This isn’t complete, but I’m posting this now and editing later.

Done!

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A. At 12:14, Cha Jiwon learned an important lesson about families.

She finished interviewing the tearful mother of Inseo. She learned that the lives of both mother and son had been turned upside down after the father was sent to prison. InSeo was involved with gangsters, most likely to make a quick buck and support his mom.

JW glanced her family picture.  She was making the connection between her family and Inseo’s, and saw the collapse of his childhood as a cautionary tale. This could happen to her Eunha, too, should she try to chase after Do HyunSoo.

She sounded out Detective Jaesub’s opinion on her dilemma.

JW: If InSeo had just buried the secret, wouldn’t his family be better off compared to now?
Det: How could he bury what he knows?
JW: Well, he would still have good memories to help him move forward.
Det: If it were you, could you live without doubting such memories? Can you say for sure that you’d never doubt the sincere truth of your existence?
Junior Det: Thinking about it, living like that would be awful.

In Det Jaesub’s opinion, hiding from the truth wasn’t JW’s style. Given her character – remember, she believes only in what she sees – she wouldn’t be able to put back the “Ugly Truth” Genie back in the bottle of lies once it was released. He believed that she wouldn’t be able to pretend that her memories were good, and that she wouldn’t be able to ignore that duplicity of the the cheating husband.

But that was exactly what JW was considering to do. For the sake of their child Eunha, she was seriously considering “burying the secret.” Should she go on pretending that their marriage was all happy? Could she? Could she ignore that he lived a double life for all these years?

In my opinion, she was conflating three things here: the crime (and I’m going to skip this), the future of her family, and the trust. She needed to compartmentalize. The crime is work-related. The future of her family is a matter to be resolved with HS on board. But the trust issue is HER personal problem. She shouldn’t allow her personal problem cloud her judgment in the other two areas.

To me, trust is one of the most important elements in a relationship. I mentioned it in the comments. It’s like nursery rhyme.

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall;
All the king’s horses and all the king’s men
Couldn’t put Humpty together again.

Once that trust is broken, it’s hard to get it back again. And as we see in JW’s situation, it becomes even hardER to recover depending on the other aggravating factors, like the duration of the betrayal (14 freaking years!!),  the gravity of the deception (murder!), and the number of people involved in the lie (she and the “love of her life” and his fake family).

I find it interesting that while JW believed that HyunSoo’s LIE to her was too big for her to recover from, she was willing to consider turning a blind eye to his CRIME, for the sake of their daughter.

His Lie > His crime

B. At 17:09, Jiwon was at lunch with her team.

She voiced her opposition to taking on the serial murder case. Seeing Inseo’s future crumbling made her rethink her involvement in this case. The previous night, she had been gungho about pursuing the fugitive Do HS, now she was weighing the repercussion of unmasking Baek HS.

JW: I’m against it. For a case that’s getting so much public attention, the chances of success are low….There are no strong suspects to investigate. It’s been almost 20 years. Evidence and witnesses will all be gone by now.
Det: What do you mean, no suspect? There’s Do HyunSoo.
JW: The fact that you would focus on DHS who is like a ghost means there’s no tangible leads. Focusing on DHS was the reason why you were wiretapped by Park Kyung Choon.
Det: Do you have to put salt on somebody’s wound like that?
JW: I mean that when we were investigating PKC’s case, we were biased. We couldn’t look objectively at the case. Let another team have this, alright?

At this point, she didn’t want to go after HyunSoo.

Remember: she had brought him to his family home NOT to check whether he was an accomplice or not. She was already convinced that he was guilty. She brought him back to his home, and to dungeon to play cat-and-mouse with him. Her intent was to force him to lose his composure so he would out himself as a murderer. She was goading him, so he’d reveal his inner monster, and she’d have an excuse to use the gun on him.

In her own words, “DHS. Show me your real self. Choose. You’re deciding what happens to us from now on.”

And while she was thinking this, she was reaching inside her jacket for her gun. To me, she wasn’t being totally honest with herself. SHE was the one deciding what would happen in the future, not HS. She HAD already decided what to do in the future when she brought him there to the basement.

Unfortunately, she wasn’t acting as a police detective here but as a wife who was blindsided and lied to for 14 years. That’s why, after he nearly blacked out on her, she briefly felt sorry for being tough on him, then quickly reminded herself that he had it coming to him.

In her words again, “Did I push him too hard? No. He’s been fooling me for 14 years. I can’t go soft on him.”

What made her backpedal was the harmful effect on their daughter Eunha, and not the harmful effect on HS.

C. At 23:00 JW met his noona after 18 years.

Noona: What do you mean “How have you been?” “Did you live well after letting me go like that?” “Were you able to sleep?” “Were you able to eat?” You should hate me. Why are you being such a fool? What do you mean by “How have you been?”
HS: Don’t get it wrong. It was all my decision.

Noona felt guilty that he’d been the fall guy. He shouldered the blame so she could live a free life, and she’d been wracked with guilt at the thought that he was living a miserable life in hiding.

This also explains the scene when she was with Jiwon, and she had accidentally referred to HS as “uri HyunSoo.” In kdramas, that term “uri” (translated as “our” in English), when used in reference to a family member or friend, denotes a certain familiarity, indulgence and – in the case of “uri Hyunsoo,” – a lingering tenderness. It just doesn’t connote a neutral, collective possession, like we do in the pronoun “our.” And the sister’s usage of that term “uri” alerted Jiwon that she hadn’t cut him off, despite his being wanted by the police as as suspected “murderer.”

D. At 34:00. JW eavesdropped on HS and his noona.

HS: Father had an accomplice. You met him before.
Noona: I met the accomplice?
HS: You even spoke to him. I think it was at dad’s funeral. The fish pendant you gave me belonged to Jeong Mi Sook, the last victim.
Noona: What?
JW: (realizing) Do Hyunsoo is not the accomplice.
HS: Because of that, Jeong Misook’s husband, Park Kyung Choon, thought I was the accomplice and caused trouble.
JW: (realizing again) As I expected, he made a deal with Park Kyung Choon. That’s why he didn’t say anything about DHS.
Noona: The police came to me because of this case. Up until then, I thought I’d never see you again… (flashback) But Hyunsoo, your wife’s picture…it’s not what I’m think it is, right?
JW: You’re right. She’s a cop. And she was in charge of Park Kyung Choon’s case. I’m keeping a low profile as usual. I can’t make a single mistake. It’s alright; I won’t make mistakes. I’m going to live as Baek HeeSeong until the end.
Noona: Do you love her? (silence)
JW: (waiting for his answer)
HS: No. I’ve never thought that way. I don’t know that feeling.
JW: (walked out quietly)

Three interpretations here:

a. the popular one. He was speaking the truth that he does NOT, in reality, love JW. He’d been faking it.
b. the other popular one. That after all these years, he still didn’t recognize his feelings.
c. MY INTERPRETATION. He knew that JW was there with them. If this is true, then there can be two reasons why he denied feeling anything for her:

one, he wants to hurt her after what she mentally torturing him at his old home.

two, he wants to protect her. By making himself as despicable as he could in her eyes, she would have no qualms leaving him and taking their daughter with her. If she did that, she’d be safe from the REAL murderer who was surely going to come after him now.

It’s that noble idiocy/guilt complex thing. lol.

A brief comment on this film shot, JW walking out the door.

We already know what this “Dutch angle” means, right? We know that this skewed, diagonal camera angle is to show that her life went askew, too.  Her life was just upended by HS’ admissionn. Then, the passing through door meant that she was entering a new phase in her life. She was leaving the light behind her — or everything she knew about her life, and she was entering a darkened room — or everything unknown.

I like that the room she was leaving behind wasn’t well-lit. It wasn’t bathed in natural sunlight or the glare of electric light. That depicted her marriage, too. She thought she knew everything there was (light = illumination) when in fact she was only seeing what HS had allowed her to see.

E. At 41:36. JW and HS drank beer.

HS: What are you doing out here alone?
JW: Wanna have a drink with me?

Ironic. This was how she began her confession, too. With that beer. Barleer.

HS: What about Eunha?
JW: She’s sleeping. She dozed off as soon as she came home.
HS: (studies her) Is something wrong?
JW: Work is a little difficult.
HS: Why what happened?
JW: It’s nothing much. It’s just one of those times. I started it because I liked it, and I held on because I liked it. But I can’t receive that in return so I’m just feeling sad.

HS remained silent.

If he didn’t have this so-called antisocial personality disorder, and if he were just a bit normal, he would have easily understood her doublespeak. Obviously, she wasn’t talking about her job but her love for him.

She started to chase him because she liked him. She held on to him (i.e., seduced him, raised a family, tried to please her difficult in-laws) because she liked him. But in the end, she discovered that her feelings weren’t reciprocated. She couldn’t receive anything “in return” from him, so she felt sad.

But note that HS didn’t answer. I interpreted his silence as his awareness that she was talking about something serious, despite the lightness of her tone of voice. He was waiting for her to explain.

JW: Should I give up? (he remained quiet) Should I stop?
HS: (looked at her) Quit, if it’s hard.
JW: (snorting) It’s easy to answer that because it’s someone else’s problem.

In her mind, HS didn’t understand that she was talking about the two of them, hence it was easy to advise her to give up on them. But what if HS was speaking the truth, i.e., that he actually want her to quit when she found their lives unbearable? As he said in Episode 5 by the pool, he was sorry that she had the unfortunate luck of meeting him. He didn’t want her to suffer because of him.

Remember this: “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.”

This is a significant moment because this was a breakthrough in his “antisocial” whatever personality disorder. He couldn’t be antisocial if he could put himself in the shoes of another person and feel sorry for what he’d done to her. The #1 characteristic of an antisocial person is disregard for the feelings and rights of another person. Here, HS was seeing the situation through Jiwon’s eyes and sympathizing her.

HS: I’m saying that you shouldn’t live a difficult life. Just live as your true self.

See that? I think HS was also engaging in a doublespeak. He was saying one thing when he meant another. He wasn’t only talking about her job, but her whole life, including their marriage.

JW: What’s my true self?
HS: Bright, innocent, laughs a lot, gets angry a lot, and sulks a lot. And also gets over it easily.

He meant that she’s forgiving by nature. Was he conditioning her to think that she could forgive him?

JW: And is easy to deceive.

This was a thinly disguised barb, of course. She was telling him that he fooled her all this time. But JW didn’t react to her passive-aggressive banter. Was he really this clueless?

JW: (continuing) I’m quite naïve.
HS: (scoffing) You? Hey, that’s not true.

I don’t know who was fooling whom. JW continued to jab at him because she expected him NOT to understand what she was talking about. But…from what we saw of HS, he was nobody’s fool. He was able to see through MooJin’s motives, and the cabdriver’s actions. So I highly doubt that he was being fooled by JW’s self-mockery.

JW: Ah, time really goes by fast. Next week, it’ll be five years since we moved into this house. Sofa, bed, wardrobe, shoe closet. The wallpaper and even the interior. We picked, made, and decided on everything together. It was really fun.
HS: We also had a party.
JW: I was really happy that day.
HS: Should we do it again? A party to celebrate five years here? I’ll prepare everything. You just need to cheer up.
JW: Do you love me?

He kissed her hand.

HS: Why ask something so obvious?

Two interpretations again:

A. the popular one: he’s evasive because he doesn’t really love her. He’s been faking it.
B. the alternative interpretation: if she can’t tell that he loves her with his actions for the past 14 years, then what’s the point of using words? His words won’t convince her either.

JW: (thinking) Live as Baek Hee Seong until the end. For our daughter’s sake. And then we’ll part ways as the Baek Hee Seong and Cha Ji Won who don’t know anything about this. That’s my last gift to you.
JW: (aloud) By the way, our team will do the reinvestigation. The YeongJu City serial murders case. I’m going to get very busy. I plan to work hard on this.

My explanations:

“Live as Baek Hee Seong until the end.”

This was Do HyunSoo’ request that she overheard. She already knew that he wasn’t involved in the serial murders because he was looking for the accomplice. In her mind, he didn’t want his identity revealed because he wanted to avoid the stigma. She was going to ensure that his real identity would never be revealed.

But she wasn’t doing this for him. She was doing it for their daughter, so her daughter would be spared, too, from the stigma of having a father as notorious as Do Hyunsoo.

“For our daughter’s sake.”

This was her compromise. It seemed to me that had HS answered that he loved her, she would have believed him (although she already heard his denial earlier during his conversation with his noona). She would have willingly accepted his lie and continued to delude herself. But since he didn’t answer her, she couldn’t even pretend that their marriage was all happy.

In effect, there was nothing for her to preserve and hold onto in their marriage. She was going to make sure that the serial murder investigations wouldn’t lead to him and uncover his double identity.

“And then we’ll part ways as the Baek Hee Seong and Cha Ji Won who don’t know anything about this.”

After the investigations are concluded, she would divorce him. She would pretend all the way through that she knew nothing about his true identity. And she would keep up the pretense so well that he would never find out that she was faking it.

That’s what she meant when she said that both of them wouldn’t know anything. The fake marriage was for both of them. She would continue their fake marriage, but this time she was aware that it was fake.

She planned to find the real killer/accomplice in order to clear Do Hyunsoo’s name. Once Do Hyunsoo’s name was cleared, the police would have no reason to continue searching for Do Hyungsoo as a suspect. HS could continue as Baek Hee Seong. lol. Of course, JW and HS couldn’t have foreseen that the real Baek HeeSeong would awake from his coma, thereby making it difficult for HS to continue living in his borrowed identity.

“That’s my last gift to you.”

This is connected to her promise in the beginning. Remember her voiceover, “I will show you a lot of love from now on. I’ll be good to you. Then will everything change in a moment? Like a lie?”

Her deception and lie completed the terms of her promise. She was fulfilling her vow to show him lots of love and to be good to him… until the end.

F. Panic attacks

HS started getting panic attacks in Episode 7. Whenever he was anxious or fearful of Jiwon finding out his secrets, he clutched his chest.

1. Ep 7 41:51. JW told him that they were going to Do Minseok’s workshop. It was “date” she said.

2. Ep 7 59:36. JW told him that he should meet the Chinese restaurant boss (and his former employer) who was going to drop by the workshop any minute.

3. Ep 8. At 1:13:21. JW dropped by at MooJin’s apartment and wanted to see who MJ had in his apartment.

G. Extra notes

1. The phone number of the man who gave Noona the goldfish keychain

It’s different from the phone number Mr. Baek had on his speed dial.

H. At 54:30. HS’ father trapped a bunny for him.

He told HS, “You can do whatever you want with it. Using tools or your  hands, whatever you want to do. I’ll only observe what you’ll do.”

Three interpretations:

one, he could have been talking about taking care of a bunny. He wanted to see how HS would take care of a bunny.

two, he was talking about killing the bunny for food.

three, he was talking about killing the bunny for enjoyment. HS could kill it with his bare hands or use a weapon. Was he grooming HS?

This was probably the reason he lent his vehicle to his accomplice. He wanted to see what he would do with the victim. The accomplice was given permission to do anything he wanted with his victim: use tools or his hands. The dad would have been just a passive observant. But his accomplice messed it up when he left the car door open, and the lady stumbled out.