they split ways and went off to fight their separate battles, Yeon told Rang that their father once claimed Rang had the potential to be more powerful than Yeon. Although at the time Rang assumed that his big brother was just blowing smoke up his ass, Yeon’s encouragement — plus Rang’s desire to save his woman — unlocks Rang’s true power. Both of his eyes glow golden, and Rang easily takes out Oogama and Yuki in a fantastical display of strength. Of course, that triumphant display of power leaves Rang too weak to face his next opponent: the also not dead (but extremely banged up) Satori.
The final Shinigami isn’t much of a threat, though, because that’s the moment 1938 Yeon decides to make a cameo appearance and cut down Satori with a single slash of his sword. As it turns out, a well-timed letter present-day Yeon sent to his past self contained the knowledge that Ah-eum would be reborn. This gave 1938 Yeon the sudden desire to listen to the rest of the advice written in the letter — namely, be a better brother to Rang, ya dumbass. Not only does Yeon come to Rang’s rescue, but he also makes a pitstop to give Hong-joo a special flower that will save Jae-yoo. Yay! He lives! (Another mighty convenient plot point but, again, *shrugs*).
Back at Bando Hotel, everyone important has gathered for Kato and Eun-ho’s wedding, and as Kato walks his bride down the aisle, she looks about as thrilled as any other woman about to marry the demon who killed her sister. But — surprise! — that isn’t Eun-ho at Kato’s side. It’s Yeon in disguise, and after making a brief speech to the gathered guests, he reveals his true identity, whips out a shotgun, and gets the unorthodox post-wedding reception started.
The real Eun-ho has a shootout with the Japanese soldiers and makes it her mission to hunt down and take out the general, much to her father’s eternal disappointment. So what does her father do when his only remaining daughter choses her country over her family? He shoots at Eun-ho and wins the award for shittiest father. Thankfully, the bullet only grazes Eun-ho, but unfortunately for her father, he’s the one caught standing over the dead general’s body with a gun in his hand, so the remaining Japanese soldiers naturally assume he’s the assassin and spray him with bullets. A bit overkill, but you won’t see me crying over his demise.
Meanwhile, in the main hall, the final showdown between Yeon and Kato goes down. At first, Kato, a Japanese mountain god way too far from home, appears to get the upper hand and uses a Darth Vader-like chokehold on Yeon. But then, Yeon smiles and — spoiler alert! — takes great pleasure in revealing the future date of Japan’s surrender in World War II. Yeon’s strength grows, his eyes glow golden, lightning cackles, and — BAM! — Yeon unleashes his full nine-tailed fox persona and rises into the air.
In response, Kato starts summoning all of his power, too, and grows a pair of wings made of black magic. It’s like they’re two video game characters channeling their most powerful special move, readying for a K.O. At the same time, they unleash their attacks, converging in the middle, and it’s Yeon who remains standing! (Not that any of us were truly concerned. He’s ridiculously overpowered, but that’s part of Yeon’s charm.)
With the clock nearing midnight seven o’clock, Yeon and Shin-joo make a hasty exit so they don’t miss their window to return to the future. A line of Japanese soldiers are waiting for them outside the hotel, and Shin-joo’s getaway car isn’t cranking. Although the soldiers don’t pose much of a threat to Yeon, he doesn’t exactly have a ton of minutes to spare. And that’s when Moo-young jumps in to save the day!
Now, you might be thinking, where has Moo-young been all this time? Well, presumably dead. You see, what had happened was, Moo-young stole the golden ruler from Yeon, and apparently that’s all he really needed to revive his brother — or who he assumed was his brother. In a reveal that shocked absolutely no one, the being Moo-young unleashed upon the world was not his big brother. Instead, the original mountain god was awakened, and his first order of business was to kill Moo-young with a tiny boop to the forehead. The next thing he did was steal Taluipa’s thousand-mile eyes, and after that, well, who knows what happened to him (because the writers must be saving that juicy storyline for a possible third season).
When Moo-young makes his unnecessarily delayed reappearance — that’s totally for the audience’s benefit because it makes zero sense from an actual strategic standpoint — we flash back to Yeon finding Moo-young’s body. He’s absolutely distraught, and his tears cause the big dipper mark on his forearm to glow and summon the baby god of fortune. He’s cautioned against using his wish now because he will become lost once again, but Yeon declares that he will find his own way in the future.
Thus, Moo-young is revived — and completely baffled that Yeon would be so forgiving and kind-hearted after, you know, all the crappy things he’s done to Yeon in the recent past. Yeon is all about forgiving and forgetting, though, and he bids Moo-young a brief goodbye before driving off, a happy smile on his face as he watches Moo-young charbroil the Japanese soldiers in the rearview mirror.
Although Yeon is eager to return to the future, he hesitates when he’s actually poised to open the door because he hasn’t bid Rang a proper goodbye. Thankfully, Rang had the same thought and arrives at the last possible moment. Seeing the two brothers cry as they bid farewell to each other damn near killed me, and while I can’t say for certain if this version of their reconciliation surpassed their bromance in Season 1, it hurts double-time knowing Yeon had this fleeting opportunity to make amends with Rang (again) but presumably the future he’s returning to will remain the same as he left it. And sure enough, when Yeon returns to the future, he has a happy reunion with Jia — but there’s no sign of Rang or the other mountain gods.
Instead, we get a short montage of their lives in 1938 after Yeon left, but the more we see of 1938, the less it makes sense that the future remains unchanged. For starters, Yeon’s time in the past expedited his reconciliation with Rang, and we see Rang’s affection for future Yeon carrying over to 1938 Yeon, who is going through detox and steadily building an affectionate rapport with Rang. Even if one argues that Rang is destined to die at a set point in time, regardless of how long he and Yeon have been on good terms, there’s still the matter of Moo-young and Hong-joo.
Moo-young has made a conscious decision to become the person Hong-joo remembers him being, and he has decided to pursue his former dream of becoming a doctor. Hong-joo has also resolved to embrace her role as mountain god and protect the people, and we see her team up with Moo-young and 1938 Yeon to assassinate the newest Japanese general. Ignoring the impact their superhero team-up would have on actual historical events, it’s still hard to imagine that their strengthened friendship wouldn’t have carried over into the events of Season 1. The villain from Season 1 was pretty strong, but surely Yeon would have been able to defeat him faster — and possibly without Rang’s death — if he’d had Moo-young and Hong-joo at his side, right?
Overall, I really enjoyed these final episodes, but the lingering questions I have about the timeline and the MIA original mountain god prevent me from feeling completely satisfied. I want answers, so I really hope tvN announces that they’ve greenlit a Season 3 soon. And if a third season becomes the final season, then I sincerely wish it ends with an extended montage of an alternate version of the future where all of our characters from this season — including Rang and his mermaid — are living their best lives in the modern times.