Wow. I just need a moment to marvel at how wonderfully shot this entire drama has been so far! It can be a little confusing at times, but the editing is so powerful! I like the intensity so far and the characters are starting to flesh out a bit more. I certainly enjoy watching JiAn and Hyun scenes, the two have a nice bickering element to their relationship right now.

“Hello, monster”.

1996

We are shown the last two minutes (about) of episode 1, where JoongMin calls Hyun into a room, saying that this is where he will live from now on. That the pair will learn about how normal people live. We also see Hyun speaking with JoonYoung. (This entire scene was no less heartbreaking the second time round).

Hyun begins to cry and asks his father if he isn’t curious about what he spoke about with JoonYoung, or even the promise he made. Hyun then shouts that JoongMin should have asked him these things before he called him a monster, before he decided to lock him away in a room. He shouts that his father should have asked.

JoongMin says that he doesn’t see him like that, and that he wants to protect him. JoongMin gets up from the table and walks towards Hyun, but Hyun steps backwards, shaking his head and repeating ‘no’.

We are then taken to the prison where two guards are walking to JoonYoung’s cell. One is wondering if what they are about to do is alright, while the other says that it is simply corrective rehabilitation. That if they let his behaviour go, then he’ll simply drag them around. They get to his cell and JoonYoung just looks at them.

Back at Hyun’s home, his younger brother, Min, is playing outside the door to Hyun’s new room. However, he soon grows bored and asks if his hyung is inside. He then knocks and calls out for his hyung, wanting to play.

As time goes by we see Hyun with his father, studying and more studying, while Min is left alone outside (I don’t think JoongMin realises the harm he is causing to both his children).

When two guards enter JoonYoung’s cell, he smirks and says that he was worried they weren’t coming today. Instead of another simple “corrective rehabilitation” session, the guards get a shock. JoonYoung gets a sharp object and cuts his throat. The man panics that he can’t feel a pulse.

JoonYoung is then stretchered into the back of an ambulance, the two guards hesitantly accompanying him.

One of the guards keeps wondering if he is alive, saying that the cut didn’t bleed that much. JoonYoung then smirks and opens his eyes.

We then go back to when JoonYoung meets Hyun in the interview room. Hyun’s fingers are to his throat and he marvels at how he can’t feel a pulse. JoonYoung explains that it’s been that way since he was born, that it can be called an “anatomical mutation”.

Hyun then asks if he has any more secrets, JoonYoung says he has a big one, but that Hyun should go first. (This is not boding well for my nerves!)

Back at home Hyun is still studying in his basement room, while JoongMin is in his study, writing in his notebook. They both seem to hear a noise. As JoongMin puts his notebooks onto a shelf he says ‘why don’t you have a cup of tea before you?’ The camera then turns and we see JoonYoung all in black.

The pair are seated across from each other as the camera pans out. JoonYoung takes a sip of tea and then asks after Hyun. Moving to the sink, JoongMin says that JoonYoung will never be able to see him again, nobody will (erm… what?). 

JoongMin goes to grab a knife from the counter beside him, however JoonYoung is already on his feet. They scuffle about, creating noise which causes Hyun to race up the basement stairs, shouting for his father, however the poor thing has no way out of the room as he is locked inside.

The scuffle also wakes up Min, who opens his door slightly and is shocked by what he sees. He closes his door and exclaims that there is a bad person here to kill them. Min puts on his shoes and heads outside through his window.

Instead the two men crash into the table and suddenly everything is silent.

The lock on Hyun’s door opens and after a few moments Hyun opens the door. He walks out to see his father, dead on the kitchen floor.

JoonYoung walks into view on the other side of JoongMin and the two stare at each other, JoonYoung smiling slightly. (Wait, if JY was busy in the bathroom, who opened the door? Or am I missing something?)

In voiceover ‘present day’ Hyun explains that that day he lost his father and his younger brother disappeared. We then seen child Hyun running out of the house, calling out for Min. He falls over and the voiceover explains that a hole appeared in his memory.

Hyun is then talking to his doctor, saying that he can’t remember anything about the incident or before. The doctor says that he doesn’t know if his memory will come back, but that it doesn’t need to be forced.

Hyun (Hong HyunTaek in voiceover) says that he does remember something. We are then shown him entering the interview room, him reading his fathers words: ‘I think my son is a monster’ and being alone in his basement room.

Hyun is then handed over to the female policewoman from the station and while they are walking down the hospital corridor, Hyun wonders what kind of child he was. The poor thing is left to wonder what he did for his father to think he is a monster.

Present day Hyun is thinking the exact same thing while alone in his childhood home. Hyun wanted to meet someone who knew him back then, but thinking more, he realised there was only one person he truly wanted to meet.

He thinks about his conversation with JoonYoung and says that he remembers parts, has erased others and some parts are probably distorted.

Hyun recalls an interview about his book ‘The Memory of the Murderer’. The interviewer asks if he has anything to say to his Korean readers. He talks about how someone told him about the ‘critical period’ and that if he is alive Hyun wants to meet him.

The interviewer asks if it’s his first love (… now that would be a twist! A wrong one, but still a twist). 

Some time later, Hyun is reading the article about him, explaining in voiceover that JoonYoung needs to come to him, because he can’t find him, that is why he sent a message. However, when he looks through his emails he ponders that the person who restarted his story is not JoonYoung, but himself. (Is this like a metaphor, that he started his own story through his own willpower… maybe?)

Present Day

A tired JiAn returns home and is surprised by the appearance of her aunt. The woman is not pleased with the mess. The aunt has bought kimchi for JiAn, who grumbles that there isn’t something else, but refuses to give it back.

When the aunt is about to leave, JiAn tells her that ‘that rascal’ has appeared again. The aunt has to think for a moment who Lee Hyun is and realises it’s the person JiAn stalked. JiAn doesn’t like the sound of stalking, so explains that she simply tracked him down and watched over him (it’s still stalking…).

The aunt sits down and asks if Hyun remembered JiAn, to which JiAn becomes frustrated. She goes on to say that her vocabulary isn’t big enough to describe ‘that bastards rudeness’. The aunt says that she understands because she feels that way about JiAn’s dirty house.

The aunt asks what JiAn plans to do and she says that she will just continue to watch over him. That telling his something out straight is not possible as she doesn’t know if he is a friend or foe. What she does know, is that he is the only connection to ‘our’ JoonYoung (younger sister maybe?)

The aunt is isn’t happy to hear she’s still thinking about JoonYoung, but is unable to continue the conversation as JiAn gets up, saying that she is tired, and walks to her room.

The next day we see that Hyun is listening to his father’s first interview tape.

Hyun leaves the house, wondering where JoonYoung is, but stops when he feels someone watching him. However, we watch as he continues to walk away.

Later on we see Hyun waking down the road, a patrol car following him. One of the policemen recognises Hyun from the picture he has on his phone.

In the morgue we find out that even though the trauma to the head is different, everything else ie. the drugs in the system, are the same as the Bangbae-Dong case. JiAn then asks if the coroner if he saw anything unusual at the crime scene, such as a signature. Before he can respond, they are interrupted by an incoming call.

Apparently Hyun is at the Bangbae-dong crime scene. JiAn exclaims that she has caught him and heads off. The coroner tells her that she should tell him more about the ‘jerk’ sometime (I’m thinking he may have a crush?)

At the crime scene, Hyun is staring at a painting, the same one he was emailed. He notices a small drawing in the corner and recalls a memory from his childhood.

The two children are drawing and we find out Min lied. The rather creepy drawings are his and that the symbol is his signature. (So Min is the psychopath?)

Hyun wonders if Min is really alive or if this is the work of someone who knows Min or knows about their story.

He looks around the apartment, seeing that the nail for the picture is recent and that it also doesn’t match the decor or tastes of the victim. He comes to the conclusion that it was chosen by someone else or a gift, maybe a gift from the murderer.

JiAn comes running up the apartment stairs, disappointed to find the apartment empty. We then see her, as well as Hyun, wondering around the apartment (this is shot so well). JiAn wonders what he could have been looking for, and comes to stand in front of the painting. She thinks that she has seen it somewhere before.

Hyun is with a hyung, who knows about art. He wants him to find out who the artist of the painting is. The hyung then grumbles that Hyun should speak formally to him, as they are in Korea. To combat this, Hyun starts speaking in English. He want him to find out the buyer or the distributor if he can’t find the artist. Returning to Korean (and still using informal speech!) he says that they (the police) should have found the signature, or at least another murder should have happened by now.

He the wonders if he should have cooperated when JiAn asked.

The hyung then brings up a college professor who wants to know if Hyun could give a special lecture. To the hyung’s surprise Hyun agrees instantly.

At the station, MyeongWoo explains that the murderer used burner phones, which are unable to be tracked. SeungJoo then explains that they have looked into the people around the victims, but that there are no possible suspects. Finally EunBok has come to the conclusion the murderer must be familiar with forensic investigation.

EunHyuk asks if they have got anywhere with getting Hyun to cooperate with them and MyeongWoo asks JiAn is her looks have failed her. JiAn says she hasn’t used them yet.

Outside the college, a touch of lip-gloss and a flick of her hair is all that JiAn needs before she charges onto the campus.

She creeps into his lecture, and sits down at the back. She begins to wave and smile, but Hyun is focused on his lecture. Not one to give up, JiAn continues, however, her chair rolls down the slopes (with JiAn screaming and shouting along the way) to end up in front of Hyun. The students laugh. (I would be absolutely mortified!) 

Hyun asks her what the answer is, saying that the reason she rolled down was surely so she could answer the question. JiAn answers incorrectly and as she tries to roll away, Hyun keeps ahold of her chair.

Hyun finishes that segment and moves on to the ‘enactment of the murder’. He turns her chair round and makes a gun out of his hand, aiming it to her head. Hyun then walks away, continuing his lecture, JiAn gets up and calls him a bastard, but he aims the pointer at her head, this gets a laugh out of the group and makes her sit down, frustrated and embarrassed again.

After the lecture ends JiAn is following him outside, saying that even though she came into his lecture without permission, he shouldn’t have punished her for so long.

Hyun says that she should be catching criminals instead of leisurely following him around. He asks why she is following him (something she denied at first) and JiAn replies that she need his cooperation. However, Hyun believes that she has an ulterior motive as well.

JiAn presses that he should cooperate coolly, but Hyun wants her to reveal her identity first. Instead of telling the truth she says that she is a fan. That Hyun should cooperate by doing a service to his fan. He just repeats ‘I don’t want to’.

JiAn gets Hyun a drink, while grumbling that he shouldn’t play hard to get as he is going to end up helping. He refuses the drink, so she drinks it herself. JiAn tells him she knows that he went to the Bangbae-Dong crime scene and asks whether he found anything. Hyun says that the crime was planned, because of the purple flowers.

Hyun stands up and is in the Bangbae-Dong apartment, showing JiAn the flowers, who explains that she hasn’t found any florists in the area that have sold these flowers to anyone. They then look over as the victim welcomes in the murderer and is handed the flowers. Hyun explains that purple can symbolise death or sadness and that the woman didn’t know what kind of door she was opening.

JiAn says it is like a song, while Hyun brings up Greek mythology, as the flowers are hyacinths. JiAn responds by saying that women die because of men, in myths, the olden days and now. She is then flustered a little to find out that Hyacinth was a man.

Hyun comes to the conclusion that the criminal came with a plan. Back at the park bench on campus, JiAn asks is he has anything more, but he doesn’t.

He then asks if another body has been found yet and then wonders why as there should have been by now. JiAn believe this is fortunate and asks if he is waiting for someone to die. Hyun simply replies that the more corpses they have, the more information they can collect. JiAn calls him a monster under her breath.

Hyun then says that he has a hypothesis. He says that when he went to the crime scene (JiAn: when you trespassed) there was something he didn’t understand. He explains that the forensic results say that the cause of death for the first victim was suffocation, other than the ligature marks, there were no other marks on the body, but he doesn’t understand why the victim was injected with a drug.

Hyun believes that the murderer wanted to have an unblemished corpse. However, the murderer used violence towards the second victim, that he couldn’t contain he momentary anger.

Hyun believes that this is due to the second victim recently having a haircut, as the two victims personalities and appearances were similar.

JiAn doesn’t understand, so Hyun explains that the murderer is most likely repeating the same murder of one person through people who look similar.

Back at the police station, JiAn pins the navigational symbols onto the board, saying that this is the signature. Back when she got that information, Hyun explains that the murderer forewarned them and that he is challenging them to solve the puzzle. Hyun goes on and says that it’s confident and bold and that the murderer is mocking the authorities. This proved precise as the authorities didn’t even know it was a code, much less how to solve it.

SeungJoo asks JiAn what the code is made of and instead Hyun answers in her memory, that the symbols are semaphore, a signal used by sailors. However, the murderer manipulated the symbols slightly, but for Hyun it is still a simple code. He goes on to explain, however he sees her slightly perplexed expression and says that the phrase ‘your head is an accessory’ applies to her. He stops explaining and walks off.

At the station, JiAn tells them that they need to look for a similar message. We are then thrown back into her memory. Hyun says that the most important thing is where the murderer found his victims. JiAn, much to his frustration, says on the street or at a club.

JiAn tells her team that they need to find a common place for the two victims, like a hospital, spa or wedding planner. That to find similar women, he could have used that method.

Back in her memory, Hyun brings up ‘past records’. JiAn takes a second to understand and says that there may be unsolved cases. He tells her that her brain is rotating, which causes her to smile. Back at the station, she regrets that smile, confusing her team by saying it out-loud. To combat that she goes on and says they need to look for similar old cases.

EunHyuk then starts to dish out who should do what:

• JiAn – Looking for the signature.
• EunBok – Finding the list the victims were picked from.
• SeungJoo – Tracking down similar unsolved cases.
• MyeongWoo – Keep checking the unregistered phones and vehicles and the eyewitness testimony.

All the while MyeonWoo is frustrated at having to listen to that ‘jerk’.

Hyun is having dinner/drinks with the policewoman, Hyun JiSoo, from the past, and we find out that she took him in and sees the pair as mother and son. Hyun doesn’t object and they even tease and joke.

As the joking recedes, mother mode turns on and JiSoo asks why he came to Korea in the middle of the semester and is involved in the murder investigation. Hyun asks to see the file on JoonYoung, the one concerning his father’s death. JiSoo sees his sudden curiosity as a sign that his memory is coming back, however Hyun says there are bits and pieces.

Hyun explains that as a son and hyung he feels his should be curious at least once as to what happened. As the planning officer, JiSoo tells him there is no such file, that the system was different back then. Hyun takes the news well, but there is definitely an undertone that he isn’t happy, nor that JiSoo is telling the whole truth.

There was such a file. When JiSoo was younger, her superior told her to cover up the incident and hide the file. We see her look in her draw safe and become shocked when she can’t find it.

That would be because it is in the possession of JiAn as we see her throw it into her Hyun stalker box after having read through it (is she is paperwork stealing ninja as well as a stalker? How did she get that file and when?)

We then see JiAn almost falling asleep while brushing her teeth. Meanwhile, Hyun has finished listening to one of the tapes and curls up onto his bed.

He dreams of that final scene, where JoonYoung walks out of the bathroom. This time we see him mouth something, however Hyun can’t hear him. JoonYoung walks closer to him and says,

‘Sleep. Finally, it went the way that you wanted it to.’

They both smile. (What does this mean? Is he remembering this right?)

Hyun wakes up, panting and evidently unhappy. We also see JiAn wake up, after having fallen asleep on her bathroom floor, her toothbrush still in her mouth. While swilling out her mouth, she notices that he window is slightly ajar. We are then transported to the Dohwa-Dong crime scene where the window was also open.

She wonders if the window was opened when they were investigating or if it was open during the crime. While leaving her house, she gets a call from SeungJoo who has accomplished his task. The two victims were member’s of a hotel spa. Seung Joo cutely says that he is starting to like Hyun for being right.

Upon entering the Dohwa-Dong crime scene JiAn strips up and fumbles for the light-switch. She then “talks” to the victim, telling her that she is here to investigate, for the victim not to misunderstand and instead help.

JiAn collects the random bits of paper, also noting the still open window, and ends up flattening them out on a chair in front of her.

JiAn ends up falling asleep and staying the night. While looking around the room from where she is sat, she notices that the wind from the window is revealing a smaller piece of paper behind a larger one on the fridge.

She goes over to it, turns the yellow piece of paper round and find the message. JiAn is both overjoyed and relieved.

A short, but glorious shower scene awaits us at Hyun’s apartment. He goes to answer the door in a robe and JiAn exclaims that she found the signature, however, Hyun puts his hand to her forehead, stopping her from coming in. Hyun says he told her how to decode it, but JiAn says that the codes were kind of weird.

JiAn says she sent her team the message and they solved it, but the location was in Daebu-do (an island). EunHyuk pipes up that maybe the murder will happen on a yacht. The team aren’t so sure about that theory and JiAn says that it’s weird for the murder to take place on the ocean after the others were in Seoul. This caused JiAn to think that someone like Hyun should take a look.

Using her phone, Hyun quickly works out the code, saying that the format had just been changed a little. JiAn still doesn’t understand and Hyun knows, instead of explaining further he kicks her out, telling her to call when she catches the murderer.

She calls her team and says that Hyun worked it out and the location is Daebang-Dong. MyeongWoo and SeungJoo go to the spa to get the name of the customer who fits the profile. She turns out to be a Miss Ha YoonJi, who is on vacation. SeungJoo says that the two victims were on vacation the day before they were murdered. JiAn tells him to send her YoonJi’s phone number so she can try calling her.

The team then tell each other (still on a three-way call) that they will meet up at the scene.

While JiAn is trying to get in contact with YoonJi, we see a phone vibrating on a table in what looks like a studio. We also see a man painting.

While the team are still making their way to YoonJi, we see her opening her door, a man walks in and gives her purple hyacinths. YoonJi hears her phone vibrating and she answers it, much to JiAn’s shock and relief.

JiAn tells her to act like she has just answered the phone to a friend and goes on to explain the situation and who she is. YoonJi, the poor thing looks absolutely terrified (and rightly so!), however, she puts on a brave face as she hangs up and turns around.

At this point Hyun is listening to his father’s interview tapes at home and JiAn is now stuck in traffic (does this car not have a siren?!) 

JiAn tries taking back roads to her destination.

Hyun is confused at the interview stopping mid-sentence. His confusion turns to shock when after a moment of silence, he hears his name.

YoonJi takes it into her own hands and tries to attack the man in her home with a mug.

JiAn finally arrives and runs up to YoonJi’s apartment.

The interview tape continues and we hear JoonYoung asking if he remembers the conversation they had about him being curious as to what kind of adult he would become.

JiAn charges into the apartment, gun raised at the man who is facing away from her.

JoonYoung explains that by the time Hyun hears this message, he would be keeping their promise and that he is probably already by his side.

Hyun smiles, while JiAn raises her gun.

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Thank you for reading~

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Additional Comments:

I really enjoy the backstory a lot, however, seeing as KyungSoo is only in this as a cameo for the first two episodes, those scenes will be substantially cut down from now on. Well, I assume so, especially as we have learnt a lot from them. I suppose the only flashbacks from now on will be about Hyun and JiAn’s connection, as well as Min and Hyun’s childhood.

I’m also looking forward to how the dynamic of the ‘team’ will come into play. The team members each have a role and they look to be a fun group that hopefully will bring a lot to the drama. I especially want to see how EunHyuk gains control of them and becomes someone they view as a member. He is rather adorable right now, and if something bad happens to him, or any member (I’ve seen these kinds of shows before!) I would be very upset.

As well as the team, I’m looking forward to answers. How does Min play into all of this? Is he the real psycho? Is he the present day killer? Does JoonYoung have anything to do with the current murders? What is JiAn’s relationship with, not only Hyun, but JoonYoung? And why was JiSoo told to hide the file?

Ahhh I love mysteries so much! I can’t wait to carry on watching!~