(The Guryeong Family Massacre)
Song Soo Hoo is cleaning the boxing club’s floor when Ba-reum walks in wearing the black outfit. Ba-reum asks him why Song killed Ba-reum’s family.
Ba-reum says he became a cop to track him down and he has been searching for him always. Ba-reum challenges him to a match. He beats up Song Soo Ho badly.
He takes the bible and puts it on Song’s lap. Song is tied to the chair as he reads the verse, “An eye for an eye.” Ba-reum sets Song Soo Ho on fire after saying that he is getting back at him for killing his family.
Flashback
Jae Hoon wakes up in his room and hears his father yelling at his mother. He goes out to see his mother bathing his brother. His father says Jae Hoon is going to kill a human one day because he tried to bury his brother. His step-father storms out.
His mother calls Jae Hoon to wash up.
Later he finds his mother sitting in the living room unmoving, like a statue. Jae-hoon wakes up in the middle of the night and finds her still sitting in that position.
She serves him breakfast. Jae Hoon tells her that he didn’t intend to kill his brother. He says he just wanted to punish him. She watches him as he eats.
Later Jae Hoon is sleeping. He finds his mother beside him when he wakes up. She tries to kill him by suffocating him. Song Soo Ho appears and grabs his mother and slams her against the wall.
Jae Hoon loses consciousness soon.
Song Soo Ho is gone when Jae Hoon wakes up. He walks up to his mother who is severely wounded. She opens her eyes and apologises to him. She says she had no choice. She says Jae-Hoon was born with a unique gene. She says there was another boy too with the same gene. She hugs him and tells him that she hopes he lives a kind and upright life. She dies.
Jae Hoon goes down to find his step-father’s body lying on the staircase. He walks up the stairs with a knife in his hand. Song Soo Ho comes up from behind and clamps a hand over his mouth.
Later Jae Hoon wakes up in an unknown place. He comes back home to find his house swarming with police and onlookers. Jae- Hoon sees 3 bodies covered in white sheets lying on the ground.
Later the Guryeong Masaccre case is investigated and Jae Hoon is the prime suspect. He gets away after giving a lie detector test which shows him as innocent. Once outside, Jae Hoon vows to kill Song Soo Ho the same way he killed his family.
At present, Ba-reum thinks that he killed Song Soo Ho for revenge.
Meanwhile, Mu Chi takes Song Su Ho’s photo from his mother. The letters, “OZ” are tattoed on his arm in the photo. Mu Chi asks about Soo Ho. His mother says Soo Ho quit boxing after his sister (head hunter victim) died. She says he was working for an organisation at that time and suddenly he quit.
She says he was having a tough time and he even took counselling from a government centre. She says they suggested that security company where he worked for 10 years.
She says one night he had come home and bawled all night long. The next day she had found a Guryeong tollgate ticket in his jacket. She says he quit his work after that and started working at the boxing gym. She says a few days later a detective had come around to question him.
Ba-reum rules out burglary being the reason Soo Ho killed his family because he left Ba-reum alive. he wonders what Soo Ho’s motive was for removing Ba-reum/Jae Hoon from the house and then setting it on fire.
Meanwhile, Sung Ji Eun is tidying up Hong Ju’s desk. She spots Song Soo Ho’s photo on one of the files and she recognises him as the person who saved her when she was abducted by the Suseong killer back when she was pregnant. She wonders why Soo Ho saved her.
Ba-reum wonders why Soo Ho saved him.
Later, Mu Chi checks the file and finds that Sung Yo Han went to school in Guryeong. He wonders if the boy in Soo Ho’s album is Sung Yo Han.
Ba-reum walks out of his/Jae Hoon’s childhood home and runs into a neighbour. He says he is a cop. She recognises him on TV. She asks if he is here because of Sung Yo Han. She says she was shocked as she thought Sung Yo Han was Jae Hoon when she saw the news. She says Sung Yo Han was staring intently at Jae Hoon’s house on the day he was shot. She says she asked him if he was Jae Hoon but he had said he wasn’t Jae Hoon, before scurrying off.
She says Sung Yo Han had asked about Jae Hoon’s sister Jae Hee (Jae Min’s twin sister). She adds that Jae Hee had gone missing. She said she assumed Jae Hoon probably killed her and buried her somewhere. She says she hopes he grew up into a decent person.
Ba-reum walks away wondering why Sung Yo Han came here and how he knew Jae Hee. He goes to the government office and asks for details on Jung Jae Hee who went missing in 2005. He says she would be 22 years old now and she has savant syndrome. He says she remembered everything she heard. The staff says there is no record of a missing child but she will check with the other department.
Mu Chi goes to Sung Yo Han’s school. The teacher says that the child in the photo is Jung Jae Hoon. She tells him about the Guryeong Family Massacre. He recalls the Guryeong toll ticket in Soo Ho’s jacket. Mu Chi is told to check the police station.
Ba-reum is in the police station asking for details about Jae Hee. The detective says the house is in their parents’ name so it wasn’t torn down. He says they never found Jae Hee.
Just then Mu Chi walks in and is taken aback to see Mu Chi there. He asks for the detective who worked on the Guryeong Massacre case. The detective who was talking to Ba-reum says he was the one.
Mu Chi shows Jae Hoon’s photo and asks who it is. Ba-reum notes that the photo was taken the day he killed Choco. Mu Chi asks if Song Soo Ho was a suspect then. The detective checks the records for the statement.
Ba-reum recalls that there was no record of Soo Ho when he checked after he became a cop. The detective is surprised when he finds that there is no record. He says he personally spoke to Soo Ho.
He also says that Jae Hoon was a suspect as he showed no sympathy or emotion. After a polygraph, he was released. He says the maternal aunt adopted him and gives her details. Mu Chi tries her number but the number is out of service. Ba-reum watches him nervously. The detective checks for the aunt’s ID but nothing shows up. Mu Chi tells the detective to check the boy’s ID.
Ba-reum’s heart races as he watches the detective run the search. The detective says the register number has expired. He says the boy probably went abroad or died.
Ba-reum realises that his aunt never added him to the family register. He wonders whose ID he is living with.
Later, ba-reum explains to Mu Chi that he went there after learning that Sung Yo han did his schooling in Guryeong. He says he was looking into Chi Kook’s case details.
Mu Chi says he found Jae Hoon’s photo in Soo Ho’s album. He says Soo Ho has OZ tattooed on his arm and is probably the one who murdered the family.
He says the OZ organisation must be siding with the killer who killed Kang Duk Soo, Lee Jae Shik and Kim Byung Tae. He says the killer will surface soon.
Ba-reum drives back. He wonders how his mother knew that he had the psychopath gene. He recalls Dr Daniel Lee saying that he knew Sung Yo Han had that gene. Just then, he notices a tail on his car. He swerves and loses the tail, wondering who it is.
Back at his desk, Mu chi thinks that Jae Hoon had the motive for revenge against Soo Ho, yet Sung Yo Han killed him. He then says that Sung Yo Han attacked Na Chi Kook but Chi Kook was killed by OZ after SUng Yo Han died. Mu Chi says it doesn’t add up.
Shin is going through the evidence to find definite evidence on Sung Yo Han to clear Mu Chi’s doubts. Just then, Mu Chi comes in asking about the fingerprints on the written statement. Shin says they couldn’t find a match.
Daniel Lee is at his hideout. He has a photo of his sister Jennifer and wonders if he is doing the right thing. Just then, Ba-reum barges in and Daniel hides the photo in the chair. Ba-reum grabs him pushes Daniel against the wall.
Back at the stations, Detective Lee listens in as Shing tells the team that they are in trouble because Mu Chi took the CCTV footage from the police station.
Ba-reum asks Daniel how his mother knew that he had the psychopath gene. Daniel asks if Ba-reum is Park Mi Hyu and Kim Hee Jung’s son. Ba-reum says they are his biological parents.
Detective Lee comes to Mu Chi’s desk when he is not there and starts searching. Mu Chi walks in and confronts Lee for trying to steal the footage.
Earlier, Mu Chi and the team had led Lee to believe that Mu Chi had the footage and wasn’t at his desk. Lee walked right into the trap.
At present, Lee says he wasn’t looking for the footage. Mu Chi drags him to the restroom and searches for the OZ tattoo. He finds a plaster on Lee’s chest. He rips it off and finds a burn wound. Mu chi asks if they are an organisation of psychopaths Lee says he had tattoed his ex-girlfriend’s name.
Lee says he dropped the statement in the lobby and someone picked it up for him. He says he never edited any footage. Mu Chi asks if those people pay him a lot and walks out. Lee says it is his sense of duty that drives him.
Mu Chi peeks back in and watches Lee speak to someone on his phone. He hangs up when someone walks in.
Later, Lee walks into their workspace and Shin pours some hot tea on his jacket. He immediately removes the jacket under the pretext of helping him. He takes out Lee’s phone and checks the call log. He returns Lee’s jacket. Lee walks away with a scowl.
Later Shin reports to Mu Chi that it was a burner phone and the call came from the Ministry of Science and ICT. Mu Chi says they cant file a report on Lee as there is no evidence. He says they should keep a close watch on him Lee and asks Shin to try and trace the 6264 Sedan. Mu Chi tells them to keep Ba-reum out of the investigation.
Ba-reum recalls Daniel saying Ba-reum’s father was his colleague. He volunteered for taking the test to help with the trial. Daniel says he assumed that his mother would not have gone through with the pregnancy.
Ba-reum says he killed Soo Ho out of revenge which shows he has emotion. Daniel Lee says it was not out of love. He says Ba-reum was annoyed that Soo Ho killed something which belonged to him.
At home, Ba-reum draws out a whiteboard. He lists out members of OZ on it- SOng Soo Ho, Chi Kook’s killer, his uncle, his aunt.
He remembers the guy who ran away after witnessing granny’s murder. Ba-reum had later retrieved the jacket which the guy left behind during the chase. He had tracked the owner using the laundromat’s sign. He had located Kim’s (Sung Yo Han’s friend) address through it.
At present, Ba-reum goes to Kim’s house and finds photos of his victims. He notices that these pictures were taken after the victims had died. Ba-reum used to take photos when the victims were alive. He sees Kim’s laptop. He realises that Kim had watched Ba-reum kill but he took photos of it instead of going to the police.
Ba-reum adds Sung Yo Han’s name to the whiteboard. He then wonders why Sung Yo Han tried to kill him while the others always saved him. Ba-reum recalls Sung Yo Han’s last words, “We are….”
Mu Chi is outside the department of Science and ICT. He remembers that Sung Yo Han’s alibi worked here. He wonders if Kim is an OZ member.
Ba-reum checks with the coroner who says that Kim didn’t have an OZ tattoo on him. He says Sung Yo Han’s mother didn’t want an autopsy done. Ba-reum leaves deciding that Kim wasn’t working with OZ.
Mu Chi walks in a moment later and is taken aback to hear that Ba-reum had asked the same question. Mu Chi wonders what is Ba-reum up to.
Ba-reum talks to Sung Yo Han’s colleague. The man says Sung Yo Han wasn’t close with anyone at work so no one knew if he had a tattoo.
Ba-reum visits his surgeon and asks for the video recording of his brain surgery. The surgeon says it was highly confidential, so there is no video record of it. He says even if it was there, they would have filmed only the part where surgery was being done and not any other part of the body. He says he will prescribe some medicines for Ba-reum’s headache.
After Ba-reum leaves, the surgeon watches the recording of Ba-reum’s surgery and marvels at Han’s talent. He had secretly recorded Han performing the surgery. He thinks it is a pity that Han is a serial killer and locked in prison. he thinks that he might have succeeded because he killed all those people.
Ba-reum walks down the street. A sharp pain shoots through his head and his nose bleeds. He recalls Daniel saying Ba-reum is dying.
Ba-reum comes back home to find Bong Yi waiting outside. He tells her that he is not interested in her anymore as she makes him uncomfortable. She says she knows he killed Kang Duk Soo and is avoiding her because of that.
She says she doesn’t care about it. She says Yu Na would’ve been dead if Ba-reum hadn’t killed Kang Duk Soo. She says he deserved to die. Ba-reum pushes her away and accuses her of making him a murderer. He says she reminds him of that nightmare. He asks her to get out of his life. She tries to hold his hand. He pulls away saying he will confess his crime and go to jail if she shows her face again.
Ba-reum goes inside and bangs his head on the wall. He recalls seeing the puppy under the bridge and a severely wounded kid (Bong Yi) begging a disinterested Jae Hoon to help. Jae-Hoon had pulled the blanket over the kid and walked away.
At present, Ba-reum breaks down as he wonders what he should do.
Mu Chi is working on his whiteboard. He wonders why Sung Yo Han tried to kill Ba-reum and why he had photos of victims in his house. He wonders if Hong Ju found out something and that is why she was working on the case again. He calls her up. She says the person who killed Kang Duk Soo and Lee Jae Shik is leaving a similar signature as Song Soo Ho’s killer. Mu Chi feels that they are onto something.
OZ is in his car. He recalls his sister giving him a dreamcatcher. He vows that he won’t let another girl become a victim like her. He seems like he is regretting killing Chi Kook. he dials Mu Chi’s number.
Mu Chi picks up the call but the calls gets cut. He wonders who is giving him a prank call.
OZ lies dead in his car. The killer picks up his phone and goes away with the dashcam.
Daniel Lee is in his hideout when one phone rings. He finds a phone hidden in the file organiser. He takes the call and tells Ba-reum to get his act together.
Ba-reum says he misplaced the phone. He says he will pick up the phone tomorrow as he has some work today.
One of OZ’s men listens in on the conversation. He informs someone that Ba-reum is using a burner phone. He is told to follow Ba-reum and see whom he contacts.
4 of OZ’s men arrive at Daniel Lee’s hideout after tracing Ba-reum’s phone. As they enter, they are shocked as Ba-reum jumps out and attacks them.
Earlier, Ba-reum had figured out that his phone was cloned (at W hotel) when he couldn’t hear Mu Chi on the phone. Ba-reum assumed that Daniel Lee is working with OZ because Daniel and OZ were tracking Ba-reum since birth. He decides to find why Daniel is living in hiding. He decides to use Daniel as bait.
Ba-reum had deliberately disclosed Daniel’s hideout to OZ by making a phone call. He had lost the tail by switching vehicles at the precinct. Then he helped Daniel Lee vacate his hideout and move out. He waits in the hideout for OZ’s men.
At present, Ba-reum all of them. He finds OZ tattoed on the men. He holds a knife against one of them and asks who sent them. One of them shows him footage of Bong Yi in a cab. he threatens to harm Bong Yi if Ba-reum doesn’t stop attacking them. Ba-reum goes silent. They hit him on the head and Ba-reum is knocked out cold.
Later Ba-reum comes home and Daniel is waiting for him. Ba-reum says the men got away. Daniel says he left Jennifer’s photo behind. He is worried of they will find it. Ba-reum says he will find it for him.
Ba-reum walks away thinking that Daniel feels threatened by OZ. He goes to an abandoned warehouse and goes through Daniel’s things. He finds a phone in it. He switches it on. He finds Daniel Lee’s number saved in it.
There is a voice mail on the phone and he listens to it, “Yo Han, this is Kim Joon Sung. What you asked me to look into has got me terrified. I think I heard wrong. The organisation goes by the name OZ. Anyway let us talk in person.”
Ba-reum realises that this is Sung Yo Han’s phone and Sung Yo Han kept in touch with Daniel Lee. He concludes that neither Sung Yo han nor Kim was a part of OZ.
Ba-reum is shocked when he finds his diary which has the account of the rabbit and the Moojin murders in the other box. Ba-reum recalls that one day his diary had gone missing.
One of his diary entry mentions a new student in his class.
Flashback
Jae Hoon watches the teacher praising the new student for excelling in maths. He feels annoyed at the boy. The boy tended to Jae Hoon’s wounds and Jae Hoon finds him weird. Jae-hoon wishes to be like him. He notices that the boy was being followed by a man in black (OZ member)
At present, Ba-reum realises that someone was following the boy.
Meanwhile, Hong Ju films Song Soo Ho’s mother’s interview. The mother says she is able to move on now. She says she has a will to live.
Bong Yi is on the way to Hong Ju’s house to apologise to her. She runs into Sung Ji Eun on the street. Sung Ji Eun is being told off for leaving her dog tied up on the street while she watches the baby. They tell her to remove the dog. Bong Yi remembers Ji Eun from when she took her interview. She says Sung Ji Eun had moved from her old house. She offers to take the dog for a walk. Sung Ji Eun is thankful.
As Bong Yi takes Boksil for a walk, she finds him familiar. Later, Sung Ji-eun takes Bong Yi to her home and prepares a meal for Bong Yi. Bong Yi looks at young Sung Yo Han’s photo holding the puppy. Bong Yi recalls that it is the same puppy that was tied to the bridge on the day of her attack.
Sung Ji-Eun notices Bong Yi watching the photos. Bong Yi learns from Sung Ji Eun that the son found the puppy on the same bridge where Bong Yi was attacked. When asked, Sung Ji Eun says she lost her son to an accident. Bong Yi takes her leave.
She visits Mu Chi and asks him about the boy on the day of her attack. Mu Chi says it was the boy who reported that Bong Yi was under the bridge. He had carried her up the bridge and then Mu Chi had met him there. Mu Chi had carried her to the hospital and the boy followed him. Mu Chi found the school uniform coat on Bong Yi and says her grandmother went to find the boy at school the next day. he says he was unable to trace the boy. Bong Yi says she met the kid’s mother and that the person is no more.
Just then, Mu Chi gets a call saying that they tracked down the 6264 sedan. Mu Chi goes away.
Detective Lee watches OZ’s dead body in the car. The ambulance and cops are there. Lee walks away when Mu Chi reaches the crime scene. Mu Chi notes that the dashcam and phone are gone. He calls up Shin and asks him to trace a number.
Mu Chi’s eyes fall on the dreamcatcher. He wonders why someone will hang something personal on it. He locates a backup memory card on it and smiles.
Bong Yi goes back to Sung Ji eun and tells her that she was the victim and her son had saved her life at the bridge. Sung Ji-Eun’s eyes tear up and she says her son never mentioned it. Bong Yi says she would have thanked him if he was alive. Bong Yi notices that the photos of Sung Ji Eun’s son and the puppy are gone.
As Bong Yi walks out, she remembers Sung Ji-eun taking down a photo when they had met for the first time. She also remembers Sung Ji eun repainting the compound wall of the old house at that time. Bong Yi goes over and erases the paint.
Hong Ju watches the mother’s interview replaying on the laptop. SOng Soo Ho’s mother says she is grateful to Sung Yo Han who gave her the will to live.
Meanwhile, Bong Yi finds the words “Sung Yo Han the murderer lives here” written in red on the wall. Bong Yi is shocked as she realises it was Sung Yo Han who saved her life. She wonders how the person who saved her life and brought home an injured dog could be a psychopath. She thinks that Sung Yo Han might have put up a show. She recalls that day when Sung Yo Han had carried her on his back as a kid. She feels that was genuine concern.
Bong Yi also recalls Song Soo Ho’s mother saying that she didn’t think Sung Yo Han could be the killer. She tells herself that SUng Yo Han tried to kill Ba-reum with a hammer. She wonders who killed her granny if it wasn’t SUng Yo han.
Meanwhile, Mu Chi receives the result of the call tracing from the prank call he received yesterday. he understands that OZ had called him moments before his death.
Mu Chi checks the footage from the back up of the storage device. Mu Chi is confused to see Ba-reum in the footage, walking out of his house.
Ba-reum obtains the school records of the boy who excelled in class at that time. The principal gives him the records. Ba-reum is shocked to learn that the boy is Sung Yo Han.
Ba-reum notes that the homeroom teacher had written that Sung Yo Han was a little obsessive.
Ba-reum meets the homeroom teacher. She says Sung Yo Han kept mentioning that he was being followed. When Ba-reum is about to leave he notices a couple of mice in a small enclosure. Ba-reum asks why they are there. The teacher says they are lab rats that the kids will use for the Expo.
Mu Chi watches the footage in shock. He wonders why Ba-reum is there at all the crime scenes at the time of the murder. He wonders if Ba reum is the killer.
At the school, suddenly a memory floods back to him. He recalls the mouse at the rat enclosure and Han having a mouse in his hand. Ba-reum recalls Sung Yo Han’s last words on the roof, “We are lab mice”.
Image Courtesy -TVN
Review
This episode tied up certain loose ends.
Ba-reum had been looking for Song Soo Ho his whole life. Locating Song Soo Ho served as his trigger to the serial killings. Also, he had killed to show authority over Soo Ho and not as a form of revenge, which emphasises that he had just the psychopath gene in him.
Intriguingly, Jae-hoon’s sister Jae Yee went missing after the incident. I wonder why she was allowed to live or if she managed to escape.
When Granny worked at Yo Han’s house she had given a jacket to Sung Yo Han as he left. He dropped the jacket when Ba-reum chased him after killing granny. Ba-reum had tracked down Sung Yo Han’s friend Kim’s house using the jacket which Kim left at Yo Han’s house.
Both Sung Yo Han and Kim knew about OZ. It looks like Daniel has been working with Sung Yo Han after meeting him at the amusement park. Daniel might have staged his death and gone rogue. I am curious to see Daniel Lee’s story.
It looks like the members of OZ are acting as guardians of the children with psychopath gene. They also keep them in check.
Sung Yo Han’s last words were that they were lab rats. It looks like they are test subjects for an experiment.
It is intriguing to see how the organisation chose to bring up the children. Instead of kidnapping Jae Hoon as a child, he was left to grow up with his family. Song Soo was told to eliminate Jae-Hoon’s family and leave him with his aunt instead of just removing Jae Hoon from the family and closing the case as a missing child. It also makes me wonder if they tried to sway the test subject mindset by changing their environment and also causing triggers.
OZ had made a back up recording which places Ba-reum at the crime scenes. OZ had a tragic past concerning his sister. Detective Lee also mentioned he has a sense of duty towards the organisation. It looks like the organisation is carefully choosing their employees. These employees are driven by the idea and not by money.
The experiment on psychopath children seems to be a deeply knitted one and it has been spanning for over two decades. I am curious to see how it came to be what it is and Han and Daniel Lee’s role in it.
The characters are slowly warming up to the idea that Sung Yo Han is innocent. The fickle mind of the public is well portrayed through Bong Yi. The public tends to overreact to the partial information on media and often turns a blind eye to rational thinking. Bong Yi wasn’t willing to believe Song Soo Ho’s mother who thought Sung Yo Han was innocent but she is willing to consider it now when she found out that he was the one who saved her life.
It is ironic that Bong Yi thought her granny’s killer put up an act of compassion. She was right about that but she had the wrong person in mind.
Ba-reum has figured out that he is a part of the Government’s experiment but Mu Chi is on to Ba-reum now. I am curious to see how Ba-reum works himself out of this situation while unravelling the conspiracy.
-By Soul Sword-
The Writers Room 
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