God’s Gift – 14 Days: Episode 6

by dramallama

Doubts are confirmed, and we get a whole lot of answers this time around. And just when you think it can’t get any worse, you’re proven wrong. It’s creepier, scarier, and more confusing than ever, but all of it makes the show so right and so worth watching. Unless you’re watching this before you go to sleep, in which case, beware: you will get the full impact of fear.

 
EPISODE 6 RECAP

The show doesn’t skip a beat, and we jump right to where we left off: our killer makes a run for it with Dong-chan on his tail. But out of nowhere, a motorcycle joins the chase – the rider, a bat in hand.

He whacks our killer on the head as he passes, but the rider is stopped by Detective Ho-kook, who shoots at the motorcycle. The motorcycle skids off the road, and our rider is run over by a passing car.

Dong-chan runs over to our dying killer Cha Bong-seob and demands answers from him. Why did he have a picture of his mother? Was she his next target? He struggles to get his words out and only manages to say that he was going to confess everything to Soo-hyun.

Ho-kook walks over in shock, and we see the result of the accident: not one but two deaths. Dong-chan calls Soo-hyun to tell her about our dead killer, and the countdown continues. Eleven days until the incident.

The police come to investigate, and Dong-chan recognizes the motorcycle rider as he is transferred into the ambulance. He came into the police station earlier, as a relative of one of the murder victims.

Soo-hyun is back in a state of hysteria, packing Saet-byul’s clothes to leave again. Ji-hoon tells her to stop with all this nonsense, but she takes out the mystery café photo. The killer is dead, but Saet-byul is still missing from the photo. She thought it was over, but the photo suggests otherwise.

Saet-byul is freaked out by Mom’s behavior, so Ji-hoon takes her away and tells Soo-hyun to calm down. She falls down in tears and ends up falling asleep in Saet-byul’s room.

When she wakes up, she goes downstairs and sees Ji-hoon sitting on the couch, head hanging. She asks if Saet-byul is asleep, and Ji-hoon tells her to get it together: Saet-byul is dead. Shocked, Soo-hyun rushes to Saet-byul’s room and finds her funeral portrait. It dawns on her that this could all have been a dream.

Soo-hyun wakes up in a cold sweat with Saet-byul asking if she had a nightmare. Soo-hyun embraces her tightly, relieved that it was all a dream. Phew.

Dong-chan is interrogated by Woo-jin, who asks him why he was there when the killer died. He pulls out the picture of his mother with Young-gyu that he found at the killer’s place, stating that he needed some answers. Woo-jin responds with more pictures: one of the baby in the third victim Mimi’s apartment and one of Young-gyu as a child. Dong-chan connects the dots – Mimi was Young-gyu’s birth mother.

Woo-jin proceeds to tell Dong-chan that all three of the victims are women who abandoned their children. Our killer was abandoned by his own mother and went on a personal vendetta to get revenge for other abandoned children. Working as a teacher at a welfare foundation (where Young-gyu attends school), he was able to access background information on these orphans.

Dong-chan asks why the killer would target Young-gyu’s birth mother, and Woo-jin assumes Young-gyu must have shown our killer some animosity towards his mother. Dong-chan refutes this, knowing that Young-gyu only mentions his father.

Back in his car, Dong-chan remembers when Mimi gave him the red knitted sweater and looks at it with a tinge of sadness and regret.

At breakfast, Young-gyu is immersed in playing with his special ddak-ji from Saet-byul while Grandma tries to feed him. While playing, he spills hot soup on himself, but the first thing he worries about is his ddak-ji. Grandma hangs it up to dry, and then we see that handwritten at the top of the page (which originally comes from one of Ji-hoon’s legal case files) is a note about his father’s case: “Moojin serial killer case, point of doubt: first suspect Ki Dong-ho that day…”

Dong-chan watches from afar as Young-gyu walks Grandma out for another day of work. Once she leaves, Dong-chan greets Young-gyu and gives him the red knitted sweater. As he puts it on, Dong-chan asks if he remembers his birth mother, to which Young-gyu replies with questions about his father’s whereabouts.

Dong-chan tells him that his mother was a good person who loved and missed him very much and never forgot about him. He tells Young-gyu that he has Grandma and his uncle. And of course, Young-gyu adds that he has Dad.

On that note, Dong-chan tells his nephew to never forgive him. Of course, Young-gyu doesn’t understand this and comments on how warm the sweater is while his uncle tears up in guilt.

Dong-chan returns home to find who else but Grandpa Byung-ho. He asks about the money deal and tells Grandpa that he just needs enough surgery money for someone he knows. He says that there’s a famous surgeon in the U.S. who charges lots of money but can guarantee drastic improvement.

Grandpa shows skepticism towards this information and says that damaged brain cells cannot be recovered. Dong-chan suspiciously asks how he knew about damaged brain cells – he never mentioned it. Grandpa just smacks him on the head, claiming that Dong-chan did mention it. Ohhh, so he does know more than he lets on…

Dong-chan gets a call from Soo-hyun, who asks to meet with him. On their way over to meet Dong-chan, Soo-hyun and Saet-byul try to get Young-gyu’s camera fixed. Soo-hyun offers to buy a new one, but Saet-byul refuses because it belonged to Young-gyu’s father.

While Saet-byul plays with Byung-tae and Jenny, Soo-hyun shows Dong-chan the unsettling photo from the mystery café. Soo-hyun is still worried about the missing Saet-byul in the photo, but Dong-chan reassures her with the facts: the killer is dead, so Saet-byul can’t be taken by him. If only there was proof that our killer was Saet-byul’s kidnapper…

Soo-hyun isn’t convinced, so she seeks out more information from Woo-jin this time. She asks him if he knows what the killer wanted to tell her, but he has no idea. He assumes he was moved by her devotion to saving her daughter (considering his motives), which has Soo-hyun wondering why he would have kidnapped and killed Saet-byul.

Woo-jin then shows her a boarding pass with our killer Cha Bong-seob’s name on it. He planned on escaping to the Philippines after killing Mimi, suggesting that he couldn’t have been the one to take Saet-byul.

More doubtful than ever, Soo-hyun wonders why Cha Bong-seob would be Saet-byul’s killer. She drives past an accident on the road, which suddenly triggers a memory and realization that he wasn’t Saet-byul’s kidnapper after all.

She recalls the day of the big traffic jam, when Saet-byul ran out of the car to see what happened in the accident. She shielded Saet-byul from seeing the dead man, but now she remembers that the dead man was our killer, Cha Bong-seob.

She sits down with Dong-chan to go over the details of that day, convinced that their wanted man is still out there. The caller on Soo-hyun’s investigative program knew that the second victim was stabbed fourteen times, which leads them to the conclusion that there was an accomplice to the crimes.

Leaving Soo-hyun to look after her daughter, Dong-chan waits for Woo-jin at the police station and tells him to reinvestigate the case. He tells Woo-jin that his police instincts tell him that there is an accomplice.

Woo-jin asks him why he’s so devoted to this case, and the air gets tense. Staring fiercely at Woo-jin, Dong-chan says he’s just a citizen fighting for justice. Woo-jin recognizes that look from Dong-chan’s officer days when he chased his targets like a mad dog. He asks Woo-jin if he sees another look in his eyes, one that reflects the blood of a killer running through his veins. Woah, there is clearly some bad blood between these two.

The tension is interrupted by the news that Ho-kook (the one who shot at the motorcycle) is turning in his badge. Dong-chan takes him out for a drink, and Ho-kook is visibly wrought with guilt. Dong-chan tells him that he’s going to have to overcome the guilt, and reminds him that he shot at his own nephew and made him disabled.

Dong-chan tries to help out Ho-kook and calls the local police station near the site of the accident. He asks for information on the person who reported the accident, but there was no call.

Dong-chan clearly remembers telling a witness to call and report the accident, but if there was no call, it means that guy was the accomplice.

Dong-chan, Soo-hyun, and Ho-kook check traffic cameras for any usable shot of the truck driver, and Soo-hyun identifies a small detail. She recognizes the tattoo on the driver’s wrist as one of Saet-byul’s drawings from the shed where she was held before she died.

Soo-hyun wakes Saet-byul to ask if she recognizes the tattoo, but of course she’s never seen it before (or yet). So Byung-tae is off to work on finding the complete image, but he fails to find any. Dejected, Soo-hyun goes back home with Saet-byul.

Dong-chan is called back by Ho-kook, who shows him the recovered black box video file from the motorcycle. The video shows that the motorcycle began to slow down and shake before the gunshot, proving that Ho-kook is not to blame.

When they arrive home, there’s a big scene among the neighbors and our resident security guard tells Soo-hyun that Yong-gyu’s grandma (who babysits for the neighbors) was so adamant about not letting a stranger into the house that she called the police on a man, who turned out to be the child’s uncle. Young-gyu jumps in to defend Grandma, but she’s still fired.

As Young-gyu and Grandma walk home, she notices his new red sweater and asks where he got it. He beams and tells her Uncle Dong-chan gave it to him. He says he likes Uncle Dong-chan, but after Dad and Grandma of course. Aw.

Back at the police station, Dong-chan proudly watches Ho-kook get his badge and gun back. Turns out, they used to be partners back in the day, and Woo-jin thanks him for helping Ho-kook return. Dong-chan says that partners always have each other’s backs – although there was one person he knew who didn’t follow that rule.

Woo-jin follows Dong-chan out and asks when he’ll stop hating him. Dong-chan says he’s taking this grudge to the grave, and when Woo-jin tells him to stop living in the past, he whips around and punches him hard in the face.

Now we finally get a flashback for the truth. The armed man holding young Young-gyu hostage was the father of the girl Dong-ho was accused of killing, and the police force arrives with both Dong-chan and Woo-jin in the squad. At the scene, Woo-jin orders Dong-chan to stay out, but he defies orders and pulls the trigger, shooting young Young-gyu in the process.

Both men are later called to a police hearing, where Dong-chan says he used his best judgment in that situation, and only fired because he saw an opportunity when the gunman was distracted. When Woo-jin is called up, he testifies against Dong-chan, claiming that he defied orders and put their operation in jeopardy. Dong-chan looks at him with disbelief and proceeds to give up his badge before walking out.

Back in present time, Dong-chan furiously yells at Woo-jin that he worked like crazy as an officer to prove that murder didn’t run in his blood, but Woo-jin ruined all of that for him.

Woo-jin tells Dong-chan to ask himself if that’s really true and tells him that he did his best in that situation as well. To that, Dong-chan spits on the ground, stuffs some bills into Woo-jin’s pocket, and walks out.

Ho-kook tries to stop Dong-chan from leaving, but he’s then stopped by a lady who accuses him of killing the motorcycle guy. Dong-chan sticks around to help him explain and picks up on the fact that the motorcycle had been tuned recently, meaning the cause of his death shouldn’t be motorcycle malfunction.

When the lady drops her video game case as they talk, he finds another clue to their missing accomplice: the tattoo design, which symbolizes revenge and death. Dong-chan calls Soo-hyun to ask if she can think of anyone who would want revenge on her. But since she works for an investigative program, she says there’s probably a truckload of people who would want revenge.

Dong-chan is out to investigate the details of the motorcycle tune-up and takes note of a helmet marked M.S. in the motorcycle club picture on the wall.

Soo-hyun is hunting down clues of her own as she finds an email on her husband’s computer about a case 10 years ago: “You’re the one who made the wrong man into a murderer.” She gives a copy of the email to Dong-chan for further investigation and asks him to look into her husband’s past murder cases from that time.

The news of the motorcyclist, Han Ki-tae, seems to have reached the president, who asks his cabinet if there were any shady deals going on with the police. The officials imply that there was some talk, and the president walks out furiously, stating that the people are not dumb.

The officials suggest that they approve the capital punishment request to appease the people, to which the minister of justice chastises them for taking a human life so lightly. But the president seems to be on the same page, and requests a meeting on the topic… Uh-oh.

Dong-chan meets with the motorcyclist’s friend for information and puts together more pieces of the accomplice’s intricate plan. The accomplice set up Cha Bong-seob’s escape and hired motorcyclist Ki-tae to kill him, fearing that Cha Bong-seob would reveal his identity. Then, he set up Ki-tae to be killed to cover up all his tracks, and in the end, it would seem as if Ki-tae acted purely out of revenge. Wow, I cannot believe he put that all together.

Indebted Ho-kook provides Dong-chan with documents on Ji-hoon’s cases from ten years ago, and Dong-ho’s case is one of them. That’s where Dong-chan recognizes Ji-hoon from – he was the prosecutor examining him in court. Before handing over the documents to Soo-hyun, Dong-chan makes sure to take out his brother’s case.

Looking over the cases, Soo-hyun recognizes the residence of one man, who owns a stationary shop right across from Saet-byul’s school. She also realizes that she saw him at the broadcast station (the man in the hat carrying boxes into the elevator) the day Saet-byul was kidnapped.

Dong-chan and Soo-hyun stake out the suspect’s shop, but they both stop each other from entering: he knows both their faces. So in enters Jenny to casually shop for her nephew’s birthday gift.

She tries to get the suspect to reveal his tattoo, and even spills hot coffee on his arm, but he aggressively stops her from lifting up his sleeve. He is totally the accomplice.

Dong-chan and Soo-hyun’s next step is to find the victims’ personal belongings in his house, and Dong-chan mentions that killers enjoy placing their “trophies” somewhere in public. Creepy.

At home, Soo-hyun sits next to sleeping Saet-byul and asks Ji-hoon if he’s been getting any threats recently. He brushes the question off, saying that threats are a commonplace part of his job.

Soo-hyun gets a text from Dong-chan saying they’re ready to go, and as she walks out, she knocks over her jewelry box. She notices the jewelry pieces in the plastic bags are missing and asks Ji-hoon if he’s seen them. He denies any knowledge of the jewelry, but we know he was suspiciously eyeing them before.

Before she leaves, Soo-hyun asks the housekeeper if she moved the jewelry, but she doesn’t know anything about it either. She also mentions that she’ll be out for a while since her daughter’s giving birth any day now. She asked Yong-gyu’s grandma to work a couple days for her, and Soo-hyun agrees to it.

Back to business; Jenny pounds on the door and asks our suspect if she can exchange her nephew’s present. Then suddenly, the suspect’s store truck alarm goes off outside, cuing Soo-hyun and Dong-chan to enter the store while Jenny follows the suspect out to his car.

Soo-hyun is reckless as always and heads straight for the suspect’s home. Dong-chan investigates inside the store and discovers a helmet in the candy basket with the initials M.S. – the same helmet in the picture at the motorcycle shop.

He suddenly gets a call from Jenny, warning him that the suspect is headed back; he really didn’t care too much about the damaged car. Dong-chan stays hidden in the store, but the suspect is headed straight for his house, where Soo-hyun is.

Soo-hyun cautiously looks through the suspect’s drawers and finds a donation receipt from the welfare foundation where Cha Bong-seob worked. She puts it in her pocket and continues to search when suddenly, the cuckoo bird on the clock starts to chirp. False alarm, but my heart still skipped a beat.

Soo-hyun thinks back to Dong-chan’s observation that killers like to display their trophies somewhere public and looks back up at the cuckoo clock. She climbs on a chair and opens the clock, and finds Saet-byul’s watch inside it just as we reach the last seconds of Day Eleven.

Ten days before the incident. Soo-hyun hears the suspect entering and slips into his room just in time to avoid being seen. It’s too soon to call it safe though, because she fumbles and drops her phone, which catches the suspect’s attention. OH NO.

Before she can start freaking out about being caught, Soo-hyun notices the wall in front of her covered in photos – hundreds of photos, all of Saet-byul. Along the other wall, she sees ropes, tape, and bottles of chemicals. He’s the one: Saet-byul’s kidnapper.

As if this couldn’t get any more terrifying, the door behind Soo-hyun creaks open, and she glances back, petrified in fear.

 
COMMENTS

Chills, goosebumps, shivers, everything! I think that last scene gave me some intense chills because of how casual and simple it was. The door just creaks open with our suspect behind it with no dramatic music or close-ups. The scene happens, and it ends. Ack! How am I supposed to sleep and wait until next week?!

Dong-chan was the main focus of this episode, and I’m glad we’ve finally shed some light on our most complex character. His guilt, drive, and cynicism are explained pretty well with his background story, and we see the reasons for his strained relationships. And oh man, the intensity in his eyes, especially in his scenes with Woo-jin. I could feel the hatred and guilt. While I do understand him more, Dong-chan is still interesting and flawed – enough so that he still remains somewhat of a mystery. That’s what makes him so intriguing, and I really can’t seem to get enough of him.

Also, how is he able to balance his character with humor? Considering how heavy and intricate this drama is, I can barely see any room for laughs, but somehow Dong-chan does it. I can’t tell if it’s just intense mood swings or just the awesomeness of his character, but I think I’ll just go with the latter.

Small note on Ji-hoon, who is getting shadier by the episode. I wonder at what point I will lose all faith in him. I know he loves Saet-byul and wouldn’t let anything bad happen, but his ideals sometimes seem to sway him too much. I’m watching out for him.

And the plot twists, oh the plot twists. The drama just never seems to run out of them. They’re so ingeniously executed and timed. The foreshadowing is there, especially if you look back at the first episode, but they’re so detailed that you’re unsure of how, when, and where that hint will kick in. It’s intelligent, and I appreciate it so very much.

Like many of you expected, there are two killers, and I think that transition was done quite well. Clues were sprinkled here and there, but it did take Dong-chan putting the clues together for me to understand the whole connection. It’s convoluted, but necessarily so, because we know that our killers are smart, and now it seems that our surviving accomplice is smarter. Oh dear.

I’m not too sure how I feel about Soo-hyun’s reckless audacity – part of me questions it while another part of me totally admires it. Knowing her smart investigative background, I would think Soo-hyun would use more logic in these situations, but we’ve seen since the beginning that when it comes to her daughter, Soo-hyun is willing to risk everything. She’s so forward about saving her daughter that it scares me how many more lives she has left – she’s already gone through a couple. But I think it’s that devotion that wins me over. She knows what she’s going into and jumps into it, without any intention of turning back.

 
RELATED POSTS

• God’s Gift – 14 Days: Episode 5
• God’s Gift – 14 Days: Episode 4
• God’s Gift – 14 Days: Episode 3
• God’s Gift – 14 Days: Episode 2
• God’s Gift – 14 Days: Episode 1
• Suspense and suspicion abound in God’s Gift teasers
• Cameras roll on time-slip thriller God’s Gift–14 Days