The thread is open.
Now entertaining all sorts of theories, predictions, and conjectures. 😂😂
Here, I’ll start with one: I predict that SE will die sometime near the end to fulfill his wish he stated in Ep 8. He said, “If something happens to me, and the Paik SaEon you’ve known disappears from this world, even if I throw away the title of Paik JangHo’s grandson, Paik UiYong’s son, and the Spokesman, just remember this. The only Paik SaEon I want to leave behind in this world is the one that belongs to Hong HeeJoo.”
That sounds pretty much like a foreshadowing to me.
I also predict that his death will be staged, just like he staged their reconciliation/reunion at the Seoul Namsan Tower. 😂 He’ll use the phone to call her and reveal that he’s alive. That way the title “When the Phone Rings” will become relevant again.
He did say in Episode 8 that he was sad to put away the burner phone because it was instrumental in connecting the two of them. To me, it’s another foreshadowing that he’ll use the phone to contact her in the afterlife. The fake afterlife, I mean.
Last, I predict that they’ll end up in either the UK or USA. He can stay with the British ambassador in the UK or work for Samsung in the US. 😂
Let’s enjoy the show.
With so many reveals in these two episodes, I have one burning question: How did The Master and Psycho 406 meet?
I had a whole lot of confusion and questions before Episode 10, but this episode has cleared off most of the wool before my eyes.
@pkml3 after watching Ep 9, we see that your astute guesses in the earlier episodes are quite correct.
Since we are in the last 4 episodes, I’m pleased to see that so much is revealed, but there was also time for some filler, which means that there is not much more of the tale to tell.
SPOILERS IF YOU HAVE NOT WATCHED EPISODE 9
SPOILERS
I believe that you, @pkml3, are right in foretelling the plan or path SE intends/intended to take. He makes it even clearer in Ep 9. In order to start anew, he has to ‘die’. He intends that HJ does nothing except wait for him to ‘resurrect’. However my fear that HJ is going to be once again relegated to puppet is slightly appeased by the ending. However his plan may have backfired.
SPOILERS IF YOU HAVE NOT WATCHED EPISODE 10
SPOILERS
I wonder who’s holding whom hostage now? Who disappears and dies or doesn’t.
I liked the twist of SE revealing everything to the major press so that now his horrible ‘father’ can no longer hide. All are going to dig out the truth and probably create lots of fake stories too. I guess it’s a great way to get help from the public while at the same time protect Hee Joo from criticism or being used by any other baddies for their own ends. The case is so big, no other baddies will want to touch it.
Only Mum Paik is going to be searching for her real Sa Eon (sounds like ‘Son’ for short! Hah! Maybe that’s why show has given him this name) and likely will sacrifice herself if necessary to ensure her Son does not disappear again.
That’s all this drama has been about. The rejection of the Son who was a Killer and trying to get away with replacing him with a fake. However, how did Son as a child, engineer the death of Hong’s family and why? We are to believe that a child got hold of someone to drive a Truck of Doom into the car. Son was supposedly but unsuccessfully drowned after this incident to appease the Hong Dad.
The other part of the drama is about SE trying to save HJ from her mum and his parents, to keep her for himself and protect her. The romance offers relief … a counterbalance to all the psycho stuff going on with Son and Master and the Paiks.
The Spokesperson team was a welcome relief too!
I’m wondering if now Sang Woo and SE can work together, or maybe once again, SE is to be the only hero. I’d have liked the girls to have had more to do. Na Youri appears to be a clutz with not much analytical ability. In A just suddenly returns to help her sister but we don’t know why she chooses now and if she’s any help at all. Mum Hong is ‘one note’ unlikable and a dreadful mother. Only Mum Paik is interesting.
The last 2 episodes need to be as exciting as these 2, to hold my attention!
@pkml3, your theory about the dead and living twin is right, however it seems the death might have been the direct killing by Psycho kid, and not the result of needing to produce a corpse to satisfy the Hong Dad. There seem to be many graves of children in the mountain somewhere.
But strangely, when Psycho is on screen, he only looks crazy but not really murderous. So far we only see him cutting up fish and holding a knife to HJ’s neck but seems non-murderous otherwise.
The explosives guy is Master. Also no more effective than Psycho since there’s a lot of fire but no one really gets hurt.
This is a fun romp where the stakes seem high and the threats are scary, but actually we’re dealing with pussy cats with claws rather than hardcore killers. (Now to see a hardcore killer being psycho, I recommend “365: Repeat the Year”! After watching that, this show’s attempted killings are kind of lame.)
It’s a great watch for a few thrills during the holiday season, when we don’t really want to see death and gore and we’ll get our happy ‘romantic’ ending.
@SnowFlower,
That is the thing that I am trying to say myself. I was talking with a friend about the show’s plot and I find this for now to be a plot hole. I am heading exactly where @Packmule3 goes because I like to find the the logic behind the actions.
Sang Woo tried for years to find the truth about the case and Park learned about the killer and he partnered with him the last year?
How so? I truly believe that Park was being manipulated by someone and I believe that it was the mother / kutsunim who did it. She had the information and gave it freely to him! Otherwise, there is a plothole about how Park found that critical information about Paik Sa Eon, when Sang Woo didn’t.
Even though, I have read the novel, the chakkanim has altered the plotline. And I am waiting for the final explanation in order to have the last pieces of the puzzle. I totally agree with @Packmule3 about the mother. She is as crazy as her son.
@Cleo, what puzzles me is that The Master found Psycho 406, but was not aware who he really was. Master really thought that fake SE was the real Psycho SE. Please share with us how the show is different from the novel (once the last episodes are out, of course).
Hellooo !
I’m watching this show without my critical thinking hat. I’m just enjoying the ride.
My two cents on end ep 10 –
As most of the internet agrees, the last 6 minutes of ep 10 showed raw, undone despair. If you compare it with how the show opened in ep 1 to show us who BSE was, the stark contrast was detailed. Including the fact that he needed a paper to read from because he was doused in grief. The slow movements, how he keeps the paper slowly in the pocket.
Similarly, he’s always been in the limelight but this time his eyes can’t take all the flashes because probably, he hasn’t slept at all in 48 hours and has a splitting headache.
Also the same clothes as two days ago – unkempt, unironed and without a tie. Opposite to how he’s appeared everyday including weekends and holidays because he’s always at work and always impeccably dressed.
I enjoy such unspoken details that convey what a character is going through a lot.
I am also curious whether fake SE is actually the son of the grandfather.
What remains unchanged is who he is. A master communicator. Anyone working in public health (or any level of public communication) would agree that effective story telling is a must to make an impact to the crowds.
By showing his vulnerability, by telling the nation that “he couldn’t make her happy as yet or that he was a husband and not a spokesperson”, he made the people cry with him. The bottom strips of news channels advertised his devastation instead of commenting upon the fact that he wasn’t the “real” BSE.
He told the public the story of his love and loss in 4 minutes flat and drew tears, sympathy and support from the public in dramatic fiction and real world audiences alike.
That’s a testament to how good he is at his job.
@snow flower – it’s pretty easy in the novel. I WON’T spoil it don’t worry. In the drama however, the DNA test complicates things. If he and his supposed dad are both sons, their DNA should match from paternal side. Here, it doesn’t.
@cleo !!! Helllloo !! I have missed our conversations !!
Did you like the writing of novel ?? I didn’t 🙈 i found it very unpolished? You are a writer so you’d know better but I prefer the storytelling, the pace and please…. Both the lead characters and their development far better in the drama.
@GB hello heeloo ! Yes, I agree with you… I am enjoying this drama as a holiday and not even getting into plot holes. I’m watching it for two things –
1) A heartwarming demonstration of forgiveness, empathy and thinking from another’s perspective… especially in matrimony (a holiday need I’d say !)
2) Stark examples of terrible, terrible parenting and it’s consequences. Some element of a terrible parent is a default troupe of kdramas but too often, we don’t see the consequences. Here, the consequences are loud and clear.
@GB reg. Girls having more to do… Sigh. I’ve stopped asking that of main stream kdramas. Still, I am surprised HHJ was given the opportunity of actual character development, an interesting storyline and not needing saving by ML 😱 here.
She’s unafraid and looses her marbles to match her abductor time to time instead of waiting to be saved.
Like you say… Who has kidnapped whom ? The kidnapper is terrible at his job. Failed 3x.
She was also given an opportunity to forgive, love, protect and be a hero unlike some completely one sided ML centric dramas where the only thing the FL does is give the ML some fever reducers 🙄🙄
Hi @Arihsi,
I’m doing the same. I did notice stuff that’s implausible and plot holes but I’ve put them aside to concentrate on the overall plot.
In the beginning I saw it as a comment on communication, and am pleased to see the opening up of HJ (quite quickly!) to finally making her arguments and taking steps of her own. I’d like to imagine that SE’s forgiveness and acceptance of her was one of the main keys to unlock her silence.
A good takeaway, for families and married couples who find it hard to really say what needs to be said.
I was thinking how remiss it was of the parents to not get professional help for their child but instead let him wreak whatever havoc he did, so that he was to be got rid of. The family priority was on saving face and not on saving a child or other victims. What terrible people those parents and grandparents are/were.
@Snow Flower,
Those are good questions. If Master was out for revenge and had already tied himself closely to SE, how did he manage to ‘find’ an accomplice in Fish Guy? He must have already known the backstory of how Fishing Dad buried corpses (including his brother) for the Paiks, and hired Fish Guy. In the last episode, it seems as though they were meeting for the first time.
Master’s thinking was inconsistent. He generally wanted Fish Guy to give SE grief by targeting his weakness (HJ), but from time to time, he also wanted to have SE killed (by himself, and not by Fish Guy). That’s probably why he kept telling Fish Guy to do nothing on his own but wait for instructions. However Master was prepared to get SE killed before he suffered the loss of HJ, and then he was interrupted by the new info that SE was fake.
When Master got hold of Fish Guy, the latter had not yet regained his memory of whom he was. What great odds were met, that the very accomplice was the one whom Master wanted to torture and kill. 😉
@Arihsi, yes Kidnapper is quite a failure, especially when HJ goes hog wild. At least 2 explosions and no one was badly hurt, one push off a trip but no death … so both Master and Kidnapper were failures too. 😆
@SnowFlower,
Of course I will. @Packmule3 also doesn’t want to spoil it for her, so wee need to respect your wishes.
I think that if they left it unaswered is a plothole for the reason who are questioning yourself.
As for your question, in Episode 10 according with what the mother – kutsunim told the Presidential Candidate both he – the Father Paik and their son are not blood related with the Chairman, while the current Sa Eon who had no name, is the illegimate son of the late Chairman. Chairman Hong seems to know this, since he told so to the Presidential Candidate the day they were shooting targets. “My son in law takes after the Chairman Paik”.
Hey @Arihsi!
It is good to see you here! I have missed our conversations too. I haven’t been active for some time too.
I have read specific chapters that a user posted on MDL and it was okay. The chakkanim did a good job with the thriller part, while he / she missed other things. The thing is that she kept the suspence. The ML was more tsundere in the novel that in here.
Yes, they did a better job in the show in some aspects, but since they brought new characters into play, they should have paid more attention to the details like the thing we are discussing with @Snowflower.
Still, it is a good show, better than others.
P.S. I have read on MDL that the english translation about the DNA test and what it actually says, was not done correctly on Netflix. So, we are losing important facts and we are lead to believe that they are not blood related at all.
@pkml3 since this is the thread for crazy predictions, I just thought I’d add that HJ now decides to put SE’s plan into action herself.
She’ll call him after ‘dying’ and so he’ll ‘commit suicide’ and join her in their new afterlife. Hehe.
Plot holes 🕳️
– how were the orphans allowed to just freely wander away from Orphanage grounds and find their way to the villa? 🤷🏻♀️. We know that real SE killed all the children. Bodies were disposed of by fish dad at the request of grandpa. Only SW escaped out of there alive.
– why the burial mounds? So obvious? If you wanted to hide bodies, you wouldn’t be mounding earth up like that in Korea? Unless you want the bodies found? 🤷🏻♀️
– how did DJ know that his twin was killed by SE as a child? All we see is him finding his brother’s other shoe outside the villa and his wailing. His brother was missing and never returned to the Orphanage but it’s a big leap to go from missing and presumed dead to “I know it’s Paik SE who murdered him”? I assume he never went into the villa himself? As far as we know nobody knew real SE lived in the villa as a child? 🤷🏻♀️
– how did Kidnapper (Real SE) know that HJ was fake SE’s wife (YYS) in Ep1? Did Master (DJ) know? I didn’t think anyone outside of family knew about HJ? Staff certainly didn’t? So who told DJ? Or how did he find out? 🤷🏻♀️.
– @Snowflower picked the other one. How did DJ know to team up with real SE? So random? It wasn’t like real SE was a hired gun or anything of the sort? And it seems like DJ never “met” real SE face to face? Which is why real SE asked if he was “Master” at the lake and got so angry when he discovered DJ was spokesperson staff? How did DJ know about the lake anyway? 🤷🏻♀️
– how did DJ know about fake SE in hospital and in the fire? The timeline is a bit odd?
– fish dad sees news about odd eyed assailant. Rings spokesperson’s office.
– Kang picks up. Gets cryptic message “he’s alive”. Scribbles it on the post it pad.
– runs in to tell SE when he arrives. Hands him the post it note and claims he also tracked the call to a business. Did he write the name of the business down afterwards? But the post it note that he handed SE was the message. Not the business? Anyway DJ uses the pencil trick to find out what Kang scribbled add he gets the fish dad’s business name.
– we see SW driving somewhere (to fish dad‘s shop)
– fish dad packs his bags. SW arrives and asks to speak to him. He is turned away. He drives off.
– I assume it is after SW leaves that real SE and DJ are both at fish dad’s business. Altercation between real SE and fish dad and I assume fish dad is unconscious after bottle hit. DJ eavesdrops and finds out the true identity of his accomplice.
– Real SE must’ve set the bomb and left. What about DJ? He must’ve left? Otherwise why didn’t he seem to know that the fire was caused by real SE? Because that was what he asked real SE in the text message? “Did you do this?”
– fake SE arrives. Bomb is set off. Or maybe real SE set a timer or something? Which would give him time to drive off and NOT bump into fake SE arriving at the scene
– somehow SW manages to see SE driving to the fish shop (and miss real SE and DJ driving off), spins round and saves him from the fire.
– Did DJ just hide in the bushes or something and watch everything unfold? Otherwise how would he know that fake SE had arrived at the scene and was involved in the fire and was “lucky to be alive”? Nobody knew fake SE was injured except HJ and SW? Even the parents and the personal assistant only knew that he was “missing” because HJ confronted them the night before? 🤷🏻♀️
– I find it hard to believe that Grandpa ordered a hit on Hong’s biological son just because he saw real SE’s face? Or that’s what we are led to assume so far? And somehow Hong was okay about it because real SE was dead too? Grandpa was so cryptic in the rain as the gun was pointed in his face. Let’s just call it even? I lost my grandson and you lost your son? And if you kill me you lose all the money you invested in the presidential campaign too? Everything was fine so long as the real SE was indeed dead? The boy didn’t drive the truck that killed Hong’s son though? It was grandpa that ordered the hit? And Hong’s outrage and anger only returned when he realizes that the real SE wasn’t actually dead after all? 🤷🏻♀️. Makes zero sense to me…
I am glad this is finishing next weekend. I have had enough of plot holes and things that don’t make sense. And brooding tsundere YYS can only charm me for so long. 😂
@cleo ! Really? Netflix needs to do better.
@GB hee hee hee. I giggle because like @cleo would agree… Ummm… Your theory is close. It’s close. The drama has digressed from the novel so no one can say for sure but you’re definitely close.
@nrllee The reason I’m not watching this drama for coherence per se. I don’t do much critical thinking on dramas these days. I’m enjoying it as is – shallow, I know.
@Arihsi yeah. I have to give it to the writer and the cast for keeping me interested right to the end. I haven’t been able to stay with any drama I have started for a while now. Hopefully it won’t be an underwhelming finish. As for identity of fake SE, I have been reading elsewhere as well. Let’s just say the translating work to English hasn’t been fantastic (although even the Mandarin translation isn’t exactly accurate when I went back to check). It’s thrown a lot of English viewers as a result.