Welcome to the Spoiler Zone, everyone!
This is for those of you who want to discuss spoilers, from a “I’ve seen the show and WOW now I’m noticing all these other details in retrospect” sort of angle.
Here’s a Spoiler Zone for you to dig as deep as you’d like, into spoiler territory, WITHOUT the need for spoiler tags or other warnings.
My only request is, PLEASE BE EXTRA MINDFUL OF WHERE YOU ARE COMMENTING. Meaning, please don’t get mixed up, and start talking spoilers in the Open Thread, which could seriously mar the watch experience for a new viewer, OR, a viewer who would really prefer to have the rewatch feel as fresh as possible.
Other than that, READER BEWARE: SPOILERS AHEAD!!!
For the main discussion of episodes 15 & 16, which only deals with spoilers up to the point of the group watch, go here.
ENJOY YOUR SPOILER ZONE, MY FRIENDS! ❤️
Seeing the two former policemen be reduced to menial living after getting fired because of Jun Seok’s case, I get a little sad…seems like in some cultures it’s hard to bounce back after something like that happens.
And when I saw the bloody pipe on the ground after Dong Cheol died, I remembered that the fingerprints (or the pipe) will suddenly disappear at the police station. So much covering up!
In the end, Healer faking his own death probably was the best way for him to be free, as then no one could accuse him of any more crimes. And I think he feels warmer toward Moon Ho in the end, too :). I don’t know why it struck me so much today while watching the episodes, that he really is still antagonistic toward Moon Ho.
Myung hee told Moon shik that if she agreed to marry him, she couldn’t be “his woman”. And he agreed to that condition.
I think she meant no intimacy. It might be just my interpretation though.
Thanks, MariaF, for not leaving me hanging in the open thread. 👍
@MariaF – you know, now that I think about it, that was kind of selfish of Myung hee. She should’ve resolutely refused – Moon shik would not have suddenly refused her medical care or to pay for a caregiver because he loves her. But since she’s not in love, then her thoughts should’ve been clearer than his (even though she’s sick and drugged. She was clear headed enough to voice “I don’t want to boink you though”). She should not have allowed him to tie himself to her in a way that didn’t allow for him to find love with someone else ever.
I know I’ve criticized every single character but what can I say? After watching so many times, I notice even the wall paper!
@beez & @MariaF — yeah, that was the scene I was thinking of. As I recall (I haven’t got to it yet on the rewatch) it’s the scene where Myung-hee finally breaks with Moon-shik for good, and there’s the line about them agreeing she would never be “his woman” from the beginning. I took that as a pretty solid indication that there wouldn’t be any physical intimacy between them.
It’s a good point, beez, that from a certain perspective it doesn’t seem fair to Moon-shik, but I interpreted it as show indicating that Moon-shik was the type of personality that he would be obsessively devoted/in love with her, and willing to forgo the sexytimes as long as he could be partnered with her as her husband in form (and everything other than physical intimacy; taking care of her, etc.). (And maybe he dealt with his physical needs with discreet afternoon visits to the local high class “tea room”? Who knows…)
MariaF is on the money. that’s how i interpreted that sentiment too.
i don’t think she’s selfish. on top of her medical conditions, everybody she knew and loved (that we as an audience know about) was dead or gone, apart from moon-sik. she didn’t have anyplace to go and thanks him for providing this to her and taking care of her. he was, after all, one of her closest friends. she told him what she could give and he chose. with moon-sik (and to a certain extent moon-ho) i think in terms of control, rather than love. she might not love him back, but she was dependent on him. i guess that was enough.
as an aside: i don’t think moon-shik ever would have even searched for love outside of myung-hee, even if she rejected this arrangement. remember, sabu told him in the flashback to just get it over with already, so that they as a group can survive and move on. he never did, cause he knew what the answer was gonna be.
what i struggle with in this situation is her passivity all those years. ok, apparently before young-shin nobody ever asked her what had happend, but still, wouldn’t she want to probe at a certain point? she’s the spouse after all and moon-shik was the official “witness to the murder”, so i think authorities have to tell her, when she inquires?
i went over it in my mind and there are explanations (cover up, lies, survival mode…), i just find them tenuous at best.
it also revives my dislike for moon-ho. as we know he knows this, but apparently never informs her. i can only assume because he, as we learn in the second-to-last (i think?) episode, lied to the police too and didn’t want that revealed as well. coward.
In Moon ho’s defense (and a bit for Moon shik as well), in this instance only, if Myung hee’s reaction to discussing things is this bad now, I would imagine it was even more life threatening then. Plus, we’re told she sleeps 20 hours a day. That leaves 4 hours in which she probably spent lamenting her “dead” child.
Also in Moon ho’s defense – he was a kid and Moon ho is basically his parent. Most people don’t rat out their parents. And even if Moon ho had thought to do so, he would’ve been in an even worse situation than Jung hoo. All that could await him is an orphanage or foster care. (And orphanages in S. Korea back then were the stuff of nightmares.)
i hear you. i really do.
i still can’t help but feel that at some point, they were using her illness to rob her of her agency. i mean, moon-ho knows she is convinced her friend didn’t kill her husband. knows she is haunted by this unresolved issue, that it is (probably) also making her worse off and preventing a full recovery. and he knows that moon-sik was the witness in the official story, and just lets her live with this lie and the the liar. (how did he himself reconcile this all these years? probably didn’t, thus the nightmares…)
i sorta understand not immediately telling her about her daughter. sorta, because once he realized in episode 4 (i think) that his probing was gonna bring on a seizure, he could just have ripped the bandage off and gone all the way. but then there would have been no show and i can understand why he didn’t do it then. in the end, it was more fitting and satisfying once myung-hee completed her arc of emancipating herself from moon-sik.
but the witness thing? he’s been hiding that for 20 years and i… just can’t.
is the 20 hours a day in present day? i always thought that was in the past and she’s awake for longer now.
I think she was sleeping 20 hours a day in the past, not now. These days she has her plants, cooking, and baking to keep her busy. It seems like she runs the household.
I agree with you, that they stripped her of her agency way back when when they had her sleep so much every day.
In these two episodes, when Moon Shik was telling Moon Ho that he would take care of Jung Hoo and Young Shin because he “was their dads’ friend,” I couldn’t believe it. If he really had wanted to take care of them from day one, he would have made different choices. For him to say that now was a joke.
sweetroad, For him to say that now was a joke.
moon shik is not aware of his own evil doings, he thinks that he’s ok. all the dirty work is done by secretary o, so moon shik’s hands are considered by him clean. so it is not a joke for him, he believes it, the bastard. it will take his wife leaving him, for him finally be tortured by his guilt for the murdered friends. (when he gets drunk and hallucinates.)
He really does believe it, I agree. However, I was thinking about the one act he does remember, which was leaving little Ji An (or not looking for her when she disappeared). I feel like he did have a choice in that instance.
But overall, I agree with you – he’s living in a complete fog of false righteousness. It’s sickening.
I can’t pin point it but I think it was within the last 4 episodes that Myung hee started refusing her meds. Something she heard that Moon shik is doing made her refuse her meds and say “I’m calculating. I don’t want to sleep”. So only very recently. I think it was after meeting with Jung hoo’s mom and hearing that Moon shik was behind the threat to Jung hoo when he was a child.
@beez, the situation is pathetically sad for everybody. but i completely agree with your assessment. myung hee was completely broken, body, mind and spirit – no energy left to make any kind of move. she’s basically paralyzed not just the lower part of her body, but her entire being. i can not hold her responsible for any of this, what happened to her and the investigation, or her partnership with moon shik. he was the only close person left in her life, and without knowledge of his doings, she accepted his friendship and stay by his side, basically.
moon shik – she was the only love in his life, an obsession, to have at least a part of her (no matter how small this part would be) was better than nothing. and may be he had hopes that it might develop into something deeper and closer and may be even physical between them. although in reality, being paralyzed from waste down ( i think) i am not even sure she has any sensation in her sexual organs.
and what you say in defense of moon ho i also agree – moon shik was his only parent, and mh was still very young, i do not think that at that time he could have gone against the big evil that ms was entangled in, and i do not even know to what degree he was aware and of what and how. i think it is HIS luck now to have met healer and be able to try to solve and fight the demons from the past, that rattled his mind even in dreams.
that’s exactly what she meant, there can not be any other interpretation. i even think that she said that she could not love him. (that’s from memory).