God’s Gift – 14 Days: Episode 11

by javabeans

The clock really gets ticking in this episode, and Fate reasserts itself as the bitch we all know her to be. Just when I was starting to think our team had broken free of the path set in the first timeline, we’re reminded that Fate doesn’t like to be cheated, and exerts an inertia that you can’t defeat with mere wishes and prayer. I’ll give it to God’s Gift—it’s a show where for once you really do feel that Fate is a force with its own gravity, with pressure and weight and sheer power. Too bad for our characters.

SONG OF THE DAY

Yang Ji-won (SPICA) – “나라면” (If it’s me) from the God’s Gift – 14 Days OST. [ Download ]

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EPISODE 11 RECAP

Saet-byul rushes home, but the minute she steps inside the front door her eyes widen in fear. “Mommy!” she yelps, just seconds before she’s grabbed.

Soo-hyun enters soon afterward and registers the mess made of her home—curtains tattered, furniture broken, dying pet fish flopping on the ground. Saet-byul stands just feet away, frozen in fear as the intruder holds a sharp weapon to her throat.

In the dark, Soo-hyun can’t see the face of the intruder and neither can we. She drops to her knees and begs for mercy for her daughter, promising to do anything that’s asked of her. The light flicks on and a woman screams, “Then what about my baby?!” It’s Min-ah, mad with rage.

She blames Ji-hoon for her miscarriage and is here to turn that grief around on him. Soo-hyun sees her raising her weapon—a screwdriver? An awl?—and lurches forward, shoving Min-ah away and grabbing Saet-byul.

They dash to the front door but fumble with the lock code. Soo-hyun shoves Saet-byul in the closet just as Min-ah comes at her, blocking the doors with her body. Min-ah takes a few swings at Soo-hyun but misses, screaming that this is the only way to make things fair, and tries to stab her.

Then something changes as she grips her weapon, telling Soo-hyun to take a good look—and slashes her own wrist on it. Min-ah collapses.

Then the front door bursts open and Ji-hoon runs in with the security guard, followed by a whole gaggle of gaping neighbors. Ji-hoon takes one look at the situation and grabs Saet-byul out of her mother’s arms, ushering her away.

A police officer bursts in next, having received a report. Somehow the situation turns on Soo-hyun, who finds herself being accused of being the assailant, and she’s cuffed and escorted out. While riding in the police car, she repeats to the officer that she wasn’t the one who attacked Min-ah… and the officer very casually taps his neck with his right hand. A familiar gesture. Oh noooo. He’s not a cop is he.

Soo-hyun recognizes that neck tap from the guy who had an apartment lined in surveillance photos of her family. She slowly pulls out her cell phone and calls Dong-chan, making sure to speak to the officer normally while noting key location markers.

The police radio blares as someone asks for Officer Han’s whereabouts, but our Impostor Cop just turns it off. So Soo-hyun drops the act: “What the heck do you want?”

The impostor swerves the car, his pretense over. Soo-hyun goes at him from behind, flinging her hands around his neck and using the cuffs to choke him. Impostor Cop flings her back and elbows her in the face repeatedly. Doggedly Soo-hyun persists, grabbing his tattooed hand and chomping down.

Lights shine at them just before they collide with another vehicle. The police car screeches to a halt and Dong-chan jumps out of his van to collect Soo-hyun safely away.

She tells them the cop is Tattoo Hand, but when Dong-chan returns to the car there’s nobody inside. He’s furious to have the culprit slip away again, but police sirens are approaching and Byung-tae pulls him away—they don’t want to get into any further trouble.

Ji-hoon takes Saet-byul to the hospital, though she’s mostly fine. He calls the nanny ajumma to watch over her while he returns to the house, and as he steps aside, we see a flashing red light blinking from a pocket. Watching Saet-byul?

At the scene of the car crash, Woo-jin hurriedly wipes the impostor’s blood from the police car before his colleagues arrive on the scene. Tampering with crimes scenes again, are we?

They find the real cop bound and gagged in the trunk, and Woo-jin holds his breath while the others ask who did this to him. The cop didn’t see because he was hit from behind, and Woo-jin sighs in relief. Okay, so we know you’re shady—but just how shady?

Woo-jin then issues the order to put our gang—Dong-chan, Soo-hyun, Byung-tae, and Chun-ja (ha, is that Jenny’s real name?)—on the wanted list. Ho-gook argues that Dong-chan didn’t do this, but Woo-jin is firm.

In the hospital, Ji-hoon confronts Min-ah, who’s now conscious. She tries to pin the blame on Soo-hyun for attacking her, but Ji-hoon isn’t buying it and Min-ah admits to her guilt, spitting out that she wanted to give his family scars that would never heal.

He orders her to tell the police the truth, but she stops him in his tracks: “That’ll only make things difficult for you.” The house was already a wreck when she arrived, and she guesses, “It was that man who did it, wasn’t it?” The same man had threatened Min-ah with photos of their affair. “What the hell did you do for him to go after you like that?!” she asks.

Ji-hoon replies, “All I did was use my methods to make the world I dream of.” How cryptic.

Ji-hoon receives a call from police alerting him of Soo-hyun’s disappearance, and is asked if he might have a clue as to who took her away. He’s baffled, but soon receives a text attaching a photo of his ransacked house. The message reads: “I’m warning you. If you don’t hand over the goods, your family won’t be safe.”

Ji-hoon calls back and growls at the other end that he’ll kill them if they harm Soo-hyun. But the call is cut mid-sentence. Frustrated, Ji-hoon throws a chair… and then spots Saet-byul’s helmet on the floor. He looks inside for the evidence jewelry he’d hidden there for safekeeping, but the plastic bag is gone.

Ji-hoon heads to the security office to check the tapes, and sees Soo-hyun arriving with helmet in hand. “So he took Soo-hyun away knowing she had it,” he deduces. Just then the nanny calls to let him know that Soo-hyun came by to take Saet-byul and seemed a little odd. Ji-hoon orders the nanny to makes sure the guards hold Soo-hyun there, saying she’s not in the right state of mind right now

Soo-hyun is already on her way out with Dong-chan and Saet-byul, but they duck aside when cops arrive. One of them has a bandaged hand corresponding to the hand Soo-hyun bit.

Then Byung-tae the Diversion storms into the lobby and douses the entire contents of a gasoline can onto himself. Brandishing a lighter, he screams for the bastard doctor who killed his wife. That buys them the chance to slip out to the parking lot to the waiting van.

Upon hearing that Soo-hyun spotted Tattoo Hand just now, Dong-chan is ready to barge back inside to go at him. Byung-tae insists this isn’t the right time, just as Ji-hoon pulls up and calls for her. Soo-hyun ignores him and ushers Saet-byul into the van.

The van gets stopped at a drunk-driving checkpoint, and they’re cleared to proceed… until a second officer stops them to ask for a license. Dong-chan notes how the officer’s eyes sweep the van, taking stock of the people inside. And sure enough, he orders everyone to step outside.

Dong-chan steps out to protest, arguing that the sick child needs the hospital (Saet-byul starts moaning on cue). While he raises a fuss, the officer hurriedly radios that the wanted folks have been located.

Soo-hyun sees a black car pulling up behind them, and a man dressed in black approaches the van, and not in a friendly way. She takes Dong-chan’s phone and ushers Saet-byul away to a field of reeds nearby, where they crouch together. The man finds the van empty.

Woo-jin responds to the call and arrives at the checkpoint, and Dong-chan argues that the car crash earlier was from them saving Soo-hyun. But they realize with surprise that the van is empty, and Woo-jin orders that Soo-hyun be tracked down. The others are taken in to the station.

Out in the field, the man in black approaches ever closer to Soo-hyun’s hiding spot. He’s only steps away from finding them, but thankfully the arrival of police officers sends him slinking off.

They hide for a little while longer, and the clock rolls over to a new day: Six days before the incident.

Soo-hyun and Saet-byul take a bus to a seaside town, arriving in the morning. Ah, must be her hometown, because next we watch as Soo-hyun’s mother receives a visit from Ji-hoon again. She’s not in the mood to be accommodating, but he lies that Soo-hyun’s on the run from the cops after stabbing Min-ah, and begs his mother-in-law to call him if she shows up.

While Saet-byul plays on the beach, Soo-hyun puzzles over the recent events: Why is she being chased?

They end up at her mother’s house, and Mom cooks up a storm for them. Soo-hyun asks about “that man” and her mother awkwardly assures her that they needn’t worry about her husband because he’s away in Seoul. That explains a lot about their strained dynamic. And then Mom slips away to call Ji-hoon. Nooooooo.

Meanwhile, Dong-chan is stuck in a jail cell, worrying about Soo-hyun getting caught by Tattoo Hand. He alternately begs and threatens Ho-gook to be released, and poor wimpy Ho-gook is neither a match for Dong-chan’s persuasiveness nor up to anything Dong-chan asks him to do. Like swiping the cell keys from another cop and letting them out.

This time, however, Ho-gook refuses to do anything, and Dong-chan swears at him and wishes him fired.

While Saet-byul sleeps, some of Soo-hyun’s long-held resentment toward her mother bubbles over, particularly as Mom launches into a whole “Call Ji-hoon, your wonderful righteous husband will solve everything” speech. Soo-hyun scoffs at her mother’s concern over her granddaughter after abandoning her own child, reminding her that she was Saet-byul’s age when Mom left. Mom had told her to wait until she came for her, so Soo-hyun waited and waited. Mom never came.

In the police station, Dong-chan steadily harasses Ho-gook, calling him a rotten bastard. Ho-gook tries to ignore him until he can’t take it anymore and hurls a few insults back, escalating the tension with the gang. At that point his cop friend steps in to calm him down… and Ho-gook maneuvers the friend’s back to the jail cell. They swipe the keys and Byung-tae’s phone.

Dong-chan tells his crew to find Soo-hyun and Saet-byul, and they quietly free themselves and slip out while Ho-gook keeps the other officers distracted. When the cop sees the breakout, Dong-chan just stands there saying blankly, “I did nothing.” Hahaha.

The cops race outside to find them. Byung-tae calls Soo-hyun (via Dong-chan’s phone) and gets Saet-byul on the line for a few seconds before Grandma confiscates the phone, telling her not to talk to random people.

Soo-hyun calls Woo-jin from a pay phone and pleads for him to let Dong-chan out of jail. She reminds Woo-jin of his own words to stick close to Dong-chan since he’d protect her better than anyone, and insists that Min-ah is lying about being the victim. Woo-jin plays the nice guy and promises to look into it, but as soon as he hangs up we see our bad guy waiting nearby. He demands Woo-jin’s phone.

Woo-jin deletes all the stored data on his phone as a precaution and declines to give it up, which is encouraging since he doesn’t seem to want to be working with the bad guys. On the other hand, he IS still working with the bad guys so my appreciation for his reluctance has its limits. Not wanting to be evil doesn’t excuse you from being evil, yunno.

Woo-jin warns that any danger to Soo-hyun will prompt him to act—like letting it be known that our bad guy killed our first serial killer. But the bad guy’s got dirt on Woo-jin too: “Before that happens, the world will find out that you’re the one who shot Ki Dong-chan’s nephew.” Ooh. Damn. So that’s why he’s got such issues with Dong-chan—guilt, fear, and self-preservation.

Via GPS search, Byung-tae and Jenny trace it to the city of Gangreung. But a team of thugs barges into the office, and Byung-tae barely manages to shut down his computer before they get to it. Byung-tae refuses to say anything, so they start slapping Jenny around to persuade him. She spits in their faces and gets knocked out cold. Then they drag her unconscious body off to have some “fun,” and that horror is too much for Byung-tae, who caves.

Saet-byul overhears her grandmother talking to a friend, who urges her to tell the whole story to Soo-hyun: that she couldn’t come back for her because she was always getting beaten up by her husband.

Soo-hyun is out at the market when she’s confronted by burly orderlies and a nurse. She tries to make a run for it, but the men grab her and force her into a van—Ji-hoon is having her committed. Gack.

At home, Saet-byul draws pictures and perks up to hear that her mother used to draw too. She asks to see some drawings and laughs to see her mother’s spelling tests, which were abysmal. Saet-byul asks why Grandma and Mom don’t get along, and Grandma says that she made a lot of mistakes. Saet-byul tells her that Mom said that a sincere apology will earn forgiveness, and suggests that Grandma write a diary entry if she’s too embarrassed to say the words. Grandma’s eyes are bad, so Saet-byul writes the words down for her.

So Grandma starts: “Soo-hyun-ah, it’s your mother. I’m living really happily now. Ajusshi treats me well.” Saet-byul pauses, knowing that’s not true, but keeps writing. When she’s done, she folds up the paper and tucks it into her pocket.

Just then, they hear sounds of violence outside. Grandma looks out and sees danger approaching, thankfully acting fast enough so that the three thugs find the house empty. Grandma takes Saet-bul out to the pier, making their way to delivery truck. The back is open so they climb in to hide. Aw, Grandma stands at the door ready to fight any intruders, arming herself with the only thing on hand—a frozen fish.

She’s seconds from having to use it, but the sound of police sirens sends the thug away. Phew. But the truck driver starts the truck and drives off, not hearing the pounding from the back over his radio. Oh no, that’s not a refrigerated truck, is it?

Soo-hyun is taken to the hospital and locked up. Ji-hoon is far more interested in her belongings than her mental health, searching through her things anxiously. And there it is, the plastic bags with the pieces of jewelry. He sends a photo of it in a text, then makes a call: “It’s only till today,” he says. “After today, you’re over.”

Woo-jin arrives at the station and releases Dong-chan from jail. All he says is, “Go and protect Soo-hyun.” The words ring Dong-chan’s alarm bells, and he chases Woo-jin down to ask what he knows. Woo-jin just barks at him to go and protect her, since she said Dong-chan was the only one she trusted to protect her and Saet-byul.

Dong-chan runs off. When another officer protests, Woo-jin states that Min-ah confessed, and Soo-hyun is therefore no longer wanted.

Saet-byul huddles with her grandmother in the delivery truck, growing colder by the minute amongst the frozen fish. Grandma fades fast, and Saet-byul makes a call. Luckily Dong-chan arrives at the office in time to answer Byung-tae’s dropped phone.

Saet-byul tells him she’s stuck in a cold fish truck, and Dong-chan realizes time is ticking and tries to trace her call. No go. Next he asks her to look around for clues, and she reads the company logo on the boxes. Also, Grandma said something about arriving in Noryangjin soon before falling asleep.

Dong-chan keeps Saet-byul talking on the phone while driving, urging her not to fall asleep. Inventing a game to keep her occupied, he tells her to name the fish in the boxes around her. She finds a big octopus, which gives him the idea to freeze the lock, which would weaken it and make it susceptible to breakage.

So first he instructs her to find a sharp object—she uses her hairpin— to pry at the metal covering of the door lock. She can’t manage to turn it, so Dong-chan thinks fast: “Listen up. Even more than really pretty girls, I like really strong girls. Saet-byulie, you’re strong aren’t you?” Haha, well that’s one way to motivate a girl.

Saet-byul manages it on the second try, and now that the keyhole is exposed, he has her squirt octopus ink all over the lock. Once it’s frozen, Dong-chan instructs her to bash it with something heavy, and Saet-byul does. After a few blows, the door swings wide open.

By the time Dong-chan arrives, the fish truck has been pulled over by the police after spraying fish all over the highway. The girl has already been sent to a hospital in Seoul, so Dong-chan dashes off to go there directly. But he stops in his tracks when he sees the hairpin Saet-byul dropped, given to her as a gift by Young-gyu.

We flash back to our original timeline—the one where Dong-chan was attacked by those thugs and found this very pin in his pocket. Ohhhh crap. This was following his blackout, wasn’t it? Why would you have this pin, Dong-chan?

Unnerved, Dong-chan thinks hard, trying to recall the details of that night. He’d been in a fight in the alley outside a club, and in the morning he had headed out to nab the adultery case. He’d worn the same jeans that day that he’d worn at the club. He can’t quite connect all the dots.

Ji-hoon hears about Saet-byul being in the hospital and hurries over with a change of clothes, taking the closest set he can find—the ones sitting in the entry closet. Which Soo-hyun had tried to throw away. Which Saet-byul had been wearing when she died. And by the way, today is also the day of the serial killer broadcast, aka Saet-byul’s kidnapping.

At the hospital, Ji-hoon assures Saet-byul that her grandma will wake up soon and be fine. Saet-byul insists on seeing her mother, so he relents and agrees to take her for a visit.

They arrive at the mental hospital, where Soo-hyun is fuming mad at Ji-hoon for pulling this stunt. He tells her tiredly that this is all for her own sake, an idea she finds ridiculous.

Soo-hyun calms down once he informs her that Saet-byul is here, and he makes her promise to behave herself. Upon seeing her, Soo-hyun grabs Saet-bul in a bear hug, full of relief… until she registers the clothes she’s wearing. Freaked out, Soo-hyun tries to grab the jacket off her and sounds, frankly, hysterical. Which doesn’t do a lot of her case.

Ji-hoon intervenes—he’ll take Saet-byul to the broadcast station today for his debate (nooooo). He picks Saet-byul up to take her away, ignoring Soo-hyun’s exclamations that she needs to be with Saet-byul today.

Soo-hyun runs after them, and while she’s dragged off by orderlies swiftly, she does manage to swipe the phone in Saet-byul’s pocket.

Dong-chan arrives at the hospital to hear that Saet-byul was already taken away by her father. He gets a text from his own phone, but it only mentions a morning broadcast and then some gibberish. He puzzles over it, since it doesn’t quite make sense.

But then he recalls the wanted criminals program and reads the text again, now seeing what the hastily typed message was meant to read: Saet-byul went to broadcast station, stop it.

He races to the station and arrives at the studio, ignoring the restricted sign and barging in.

Soo-hyun wakes up and bolts up upon seeing the time—it’s already evening. She races to the lounge television just in time to hear familiar words being broadcast over the telephone line, about how the killer has picked something a little different for his next victim. And then, when he urges his victim to speak, it’s a familiar voice crying out, “Mommy.”

 
COMMENTS

Ackkkkkkkk. And just when I thought we were safe! Of course, I know the threat to Saet-byul’s life technically remains hanging over her head for as long as Ji-hoon keeps contact with his mysterious blackmailer, and Woo-jin keeps tampering with evidence, and Tattoo Hand remains at large. But the past few episodes have lulled me into a false sense of security, making me feel like the danger was sort of theoretical, not clear and present. The show was giving us downright fun and funny caper scenes with Soo-hyun and the gang—in between the bouts of kidnapping and assault and sinister threats, I mean.

But now we’re back to square one, and it’s so harrowing to have her live out this terror again. Poor, poor woman. This kind of nightmare was pretty much gut-wrenching and harrowing the first time around, but at least that time there was the sliver of hope. This time, Soo-hyun knows exactly how the story ends, and that’s pretty much the worst thing ever.

She does have more clues this time around, though, which means that she doesn’t have to waste any of her six remaining days on false leads and wild goose chases. (I suppose Saet-byul’s death occurs before the six days are up, so I’m not entirely sure what the show will do with the timeline now that the kidnapping has occurred.) And this time she has Dong-chan on her side, which is nothing to sniff at.

It’s interesting that they brought Min-ah back because we already knew she wasn’t the ultimate killer, though it was a nice wrench in the works to make Soo-hyun a fugitive, even if only for a brief moment. I find the hospital committing the much more effective twist, because while I felt the whole time that she wasn’t making a great case for the world NOT seeing her as a crazy woman, I didn’t really think Ji-hoon would go that far, or that low. That said, I actually don’t know whether he believes that she really needs psychological intervention. I had assumed that he was just getting her out of the way, but perhaps he really does think she’s lost it, based on her erratic behavior.

While Ji-hoon is a lying, cheating husband and clearly in on something super-shady, I think it’s pretty clear he doesn’t have a direct hand in the death of his own child. And he can be a bad husband while still caring for his wife, and he’s played with enough subtlety that there’s room for interpretation with him—just how bad is he? Same thing goes for Woo-jin, who is a crooked cop for sure, but also seems to genuinely not want any harm to come to Soo-hyun or Saet-byul. When he freed Dong-chan and told him to protect her, I wondered how much that cost his pride to acknowledge that Dong-chan would actually do a good job at it, perhaps better than himself.

In any case, these hints of ambiguity add dimension to the plot, which I welcome. I’m fine with the actual killer being an unmitigated villain without shades of gray, but it’s nice that the rest of the people surrounding Soo-hyun are more complex in terms of character and motivation.

Now all I want is for tomorrow’s episode to be more Soo-hyun + Dong-chan together, because I really missed that today. I know that the plot worked with the separation—inasmuch as they’re so much less effective apart, and it opens up new problems when they’re out of communication—but I’m just itching for them to get back onscreen together.

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