Every time I hear YeoWool say “fetch” in Episode 4, this image from Mean Girls pops up in my head.

“Fetch” here meant “Cool!” or “Awesome! or in Korean, “Daebak!”  One of the girls was trying to make it into a popular word or buzzword, so she’d interject it in the conversation until the Queen of Mean Girls told her bluntly to stop with her delusional mission to make it fashionable…. because it ain’t gonna happen. 

In the same way, YeoWool is a “mean” girl trying to stop the “Fetch” in this kdrama from existing and carrying out its killing spree.

In the kdrama, the forensic pathologist Gil Chae Won categorizes a fetch as a living ghost because it still inhabits a living body.  It’s the wandering spirit of a person in coma. It cannot roam far from the comatose body and needs to stay within close proximity in order to return to it  at a certain time. It’s earthbound.

According to Chae Won’s spirit mother, an ordinary ghost like Lee Da-Il cannot kill a fetch because he’s unable to hold the weapon to kill it with.  Thus, it’s best for him to run away from it rather than confront it.

In total, there were three necessary conditions to successfully eliminate a fetch. One, the fetch must be stabbed by the weapon (hey!!! What if the murder weapon was a gun, poison or rope? Will the fetch have to be stabbed by a gun, poison, or rope? Or did Chae Won’s spirit mother mean that the fetch had to be killed in the same manner that it had killed its victim?)

Two, the fetch must be killed while at rest in its body. Kinda like Dracula being stabbed in the heart. The gallivanting fetch must be trapped in its corporeal body when it’s stabbed.  Ahahaha! So that’s the answer to the 1 am mystery I posed in my review of  Episodes 3 and 4! 

And three, only those who’ll lay down their life for a ghost or a wandering spirit are able to trap the fetch inside the body.

That’s why Chae Won’s spirit mother failed. Although she was able to stab the fetch while it was at rest in its body, she hadn’t offered up her life as a sacrifice for a ghost. Her failure to kill the fetch resulted in her being eaten up “alive” (lol) by the fetch.

Which is an interesting concept. Sacrifices are performed and offered for the living, not for the already dead. Memorials are for the dead.

YeoWool had all the required conditions. She had the knife (check!), the time (1am, complete with the sound of the bell tolling in the background as a special effect, lol), and the bondage (yes…because nothing captures the image of a sacrificial lamb better than a tied-up and gagged maiden).

And then Lee Da-Il had to go all Tarzan and save Jane from the gorilla. (Oh bother!)

Ethically, I understand the dilemma. No matter how Chae Won tried to rationalize that the comatose patient Sunwoo Hye was nothing but a shell for an evil spirit to inhabit, Sung Seob was correct. They were still plotting to kill a human being. And Sung Seob should know about killing.

From his hallucination in Episode 5, we could deduce that Sung Seob had a close encounter with killing, that is, mercy killing. His friend begged him to kill him. He “actually tried to do it” although he vehemently denied wanting to see his friend dead. According to him, he just didn’t want to see his friend suffer in pain anymore. That’s the reason he hit the bottle nightly — to drown his memory.

Likewise, Lee Da-Il couldn’t allow YeoWool to kill another human being so he took the knife and did the stabbing instead.

However, I don’t think his action signifies his being subjugated or “eaten up alive” by the Woman in Red. It’s not a major catastrophe although the cliffhanger did try to make the situation look dire.

Right now, Lee Da-Il’s still discovering powers that are uniquely his. He’s relatively weak now when compared to the Woman in Red but that’s only because he’s new to being a ghost. As Chae Won explained in Episode 3, he’s still learning and adapting to his new ghostly existence.

Hahaha. @staygold, I was right about the phantom pain. In my reply to you in the post, “Bitch SOS: The Ghost Detective (no spoilers)” I mentioned that he was experiencing phantom pain. “I think he felt pain when she flipped him but it could be PHANTOM PAIN. hahaha. Get it? Phantom? He’s a ghost. Phantom pain is experiencing pain from a part of a body that’s no longer there, like an amputated leg.”

And since the extent of Da-Il’s powers is still unknown to him, I’m sure he’ll eventually find figure out how to fight this Woman in Red in his own unique way. As it is, he already learned from that Spirit-in-the-tunnel how to manipulate solid objects. That was how he knew how to open doors and fight the nurse/caretaker.

But to me, the big difference between Lee Da-Il and the Woman in Red/Dragonfly Girl is that Lee Da-Il is motivated by a desire to protect his loved ones whereas the Woman in Red/Dragonfly Girl is motivated to kill out of fury and hatred. And in this kdramas, love always triumphs in the end. Da-Il was loved by his mother but the girl wasn’t. Didn’t you find it strange that the father only killed his son but didn’t kill his daughter? He planned a murder-suicide but left one child to live. It was as if he couldn’t be bothered whether she lived or died. Even in death, he abandoned her.

Because Da-Il was loved and protected by his mother, he’ll be able to find, in his turn, the inner strength to defend and protect the people he loves.

Fetch is soooo not going to happen.