I’ll edit this later to post my comments.
@GB, go ahead and post your spoilers here. Thanks.
I liked ferocious JW defending HS.
credit: thingskateknows’ tumblr
39 Comments On “Flower of Evil: Episode 3”
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I’ll edit this later to post my comments.
@GB, go ahead and post your spoilers here. Thanks.
I liked ferocious JW defending HS.
credit: thingskateknows’ tumblr
Comments are closed.
Much thanks @pkml3! I was writing half way and got distracted and then lost what I was going to post. I’ll be back! 😄
Anyone else who’s interested in this show is welcome to post here too!!!
I have known LJG long time ago after watched scarlet.. Same as MCW after innocentman. But bec of this ongoing drama i’ve come to binges LJG old series and it is quite good tho its old series. I only watch ep 2 but reading posted about FOL here is giving me vibes again when I’m following HDL bec of it I found this blog. Looking forward for your post. Thx!
Just watched episode 5. I don’t think the ML killed the village foreman. So far his sister looks very suspicious and may actually be their father’s real accomplice. I am most curious about the Baek family’s secret, and think the real BHS will wake up from the coma.
I’m actually watching this yeah! I also waited for this drama to air like how I waited for PBIO to air. So far so good 🤩.
Watched eps 1-4 thru iQIYI but since my subscription expired and I’m not bothered to pay again, I’m stuck to waiting for KissAsian to upload the episode, which would take longer wait than the wait I would have for iQIYI to upload.
The real BHS is played by a well-known actor so he isn’t going to be sleeping in this drama. 🙂
Yes, his sister is suspicious from the start. And it’s entirely possible that HS is taking the fall for her. That’s why she owns and retains houses for *our* HS (her slip of the tongue) in case HS needs them as a hideout or hideaway. She knows he didn’t do it but chose to take the blame so she can live freely. Why else would his backpack be found with the murder weapon in it? Too convenient. Right away, HS becomes implicated.
Interesting too that the reporter was the noona’s boyfriend. We don’t know what’s on those downloaded files. The @&$! director didn’t show us.
Episode 3 Random Thoughts
I recall now what I was going to say… that gif above of KMJ when Ji Won said that HS is too nice to everyone … I felt his eyes were going to leave their sockets and head off into Space. LOL.
Portraits, Reflections and Silhouettes
We get to see on the walls of their respective homes, very large family portraits of the Baek family, and the family of Hee Sung (HS). I noted before that on 2 occasions the camera focused on the reflections of the Baek family at the birthday dinner, once on the Baeks and then on HS with Eun Ha. I felt these together with the large family portraits were reflections of the false family image that the subjects of the portraits were desperate to hide behind. The larger the portraits the bigger the shields?
In the backstory beginning of Ep 3 when in the Summer of 2007, HS hears Ji Won’s ‘love or like’ confession, he is surprised, and doubtful: he drops his arms, looking less defensive, and turns to stare at her, a little uncomprehending, and then he sees something beyond JW and is afraid. His reflection on the table is the focus for a while, making it look like a Dutch angle shot and for effect a dark shadow passes over him. The reflection this time shows us the true HS, defenseless against and horrified by something we cannot see.
It is obvious that HS lives under a ‘cloud’ and is haunted by something.
[Sidenote: It was actually wryly funny that he suspected a threat of discovery from the questions of JW, (which we can understand why by episode end), but that the truth that she behaved as she did because she liked him, never crossed his mind. He was literally stumped.]
In the Cat and Mouse Game of JW and HS at MJ’s apartment, (timestamp 21:50 – 27:22), HS hid precariously outside the balcony, hidden by the blinds but his silhouette could be clearly seen by anyone looking at the blinds from inside. This scene was a clever counterpoint to the one in the beginning backstory. There, JW could not see the metaphorical shadow thrown by the metaphorical cloud under which HS lived but she could see HS. This time, when the sun went behind the clouds, HS was in their shadow, his silhouette disappeared, and JW could only see the blinds but not even the outline of HS although she looked right at him.
Just as in every day of their relationship, JW had looked at HS without seeing the true Hyun Soo, so too when she was staring right at the spot where HS hid, JW failed to find him. [SPOILER – This makes it so much more satisfying that later on she does find him.]
Saved by a Spectre
(Timestamp 52:33 – 55:08) Stress level rating 8/10 Hyun Soo recalls how Nam Soon Kil attacked him over money, and then begged for mercy when in the fight HS got the upper hand.
HS was really close to driving the knife into NSK, but the spectre of his dead father with dead, matte black eyes, telling him to kill, transfixed him. He looked horrified then stabbed the switchblade into the ground and ran.
My thoughts on this is that contrary to what was generally believed and expected about Do Min Seok and Hyun Soo, where it was thought HS had helped his father in the killings, the spectre of his father actually stopped him from killing NSK. This seems to say that Hyun Soo’s default reaction to his father was not to carrying out the evil as ordered, but to rebel.
His horror at seeing his dead father, whom we believe he had seen several times, was not out of fear of his father, but of what he was tempted to do, which would make him similar to his father. His act of running away, was to save both himself and NSK.
This indicates that HS very likely did not engage in the killings, whether or not he knew what his father was doing. His horror at being associated with his father if he hurt NSK, shows that he’s not likely to be any kind of killer.
I find it interesting that at a point when he was most tempted to hurt someone, instead of being egged on to justifiably harm NSK, the spectre of his father telling him to kill, drove HS to do the opposite. In the instances we get to see, where he could have ended his predicament by committing murder, HS didn’t.
Evolving Backstory
I’m pleased that my wish for a HS-JW backstory is being fulfilled. I hope every episode fleshes out their relationship.
My conjecture at this early stage, which could be off the mark, is that HS started spending time with JW, because he didn’t know what to make of her, and because he was still suspicious of her. He kept seeing her to keep his ‘possible enemy’ close. He was a wanted man and an imposter, and JW’s questions in the Summer of 2007 were exactly the kind he wanted to avoid.
However [SPOILER} he also found that with her, the spectre of his father went away.
Best of all in an ironical way, JS as a detective, had the job which was HS’s perfect cover and shield to hide behind. No one would think a wanted murderer would be happily married to a cop.
JW was useful to have by his side for several reasons, which might have likely been the excuse to build a relationship with her at first. In any case, she seemed like the kind of woman who’d not easily take ‘No’ for answer, when she had her sights set on him. It was probably easier to give in and marry her. LOL.
However along the way, he grows to love her and he definitely loves Eun Ha. It’s this love story that sets this psychopathic murder-mystery, slightly ghostly show apart from others.
I am very curious about the “parents” and the comatose Hee Sung. What exactly is their arrangement with Hyun Soo? Is it possible that the real Hee Sung is the killer?
@Snow Flower I love to do guesswork at the beginning of the series. However by the end I forget to check if I got anything right LOL!
I believe that the real Hee Sung got into an accident first and was in a coma, but for some reason, the family kept this a secret. Then the Baeks accidentally knocked Hyun Soo down the night when he ran from almost killing Nam Soon Kil. He may even have ended up in the same hospital as Hee Sung. In order to compensate Hyun Soo for the accident and to keep the true state of their son from being known, the Baeks and HS agreed to creating the lie, at least until the real Hee Seung awakes. Once that happens, HS will once again be cast away and will have to hide some other way or come out in the open with his name cleared. I prefer the latter course of action, which enables him to be truthful. The only way that he will have peace from public scrutiny and suspicion is if the real killer can be caught, but if that’s his sister, HS will continue to take the fall.
@GB, I love mysteries and always try to guess who the criminal is. Usually I am wrong, but in Episode 2 I guessed correctly that the social worker killed the granny. I was surprised with myself!
We still don’t know much about the real HS and what kind of a deal is there between his parents and Hyun Soo. So far there are not enough puzzle pieces in order for a big picture to emerge.
Episode 6 twists are absolutely ‘lovely’.
[SLIGHTLY SPOILERY]
New info comes out from left field, but show and characters are consistent. I see that my conjectures as to the accident that led to Hyun Soo becoming Hee Sung are not entirely wrong, and that’s an interesting twist as well.
I’m LOLing over the twists that the guys who torture HS end up ‘helping’ him in the end, while the one who was avidly on his side is unwillingly compelled to expose his lies. So much delicious twistiness has me grinning from ear to ear.
Are eps 5 and 6 subbed already? Where? Still waiting for Viki subs. 🙂
I don’t mind spoilers.
Hi @pkml3, Dramanice, Dramacool and such sites seem to have them up fast. Their subs may vary from Viki’s as we noticed for Ep 1.
If you don’t mind spoilers, then I may just post stuff here from across most of the aired episodes at one go, as points strike me. It’s easier than having to censor myself as I forget where I saw what.
Are you enjoying this show?
Go ahead and post spoilers. Thanks. I’m watching Ep 5 today.
Okie dokie and thanks @pkml3! SPOILERS FOR EPISODES 4-6 BELOW.
Cha Ji Won and her view of Baek Hee Sung
Early years 2006 – 2008
When she first meets HS, we see her earnest reflection in the small table mirror as she studies for entry into the police force. From the first, JW is attracted to HS, and we can see her determined, never-say-die attitude as she doggedly continues to like and hang around HS despite his aloofness, rebuffs and awkwardness.
By 2008, she’s a bit fed up with the non progress of their relationship and we hear her say
“You hit on me first. My friends said you did that because you like me. Being the bighearted person I am, I confessed my feelings first. But you dare respond by playing hard to get? I hate it you know.”
Later when he turns and starts to walk off, she says “But you like me. I know it. I can see it all. It’s obvious to me.” – JW judged from what she had seen of him over 2 years and had no doubts about HS. On top of what her friends had said, she had also seen that in the Winter night of 2006, during the blackout, he had stood watch outside her store when she expressed uneasiness over a robbery that had taken place in a previous blackout. The action spoke louder than the words he never spoke. He showed a great deal of consideration in standing outside to deter robbers, instead of standing inside the store, where it was warmer, and where JW might have been intimidated by him.
While it’s true that JW saw what she wanted to see even at the earliest stages of their relationship, she also had seen aspects of the true HS, which he didn’t keep hidden.
She had seen that he was anti-social and sullen but that he was caring and considerate. She saw that despite being socially awkward and professing to not like her, he spent his day off with her, and was a good sport about being pushed out in the rain.
Earlier he had been truthful, not wanting to lead her on. They had run to shelter from the rain and JW had said ruefully : “I’m wearing new clothes, new shoes, and I spent an hour styling my hair. Am I unlucky or what? So much for a first date.”
“Date?” [It had never occurred to him that she’d take it as a date.]
“Two people having fun together. Isn’t that what a date is?” [She has probably cottoned on to his lack of awareness rather than to his lack of interest.]
“But I’m not interested in you.” [He’s truthful to a fault ,except when it comes to protecting his sister.]
JW : “Then why do you spend time with me on your day off?”
HS : “Well…That’s because you’ll bother me less if I go out with you once.” [This was probably partially true. We can gather from this, that JW had kept at him regardless of his coldness. However he could have cut her off cold and not gone out with her. Therefore he was ambivalent about his feelings towards her, and what was more likely as he admitted later, he didn’t know how he felt.]
By 2008, JW’s mother is the one who calls HS to check where JW is, meaning that he’s assumed to be her boyfriend or at least the one who was closely connected to her.
When he gives her the lowdown on himself, listing the very worst qualities in a boyfriend, points that should have disqualified him as boyfriend material by any clear-sighted female: a low education, violent behaviour and gang experience, being abnormal in his head and seeing dead people, JW’s response is still full acceptance of him as he is.
This will be juxtaposed later with the same thoughts in the swimming pool rescue.
She goes on to interpret his seeing dead people as having a dream in which one can tell the spectre to go away. This is both naïve and yet profound, because HS’s spectre of his father really is his fear that he may indeed be like him, and he has to eradicate that fear himself.
JW has preconceived notions about HS as dense and naïve : “You really are quite dense. [She thinks he’s dense but that she sees clearly.] You feel bad because you have nothing to offer me?”
HS : “I don’t know how I feel.”
JW was rather complacent…sure he didn’t know but she knew and she’d teach him : “You only have one problem. You don’t see yourself in the way I see you. I’ll like you a lot from here on out. I’ll be there for you. ” HS looks surprised. “I’ll teach you everything you don’t know. Then one day, things will change for you. You’ll be surprised.”
Little did she know that 12 years later, her complacency would be shattered.
These are the words that we first hear in the Episode 1 prologue, during the rescue of HS in the swimming pool.
In the pool scene, unlike here, she had suspicions that he had links to the murderer Do Hyun Soo, and the subs had it as ” I’ll love you even more from this moment. I’ll be good to you. Then before you know it, everything will change. In a way that seems unreal.”
In 2008 the words may mean, that despite how he was cold and didn’t know what he felt, she knew him better and so she would keep by his side, to teach him about himself, to help change him from the cold person he was. She accepted him warts and all unequivocably.
In the 2020 pool scene, those words played out despite her suspicions. This time, she had been shocked into awareness that there were things about HS that she did not know. She no longer felt that she knew him better, but she had decided to protect him for the time being (she lied that HS’s watch had been with her) and to stick with him despite her suspicions. She wanted to accept him still, but she could not just give him the benefit of the doubt.
Ironically when she said that everything would change in a moment – in a way that seemed unreal or like a lie, she never thought that the unreal and the lie would be hers to experience. She would be the one facing the sudden shift in her world, in her perception of her husband, in being able to be truthful and of her own perspicacity. By the end of episode 6, she had decided to investigate the truth about Hee Sung, whom she knew was Hyun Soo, and her blurred reflection in the table mirror on her office desk no longer shows us the clear-eyed girl that she’d been 12 years earlier.
Cha Ji Won and Irony MORE SPOILERS
I feel for the girl turned woman, who had prided herself that she could read HS correctly. She was so sure that she knew him well; better than he knew himself. She had boasted that she’d recognise even his shadow. As HS had said she saw what she wanted to see: to interpret what lay before her as it suited her. To see only what she wanted to see was a great blindness. So unlike her normal way of noticing the facts, the way she noticed the slippers on the feet of the first criminal. With HS, she had been blind.
When in 2008, he had informed her of his most unpromising background and about seeing dead people, she had interpreted it in her own way, and been unperturbed.
To her chagrin, she might recall that he was one who was suspicious, who was sometimes unfriendly, who had discouraged her advances and who was even rude, and that she had pursued him regardless.
Her pride has taken a hit, because she had been so confident as a police detective: she had been hoping for a promotion in the catching of DHS, but the worst case scenario had turned up. Indeed she had the long wanted killer in her grasp, but instead of benefiting from this, both her professional and her private life was being torn apart by it.
Another piece of irony, Det Choi Jae Sup had been physically reprimanded by his superior for carelessly leaving the wiretap in the police office, thus giving highly sensitive information to the criminal, but Det Cha Ji Won was guilty of much worse. She had revealed so much to the criminal directly, and she had ‘harboured’ a wanted man for years, and currently was knowingly, illegally hiding him.
More irony lies in her needing to keep him from being exposed by someone like arrogant Det Choi, while she worked to expose HS by herself.
And the problem now is that she wants to be a good wife and a good cop, when these two roles tie her up in a paradox. Unlike HS, who can act well, she’s not able to hide what she feels. What saves her from discovery is that HS is not aware of how to interpret some expressions of emotions.
Another piece of irony, … as JW starts re-interpreting her beliefs which she once thought true, and gains greater clarity, HS will be unable to penetrate her true emotions. HS had confidently assured the Baeks that he’d handle JW, but he will be wrong. JW will be playing the same game as himself by hiding what she knows.
HS was puzzled by what she meant when she said: “You almost died in front of me. You’ll never know how tormenting the past 10 days have been for me. You’ll never know that.” This sounds like JW has come to terms with the fact that HS has some degree of ASD that prevents him from knowing his feelings.
It was so telling that HS asked PKC of all people, how he felt when he found out that Jung Mi Sook was dead, just to get an idea of what JW had felt. He interpreted her revulsion or avoidance of his touch, as her nervousness. She was nervous about how he might reveal himself during the interview with Det Choi, but at the same time, she did not want to be touched by someone who had been lying to her for years.
The happy, confident Cha Ji Won, who could openly mentor Ho Joon, has been eclipsed by the furtive investigator. We get more irony in Episode 6, where the person wielding the hammer this time is not HS but JW who breaks into and enters HS’s basement. The evidence of blood on the floor and the cable tie/zip tie give her the worst possible evidence to back up her suspicions.
At the end of Episode 6, JW faces the ugly truth that for the 12 years of knowing HS, she had been shockingly mistaken. So much of what she thought she had seen and known of HS, had been an illusion. She sits in the dark trying to reconcile the loving husband and the doting father with the ‘killer’, DHS.
A matter of perspective – HS and Eun Ha walk out and look at the clouds. They each see what they like best, ie an egg tart for Eun Ha and Ji Won’s face for HS. The shape of the clouds like that of the investigation keep shifting.
We see shifts in perspectives of who might have been the enemies of HS, Kim Moo Jin and Park Kyung Chul. When they finally allow that even someone with some form of ASD is truthful and turn from their long-held, cherished points of view, they can start to look for the truth.
When speaking with the wife of Nam Soon Kil, JW aims for a more balanced perspective. HS might have been weird and unemotional, but she did not think him a psychopath because he cared for those weaker than himself. She also believed that he should be punished only for crimes that he did commit.
Ironically, she still says she believes only what she sees, but now I expect that she’ll observe without the filters and rose-tinted spectacles, whereas HS looks up at the clouds and has a fluffier opinion of JW which will no longer be true!
Thanks for the timeline, GB.
I skipped most of Ep 5 to watch Ep 6 so what you wrote is perfect to fill me in with the details.
@pkml3 Glad to be of help LOL. I look forward to your details. I found Ep 5 to be less tight. There was a lot I felt I could FFD. Ep 6 was stress-filled but great!
You’re right! Ep 6 was great!! HS is winning everybody over to his side, one enemy at a time. 😂
@pkml3 I tend to do things in dribs and drabs as they strike me. Therefore here’s more of similar thoughts after the brief timeline.
Timeline from Ep 1 – 6
(Ep 6, Timestamp 02:50) Presumably before HS’s father died. While unconscious, Hyun Soo thinks of his sister and how he showed her a metal deer he’d made and how they got on well together.
(Ep 5, Timestamp 40:53) Sunday May 12, 2002, the last of 7 victims of the Yeonju City Serial Murders case, Jung Mi Sook, was kidnapped. The witness to this was Jang Young Hee. Jung Mi Sook’s body was never found.
(Ep 3, Timestamp 41:50) Three months after DMS died, the Gagyeong-ri Murder occurred. The village foreman who had taken care of Do Hyun Soo and Do Hae Su was found stabbed in the neck. The murder weapon was found in DHS’s school bag that had been thrown into water. DHS had disappeared.
(Ep 6, Timestamp 03:26) HS is unconscious and dreaming in 2020 – [After the foreman was killed, HS sees his sister with bloody face and tells her to live well and never to try to find him. He says he will not live as DHS anymore.]
(Ep 3, Timestamp 1:01:20) JW reports that in 2002 DHS was 18 years old. He had killed village foreman and run away. He had burned down his home, leaving no traces. He had no friends.
(Ep 2, Timestamp 23:30) HS tells Kim Moo Jin that he killed the village foreman and we see a flashback. HS was with his sister standing over the dead man. Hae Su had told him that what he was doing was wrong. He had said with some surprise, that he felt all right.
(Ep 2, Timestamp 47:40) Nam Soon Kil reports that he’d lived and worked with Do Hyun Su from the fall of 2002 to the summer of 2005.
(Ep 6, Timestamp 16:30) Father Baek reminds his wife that 15 years previously ie 2005, an incident had taken place in the Baek family and Mother Baek’s agitation is blamed. The real Baek Hee Sung had hit DHS with his car. In the course of months between the accident in 2005 and sometime before Winter in 2006, Baek Hee Sung was out of action and DHS had replaced him.
(Ep 2, Timestamp 00:18) 2006 and Cha Ji Won meets BHS/HS for the first time in the Galaxy Market. He mentions that it is quiet and seemed like a nice place to start over.
(Ep 5, Timestamp 00:16) Winter 2006. BHS stands outside the Galaxy Market during a blackout and watches the snow fall.
(Ep 3, Timestamp 00:30) 2007. Ji Won has been trying to find out more about BHS and visits him at his workshop. BHS is surprised to receive her confession, sees something that scares him and rudely gets JW to leave.
Sometime in between 2007 up to within 2008, JW and HS are out on a ‘date’ in the rain, on his day off. JW says that people notice him watching her and asks: “Has it ever occurred to you that you’re the only one who doesn’t know you like me?” That date does not go well as HS sees the spectre of his father and leaves.
(Ep 5, Timestamp 03:25) 2008 (in the Korean subs) JW insists that HS likes her and hit on her first, and then is playing hard to get. They end up kissing and the spectre of HS’s father walks away.
Ji Won and What She Wants to Believe (following from the timeline)
I’m amused that JW thinks that HS hit on her first, when she was always the one to take the initiative. I feel that she’s just believing what she wants to believe.
She asks if his saying “You’re a mystery to me,” is a confession that he likes her, but she behaves as if it is a fact. That statement in itself, if taken to mean that he likes her, is wishful thinking on her part. However taken in context that he bothers to tell her about himself and that he did not reject her offer to help him (“I’ll teach you everything you don’t know. Then one day, things will change for you. You’ll be surprised”): She may have been right about him at least liking her, although I do not believe he ever intended his words to be a confession.
When she suggests that he likes her, without being aware of it, and when she speaks of their relationship, his expressions border on being uncertain and uncomprehending. He admits he does not know how he feels, therefore he has to allow that she may be right. But he is not sure that she is.
Somewhere along the way in their relationship, he discovers (or she teaches him) that he can learn how to express emotion to meet the expectations of others. This keeps her happy, thinking that she really has made a change in his life for the better.
However she seems to forget that his ’emotions’ are fake to him, because he still does not know how he feels.
When he said to her in Episode 2 that, that was a nice place to startover, he never intended for that ‘place’ to be her. She was the one who created the situations and ‘confused’ him into thinking that their relationship had a basis because she insisted that he was reciprocating.
If not for her, he would have lived the life that the Baeks wanted ie to live so quietly as if dead, and never to have married at all, let alone to a police detective. The marriage was not expected to last or be successful, but HS was so good at putting on the expressions of emotions, (and he did actually really care for Eun Ha), that against all odds, it had been a happy marriage. However to the Baeks, it was a risk that could jeorpardise the safety of their secrets. Hence we understand the Baeks’ antipathy towards JW and Eun Ha.
From Episodes 1-4, the marriage had actually looked perfect. If JW had been a little more discerning, she might have wondered how it was that HS was such a perfect husband and father, considering what he’d been like when she first knew him. But like the wife of the first Episode’s case, who preferred to take the drugs and not question if her perfect family was a façade or not, JW had not looked beyond the perfect illusion that HS had created.
We are done with ep 4 group watch today! We are rooting for Moo Jin x Hyun Su endgame kekekeke jk.
The ending of ep. 3 is a good one. Some of the plots we have successfully guessed right. Looking forward to Ep. 5 and 6 next. 🙂
Where are you doing the group watch? 😂
I’ll repost this on the blog, @GB for general reference. Thanks. I’ll add comment too.
I will email you pm3😉
okay. Thanks!
Done. Please check your email 😊
@pkml3 Okay, thanks!
GB ♥️ I am here ! I’ll take some time to read through it all but I’m in !
P.S. none of it is “nonsense”. You write very well and it’s always a pleasure to read your thoughts.
Umm. Just one thought. It’s hard to pretend for 12 years. It’s hard to keep acting opposite of who you are 24X7, 365 days for so long. If indeed he were as violent or capable of cold blooded murder, at the least he would have ended up slapping her/shoving her or abusing her in some way when let’s say he was angry or in a disagreement between them. He hasn’t lost his cool in 12 years?? That’s hard to imagine. There is saying in my mother tongue,
“Your nature, your inborn tendencies and who you are die with you, not before.”
Meaning some responses are so ingrained that you can’t hide them or change them easily.
Maybe what FL is seeing is the real. And what everyone else thinks the truth, is the facade.
We don’t know much about Hyun Soo’s father’s suicide and how that event led to the discovery of the father being a serial killer. I would not be surprised if it turns out the father was not a serial killer. We will have to wait and see.
Who threatened the abduction witness ahjumma? (Episode 6)
I’m enjoying this drama so much from episode 3. And I have fun just watching the character dynamics and uncovering the mystery of the past even though it seems a bit predictable. Right now I want to understand more about Baek Hee sung’s parents and why they are so desperate to keep him hidden and have someone take over his place. They are willing to do anything even kill the taxi driver to prevent news being found out. It’s interesting
@Arihsi Thoughts on the Flower
Thanks for bringing this up. I agree. I believe this is what this Show is examining.
I believe that the Flower of Evil interpreted simply, is (or are) the children of the ‘bad guy’. @pkml3 suggests that the Flower of Evil is Eun Ha, child of Hyun Soo/Hee Sung, and that the question asked was if evil can produce a thing of beauty, can it truly be evil?
Going back a generation we have Hyun Soo and Hae Su as the Flowers of Do Min Seok. We do not know much about Hae Su (and I know the conjecture is that she’s the real apprentice of the killer and maybe a killer in her own right), so we’ll put her aside for now.
But when we come to Hyun Soo, all that we’ve seen is that he’s a pretty nice ‘flower’. His actions speak louder than words.
Other than that he has no qualms about exerting a certain degree of violence upon people who threaten him or his family, he does not seem to be an all out killer or sadist. All the flashback scenes of him show him as being calm or a victim, not a perpetrator.
As he grows, he knows that those who do not put on the ‘right expressions’ get branded as weird or worse, and so he takes care to ‘learn the facial expressions’ he should make, more to fit in, than in order to deceive.
In order to live a quietly as possible, he takes care that no fault can be found in his work or his care of Eun Ha, and he’s been a dedicated husband as well.
We note that he never hid the fact that he was ‘abnormal’ from JW from the start. He seems to have been truthful in all that he could reveal without implicating his sister. We and his wife, Ji Won are confronting this dilemma of whether he could have been lying about everything for 12 years. I believe that rather than lying, he has been in hiding in plain sight for 12-14 years.
While he lived so that he did not draw attention to himself or the Baeks, he has been truly himself. For one thing, it’s hard to fool a smart 6-year old kid like Eun Ha. He has obviously been a consistently good parent with her, and that is why she is a happy, well adjusted child.
@Arihsi, your point made me ask a further question. HS thinks he’s been pretending to fool JW.
Working on the assumption that we have been seeing HS as he really is, then if he is still thinking that he’s fooling JW, and that he’s putting up a façade, it is more likely that HS is fooling himself!
When in their youth JW told him that he’s the only one who does not know that he likes her, she was correct in a paradoxical way. He had also admitted that he does not know how he feels and that she’s a mystery to him. I believe that through the 12 years of being with JW, he thought that he was using her to keep the spectre of his father at bay, and as a shield from discovery of his true identity, but actually he had come to care for her deeply, but he himself did not know it.
When he talks about himself, he gives out the bit and pieces about being ill-educated, violent and abnormal, ie that he’s no good, but he never touches on the fact that he’s been truthful or that he cares for his sister. It is likely he thinks about himself in the way that he’s been conditioned to think, by his father and by the attitudes of those who considered him possessed. But the person that he is, is likely a mystery to himself.
@Arihsi So your other point that you made elsewhere the scene at in Episode 6 where she gets upset and leaves him in hospital, you said:
This is the scene:
We are shown the close-ups in this scene through a shaky camera – their world is being shaken up. The shake is more pronounced one time when it focuses on HS. He’s been shaken and is afraid.
HS did not understand the emotion that JW displayed. He did not know that he had revealed his real identity to her in his delirium. He is guessing that she’s angry and wants to get away from him. I agree with you @Arihsi, that he didn’t want her to leave, and possibly was afraid that he might lose JW.
At the end of Ep 5, we hear his thoughts after being saved from the pool and as JW tries to resuscitate him, he sees her anguish.
This seems to reveal that he really cares about her, that he regrets that she had to go through such great distress. So his wanting to hold on to her, is likely more because he is emotionally attached to her, rather than because he needs to use her.
We hope that JW will prefer to err on the side of believing the HS she’s seen and known for 12 years. If she only believes in what she sees with her own eyes, then there’s hope because she has seen him before marriage when he was a cold, emotionless block that she said she’d teach, and she’s seen him as husband and as Eun Ha’s father. What he has been lying about is his name, but not about who he is inside.
So what kind of flower does that make HS, and if he’s a sweet flower, what does that say about his dad and mum.
@GB yes ! Exactly! Also, couple of strange things that I found on comments section on Viki
People thought she was kissing him while underwater and expressed their displeasure at her actions in abusive language. My jaw is hanging open in surprise. I thought this is a 16+ or 18+ show ? How can adults not understand that it’s not “kissing”? Or are they just finding excuses to verbally abuse the FL while praising how “handsome” the ML looks (as he is dying) ? 🙄
Underwater mouth to mouth resuscitation is effective. There are real life examples of lives being saved because of this. The brain couldn’t care less about the body being tied up or stuck underwater if it gets enough oxygen. Timing is key with Hypoxia. When she first saw him in the pool, She didn’t have the TIME to go look for a knife to free him. She did the right thing to save his life.
Huh? They thought she was kissing him? Didn’t they see her repeatedly go up and below the surface of the water? Did they think she was just bobbing??
That’s why I don’t read comments from viki.
LOL @Arihsi and @pkml3 I saw someone admit that they were being dumb because they didn’t realise what she was doing until much later. I was rolling my eyes at that. I know of underwater mouth to mouth resuscitation but I didn’t know how effective it was.
You’re right @Arihsi, she behaved like a well trained policewoman and applied her training correctly even when emotionally stressed. We are never shown how she gets him out of that pool with a high wall by herself (without him hitting the floor hard) … that would be another feat in itself! 😆 😃
They call it “hysterical strength.” During life and death situations, people suddenly acquire superpower strength, thanks to adrenaline, and become like the Incredible Hulk. 😂 So it’s entirely possible that she lifted him single-handedly from the pool.
Thanks for the nugget of info @pkml3. I never knew what it was called, just that people can suddenly do superhuman things like lift a car off a loved one who’s being crushed under it.
I’m known to have “hysterical strength” too whenever I’m starving and there’s that last piece of roast beef, chicken nugget or ice cream bar; I can cut a swath through a crowd for that last piece. That puts the “hysterical” in my hysterical strength. 🙂
@pm3 we have a young cousin who proved the existence of “hysterical strength” 🙊 She had gone to drop our aunt (about 40 kgs heavier than she is) to the metro station. Unfortunately, there was space between the train and the platform. They were late and my aunt ended up slipping into that space trying to board the train whilst the doors had started to shut. My cousin was overcome with lightening reflexes… She held our aunt by the arms in to that space for the entire duration of the train passing and didn’t let her fall in. She held her till someone realised what was happening and the train halted to a stop. My aunt only sustained injuries in her legs which she recovered fully from. My cousin finds it hard to believe till this date that she did it all. She was a skinny College student with no formal physical training at the time.
Here, they made it a point to show that the pool was overflowing. So JW must’ve gotten a lot of help from the water. And she would have had all sort of physical training as a police officer… annnddd I really don’t think LJG is 40 kgs heavier than MCW 😂
@pkml3 You have me in hysterics 😂 😂 and weak with laughter … no strength here, calm or hysterical 🤣 LOL.
@Arihsi, thanks for the anecdote and LOL LJG’s weight. We notice that our actors are sometimes sorely underweight, but it’s true that JW and HS look like their weight differential is not that great.
I like the image of the overflowing pool. It got me thinking about the other time they were wet, around 2008 or earlier, when HS and JW were running in the rain. That time HS did not understand why JW kept insisting that he liked her, when he said he’d gone out with her at least once, so that she’d bother him less. JW pushed HS out into the rain possibly for fun and to allay the embarrassment of her trying to get him to admit that he liked her. That time only he got drenched. At first he was willing to play along with her, he almost smiled, but something made him stop and he saw his dead father. He then highlights the disparity in understanding between them.
He turns and walks off, leaving JW.
In the pool, overflowing with desperation: Park Kyung Choon’s desperation to find his dead wife, HS’s desperation to stay alive and then JW’s desperation to save him, both JW and HS are on the same page at least in wanting to keep him alive. However while HS has become aware that he regrets what he is putting JW through (and will continue to put JW through), she’s beginning to have increasing doubts about him. Once again they are not on the same page with regards to their relationship, and even outside the pool, the overflowing water continues to flow all around them.