I’ve never swore on thoughtsramble before but I really have to say — WTF CHOI TAE HO??

Quick Recap on what happened in this episode:

Choi Tae Ho points fingers at Joon Oh for being the murderer and killing So Hee.

(what a badass – love it!)

Bong Hee later kicks Tae Ho’s car and slaps Tae Ho for cooking up such a lie, “Seo Joon Oh-sshi and I will reveal it no matter what.” However, she hesitates a little when Tae Oh laughs and says that he saw Joon Oh dead. Can I just say that Tae Oh actually checked for a CCTV? Otherwise, he would probably have beaten Bong Hee up.

Nonetheless, one good thing that happened in this episode is that Bong Hee found herself an ally, Prosecutor Yoon, who asks if he can trust her.

Back on the island, Reporter Kim wakes up and tells Joon Oh that he’s actually on this island to help Joon Oh – what if Jae Hyun’s death is not a suicide, but a homicide, and what if it has nothing to do at all with Joon Oh? I knew it! Joon Oh is distraught and after staring at Tae Oh (because of Reporter Kim’s previous hint not to trust Tae Oh), he makes his way in a daze to Kim’s campgrounds. Tae Oh, in the meanwhile, sneakily tries to cut the cloth around his wrists.

In the present, Prosecutor Yoon trusts Bong Hee’s words that Tae Oh is the killer and very cool-ly indicates his suspicion to the current-president of Legend Entertainment. However, this makes me a little scared – shouldn’t you hide all your trump cards and only show them at the last? Why scare your enemies? They might end up doing something you didn’t plan for. Notably, Yoon hears Tae Oh in a drunken stupor, “You’re acting like So Hee. It’s always lowly people like you who act up.” So that’s one trust point for Bong Hee!

Well when I first started this show, I thought it would be a few murderers amidst the group of them – but I now realise that one murderer is enough to inflict a whole lot of damage. That’s not enough, because you need one coward too, and that award officially goes to Mr Tae. Mr Tae overhears Kim’s words to Joon Oh and repeats them to President Hwang, but Tae Oh (who has escaped from his binds) overhears too and threatens Mr Tae to tell him where Joon Oh went.

In a flashback, we see that Joon Oh has promised Jae Hyun to help him make his debut. However, after 7 years, Jae Hyun is tired of waiting and wants to leave, leading to the scene between Jae Hyun and Joon Oh which we have seen in the first episode. An additional 30s scene before the part where all the celebs gathered downstairs before Jae Hyun fell off also showed that it wasn’t Joon Oh who called all of them there to talk to Jae Hyun – someone called them all (I deduced) and Tae Oh was also the last to arrive.

Joon Oh finally reaches Kim’s campground and finds the evidence Kim was talking about. There were screenshots of a CCTV recording which showed that while Joon Oh left around 950pm, Tae Oh entered Jae Hyun’s building at 1030pm – so he’s the last one who had seen Jae Hyun! My question – how can the police have missed this out?? Is everyone either stupid/corrupted here? Anyway Tae Oh chases up with Joon Oh, smashes his head and drags him to the edge of a cliff. Truly wtf.

In the present, there’s another survivor – Mr Coward. He is scared out of his wits and only trusts President Hwang, but even Hwang is lying in the hospital unconscious.

Back on the island, Tae Oh throws the screengrabs away and in the flashback, we saw how he beat Jae Hyun up for threatening to leave and jeopardising their career. Without Jae Hyun, Dreamers couldn’t survive. Joon Oh wakes up and they start fighting, leading to Tae Oh strangling Joon Oh, “I hope you are the last one. This is too hard for me.” Another flashback shows us that Tae Oh accidentally threw Jae Hyun onto a sharp edge, leading to his head bleeding. He got into a cab and told the driver to just drive around once.

Tae Oh in the present hunts down Mr Coward and threatens him to tell the ‘truth’. Bong Hee rushes to the interrogation house and realises Mr Coward is missing, thus suspecting something must have happened. In the meantime on the island, Joon Oh manages to flip himself. The duo separates but rushes at each other again, causing both to roll over the edge – with Joon Oh grabbing onto the edge and Tae Oh grabbing onto his hand. I didn’t really understand this part because Tae Oh looks kinda evil and asks Joon Oh to let him go – is he trying to turn Joon Oh into a murderer as well? Or has he already checked out his chances and think that he won’t die falling into the sea? Either way, Joon Oh screams at him to hold on but Tae Oh’s hand slips away and he falls into the waters. Bong Hee finds a distraught Joon Oh and comforts him.

In the present, Mr Coward suddenly gains lots of courage to make his testimony. He states that Tae Oh is speaking the truth – Joon Oh is the killer, but oh there’s an accomplice. As Bong Hee rushes into his room in indignance, he points at Bong Hee for being Joon Oh’s accomplice and covering things up.

Back on the island,  Bong Hee puts her hand into Joon Oh’s, claiming that she’s scared of the night. Joon Oh comments that he should go back and Bong Hee smiles at Joon Oh, “That is where you should be, that is where you belong.”

Aww, in this minute conversation, I’m glad to see the change in dynamics revolving around Joon Oh. Does anyone still remember how they looked down on him and treated him like trash in the first episode? Also, it’s such a clear contrast between him and Tae Oh. While Tae Oh immediately ran after accidentally killing Yeol, Joon Oh knows that he should go back to camp and face the consequences. He didn’t choose to run away; he made the active decision to return.

Nobody blames him for Tae Oh’s death and like what Mr President says, he’s feeling pretty apathetic. It’s wrong of him to feel that way, but he does. And honestly, I think if I were on that island, I would be pretty relieved. Nevertheless, Joon Oh reminds them that he did kill Tae Oh (not really bro) and wants them to remember everything that has happened on the island/what they have heard, so that they can all reveal the truth.

But of course as we know, Tae Oh didn’t die from that fall. As the scene cuts out from his breathing body to the next morning, we see Ki Joon realising that there are signals coming from the radio. He, Mr President and Mr Coward wait at the cliff and realise that there’s a ship coming for them.

-the end-

Of course, there’s a huge gap in the narrative between Ki Joon finding that the radio’s working and them waiting at the cliff. In the preview, we didn’t see Tae Oh but we know that he’s around, because the characters suspect that he’s not dead and they keep hearing strange noises. Kim also urges the others to leave while he holds a rock in the air – but we don’t know who/what he is aiming at. Ji Ah disappears mid-conversation with Bong Hee. In the last scene, the others are on the boat but Mr Coward leaves Bong Hee and Joon Oh behind on the island. This makes me think –> there was probably a condition for getting onto the ship. Either only a limited number of people could board or Tae Oh is involved in giving these conditions. We will have to wait a week to see! The way the preview is done seems to be leading us into thinking that Ji Ah also intentionally leaves Bong Hee behind, but I feel like that isn’t her character, so that’s definitely more to the story. Oh and there’s two more survivors found. 

In a way, I’m getting frustrated with the show, not because it’s bad, but because I feel so bad for Joon Oh. We know that he’s actually such a kind-hearted and loyal person who looks out for his juniors, and I feel that he’s in this predicament precisely because of that. He’s easy to make use of. If the show ends with Joon Oh not being able to get his happy ending, I would feel so frustrated because what kind of a message is that? I love the characterisation of Joon Oh. He’s not the most man-ly man out there, but that’s being human. He wants to protect Bong Hee, although it’s hilarious how Bong Hee is usually the most courageous one. Speaking of Bong Hee, she’s a great great female lead thus far. She’s so capable and quick, but at the same time, she’s very kind and soft. It’s kinda embodying two different types of female leads we have always seen and I like that Bong Hee could possess so many different traits.

The villain here is scary on so many levels. Usually, you either have a villain who kills (e.g Legend of the Blue Sea) or a villain who maligns others and makes everyone dislikes the good guys (e.g tons of dramas). Here, Tae Oh is both types of villains and that makes his damage level much higher and harder to control. For one, you could actually die at his physical hands. For the other, you could die by his lies. This is Seoul – as he likes to remind others – a place where Tae Oh is the loved one while Joon Oh is the hated. Who would you believe is the murderer? It kind of reflects our society and sadly, I don’t think we are capable of saying for sure that we would doubted Tae Oh.

Next week, two more survivors would be found. The fact that it’s two leads me to think it could be Ji Ah and Ki Joon, but who knows? Also, as some have pointed out – any of the survivors left are good ones. Maybe Ki Joon’s a bit soft and also coward-ly, but so long as the survivor is Ji Ah, Joon Oh or Reporter Kim, it seems like they would be Bong Hee’s ally. So what are we going to watch for the next 8 episodes then? In a way, I wished this was a 12-episode series so that I could quickly get a happy ending haha. The fact that there’s so many episode left makes me think that the survivors won’t be able to help Bong Hee straightaway. (Of course, the revelation of who the 2 survivors are could be at the end of Episode 9, then the impact of that could be seen over Episode 10.)

I just really hope that Joon Oh isn’t dead. He has to get his happy ending with Bong Hee and to catch octopus in the mudflat!!

<3thoughtsramble