Flower of Evil: Episode 7

by LollyPip

As new evidence surfaces, more people become interested in finding the murderer’s supposed accomplice, though not all for the right reasons. Someone has something to hide, someone has something to disclose, and someone is just trying not to get pulled back into the past.

EPISODE 7 RECAP

In 2005, Do Hyun-soo woke up after being hit by a car to find himself in someone’s home. He’d torn out his IVs and limped to the living room, where he’d seen a large portrait of the family who’d taken him in — an older couple with their adult son.

The house seemed empty, so he’d gone to the master bedroom closet and started stealing anything he could. Dr. Baek had walked out of the secret doorway carrying a tray of bloody bandages, and when Hyun-soo made a run for it, Dr. Baek and his wife had both chased after him.

Back in the present, Hee-sung is home from the hospital. He and Ji-won spent last night in very intimate activities, but in the morning, Ji-won wonders if Hee-sung had no choice but to do the things (she believes) he’s done. She thinks, “All I want from you is just one thing. A reason to forgive you.”

She reaches out to touch his face and he grabs her hand, startling her, but he just says he had a dream. Ji-won gives him a new watch and lies that the police couldn’t find his lost one after his kidnapping.

At breakfast, Hee-sung mentions that the lock on his workshop’s basement door is broken. Ji-won fibs that she did it while looking for Eun-ha’s old baby walker to give to a friend. Hee-sung stifles his alarm, and Ji-won pretends she didn’t find anything of note down there.

Meanwhile, Moo-jin and his coworkers marvel at the astronomical number if views he’s gotten on social media for a video he made regarding the voice recording of a possible accomplice in the Yeounju murders. There are thousands of articles being written based on his video, and his phone is ringing off the hook.

While looking over the Baek family register, Ji-won reviews what she already knows — that Do Hyun-soo has been living as Baek Hee-sung for fourteen years, and that the real Hee-sung’s parents have been in on it. She overhears a pair of students watching Moo-jin’s video and watches it herself, and hears the altered voice telling Mrs. Jang that she saw him the night Mi-sook was kidnapped, but that he saw her, too.

In a flashback to May 12, 2002, we see that Mrs. Jang has gotten into a fender-bender with another car. She’d been drinking, so she’d offered the other driver her phone number in hopes of settling. Suddenly, Jung Mi-sook had burst out of the vehicle and attempted to escape, but the driver had talked to her as if she was his wife and had drunk too much, and had taken her back to his car. Mrs. Jang had gone to the police and the vehicle’s license plate was matched to Do Min-seok’s car, but Hyun-soo had provided a solid alibi, with evidence that they’d been at the movies together.

In a convenience store, Hae-soo sees Moo-jin on the news talking about the events of that night. He says that Do Min-seok committed suicide two weeks later, and that Jung Mi-sook’s thumbnails were found in his workshop with those of his other victims. The case was closed, and not long after, Do Hyun-soo disappeared after killing the town foreman.

The voice recording is played again, and Hae-soo looks downright terrified. She starts to run out of the store and bumps into a man who drops a bottle of wine, and the bright red splash reminds her of the blood when the foreman was killed.

Hee-sung seems to be the only one not watching the broadcast — he’s in his workshop, replacing the broken lock with a strong new one. He returns upstairs just as Ji-won is watching the end of the broadcast, and she offers to play the accomplice’s voice for him, but he says he’s too squeamish to listen to it.

Ji-won asks Hee-sung to set aside some time for her tomorrow then heads to bed. As soon as he’s alone, he goes outside to listen to the voice recording. He calls Moo-jin, who’s out celebrating with his coworkers, and tells him to stop implicating Do Hyun-soo and look into the idea that the accomplice may be someone else.

Moo-jin drunkenly objects to being bossed around by Hee-sung: “From now on, this case isn’t your life. It’s my life.” Hee-sung practically begs Moo-jin to believe him, but Moo-jin belligerently asks, “Or what? You’ll lock me in the basement and threaten me again?” and says he can’t trust Hee-sung.

Having seen the news report, Dr. Baek calls Hee-sung to his office for a lecture about keeping promises. Hee-sung says he thought Dr. Baek would be glad he didn’t kill Kyung-choon, but Dr. Baek says that’s not what this is about. He plays the voice recording and asks if the voice is Hee-sung, and when Hee-sung nervously denies it, Dr. Baek says he doesn’t believe him.

He says this is the cost of not keeping his promises, and that he wants to trust Hee-sung again. He suggests they make another promise — if Hee-sung’s true identity gets this close to being revealed again, he’ll leave and go where nobody can find him. Dr. Baek vows to take care of Ji-won and Eun-ha if that happens, and says it’s to avoid the worst possible outcome: “I’m sure you know what that is.”

Moo-jin ends up sleeping it off at his desk, and his boss wakes him in the morning when Do Hae-soo walks in and offers to do an interview, but only if it’s with Moo-jin. Moo-jin hides under his desk (ha) and his boss tells him honestly that he looks like hell. He begs her to go buy him a fresh shirt, shyly explaining that Hae-soo is his first love and that he hasn’t seen her in seventeen years.

Meanwhile, Ji-won requests to see the videos of counseling sessions that Do Hyun-soo underwent as a child. She’s shown one video where he meekly confesses to throwing a dog into a well to drown, then says that he actually wanted to hurt the dog’s owner, “But I couldn’t kill a person. The body is harder to get rid of.”

Ji-won asks the counselor if Hyun-soo could have been born with antisocial personality disorder, so she’s shown a second video in which Hyun-soo flew into a rage and attacked one of the doctors. The counselor points out a cassette player on the floor and says that it triggered manic episodes in Hyun-soo.

Ji-won knows that the cassette recorder (and the fish tile charm attached to it) are in the bag she got from Nam Soon-kil’s wife so she listens to the tape in it. She calls Soon-kil’s wife and asks why Soon-kil thought Do Hyun-soo would return for the bag. She says that Hyun-soo obsessed over the cassette recorder inside the bag, but their call disconnects before she learns any more.

Moo-jin manages to get cleaned up and sits at a cafe with a very quiet Hae-soo, utterly failing at small talk. He notes that she’s changed a lot from the laughing girl who was always surrounded by friends and she says that finding out her father murdered seven people will do that to a person, then he asks about her job and she says she got fired. Ouch.

Hae-soo abruptly says that they need to go, pointing out a guy nearby — it’s one of the reporters who’s been bugging Hae-soo to reveal where Hyun-soo is hiding. Moo-jin is all ready to confront the guy until Hae-soo gives him a wide-eyed look and says she wants to be alone with him.

Ji-won takes Hyun-soo’s cassette recorder to the Chinese restaurant’s owner, who recognizes it right away. She asks if he knows about the tape inside, and a flashback shows Hyun-soo listening to the tape on the restaurant steps. The owner had reached for one earbud, curious to see what had Hyun-soo so engrossed, only for Hyun-soo to nearly twist his arm off.

The owner tells Ji-won that whenever Hyun-soo listened to the tape, he would get a strange look in his eyes like he was possessed. Ji-won says that she came to ask him a favor.

Ji-won’s mother drops off Eun-ha at the pharmacy and asks Hee-sung’s mother to watch the little girl for a while. Hee-sung’s mom refuses, but Ji-won’s mom leaves her anyway. Eun-ha chirps that Grandma will get attached to her eventually, hee, then sits to do her schoolwork.

Hee-sung’s mom notices that she’s using a math workbook well above her grade level, but Eun-ha says she’s capable of the advanced work. She bursts into tears when Hee-sung’s mother rips the workbook apart, yelling that it will make her go crazy and kill her and her mother. Okay, lady’s got issues.

Eun-ha wails that she’s scared, so Hee-sung’s mom tries to comfort her, saying that she’s only doing this for her own good. She asks Eun-ha what she wants, and Eun-ha hiccups, “I want… I want a tart! Buy me an egg tart.” LOL.

Hee-sung listens to the recording of the accomplice’s voice over and over again, and he notices a repetitive clacking sound in the background. He tries to recreate the clacking but nothing matches up, so he listens again and also hears beeping.

He quickly closes his laptop when Ji-won comes into his studio and sets his old duffel bag on the table. She tells him that she plans to catch Do Hyun-soo, and Hee-sung hides his true reaction and asks how. She asks for his help and takes out the cassette recorder and a sketchbook, which he picks up at her urging.

While Hee-sung innocently flips through his old sketchbook of metalwork ideas, Ji-won thinks, “I can be like you, too. I can lie to you without even blinking.” She says that Do Hyun-soo might still be doing metalwork and asks Hee-sung to check with his association to see who makes similar designs to the sketches.

Thinking fast, Hee-sung says that he’d need to see Do Hyun-soo’s actual work to determine his style. Ji-won agrees and asks him to come to Do Min-seok’s old workshop with her, since Hyun-soo apparently spent a lot of time there. She heads out to the car first, and Hee-sung clutches his chest as if he’s having difficulty breathing.

HAHA, Hee-sung’s mom totally caved to the tiny tyrant’s egg tart manipulation. First she tells Eun-ha to eat quickly so she can get back to work, then she softens and tells her to take her time so she doesn’t get sick. Eun-ha promises not to tell about the ripped workbook so that her dad won’t yell (Mom: “Who yells at who??” hee).

On the way to Yeoungju, Hee-sung asks Ji-won why she’s working so hard to find Do Hyun-soo. She says she’ll get a special promotion if she catches Do Min-seok’s accomplice, and although they smile at each other, they both look troubled.

Moo-jin takes Hae-soo back to his place and opens a fancy bottle of wine against her protests. While he babbles, Hae-soo looks around and mutters softly that she’s glad to see he’s doing well. Moo-jin admits that he thinks about Hae-soo often, and that he believes she’s the biggest victim as the only normal person in her family.

He says he didn’t mean what he said when they broke up, and Hae-soo drinks her wine in one gulp. She tells Moo-jin that it’s not Hyun-soo’s voice on that recording, but he thinks she’s just protecting Hyun-soo and spits that he’s living his own life and not even thinking of her. But Hae-soo says that it can’t be Hyun-soo, because she killed the village foreman.

It’s dark when Hee-sung and Ji-won arrive at Do Min-seok’s old workshop, and Ji-won says it feels like once she goes in, she’ll never come out. Hee-sung remembers a day when he was young — Hae-soo had cut a notch in a tree and told him that when he was that tall, she’d find their mom for him.

She’d said almost angrily that if he doesn’t eat, he won’t grow tall enough. Their father had come outside and motioned Hyun-soo back in, and Hae-soo had told Hyun-soo to just agree with whatever Dad said “Or he’ll make you copy the ‘Myeongsim Bogam’ in the basement.”

The workshop door is locked, so Ji-won climbs in through a window. She finds a small metal turtle on the floor and asks if Hyun-soo could have made it, but Hee-sung says it’s cast from a wax carving, not engraved. Ji-won points out that Hyun-soo would have been young and has probably improved, but Hee-sung counters that they can’t know that for sure.

He sighs that they came all this way for nothing, but Ji-won insists on seeing the basement where the murders happened. Hee-sung doesn’t want her going alone and takes the flashlight, and Ji-won surreptitiously checks her firearm as she follows him.

When they get to the basement, the cage where Min-seok kept his victims is still there, and Hee-sung reels at the lingering stench of old blood. While he’s staring at the cage, Ji-won pushes Play on his old cassette player, and the sound of a girl’s voice humming echoes through the room.

Ji-won tells Hee-sung that she found the cassette player in Do Hyun-soo’s bag, and Hee-sung asks why she’s playing it now. Ji-won says that it triggers Hyun-soo into violent episodes and wonders why, adding that she thinks it was recorded here where the unthinkable happened.

She says she’s still baffled by why Do Min-seok started killing, and she muses that he might have even made his young son deliver food and water here to his victims. In a shaky voice, Hee-sung says he wants to leave now. But Ji-won continues that this recording must have reminded Hyun-soo of the things he’d done, which is why he would blow up when his listening was interrupted.

She says she’s expecting the owner of the Chinese restaurant to meet them here with some of Hyun-soo’s more current artwork. He calls to say he’s five minutes away, and while they wait, Ji-won internally urges Do Hyun-soo to show himself. “Make your choice. What you do today will determine our future.”

Hee-sung struggles, then jerks and drops the flashlight. He steps towards Ji-won, making awful choking, gasping noises, and grabs her shoulders. She’s got her hand on her gun, and Hee-sung’s hand goes to her throat, but then he collapses to the floor and stammers that he can’t breathe.

He begs Ji-won to get him out of there, so she helps him back to their car, where he says he thinks it was the smell making him sick. Ji-won worries that she was too hard on him, but she reminds herself that he lied to her for fourteen years and tells herself not to be weak.

When Ji-won spoke to Nam Soon-kil’s wife earlier, she’d said she was having a ceremony for her husband at his restaurant. Hyun-soo and Soon-kil’s old boss shows up at the restaurant and asks where Ji-won is, saying they were supposed to meet. Oh wow, it was a trick.

On their way back to Seoul, Hee-sung asks Ji-won to stop looking for Do Hyun-soo. He says it’s too dangerous, but she counters that that’s why she needs to catch him. Hee-sung lies awake late into the night, thinking about Dr. Baek making him promise to disappear if his identity is almost discovered.

Moo-jin also has trouble sleeping after his conversation with Hae-soo. She had brought up his connections with her family — he’d admired her father, he was Hyun-soo’s only friend, and was the only person who’d liked her for herself. She’d apologized for not thinking about how he felt back then, and had sobbed at Moo-jin to stop harassing Hyun-soo.

Hee-sung shows up at Moo-jin’s door and asks Moo-jin to help him find Hae-soo. He apologizes for threatening Moo-jin and gives him the recording he made of Moo-jin confessing to his fraudulent online posts. He asks Moo-jin again for his help, growling that he needs to find “that bastard” no matter what.

Back at their house, Ji-won is also up. She’s on the computer, tracking Hee-sung’s location through the device she had installed in the new watch she bought for him.

COMMENTS

It’s so sad to see Hee-sung and Ji-won lying to each other and mistrusting each other so much, though it’s understandable. Things are getting really heated up now that Ji-won knows that Hee-sung is really Do Hyun-soo. I respect that Ji-won isn’t sticking her head in the sand (or “taking the pill,” like she said previously that she would do if she learned something sinister about her husband)… she’s pursuing this issue with everything she’s got. But so is Hee-sung, in an effort to clear his name even if he can’t live under it.

It’s interesting that Ji-won isn’t going to much trouble to hide what she knows from Hee-sung — I think she wants him to come clean to her so that, like she hopes, he can give her a reason to forgive him. I think that Ji-won is hoping that Hee-sung is innocent, having known him to be a good man for so long, and I can’t blame her. The troubled, violent Do Hyun-soo she’s learning about sounds nothing like the happy, caring, loving man she married. We’ve seen Hee-sung do some pretty horrible things, but I still want to justify that he only attacked Moo-jin and Kyung-choon when they attacked him first, and that he did let them both go on their promises to help him.

I completely agree with @TeriYaki, I don’t think Hee-sung has ever killed anyone. I think that he learned how to be frightening from his father, which made him good at threatening Moo-jin and Kyung-choon. And I think that he’s definitely got some serious issues that go back to his childhood, but who wouldn’t with a father like his? Even if he didn’t know about the murders until after he died, Hee-sung doesn’t seem to have had any sort of normalcy growing up — a murder basement would mess anyone up and make them super wary to open up or care about anyone.

I was right about Hae-soo having killed the foreman, though I’m giving her the hard side-eye for confessing to someone she hasn’t seen in decades. I’ll even take it one further…. I think that Hae-soo may have been the only murderer in the family. It’s possible that she started killing at a young age and that Do Min-seok was covering up for her, and maybe he killed himself because he couldn’t handle the guilt anymore. Looking back, when Hee-sung imagines his father’s spirit, those black eyes do seem a little sad, and we still know so little of what actually happened that I’m open to any possibilities.

As for Hee-sung, he’s proven himself to me. In that moment in the old basement, surrounded by haunting memories and the smell of death, he battled with the worst of himself and won. He could have easily killed Ji-won, but he stopped himself, and that’s enough to show me that he does love her. I now trust that if it came down to protecting himself or Ji-won, he would choose Ji-won. As a cop, I understand that Ji-won still has a mystery to solve, and I think she’d do the right thing if she found that her husband was guilty of murder. But I don’t think it will come to that, because I think he’s innocent, and I hope they team up to catch the real killer.

RELATED POSTS

• Premiere Watch: Flower of Evil
• tvN’s Flower of Evil holds first script reading with Lee Jun-ki, Moon Chae-won
• Kim Ji-hoon to join Lee Jun-ki, Moon Chae-won in tvN’s Flower of Evil
• Lee Jun-ki and Moon Chae-won’s picture perfect family cracks in new Flower of Evil teaser
• Lee Jun-ki and Moon Chae-won’s ill-fated relationship in Flower of Evil’s new teaser