The Guest: Episode 3

by odilettante

The spooky is dialed down to make way for the mystery — but there’s still a few scares to keep the blood flowing. Now that Hwa-pyung knows Park Il-do is looking for Priest Choi’s brother, Hwa-pyung is determined to find him, too. Except his psychic visions distract him with a new murder case — and only Kil-young can help him track down the killer.

 
EPISODE 3 RECAP

Yoon visits the now demon-free Young-soo, who’s back in his wheelchair and nearly non-verbal state. Yoon asks if Young-soo has experienced strange things since the exorcism, if he still sees scary things. Despite suspiciously staring off in the distance, Young-soo says he doesn’t see anything, and is more concerned about his daughter, Soo-ji (who’s thankfully okay).

As she settles in at her desk, Kil-young’s partner chides her for sleeping in the night-duty room again. He informs her that Young-soo has escaped prosecution for all the crimes he did while possessed. Based on his current state, there’s no way Young-soo could have killed someone, so it makes it seem like the cops didn’t investigate well enough.

Kil-young stops by the hospital to check on Soo-ji, but finds Hwa-pyung already there, reassuring Soo-ji that there’s no reason to be afraid of her father now. Kil-young eavesdrops as Hwa-pyung explains that Soo-ji’s father committed those acts because of the thing that was possessing him — now that her father is back to normal, he won’t act like that again.

Hwa-pyung adds that when he was a child, he was possessed by something similar to the thing that possessed Young-soo and he, too, did terrible things to his family. But he doesn’t remember what he did, just like her father doesn’t remember, either. Hwa-pyung encourages Soo-ji to visit her father later, since he’ll need some reassurance that everything is okay, too.

As soon as he leaves Soo-ji’s hospital room, Kil-young asks if he’s hungry. Aw, at least it’s some kind of gesture. Kil-young buys Hwa-pyung lunch, and he grumbles that it’s just cheap noodles instead of something fancy — so she starts to take his bowl away from him if he’s going to be so ungrateful. Ha!

Hwa-pyung says that her temper must mean she’s still single since any guy would be scared off by her, but Kil-young retorts that she’s got a kid. Hwa-pyung volunteers he’s been divorced twice already, but Kil-young decides the conversation is boring (or perhaps too personal for her liking) so they just continue eating.

Amused, Hwa-pyung watches as she laughs and smiles while playing with a little kid — a very different persona than her tough beat-’em-up detective attitude.

He wonders what will happen to Young-soo, and Kil-young says she’ll reinvestigate and find a way to send him to jail. After all, possessed or not, Young-soo killed someone. Hwa-pyung points out that Young-soo was a victim himself, then sighs that he wished Sohn only possessed bad guys.

She asks him what “Sohn” is, and Hwa-pyung explains his hometown lore regarding Park Il-do. Kil-young asks if that’s what possessed Young-soo, but Hwa-pyung says that Park Il-do controls the weaker spirits, and those are the ones that actually possessed Young-soo. He adds that when he was young, he was possessed by Park Il-do, which is why he has visions from the viewpoint of the possessed people.

He mentions his case file of mysterious deaths, wondering if she’s looked at it yet. Kil-young admits she has, but she’s still not sure about the whole “evil spirit” thing. It’s easier to catch criminals that you can see and touch. Besides, there’s enough evil people in the world already.

Hwa-pyung’s psychic ability kicks in and he senses that Kil-young’s been through a terrible incident in her past. But she refuses to talk about it.

Yoon goes to Priest Han’s home and begins to box up the man’s belongings. He stops when he sees a photo of him with Priest Han, remembering how the older priest was struggling with cancer but refused to go to the hospital. Yoon had stopped by to deliver his medication, but Priest Han dismissed it, saying that pain and suffering is just part of an exorcist’s job.

Yoon was worried, though, and encouraged him to quit exorcism and focus on his health. Sighing, Priest Han said that if he weren’t a priest, he’d want a son like Yoon. Then he warned Yoon that he’s young so he can get out now before he becomes too much like Priest Han. But Yoon stubbornly said he’s looking for someone.

The reverie is broken by a knock at the door, and Yoon is surprised to see Hwa-pyung standing there. He explains that he tracked down Yoon to thank him for everything, but Yoon coolly says he was just doing his job. Hwa-pyung offers to help him pack up the old priest’s belongings, but Yoon curtly refuses his assistance.

Hwa-pyung hesitantly brings up Priest Han’s death, and tells Yoon not to blame himself. Yoon says he’s more likely to blame Hwa-pyung, who affably agrees that he’s a major problem. Hwa-pyung points out that Priest Han would likely forgive him, though, since the both of them have risked their lives fighting the same evil. After all, Hwa-pyung could easily die himself tomorrow.

Yoon retorts that Hwa-pyung is self-centered, only talking about how he’s risking his life to save people. He then demands to know why Hwa-pyung keeps speaking so informally to him, and Hwa-pyung casually says that Yoon can do the same if he’d like. But Yoon’s cold stare makes Hwa-pyung but on a big display of speaking formally as he starts to leave.

Yoon has one more question, though: Did Hwa-pyung have anything to do with the stronger spirit that disappeared when Yoon was performing Young-soo’s exorcism? Hwa-pyung simply says he’s learned from experience that when a strong spirit loses its power, so do the weaker spirits.

Realizing that Hwa-pyung is talking about Park Il-do, Yoon asks where Park Il-do is now. Hwa-pyung says he’s looking for the spirit, too. When he finds it, he’ll let Yoon know. But Yoon can’t stop thinking about how dangerous Park Il-do is, and how Priest Han warned him to stay away from it — and from Hwa-pyung.

Hwa-pyung borrows Yook Kwang’s car (without telling him, ha!) to visit his grandfather. Even though it’s been a long time since Hwa-pyung’s returned to his hometown, he’s determined to learn more about Priest Choi’s “little brother.”

Grandpa’s made a life as a farmer and fisherman, and he and Hwa-pyung take a lunch break together. The TV playing in the background is the same one that Hwa-pyung used to watch when he was a kid, and Hwa-pyung marvels that it still works.

Grandpa gets a visitor, who quickly balks at staying when he sees that Hwa-pyung is there. The neighborhood is still spooked by Hwa-pyung and what happened twenty years ago.

That night, Grandpa watches as Hwa-pyung sleeps, remembering when Hwa-pyung was a boy, covered in bruises during his possession by Park Il-do. Grandpa carefully lifts Hwa-pyung’s shirt, sighing in relief to see that it’s bruise-free.

Hwa-pyung wakes up, wondering why Grandpa isn’t asleep. He tells Grandpa that Dad isn’t coming back, but Grandpa is still worried about his son, who’s only contacted him once in twenty years. Hwa-pyung tells Grandpa not to wait for Dad, and then falls back asleep.

He wakes up later, and sees a man dragging his blood-covered grandfather in a plastic bag through the farm field. But it’s not just any man — it’s Priest Choi, who creepily grins at Hwa-pyung as Grandpa screams from the plastic bag for Hwa-pyung to run.

But it was just a dream, and Hwa-pyung wakes up in relief to find Grandpa, uninjured, sleeping peacefully — and no Priest Choi.

Hwa-pyung heads out in the early morning. Aw, Grandpa tries to give him some pocket money, but Hwa-pyung refuses it. After Hwa-pyung leaves, Grandpa finds a brand new flat screen TV on his porch. It’s a sweet gift, but Grandpa grumbles that Hwa-pyung could have at least taken it out of the box and set it up for him.

Hwa-pyung stops by Priest Choi’s old residence. He cautiously approaches the entrance, noting that it’s now a pottery studio. The new owner directs him to a local orphanage, but the orphanage owner explains that the person Hwa-pyung is looking for stayed with them until high school, at which point a relative took him. They haven’t heard from the boy since.

Hwa-pyung asks if the boy had any close friends, and the woman says that he kept to himself. He didn’t talk to anyone, almost like he was mute. She assumes that it was from some trauma that he endured, and adds that he even attempted to commit suicide.

Hwa-pyung then shows her a photo of Priest Choi, asking if she’s ever seen him. But the woman hasn’t. It does remind her that the boy used to have an older brother that was a priest, and wonders if that’s why he killed his parents.

She admits that she and the other children used to find him a little creepy. They used to have a dog at the orphanage, and when it died, everyone cried — except for the boy who just stared at it, emotionless.

Later that night, when he returns home, Hwa-pyung has another vision. It’s of a taxi with a monkey hanging from the review mirror, and a woman is bound and gagged, then dragged and put into the taxi’s trunk where there’s another dead body of a woman.

In the morning, Hwa-pyung rushes to the police station, begging Kil-young to investigate. She doesn’t believe his “vision” claim, but Hwa-pyung reminds her of everything that happened with the Young-soo case. He pleads with her to check the missing persons list for a woman with a flower tattoo on her shoulder.

When Detective Go starts to tease Hwa-pyung for showing up at the police station just because he likes Kil-young, Kil-young sighs and tells Hwa-pyung she’ll look into it just so he can go home and leave her alone.

But there’s no missing persons report for anyone that fits the description Hwa-pyung gave her of the woman. Kil-young’s ready to give up, but just then a report comes in — eerily exact to Hwa-pyung’s description.

Hwa-pyung investigates all the taxis and taxi drivers in the area, looking for one with a monkey hanging from the mirror, but to no avail. Meanwhile, Kil-young’s trying to track down CCTV of the woman and the moment she disappeared.

The catch, though, is “missing persons” isn’t exactly a “violent crimes” case. Hwa-pyung reassures her that he’ll help. That’s what Kil-young was afraid of, though, and she threatens him to keep his nose out of it. He totally lies that he won’t do anything as he’s continuing to track down the monkey taxi.

Kil-young is persona non grata with her boss, since she found Soo-ji alive (when he had insisted she was already dead), which ultimately means she was right and he was wrong. Kil-young has no desire to appease her boss’s pride at a team dinner that night, since she’s determined to figure out what happened with the missing woman. Not that she’s the type to appease anyone, anyway.

Hwa-pyung’s been out all night, trying to track down the monkey taxi (while driving his own taxi, too). He stops for a moment, turning on the radio to an old trot song. It’s the same song playing in the monkey taxi. In the backseat of the monkey taxi is a young, pretty woman.

The driver’s face is shrouded in darkness, but the woman seems uncomfortable, sensing there’s something strange in the way he keeps glancing at her. A delivery scooter zips by, its horn tooting, causing the monkey taxi to slam on the brakes. Then the taxi driver suddenly turns the opposite way from where the woman is going, much to her concern.

Hwa-pyung’s lost in his vision, only shaken out of it when his passenger demands to know why he’s going the wrong way. When the delivery scooter zooms by his taxi, Hwa-pyung realizes that he’s not far from the monkey taxi, so he kicks his passenger out so he can figure out where the monkey taxi is.

Despite driving down the street he saw in his vision, Hwa-pyung doesn’t find the monkey taxi, and gives up in frustration. Just then, a taxi passes by — playing the trot song. Hwa-pyung speeds after it, following it down the road — but the windows are too tinted for Hwa-pyung to see in.

Hwa-pyung cuts the driver off, getting out of the car as he explains that it was an accident. He’s still trying to peer in to see who’s driving, but the monkey driver backs up and then suddenly speeds forward — right at Hwa-pyung, who narrowly avoids being road kill.

The chase is on as the two taxis race down the highway, swerving in and out of lanes and between other cars. A large truck causes the monkey taxi to suddenly turn on a long stretch of empty road, and Hwa-pyung races behind it. Hwa-pyung gets close enough to bump the monkey taxi, causing it to veer off into a construction site and crash — but Hwa-pyung’s vehicle crashes, too.

Hwa-pyung’s momentarily knocked out, and when he comes to, the driver of the other taxi is long gone. Hwa-pyung opens the trunk of the monkey taxi and finds the body of a woman. Hwa-pyung calls Kil-young, letting her know he’s found the car.

But the mysterious driver hits Hwa-pyung over the head with a pipe. Dazed by the blow to his head. Hwa-pyung grabs the man’s leg, demanding to know how he’s connected to Park Il-do. The mysterious driver continues to beat Hwa-pyung with the pipe until a truck drives up — then the man gets in his monkey taxi and speeds away.

Hwa-pyung wakes up in the hospital. Despite some bumps and bruises, he seems intact. He hears Yook Kwang weeping by the bed of the bandaged man next to him, thinking it’s Hwa-pyung. Opening his curtains, Hwa-pyung snarkily asks if Yook Kwang knows the guy. Ha!

Yook Kwang is just relieved that Hwa-pyung isn’t as badly injured as he thought, but warns Hwa-pyung (who checks himself out of the hospital early, despite protests from the doctors) that he’s not totally invincible. If he keeps this up, Hwa-pyung might actually die.

Kil-young might kill him first, though, since she barges into the hospital, demanding to know what he was saying about finding the culprit. Aw, she at least pauses for moment when she sees the bandage on Hwa-pyung’s head, wondering if he’s hurt.

Hwa-pyung shows her the blackbox footage from his taxi. They can’t see the guy’s face, but at least it shows the taxi the guy was using. Except Kil-young knows it’s a fake taxi. Hwa-pyung pleads with her to look into it, anyway, since if he could have found the car sooner, the woman in the trunk might have still been alive.

Kil-young says that there’s no proof a woman was murdered and kidnapped. Hwa-pyung passionately bursts out that Kil-young just doesn’t want to get involved in a difficult case. Those are fighting words, and Yook Kwang nearly has to intervene as Hwa-pyung continues to insist to the offended Kil-young that she needs to make sure more women aren’t killed.

Even if there’s no hard evidence, Kil-young can’t resist trying to prevent someone from being senselessly murdered. She looks into the license plate on the taxi, which leads her to a junk yard. The junk yard owner says that the vehicle they’re looking for has already been scrapped by his brother, Min-gu.

Kil-young notices the car that was used for the taxi and peers inside it, then notices a young man carefully watching her. He starts to run when she turns towards him, so Kil-young and Detective Go chase him through the junk yard. He’s finally stopped when Kil-young surprises him with a car door to the face.

She tackles him and slaps the handcuffs on, but he starts to frantically scream. His brother runs up to comfort him — it’s clear that Min-gu has some developmental disorder.

At the police station, Kil-young tries to get a statement from him, but he can’t look at her and chatters to himself about soccer instead.

Annoyed, Kil-young realizes that this interrogation isn’t working, but Min-gu suddenly bursts that it’s because he called his mother yesterday that “that bastard” came. Kil-young shows him a photo of a young woman, and Min-gu freezes as he stares at it.

Detective Go asks to speak to Kil-young privately, demanding to know what she’s doing. According to Min-gu’s brother, Min-gu can’t drive, so he couldn’t have been the one in the illegal taxi. Sighing, Kil-young admits that this isn’t about tracking down an illegal taxi — it’s about women who have gone missing.

She tells him about Hwa-pyung finding a body in the trunk, although they haven’t found proof of this yet. Detective Go warns her the boss won’t be happy that she’s taking on an additional case without okaying it with the higher ups, especially since they’ve already been assigned other cases. But Detective Go does admit something doesn’t feel right — Min-gu reminds him of how Young-soo used to act.

Hwa-pyung rests at Yook Kwang’s, only to wake up and realize he can’t move his body. He can’t even call out to tell Yook Kwang — happily lost in a game of Go Stop — that he can’t move. Hwa-pyung looks up and gasps when he sees Priest Choi looming over his helpless body.

Hwa-pyung struggles to sit up and sees a spirit in the corner, a body that crawls like a spider and hisses at him as water flows on the ground. Hwa-pyung starts to yell at the spirit, but instead he suddenly sits up as though waking from a dream, startling Yook Kwang from his happy, carefree game.

Hwa-pyung gasps out that there was a spirit in the corner, and even though Hwa-pyung doesn’t see anything now, Yook Kwang immediately grabs a bowl of salt and performs a ritual, cleansing the room of spirits. He then tells Hwa-pyung to sleep somewhere else if he’s going to bring evil spirits into Yook Kwang’s home and place of business.

Hwa-pyung gets a call from Kil-young, who asks to meet. She demands to know the last thing he saw in his vision, peppering him with questions about what the woman looked like. She refuses to tell him who the culprit is, insisting that it’s not something a civilian needs to know. She warns him not to interfere with police business — y’know, like he did last time.

But Hwa-pyung insists more women will die if he doesn’t do something. Kil-young says there’s no way that he’ll find the car on his own. Finally Hwa-pyung admits defeat and tells her the road he saw in his vision where the monkey taxi picked up the woman. In return, Kil-young reluctantly tells him the name of the junk yard where the car came from.

He heads there in the morning, with Yook Kwang tagging along to help him sense if someone is possessed. Hwa-pyung bluffs that he needs a part for his taxi, which gives them access to look around. But really they’re searching for anyone that looks suspicious.

They find Min-gu working on a car — and scratching the back of his neck. Uh-oh. He’s also talking to himself — and not in a sensical way. Double uh-oh.

Hwa-pyung approaches, and Min-gu immediately drops into a defensive posture, holding his wrench like a weapon. Hwa-pyung can hear the music coming from Min-gu’s earbuds, and recognizes the trot song. Min-gu: “It’s you, isn’t it, you bastard?”

 
COMMENTS

I was actually a little surprised that this episode seemed to have no truly scary bits in it — until that scene at Yook Kwang’s. *shiver* Part of me wants to believe it was just thrown in as a “Hey, this is supposed to be a scary drama, but so far people have just been running around trying to solve a case like a normal detective show. What can we do to remind people this is a horror show?” That ghost in the corner certainly worked for me (and the looming Priest Choi was a nice little jump scare, too!).

I do find it amusing that Hwa-pyung is putting in all this effort to track down Priest Choi’s little brother when he’s already (unknowingly) found him. I can’t wait until Hwa-pyung also figures out that Kil-young was the girl from that night, too, and it was her mother who was killed. I get the feeling he’ll see it as a sign that they’re in the right place to find Park Il-do since that was an apparently important night for the spirit (especially if it’s the last time Priest Choi saw his brother, which he — or Park Il-do — is also looking for). With the trio back together, anything could happen! I’m not so sure Yoon or Kil-young will agree, but I don’t think they can avoid being dragged into Hwa-pyung’s schemes any longer. Not that they’d necessarily want to avoid it, since Yoon is also looking for his brother, and I presume Kil-young has probably always been wanting to get her hands on the person who killed her mother.

It does make me worried about Yoon, though. I can understand being traumatized by seeing your older brother beat the hell out your family. But I fear that he’s got a dark side in him, the kind that Park Il-do likes to feed on, the kind that makes the evil spirit thrive, and I can’t help but wonder what would happen if Park Il-do could jump ship from Priest Choi to Yoon. I don’t want it to happen — but there’s a mysterious side to Yoon that makes me worry, nonetheless. Especially now, when the only parental figure he’s had since that brutal night twenty years ago was recently taken from him by the machinations of Park Il-do. Yoon may be a cool cucumber to all appearances, but I get the feeling there’s a deep anger in him — an anger that could either help destroy a spirit or make it stronger.

Thankfully, Kil-young is still a stubborn skeptic, keeping everyone in check. Maybe she doesn’t understand it all, but if it means saving someone’s life, then she’ll get her information from a psychic. She’s skeptical, but intuitive, and I really love that combination, since it seems like it’d be so easy to make her a caricature of the tough policewoman who refuses to believe in any spiritual mumbo-jumbo. She may have doubts, but she also seems willing to accept (albeit reluctantly) that Hwa-pyung knows something and wants to save lives, just like she does.

I also appreciate that, even though a loveline is teased (literally) between Kil-young and Hwa-pyung, neither of them are interested in such distracting nonsense. Kil-young would sooner kill you with her withering glare than let you imply an annoying taxi driver has a crush on her. Not that I think Hwa-pyung does. At least, not yet. He’s simply a charming fellow in general, and his psychic ability no doubt allows him to relate to people in better ways than the constantly angry Kil-young or the frigid Yoon. So while I would normally sigh at the realization that it looks like we can’t escape the inevitable loveline, I’m glad they’re not taking it too seriously. Instead, the characters are allowed to be people first, struggling with their enormous spiritual baggage, and solving mysteries together. Which is as it should be.

 
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