Thanks to our anti-hero’s latest brush with death, his wife is finding it difficult to reconcile the man that she knows with the stranger before her. As both a wife and a cop, she must choose which path to follow while her unsuspecting husband welcomes the opportunity to resume his seemingly normal life.
EPISODE 6 RECAP
In a flashback, the real Baek Hee-sung drove in a nighttime storm as he confided over the phone, “No matter how difficult it is, I need to face this by myself,” asking, “So how did she seem to you?”
Slamming on his brakes, Baek Hee-sung hit something and when he got out, he found a badly injured Do Hyun-soo in the street. When Baek Hee-sung pulled out his phone to call for an ambulance, Hyun-soo begged, “No hospitals,” before passing out.
Ji-won watches as doctors do their best to resuscitate Hee-sung in the hospital. As they shock Hee-sung’s heart, young Hyun-soo calls out to his sister to come see his latest sculpture. Hee-sung remembers how Hae-soo examined the delicate figure (wearing the necklace Moo-jin gave her) as Ji-won weeps by his side.
Hee-sung next sees Hae-soo with blood on her face and tells her, “Live a normal life. Never look for me.” As memories of the shaman, the dead foreman and his father’s black eyes swirl in his mind, Hee-sung vows, “I won’t live as Do Hyun-soo anymore.” When Hee-sung recalls raising Nam Soon-kil’s knife and being hit by a car, he wakes up with a gasp.
With great effort, Hee-sung sits up and pulls out his IV. After getting out of bed, Hee-sung makes it as far at the hallway before running into a patrolman.
The patrolman calls out, “Do Hyun-soo,” and cuffs Hee-sung, but the exchange is only imagined. In reality, the patrolman offers to help Hee-sung back to his room but he runs past him.
Hee-sung stops at the sight of Ji-won, unsure about her feelings. He’s surprised when Ji-won hugs him and as she cries, Hee-sung pats her on the back, “It’s all right. I’m all right.”
Moo-jin is on the phone with the woman who witnessed Jung Mi-sook’s abduction but she refuses to meet with him. When he asks her to confirm that she’s the witness in Jung Mi-sook’s case, she hangs up. Just then, Moo-jin hears Park Kyung-choon’s name announced on a jumbotron overhead.
In her car, Hee-sung’s mom hears that the investigation into Kyung-choon’s crimes has led to questions about his victims, Nam Soon-kil and Baek Hee-sung.
Ji-won, her mother and Eun-ha are present when Hee-sung is visited by a panel of doctors. An intern summarizes that Hee-sung was brought in ten days earlier in cardiac arrest and given hypothermic treatment (lowering a patient’s body temperature to prevent cell damage).
When tested for memory loss, Hee-sung easily recalls his name, birthdate and Ji-won, but he doesn’t remember a daughter. After a tearful Eun-ha runs to his side, Hee-sung can’t keep from laughing and picks her up, telling everyone, “Baek Eun-ha. She’s six years old…And she goes to Small Bird Kindergarten.”
Dr. Baek walks in and learns that his son is much improved. After the doctors leave, he exchanges pleasantries with Ji-won’s mother until his wife barges in and shouts, “What in the world have you been up to?”
When Hee-sung’s dad points to Ji-won’s mother, Mom asks to be alone with her family. Ji-won tries to take Eun-ha from Hee-sung’s arms but the girl shouts, “No, I don’t want to go! Mom, I hate you.” Hee-sung asks Eun-ha to listen to Ji-won and as soon as they leave, his mom complains, “That little rat…It’s so hard to like her.” Hee-sung reminds her, “She’s not a little rat. Her name is Baek Eun-ha.”
In the hallway, Jin-won lingers to witness the reunion before joining her mother and Eun-ha. Inside, Hee-sung’s mom asks about Kyung-choon and Dr. Baek explains that he’s conscious but unresponsive. We see proof of that when Woo-chul tries to speak to Kyung-choon and gets no reaction.
At the elevator, Ji-won suddenly doesn’t want her mother to leave. Mom hugs her daughter and promises that everything will be fine once Hee-sung can go home. As soon as the elevator doors close, Ji-won gets a call from Ho-joon.
Hee-sung promises his parents that he’ll handle Ji-won but his mother has concerns about Moo-jin. Hee-sung knows the reporter’s weakness but he won’t share the details and Mom asks, “Do you not trust us?” Dr. Baek urges her to focus on Kyung-choon and she shouts, “How do you plan to shut him up?”
Dr. Baek shouts back, “…did you forget what happened to us 15 years ago because of your agitation?” Suggesting that Mom should go home, she snaps, “I know how useless I am. I know that very well,” and storms out.
When Ho-joon meets Ji-won, he admits that he was seriously worried about her. A flashback shows that Ji-won chased down Hee-sung’s doctor with Ho-joon close behind. She begged him to reexamine Hee-sung, who’d been unconscious for 5 days but the doctor had warned that it could be some time before he woke up. After he walked away, Ji-won started to cry and asked, “How is a day so long?”
Ho-joon notes, “You’re calmer than I expected,” and Ji-won claims that she was more excited earlier. She asks about Kyung-choon’s case and learns his hearing is scheduled for the next day. Kyung-choon’s head dressing is changed as Ho-joon shares his suspicion that he’s pretending to be unresponsive, but his advanced cancer complicates things.
Alone with Hee-sung, Dr. Baek reports that Kyung-choon’s hearing is the next day and Hee-sung realizes, “That means we must do something tonight.” Dr. Baek explains that because Kyung-choon is already addicted to pain killers, it would be easy to make his death look like heart attack. Hee-sung promises to think it over and is reminded, “Tonight is your only chance.”
Ho-joon asks Ji-won if he can get Hee-sung’s statement to use at Kyung-choon’s hearing. At the same time, Hee-sung calls Moo-jin, who’s posted outside of a women’s bathroom. Hee-sung heard that he hasn’t spoken to the police yet and Moo-jin explains that’s because he wanted to get their stories straight first. After listening to what Hee-sung wants him to say, Moo-jin hangs up when a cleaning woman walks out.
Moo-jin follows Ms. Jang Young-hee into the men’s room but she doesn’t want to talk to him. Showing Moo-jin a photo of her daughter, Ms. Jang asks, “What if that monster hurts my daughter for talking?” When Moo-jin reminds her, “Do Min-seok died years ago,” she blurts out, “Not him.”
As Ho-joon sets up his phone to record the interview, Hee-sung reaches for some lint in Ji-won’s hair and when she flinches, he asks why she’s so jumpy. Gazing at Ji-won, Hee-sung remembers her cries for help after she pulled him from the water and confides, “I keep remembering how you looked.”
Ho-joon is ready to start when Jae-sub walks in, pulling along his IV. Jae-sub greets them, “…I’m fine. So don’t visit me going forward as you haven’t been until now,” and Ho-joon whispers, “He’s mad.”
Seeing Ho-joon’s list of questions, Jae-sub scolds, “Since when does a cop hand out questionnaires?” Sitting down, Jae-sub asks Hee-sung why he was tortured instead of killed because torture is used to extract information. When Ji-won advises Hee-sung not to answer if he can’t remember, Jae-sub tells her to decide if she’s going to act like a cop or a wife.
After Ji-won steps outside, the interview resumes. Hee-sung answers that when he told Kyung-choon that he had a cop in his family, it must have triggered the attack. Hee-sung passed out after he was stabbed and woke up to find himself submerged up to his chest.
Ho-joon helpfully suggests that Kyung-choon wanted the team to feel guilty over not saving Hee-sung in time and Jae-sub snaps, “What are you? Park Kyung-choon’s lawyer? How would you know what he was thinking?” Jae-sub admits that he’s bothered by the many coincidences that led Hee-sung to cross paths with Kyung-choon.
As Jae-sub stares at him, Hee-sung asks, “…don’t you like me?” Reminded that he advised Ji-won to break up with Hee-sung when they started dating, Jae-sub explains, “…only three types of people try to get on my good side. A liar, a potential liar, or one in the middle of lying.” When Hee-sung suggests that the unbiased Ho-joon should question him, Jae-sub warns that Kyung-choon will talk.
Still at the hospital, Ji-won gets a call from Nam Soon-kil’s widow, who stares at a black duffle bag as she reports that she has information about Do Hyun-soo. Ji-won promises to meet her soon and asks her not to share the information with anyone else.
After hanging up, Ji-won overhears a news report on a nearby television. The reporter, one of the journalists who confronted Hae-soo, visits the basement workshop of Do Min-seok where his victims were held captive. The reporter crawls into a large cage and finds a zip tie used to restrain the victims.
In his hospital room, Hee-sung remembers Jae-sub’s warning. When Ji-won walks in, Hee-sung senses that something’s wrong but she denies it, even though she’s crying.
Concerned, Hee-sung urges Ji-won to go home and rest and she explodes, “You almost died in front of my eyes…You were touch and go for 10 whole days. Do you have any idea how devastated I was?” Ji-won explains that she couldn’t bear to go home to their empty house because she feared she might be alone forever.
In tears, Ji-won shouts, “How could you do that to me?” When she decides to go home after all, Hee-sung grabs Ji-won’s wrist and begs to talk about anything she wants. Ji-won pulls away, claiming that she’s tired and when she walks out, Hee-sung suddenly looks lost.
On her way out, Ji-won stops halfway down the stairs as she remembers when Hee-sung briefly regained consciousness. Instead of seeing Ji-won, Hee-sung saw the blood splattered face of his sister and muttered, “Hae-soo…Live a normal life. Never look for me. I won’t live as Do Hyun-soo anymore.” Oh no. Leaning against a wall, Ji-won starts to cry.
At the film set, the director informs Hae-soo that the reporters are interfering with the shoot. Hae-soo agrees to quit and is thankful that the director is sorry instead of blaming her for ruining his life. Hae-soo remembers a teenaged Moo-jin telling her, “You should’ve broken up with me…You remind me of your dad. It gives me the creeps.”
Moo-jin rings a doorbell and when Ms. Jang runs out, he argues that she can’t expect him to ignore her news that Min-seok had an accomplice. Ms. Jang demands to know if Moo-jin can protect her and her daughter if she agrees to an interview. Moo-jin leaves when Ms. Jang’s daughter walks out and threatens to call the police.
Hee-sung calls his father to tell him, “I’ll do it.” At the same time, Ji-won picks up a forensics kit from the police station and sits down to review the foreman’s murder case. Her family photo on her desk, Ji-won reads that Hyun-soo exhibited violent tendencies towards animals and lacked empathy and guilt. Hyun-soo was also diagnosed with schizoid personality disorder and psychiatric medication was recommended. Ji-won reads a witness statement that the foreman offered to take in Hyun-soo and Hae-soo after their father’s death, “But look what happened.”
Later, when Ji-won lets herself into Hee-sung’s workshop, she stops in front of the locked door leading to the basement.
Hee-sung throws on a doctor’s coat as Ji-won uses a heavy hammer to break the lock. She carries the forensic kit downstairs at the same time that Dr. Baek hands Hee-sung a vial and syringe, warning, “Don’t leave an injection mark on his body.”
Ji-won sprays the basement with luminol as Hee-sung pushes a cart to Kyung-choon’s room, remembering Dr. Baek’s instructions to tell the night detective that Kyung-choon’s dressing needs to be changed.
The detective falls for the ruse and when Hee-sung looks down at Kyung-choon, he opens his eyes and breathes, “I’ve been waiting.” When Hee-sung pulls out the vial, Kyung-choon wants to know where his wife is buried before he dies. Hee-sung confides that he learned that his father was a serial killer like everyone else, from television.
Kyung-choon admits, “I realized after lying here…that all I know about you are rumors. And that I may be wrong.” As Hee-sung fills the syringe, Ji-won turns off the basement light. Patches of blue glow on the floor, signaling the presence of blood, and a flashback to the fight between Hee-sung and Moo-jin reminds us how it got there. The luminol alerts Ji-won to the presence of a zip tie on the floor, used to bind Moo-jin’s wrists, just like the one found in Min-seok’s basement.
Hee-sung is about to empty the syringe into Kyung-choon’s IV but he stops to ask a question — how did Kyung-choon feel when he learned that his wife was dead. Kyung-choon rages, “Why do you want to know that,” and remembering Ji-won’s distress, Hee-sung simply answers, “I want to know.”
Kyung-choon whispers, “I wanted to die,” but he couldn’t because he needed to lay Mi-sook to rest properly. Hee-sung doesn’t see the point but Kyung-choon insists that people will remember her differently once that’s done. Satisfied, Hee-sung empties the syringe into the IV line.
The detective overhears a female doctor thanking her male colleague for changing Kyung-choon’s dressing that day. When he confirms that the dressing is only changed during the day shift, the detective runs back to Kyung-choon’s room, passing Hee-sung in the hallway dressed as a patient. The detective finds Kyung-choon very much alive.
As Hee-sung pocketed the syringe, he told Kyung-choon that the wooden keychain with the fish must have been given to his sister at their father’s funeral, because that’s when she gave it to him. When Kyung-choon asked why he didn’t say anything sooner, Hee-sung reasons, “You probably would’ve abducted my sister to drown her too.”
Hee-sung suggested that the witness’ claim that Mi-sook was abducted and his statement that he was with Do Min-seok that day were both true. Hee-sung urges Kyung-choon to use what time he has left to find his wife’s real killer.
Realizing that Min-seok had an accomplice, Kyung-choon begged, “Please let me live.” Hee-sung explained that he stopped the IV drip and told Kyung-choon why, “Because you told no one about me even though you could.” Before leaving, Hee-sung instructed Kyung-choon what to tell the police.
Sitting in the dark basement, Ji-won sees Eun-ha’s baby walker in a corner and remembers walking out of her bedroom to find Hee-sung bouncing a fussy Eun-ha in his arms. With a smile, Hee-sung told Ji-won, “Get some more sleep.” The happy memory causes Ji-won to weep as the luminol glows before her.
Back in his workshop, Hee-sung listens to a radio report that Kang-choon confessed to his crimes and asked the police to reopen the Yeonju City serial murder case. When he tries to check his watch, Hee-sung remembers losing it during the struggle with Ji-won in the warehouse.
With Ms. Kang by his side, Moo-jin thanks Ms. Jang for agreeing to an interview and she explains that after meeting him, she kept seeing Mi-sook. In a flashback, Mi-sook made eye contact with Ms. Jang as she was led away by a man (or a woman in disguise), and Ms. Jang tells Moo-jin, “She wants me to talk to you.”
Recalling the events of 2002, Moo-jin asks Ms. Jang why she changed her statement. In answer, Ms. Jang produces an answering machine tape.
After school, Eun-ha happily runs into Hee-sung’s arms. On the walk home, Eun-ha points to a cloud that looks like an egg tart but Hee-sung disagrees, “It looks like your mom’s face.”
At Nam Soon-kil’s Chinese restaurant, his wife passes Hyun-soo’s duffle bag to Ji-won. Inside, Ji-won sees the cassette player with the wooden fish keychain and promises the worried widow, “I’ll catch him for sure.”
Setting a tape player on the table, Moo-jin and Ms. Kang listen as a deep voice warns, “You’re not the only one who saw me. I saw you too.” The caller cautioned that the Gakyeongri Village foreman was killed because he was nosy and didn’t know his place.
After everything that Nam Soon-kil told her about Hyun-soo, his wife is afraid but Ji-won reminds her that no one witnessed him committing any crimes. Ji-won thinks of Hee-sung holding their baby daughter as she argues that psychopaths aren’t capable of caring for weaker beings.
When the widow insists, “He’s a murderer. That’s a fact,” Ji-won agrees, but people can only be punished for the crimes they commit. Ji-won needs more facts before Do Hyun-soo can receive the punishment he deserves and she tells the widow, “I only believe what I see.”
Holding Eun-ha’s hand, Hee-sung smiles up at the sun shining through the trees, happy to be alive.
COMMENTS
There were so many powerful confrontations to get through this hour. There was the first encounter between Hee-sung and Ji-won after she learned that he’s really Do Hyun-soo, the son of a serial killer. There was Jae-sub’s interview with Hee-sung, his gut telling him that Hee-sung is lying about Kyung-choon’s reason for kidnapping and torturing him. And of course, there’s Hee-sung’s alleged attempt to eliminate Park Kyung-choon to protect not only his secret, but his parents’ as well. But the most touching one for me was after Ji-won shouted at Hee-sung and left, because he’s beginning to act like a man who’s hopelessly in love with his wife just as she’s turning away from him.
Without Ji-won’s ever present love and support, there’s no hope for a happy life, only a disturbing family legacy that Hee-sung has done his best to escape. While Ji-won is still reeling from the fact that Hee-sung is Do Hyun-soo, all she knows about his early life is based on fear and rumors. Because of the luminol evidence, Ji-won seems convinced that her husband is a murderer but it’s looking more and more as if Hee-sung has never killed anyone. If he was a real psychopath, Hee-sung would welcome any opportunity to kill but instead, he does his utmost to avoid killing. While Hee-sung certainly terrorized both Moo-jin and Kyung-choon, it was only after they targeted him first, and in the end, he spared their lives.
In fact, I’m beginning to think that Hee-sung/Hyun-soo has never killed at all. With clues pointing to Hae-soo as her father’s accomplice, is it possible that she made it look as if Hyun-soo killed the foreman? Hae-soo certainly gave Hyun-soo the fish keychain to set him up for Jung Mi-sook’s murder but Hyun-soo innocently thinks it was a kind gift from his sister. Who started all of the rumors about Hyun-soo in the first place, convincing others that he’s a psychopath and his father’s accomplice? The innocent looking sister who became a talented special effects makeup artist? Dressing up as Hyun-soo wouldn’t be that hard for someone with that kind of talent. Hee-sung has never suspected his sister and neither has anyone else, because early on, it was Hyun-soo who was the subject of rumors.
While Ji-won prepares to uncover the truth about Hyun-soo, he’s sure to learn that he was duped not only by his father, but the sister who seemed as devoted to him as he was to her. And he’s not the only one who remembers Hae-soo. What about Moo-jin? As he listened to that recording made by Mi-sook’s killer, is it possible that it’s the distorted voice of his then-girlfriend? If that recording can be undistorted, will Moo-jin recognize Hae-soo’s voice, or is there someone else in the picture? While Hyun-soo certainly has mental issues, they’re nothing like the ones that Min-seok’s real accomplice possesses. As Ji-won tackles Hyun-soo’s troubled past, what kind of danger is she placing her family in, including Hee-sung? And Ji-won must have plenty of questions about the Baek parents, who are proving to be a treacherous pair.