Black: Episode 17

by odilettante

The shocking truth about what really happened to Joon is finally revealed, and no one is more surprised by it than Black. Even though astute viewers may have already guessed the connection between Joon and Black long ago, there are still plenty of jaw-dropping twists-and-turns that make this penultimate episode as exciting as ever.

 
EPISODE 17 RECAP

Black researches Joon’s death, convinced the body that was found on the road wasn’t really Joon. The face was too damaged for anyone to properly identify the body, which points to the body belonging to someone other than Joon. Black briefly wonders why someone would purposefully swap the bodies, then decides it’s none of his business.

With Congressman Kim caught, Ha-ram is now safe, so Black can finally return to the underworld. But Joseon speculates that Joon could still be alive, but hidden by someone who wanted to protect Joon from the congressman — then Joon got amnesia and that’s why no one has heard from him in 20 years.

Hip-hop scoffs at Joseon’s makjang theory, but Black realizes that if he can find Joon alive, it will make Ha-ram happy to be reunited with her first love — and be happy to live without Black.

Black questions Moo-gang’s mother about the original investigation, wondering why she didn’t perform an autopsy on Joon’s body. Moo-gang’s mother says that the body was so brutally damaged by being run over; she didn’t want to damage it even more. She then asks if Congressman Kim was responsible, but Black curtly tells her he doesn’t know yet.

But Black knows that because Moo-gang’s mother was originally questioned twenty years ago, it means Ha-ram’s father, who was investigating the case, must have known about the swapped bodies.

Black goes to Ha-ram’s mother to confirm when Ha-ram’s father left young Ha-ram with her. Mom doesn’t want to cooperate with him and yells at Black to get away, but he tells her that if she wants Black to leave Ha-ram alone, then she should help him.

Mom reluctantly confesses that it was four nights after the Mujin mall collapse, and she was surprised how anxious he seemed when he dropped Ha-ram off with her. He apologized to Mom for his greed making her suffer, asking her to take care of Ha-ram.

when Ha-ram woke up the next morning, she freaked out, desperate to go to her father since he had a Shadow and was going to die. Mom hurried to Mujin check on him and found him at the hospital, talking to a doctor. When she realized that Ha-ram’s father was still alive, she decided not to tell him about the Shadow — she wanted to give Ha-ram a normal upbringing, so she just returned home, leaving her ex-husband to die.

Black realizes that Ha-ram’s father had four days after Joon’s body was found to investigate the hit-and-run. Mom doesn’t know who the doctor was that Ha-ram’s father talked to, and doesn’t have anything that could help Black since she destroyed all of her husband’s belongings — except for the few items Ha-ram kept.

Black portals to Ha-ram’s room and searches around until he finds her father’s wallet. When he pulls out the photos of Ha-ram with her father, he sees that a license plate is written on the back of one of them.

The detectives discover the vehicle belonged to Creepy Doc who reported it lost twenty years ago — on April 20th, the day that Joon’s accident occured.

Black goes to Creepy Doc to ask him about the lost car, and Creepy Doc says that he was busy at the hospital after the mall collapsed, and when he later went to the parking lot to get his car, it was gone. He reported it to the police right away, but it was never found.

Black asks if Creepy Doc remembers seeing Ha-ram’s father before, but Creepy Doc admits that while he did talk to a detective about the missing car, he can’t remember who it was. Black then asks if Creepy Doc knows anything about missing corpses back then — a boy with a missing hand and a blue birth mark. But Creepy Doc says he’s never heard of such a thing.

It’s an hour before Man-soo’s birth mother will hang herself, and Ha-ram’s determined to prove that the doctor who found the son’s body was allergic to menthol so that Man-soo’s mother won’t a reason to kill herself.

But when Ha-ram remembers the blind man’s warning about messing around with people’s lives will lead to unintended consequences, Ha-ram turns around and walks away, refusing to save more people for fear of what else might happen.

Leo avoids the press at the hospital, who are all determined to get a story about him being Congressman Kim’s son. His manager escorts him to his van, telling him to stay put and not go anywhere. Leo sees Creepy Doc head to his (current) car.

Black realizes that it doesn’t make sense for Congressman Kim to kill Ha-ram’s father for investigating the hit-and-run, because if Congressman Kim was really the one responsible for the hit-and-run, he had no reason to swap the bodies. That means whomever stole Creepy Doc’s car twenty years ago is the body-swapper.

As Black’s pondering all this, he sees Loser walking through the hospital parking lot. Black immediately gives chase, which is extra hilarious because he’s yelling “Stop!” and sprinting after someone that no one else can see.

When Loser tries to portal away, Black realizes that it’s a good idea and does it first, exiting a container just as Loser tries to enter it. Black grabs Loser by the throat and demands to know what body Loser has been using, but before Loser can answer, a car runs full speed into Black, knocking him down and causing him to pass out.

Ha-ram struggles with her desire to save Man-soo’s mother and her determination to not get involved. Meanwhile, it’s a few minutes until 3pm, and Man-soo’s mother prepares to hang herself, leaving behind a suicide note, apologizing that she wasn’t able to reveal the truth about her son.

Joseon patiently watches as she kicks the chair out from under her, and just as she passes out, Man-soo rushes in to try and save her. Hip-hop and the woman’s son, Kyung-soo, also peek in from the bathroom. Kyung-soo realizes that Man-soo must be his older brother.

Just then Ha-ram runs in to help Man-soo (yay!), and Joseon hurries Hip-hop and Kyung-soo out. Kyung-soo borrowed his own body to portal to see his mother, and when Joseon orders him to get back out, Kyung-soo is unable to leave his body. When Joseon says they’ll have to call the Death Squad to get him out, Kyung-soo cowers in fear.

Man-soo sits with his mother, who he and Ha-ram were able to break free from her handmade noose and keep her from dying. As Man-soo sits with his mother, he watches the news of the doctor confessing that he lied about Kyung-soo’s death.

Man-soo was the one behind getting the confession from the doctor, since he was able to find proof of Senator Nam’s son’s sexual misconduct by hacking into the soldier’s phone and posting screenshots of incriminating text messages. Kyung-soo’s name is cleared, which means there’s now no reason for his mother to kill herself.

Black wakes up in the hospital, annoyed that someone tried to kill him again. He’s also annoyed that it will be harder to find Loser since Loser knows that Black is in Moo-gang’s body, and Black can’t get out of Moo-gang’s body, even though Black should have left the body each time Moo-gang died (again).

Hip-hop portals into Black’s hospital room, excited with his discovery (thanks to Kyung-soo) that a Reaper can’t escape their own body. Black dismisses him, pointing out that he’s in Moo-gang’s body and, duh, he’s not Moo-gang.

Creepy Doc eavesdrops and seems to realize something when Black says that he can’t leave Moo-gang’s body. Ha-ram appears to check on Black but is distracted by seeing a Shadow inside Creepy Doc. When Black hears her mention the Shadow, he chases after Creepy Doc.

Black grabs Creepy Doc and points his gun at him, demanding Loser get out of Creepy Doc’s body or else Black will drag him out after he makes a hole in Creepy Doc’s head. A Reaper leaps out of Creepy Doc’s body — but it isn’t Loser.

Instead, it’s an old woman Reaper who has been on the run for a hundred years and is on the Death Squad’s “most wanted” list. She’s been able to evade the Death Squad because she changes bodies frequently. Black recognizes her from her “wanted” posters, asking if she teamed up with Loser to try and kill Black.

The old woman cackles as a flashback shows that she — as Creepy Doc — did indeed run Black over, since when a body dies a second time, the Reaper forgets everything that happened during the time they were possessing the body. But of course, that’s not the case for Black in Moo-gang’s body.

When Black threatens to turn her in, the old woman says she knows what Ha-ram’s father asked Creepy Doc twenty years ago when he was investigating the swapped bodies. Ha-ram’s father wanted to know about the severed wrist, and Creepy Doc nervously told him that many of the bodies they’ve seen since the collapse were missing limbs.

But the old woman — in a patient’s body at that time — could see that Ha-ram’s father wasn’t convinced, and that he suspected Creepy Doc switched the bodies. The old woman was annoyed that she picked a terminally ill body to inhabit, so when she saw Creepy Doc huddled in a supply closet, passed out from using drugs, the old woman decided to make him overdose and die so she could take over Creepy Doc’s body.

Black is horrified to learn that the old woman has been able to avoid being caught by the Death Squad because she’s been killing people to use their bodies. She says she didn’t have a choice — those destined to die always had Reapers near them, so the only way to avoid being seen was to unexpectedly kill someone herself.

Black reminds her that if a Reaper kills someone, they perish, which is the maximum penalty. But the old woman retorts that perishing isn’t the maximum penalty. Then she tells Black that she knows where Joon’s body really is — and she has proof. She only asks that Black doesn’t report her to the Death Squad.

Thanks to the old woman’s information, Black portals into Leo’s room and searches through Leo’s belongings, finding the laptop with the video of Leo and Moo-gang in the hotel bathroom.

After he watches it, Black is disgusted by the way humans could treat a child. He decides that he might find more evidence at Mujin hospital, but when he arrives, he has a sudden memory of driving away. So he turns around and finds an abandoned health center that was shut down in 1995.

He cautiously walks through the building to a long-deserted operating room. He suddenly pictures Creepy Doc and Moo-gang’s mother standing over Joon’s body on the operating table. Black gulps back his revulsion as he staggers out of the building, vomiting into the bushes.

Black walks through a field to a cliff — it’s the opening shot of the first episode — and then he swan dives off the cliff to find the car in the water, breaking the passenger window and grabbing the desiccated corpse, while crying out, “Is this me? Is this really me?”

A flashback reveals that young Moo-gang had heart trouble, but it was difficult finding a donor since Moo-gang’s blood type was so rare. Joon pointed out that they have the same blood type. Aw, this is their first meeting as official brothers, right after Joon joined their family when his mother went to jail.

When Moo-gang’s mother returned to Mujin for her medical conference (which was when the mall collapsed), the two boys (seemingly unaware of the collapse) spent their time in Mujin, wandering around and digging up the time capsule Joon and Ha-ram had buried.

Joon decided to find Seon-young to give her the CD as a birthday present. When he realized she’s not at home, instead of leaving a note, he recoreds a cute little “happy birthday” statement, which he finished up with an adorable, “Noona, you know I like you, right?” Awwww.

Joon stuck the video tape in his backpack and headed out to find Seon-young. He ran into Madam Hwang, who grumbled that Clara dragged Seon-young off somewhere. Joon hurried to find her, and Moo-gang, waiting for him, followed after. Joon found Seon-young at the abandoned dye factory, being beaten up by Clara as demanded to know where the tape was.

Joon intervened, but Moo-gang grabbed the shovel and knocked Clara out. Joon ran away with Moo-gang, but Moo-gang’s weak heart meant he can’t run for long. Joon told Moo-gang to go hide so he could double-check that Moo-gang didn’t kill Clara, but instead found Scarface demanding to know where Clara hid the tape.

Scarface stabbed Clara, which shocked Joon — and Seon-young, who’s also watching. Seon-young grabbd Jin-sook to run away from Scarface, while Joon followed after and distracted Scarface by telling him he has the tape. Scarface left the two girls to chase after Joon, who hides in the factory with Moo-gang.

But Scarface found them and grabbed Joon. Moo-gang fought back by slamming a brick into Scarface, giving him his titular scar. That allowed the two boys to run away, and Joon said that Moo-gang should head to the road and find someone to call the police while Joon continued to lure Scarface away.

Joon realized Seon-young headed into the woods to find him, so he went there, too, but tripped and fell, spraining his ankle. Scared and no longer able to run, he set off the yellow pen smoke bomb flare, hoping someone would see it and come to his rescue. He limped into a nearby abandoned glass factory and hid when he heard Scarface coming.

Scarface found him and demanded the tape, but before he can stab Joon, Ha-ram’s father arrived and saves the boy’s life. The two men fought, and Scarface managed to escape, but not before his gun got knocked out of his pocket.

Ha-ram’s father hurried to Joon, asking if he’s okay. But just then someone suddenly shot Joon in the head. Meanwhile, young Moo-gang collapsed on the road, unable to run any more, and a passerby found him.

Joon was hit by the bullt, but he was still alive, and managed to stagger to a nearby phone booth to call Moo-gang’s mother for help. She’s shocked to see the condition he’s in, and had to almost carry his nearly unconscious body into the car. The next thing we see is her standing over Joon’s body and cutting his chest open.

These are all the memories that have been flooding back as Black stands on the cliff, soaking wet after having found Joon’s body. He holds his gun against his head and repeatedly fires bullets into his temple, screaming in frustration that he’s still unable to leave Moo-gang’s body.

In Black’s memory, young Joon stood in the same spot on the cliff, his soul watching in agony as Moo-gang’s mother and Creepy Doc pushed a car, with Joon’s body strapped in the passenger seat, over the cliff. Joseon stood next to Joon, gently reassuring the boy that he’ll forget everything. OMG, so Joseon was Joon’s Reaper.

Joseon and Hip-hop find Black on the cliff, and Joseon realizes that Black now knows he was actually Joon, so his memories are returning. Joseon tells Black to let people know about Joon’s body so it can be found. Then Black can return to his true form and go to heaven.

Instead of answering, Black just walks away and portals to Moo-gang’s mother. He demands to know the truth about why she killed Joon. She’s shocked that he found out about it, but confesses she did it for him (that, is, Moo-gang). She insists she didn’t have a choice.

At the time she was driving the unconscious Joon to the hospital, she got the call that Moo-gang’s heart was failing him and he needed an operation right away, but there weren’t any donors available. That’s when Moo-gang’s mother realized that Joon was a perfect donor match.

When she took Joon to the abandoned health center to operate on him, Creepy Doc protested that Joon was still alive. Moo-gang’s mother insisted that he would die or become brain dead, anyway, and the most important thing was saving Moo-gang.

Black’s face is covered in tears as he confirms that she killed Joon to just save Moo-gang. She reiterates that she only did it for him, her son, Moo-gang. And besides, Joon was shot in the head, so he had no chance of living, anyway.

Black says that Joon would have lived, because he knows Ha-ram didn’t see a Shadow on Joon the day he died. If Moo-gang’s mother had just taken Joon to the hospital, he would have survived. Black angrily calls her a murderer as he screams that Joon wasn’t the only one she killed, but he can’t finish telling her that Moo-gang died trying to find out what happened to Joon.

He then demands to know why she threw Joon’s body into the sea. Black warns her that he’ll send her to the fiery pit, then leaves as Moo-gang’s mother sobs, remembering that she’d decided to swap the bodies so that no one would find it suspicious that Joon suddenly disappeared.

She’d taken Seung-chul’s body, since no one had claimed it yet, and then, after dressing it to look like Joon, purposefully ran over it so it wouldn’t be recognizable. She was the only one who would be called to identify the body, anyway, since Joon’s belongings would be found around it.

Agonized, Black remembers that he loved and respected Moo-gang’s mother like she was his own, and now he struggles with the painful knowledge that she ruthlessly killed him to save Moo-gang.

Black visits Joon’s mother’s food stand, regretting the way he had treated her when she was at the police station. He requests a bowl of intestine soup, and realizes that he must have enjoyed eating intestine soup as a Reaper because it reminded him of his mother’s food.

Joon’s mother is thankful, since she believes that Congressman Kim was the one who killed Joon, and so now her son’s death has been vindicated. Black eats his soup, trying to hide his tears. Aw, Mom says that Joon used to hate her soup, but she also wonders if it was he was embarrassed that she used to be a bar girl.

As Black chokes down the soup, he also chokes back his sobs while he listens to his mother talk about Joon. He starts to ask her why she was so obsessed with finding the truth of Joon’s death (stumbling when he first refers to Joon as himself then having to switch to referring to Joon as his brother). She says that, as his mother, she couldn’t give up on finding the truth.

Black wonders what she would say if she could see her son again, and she says that she would apologize. She explains that Joon was the type to get into trouble, so she believed the drugs found in his bag really belonged to him. But to protect him, she claimed the drugs were hers and went to jail to protect him.

It was only later she found out the drugs were put in Joon’s bag on purpose by a bully who was mad that Joon didn’t want to be a part of his gang anymore. The bully wanted to get Joon in trouble with the police. Mom regrets that she ever doubted Joon, and regrets she gave him reason to disappoint her.

Black walks Mom home and she invites him in for a cup of tea. She confesses that when she sees him, he reminds her of Joon — probably because they’re brothers. Oof. She sighs as she wishes she still had a photo of Joon.

Black offers to take a photo with her, explaining that it’s because she said that he reminds her of Joon, y’know, brothers. But as he tries to take a selfie with Mom, Black’s smile trembles as he unsuccessfully tries to fight back his tears.

Black shows up at Ha-ram’s place and passes out in her arms as soon as she opens the door. She has no idea what’s going on, but lets him sleep in her bed while she takes the sofa. When Black wakes up, he sees Ha-ram conked out on the sofa and tucks her in, silently telling her that he’s actually Joon.

Black studies the footage of Leo and Moo-gang, where Leo says that his father didn’t kill Joon. Leo was actually headed home from the hospital that day when he saw Moo-gang’s mother pull up with Joon, bleeding from his head — and then abruptly turn around and drive away.

Leo thought it was strange, but he was too young to really dwell on it, especially since his own mother was dying from cancer and then he was shipped of to Canada. It was only later that Leo heard about Joon’s hit-and-run.

Leo smirks as he hands over Moo-gang’s transplant document, pointing out that it’s strange that the young girl Moo-gang was told was his the donor is listed as giving her heart to someone else. Leo says that Moo-gang’s mother stole Joon’s heart and gave it to him, which shocks Moo-gang.

Leo adds that if Moo-gang tries to reveal his father’s tape, he won’t be safe, so it’s best to just drop it. But then Leo gasps as he starts to overdose on the drugs. Moo-gang watches for a moment, then slowly walks away, tossing the organ donor documents into the trash.

Black, watching the video, realizes that Moo-gang threw away evidence that would have proven his mother lied about the organ donation, and then let Leo, the only other person who knew about it, die. Black wonders if Moo-gang purposefully covered up Joon’s death. If so, then who shot Moo-gang? For that matter, who shot Joon that night twenty years ago?

A flash of memory makes Black realize he saw Congressman Kim driving past that night, and realizes that Congressman Kim must have shot him. Which would also explain why Congressman Kim ordered Scarface to kill Ha-ram’s father, since Ha-ram’s father would have seen Congressman Kim shoot Joon.

But Black gets a call that Congressman Kim is being released since the investigation was declared to be done unofficially, so the evidence isn’t valid. Man-ho also is informed of Congressman Kim’s release, and furiously demands his lawyer finds someone to take care of Congressman Kim — someone who won’t make mistakes this time.

Ha-ram’s worried when she can’t reach Black after he vanished in the night. He’s not answering his phone, but she uses the friend-finder app to see that he’s in Mujin.

Black retraces Joon’s steps that day. Even though his memories are still fragmented, he recalls seeing the tape of Seon-young being sexually assaulted by Congressman Kim. Black assumes that he must have taken that tape to record his birthday greeting, and that’s the tape Joon tried to hide the night he was killed.

Black enters the abandoned glass factory where Joon was shot, assuming that he must have hid the tape there. But he can’t find it, although he does see a bullet hole in the wall. Except it’s not from a hunting rifle, which is what Congressman Kim would have used.

Ha-ram finds Black in the glass factory. Black’s surprised that she knows about this place, and Ha-ram sadly says that’s where she tried to shoot her father’s Shadow. She had followed her father there that night, and saw her father through the glass with a dark figure next to him.

She saw the gun that had been dropped by Scarface and decided to shoot the Shadow to save her father. Which she did, but the recoil knocked her out. Black realizes that Ha-ram was the one who shot Joon that night, and he reels in pain as he clutches his head.

COMMENTS

While it’s no surprise to anyone — except for maybe Black (ooof, his shock, grief, and rage were so heartbreaking) — that Black’s actually Joon, I was totally stunned that Ha-ram was the one who shot him. I don’t know how she’ll handle that discovery, since her attempt to save her father ended up killing her first love. Well, at least putting him on the path to be killed, since I doubt Moo-gang’s mother would have tried to steal his heart if Joon was still fully conscious. But holy cow, what a horrible place Mujin is for so many parents to be utterly terrible to their children. Did any child get to live a relatively decent life back then? Maybe they could have, if the mall hadn’t collapsed.

I love how this show makes me think I know where it’s going, rewarding me with those dopamine rushes of “aha! I knew I was right!” moments, only to sucker-punch with another twist. On the one hand, I knew Creepy Doc was possessed by a Reaper, but on the other hand, I was not expecting that old lady to be the one possessing him. Her awareness of 444 despite being on the run for a hundred years also solidifies the theory that “444” is actually a rank or title, not a “name” designation, like 416 (aka Hip-hop). Which makes me assume Joseon’s “007” must also be a rank as well, and thus my mind is set at ease and I no longer have to wonder how someone could have died on a nonexistent day.

I now wonder, however, if Joseon purposefully teamed up with Hip-hop, knowing he was one of the missing children of the mall collapse, and then made sure to befriend Black, knowing that he’s really Joon. I was suspicious of Joseon before, but now I’m realizing that it’s because he knew the truth about Black all along, and maybe he’s been subtly pushing for Black to figure out the truth so that Joon’s soul can finally be freed and go to heaven. I had Joseon pegged as something more nefarious, but now I believe he just wants these children’s souls to finally rest happily in the afterlife.

Even though an entire episode devoted to the truth of Joon’s death almost seems like too much when there are still some unanswered questions waiting for us, I really appreciated the way that Black was able to find out the truth and try to work through his rage and grief. He’s not the coldhearted 444 that he thinks he is — he’s really a young boy who was pointlessly killed to save the life of the body he’s now in, the body that has already died (and obviously, Black can’t leave Moo-gang’s body because Joon’s heart makes it Joon’s body, too).

I don’t know what to expect to happen next, but I hope Moo-gang’s mother pays for her crime, and that Congressman Kim doesn’t get away with all his raping and murdering, and that Ha-ram somehow never finds out her involvement in Joon’s death. Because, as someone who already struggles with the cause-and-effect of trying to save people’s lives, I feel that it will destroy her more than we’ve ever seen, and I feel like she’d once again try to kill herself to prevent her from meddling again. Without Sip-gyeon’s amazing sense of danger, Man-soo might not be able to rush in and save Ha-ram in the nick of time like he did before.

Even though I despair that there’s no chance for a happy ending for Black and Ha-ram, I can at least hope that truth will prevail and the adults who used and abused the innocent lives of children will pay for their crimes, whether it’s from involvement with shoddy building workmanship that killed hundreds, or raping teen girls who had no where else to turn to, or stealing a heart from a body that could have lived. Then, at least, all the pain and agony thus far will have felt worthwhile, and our heroes can at last have the reassurance their efforts have not been in vain.

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