It’s been a long, dark journey for our protagonist and the few people he can now confidently call friends. But while Black Out serves as a cautionary tale about the terrible lengths some people will go to absolve themselves of any semblance of guilt, it also offers a ray of hope that, sometimes, justice can and does win out in the end.
EPISODE 14
Despite Jung-woo’s desperate attempts at resuscitating him, Hyung-shik is dead. And, of course, Assemblywoman Ye set it all up in advance to look like suicide. Like the polished, manipulative politician she is, she carefully words her public speeches — replete with fake tears — to make herself look as innocent, grief-stricken, and honorable as possible. In other words, she “takes full responsibility” for her late husband’s crimes without actually admitting complicity.
Just as calculating is Chief Hyun, who makes a show of taking questions from reporters — but when someone points out his close relationship with the guilty parties, he acts like he’s the one being falsely accused here. After all, if he has a habit of letting his friends get off easy, why on earth would he make his best friend’s son pay for someone else’s crime? (Much later, he’ll admit he resented Jung-woo’s father all along, but not publicly and not with any intention of changing.) Perhaps sensing a sinking boat, Chief Hyun is already in process of bailing on Assemblywoman Ye and cozying up to a different politician in hopes of securing that ever-elusive promotion.
Chief Hyun is so busy covering his own backside that it takes him a while to realize Su-oh has been in the greenhouse basement for an awfully long time. Upon investigating, he discovers the secret room, where Su-oh is talking to Da-eun’s rotting corpse like she’s a coma patient. The gruesome sight sends Chief Hyun straight into a panic cycle. After failing to shield the corpse from his father’s view, Su-oh runs away to find Jung-woo and beg him to “help save Da-eun.”
Having just learned from Min-soo about Chief Hyun’s role in the cover-up, all Jung-woo has to hear is “Da-eun” and “at my house” to put two and two together. Back at the greenhouse, he confronts Chief Hyun, who thinks “I believed Geon-oh killed Bo-young, and I just wanted to protect him” is good enough justification for scapegoating Jung-woo. Worse, he claims the only thing he has to be sorry for is that he hoped Jung-woo really did kill Da-eun (so some of the punishment would be warranted). Now, he says, they need to protect Su-oh by cremating Da-eun’s remains.
And yes, he means that literally. Before Jung-woo or Su-oh can stop him, he sets fire to the corpse and locks himself in the secret room. He’s ready to face the despicable truth about himself, and seems to think the noble thing to do is pay for it by dying here, but really he’s too cowardly to face public condemnation. You know, the thing he was more than willing to make pretty much anyone else face instead. But Jung-woo’s not about to let him take the easy way out. After getting Su-oh to safety, he breaks down the door and carries Chief Hyun out of the smoke.
From there, Black Out takes the time to see justice served all around. Assemblywoman Ye not only loses her election, but is arrested, and cries alone in her office as her empire crumbles around her. Chief Hyun survives (though the episode lets us wonder about his fate for quite a while) and ends up in prison where he belongs. Dong-hee visits after being discharged from his own prison term, but can’t think of a single thing to say to the man who manipulated him into framing an innocent person. And Na-kyeom? The last we see of her, she’s in a mental hospital telling Jung-woo over the phone that she loves him. (Though something tells me he’s not actually on the other end of that line…)
Dong-min also serves time in prison, but unlike the others, he demonstrates true remorse for his actions. It’s very striking that the one person who was painted explicitly as a bad guy from the start is one of the few to be somewhat redeemed in the end — not because his wrongs were excused or explained away as misunderstandings (far from it), but because he had the decency to reflect, acknowledge that how he treated people was wrong, and willingly face the consequences.
I’d nearly forgotten Seol’s backstory, but we get a quick refresher about how she got in trouble for speaking up in the operating room when a patient died on the table due to malpractice. At the time, she caved to pressure from higher-ups and didn’t say anything else. Now, she’s ready to advocate for victims of malpractice, even if it makes her a social outcast and a target for vindictive faculty. But not to worry, because she has a new friend in the department: Jung-woo, who finally gets to pursue higher education.
After eleven years of hardship, Jung-woo’s life takes a turn for the better. His mother wakes up from her coma, and he stays by her side throughout her slow but steady recovery. He also tells his (true) side of the story before a judge, who overturns the original ruling and declares him, at long last, not guilty. Sang-cheol accompanies him for the entire re-trial process, and afterwards Jung-woo addresses him as “hyung” and thanks him with a giant hug (aww). Once Geum-hee has sufficiently regained her strength, she and Jung-woo move away from that hateful little town, and she opens up a new restaurant. And my favorite part of this ending? Su-oh goes with them, and finally gets the loving, supportive family he deserves.
We close with Jung-woo scattering flowers in the water for his father, Bo-young, Da-eun, and Geon-oh, asking them to watch how he lives from now on. As Geum-hee puts it, they’ll never forget all the terrible things they’ve endured, but they can move on with their lives.
I honestly don’t think I could have imagined a more satisfying, hopeful ending than this one. And for a drama that examines such a dark side of human nature, I’m both impressed and thankful that it did end this way. Even the plotlines I’d consider the weakest parts of the story — Seol’s and Sang-cheol’s backstories — served the conclusion well enough that I can appreciate what the show was trying to do with them. Seol went from hesitating to speak against her superiors to refusing to keep quiet despite the negative repercussions of doing the right thing. And Sang-cheol went from blindly condemning every person labeled a criminal to no longer making excuses for the ways in which his own oversight contributed to his wife’s murder.
While both transformations could have been better developed, they still tie right in with the contrast between Chief Hyun (who tried to protect his sons by hiding the truth) and Jung-woo (who actually protected them by fighting off bullies, never letting his “friends” get away with ridiculing Su-oh behind his back, and ultimately exposing the truth about Bo-young and Da-eun’s murders). Because you don’t protect people by sweeping their bad behavior under the rug. You do it by calling out injustice whenever and wherever you see it — including within yourself — and making the world a safer, kinder place for everyone.