Post by humblestudent2 on Aug 30, 2007 22:11:40 GMT -5
Episode 7 Recap
From the VOD and the d-addicts subtitles, with assistance from the Korean screenplay (interestingly, there are some variations here).
INTRODUCTORY NOTE: A lot of information really IS given in this episode, as Soju said – particularly, in my view, in the sequence I have labeled “Into the Forest”, which I have moved to the end. If it weren’t for the fact that this has actually aired, it would count as a Grade A Class 1 spoiler. You might even not want to read it!
"Do you know how to use a knife?"
At the end of Episode 6, Oh-soo and Hae-in were poking around Oh-soo's old high-school. Oh-soo had just discovered that Hae-in herself had discovered the body of Jeong Tae-hoon after he was stabbed to death 12 years ago by Oh-soo himself. This was a huge mental shock to him, and he is terribly disoriented. At this point, up comes a middle-aged guy whom we haven't yet seen before in the series. It's an old teacher of Oh-soo's, Mr. Mo In-ho. We have been waiting for In-ho to show up for a long time; he is the last guy on the 'cast pictures' page to appear in the series. In-ho doesn't have a lot to say to Oh-soo right now though - he just stopped by the school "on his way to meet someone". (More on this later.)
Oh-soo leaves the school with Hae-in, still in a terribly distracted state. He can't even speak to her, drives like a maniac, nearly runs over some pedestrians and then stalls in the middle of the street. After dumping her off at her house, he calls up Na Seok-jin and tells him what he hasn't told him before: that Dae-shik was murdered, that he or Soon-ki might be the next victim, and that he should watch the mail for tarot cards or anything suspicious.
Oh-soo then goes back to the school and from there to the crime scene from the first episode - it looks much as it did twelve years ago, deserted and industrial, maybe a bit trashier (no, not really). There, we experience with him the sequence of events leading up to Tae-hoon's death:
- Tae-hoon comes up to Oh-soo in the school and tells him he wants to talk. "What does a study worm like you want to talk with me about?"
- Oh-soo and his friends (Dae-shik, Soon-ki, and Soek-jin) follow Tae-hoon out to the industrial area. There, Tae-hoon boldly tells Oh-soo to stop harassing Kim Yeong-cheol, their weak and timid classmate. "Four against one isn't fair", he says. Oh-soo blusters and warns Tae-hoon not to use that kind of language; Tae-hoon stands his ground.
- Oh-soo then sees a flickknife in Tae-hoon's pocket; he snatches it out and opens it. "What are you going to do with this?" he asks. "Are you going to stab me with it? Do you know how to use a knife?" "Give it back," says Tae-hoon; Oh-soo ignores him, and he and his friends start to walk off.
- Tae-hoon then goes past boldness into recklessness: "You're a coward," he tells Oh-soo, "a worthless bum who can't do anything on his own." Oh-soo, provoked, comes back and threatens Tae-hoon with the knife. Tae-hoon grabs his wrist and says, "I'm not afraid of a guy like you." "I'll make you afraid," says Oh-soo .... then, stupidly, pointlessly, Oh-soo breaks Tae-hoon's hold and stabs him in the abdomen; the two fall together. Of his three friends, Seok-jin is the only one to keep his head; he tells Soon-ki and Dae-shik to get out, and hustles Oh-soo away from the scene.
Back in the present, Oh-soo falls on his knees in the grip of overwhelming remorse.
Then, Oh-soo has a vision, or memory, of the young Kim Yeong-cheol running away from Oh-soo and his little gang. (This is what Hae-in saw in her "Empress" vision in Episode 6.) (Meanwhile, at the publishing firm where Yeong-cheol works today, he overhears Seong Joon-p'yo tell the editor that he is onto a big story, though he won't say what. He then gets a phone call and answers it in a stammering voice, making a little bow toward the phone as he recognizes the caller.)
"Conversations with Mo-seonsaeng"
Meanwhile, In-ho meets the person he was looking for - the detective who worked on the Tae-hoon case, Cha Kwang-doo. He has looked him up because he too has gotten something odd in the mail - a copy of one of Joon-p'yo's articles on the Lawyer Kwon case, and a photograph of Tae-hoon. Kwang-doo takes him to talk with Team Leader Ban, and they bring him up to speed on Dae-shik's murder and the hidden mastermind. "We think it most likely is one of Tae-hoon's relatives," says Ban. In-ho says that Tae-hoon's only surviving relative would be his younger brother; the father had died before he knew Tae-hoon, and the mother died in a car accident shortly after Tae-hoon's death; the brother left the village after that. They ask In-ho if he has any other ideas. In-ho says he doesn't, and leaves, but Ban and Kwang-doo think he may be hiding something.
And they're right. In-ho next meets his old student Kim Yeong-cheol - apparently they met at a seminar a couple years ago, which is how he had the phone number to call him in the earlier scene. After some small talk (he asks if Yeong-cheol is still in charge of novels), he says he suspects Yeong-cheol of sending him the article and photo. Yeong-cheol stammers out a denial and takes off in confusion. In-ho then flashes back to how, after Tae-hoon's death, he pressured Yeong-cheol to admit that Tae-hoon died because he was sticking up for Yeong-cheol, but Yeong-cheol wouldn't talk. He also remembers beating the young Oh-soo with a belt or strap or something, after his exoneration, and Oh-soo demanding, "Why didn't you do anything until a bad person like me killed someone?"
Also, Yeong-cheol is having his own tearful confrontation with memory. It turns out that he actually witnessed the killing of Jeong Tae-Hoon, which, of course, he kept quiet about at the time.
"The Lovers"
Now, going back to earlier in the day, you will remember that Oh-soo called Na Seok-jin to warn him that he or Soon-ki might be next and to tell him to watch for suspicious mails. At that time, Soon-ki was lounging around the house, watching TV, making no attempt to look for work or another pad; he says he is waiting for a "definite answer" about being the casino manager at Jeju (he has already been given a solid "NO" but he doesn't want to hear it). This was when Seok-jin got Oh-soo's call; interestingly, he didn't pass the warning on to Soon-ki at the time.
Later, at Heui-soo's office, he is going through the mail when he finds a bright red envelope. (This looks an awful lot like the red envelope that somebody got out of a subway locker during Episode 6.) At 56k I was unable to see whether it was addressed to himself or to Heui-soo, but I think it was to Seok-jin. He opens it and finds a photo of himself and Na-heui smooching in the corridor of his officetel (snapped by an unknown person in Episode 6)!! Just then, Heui-soo and his wife Na-heui come in; Heui-soo sees that he's looking at a photo but doesn't see what it is, and Seok-jin stashes it and puts Heui-soo off with some lie.
Then, he text-messages Na-heui to make an excuse to meet him outside. They sneak out separately and he asks her if she has gotten anything odd in the mail, but when she says no, he hides the information from her, just saying he loves her and wants to make a life with her and such. Meanwhile, Heui-soo calls for "Secretary Na", looks out, and sees that neither he nor his wife is there... and it looks like someone is spying on the two lovers from the bushes.
Later on, Seok-jin comes back home and runs into Soon-ki on his way out "to a business meeting". He suspects that maybe Soon-ki had something to do with the photograph, and starts searching Soon-ki's stuff. Soon-ki, however, equally paranoid, comes back and catches him at it and demands what he's doing. Remembering the earlier call, Seok-jin says that he is looking to see if a tarot card is there, on Oh-soo's say-so, and reports the earlier phone call; Soon-ki doesn't believe it, though, and thinks that Oh-soo is just spying on him. He taunts Seok-jin with being Oh-soo's "farmhand" (meoseum), and asks why he should listen to Oh-soo since "he's just a murderer anyway". They fight about this, Seok-jin saying the killing was an accident ("sago", which might also mean "incident" - it seems a little less strong on the role of chance than the English "accident") and Soon-ki warning Seok-jin that if he wants to he can "ruin you all."
"Speaker for the Dead"
Meanwhile, Hae-in herself, in her capacity as "Empress" and "Speaker for the Dead", goes back to the high school in the hope of trying to find out what message the slain Tae-hoon is trying to convey, but doesn't get any clear results. Also, she is concerned for Oh-soo, who isn't answering his phone; she then even goes down to the police station looking for him. Chief Ban warns her to be careful.
Then, she goes to pick up her mother at church. She finds Seung-ha there, telling stories to the Sunday-school kids:
"So the older brother said, 'Look! a dark tunnel! Let's explore it!' The younger brother said, 'There might be something bad down there.' But the older brother went on down the tunnel. The younger brother waited and waited, but the older brother didn't come back.... Do you think the younger brother courageously went down the tunnel to find his elder brother? You'll have to wait until next week."
Seung-ha tells Hae-in her mom has already left, and offers her a ride home. On the way, Hae-in asks what happened in the story of the two brothers. "The elder brother didn't come back," he says. "The younger brother never went after him, partly because he was scared. But also, the elder brother had been picking on him, so he was hoping something bad would happen to the elder brother. So he didn't go because he was afraid to find that something had happened to the elder brother because he had wished it" (or something. Seung-ha's children's stories have a subtle psychological side, as you see. Maybe he can make the ending more cheerful before next Sunday?)
At some point after Hae-in leaves the police station, Oh-soo goes to Team Leader Ban and tries to resign, saying that he is a bad guy (nappeun nom) and it doesn't make sense for nappeun noms to go around trying to arrest nappeun noms. He hints that he is going to try to track down the "mastermind" himself, outside the law. Ban doesn't want to hear this, and gives him an angry scolding, telling him that he knows about the Tae-hoon affair but that running away from his responsibilities isn't the answer. Oh-soo goes off and gets completely drunk and goes home and makes a scene and gets put to bed by Heui-soo. This is the first time we have actually seen him sleep in his own bed in the course of the whole series!
"An unreasonable favor"
Now it is the next day, Monday I guess. Jo Dong-seop has his first court date, and Seung-ha argues the self-defense theory with a sober though scruffy Oh-soo in attendance. But Oh-soo still doesn't get back in touch with his team.
On the Dae-shik front, tests confirm that Dae-shik died after being squirted in the face with CS gas (tear gas). Kim Jeong-yeon, who, as we know, was the squirter, has been staying away from her house; now, with nowhere else to turn, she goes to Oh Seung-ha's law office and asks him "an unreasonable favor" - to babysit with Sora for a day or so while she goes and visits her husband who is "far away", spinning some lame excuse about why she can't take Sora along. It seems that she knows she is in danger of being arrested. Seung-ha apparently agrees to this, saintly fellow that he is.
That evening, the police get a phone call from Jeong-yeon's landlord: Jeong-yeon has made an appointment to close out her rental contract. Jae-min and Min-jae arrange to be there and nab her. Meanwhile, Oh-soo has gone by the library to tell Hae-in "something" ... and Seung-ha is taking Sora in his car to meet "someone you'll like." That's the end of the episode.
Except for:
“Into the Forest”
This happens on Sunday while Oh-soo is confronting his past at the high school.
Seung-ha is going for a drive out to the country; he has a contented expression, and is bringing along a bouquet of daffodils.
Next he is walking through a wooded area. It is a lovely day. He comes to a big tree and looks at it with a smile. Apparently, the tree marks a gravesite.
In a flashback, a woman and her son, maybe 12 years old, are standing under the tree. We recognize the woman: we saw her before in Hae-in's vision from Episode 3 when Seung-ha was talking about his mother at the library.
The mother talks about how the tree will serve to mark the resting place of "our Tae-hoon" "until we meet again" in death.
Back in the present, Seung-ha, smiling, asks, "How have you been?" - in polite style, with honorifics, apparently to his mother. Then he asks the same question - in plain style - apparently to "our Tae-hoon".
Seung-ha leaves the daffodils behind ("They were my mother's favorite flower" - Episode 3) along with two pieces of peppermint candy ("His mother likes peppermint candy" - Hae-in, at the crime scene in Episode 1).
Seung-ha drives back to the city, and his eyes are now cold and terrible.
I’m sure I don’t have to emphasize the implications of this scene.
From the VOD and the d-addicts subtitles, with assistance from the Korean screenplay (interestingly, there are some variations here).
INTRODUCTORY NOTE: A lot of information really IS given in this episode, as Soju said – particularly, in my view, in the sequence I have labeled “Into the Forest”, which I have moved to the end. If it weren’t for the fact that this has actually aired, it would count as a Grade A Class 1 spoiler. You might even not want to read it!
"Do you know how to use a knife?"
At the end of Episode 6, Oh-soo and Hae-in were poking around Oh-soo's old high-school. Oh-soo had just discovered that Hae-in herself had discovered the body of Jeong Tae-hoon after he was stabbed to death 12 years ago by Oh-soo himself. This was a huge mental shock to him, and he is terribly disoriented. At this point, up comes a middle-aged guy whom we haven't yet seen before in the series. It's an old teacher of Oh-soo's, Mr. Mo In-ho. We have been waiting for In-ho to show up for a long time; he is the last guy on the 'cast pictures' page to appear in the series. In-ho doesn't have a lot to say to Oh-soo right now though - he just stopped by the school "on his way to meet someone". (More on this later.)
Oh-soo leaves the school with Hae-in, still in a terribly distracted state. He can't even speak to her, drives like a maniac, nearly runs over some pedestrians and then stalls in the middle of the street. After dumping her off at her house, he calls up Na Seok-jin and tells him what he hasn't told him before: that Dae-shik was murdered, that he or Soon-ki might be the next victim, and that he should watch the mail for tarot cards or anything suspicious.
Oh-soo then goes back to the school and from there to the crime scene from the first episode - it looks much as it did twelve years ago, deserted and industrial, maybe a bit trashier (no, not really). There, we experience with him the sequence of events leading up to Tae-hoon's death:
- Tae-hoon comes up to Oh-soo in the school and tells him he wants to talk. "What does a study worm like you want to talk with me about?"
- Oh-soo and his friends (Dae-shik, Soon-ki, and Soek-jin) follow Tae-hoon out to the industrial area. There, Tae-hoon boldly tells Oh-soo to stop harassing Kim Yeong-cheol, their weak and timid classmate. "Four against one isn't fair", he says. Oh-soo blusters and warns Tae-hoon not to use that kind of language; Tae-hoon stands his ground.
- Oh-soo then sees a flickknife in Tae-hoon's pocket; he snatches it out and opens it. "What are you going to do with this?" he asks. "Are you going to stab me with it? Do you know how to use a knife?" "Give it back," says Tae-hoon; Oh-soo ignores him, and he and his friends start to walk off.
- Tae-hoon then goes past boldness into recklessness: "You're a coward," he tells Oh-soo, "a worthless bum who can't do anything on his own." Oh-soo, provoked, comes back and threatens Tae-hoon with the knife. Tae-hoon grabs his wrist and says, "I'm not afraid of a guy like you." "I'll make you afraid," says Oh-soo .... then, stupidly, pointlessly, Oh-soo breaks Tae-hoon's hold and stabs him in the abdomen; the two fall together. Of his three friends, Seok-jin is the only one to keep his head; he tells Soon-ki and Dae-shik to get out, and hustles Oh-soo away from the scene.
Back in the present, Oh-soo falls on his knees in the grip of overwhelming remorse.
Then, Oh-soo has a vision, or memory, of the young Kim Yeong-cheol running away from Oh-soo and his little gang. (This is what Hae-in saw in her "Empress" vision in Episode 6.) (Meanwhile, at the publishing firm where Yeong-cheol works today, he overhears Seong Joon-p'yo tell the editor that he is onto a big story, though he won't say what. He then gets a phone call and answers it in a stammering voice, making a little bow toward the phone as he recognizes the caller.)
"Conversations with Mo-seonsaeng"
Meanwhile, In-ho meets the person he was looking for - the detective who worked on the Tae-hoon case, Cha Kwang-doo. He has looked him up because he too has gotten something odd in the mail - a copy of one of Joon-p'yo's articles on the Lawyer Kwon case, and a photograph of Tae-hoon. Kwang-doo takes him to talk with Team Leader Ban, and they bring him up to speed on Dae-shik's murder and the hidden mastermind. "We think it most likely is one of Tae-hoon's relatives," says Ban. In-ho says that Tae-hoon's only surviving relative would be his younger brother; the father had died before he knew Tae-hoon, and the mother died in a car accident shortly after Tae-hoon's death; the brother left the village after that. They ask In-ho if he has any other ideas. In-ho says he doesn't, and leaves, but Ban and Kwang-doo think he may be hiding something.
And they're right. In-ho next meets his old student Kim Yeong-cheol - apparently they met at a seminar a couple years ago, which is how he had the phone number to call him in the earlier scene. After some small talk (he asks if Yeong-cheol is still in charge of novels), he says he suspects Yeong-cheol of sending him the article and photo. Yeong-cheol stammers out a denial and takes off in confusion. In-ho then flashes back to how, after Tae-hoon's death, he pressured Yeong-cheol to admit that Tae-hoon died because he was sticking up for Yeong-cheol, but Yeong-cheol wouldn't talk. He also remembers beating the young Oh-soo with a belt or strap or something, after his exoneration, and Oh-soo demanding, "Why didn't you do anything until a bad person like me killed someone?"
Also, Yeong-cheol is having his own tearful confrontation with memory. It turns out that he actually witnessed the killing of Jeong Tae-Hoon, which, of course, he kept quiet about at the time.
"The Lovers"
Now, going back to earlier in the day, you will remember that Oh-soo called Na Seok-jin to warn him that he or Soon-ki might be next and to tell him to watch for suspicious mails. At that time, Soon-ki was lounging around the house, watching TV, making no attempt to look for work or another pad; he says he is waiting for a "definite answer" about being the casino manager at Jeju (he has already been given a solid "NO" but he doesn't want to hear it). This was when Seok-jin got Oh-soo's call; interestingly, he didn't pass the warning on to Soon-ki at the time.
Later, at Heui-soo's office, he is going through the mail when he finds a bright red envelope. (This looks an awful lot like the red envelope that somebody got out of a subway locker during Episode 6.) At 56k I was unable to see whether it was addressed to himself or to Heui-soo, but I think it was to Seok-jin. He opens it and finds a photo of himself and Na-heui smooching in the corridor of his officetel (snapped by an unknown person in Episode 6)!! Just then, Heui-soo and his wife Na-heui come in; Heui-soo sees that he's looking at a photo but doesn't see what it is, and Seok-jin stashes it and puts Heui-soo off with some lie.
Then, he text-messages Na-heui to make an excuse to meet him outside. They sneak out separately and he asks her if she has gotten anything odd in the mail, but when she says no, he hides the information from her, just saying he loves her and wants to make a life with her and such. Meanwhile, Heui-soo calls for "Secretary Na", looks out, and sees that neither he nor his wife is there... and it looks like someone is spying on the two lovers from the bushes.
Later on, Seok-jin comes back home and runs into Soon-ki on his way out "to a business meeting". He suspects that maybe Soon-ki had something to do with the photograph, and starts searching Soon-ki's stuff. Soon-ki, however, equally paranoid, comes back and catches him at it and demands what he's doing. Remembering the earlier call, Seok-jin says that he is looking to see if a tarot card is there, on Oh-soo's say-so, and reports the earlier phone call; Soon-ki doesn't believe it, though, and thinks that Oh-soo is just spying on him. He taunts Seok-jin with being Oh-soo's "farmhand" (meoseum), and asks why he should listen to Oh-soo since "he's just a murderer anyway". They fight about this, Seok-jin saying the killing was an accident ("sago", which might also mean "incident" - it seems a little less strong on the role of chance than the English "accident") and Soon-ki warning Seok-jin that if he wants to he can "ruin you all."
"Speaker for the Dead"
Meanwhile, Hae-in herself, in her capacity as "Empress" and "Speaker for the Dead", goes back to the high school in the hope of trying to find out what message the slain Tae-hoon is trying to convey, but doesn't get any clear results. Also, she is concerned for Oh-soo, who isn't answering his phone; she then even goes down to the police station looking for him. Chief Ban warns her to be careful.
Then, she goes to pick up her mother at church. She finds Seung-ha there, telling stories to the Sunday-school kids:
"So the older brother said, 'Look! a dark tunnel! Let's explore it!' The younger brother said, 'There might be something bad down there.' But the older brother went on down the tunnel. The younger brother waited and waited, but the older brother didn't come back.... Do you think the younger brother courageously went down the tunnel to find his elder brother? You'll have to wait until next week."
Seung-ha tells Hae-in her mom has already left, and offers her a ride home. On the way, Hae-in asks what happened in the story of the two brothers. "The elder brother didn't come back," he says. "The younger brother never went after him, partly because he was scared. But also, the elder brother had been picking on him, so he was hoping something bad would happen to the elder brother. So he didn't go because he was afraid to find that something had happened to the elder brother because he had wished it" (or something. Seung-ha's children's stories have a subtle psychological side, as you see. Maybe he can make the ending more cheerful before next Sunday?)
At some point after Hae-in leaves the police station, Oh-soo goes to Team Leader Ban and tries to resign, saying that he is a bad guy (nappeun nom) and it doesn't make sense for nappeun noms to go around trying to arrest nappeun noms. He hints that he is going to try to track down the "mastermind" himself, outside the law. Ban doesn't want to hear this, and gives him an angry scolding, telling him that he knows about the Tae-hoon affair but that running away from his responsibilities isn't the answer. Oh-soo goes off and gets completely drunk and goes home and makes a scene and gets put to bed by Heui-soo. This is the first time we have actually seen him sleep in his own bed in the course of the whole series!
"An unreasonable favor"
Now it is the next day, Monday I guess. Jo Dong-seop has his first court date, and Seung-ha argues the self-defense theory with a sober though scruffy Oh-soo in attendance. But Oh-soo still doesn't get back in touch with his team.
On the Dae-shik front, tests confirm that Dae-shik died after being squirted in the face with CS gas (tear gas). Kim Jeong-yeon, who, as we know, was the squirter, has been staying away from her house; now, with nowhere else to turn, she goes to Oh Seung-ha's law office and asks him "an unreasonable favor" - to babysit with Sora for a day or so while she goes and visits her husband who is "far away", spinning some lame excuse about why she can't take Sora along. It seems that she knows she is in danger of being arrested. Seung-ha apparently agrees to this, saintly fellow that he is.
That evening, the police get a phone call from Jeong-yeon's landlord: Jeong-yeon has made an appointment to close out her rental contract. Jae-min and Min-jae arrange to be there and nab her. Meanwhile, Oh-soo has gone by the library to tell Hae-in "something" ... and Seung-ha is taking Sora in his car to meet "someone you'll like." That's the end of the episode.
Except for:
“Into the Forest”
This happens on Sunday while Oh-soo is confronting his past at the high school.
Seung-ha is going for a drive out to the country; he has a contented expression, and is bringing along a bouquet of daffodils.
Next he is walking through a wooded area. It is a lovely day. He comes to a big tree and looks at it with a smile. Apparently, the tree marks a gravesite.
In a flashback, a woman and her son, maybe 12 years old, are standing under the tree. We recognize the woman: we saw her before in Hae-in's vision from Episode 3 when Seung-ha was talking about his mother at the library.
The mother talks about how the tree will serve to mark the resting place of "our Tae-hoon" "until we meet again" in death.
Back in the present, Seung-ha, smiling, asks, "How have you been?" - in polite style, with honorifics, apparently to his mother. Then he asks the same question - in plain style - apparently to "our Tae-hoon".
Seung-ha leaves the daffodils behind ("They were my mother's favorite flower" - Episode 3) along with two pieces of peppermint candy ("His mother likes peppermint candy" - Hae-in, at the crime scene in Episode 1).
Seung-ha drives back to the city, and his eyes are now cold and terrible.
I’m sure I don’t have to emphasize the implications of this scene.
