Our time travelers are on the last leg of their eventful journey. They may have solved the murder mystery, but there’s still a killer to catch and the fallout to deal with. Everything comes full circle in the finale, as fate has another surprise in store for our reporter-turned-teacher who finally learns how and why he got caught up in this time travel business in the first place.
EPISODES 15-16
Let’s dive right back into the action after last week’s cliffhanger. Hae-joon stares in horror at the father he realizes he never really knew. Just to confirm there are no more last minute twists, we get flashbacks to Yeon-woo stalking Joo-young, writing his little notes, and killing Bum-ryong. As Yeon-woo begins brutally beating Hae-joon on the ground, Hae-joon thinks back to running into his father’s waiting arms as a child.
Meanwhile, Mi-sook has a change of heart and finally does something decent. She tells Yoon-young flat out that the killer is Yeon-woo, which sends Yoon-young running after she notices the missing car. Yoon-young runs into Dong-shik on her way to the tunnel, so they head off together.
They’re not a moment too soon because Yeon-woo is done playing. Right as he raises a brick and readies to kill Hae-joon, Dong-shik arrives and shoots him in the arm. And with that, they’ve caught the killer.
I thought for sure there’d be more fanfare and dramatics – Yeon-woo didn’t even try to use the time machine! – but the confrontation is over within the first ten minutes of the penultimate episode. Honestly, it felt a little anticlimactic at first, but the more I thought about it, the more fitting it seemed. The drama has always been more about the emotional and interpersonal impact of the crimes than the crimes themselves, so it makes sense most of the final week would be spent on the aftermath of the arrest rather than the actiony bits.
For Hae-joon, this long-awaiting victory is tainted by the knowledge that it’s his own father he was chasing this whole time. Yoon-young, as usual, takes an empathetic approach and doesn’t blame Hae-joon for his father’s crimes. She assures Hae-joon nothing has changed between them and he has nothing to be sorry about.
Principal Yoon is devastated by the revelation that his son is the killer. He’s horrified that Yeon-woo put Hae-joon in the hospital and committed such atrocities, and he even kneels in apology to Soon-ae’s parents. But he’s torn, less out of loyalty to his son than protecting Hae-joon. When Chung-ah hands over handwritten letters from Yeon-woo that could be used as evidence to tie him to the notes, Principal Yoon burns them. Luckily, Hae-joon catches him in the act and swipes some letters away.
Hae-joon recalls his grandfather getting angry when Yeon-woo wrote little Hae-joon letters, which means his grandfather has known the truth all along. Principal Yoon insists he’s only trying to keep Hae-joon from having to live as a serial killer’s son, but Hae-joon isn’t having it. He marches those letters right to Dong-shik, and with that concrete evidence, the cops officially announce Yeon-woo as the culprit. Hae-joon and Yoon-young’s mission is complete.
But before they can return to their time, they have some goodbyes to say. Hae-joon visits Yeon-woo in prison, and it’s clear that Yeon-woo doesn’t know Hae-joon’s true identity. Yeon-woo found Hae-joon’s secret lair and saw the investigation records, as well as the handy time-traveling manual, which is why he tried to kill him. Hae-joon surprises him by asking why Yeon-woo never hurt Chung-ah and gets an even more surprising answer: he was drawn to her because she was warm and would make a good mother.
Yeon-woo was abandoned by his own mother who was always more interested in her books than him. He ironically resolved that his own son would never face the same fate. Chung-ah seemed like the perfect mother candidate. She was loving and, as an orphan, always wanted a family. Hae-joon relishes destroying Yeon-woo’s dream of a perfect little family by revealing that he’s Yeon-woo’s son and history did in fact repeat itself thanks to Yeon-woo being a terrible person.
Elsewhere, Yoon-young has a much more pleasant goodbye with each of her parents. She buys Hee-seob a guitar he’s been eyeing, calling it a bribe to ensure he treats Soon-ae well. Doing a 180 from her original stance, Yoon-young asks him to stay by Soon-ae’s side no matter what. Then, she shares an emotional goodbye with her mom. Yoon-young tries to hold it together while she promises a crying Soon-ae they’ll see each other again far in the future.
Then, it’s time to return to their own time. They head to the tunnel, set the dial to 2024… and nothing happens. They’re forced to turn right back around and go home. Ha. It looks like fixing the car didn’t automatically fix the time machine part.
Now that they’ve got time to spare while Hae-joon tries to figure out how to fix the time machine, they hang out with family some more. Yoon-young has a bittersweet outing with her parents, realizing it’s the first time they’ve had carefree family time like this. They have a picnic, bicker, and Hee-seob even teaches her how to ride a bike (something he couldn’t do in her time because of his leg). Hae-joon, meanwhile, gives Principal Yoon another chance. Now that there are no secrets between them, they tentatively get to know each other anew.
Amid family fun time, Hae-joon and Yoon-young finally start to question how and why Hae-joon has the time machine. Better late than never, I guess. Hae-joon doesn’t have to wait long for an answer – a mysterious young man (cameo by Jinyoung) loiters around his house. It’s his son, isn’t it? Yep, it’s his son. So now we know for sure that Hae-joon doesn’t die in 2024 and that him and Yoon-young being thrown together is by design, not coincidence.
It turns out their son not only gifted Hae-joon the time machine, but he’s the one who created it, which means he can fix it. Hae-joon decides not to tell Yoon-young about their son, letting her have a spoiler-free relationship.
Before they actually return to their time, Hae-joon makes a final stop to get closure with his mom. He wishes Chung-ah a happy, guilt-free future and assures her that her son will live a good life. He’ll be thankful she gave birth to him and won’t hate or resent her. And with that, Hae-joon and Yoon-young once again drive through the tunnel, and this time they poof back into 2024.
All their sleuthing and interfering really did pay off and change the future for the better: Yoon-young immediately gets a call from her mom when they arrive. Soon-ae is now a rich and famous writer, and Hee-seob is a supportive husband and engaged father. Yoon-young is ecstatic, but it does feel a bit bittersweet since Yoon-young didn’t get to grow up with this version of her parents. And isn’t it going to be tricky navigating different memories of their lives together since the time travelers are stuck with their original timeline memories?
Honestly, the mechanics of the time travel and different timelines doesn’t make much sense, but that’s not really the point here. The time travel is just a mechanism the drama has used to tell a story of complicated family relationships, love, regret, and forgiveness. So I’m choosing to ignore the loopholes and just pretend the time travel logistics make sense.
But back to future updates. Yoon-young is her mom’s editor and is working on her own novel about her time travel experience. Hee-seob happily champions Soon-ae and still plays guitar, looking much more like his younger self. Even Yoo-seob (who is well now) is a part of their harmonious family unit. (No sign of Dong-shik, though.)
Hae-joon went back to being a news anchor. (Soon-ae and Hee-seob note the uncanny resemblance to their high school teacher.) He’s no longer isolated, though – his relationship with his grandfather has vastly improved, and he’s happily dating Yoon-young.
The drama ends as Yoon-young and Hae-joon decide to take one final trip in May (when the murders occurred) to “perfect” everything, which I’m guessing means preventing the murders that did happen. (It’s a miracle everything worked out the first time they went around changing past events all willy-nilly, so maybe stop while you’re ahead?)
And that’s the drama — an interesting mystery and family drama that mostly gave me what I wanted. While it would’ve been nice if more thought had been put into the mechanics of the time travel, I’m willing to give it a pass since that’s not why I tuned in. What the drama did best from the start was in imbuing what could have been your run-of-the-mill serial killer story with heart and never losing focus on the characters at the center. I especially loved Yoon-young’s journey to understanding and really seeing her parents for who they are. Soon-ae in particular was a great character, and I loved seeing her growth once she was given the support she needed to thrive. In general, the familial relationships were well-done and moving, illustrating the ways family can both hurt and heal.
I was less sold on the romance. I liked Hae-joon and Yoon-young’s rapport as a team, but their romantic relationship never felt natural to me. Seeing as that ended up being an important piece of the puzzle, I wish I could’ve been more on board with them as a couple.
On the mystery front, I do think the whodunnit aspect dragged a bit too long – we basically came to the killer through a tedious process of elimination – but I appreciate that Hae-joon wasn’t portrayed as some genius who could magically sniff out the killer. While I was okay with Yeon-woo being the ultimate villain, I wish he’d had a more interesting motive than mommy issues. The idea that he’d hate women who read just because his mom liked books is hard to buy. (Side note: if he thought women reading was dangerous, maybe he shouldn’t have become a university professor where he’d be literally assigning readings to women. Or is it only novels that are the problem?)
Despite my few gripes, I really did enjoy the ride. I was invested in the story from the start and stayed engaged to the end in large part thanks to the characters and familial relationships. It’s hard to make a serial killer story stand out these days, but My Perfect Stranger kept it feeling fresh by making the story feel personal (rather than procedural), with high emotional stakes and a fun dash of nostalgia.
