This dark, sad story comes to a haunting conclusion as truth and lies intermingle. But the questions it prompts our characters – and us – to ponder are sure to linger for a very long time.
EPISODE 4 WEECAP
Backing up long before the fateful boar hunt, we see the whole story from In-sung’s perspective. Hyun-min’s favorite bullying tactics included holding a magnifying glass over In-sung’s face to try and set fire to it (!) and forcing In-sung to vandalize a local greenhouse by slashing open its plastic exterior. Every time he did, In-sung’s eyes got a little darker and harder.
As we already know, Hyun-min presented as the picture-perfect golden boy, so even In-sung’s attempts to transfer classes got brushed aside. And with Hyun-min threatening to burn In-sung’s house down and kill his parents (believing Ok-soon’s claim that that’s what the villagers did to his own parents), In-sung was too terrified to explicitly ask for help.
The day of the hunt, Hyun-min had taken In-sung out to the woods for another beating, this time to vent his anger at In-sung’s family winning the lottery. They were interrupted by the hunt itself, and while Hyun-min held In-sung down to keep him from crying out, Young-soo’s bullet missed In-sung by inches and hit Hyun-min.
But the bullet wasn’t what killed him. In-sung, seeing this as his one chance at deliverance, strangled him with his bare hands. Then, after everyone had gone, he fled in tears.
As In-sung relates the story to Young-soo in the present, he says brokenly that he knew Hyun-min would kill him later if he didn’t do it. But then he amends his words: actually, he feels like he already died a long time ago. But the point he wants to express most is that he killed Hyun-min – and Young-soo didn’t.
In-sung’s confession devastates Young-soo and Chae-jung, both because of what they’ve done and because they never realized how deeply In-sung was suffering. Neither blames In-sung for what he did; instead, they let him know he has their full support and protection, no matter what.
Now that In-sung is back at home, his parents can no longer deny the detective’s request to question him without drawing more suspicion on themselves. So, in preparation, Chae-jung coaches In-sung on what to say: the two boys played hooky and took a nap in the woods. When In-sung woke up, Hyun-min was nowhere to be found. While searching for his friend, he’d gotten lost and wandered for a week before finding his way back home. Chae-jung’s tone is gentle, and it’s for his own protection, but this feels eerily like In-sung being pressured to lie about Hyun-min’s bullying.
In-sung dutifully repeats the lie to the detective, and then takes it a step further by adding the crucial detail that Hyun-min confided to him about being abused by Ok-soon and planning to run away. It’s also a lie, but it’s impossible to prove false and gives a plausible motive for Hyun-min to have vanished. The case is closed, and Hyun-min is officially documented as a runaway.
As everyone tries to move on with their lives, the blackmailers spend the money they extorted from Young-soo. Jin-kook’s wife gets her surgery, but too late – not long after the operation, Jin-kook comes home to find she’s passed while he was away.
At the funeral, Young-soo sits with Jin-kook, Man-seok, and the village chief long after the other attendees have left. He still has no idea they’re the ones who blackmailed him… that is, until he claps Jin-kook on the shoulder. Jin-kook winces in pain, the others freeze, and Young-soo knows immediately what this means.
In a rage, he seizes a knife from the kitchen and comes at Jin-kook. Jin-kook makes no move to stop him, but he does ask Young-soo to listen to his reason first. He reminds Young-soo about all the ways he was there for Young-soo throughout their lives, sobbing that his wife could have lived if she’d only gotten her surgery sooner.
Young-soo does listen. Breaking down in tears, he slowly drops the knife and wraps his arms around Jin-kook. Their friendship is restored, and everyone resolves to put the terrible past behind them. To start, they haul Hyun-min’s body out to the river and sink it into the water, never to be found again. In-sung returns to school, where he’s finally free from the torment of Hyun-min’s presence.
Young-soo and his friends go after that boar again, and this time Young-soo shoots and doesn’t miss. But the victory is bittersweet, bringing up flashbacks from the last hunt and its repercussions. Still, the four friends celebrate killing the boar by going back to Jin-kook’s house to eat, drink, and sleep in the living room like old times. Just before they all fall asleep, Jin-kook asks outright if Young-soo killed Joo-hyub, and Young-soo answers honestly that he did. It’s more for the sake of getting that unspoken question out into the open than anything else, and they all agree once more to leave the past in the past.
Late that night, while the four sleep soundly, Ok-soon creeps into the house, douses it in gasoline, and sets it on fire. As she walks away from the resulting explosions and flames, she meets a wild boar on the road. They look into each other’s eyes as a tear rolls down her face.
Wow. I wasn’t sure what kind of resolution this show could have, and satisfying feels like the wrong word to use, but I do think it was fitting. By which I mean, once it had happened, I felt as though there was no other way it could – or should – have ended.
I found the reconciliation between Young-soo and his friends particularly moving, because 1) I honestly didn’t think it would be possible and 2) it emphasized a huge theme of this show, which is that where Young-soo – and almost everyone else – went wrong was not taking the time to understand their circumstances or each other.
No one listened when In-sung tried to subtly ask for help. Young-soo hid his mistakes and let them snowball into even worse ones. The villagers simply brushed grievances under the rug instead of addressing them openly, creating an illusion of harmony that provided the perfect breeding ground for resentment and revenge.
That’s why it’s such a powerful turning point when Young-soo drops the knife and listens to Jin-kook’s story with empathy. I wouldn’t call this tragic story hopeful by any means, but there is a glimmer of hope in that fact that he wasn’t too far gone to change, even after crossing the self-declared point of no return.
Even so, it would have felt wrong if Young-soo especially had gotten off scot-free. And for Ok-soon – the one who arguably couldn’t understand the full circumstances, the one whom no one but Hyun-min and the detective ever really listened to – to proverbially strike the final blow brought everything to a sense of completion. Because their community’s real threat wasn’t a wild boar eating their crops, but deep-rooted resentment eating away at them all. And when it finally caught up to them, they were too focused on their own perceived problems to even see it coming.