As requested by Cleopatra, the thread is now open for spoilers and analyses.
The premise of the drama is interesting.
“Grid,” is a mystery thriller about different individuals trying to track down a person known as the Ghost, each for their own reasons. 24 years ago, the Ghost created a shield called “the Grid” to protect humanity from life-threatening solar winds. After its creation, the disappeared until they suddenly re-emerged as the accomplice of a murderer.
source: soompi
If you want to know more about the writer’s concept of the drama, here’s the link to the soompi article.
Link: Grid Writer Lee Soo Yeon Explains New Drama
It’s only 10 episodes. But it will be shown on Disney+.
Hmmm…I might have to renew my membership to watch this. Rats! My new year’s resolution was NOT to sign up for any new subscriptions and memberships this year without getting rid of an existing one. I wanted to “de-clutter” my life.
Cast:
Seo Kang Joon (“When the Weather is Fine”) handsome dude with the brown eyes
Kim Ah Joong: never heard of this noona
Lee Si Young: she’s the actress who boxes
Kim Mu Yeol (“Space Sweepers”) he was the daddy of the little Flower girl in the movie
Episodes: 10
Start Date: February 16
Airs on once a week on Wednesday
Where to watch it: Disney+
Let’s enjoy the show.
Goma wo yo @Packmule3!
When I found out about this one, I thought, this will be a good one!
Let us see how it will go!
Thanks @pkml3. Hi @Cleo! I hope @Viva can join us too. I believe @Viva was the first to mention this Show.
I’m terribly sleepy now, so I’ll catch it tomorrow when the subs are added.
Thank you for opening this thread, @pm3!!!
Yes @GB @Cleo I will be joining you! It’s always great to be able to watch a mystery here so we can work out the plot, logic and the deeper message together 🙂 I like the writer’s Stranger and Life. Stranger shows her view of life – it is not a straight choice of good or evil path, but often a gradual decline how that happens. Life gives us the opposite of most medical dramas depict – are all doctors heroic and always think best for the patients? Are corporates all for the money? It would be interesting to see what the writer has when she does Sci Fi. Playing with time is always tricky, so there may be a higher risk to get appreciation from viewers. So, let’s see how it is like!
I also like it that it is 1 episode a week for my health. Otherwise, I may just binge it so I can find the answers.
@pm3, Park Hyung Sik’s Soundtrack is also going to be released in March in Disney Plus if that helps your decision to continue with Disney+? 🙂
Kalimera!
I watched the episode last night and I really liked it for the suspence it has so far. Basically, we don’t know much. We only know that in 2005 a grid had to be activated, in order to protect Earth from Solar waves that were lethal.
Then we are being teleported in the dramaverse’s present, i.e. 2021 where a murder is taking place and we are being introduced to “The Ghost”.
The most interesting part is that “The Ghost” seems to be solid as a person and then can vanish into thin air, as the lady detective wrote in her statement.
“The Ghost” appeared as a human, but disappeared like a hologram, which means that she is teleporting back in time from the future. It reminded me of “Sisyphus” in that aspect.
Thanks goodness, we are going to watch one episode per week!
Hi @Viva and Everyone, wow, what a dense first episode. It was only 48+ minutes long but so much happened in 2 timelines with overlapping scenes and collages of loads of scenes. It took me 1 watch and 2 rewatches to figure out what I was seeing. I even had to slow down scenes, because I was too slow to interpret what I was seeing before the next scene, while trying to read the subs.
One thing good about it being a Disney show is that all the background music and some incidental sounds are mentioned for the hearing impaired. So ‘tense music’, ‘hopeful music’ and ‘approaching footsteps’ alert us to what’s happening. I didn’t want to raise my volume to hear all the sounds.
Writer-nim really kept to what she said in the interview ie she kept to very few words/dialogue (compared to Stranger) and so there was more detail in action and the scene collages. I felt I had to catch every little detail. LOL.
One point of similarity with Stranger, Hwang Shi Mok was able to imagine a recreation of the crime in black and white images, and so too do we see that Sae Ha seems to be able to do this. Sae Ha also reminds me of Shi Mok because he’s serious and mostly unsmiling.
=========
*SPOILERS?*
My observations about Sae Ha – Since childhood there was only himself and his mum, who had been a factory worker. One scene he recalled was of them running along a hospital corridor (I believe) when he was much younger, so I wonder if his father died. As a middle schooler (maybe around 12?) he had been worried about something and had called his mum at work when the Grid had first been connected and all signals had been cut for a while. He, and separately Jung Sae Byeok in her school grounds, had seen the sky being covered over by the Grid. Despite the raucous outdoors, SH was pretty intrepid. He hid under a blanket and did his homework.
October 30, 2021. It is 16 years later and an Adult Sae Ha now works under Choi Seon Wool who’d been one of those involved in connecting the Grid. She seems to have known the Ghost. When he encounters Killer Kim at the convenience store, we find that he has very good powers of observation and the ability to read lips.
He is a dutiful and responsible son, taking care of his bedridden mum. He is gifted … able to imagine and practise in great detail, how he might do something, from clues, from description or from watching a video as in how he seriously practised loading an imaginary pistol.
He works for the Administration Bureau with a very small team of 2 others under Choi and their main task seems to be to search online repeatedly using keywords such as:
‘FEMALE, VANISHING, PHENOMENON’
‘FEMALE, TELEPORT, DEATH’
‘FEMALE, UNIDENTIFIED, VANISHING’
At a guess, Choi was keeping her team on one job ie to search for the Ghost, whom she may have met.
Interestingly, SH keeps an eye on his boss, Choi by having his phone screen reflect her through her glass office walls. He hides the reflection with post it paper and a potted plant but moves these away to see what she’s up to.
By some fluke of intuition (or because he recalls that SB belongs to this agency or else how to account for it?) SH chooses to search ‘GYEONGGI PROVINCIAL POLICE AGENCY STATEMENT ON MISSING OR DAMAGED EQUIPMENT’. This leads him to the SONGJE POLICE STATION report by Jung Sae Byeok. And fortuitously he finds himself reading about the very woman that his boss is searching for, the woman who disappeared into thin air. This is great coincidence.
On 30 October 2021, the Ghost that Sae Ha is looking for, comes back to save Killer Kim, and disappears in front of Sae Byeok, and Sae Ha is involved in the investigation as well as reads the police report.
============
A singular concern of SH’s seems to be trash or the clearing of it. He was at the convenience store to buy trash bags. The first he did when he got home was to put the trash aside. The first thing he did in the office was to empty the trash from Choi’s trash bin. His colleague remarked on him doing it when Choi was around to notice. SH looked at the trash collected and noted that Choi had had a ham and egg sandwich the previous day.
An interesting thing that may not be of much concern (yet?) is that there was also a cleaner in 2005, who cleared food wrappers/trash from the tables and waste paper baskets of staff in the same facility of the Administration Bureau. This cleaner witnessed the connection of the Grid. I wonder if there is more to this character since the camera focused on him briefly twice. In the police operation to arrest Killer Kim, we also first focused on the lady who was taking out the garbage.
Is this Show also suggesting that we should de-clutter and clear our lives?
============
If the Ghost took 24 years to reappear, then her earlire ‘visit’ was in 1997. If 1997 was her only visit, and in 2004 the world had built the Grid, then it took them 7 years to get the whole world on board and the technology ready to ‘expand the magnetic field’ over their territories. That is pretty impressive! Our world needs to be able to pull together like that!!!
============
The Administration Bureau is shown to have a high level of automated security with robots, scanners, automatic identification through palm prints, loads of CCTV monitors, all of which were unmanned… This looks like a very solid 10 episodes comment on humankind’s dependence on technology (especially the Internet) and how this can be our downfall.
Hi there agapimeni Cleo! Yes, after needing to rewatch the episode so many times, I’m really relieve that there’s only 1 episode per week, and that Disney+ did not drop all 10 episodes at once.
I like the assured way it’s produced, with the vibes of Stranger that made it intriguing on another level ie not only was there a mystery about the crime, there was also a mystery about the protagonist.
I found the music pretty hectic and mostly out to stress us viewers LOL. So I have to keep the volume down or get palpitations out of anxiety. I wonder if this kind of show will have a nice, melodic OST somewhere or not. 😉
Kalimera my agapimeni @GB!
I want to rewatch it as well! I watched first Thirty Nine and then that one.
I haven’t watched Stranger but my folks have and I know that is pretty good. I want to watch it because I really like Bae Doona and Cho Seung-Woo.
So far I am intrigued by Saeha. Kang Joon was impressive. I have first spotted him on Are you Human? and he was so different in that one!
We are going to have many theories until the next episode! I am pretty sure about it!
P.S. Hey @Viva! Good to see you on board!
Intriguing, sounds like the kind of drama I could like. I hope to watch it this weekend. I need to finish happiness but I don’t have time to get through more than one episode a day.
Yes, Grid is right up your alley, @Wenchanteur. Science-fiction.
The writer put in a lot of thought and effort into this. Usually in kdramas, the press releases spotlight the actors. But in this one, the screenwriter was interviewed too for her thought-process.
@Pm3, woo, just that make me wan’t to read this. I fear a bit spoilers, so after watching the episode. Any kdrama writer interview is welcome. I’ve read two ones from Mouse writer recently. Of course it’s possible to find interviews from western writers too, but mostly movies. And kdrama is really specific.
*SPOILERS*
I’m just posting from my notes.
Recap of Collage 1
We get all these scenes in a dense collage starting from Timestamp: 3:45
Saeha: We covered the entire Earth with the Grid in 2004. [In red light, men with guns surround the Ghost who’s lying on her back after being shot by tranquiliser pellets. 2004 appears on screen].
Saebyeok: They say if the solar wind had come a year earlier, two-thirds of mankind would have died. [We see Saebyeok typing her report on computer, aiming a gun at the killer who was hiding under a truck, and dangling from a rope outside a window. This is the time she chased the murderer who climbed to the roof. But these events are shown in reverse chronological order.]
SB : “If it weren’t for this girl …”
[A lift door opens. Saeha walks out and looks through old diskettes, VHS takpes and CDs. Dated 1997??.05.18 digitally remastered (numbering shown was 02, 06, 09. the CD has it digitally remastered 11). SH looks at something on paper. There’s a scar of sorts on his right arm.]
SH : “…we wouldn’t be here now.”
Male voice : “Magnetic fields can no longer protect the Earth.”
[We see a fist (Sae Has?) and another hand that touches it with a strange taser of sorts. That must have caused the scar.]
[We cut to a day time view from above the head of the Ghost who is looking down at the sidewalk below… about 4-5 storeys below. The camera pans so we see the woman is the Ghost.]
[Images of the Killer running.]
SH? : “I’ve seen the world without the Grid.” [Ghost shown standing on the roof edge looking over the city with the grid visible in the sky above].
[Men in suits in a meeting room looking at figures and the world map on a dark screen. Killer running on the street. Killer enters a train.]
Male voice 2? : “I don’t think going back in time is only for people in the 21st century.”
[A woman with long hair is in doors looking into a room behind grilles. People in suits including Song Eo Jin walking out of a room. Police woman SB cocks her pistol aimed at a door.]
Choi Seon Wool : “We’ve been waiting for this person for as long as 24 years.” [Ghost jumps off the roof. Man in suit at table takes off his spectacles.] “We need to see it through.”
[Sniper with gun hiding in a box of sorts? With a gun trained on someone outside it.]
Male voice : “The Korean government may be able to do it in 2021.”
[Office of the Administrative Bureau where the holographic Earth covered by a grid revolves in the air. Staff with computers. Men like soldiers in dark uniforms running.]
Eo Jin : “If I meet the founder of the Grid?”
[Woman in silhouette stands in corridor. Killer Kim shouting from behind grilles to “Open this!”]
[People walking along a narrow alley way.]
Eo Jin : “Then I’ve got to ask this question. How is time travel possible?”
[Scene of SB loading an imaginary pistol interspersed with images of a real gun in his hands. We see feet going away. Still shot of SB with gun pointed at us, in the middle Eo Jin in suit, on the right SB with gun also pointed a bit past us.]
[Cars screech and sound of bangs.]
Ms Choi : “What’s the future of mankind?
[Back to the first scene in the collage: In red light, men with guns surround the Ghost who’s lying on her back after being shot by tranquiliser pellets. This time the year that appears on screen is 2005.]
Timestamp: 4:26
In less than a minute we are show a collage of so many snippets of scenes, possibly encompassing the past, the present and future.
===
Recap of Collage 2
The collage of scene snippets shows things going wrong with transportation, power and servers. It makes it clear what this writer is concerned about. It is interesting that she puts most of what she wants to say in the mouth of a man from the Middle East.
Timestamp 7:12 while young Sae Byeok runs to get back to the school building we hear in German “Rumours that all species on Earth will become extinct are groundless. Even if the Earth is exposed to the solar wind. … ” [The TV display is replaced by static and goes dead.]
[The lights of a city go out.] A man speaks in Arabic during a TV interview. His program is unaffected by the interference of the Solar Wind or the Grid connection.
He says : “If we lived in the Stone Age, even in cases of huge solar flares, the damage will be only limited to fires and injuries. But we’re living in the digital era with cable and radio communication, where everything can be controlled by pressing one button.
[Airplane starts to plunge downwards. Cars are grid locked. There’s a train accident in an unknown location. Airplane enters the sea.]
The biggest problem would be an ‘Internet apocalypse’.(Is this a foreshadowing?) If we lost the Internet, everything in this world will halt. [We see servers in a server room going off row by row] Imports will be disrupted. [City turns darks as all lights go out.] People will suffer from famine on a wide scale …”
[A glacier breaks and crumbles into the sea, while in other places there is desertification]
“… not because of food shortage, but because every plane and ship in the world [[fish lie dead on a beach a train of tanks with one fallen off the tracks. Ship sunk in the ocean] …will stop operating. Even if we restore it, it’s no use if the export countries fail to restore it. [We see that on several screens in different parts of the world, the words, ‘GRID SYSTEM …Connecting…’ is displayed. There’s an aerial shot of a line of forest fires somewhere.]
News Anchor in French : “The first quarter of 2005 has only just begun and the loss amounts to one billion dollars. Nine thousand households are left without power after Hydro-Quebec’s transport systems caught fire.”
Timestamp 8:40 In an undisclosed place in Korea the operation to connect the Grid begins.
There is anxiety and suspense as this goes on. Fortunately, it seems all countries have come on board to connect the Grid, and all parts finally get connected so that the Earth is able to withstand whatever the Sun throws at it, at least for a time.
Hey @Cleo yes it gives a little of the Sisyphus vibe. Wow it has been a year since that show was aired! With the server room, time travel as well.
Thanks @GB. The show is so fast. I too have to go back and watch bits slowly to catch the conversations. Your recap really helps!
I have noted down my questions that I felt the show has set out for us. I thought of some initial ideas of the logic. They will be corrected/evolved as we have more information.
The grid and internet
The opening scene has a satellite looking thing (I am not good with those technology XD) blasted by the solar wind. It then fallen into pieces and merged with the grid.
The show also talks about internet. Would that satellite = internet? The grid just turned on in time to protect the earth from solar wind. Is it possible that satellite/internet technology has merged with the grid?
How long does it take to travel from Earth to the sun? Is there a satellite that can monitor solar blast? It is probably very heat resistant.
The logic of the ghost
As the ghost never aged, emerged when the killer Kim required help. Is she a real person? Or a programme the founder of the Grid installed to protect the existence of the Grid? We will find out as the show progresses. We need more information to see if there are certain trigger points the ghost appears and disappears.
The relationship SH with other characters:
Killer Kim
Did we see killer Kim kill the store worker or just assume he did? What is his motive? If is due to insulting his parents, he has strong attachment of his parents. It reminds me of SH. He also has strong attachment of his parents. Is there a connection between SH and the killer? Is it a coincident that the killer meet SH or a planned encounter?
Would he, by chance a time traveller? Would he be SH’s father? Would he be the founder of the Grid that’s why the ghost protect him? Would he be SH’s future self?
What is the mission of the killer? Running along with the rubbish theme, is he a garbage collector?
Ms Choi
Picking up from Ms Choi’s dialogue, she got tip off from the ghost that there is a need for the Grid. Building on this logic, the girl could be a protector of the Grid or some sort. Her purpose may be to keep the existence of the Grid (or not, equally she could be destructive if the Grid is out of hand).
SH also stalks Ms Choi on her conversation and trash. He must be suspicious of her.
Also, judging from other co-workers, they probably think Ms Cho’s team is doing nothing but just looking for the ghost. The other co-workers may not believe in the existence of the ghost since she can’t find her for 25 years. Ms Choi may retain the power and influence from setting up the Grid in 2005 but may not hold any respect in the current 2021.
Founder of the Grid
It appears no one know who this person is. So – how do they get the grid in the first place? We can only assume Mr Choi got it from the ghost. Picking up from the question in the collages – Founder of the grid can time travel. Or can founder of the grid install something in the Grid and it can get in and out at certain exit points? That is getting abstract – 1997, 2005, 2021 are just exit points of certain pattern that a person/messenger can enter or exit? What are all these remastered disks? Can a year be programmed and remastered by the powerful Grid or internet?
SH’s mum
She has become comatose. She and the killer sleeps in the same pose. What are they trying to tell us by showing us that? Or maybe just nice camera work to connect one scene to another.
@GB
I am thinking rubbish would be some sort of theme here. Adding to your comments about trash, the encounter between SH and the killer started off when SH wants to buy rubbish bags. Then shows him tidying his house’s rubbish. Then he is digging Mr Choi’s rubbish. Like you said, the shot of the cleaner in the Bureau – did we manage to catch his face?
Rubbish can be very useful and shows our consumption behaviours and reveal some personalities. But also, curious to see if this writer has a theme of internet dependence and wastage. Based on her previous dramas, she doesn’t just do show with entertainment values but often left some observation of life.
On a side note, I enjoy the opening CGI. I found them very pretty to look at. Do you think it is like movie quality? They have chosen many cities that I like the night scenes of. I can identify Hong Kong, Paris, Florence, New York, and Mosco? Is the first city, Seoul?
Hi @Viva, I see you’ve really let your imagination go. That’s good. Just lay out all the possibilities and we wait to see what works out.
The satellite may have been one of the probes sent to keep an eye on the Sun and possibly send back data to Earth. (I looked it up, and yes there are space probes which are out monitoring solar winds and eruptions from the Sun.) As it was the nearest object to the Sun, it got destroyed by the solar flare. It’s quite a separate entity on it’s own, ie it may serve to transmit data that is conveyed via the Internet but is not equal to it.
However if many of our man-made satellites get destroyed, it would seriously affect many areas whose services are transmitted via those satellites. Fortunately not everything is reliant on satellites but they make data transfer much faster.
About the age of the Ghost. If she always goes back to her own time at say age 30, then from that one time she might jump years ahead or backwards and always return as someone 30 years of age as before. Unless, that is, there is some aspect of time travel that might age her faster or otherwise. Too much time travel may not be good for health! (We saw this in Sysiphus and some other shows.)
It’s quite a fun concept if the Ghost could be just a virtual being like in the Matrix. In Star Trek Voyager, (I think it was), characters interact with holograms that are ‘solid’. There was even a hologram doctor that could ‘travel’ outside of the Voyager using a special device. So the idea is not new, but not yet in kdramas, perhaps.
It goes to show how many twisty dramas we’ve watched that the twist of the Killer being connected to Sae Ha crops up as a possibility in our minds. Also I was noting the great coincidence of persons who end up meeting each other, when we can see that their interests will overlap. So the question always arises about whether everything is just happenstance or if events were somehow set in motion or planned. One thing we see is that Killer Kim must be important enough for the Ghost to save him. Whether this had to happen in such a way, so that both Sae Ha and Sae Byeok would notice it and take a course of action, is the question.
Yes, it’s interesting that SH seems to be watching his boss Mgr Choi. Is he doing it because he’s doing something unapproved and does not want to be caught? Or is he being paid to do it by another party? Or does he have reason to be suspicious of Choi? We need to find out how far he believes in the vanishing woman. If he thinks it’s nonsense, then he may not approve of Choi. If he believes in it for some reason, then he must have a reason we don’t know, and he’s sticking with Choi to find out more.
Yes, the Cleaner’s face. I did look at it, wondering if he would be someone important later in the series. The camera actually stopped on him for a second or 2. He was actually a member of the Security staff. I wonder why he was clearing the trash from tables. He stood behind to watch, when the Grid was being connected.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/148CPTBR10g4RUxZaZfeaYBttG3HuTmQ0/view?usp=sharing
Yes, I like that this Writer has a weighty message to convey. I’m thinking that the parts I recapped have already put at least two of the message(s) out there. Do we really need to time travel in order to save our world? Are we prepared to make the changes that make us less vulnerable to being destroyed.
Kalimera @GB Unnie and @Viva!
I want to rewatch episode 1 so I haven’t read your recap @GB Unnie!
I will return when I have something more to say!
Some “Sisyphus” type sensations, but nothing crazy so far.
AH!!! That security guard! Highly suspicious!
The camera and its insistence don’t lie. Something very fishy behind this guy…
The concept… A grid protects the earth from the sun’s little angers.
Except that scientifically, the day we will need this, it will be in millions (or even billions) of years. Only, at that time, it will be a long time since we have already built a Dyson sphere around the sun! So this case will never happen!
But in fact… Who cares! Why am I making this geeky comment?! We have an exciting basic principle here!
Hi @WE, glad to see you’ve managed to watch Episode 1. I’m grateful that this airs only 1 episode a week. Busier these weeks. I’ll get back to you on MDL later.
I like the mystery in this show. I can only think that the reason for saving the killer is because he is needed for something in the future. The right time to catch him and put him behind bars might be much later.
Kalispera @WE and @GB!
I have this idea that The Ghost didn’t save that man / killer, because he matters to her.
I think that Sae Ha and Sae Byeong are important to her. Maybe they had to come together looking for her? Because their alliance might end up to something more? We shall see!
I was very tired when I watched the episode, I wish I had time to watch it again.
There are enough hooks to make you want to watch the following. The way everyone “wan’t to know what happens next” is different for different viewers. What intrigues me the most:
– How could this giant grid be connected to a simple homicide case?
– Kim Sae Ha’s character is mysterious, what is he doing there?
I’m not listing other plot points, but of course there are others, like the disappearing Ghost, etc..
MAIN HYPOTHESIS (warning, this might be an unwanted spoiler)
A long time ago, I wrote the pitch for an SF story. It was a possible time travel concept. Except that I was looking for one thing: a time travel concept that was real, believable and above all… scientifically possible. My conclusion to achieve this was that a closed system with no interaction with the rest of the world was needed. So, time travel is possible, but only within this system. The time travel device also has to retain all the information in the system in its memory, so that it can be restored to an earlier stage. So, if I wanted to make a time travel story that included everything on earth, the device would have to surround the earth, and hide the rest of the universe, or give false information about it.
Well, I have the impression that this could be the scenario of GRID!
HOW THE GRID WORKS (hypothesis)
The Grid is a powerful computer system able to memorize any event on the earth. Thanks to this, it is possible to re-actualize the whole earth at an earlier stage of its history. This also assumes that the Grid has an active principle. Like, a system of action at the quantum level, which can bring back each particle and their overall structures to an earlier stage.
– Example: in my pitch, I had a major catastrophe. At the moment this catastrophe takes place, someone presses a button and pshhhhh… the earth is restored 10 years before (at the moment the system was activated). Information is sent from the moment the disaster is about to happen. This helps the protagonists to find a solution. So there are time loops.
– Grid: If this system is able to change the reality on earth, one can imagine that it could allow someone to disappear. The reason why it is not used for this purpose is probably that it is too complicated to manipulate only one part of reality. The system was designed to restore everything at once, like a photo, or like the “restore system” of Windows on your PC. You have to be some kind of computer/physics genius to do this, who is able to program the grid.
Time travel? I don’t know if time travel is mentioned in the kdrama, but at least we see that a grid around the earth allows a closed system. Like the box of schrodinger’s cat. And so, we can manipulate this quantum system as we want, as long as it remains isolated from the universe.
Scenarios of the same kind.
– Spin, by Robert Charles Wilson. Pitch: the stars are disappearing! The hook is severe. However, no time travel. Just, the earth has been surrounded by a grid without the knowledge of the earthlings, who now live in a vacuum, without knowing what could have caused this. Impossible to send a rocket into space.
– Cube 2. The second film of the Cube trilogy. Here the cube is a closed system. The film is less visceral and mysterious than the first one, but what makes it interesting is that all the traps use quantum physics. Everything in the cube is in a closed system, and the worst craziness can happen, including paradoxes, time travel, time differences, characters from different times meeting, etc.
Hey @WE! Yes there are disks remastered and server room. It certain gives that impression that reality can rewritten. It can lead into the question, the Grid first or the disaster first?
Looking forward to tonight’s episode.
Kalimera @Viva,
As we have seen so far, the Disaster happens first and a post apocalyptic Earth and next the Grid, in our dramaverse.
I have seen the same thing with Travelers!
Look for info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5651844/
and in a way Fridge, which is by far one of my favorite scifi tv shows!
Look for Info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1119644/
By trying to change the present, they can alter future! In some cases that doesn’t mean they managed to do so…
@Cleo, you bring up a good point… What did we see in the opening? The Earth had a halo of a Grid around it. The light showed up the Grid around the Earth.
It was hit by the solar flare/winds. The circumference of the Earth became yellow and the light became very bright, white and covered the whole screen, as if there was an explosion. It looked like there was total destruction.
But suddenly we have Saeha’s voiceover: We covered the entire Earth with the Grid in 2004.
So what are we seeing in 2005? Is it the case that there was a time loop and we are seeing an Earth (new timeline?) that is not yet destroyed by the solar flare?
Did the first Grid fail? What was that introduction?
@GB Unnie,
My guess is the first time around the Earth was hit by the solar flare / winds and many of the population actually died. It became very difficult to live on the planet since the magnetic shields but also stratosphere and all the other layers couldn’t protect Earth with Solar Waves.
For some reason unknown, I mean how the electrical parts survived in the first place after that / those catastrophic wave(s), some scientist(s) (?) created the required technology that actualized the Grid after the destruction.
OR
Someone from the future came back on Earth in 199? (?) with advanced tecnology data that made him / her to create the Grid before the Catastrophe in 2005.
We know that the Ghost came to warn them back in 1997, but how did they master the technology required? Was there someone else who traveled back in time?
So many questions…
I finally watched the first episode and it was a chock full of details. Initially, I thought I was watching a trailer due to the data dump at the start. So many stuff to process and time travel is always “which comes first- chicken or egg” kind deal. What is curious is why that murder/killer became a trigger for the ghost to show up? Will read up all the comments soon. Cheers!!!
Hi all… I see the puzzle game has begun, hey hey hey.
I need to rewatch the episode, or I won’t understand anything about what you say. ^^
Hi @WE, yes,… this is one of those shows where more than 1 rewatch is needed. So much goes into little details that are easy to miss. However I feel that show is deliberately less inscrutable than those like TK:EM or Sisyphus: the Myth.
Some twists become more evident already in Episode 2.
Episode 2 – Still interesting with good development. It seems more people know each other and the mysterious Admin Bureaur, than they let on.
*Minor Spoilers*
There’s something that happened in Sae Ha’s past so that he’s watchful and investigating a lot more than a normal Admin Bureau officer would.
Although we don’t get shown a picture of the 3 monkeys covering eyes, ears and mouth, we see it in action, almost. But why SH decides to not cover/shut his mouth when it comes to SB is a mystery.
Perhaps it’s because he and SB have something in common.
The Ghost, unsurprisingly, is ‘not well’ after all the jumping around in time. She continues to interfere with killer Man Ok. We get to see interesting retakes of him and it took me a while to realise I was not watching the repeats due to a commercial break, where show inserts ads, but that it was the actual show.
While the Ghost has to work according to a schedule of tasks, SH has to work within the time that he does not need to attend to his mother. He always leaves to get home on time. The restraints are pretty tight.
@Cleo, my reply to you disappeared. I was saying that I felt your 2nd scenario was the case. I felt that we might have seen a doing over of the Grid after the first one failed. Which means a loop back in time but then we don’t know how many times the loop may have happened.
Episode 2… we somehow end up in the future of this year!! Oh by the way, the format of how we write dates over here makes the date 1 or 2 days ago to be 22022022 LOL (22 Feb 2022)
Episode 2
Spoilers
The security guy
The guy in suit who did the questionnaire with SH – isn’t he the cleaning/security guy that @GB has noticed? Noted the dialogue describing him later.
He is over paid. He is an alien. He is an emperor of a star that’s perished. He could be an Oscar winner.
The ghost
She can zoom to the future and past by using a device. She seems to help out villains at this stage which is the opposite of the usual expectation. If she suggested about the Grid is a good thing to Ms Choi back then, why is she helping murderers and corrupted political figure? It looks like she took orders so there must be another organisation behind it. So far she assisted a suspected murderer in Oct 2021. She has helped a seemingly corrupted leader of a party on around 19 June 2022.
She is dying according to the NFS staff. She has dark eye cycles. She loves sugar. She ordered a lot of cake slices thinking she has a lot of time. She drank bottles of coke.
SH is looking for her. He cried when he thought of an incident. Is that tears of anger? Did the ghost hurt him/his family member?
Killer Kim is scared of the ghost. It took him 3 times to steal the money without success. It is almost like if the first outcome is not right, someone out there will keep trying until the correction is achieved.
@Cleo, it would be interesting to know if they are going down the cause and effect path like Sisyphus, or the multiple universes path like TKEM. It is hard to guess now. The Killer Kim stealing incident can repeat with a correct outcome. However, the future can also exist at the same time as present when the Ghost zooming through.
Both Killer Kim and the Ghost are hungry and love food. Is there a connection? Is where they from has no food?
Sae Byeok now has a scar on her arm from that device the Ghost uses. Let’s wait to see what will happen with that scar. She also has a past with Eo Jin. Is that a romantic past?
Kalimera @GB Unnie and @Viva,
Let me first write my thoughts and then read you.
What we have learned so far from Episodes 1 + 2 :
The Ghost is sick. From what I have gathered from the pinkish to red marks under her eyes and based on the evidence on Detective Jung Sae-Byeok’s arm, she suffers from exposure to extreme radiation that could have caused her leukemia.
If she is revisiting a specific time and space over and over again that means her particles are disolving and rearranging so fast for numerous times on repeat and she is getting sicker every time she does that. That’s why the NFS scientist said it is like her bones are broken in myriad places.
@GB Unnie, From the sequence with the incident regarding the killer trying to steal that money I got the following :
First time : The Killer stole the money.
Second Time : The Ghost missed her chance to stop him.
Third Time : The Ghost found the exact point and erased his stealing, hence the killer left empty handed.
The Ghost seems to get intel on her phone to do specific tasks at specific times in order to succeed with her mission – that we don’t know yet what that is.
Regarding Saeha :
If SaeHa was present when his father has died and the Ghost was there too, that means SH has seen the Ghost when he was little, hence his breakdown in that empty dental clinic when he was encountering the Detective and he was unaware the woman he was talking was her.
Regarding Sae Byeok:
Detective Jung Sae-Byeok knows that the Ghost has a device that can hurt others, because of the mark on her hand. I don’t think the mark will ever go away. It seems like a burn, hence my argument above that the Ghost is exposed on radiation.
Here is my viewpoint on how the mechanics of traveling back in time are working in this dramaverse:
The Ghost is using the device to open a incision multiseconds in the reality the dramaverse is taking place, in order to get in and out from space safety and can do so multiple times over, i.e. revisiting the exact moment she wants.
Lastly, I believe that someone came back from the future and helped the others to guild the Grid.
@Viva,
I think it is the first, cause and effect path like Sisyphus. This also applies to the latter aka multiple universes like TKEM, if they use advanced Math and Physics to make it solid.
What I mean is:
They could make this hypothesis possible if there is a combination of cause and effect in a Cosmos magnitude / scale.
Here is an example for everyone to understand :
If one world is being destroyed then, like a domino effect, this can affect the existence of the other worlds and hence the Balance in the Cosmos.
If that is the case, this could also means that there is a Super Secret Bureau like the Men In Black that monitors the wellbeing of the Cosmos as a whole! *Grins*
Hi All, what fun to have an intriguing drama to discuss and try to decipher. I’m still in the process of transcribing Ep 2, amidst work meetings etc. But from the little I’ve done I see that @Viva and @Cleo have got the idea of what’s going on, and I can agree with what they have suggested.
@Viva, yes the Security Guy seems to have been promoted to Interviewer of staff to ensure they keep to the straight and narrow (at least verbally). Maybe he always was a ‘higher level’ staff masquerading as mere security and cleaner combined. As we note, the trash seems to be an important thing… maybe a source of personal information about the staff and so the person collecting it is also more important than they appear.
We see that SH examines Boss Choi’s trash after hacking into Admin Bureau’s CCTV footage. So their tight security is no proof against a good hacker.
I laughed over that Security Guy could be an Oscar winner. That means he’s such a good actor, acting a role, and no one knows the real person.
Ghost – yes I have been noticing that she always looks unwell. She seems to be throwing caution to the winds. She knows that time travel is going to unravel her atoms too many times and before she dies she’s just going to eat and drink what she likes, regardless of how unhealthy that may be.
Repeated scene – it’s interesting that Kim only recalls stealing the money one time and not that he had tried 3 times.
As to helping criminals, I believe that there is a longer term agenda and need for the ‘bad guys’ to stay free, hence the Ghost is assigned to prevent them from getting stuck behind bars. I don’t think Ghost is out to just save them for no particular reason.
Yes @Cleo, she seems to get info on her next ‘target’ and job through her phone that tells her in advance what’s going to happen, when and where.
I also had the impression that SH as a child was running with his mother along a hospital corridor. I assume that since he remembers this in conjunction with thinking that SB is Ghost, that Ghost had something to do with a sad time. I also assume it had to do with his father.
@Cleo, I find your idea of the mechanics of time travel quite intriguing. I just wonder how she can survive multiple entries and exits to the same moment of time. Won’t her own particles clash with themselves! LOL.
I actually have no theories on how the time travel is possible. The way Ghost travels is to frequently jump from/move from place to place, which means she not only travels through time but through space. Come to think of it, we have just come to the conclusion that there’s time travel because the technology of the Grid is not known to us now, and we assume that a future more technologically enhanced person came back into our past to help build the Grid. However… all we’ve seen is that she moves from place to place.
Might she be more a space traveler than a time traveler? Should we ask where she came from, rather than when? 😉
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