Red Moon Blue Sun: Episodes 25-26

by odilettante

Red Cry’s identity is finally revealed, which should feel like a triumphant victory — yet it’s a sad, bittersweet discovery, especially when we see the reasons behind Red Cry’s genesis. Is an honorable motive enough to excuse Red Cry’s actions? Or should vigilantes pay for the crimes they’ve committed, even if their whole lives seem to have been one big punishment for merely existing?

 
EPISODES 25-26 RECAP

As Eun-ho reads “The Leper” to the senior director, Woo-kyung also reads poetry to Se-kyung, and is shocked when Se-kyung seems to wake up from her vegetative state. The doctor confirms that Se-kyung is aware of her surroundings and knows who Woo-kyung is, but Se-kyung just coldly stares at Mom, who looks nervous under her step-daughter’s unblinking gaze.

In the morning, Eun-ho escorts the old director to the children’s center, where he meets with the board of directors to apologize for his son’s actions and to take back control of the center. He’s interrupted by a court representative, who’s there to foreclose on the children’s center since the senior director’s son took out a loan against the building but never paid it back. Red tags on everything!

Since the junior director is also the primary suspect for Red Cry, Ji-heon stops by the maintenance room to ask Eun-ho for copies of CCTV footage from the camera nearest the junior director’s office. Eun-ho says that camera is broken, but offers to give CCTV of the main entrance.

The detective asks Eun-ho if the director hated child abusers, specifically people like Ha-na’s parents. Eun-ho doesn’t think the director would be the type to kill anyone, simply because the director is inherently lazy. Eun-ho’s curious about the person they’re trying to catch, though, since he believes it’s better to not catch the culprit if it means a child could be saved and their abuser punished.

Ji-heon points out that killing isn’t the solution, no matter the motive. Murder is still a crime, and as a detective, it’s his job to catch the criminal. Handing over the CCTV footage, Eun-ho hopes Ji-heon will catch the true culprit. Ji-heon, without hesitation, informs Eun-ho that he definitely will.

Stopping by Woo-kyung’s office, Ji-heon tells Woo-kyung that they found the bloody shoes and the Good Person mask at the director’s house. He wants her opinion on the matter, since Red Cry is supposedly someone who knows her well, and her boss doesn’t seem like the kind of person who could say that about her.

Woo-kyung muses that the director isn’t necessarily a bad person — he’s just not someone who matters to her. Whereas Red Cry seemed to read her mind, the director and she often had disagreements. Ji-heon also doubts that her boss is Red Cry, although the evidence — while mostly circumstantial — does seem to point that way.

Eun-ho visits the director at the police station, but the director is more panicked about his father’s reaction than the fact he’s been accused of murder. He pleads with Eun-ho to ask his father to hire an expensive attorney, but does manage to apologize for the heartless way he treated Eun-ho when Eun-ho was arrested. It doesn’t sound like the most sincere apology, though, especially when he just assumes Eun-ho will forgive him, even though Eun-ho doesn’t say a word.

The senior director is busy trying to figure out how to save the children’s center when Eun-ho returns to the office. He asks Eun-ho how the visit went — apparently the senior director is more interested in what his son did with all that money than the fact his son killed someone.

After learning that his son lost it all due to gambling, the senior director repeatedly hits Eun-ho with his cane, blaming the young man for not keeping a better eye on his son. Angrily, he says he should have kicked Eun-ho out a long time ago, and Woo-kyung rushes forward to intervene and protect Eun-ho.

Later, she gives Eun-ho contact information for a place where he could find a new job and somewhere to live, but Eun-ho doesn’t want her pity. Woo-kyung gently tells him that sometimes the best way to heal a broken relationship is by creating some distance.

Eun-ho muses that so many people are worried about him, since Ji-heon also advised him to get away from the senior director. It seems more like he’s talking to himself when he says there’s nothing to worry about, since he won’t live like this much longer. But he smiles at Woo-kyung, reassuring her that he’ll call the number she gave him.

As soon as she leaves the office, however, Eun-ho throws the paper with the phone number into the trash.

Woo-kyung sits with her sister, patiently helping her with her speech therapy. When they take a break, she asks Se-kyung if she recognizes the drawing of the little girl in the green dress. Se-kyung croaks out that there’s a photo in her bag, which makes Woo-kyung go digging in the storage for Se-kyung’s suitcase.

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The clue is in the bag

Rifling through her sister’s belongings, Woo-kyung finds a collection of old photographs from her childhood. She freezes when sees a photo of her birth mother posing with a young Woo-kyung — who stands next to the little girl in the green dress.

Woo-kyung takes the photo to Mom, asking if she knows who the little girl is, since she doesn’t understand why the three of them would take a photo together, especially without Se-kyung. Mom grumpily tells Woo-kyung that maybe Woo-kyung did know the little girl after all, and maybe Se-kyung just wasn’t around that day.

She tells Woo-kyung not to overthink it, but she seems relieved when she’s able to distract Woo-kyung about the case regarding her boss, who the press reports was also responsible for Ha-na’s father’s death.

Captain Hong is furious that the press got word about the director being implicated in Ha-na’s father’s death. But Ji-heon thinks it’s weird the press reported the director’s involvement, but nothing about the child abuse — which is what they were most worried about, since that would affect public opinion about catching the criminal. Who wants to the police to stop someone who is saving children from their abusers?

Ji-heon’s team point out that this news has destroyed the children’s center, though — there’s no way the center can bounce back from this kind of negative publicity. The emphasis on taking down the children’s center only confirms to Ji-heon that Red Cry can’t be the director — why would he sabotage himself?

The senior director is severely stressed at the thought of all his hard work in creating the center being washed down the drain. He finds the bank books with all the embezzled donations, and Eun-ho calmly tells the senior director that he actually knew about it, since he was the one took the money to the bank.

Shocked, the senior director looks like he’s close to having a heart attack, but Eun-ho — in his quiet, placid demeanor, which seems suddenly chilling — tells the senior director that he’s the one to blame for his son turning out that way. Eun-ho adds that the junior director might be a terrible person, but the senior director is even worse.

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You made your son that way

Ji-heon interrogates the junior director, asking him where the mask came from. The director stutters that he just found it on his desk — he runs a children’s center, so it’s not strange that random child-related things appear in his office. Ji-heon demands he look at the shoes as well, and the director realizes with surprise that they’re not his — he ties his laces differently.

Ji-heon pulls out a photo of the shoes from Eun-ho’s room, and the director confirms that those are actually his, based on his unique way tying the laces.

The children center’s board members are prepared to hand over the center to another foundation — they don’t really have a choice, given the circumstances. They ask Woo-kyung to help them convince the senior director to sign over the center, since they know she holds some sway with the old man.

Eun-ho completely empties his tiny room at the center, throwing out most of his belongings. He goes to the director’s mansion, where he uses his sweet angelic face to convince the housekeeper that she should take the day off and that he’ll take care of the director for the afternoon.

The senior director is busy polishing his hunting rifle when Eun-ho enters the office. He tells the old man that the children’s center is closed, and that there’s a lot of debt, which infuriates the old man, especially when Eun-ho calmly says that it’s all over.

Eun-ho pulls down book after book of poetry and sets it down on the director’s desk, telling the old man that there’s no way for the center to operate any more. The old man asks if Eun-ho is happy, and Eun-ho admits he feels relief because now he can do what he’s always wanted.

He opens up a book of poetry as if to do what he’s always done, to read a poem to comfort the director. Instead Eun-ho rips out the pages, at first slowly, then faster and faster, tearing out handfuls from the book’s spine. Eun-ho stares directly at the director as he destroys book after book in his frenzy, scattering torn paper all over the office.

Ji-heon and Soo-young rush to Eun-ho’s room at the children’s center, but of course he’s gone. The only thing that’s left behind is the pair of shoes that had been returned him when he was proven innocent in Hyung-pyo’s case, and a flash drive.

The flash drive contains CCTV evidence from the supposedly broken camera, showing Eun-ho entering and leaving the director’s office at the times when Red Cry’s horror website was in use. There’s no reason for Eun-ho to hide his involvement anymore.

Following the request from the board of directors, Woo-kyung arrives at the director’s mansion. She’s surprised to see Eun-ho there, and Eun-ho says that he’s taking care of the senior director who’s sick. He reassures her that he only came to say goodbye to the director, and that he’s planning to take her advice and move on.

Relieved, Woo-kyung asks Eun-ho to pass along the message from the board for her. As Woo-kyung stands to leave, Eun-ho muses that he can’t believe the junior director is Red Cry. Woo-kyung seems just as suspicious as I am that Eun-ho knows about the director supposedly being Red Cry, since that was definitely not mentioned in the news report. Except for Ji-heon’s team, no one could know about it — unless Eun-ho is Red Cry.

She returns to the mansion, looking for Eun-ho, but instead finds the senior director seated at his desk, dead, his mouth gruesomely filled with the torn poetry pages.

Entering the room, Eun-ho says that he wanted to comfort the senior director one last time by stuffing him full of the poetry the old man loved. Noting the shotgun in Eun-ho’s hand, Woo-kyung pleads with Eun-ho to turn himself him.

Instead, Eun-ho reminds her that he’s figured out the dream he used to have — the one with the big desk. That desk was the senior director’s. As a child, Eun-ho read poetry to comfort the old man, and it’s implied that the senior director also sexually abused Eun-ho as a child during those poetry readings. That’s why Eun-ho said that sometimes it’s good not to remember things.

Woo-kyung’s phone buzzes — it’s Ji-heon, which doesn’t surprise Eun-ho, since he’s realized that Ji-heon is smart enough to have deduced where Woo-kyung is. Eun-ho raises the shotgun and points it at Woo-kyung’s head, telling her to answer it.

Worried, Ji-heon asks if Woo-kyung is with the senior director. Woo-kyung truthfully admits that she is, but then lies that she doesn’t know Eun-ho’s whereabouts. Ji-heon warns her that Eun-ho is Red Cry and that he’s dangerous, warning her to get out of the mansion as soon as she can.

After Woo-kyung hangs up, Eun-ho sighs that Ji-heon is too good at what he does — he put Eun-ho on the spot, making Eun-ho reveal himself sooner than he would have liked.

Eun-ho confiscates her phone and turns it off, then orders her to drive away from Seoul. He sits in the backseat, pointing the shotgun at her, but Woo-kyung asks him to put down the gun — she’s willing to drive him wherever he wants without the use of force.

By the time the detectives arrive at the mansion, Woo-kyung and Eun-ho are long gone. Ji-heon and Soo-young shocked when they find the dead director, and Ji-heon immediately realizes the situation, putting out an APB on Woo-kyung’s car.

As Woo-kyung drives to the seaside, Eun-ho reveals the truth about Red Cry. It started when Eun-ho bumped into Dr. Park at the children’s center and discovered they both were furious about Ji-hye’s case. That’s when the two of them created the secret website, inviting others with a similar mindset to join them — which included Ha-jung.

Eun-ho was the one who wrote the letter to Ji-hye, the one that mentioned a massage parlor — which is how he was able to lure her to the amusement park, since she was hopeful about getting a new job. Dr. Park felt so guilty about killing Ji-hye that he took his own life afterwards.

Eun-ho was shocked when his parter-in-crime killed himself, and didn’t do anything else until he saw Ha-na and her mother scavenging in the trash near the children’s center. That’s when he figured out they were living at the center, and he killed Ha-na’s mother.

He muses that he must not be as good a person as Dr. Park, since he didn’t feel any guilt over killing the woman — he was just pleased to have rescued a child.

Eun-ho also met So-ra’s mother both through the mother’s forum, and what he knew of So-ra’s situation from the center. He was disappointed when So-ra’s mother backed out at the last minute from killing her husband, but Eun-ho reiterates that he must not be a good person because he had no qualms in killing the man.

Woo-kyung wonders how Eun-ho figured out that Ha-na had a younger sibling that had been killed, and Eun-ho says that it was just intuition — and the knowledge that the more cruel someone is, the less they can endure pain, which is how he tortured her father to reveal the truth.

Woo-kyung wonders about the message he sent as Red Cry, saying that he “knew her well.” Eun-ho explains that he recognized the look in her eyes — it’s the same as the look he saw in all the abused children’s eyes.

When she asks about Ha-jung, Eun-ho admits that when he saw Bit-na at the children’s center, he felt betrayed. One of Red Cry’s founding members turned out to be no better than the abusers they were punishing. Eun-ho simply left Ha-jung’s fate to be decided based on her conscience.

Woo-kyung calls Eun-ho irresponsible, since in his blind pursuit of doing what he believes to be right, he ignored the fact that Bit-na ultimately loved and needed her mother, but now the girl feels responsible for her mother’s death. Angry, Eun-ho says that he helped free her — brainwashed kids don’t know when they’re brainwashed. He did the right thing!

They reach their final destination, which is at the end of a pier. Eun-ho says that he wanted to come back here, since this is where his mother abandoned him when he was a baby.

Eun-ho asks if Woo-kyung was the one who wrote the story on the secret website about the boy falling down the stairs. He admits it confused him a little, since it reminded him of Shi-wan’s story, even though the details didn’t fully match up. Woo-kyung says Ji-heon coached her to help lure Red Cry, and Eun-ho sighs over the fact that he fell for it.

Speaking of Ji-heon, the detectives continue to speed to the nearest place where Woo-kyung’s car was last spotted. When Eun-ho purposefully turns on Woo-kyung’s phone, that gives them a direct location. The detectives and the local police race to the destination that Chan-wook pinpoints via Woo-kyung’s GPS signal.

Back at the pier, Eun-ho admits he’s a little envious of Ji-heon, since the detective is the kind of person who never to seems to waver, and just pushes forward with what he believes. According to Eun-ho, the kind of person without any concerns is the kind of person who never experienced true suffering in life.

The distant sound of police sirens gets Eun-ho’s attention, although he seems unsurprised that Ji-heon’s so close. Eun-ho grabs the shotgun and orders Woo-kyung to get out of the car.

As the cop cars and SWAT team swarm the pier, Eun-ho stands at the edge, the shot-gun pointed at Woo-kyung. Ji-heon yells at him to not do anything foolish — Woo-kyung hasn’t done anything wrong, so she doesn’t need to be punished.

Eun-ho quietly tells Woo-kyung to step back, and Woo-kyung worriedly asks if Eun-ho’s going to incite the police into killing him. Eun-ho assures her that he’s going to kill her. When Ji-heon yells at him to put down the gun and talk, Eun-ho fires a warning shot in the air.

Tears streaming down her face, Woo-kyung pleads with Eun-ho to explain why he’s doing this to her. Eun-ho says that Woo-kyung should stop trying to find out who the little girl in the green dress is, because once she does remember who the little girl is, Woo-kyung will end up just like him.

The moment Eun-ho remembered what that desk was from his dreams, his life became unbearable. Eun-ho insists that it’s better for Woo-kyung to die than live with the misery of the truth. Woo-kyung says that true pain is seeing a terrified child standing in front of her with a murderous gaze in his eyes.

Anyone can become outraged about what happened to them, but not everyone can become a murder. Trembling, Eun-ho says that he’s not a murderer — he saved those children! Woo-kyung points out that she’s a mother — if he kills her, what will become of her daughter? Eun-ho will have harmed Eun-seo, not helped her. He’s not a hero — he’s just a killer.

She desperately pleads with Eun-ho to drop the gun. Eun-ho slowly lowers the shotgun, and dazedly wonders where his mother would have gone after she left him in such a picturesque place. As tears fall from his eyes, Eun-ho cocks the shotgun and points it at Woo-kyung. A shot rings out.

In a dreamlike sequence, child Woo-kyung chases her sister around in a greenhouse. She calls out Se-kyung’s name until the girl turns around — it’s the little girl in the green dress. That’s the memory from the photograph, where her birth mother posed with both girls — with both sisters.

The shot that rang out on the pier was actually from Ji-heon’s gun, firing at Eun-ho in order to protect Woo-kyung. The bullet hits Eun-ho’s chest, and Eun-ho topples to the ground. Ji-heon rushes over, desperate to save Eun-ho — but Eun-ho dies just as the paramedics arrive.

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If you remember, you’ll end up like me

 
COMMENTS

It feels weird to end on such a deep, emotional note while having the urge to gleefully crow, “I knew it!” Yet here I am, proud as peacock that I was right both about Red Cry and the little girl in the green dress. Admittedly, I’ve gone through a lot of theories over the course of this show, but Eun-ho being Red Cry and Se-kyung being the little girl in the green dress were the ones I was most loyal to, so it’s relief to finally have those suspicions validated.

I’m mildly baffled over the fact that Woo-kyung doesn’t seem to remember what her little sister looked like. My instinctive reaction when she found the photo in Se-kyung’s suitcase was “Aha! So this is proof that Se-kyung is the little girl!” Yet Woo-kyung genuinely believed it was someone else, not her sister — until the threat of death apparently brought back the memory. Which means there’s definitely something more devious going on — even though we’ve solved the Red Cry mystery, Woo-kyung’s childhood mystery still needs to be addressed, hopefully in a way that will provide healing and not make her want to take over the vigilante role left behind by Eun-ho’s capture (and his death, although I’m not ready to accept it just yet. I live in blind, foolish hope that the paramedics were able to save him!).

Poor Eun-ho, though. I know this is a drama about children being abused, but it doesn’t stop me from being freshly horrified each week as we discover just how truly depraved and awful people can be. Killing is never the answer, but I don’t know if I can blame Eun-ho for his extreme reactions. Maybe he does have something psychologically wrong with him since he doesn’t feel guilt over killing people, but he’s also had to grow up in an environment where the safest thing to do was stifle his emotions and just find a way to survive. Ugh. I hate thinking about how the senior director — who ran an orphanage and a children’s counseling center — could get away with so many years of child abuse. Again, it wasn’t explicitly said, but I’m pretty sure the senior director sexually assaulted Eun-ho when he was a boy. Who wants a pedophile running a children’s center??? How can I get mad at Eun-ho destroying the directors’ lives, when if it weren’t for him, no one would have discovered what they were really like? Besides, Eun-ho risked everything for vengeance, even deciding to end his own pitiful life — sure, maybe he didn’t pull the trigger, but he definitely knew that he wasn’t going to be leaving that pier alive.

I’m left to wonder, though, about the rest of Red Cry. Yes, Eun-ho helped start it and was the primary member. Yes, two of the other founding members killed themselves. But what about the other members? Those anonymous users on the website must still be somewhere, harboring ill-will towards abusers and wanting justice. Just because Ji-heon’s cut off the head, doesn’t mean the body can’t somehow continue to wriggle on and continue its vigilante mission to punish child abusers.

Or maybe this is, indeed, the end of Red Cry — but it seems like it’s just the beginning for Woo-kyung, who will hopefully finally get answers (and closure) about the little girl in the green dress and the missing childhood memories.

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