This is @Growing_Beautifully’s timeline to help us understand the sequence of events and the flashbacks. Thanks, @GB.
I’ll just add pictures and comments.
***************
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.
My comments:
@GB, I find it interesting that HS made a deer for his sister, then in his father’s workroom, the camera showed a lynx on display. Is the director saying that those are the two characters’ spirit animals? That HS is a deer and his father is a lynx? These two animals are on opposite spectrum. The lynx preys on the deer.
Also the bookends featuring happy and sad faces remind me of the Hahoetal masks used in rituals and theatrical plays. One of the necklaces hanging in HS studio was of a happy face.
About the real Baek Heesung, here was his one-sided phone call.
HS: Yes. I’m on my way right now.
The other person probably asked him if it was alright for him to drive in that kind of weather.
HS: No, no. I’m okay. I’m thankful for the thought. Even if it’s hard, I should face it myself.
From his respectful response, “I’m thankful for the thought” — or the concern?? — I’m assuming that person he was talking to had seniority.
HS: But…How did that person look to you? That’s a relief.
It appears to me that the real Heesung had recently introduced somebody to this person on the phone. He wanted to hear a confirmation or acknowledgement that he made the right choice of person.
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.
I think that some of the things that JW tells HS is out of bravado, like when she says that HS hit on (or “flirted” or come on to her) her first. She knows that she seduced him, and I don’t think she ONLY meant getting him to have sex with her.
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.
Remember in Episode 1, when she was telling Heesung about her case of the Lying Son?
JW: Do you know what the weirdest thing about this case is? The victim’s mom, the wife.
HS: Why?
JW: Her son almost died and accused his father as the culprit but she says, “Our family doesn’t have any problems.” She keeps emphasizing that. If the situation was this bad, there should have been signs. How could she not be aware of it at all? I can’t tell if she’s avoiding the issue or hiding it. Anyway, something is weird.
Welllll….JW lacks self-awareness. She could have been describing herself here. In almost all of the flashbacks, that is, the time when she dropped in on him at his workshop, the pseudo-date in the rain, and the conversation about sending his specter away, there were clear signs that there was a problem with HS. To paraphrase her own words, how could she not be aware of it at all? HS explicitly told her that he wasn’t a good guy.
Ep 5 Flashback at 58:20
HS: I didn’t even graduate high school.
JW: Why?
HS: Just because. I couldn’t adapt. I’ve lived on the streets too. At that time, I went around fighting people every day. Have you every punched someone with your fists?
JW: No.
HS: I’ve beaten people senseless without realizing that my own knuckles were bleeding. At that time, it felt really good.
He smiled as he said that and JW looked away. She was finding this confession bizarre and troubling.
HS: And…(he looks away and sees his dad) I see things I shouldn’t be seeing. (taps the temple of his head) My brain’s not normal.
JW: (she looks at the direction where he was looking) What do you see?
HS: A dead person.
JW: You must have really liked them. I’ve also seen my dead grandmother in mhy dreams. “Grandma, you should go now. Stop worrying about me and rest.” Then, she turned around and left quietly.
HS: You really don’t get what I’m saying.
See there? JW could have asked her younger self back then, “What’s wrong with you? Why are you avoiding the issue or are you hiding it? Something is weird with you.” lol.
JW: That you’re sorry because you’re worse off and less accomplished than me?
HS: I’m unfamiliar with that feeling.
She thought he was rejecting her because he felt unworthy of her. But he rejected that delusion. He said he didn’t feel at all sorry that she’s worse off with him, and that he was less accomplished than her. According to him, that kind of feeling was alien to him.
Of course, we know now that this isn’t true. After he was rescued from the pool, he felt sorry for JW that she had to suffer because of him. He said, “I’ve always thought that I was lucky to have met you. But for the first time, I thought that you shouldn’t have met me. Now I understand what you meant back then. I feel sorry.”
JW: You have one problem. You can’t see yourself the way I see you. I’ll give you a lot of love from now on. I’ll be good to you. I’ll teach you anything you don’t know. Then, everything might change in a moment, like a lie.
And here, I think that’s JW’s problem. She thinks she’s his messiah, his savior.
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.
Agree!
Okay, we’re all ready for this week’s episodes. We know the drill. The thread is now open for theories, spoilers, rants and raves.
Let’s enjoy the show.
@GB you’re as amazing as ever 😍😍😍
EP 7
That GPS watch is going to help her save him later on. A classic kdrama thing. Just like @pm3 said, the harder one resists love in a kdrama, the deeper one falls into it. Similarly, the harder one tries to falsely accuse the lead, the harder they’re going to fight to save them later on. It’s all a part of the built up.
GPS and other modes of tracking and tapping are rarely used for their original purpose… Sooner rather than later it’ll be Go GPS GO!
@GB Pardon me, skim the timeline a bit since I only finished episode 2 now. It’s intriguing. N I’m flying off tangents here—maybe JW also has psychological condition or some sort. Look at the way she handled the female culprit at the end of Ep. 2, she is not one you could mess with 😉
@packmule3 I like that you mentioned the Kuleshov effect in another post. O then, though not a rom fan, I’ll be anticipating You are my Glory cos I kinda find Dilraba cute. N I think you don’t have to worry about Yang Yang appearing dirty messy, not likely. Imo, he is the Chinese Lee Minho, always so clean. Ah, but I now remember Yang did appear a little more rugged in a 2018 wuxia drama Martial Universe. I’m familiar with Yang cos he was in The Lost Tomb (2015) which I like.
Spirit Animals and Tapes and being tied up
@pkml3 You said:
The images of lynx and deer are interesting indeed. It could well be that Show is giving us hints on how different father and son were in nature, despite sharing a common interest in metal craft. We wonder what kind of dynamics they had when together if one was predator, and the other prey. And yet we hear and can guess that they spent a lot of time together, since HS picked up the metal craft skills from his dad.
Hyun Soo’s response to the spectre of his dad, however, suggests that he was afraid of him. His hand shook as he stood and stared at his dead father, knowing full well that it was his imagination. He had after all admitted that he was not normal in his head. When in his head, he told his father to go away, he used a tone of supplication rather than JW’s peremptory tone.
The other animal image we get is the goldfish on the keychain. Nam Soon Kil said his wife had 2 of these keychains made (I’m not sure but I believe they were specially designed or just 2 of a kind). The goldfish is a symbol of wealth and good fortune among the Japanese, Chinese and Koreans. It’s not an animal that is generally considered for spirit animal, as far as I know.
We want to get the backstory on how Hae Su ended up having the keychain. Instead of good luck, it seems to have been an ill-omened object both for Jung Mi Sook and Hyun Soo who carried it about with them.
Thinking of the keychain led me to remember the tape record player and the tapes. Tapes are uncommon nowadays and therefore it is unusual that this show has brought to our attention 3 of them, 2 audio and 1 video tape. Hyun Soo listened to his tape and the fish keychain dangled from the tape player, the witness (Jang Young Hee) had an answering machine and a recording of a threat on tape, and Kim Moo Jin had a video tape showing that he knew enough to have stopped the Yeonju City killings, and is now being blackmailed with it by HS.
There was also another kind of tape: the duct tape that was used by KMJ to tape HS when he tortured him and separately some used by HS to tape KMJ’s mouth and he bought a new roll of tape to improvise a weapon with a shard of glass to use agains PKC. As for being tied up … there was rope (used by PKC) and zip ties/cable ties (used both by HS and the Seonju City killer) and even hand-cuffs for JW! Assorted characters are sort of all tied together with tape of some kind or other. LOL
With six episodes in, Flower of Evil has the potential to reach the Baeksang heights of Signal / Stranger, if the writing holds up.
I saw this Soompi poll asking whether or not FOE would have happy ending. The director previously directed Mother (which featured a morally grey lead also), so following Mother’s pattern, I think Hyun Su will be arrested around the Ep 12 mark. After being released around the Ep 15 mark, he undergoes therapy / counseling as part of his healing. A 5-minute reunion with Ji Won and Eun Ha then concludes the drama.
What would really push the envelope, is if Hyun Su and Ji Won turn out to be both involved in the serial murders. Ji Won seems to be hiding a dark side — she looked like she was willing to murder the social worker killer in cold blood. Following this theory, she was drawn to Hyun Su because no one would suspect a detective married to a well-known murder suspect to be a killer herself (Ep 2).
@Storyteller That scenario would really take the cake!!! What a jaw-dropping reversal … both husband and wife with too similar a dark past. LOL.
What is interesting is that show is has made it appear possible that any one of our 2 leads and their 2nd leads could actually be cold blooded killers, despite their nice, respectable exteriors. I’ve noticed the frequent focus on photos in homes and workplaces, which put on display, the sweet images behind which something else lurks.
I felt that Ep 7 was more Ji Won’s episode. However we still do not know her. What we’ve been shown of JW is generally in relationship with HS. We hardly see her as daughter or as mother or as a person in her own right. Only as a detective or the determined pursuer of Baek Hee Sung – the boyfriend/husband, and now the determined pursuer of Do Hyun Soo – the criminal/victim.
She was already a terribly pugnacious creature when objective in her work, now with the element of a personal grudge against HS, plus the desire to get at the truth (and maybe earn a promotion), JW will be three times worse!
Although in this episode she prides herself that she can lie without being found out, as well as HS can, I feel that she is fortunate that she is lying to a person who cannot easily tell what emotions she might be exhibiting.
Welcome to the blog. 🙂
I don’t know what the standards are for Baeksang awards so I can’t say whether FOE is a prime candidate or not. I also don’t understand the rationale for that soompi poll. Does it really matter whether the ending is happy or not? And what are the criteria for a happy ending?
I tend to subscribe to the Humpty Dumpty rule of happiness. Once the illusion of happiness is cracked open, it’s hard to put it all back together again, even with the help of all the King’s horses and all the King’s men.
So….I don’t get the point of this soompi poll. lol. It’s probably another one of their click-baits.
For me, as long as the ending makes sense and there aren’t any plot holes and lose ends, I’m happy.
And yes, that would be a plot twist, wouldn’t it, if both HS and JW are psychopath. But that would be a double-whammy for their daughter Eunha since she would have the genetic marker of a madman from both her parents.
Help, @GB?
Are there scary parts in Ep 7?
signed,
me scaredycat pm3
JW manipulating her husband to reveal his identity was very unsettling to watch.
The humming tape was creepy.
Hi @pkml3 Ep 7 is ok. I’d give it a 6.5 out of 10 for stress. Suspenseful but no fights or bloodshed. CJW is really a tough cookie. She was pushing as many buttons as she possibly could and we waited to see him react.
I’m so hooked to this drama now! The immense tension between the two got me so nervous. Would the one humming the melody in the tape his mother? I’m not convinced Hyun Soo’s sister was the killer – we will see. Looking forward to watching Ep8 with subs when available.
@Au0101 You know, after Ep 7, I’m having so many doubts. I don’t even know if Do Min Seok was a killer or the killer. It was all too convenient, that he committed suicide and the case was closed. If he hadn’t killed himself, the ‘trophies’ of the murdered victims wouldn’t have been found in his workshop. It was so neat that the serial killing was discovered and 2 weeks later it ended with DMS’s demise. Show is raising these doubts and suggesting that the Do family are actually victims set up to take the fall, and DMS himself may have been murdered.
@GB, I am thinking the same thing. We don’t know much about the dad and the circumstances of his death/suicide/possible murder.
Whose is the humming voice on the Walkman tape?
@GB, @Snow Flower, me too! I was thinking DMS could just be the scapegoat for the real killer after Ep7 where more stories have been unveiled. It was indeed way too convenient having him committed suicide and everything case closed. The killer could be someone close to DMS to be able to use his car though.
@snow flower I couldn’t agree more. Whether HS is the actual murderer or not is beside the point. In my view, JW is not behaving professionally at all. She’s just acting as if she’s taking a revenge for being fooled for so long (this is debatable though.he told her more than once that he’s not a nice guy.) Even then, She’s a part of the law enforcement for god’s sake. When the police feel someone is a suspect, it is mandatory that they follow certain predefined guidelines. Otherwise anyone will become your neighborhood detective and get the licence to harass innocent citizens.
She’s behaving like a runaway criminal herself by taking the law into her own hands.
@Arihsi,
JW did mention that she was investigating on her own. But still, subjecting her husband to psychological trauma is not the way to investigate…Poor Hyun Soo, watching him suffer almost made me physically sick too…
After my limited Kdrama viewing experience, I feel I recognise this type of setup. Most likely, as all of you have noticed, HS is innocent. The number of panic attacks he gets by the buttons JW keeps pushing in her “investigation” is no joke (I counted 3 in 2 episodes. 1 enough to go the hospital. Even Convicts have access to medical care and ethical treatment, JW should be told). Anyway, I feel it’s simply a built up to crush JW under the weight of her guilt of how she tormented the man she loved later on.
@Snow flower, exactly. She’s behaving unprofessionally by investigating the case! It is a clear conflict of interest and in an ideal scenario she’d never be allowed to. Here, she’s tormenting him as some sort of punishment to fooling her. She knows she’s going too far. But as in her monologue, she tells herself not to be “weak”. Eye roll. Eye roll. When did ethical become weak ?
@Arihsi @pkml3 Wowiee … Episode 8. Show really is top notch in piling on the turns and twists and coming back again from behind to surprise. I’m not sure @Arihsi, the usual setup you mentioned gets a chance to play out in full. Show just packs in more stuff, before one thing can play out longer!
@pkml3 Good news on stress – no scary stress in this episode – it was good stress.
AND I believe if only I can remember something I saw before, (I hope I’m thinking of the right show!!!), I might figure out who the perpetrator is. The clue was given in this Ep 8.
I’m so excited by the possible new team grouping. I hope it does take off and reduces poor HS’s stress attacks.
@GB it’d be awesome if the setup doesn’t play out. I want JW to be able to punish the real culprit and not be blinded by her personal anguish. I am absolutely with her in feeling horrible (and stupid) that she was fooled for so long. It’s also not like HS is totally innocent and never did anything illegal. I just want her to be extra smart 😍 she can punish the real murderer and then separately take on her husband for betraying her all these years.
I’m most worried for EunHa 😭. Having those 2 as her parents waaaaaaaah. Would like to point out that she’s already studying 3rd grade level Math! Oh the horror BHS’s mother have with this knowledge. But I can’t understand mom’s pov as to why it’s harmful for Eunha and Jiwon for EH to have that level of intelligence.
Oooh excited to watch ep 8 later!
Starting Ep 7 now; have been advised by @GB that it was doable. 😂 Tell me how Ep 8 goes please.
This is all I’m going to say about this:
A public servant should recuse herself as soon as she becomes aware of a conflict of interest.
However… there’d be no show, no story if that regulation was applied in dramaland. 🤨
I’m commenting as a regular citizen enjoying an entertaining drama. 😂😂
@pkml3 Ep 8 was great… hardly any stress at all. Nice unexpected comings-together and new little twists.
What I liked about it:
– In Seo ‘returns’ and I’m not sure if it will be just a cameo, but it looks like he might have a bit of an arc of his own.
– In Seo’s story continues to inform how JW will interpret matters for herself. If the unrevealed truth could keep the happy facade and the family together, might it be better to just live the lie, rather than to force the truth and regret it.
– The discussion by the detectives about whether to just live with the lie while knowing the truth, hits home succinctly.
– Both mums JW and Mum Baek confront their decisions and make new, big, risky ones that will affect their future, possibly in a bad way but likely in a surprisingly ‘great’ way.
– @pkml3 is right… we will now have our new player in the game, the not so in-coma-like Baek Hee Sung and more grand twists because story now has to accommodate his return to his ‘place’.
-Eun Ha is a smarter cookie than we knew from earlier episodes. She knows how to assure granny Baek that she wouldn’t give away her tearing up her maths book. Surprisingly, although she’s not a blood relative of the Baek’s, she has the maths smarts… almost makes her seem like the real BHS’s kid.
What puzzled me:
– Little Eun Ha had demonstrated that she was afraid of granny Baek at HS’s birthday dinner, but in this episode she was perfectly fine about being left alone with granny Baek.
– Eun Ha is not shown talking to her parents about spending unexpected time with granny Baek.
Points I noted:
– Kim Moo Jin is one lying opportunist, in making himself look good. He tells neither HS nor Hae Su that he’d known where the other party was, and so surprises them by his speed of detection and success in bringing them back together. He has the gall to praise himself: “I’m that good”. It backfires on him of course because now HS expects him to get his hands on all kinds of info quickly.
– The Baek’s housekeeper is not only mute but deaf too. She’s also Dad Baek’s informant, keeping tabs on what Mum Baek does and letting Dad Baek know.
– Dad Baek is more of a douche bag than I suspected. It was for his own benefit that the secret of Hee Sung’s accident was kept. It was telling that Mum Baek says she had not cooked in a while and: “Seeing a child eat in my home. Smelling food in this house. It almost made me cry.” They have not lived a normal family life at home for a long time.
What I’d like to happen by the end:
– We get 3 happy groupings who remain in contact with each other, family-like (The HS/JW/Eun Ha, Dad Baek/Mum Baek/Baek HS and KMJ/Do Hae Su).
– The Yeonju killings get solved and the Do’s are found innocent.
– The Gagyeongri foreman killing is solved and found to be manslaughter out of self-defence so that Hae Su (and Hyun Soo) don’t have to serve forever in jail.
– The easily biased, Det Choi who hates to read case notes and who prefers to jump to conclusions with his own theories, and to act to make them ‘true’ even illegally, gets a proper reprimand, while young Det Ho Joon gets to be acknowledged and awarded for his earnest and honest hard work.
At end of Ep 7, I’m guessing the real Baek HS could be involved, maybe an accomplice in the serial murder, still a even wilder guess, DHS sister might also has a part in it… not sure how I can explain, a feeling, a hunch… so that’s it. Lol. Let’s enjoy the show! Lol 🙂
@arihsi, I sent you an email with password but it bounced back. Email be if you want it. 🙂