Last open thread for “Signal.”
7:00am PST
10:00am EST
10:00am Caracas
3:00pm London
4:00pm in Paris
5:00pm Athens
10:00pm Singapore
I hope I’m not spoiling anything by adding these gifs.
Enjoy the rewatch!
Last open thread for “Signal.”
7:00am PST
10:00am EST
10:00am Caracas
3:00pm London
4:00pm in Paris
5:00pm Athens
10:00pm Singapore
I hope I’m not spoiling anything by adding these gifs.
Enjoy the rewatch!
Thanks @pkml3. I’ve just rewatched Ep 16 today as I’ll be busy tomorrow. But I’ll be back for the actual party tmr night.
I wanted to bring together all my notes on what I thought connected these 3 protagonists and found that there were many links. I don’t think I’ll have time to write anything comprehensive.
It’s just great to find out at the end, that there might have been only 1 time loop and that it made such a difference (generally for the better) in the lives of these 3 persons. I won’t say more because of the major spoiler.
I like how everything made sense (as far as I can figure things out) and that the loop ends appropriately. Now, of course, I’m impatiently waiting for Season 2 to air. 😉
I am starting to watch now so I can keep up. I looked at some previous comments.And I am still thinking I could rewatch this show another time And
Understand it even better.
I sure hope season two lives up to expectations.
Enjoy yourself @MM. See you soon!
Hello all. I am back for the last episode! I rewatched episode 15 last night and read your comments. I refrained from rewatching ep 16.
Last ep today, hi!
Hello SD MM and GB
Hello @WE!
Hi @SD! Hi @WE, let’s start now!!!
EPISODE 16 – We loop back to 2000 to the first case that we see JH on but it’s the last case of his first life or time line. He may have realised from hearing Soo Hyun tellling him that he came back to her dead, that he is in a time loop.
So this time we are watching a JH who has subtly been changed by the transmissions. What other changes will be included in his new timeline?
Taximan dies and if you wonder about tropes… Yeah, no shame about using tropes. I have also a scene of this kind: hero coming to interpose himself and taking a bullet to save a woman, all of that in slow motion. 😀
Hello Everyone
I have already been scared out of my wits once so far in this episode.
Hello @WE, @GB, @SD & @MM.
Hi @GB, @MM.
I think he knows it is his last day (or might be). He looks at the calendar. The camera focuses on August 3.
Hi @FF!
Hi @FF!
Last words of taximan: use the radio 23h23.
She doesn’t know yet her life was saved by time-com?!
@SD, yes JH knows that he’s supposed to die on 3 Aug 2000.
HY is desperate to save him but at 11.23pm, the transmission does not reach HY and SH in 2015 anymore… that’s because in the first timeline… HY had spoken to JH.
Yes, we see a different version of this Incident. And the drama very skillfully intersperses the changes in j.H’s thinking And actions before the incident.
@WE
In 2000, SH comes in uniform to say hello to JH. She was being transferred to his Jinyang Precinct station. (I guess she asked to be transferred to be near him).
Never one to say much that’s romantic, he asks if she’d eaten.
“You chose such a perfect day for you to transfer here.”
“About what I said before …”
“I think it’ll be sorted out soon. Let’s talk when this is all finished.” THE WORDS HE SAYS HERE CHANGES. Soo Hyun in 2015 seems to remember both the previous words and these new ones.
@MM, yes, the amazing interposing of the scenes of past and present that are going on ‘at the same time’ so to speak. We get to see the fuller picture.
@GB Thank you for the clarification about why the transmission did not reach them this time. More to understand here
GB, yes, it’s the time of this call in hospital, but it can only be a different call this time.
But wait… why is there the previous call now?
Im puzzled.
Loop Back
NEW FIRST CONVERSATION
HY has been shot in the carpark after he intercepts the bullet meant for SH. He’s lying on the floor holding the walkie-talkie and insisting that they have to save JH.
But the radio does not come on for HY and SH.
JH wonders if it’s Soo Hyun instead on the other end, but no one answers at first.
I’m at Seonil Mental Hospital in Hanjeong-dong, the one you told me about. I found a body haning in a manhole behind the building. It is Seo Hyung Joon, the suspect for the Kim Yoon Jung kidnapping case. But, his thumb is gone. Somebody killed him and made it look like a suicide.”
ORIGINAL HY: “Who are you? What are you talking about? You’re at Seonil Mental Hospital? Where is that?”
JH: “Lt Park Hae Young? …” JH gets hit over the head.
In late 2000, the ambulance comes for HY.
Compare this with …
ORIGINAL FIRST CONVERSATION
“Lt Park Hae Yeong this is Detective Lee Jae Han. Lt Park Hae Young, can you hear me/are you there? I’m at Seonil Mental Hospital in Hanjeong-dong, the one you told me about. I found a body haning in a manhole behind the building. It is Seo Hyung Joon, the suspect for the Kim Yoon Jung kidnapping case.” All this time Hae Young has been confounded, and is listening.
HY to himself: “The Kim Yoon Jung kidnapping case?”
JH: “But, his thumb is gone. Somebody killed him and made it look like a suicide.
JH opens up the bag of discarded stuff, finds the walkie-talkie…
JH: “He’s not the real criminal. It’s someone else.”
HY finally speaks over the walkie-talkie: “Who are you? What are you talking about? You’re at Seonil Mental Hospital? Where is that?”
JH: “It was you who told me about this place”. (Someone runs past behind JH. Now we know that it was Det Ahn who had been tasked to follow JH.)
JH looks around with his flashlight. Sees no one.
JH : “Lt Park, why did you tell me not to come here? What happened here?”
JH gets hit on the head and passes out.
HY: “What are you talking about? Do you know me? What station do you belong to?”
The radio dies. HY slaps himself and cannot believe that he just received a transmission from someone he does not know. He drives out of the station and sees the mother of Kim Yoon Jung standing outside with her placard… still there after 15 years.
@GB, you are right! That was a previous timeline when the transmission reached PHY and this time it didn’t reach PHY.
There is confusion here.
It starts as it’s the new call from dying taximan.
Then what is it? A flashback?
Or just the real call from the previous taximan?
@WE
The reason why we had to start in 2000 was because then we could end in 2000 and we can see how the loop turned out. There was just the 1 loop from the first time that JH contacted HY at Sunil Mental Hospital. Now that JH came to the same date again 3 August 2000, the radio came on for JH but HY and SH in late 2015 did not receive the transmission. The loop was completed.
JH tries to call either HY or SH this time and still reports the body in the manhole. Then we hear the voice of HY of early 2015. But JH gets knocked out before he can say more. Simultaneously HY in 2015 loses consciousness.
SH calls HY’s name, Ahn calls JH’s name. What great scenes interwoven.
@WE, there was only ever 1 transmission from Sunil and it went to the old time line HY who had never spoken to JH yet. Only 1 completed loop in the time lines.
@GB, thanks. SO the two calls are different.
Look a bit the same, the writer tries to trick us, but it’s different calls.
@FF, yes, that’s what hit me. I had to rewatch more than once to realise it, and the significance of it.
Now we see that JH is trying to trace the whereabouts of the red scarf … he’s actually thinking like HY ie he’s profiling what a person like BB Kim would do to get rid of the evidence. He actually figures it out because he was so observant. He recognised the pharmacy name on BB Kim’s bag of meds.
So I get it: the flashback of previous call was here to make us understand it’s different calls, not to confuse us. But I got confused. ahhha, opposite effect than what is intented. T T
Yes @WE… if you see my transcription of the calls, you can see that the 2 calls were very similar but NOT the same. A change had taken place in the time line.
@WE, yes, and that call in Ep 16 is make us see that there was 1 complete time loop. As long as JH died, his spirit entered the walkie-talkie and did a loop from 2000 and jumped back in time to draw the 3 people together. This time… things had changed.
He has to work hard to translate the forensic report from english to korean!
@GB, so this time JH did not die and that’s why his last transmission did not get through?
@FF, I really admire JH’s tenacity, hard work and dedication. He had to use an English dictionary back in the day to understand the instructions from the US. Poor chap trusted that the Prosecution should get the evidence.
Great way to inform us about what the report says
YEs @MM, I was just mentioning that to @FF. Such dedication… persistence. I admire JH so much. No wonder his spirit would not rest when he died… it had to keep on solving the case of BB Kim and the murder of Sun Woo. I feel that’s one big reason why the radio/spirit waited for a chance to contact HY first… to solve his brother’s murder.
Post-mortem reflex?
And now blood of the culcript on the red cloth.
@GB, yeah those were the days when google translate was not available whoever needs translation will have to do it the hard way. JH is so determined to solve the case for HY.
The spirit of JH seemed to know in advance that there was no need to continue on the next time loop. It stayed on the same time loop and only spoke to HY who had not yet been changed by JH’s transmissions. JH not dying made it such that the radio never transmitted again. We see that in the end.
True @MM, the translating of the report was great communication for us.
Fight. Take a knife wound. The assistant of police chief tried to change his fate, but I don’t feel like he will succed. Let’s see if he change in this timeline.
Taximan see it changed. But how?!
We come to the scene in the ambulance… and there seems to be a wind blowing SH’s hair… the winds of time have blown…. there is a change. HY tells SH to recall her last conversation with JH. He had done and said something different.
@WE, the winds of time blew in the ambulance… HY had experienced it before so he knew. JH’s spoke extra words. It was a response to SH telling him that he’d failed to keep his promise because he came back dead.
Yeah, I get it. Well, of course after 9.
She remembers her previous timeline and the new one too, because she knows about the talkike.
In 2000, JH had said that if he ended up dead there would be cold cases and Cha SH.
Timestamp 28:28
“It was 11:23 when the detective died. More than the fear of death it was more unbearable to leave cold cases.”
HY’s Voiceover as HY is being treated in hospital: “Did that desperation lead you to me? Det,please live on that will power. Don’t live on through a walkie talkie, but with your own will.”
Juxtapose JH’s flight with HY in hospital.
Ahn comes pointing his gun at JH and a gunshot is heard. In 2015 HY flatlines. NOTE THAT THE TIME is no longer 11.23pm
HY’s voice: “Don’t give up.” Presumably HY dies. This is the other linking feature between the 3 of them. All 3 of them died…. and then were alive again.
White Out
How good it is: Just the moment the cop press the trigger, it jumps to present, to taximan death.
I have to say that whoever is in charge of the sets in these episodes does such a good job. The heavy use of the dictionary (ha! I remember those days!), the huge computers, everything is perfect. Of course it should be. But the emphasis is nice. It helps us, the viewers, to know where we are at. It also often adds extra tension (the dictionary takes longer).
The clue to the viewers “Live through your will not through the walkie talkie.”
My screen does not come up for me to comment at times… anyway, I was trying to figure out how come when SH died and came back, she had no clue that she had died. Then I realised that she never knew she had been blasted by a bomb. HY however knew he had been shot before he died. So when he reawakens alive, he checks if he has the wound.
@WE, yes wonderful writing and editing.
Love this scene where JH goes to see SH first before going to hospital. LOL He can’t use words so he hugs her. And we get their theme music. LOL the other cops look away.
JH tells her he kept his promise. He really one who is full of integrity.
A classic: the gunshot sound was from another gun, wounding the killer. 🙂
@FF, yes, that was good advice. Live through your will.
Gosh, first hug. Almost let’s say, confession and love scene. ^^
It was really hard to get in this drama. Last episode, but even more powerful.
@SD, yes so true. The time taken to figure out the US report added to our suspense and tension. Also, this is a loooong episode at 1 hour 28+ minutes.
I love this scene too… where JH meets HY as a child and his parents. JH made the great change in HY’s life so that he grew up with both parents and was no longer a latch-key child. Loved how JH looked at HY and could not tell him that he’d talk to him in the future. JH would be a detective to HY’s Lieutenant.
@WE, it was the one and only hug. In the end it was more SH and HY together although never in a romantic way.
HY recalls knowing JH and that JH should be alive. Love it! But JH seems to be missing.
JH cleared Sun Woo’s name and HY’s father did not remove him from his mother. So touched to see the young HY thanking JH. JH kept his promise to HY.
@FF, Episode 16 has all my fave scenes.
Now, with the change in the timeline, the cold case squad was never needed, and no one knows HY.
@GB, I wonder if HY is still a profiler.
LOL HY looks like a car or insurance salesman to Gye Chul LOLOL.
Even SH had gone out without telling anyone… also sort of missing.
@FF, he’s job is now at a patrol station… more to do with neighbourhood patrols and traffic not to do with murder cases, I think. So, he might not be a profiler.
@GB, the drama makers saved the best for last.
I like all these home scenes with SH’s sister or mother. We get little snippets but that gives us a good idea of her nature. She’s not all that girly except that she likes pink things and stuffed toys but has no clue how to seduce a man.
@FF, true… at the Pork Rind restaurant, we imagine that they are all at the same place but at different times… as if HY can see his most important sunbaes in the past.
It’s weird moments here, quite slow. Like time needs time to be settled again after all the time change. It flows in taximan new memories.
So good seeing the same restaurant owner in the past and in the present. The only one to have seen all 3 of them but not together.
@WE, it’s another calm before the storm, because JH just won’t give up on finding and arresting BB Kim. Kim is on the run. But besides JH, there is someone else who wants to get Kim killed before he can be arrested.
I am anxious again, the ominous music. Baddie Kim appeared again!… I wonder why JH went missing again for 15 years.
@FF, JH was framed for Kim’s death. He ended up on the run as well because he could expose the real culprits.
Today’s episode is so long, we still have 30 minutes to go.
I am exhausted and hungry.And need to take a break. Will be back soon
@GB, yeah, the police chief obey to more powerful people. The father deputy.
Here the confrontation scene with JH and police chief.
@WE, SH comes but because JH did not give her clear directions to the location, they came late.
JH does not realise that the radio is no longer with him because JH is alive and has it. There is only 1 way to get a message from the past now… on hardcopy paper!
It becomes a fight scene, so the bad cop has to fight with JH if he want to survive. Will it makes him change his mind?
Looks like he’s about to die after being striked too many time.
Next scene: archive photo. Yes he dies. Tss.
So useless and toxic destiny.
JH is wounded and wait a call from radio.
But it doesn’t work anymore. Shiiiiiit.
Now the gang comes to attack his car.
The last messages from JH to HY: “JH knew I would find this piece of paper in the future. This is the last message that JH sent me.”
The numbers he wrote make sense to no one else but HY.
It was the address of his old home. He sees his mum on her way out.
She takes out the things that JH had left for him. It was an envelope with handwritten note and floppy disk.
Timestamp 1:05:50
The note says that from that first message to HY, their messages must have gone in circles. “But after I came back alive, I no longer received any messages. I waited in hopes of getting another message from you. But maybe our link disconnected because I shouldn’t have come out alive. So until now, the walkie-talkie is still not working.”
@MM I’m hungry too… It’s 11.05pm over here.
Taximan gets the last message. It’s incredible how mysterious is the drama now at the last episode.
@WE, it’s so good that the Show keeps the mystery strong until the end.
So sad for JH that he cannot trust anyone in his own time and gives the diskette to HY. So there’s a delay of 15 years before HY even receives the diskette pointing to the real evil person.
JH saved the data on a floppy disk, HY may not have a disk drive to read the floppy disk in 2015. These days youngsters do not know what a floppy disk is.
I am way behind the rest of you (again), but I will go ahead and insert this here. Any other drama would have ended once we knew that the time line had changed and that HY and JH were alive. Happy ending kdrama style. Only in this one do we get another half hour plus of more tension! Aargh!
So JH was in the fisher village. Not the best way to say nothing if he want to hide, as she showed his photo to all people here, lol!
The guy in the hospital. I have feeling it’s not JH. Maybe the police assistant? (bad guy who killed JH in first loop).
Dozen of henchmen.
And their car respects driving rules!!
Moving sloooooooowly! 🙂
JH is alive and the transmissions started again.
Well, it’s him in the hospital.
And the talkie comes back alive, ready to serve.
And it’s in the past (stretched image).
You can whine about MOTA ending.
But this one too is … WOoooAAAA;;; where’s my mind?!
😀
@FF, I’m not sure if the transmission started again as we don’t get a scene where JH talks to anyone. Maybe that’s in Season 2!!!
So next week, for our Rewatch, we start on 365: Repeat the Year!!!
@WE bring your mind back next Saturday for 365: Repeat the Year!!!
Hum, I feel like there is no ending.
How will JH escape the army of henchmen?
How the talkie could help here? (it can’t)
Where are the present duo going in this car, and how it could help.
Well, I’m happy the writer is doing a season 2. ^^
(ending in the same way, LOL)
Exactly! @GB, the transmissions are meant for season 2 but I think it will only be released in late 2025.
It’s weird but now I’m rewatching, the end is very different of what I had in my memory. For a strange reason, I was convinced the three of them meet. But it’s not the case here. It’s frustrating but I really won’t bash the writer. Somehow, I like this kind of open ending.
@WE So we enter the time loop of Season 2 and see if the radio really connects JH to current HY and SH or not.
He’s been in hiding for 15-16 years to protect them and to keep clear of the bad guy who wants him dead, as well as from the police who want to catch him.
So S2 will be the 3 of them clearing his name???
@FF, yes, probably late 2025. I can wait. I hope it’s as good as S1. 🙂
@GB, halfway of 365 first episode, enjoy: driveless limousine scene.
With this awesome background music:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTE9JfS93Kk
Background music are so good in 365. I should post a list someday.
It’s not Signal, W, SaveMe, MOTA team, it’s differents musicians.
They made Extraordinary you. A drama I don’t like, but BGM were great.
@WE, the poster has a picture of the 3 of them seemingly together. Perhaps that’s why you think they met at the same time. In the end, it was always only 2 of them who were together.
The drive they take now is to the Medical Center where JH is supposedly hiding. The address of it is on the envelope that he left with HY’s mum.
@WE, I look forward to rewatching 365 and listening to the OSTs.
On the one hand, it looks to be a simpler plot and time travel. But the crimes are another story … simple and yet not.
@GB, 365 is short, and on steroids about the pace.
It has this actress I love: Nam Ji Hyun.
Child actress in Queen Seon Deok, main lead of Suspicious partner.
But nothing crazy from her in 365. Aaammm. Even lead actor isn’t awesome.
It’s mostly the script.
What I liked a lot: the pitch sounds like a boring time travel story, but opposite happens. It’s a mix with “Final Destination” series of movies.
Here the full list of BGM:
Still behind. The last 4 minutes. Still tense. The actress is the hardened modern crime fighter when she makes the decision to go to the rehabilitation center. Her hair is short. But as she drives and remembers she becomes the young newbie in love with her senior. This actress does not need dialogue. Subtle changes of expression and she is wide-eyed and young. I am going to have to look for more dramas where she stars.
@SD, yes Kim Hye Soo is a great actress. She seems to not be in the shows I watch though!
Thanks @WE! I’ll listen to them tomorrow when I’m less sleepy.
See you next week!
See you all next week. I’ll rewatch 365 ep1 before the rewatch.
See you soon, yo!!
Hi @SD Two and a half hours later and I finally finished!
I think one other person heard the walkie talkie although he does not speak into it: Ahn Chi Soo. Does anyone remember if he heard JH’s voice or just the cackling sound?
I am already reading news on Signal 2, possible plot lines in my head.
Ready for 365 although I have not yet watched a single episode.
I am wondering if there will be time travel in season 2. Maybe it will be more about successfully bringing the big shots to Justice And maybe learning more about crimes by the same people. And?
Finding out what happened in those 15 years to J.H.?
Sounds too simple after just watching season one. I wonder if there was someone else he was communicating with and that’s why we hear the walkie talkie buzzing at the end. That would certainly add an interesting dimension.
In terms of major crimes the Ending references The building of a Town. I know.
There was a lot of corruption around development at a certain point. We also know that there was corruption involved with the bridge featured earlier.
A theme of whether Justice is any better In 2015 than it was fifteen or twenty years earlier. And of course about the dedication and determination of our main stars.
Maybe they will be communicating with their 2024 selves And or someone else in the future. I hope someone else does not need to die to activate the walkie talkie. Maybe j h does die At the hands of these mobsters And that activates the walkie talkie again.
I don’t think I can wait till the end of 2025!
Hope to see you all in 2025.
I think he did hear j h’s voice.
Yes Ahn Would likely be alive in this time line. I had been thinking in this episode today that his role is pivotal so maybe he will be in season two. I can imagine a time loop into the past.
Where we see his role change. In the most recent loop, We can see how the information that the bad cop chief May have killed son woo shakes him up.
@SD You really
Have me going. Maybe.
J h is communicating with ahn in the past.JY Was not able to find the wacky talkie In this new time line,I think.
Perhaps another rewatch before season two? Or is that overkill?
Or they could be communicating with Ahn in the future. Added dimension of three time periods.
It is all speculation and I do have to wait.
Makes me curious to see who will be the recurring Actors.
@MM I had the same thought! Maybe ahn is in Signal 2. He also could be one of those who knows the time line is different… 2025 seems a long ways away right now…