Wait a second.
We’re still on Episode 10 with two more episodes to go, so everything isn’t cut and dried as it seems. Though I’m glad that these last two episodes cleared up many issues, they also muddied a few things.
Let’s go over the story again.
A. First, Psycho 406 intended to burn the shack down to kill the foster father/caregiver of SE, but I don’t think he planned on roasting SE as well. He didn’t expect him to arrive at the shack after him, and be trapped in the burning house.
Hence, this text conversation with The Master aka SE’s security guy, DoJae.
Master: (texting report of the fire) Did you do this? I warned you not to act alone. I can’t clean up your messes. You’re lucky Paik SaEon is alive.
Psycho: Paik SaEon?
To me, Psycho 406’s facial reaction registered surprise, confusion, and amusement.
Psycho: I had no idea. How did you know?
Master: This is your last warning. Don’t cause trouble. Just wait.
Psycho: (muttering) Last warning? I think you’re the one who’ll cause trouble.
Ha! Is Psycho 406 a psychic, too? He was correct to suspect DoJae of causing trouble before long. DoJae had overheard his conversation with the Foster Father in the shack and decided to turn on him.
But DoJae’s utter disbelief when he discovered that the identity of the real killer of his twin brother paralleled Psycho 406’s shock when he discovered DoJae’s true identity as SE’s staffer. I think that scene at the water’s edge was a great plot twist. The two were horrified to discover who their partner-in-crime was. What weird twist of fate drew them together?
DoJae’s reaction: You were the one who lied! (slugging him with the bat) You’re the real Paik SaEon.
Psycho 406’s reaction: What’s this? (seeing DoJae’s ID) You bastard! Were you one of Paik SaEon’s lackeys?
This, to me, was a watershed moment and the setting of the fight (i.e., by the water’s edge) was just fitting. The water cleansed them of their subterfuge and charade.
B. Second, the plot twist begs the question: how did DoJae and Psycho 406 hook up if they didn’t even know each other in the first place? Surely, they couldn’t have met by accident or coincidence on a dating site or murder-for-hire site. There must have been somebody — a puppetmaster, of sorts — who steered them together, engineered their meeting, encouraged their alliance, and embolden them to pursue SE’s downfall.
Who is this individual who linked them up?
A simple process of elimination comes in handy. I can immediately cross off three suspects: the parents.
1. Presidential candidate Paik. No, because he’s an airhead. He can’t organize this.
2. His wife, the mother of Psycho 406. No, because she believed that her son, Psycho 406, was dead. She couldn’t have linked up the two men.
3. Mr. Hong, the media magnate. No, because he trusted Chairman Paik’s word that he’d killed his psycho grandson. Remember, Mr. Hong struck a deal with Chairman Paik. That is, a life for a life.
Hong: The bastard who ran my kids over. I chased him to the Philippines and got him to confess just before I was about to take his life. So don’t try to deny it.
Chairman Paik: Have you calculated it thoroughly? After you shoot me, what will you have left? You invested tens of billions on won in my presidential campaign. You already lost your son. If you shoot me, you’ll also lose the money. Are you okay with that?
Hong: You know me well. You know I’m someone more sensitive to losses than to gains.
Chairman Paik: Wouldn’t it be a little better if the losses weren’t all on you? By now, they should be walking side by side.
Hong: What does that mean?
Chairman Paik: On the road to the afterlife. Your son and my grandson.
Hong: How’s that?
Chairman Paik: Is it starting to add up now?
In other words, Mr. Hong knew that Chairman Paik had his only son YuJin killed in a car accident. Hong INa surmised that YuJin was killed because he had seen the face of the real Paik SaEon. She didn’t know however, that her father had let Chairman Paik off because the Chairman offered to kill his own grandson as reparation.
Actually, I think Chairman Paik made a better deal because he succeeded in getting rid of THREE of his headaches:
a. a psycho grandson that was a pox on the family’s reputation;
b. retribution/punishment for ordering the death of Mr. Hong’s son;
c. maintaining the secrecy of an illegitimate son. He could finally show his true son to the world (more on this theory later).
Thus, by applying the process of elimination, we can see that none of these three characters was a plausible conduit between DoJae and Psycho 406.
To me, only Sangwoo is the logical choice. He has been investigating this case for two decades. That’s more than enough time to discover the key players and set the stage for their drama to unfold while he sits back and relax.
Remember his conversation with Yoori in Episode 5?
SangWoo: Yes, a few kids went missing shortly after being adopted. I learned that after becoming an adult. It’s still an unsolved case.
Yoori: Do you remember what you said at our first meeting?
(Flashback: he advised her that instead of asking what it is, shouldn’t you be asking why I haven’t revealed it yet.)
Yoori: What’s the reason? Why are you digging up something that happened over 20 years ago?
SangWoo: I was the first to discover that villa. I suggested to the kids that we go too. Once my channel grew big enough, I wanted to reveal it when people started paying attention. Then I got the chance to be on the show and thought, “This is it.”
Yoori: You’ve been holding onto this for a long time. I’m sorry.
As of Episode 10, I say that SangWoo has less than six degrees of separation between DoJae and Psycho 406.
Let’s explore them.
1. DoJae and SangWoo have one connection: the orphanage.
To me, it’s possible that SangWoo purposedly named only three missing orphans to throw everybody off the scent. He could have lied about being unaware of the fourth missing boy in order to hide his connection with DoJae.
Also, now that we know that DoJae was the surviving twin from the orphanage, I suspect that DoJae feigned ignorance when SE asked him to check on Dr. Ji Sangwoo. They were in the same photograph. It’s possible that DoJae knew him but was deflecting when he admired SangWoo’s “shoulder deltoids.”
2. As for Psycho 406, he and SangWoo have multiple connections.
a. Their childhood
Didn’t you find it curious that, of orphans who visited the mansion, only SangWoo lived to escape and talk about his experience playing with the young master of the house? ESPECIALLY when he was the first to discover the villa and was the one to suggest to the other orphans to visit the mansion. Why didn’t he become Psycho 406’s victim?
Uh-oh. I hope he didn’t take part in the killings or was tasked to bring the orphans to the young Psycho 406’s villa.
b. The abandoned mansion
SangWoo drops in and enters the villa with surprising ease and familiarity. In Episode 5, he didn’t seem worried about encountering Psycho 406 inside the mansion when he brought Yoori to check out place. Then in Episode 8, he wasn’t spooked or curious when he saw the open door.
SangWoo: This house is where the orphanage kids went in and never came out. Why is the door open?
HJ: Does someone live here now?
SangWoo: No. I don’t think so.
HJ: Did you go in?
SangWoo: Mmm. Last time I was here. HeeJoo, why do you ask about the case? Do you know something about it?
HJ: (shaking her head)
SangWoo: You’re asking about it. And the spokesman asked before. You’re both very interested. It’s too late tonight. Let’s come back during the day.
c. Arson
Psycho 406 is an arsonist and SangWoo, according to DoJae’s research (Episode 4), produced a lot of videos on unsolved cases related to arson and bombs. He was knowledgeable about explosions and arson methods. This is an odd coincidence.
d. Heterochromia
As they were playmates, Sangwoo must have known that the boy wearing the tiger mask had heterochromia. Once the news came out that SE’s blackmailer had the odd feature, he could have connected the dots and warned SE.
e. Psychiatry
In Episode 10, we learned that Psycho 406 only regained his memory in recent years.
Psycho 406: His first death anniversary is coming up. In three days, right? Exactly a year ago, around this time, when I saw the news that Paik JangHo had died, it all came back to me. His face was like on every channel, and it came back to me. The face of the man who pushed me into the water. So, do you know what I thought? “What a shame!” I should’ve killed that bastard myself. With my hands. I should’ve done it myself. What? Are my hands weird? Are they dirty? Are you crying? Why? Do you pity me?
Mother: No. I pity myself. I was tricked. I was told you died. No, he said he killed you. That old bastard tricked me.
SangWoo is a psychiatrist. It’s possible that Psycho 406 had sought counseling or psychiatric care at his clinic, “Bliss Care Clinic” prior to his memory coming back.
f. Criminal tendencies
As a trained psychiatrist, SangWoo isn’t a stranger to mental illnesses, like the one exhibited by Psycho 406. In fact, he described the situation to Yoori dispassionately in Episode 5.
SangWoo: (calmly) “Let’s cut open the cat’s belly.” “Next, the tail.” “Next, the leg.” “Next, the head.” The way he spoke sounded so innocent. He said it as if it was nothing. It made it more terrifying.
Not only had SangWoo seen criminal tendencies up close, but he’s been studying them, too.
In sum, it isn’t difficult for SangWoo to establish a connection to both DoJae and Psycho 406, given his background, history, and situation. I call him the missing link.
C. Third, I may be be grasping at straws here, but I think the blackmail video clip that SE and HJ received demonstrates that SangWoo is linked to DoJae and Psycho 406.
1. The video showed a segment of a comedy show. It went like this:
“Help yourself! Eat it before it cools. You don’t like it? Those were good too. The meat was bursting out. It wasn’t just like a sausage or ham. Yeah. That’s right. What’s it like? What Korean food does it resemble? If this is how it’s going to be, don’t call it a seminar. (laugher)”
To my ears, the sense of humor displayed in the video clip matches the mocking, insolent tone of Psycho 406. I wouldn’t be surprised if he selected the video clip himself. He sent it to HJ because HJ represented a life that he had been denied. He envied and coveted SE’s family life, unaware that SE and HJ had been living a sham marriage.
2. At the end of the video, there was blackmail message that went like this:
“You did it. You’re the killer. Paik SaEon.”
Obviously, DoJae wrote this part and it was addressed to SE because he had no doubt in his mind that SE was guilty of murder. He had yet to discover the real identity of his twin brother’s killer.
3. But the interesting part is the news ticker below the video clip. It was asking for information, “Missing orphan case. Contact us if you know anything.” HBC was listed as the contact and SangWoo was working on the investigation for HBC with Yoori. Ostensibly, he sought answers and closure for the deaths of his fellow orphans.
To me, this blackmail video had the flavor…or fingerprints of all three men.
D. Lastly, don’t fall for Sangwoo’s obvious charms.
I know he and Yoori look cute together but there were some things that I found suspicious about him. Like, when he waited for HJ outside the ladies’ restroom in Episode 2. He apologized however for scaring her. He said, “What was I thinking hovering around the women’s restroom?”
Or when he hung out with Yoori and asked her questions about SE. It seemed like he was fishing for info and knew that Yoori was a fount of knowledge on all things SE because she was SE’s fangirl.
Or when he showed up at the shack of the Foster Father on the same night that Psycho 406 and DoJae went there. How did he finally locate the place?
This is so interesting @pkml3. Out of confusion in the earlier episodes, I was floundering between thinking that there were 2 perpetrators to that there were 3 and then back to 2 again. I was misled by Sang Woo’s saving SE from the explosion/fire in the fishing equipment store, and started to discount him. But if we need another person younger than the parents, who’s on the spot, then he’s the only one. I believe we can rule out In Na who just came back and appears to me more like a red herring (and waste of screen time).
Show has nicely painted SW as upright investigator, with a crush on HJ. But I did find him a bit creepy in how he was so sure of his way around the old mansion. He’s the only one we know of who actually met the real SE, and may have had the means to retain contact with him, even after he was ‘drowned’ and lost his memory.
The last bit about his adoptive father owning the hospital where he admitted SE and SE acknowledging that he had been mistaken about SW, might be more red herrings. Just when our guard is down and SE trusts SW to take care of HJ, the tables may turn again!
But did I make sense, @GB? 🙂
All I know is DoJae and Psycho 406 couldn’t possibly have found each other and formed a team to take down SE without a third party acting as their go-between.
I also realized that SangWoo’s testimony about meeting the biological SE and playing with him couldn’t be verified. That’s what I meant in another thread when I said that I must reassess or rethink Psycho 406. The adult Psycho 406 lacks impulse control and is too unstable and high-strung to be the kid SangWoo recounted as describing the process of dismembering a cat so calmly and methodically. First, the belly, then the tail, the leg, the head…
If ever, SangWoo is the calm one. He doesn’t seem to lose his temper…except when SE chased after his car because he had HJ in the car. What if he was the real killer/master and young Psycho 406 was his minion just ready to do his bidding.
Lol. I didn’t even consider Hong Ina. She’s too focused on outing her father as the bad parent. 🙂
@pkml3
You said:
Yes, this makes sense once we know the great irony of the Master not knowing that the one he wants to kill is his own accomplice, the Psycho 406 that he set loose on the fake SE.
Also it becomes more apparent that someone brought them togehter since they did not seem to know each other at all even when face-to-face. Psycho asked Master if it was him. It was like they had been remotely gathered to be playmates (like in an online game) but had never met each other. In times of quiet, Psycho didn’t like being left out of the game play, out so he set off a few bombs to stay in the loop, and got scolded by Master.
You said:
This was the part that made me wonder if there was yet a 3rd player among the accomplices. Psycho did not seem to be like the boy in the mask, unless in losing his memory, he had also changed to become more highly strung.
The other thing that made me wonder is how un-murderous he’d been for years. In the past he’d killed 4 playmates, but none since then?? It did not seem to be the same person. I wondered if there was someone else.
You said:
It is suspicious that there’s no way to verify what SW claims he remembers. He seems to be the more cold-blooded and level-headed person, who also comes along to hangout with HJ at a time when Do Jae and Psycho start taking action. The timing is suspicious.
If SW is the 3rd playmate, then he would know that HJ is SE’s wife. He came specially to join the same TV station to work with her, but she left to join the Presidential Office.
While all 3 guys are after SE, they also want attack HJ to get at him. Psycho wants to either claim her as his own or kill her to make SE suffer. Do Jae wanted SE to feel her loss and SW probably wants her for himself. It’s good that HJ decided to take matters into her own hands for a change and thumb her nose all all the men. I hope she’s the one taking Psycho hostage!!!
So yeah, it only makes sense if the boys found each other through some 3rd party help, and the one with the most info and memory of the past is SW.
@pkml3, there’s something interesting about the identity of SE that cropped up in Episode 10. Mum Paik or Prof Sim is fed up that Paik does not care about his own son and notes that the real SE is much like his father, but also that neither he nor the real SE are like the Chairman Paik Jang Ho. However there’s someone else like the Chairman, the son, the fake SE who’s rising faster than his father.
The hint suggests that fake SE is actually the real son of the Chairman Paik Jang Ho. What a complicated family.
@pkml3, more thoughts…
I like the irony not only of how Do Jae was ordering the real SE to threaten the fake SE, but of how the real SE sent a bomb to Do Jae’s office and almost killed his own Master.
It was a twisted mind that put these 2 together without telling them exactly who each was to the other. It could have totally ruined plans to kill fake SE if the accomplices killed each other instead. So, what were the plans, exactly?
If Sang Woo is the 3rd person in the game to supposedly destroy SE, there would have been easier ways. what is he really after? In the process he allowed HJ to be traumatised.
Could it be that he just set in motion a psychological game, and is now sitting back to watch the fallout without caring who gets hurt? (This reminds me of ‘365: Repeat the Year’) If he really wants to hurt SE and/or HJ, the question is why.
He is an orphan who claims to have felt the loss of 3-4 friends in the orphanage. He claims to be investigating the truth of their disappearances. But as you say, he might have been the one to lure his friends to the psycho’s lair.
In the present, for all intents and purposes, SW looks well to do and a success in his field. He’s well known on the Internet. His father owns a hospital. In the past he had a crush on HJ and now wants to look her up.
If he’s the one behind the whole game, there seems to be no clue as to his motive. Perhaps he’s the real crazy psycho who’s just creating a psychological game with his old playmates purportedly to torture SE, but getting them to destroy each other instead.
@pm3, I have been asking the same questions. I thought the in person meeting of Psycho 406 and Master Do Jae was the best twist of Episode 10. The presence of a Grand Puppet Master makes a lot of sense and SW is indeed a prime candidate. If the show makes such a reveal, it will tie many loose ends together into a coherent narrative. I have the alarming suspicion that the show is setting up SW and YR as the cute second couple. That, of course, could be a red herring too. We will see tomorrow.
@Snowflower,
I was willing to give SangWoo the benefit of the doubt but I had no choice but to deem him a liar by Ep 10. You see in Ep 10, we got the confrontation scene between Psycho 406 and his mom, Mrs. Paik. It was revealed that Chairman Paik died only recently; it had been only a year since his death. His face was plastered on every news channel and Psycho 406’s memories came flooding back.
Well…Psycho 406 had amnesia as an excuse. But what was SW’s excuse? He didn’t have amnesia.
If he could remember the dragon ring — a small detail on the portrait of the old man — well enough to draw it in great details for his Youtube fans, then I don’t see why he couldn’t remember the face of the old man AND didn’t recognize him as Chairman Paik when the news of his death splashed on all channels.
See that? There’s an inconsistency there; it’s illogical. At first, I dismissed it simply as a plothole. But when I re-thought the whole thing from a different angle, I had no choice but to call it for what it was: a lie, a deep fake. SangWoo was faking his ignorance.
But why?
At the most elementary level, I attribute it to his unspoken, unrequited feelings for HJ. He must have found out who she was married to and plotted to replace the husband. But then, he also discovered SE’s family connection and went down the rabbit hole.
So yes, SangWoo is shady as an oak tree.
Great points, @GB.
I wondered about it, too. Psycho 406 hadn’t killed a person (but he did burn cats) ever since he regained his memories a year ago.
Even when he had a chance, he didn’t take it.
The pizza bomb. It wasn’t strong enough to kill the staff (and you’re right. He could have unwittingly killed The Master, lol).
HeeJoo. He didn’t slash her throat when he could have.
Heejoo’s father. Just threatened HJ with those animal teeth.
SaEon in the elevator. He carried a knife all the time. One stab to the heart and SE would have been a statistic. But he just settled for a (fetish) whiff of SE’s body scent.
The foster father. He whacked him but didn’t kill him. He intended to burn him instead.
His own family. He admitted though that he didn’t go after them because he was afraid they would kill him again.
His mother. They were alone in the house and he spared her.
DoJae. He slugged DJ with a bat, overpowered him, stuffed him in a bag, and accidentally stabbed him but he laughed it off? For him, it was like “play”, like playing a game.
That was a very interesting mindset, though. Killing as a sort of game. An escalation game.
Does he need a partner to kill a human because they can dare each other? “I dare you to cut the belly.” “Do it and I’ll cut the tail.” “Only if you cut the leg.” “Then, you cut the head.”
Hence, he needed DJ. DJ was like a “playmate” in charge of cutting (metaphorically) SE’s loved one as payback for the loss of his twin brother. And he’s in charge of cutting SE’s prestige and status because he lost his status and place in the Paik family. It’s a game designed to cut SE up like a cat.