The bond between husband and wife is in tatters after years of lies come to light, but one of them isn’t ready to let go yet. It’s a race against time and each other to solve an old mystery that’s made its way into the present, with more than just their lives on the line.
EPISODE 9 RECAP
When Hee-sung and Ji-won first bought their house, Hee-sung had surprised Ji-won with a fancy meal and twinkle lights all over the room. Heavily pregnant with Eun-ha, Ji-won had asked her belly if she liked it, then had grabbed Hee-sung’s hand so he could feel the baby kicking in response.
He was clearly still a bit awkward about feelings, but a look of wonder had crossed his face and he’d said it was strange to think of a living being growing inside Ji-won. She’d told him to say something to the baby, so he knelt and gently caressed her belly, then told the baby that he hung yellow wallpaper in it’s room. Hee, such an awkward sweetheart.
Looking over the elaborate meal Hee-sung made, Ji-won murmured that she’s always receiving from him, never giving. She asked if there’s anything he wanted from her, and he said there is.
In the present, Ji-won shows up at Moo-jin’s apartment, and Hee-sung reveals himself to her. He says he was talking to Moo-jin about what kind of metalworker Do Min-seok was, and Ji-won fusses at Moo-jin for hiding the fact that Hee-sung was with him. LOL, poor Moo-jin, every time he’s with these two he ends up getting lectured.
Ji-won lets herself in and the guys freak out, knowing that Hae-soo is inside. Ji-won doesn’t recognize her right away, and Hae-soo has to remind her that they’ve met before. Ji-won says that Hae-soo was a lot colder and uncooperative that time, and Hae-soo meekly apologizes. Hae-soo claims that this is her first time meeting Hee-sung, which Ji-won knows is a lie since she knows they’re siblings.
She sees the notes that Moo-jin was writing on the windows. Ji-won suggests they work together since they’re all trying to catch the accomplice, and she asks what the note “trap” means. Moo-jin explains that Do Min-seok liked setting traps so he may have done the same for his victims, but Hee-sung gives him a subtle head-shake so he says they got the information from Hae-soo.
Dr. Baek gives the now-conscious, real HEE-SUNG (Kim Ji-hoon) an examination, while his wife shakes nervously behind him. Hee-sung can barely move, but he manages to whisper, “Mom… Mom… It wasn’t your fault…” Mom sobs that she’s sorry, and Hee-sung asks about the person he hit with his car that night.
Ji-won listens to the recording of the accomplice’s voice, focusing on the tapping noise in the background. She thinks it’s too irregular to be a machine but doesn’t have any ideas, so she offers to have it run through a service that analyzes recordings for the police.
Hae-soo suddenly says she has to go, and Ji-won asks if she really wants to catch the accomplice. She points out that it might be Do Hyun-soo, but Hae-soo insists that it’s not, “The Hyun-soo I know would never do that.” Ji-won retorts bitterly, “I feel like the Do Hyun-soo that you know is very different from the Do Hyun-soo that I know.”
She reveals that she met his childhood therapist, who believes that as an adult, Hyun-soo is probably very good at manipulating people. Ji-won even saw video of the boy admitting to killing a classmate’s dog because it would be too hard to get rid of a human body, but Hae-soo snaps again that Hyun-soo wouldn’t do that.
She says it’s more likely that Do Min-seok did it, so Ji-won asks why Hyun-soo would confess to something his father did. Hae-soo says she’d like to ask him the same question, as Hee-sung grows more and more uncomfortable. Ji-won asks if she has something to say, and Hae-soo replies, “Yes, I want you to know what I did, and not Hyun-soo.”
She starts to confess that she killed the village foreman, so Hee-sung knocks his coffee onto Moo-jin’s laptop as a distraction. It works — Moo-jin whines over the laptop and kicks everyone out. In the car, Hee-sung apologizes to Ji-won for not telling her he was helping Moo-jin. She says distractedly that she doesn’t tell him everything either.
Hae-soo tells Moo-jin that she’s sure she saw the accomplice, and she thinks hypnosis might help her remember him. Moo-jin asks what she’ll do if it works and Hyun-soo doesn’t need her anymore, but she says, “If Hyun-soo doesn’t need me anymore, I’ll do what I had to do. Something I should have done but didn’t.”
Ji-won is distracted on the drive to work, thinking about how Jae-seob said that Do Min-seok must have met with his accomplice twice on the night that Mi-sook was abducted — once to give him his car keys, and again to get the keys back. She asks Hee-sung how he would have done it if he were Do Min-seok, using his son as an alibi and letting someone else use his car to abduct victims.
She says he had to have given the accomplice his keys in person, and runs down the list of things Min-seok and Hyun-soo did that night… an art gallery, dinner, a drink at a bar, then a late movie. Hee-sung remembers doing each of those things with his father, and he gets so distracted that he almost hits a pedestrian.
As he’s apologizing to Ji-won, he notices that she’s not wearing her wedding ring. She says she took it off at work to wash her hands and left it behind, and that it took a surprisingly short amount of time to get used to not having it on.
Alone together, the real Hee-sung asks slowly why Dr. Baek didn’t answer his calls that night of the accident. When his father says he was busy, Hee-sung asks, “Was it more important than your own son?” He asks if he’ll be able to walk again, and Dr. Baek says he’ll be able to walk, get a job, marry a good woman, and even have a lovely daughter: “That life can be yours, too.” ~shudder~
Ji-won arrives home after work to find that Hee-sung and Eun-ha have put together a little party on the roof. Ji-won looks miserable as Hee-sung grills the food, but she tells Hee-sung that her expression is just because of all the work he put into it. He says it’s not work when he enjoys it, but Ji-won retorts that it must be difficult to only show her what she wants to see.
Ji-won takes a call from the man who’s analyzing the voice recording. She tells Hee-sung that he can’t determine the source of the clicking sound, but that under that sound, he could hear another man’s voice. She plays the cleaned-up recording for him, and he hears: … an ashtray?
He realizes that the recording was made at the same bar where he and his father spent some time on the night that Mi-sook was abducted. He recalls the bartender offering his father an ashtray, then hand-chipping a special icecube for his drink (which explains the clicking noise).
Over dishes, Hee-sung gently asks Ji-won what’s going on with her. She says that after fourteen years, she no longer has feelings for him. Hee-sung carefully says that her feelings can’t just change like that, so she asks if he still feels the same way about her. He say she does, and Ji-won assumes the worst — that he’s always felt nothing for her.
Hee-sung says she must be stressed from work, between always being in danger and making no progress on her new case. Ji-won snaps that he doesn’t know her as well as she knows herself, and says that she started liking him for no reason, so now she’s stopped liking him for no reason.
She snarls that she hates him and hates watching him try to please her, but Hee-sung asks, if she hates him so much, then why is she crying? Ji-won tells him that she wants to break up, and Hee-sung asks what he can do to change her mind, but she says this is just what she wants.
Hee-sung follows Ji-won to the bedroom, wanting to talk more. But she says that she keeps seeing Do Min-seok’s victims and feeling guilty that she’s done nothing to help them. Hee-sung begs her not to sympathize with the victims too much, and Ji-won says that she’s always coped with having such horrible cases because she had Hee-sung to comfort her, “But not anymore.”
Hee-sung shows up at Moo-jin’s place early in the morning, and HA, Moo-jin can’t believe Hee-sung is here to talk about his marriage. Hee-sung mopes that this is worst than the night he was stabbed by Soon-kil then hit by a car, awww. Hee-sung arrives, having been called as backup, and Hee-sung wonders what he needs to do to make Ji-won happy again.
Moo-jin tells Hee-sung to be romantic and woo Ji-won back, but Hee-sung isn’t listening. Instead, he decides that the way to win Ji-won back is to catch Do Min-seok’s accomplice. Hae-soo says that Ji-won must be very precious to him, and when Hee-sung agrees that she’s important, Hae-soo counters, “The things you think are important, become less important as time passes. But when something is precious, it hurts more as time goes by.”
Hee-sung announces that he knows where that recording was made, and that he’ll tell them when he returns. He heads out, warning Hae-soo not to spend too much time with Moo-jin, hee. When he gets to his car, he pulls out his phone and sees that Ji-won hasn’t answered any of his many texts today, so he scrolls up to reread their older, flirty texts.
Back with her team, Ji-won decides to use the trap idea. She has a list of people that Mi-sook called during the three days between leaving Kyung-choon and getting kidnapped, most of which were job inquiries. Ji-won believes that one of them baited Mi-sook, so she wants to call them and use herself as bait. Woo-chul warns against entrapment, but Ji-won says it’s legal as long as the person is still committing the crime.
Moo-jin gives Hae-soo a ride home, and she invites him inside her rooftop apartment. It’s so empty that at first, Moo-jin thinks shes in the middle of moving, but she says that she always lives like this. She’s not even aware that her lightbulb has burned out, and she further confesses that sometimes she cries all night, or doesn’t leave the house for days… “I’m not the Hae-soo from before. I’m broken. We can’t go back to old times.”
Hee-sung finds the seedy old bar that he and his father went to that night, and as soon as he sits down, he recognizes the tattoo on the bartender’s arm. He orders a drink on the rocks, and when he gets it with regular ice, he asks about the hand-chiseled ice his father was served. The bartender says they only do that for special (frequent) clients.
Hee-sung plays the recording of the accomplice for him and the bartender freezes for a moment, then says nervously that he doesn’t recognize the voice. He agrees to call Hee-sung if he remembers anything so Hee-sung asks for a pen to write down his number. The bartender offers him a very fancy pen, which Hee-sung recognizes as one that his father made and gave as a gift to someone “as a thank you for always getting me nice raw material.”
Hee-sung had assumed his father was talking about metalworking materials, which Min-seok always got for himself, but Min-seok had said cryptically, “There are some raw materials that are too risky to obtain myself. I wonder what kind of face you’d make if I showed you.” Hee-sung had asked to see, but Min-seok had said he’d show him when his skills were more ripe.
In a flash, Hee-sung vaults over the bar and attacks the bartender, accusing him of lying about not knowing Do Min-seok when he owns one of Min-seok’s art pieces and categorized him as a “special client.” He slams the bartender’s hand to the counter and stabs it with the pen… right between the fingers, whew. The bartender continues to insist he knows nothing, so Hee-sung orders him to tell him who does.
Meanwhile, Ji-won calls each of the people on Mi-sook’s call list, asking about jobs and striking out. Eventually she speaks to a woman named Jung-soon who sounds interested, and she agrees to meet Ji-won at a motel to discuss a job.
Jung-soon is definitely shady, as is Yeom Sang-chul, the man she works for, who warns her against procuring too often now that the media is reporting on Do Min-seok again. As it turns out, Sang-chul is also the man the bartender sells out to Hee-sung. Hee-sung calls Sang-chul and asks boldly if he’s Do Min-seok’s accomplice.
Hee-sung’s mother finds the real Hee-sung on the floor beside his bed, having tried to walk by himself. His speech has improved, and he says a bit desperately that he was on his way to see someone the night of the accident. He says he must see them, and begs her to help him.
The bartender takes Hee-sung to see Sang-chul, at the very same “employment agency” where little In-seo was taken… oh no. Hee-sung tells Sang-chul that he’s Do Min-seok’s son, so Sang-chul asks him Min-seok’s favorite drink order. Hee-sung proves himself by knowing that Min-seok never ordered a drink, he would only say he’d called ahead.
Hee-sung asks about Min-seok’s accomplice, but Sang-chul says that question crosses a line. He notes that Hee-sung is wanted himself, and Hee-sung says that’s why he’s so anxious to find the accomplice. He tells Sang-chul to tell the accomplice that he was fearless to have messed with him, but Sang-chul just laughs that he’s stuck between two crazy punks.
He says he’s just someone who buys and sells for a profit, and when Hee-sung asks what he buys and sells, he says ominously, “Anything. Everything.”
While her team listens secretly, Ji-won meets with Jung-soon and concocts a story about running away from home at fourteen and being alone in the world. Jung-soon promises that this job can earn Ji-won a lot of money and only requires her making a delivery, though she won’t say what she’s delivering.
She demands a commission for getting Ji-won the job, and as soon as she takes the cash, Ji-won informs Jung-soon that she’s under arrest. But when Ji-won goes to the door to let in the guys, Jung-soon tries to escape by climbing over the balcony. She loses her balance and falls several stories.
Back at the station, Ji-won gets yelled at for being careless, but Woo-chul defends her. Ho-joon is at the hospital waiting while Jung-soon is in surgery, and he reports that the doctor says she may not survive. Ji-won steps outside, thinking about how Hee-sung would console her on difficult days like this. She reads his texts from today, seeing how he genuinely seems to miss and worry about her.
Hee-sung makes Sang-chul a monetary offer for information, and Sang-chul calculates whether he can make more money by selling Hee-sung to the accomplice. He decides not to betray his client and his men surround Hee-sung. Sang-chul is abut to force a drug down his throat when Hee-sung blurts out, “I can be your client, too! One that will constantly require your services.”
Sang-chul asks Hee-sung if he even knows what he sells, and Hee-sung replies, “People.” Sang-chul mutters that Min-seok said his son was just like him, but he didn’t realize he meant in this way.
Ji-won recalls the night she’d asked if Hee-sung wanted anything from her, and how he’d said he only wanted her to keep loving and trusting him like she did then. Missing him desperately, she decides to call him. Sang-chul lets Hee-sung talk to her, and when he only says coldly that he’s busy, she figures out that something is wrong.
Recalling his request to trust him, she tells him to answer yes or no to her questions. She asks if he needs help and he says no, so she says that she’ll give him an hour then she’s coming to look for him. She says, “I miss you,” and Hee-sung answers a simple, “Yes.”
COMMENTS
Geez, Flower really knows how to twist me up in knots and make me feel things I never thought I’d feel for characters I don’t even want to like! A maladjusted child of a serial killer who lies much too easily and is prone to violent outbursts, a cop who would rather throw a bomb into her marriage than just talk honestly with her husband, a reporter who’s nosing into an old case that he’s unethically connected to, and the sister who is most certainly hiding more secrets than all of the others put together. They’re all morally questionable people, and while I get that this is a situation none of them would voluntarily have entered, they’re all so busy lying to and hiding the truth from each other that I want to just throw my hands up and say they get what they deserve.
And yet… each of them is so relatable that I can’t do that, and I keep caring what happens to them against my better judgment. Moo-jin, at least, is the most innocent of the four — he’s just trying to help the girl he once loved and clear his old friend’s name. And Ji-won can’t help it that she married a man who wouldn’t know an emotion if it walked up and kissed him on the lips, not even when he’s actively feeling them. I feel the most sorry for Hee-sung, who got himself into this through an act so selfless that he was willing to be branded a murderer to protect his sister’s future, and only wants a normal life with his wife and daughter (if only he’d get some therapy to learn how to recognize his true feelings! And stop, you know, almost stabbing people). And even Hae-soo, who I’m positive knows more about her father’s murders than anyone else but Do Min-seok himself, and who is certainly manipulating everyone with that doe-eyed, oh-so-innocent act, has something earnest about her that I can’t quite put my finger on.
This episode was one of the harder ones to watch, for me, because of the mistrust and broken-heartedness that Ji-won is carrying around. She heard her husband say, in his own words, that he doesn’t love her and never has, and I’m frankly impressed that she’s not more of a mess. Instead she focused that energy into solving the mystery surrounding his past, and she’s making serious headway, but it’s not enough. Meanwhile, Hee-sung is getting some answers but is also getting himself in serious trouble, and I just want to shake them both and scream at them to have a conversation, tell the truth to each other, then work together on this. Thankfully, Ji-won’s decision to trust Hee-sung at the end was a major turning point, because it shows that she hasn’t fully given up on him quite yet, even when he’s not acting at all trustworthy from her point of view.
And Hee-sung… talk about wanting to shake someone! I know, he’s damaged and had a horrible upbringing and he was told his whole life that something was wrong with him. But I think he was misdiagnosed — he’s not lacking in emotion, it’s just that showing his emotions was so dangerous that he pushed them down until he forgot he even had them. I think that experiencing Ji-won’s love changed him a lot, and I do believe that he loves her and Eun-ha, even if he doesn’t know that that’s what he’s feeling. That’s why he asked her not to change or stop loving him, and that’s why he’s been so lost since she said she no longer loves him — he’s heartbroken. If I wasn’t fully convinced of Hee-sung’s feelings before, I was convinced when his first reaction to Ji-won saying she doesn’t love him anymore was so typical… he called his sister for backup and went straight to (the closest thing he has to) his best friend. He just doesn’t know how to deal with the loss of Ji-won’s love, so he assumes it’s because her career hasn’t been going well. He’s convinced himself that making Ji-won happy in her career again will fix everything.
As for the real Hee-sung, I knew he was going to wake up and throw a serious wrench into things, and it looks like his father might already be making some nefarious plans to somehow install Hee-sung into Hyun-soo’s life. Hopefully Hee-sung himself isn’t like his father, and he does seem to be a good person, what little we know of him. As soon as he woke up, he reassured his mother for whatever she’s been feeling guilty about, and he asked about the person he hit with his car that night. I hope he won’t be eager to steal someone else’s life, not even someone who’s been living his life for over a decade. Not to mention, his mother seems to finally be softening towards Eun-ha (how could you not!) and I don’t think she’s going to be onboard with upending the little girl’s life.