Missing: The Other Side 2: Episode 1 (First Impressions)

by solstices

Two years after the events of Duon Village, a new mystery arises. The appearance of a mysterious young man draws our protagonists’ attention to a series of missing persons cases, raising some very supernatural questions yet again.

Editor’s note: If there is sufficient interest, drama coverage will continue with weekly Drama Hangouts.
 
EPISODE 1 FIRST IMPRESSIONS

From the looks of it, this sequel is off to a promising start. I haven’t watched the first season (it’s on my to-watch list, I swear), but the drama deftly introduces its central characters and premise without devolving into lengthy exposition. It had me hooked in no time, and I’m already itching to unravel the secrets of this mystery.

The premiere episode opens with an interview by Duon Village resident THOMAS CHA (Song Geon-hee), who fondly reminisces about our main trio. Duon Village is a place where the souls of dead missing persons linger; with their help, many villagers were able to find peace and move on.

That takes us to the present day, where our very respectable and benevolent main trio are… pulling off a scam on an illegal organ harvester. HAHAHA. JANG PAN-SEOK (Heo Joon-ho) and LEE JONG-AH (Ahn So-hee) make a sneaky escape in their disguises, but KIM WOOK (Go Soo) gets caught in the midst of running away.

Thankfully, the timely arrival of his cop buddy SHIN JOON-HO (Ha Joon) saves him in the nick of time. Joon-ho effectively scares the gangsters off by pretending to arrest Wook, proclaiming brightly that they should all head to the station to testify, ha. Once they’ve all scurried away, Wook explains that a mother was conned while trying to find an organ donor for her ailing son, and they wanted to help get her money back.

Back at home, our main trio convene. They’re living a normal life now, in which their main concerns are grounded in the physical realm rather than the spiritual. Jong-ah warns that the two guys had better pay their share of the rent on time, but Wook’s philanthropic streak wins out, and his savings go toward the poor mother that was conned by the organ harvester.

Wook’s the type who can’t stand idly by when he witnesses injustice, which means he ends up approaching an old lady in a cafe when he realizes she’s the target of a voice phishing scam. A tip-off from a young man sends Wook chasing after the scammer, and by the end of it Wook has caught the culprit, gone viral on the internet, and earned himself a Brave Citizen Award.

There’s more to the case than it seems, though. The young man soon approaches Wook again, and it’s only when Jong-ah walks right through him that Wook realizes he isn’t alive. The realization stuns Wook — why is he suddenly able to see ghosts again?

Wook’s instinct is to react with disbelief and distrust, but it soon becomes clear that the young man isn’t just a figment of his imagination. Introducing himself as OH IL-YONG (Kim Dong-hwi), he informs Wook that the cafe scammer is dead, and the people who ran him over with their car are harboring a kidnapped woman in their trunk. Ack, that escalated quickly.

It turns out that Pan-seok’s ability to see ghosts has inexplicably returned, too, and so the two men set out to look for answers. Except a trip to Duon Village turns up nothing — they can’t see it anymore. Yet again, Wook is inclined to dismiss Il-yong’s claims, but when the kidnapped woman turns up dead, Wook can’t ignore Il-yong any longer.

Furthermore, Il-yong has valuable information. It turns out Pan-seok knows the voice phishing victim, since they’re both parents whose children have gone missing. To this day, she’s still searching for her daughter — and Il-yong claims to know her location.

Following the address Il-yong gave them, Wook and Pan-seok walk through an abandoned warehouse, which opens up into a mountain ridge overlooking a quaint village. A quick look through a phone camera confirms that they’re still in the warehouse — only they can see this place, just like Duon Village. As the two men gape, dumbfounded, Il-yong approaches them.

The episode ends there, and I’m left wanting more. That was definitely a strong premiere — color me intrigued! But the question is, can Il-yong be trusted? He claims to have died three years ago, but a quick search through the missing persons database by Joon-ho turns up nothing. For now, Il-yong’s claims seem to be genuine, but does he have an ulterior motive in approaching Wook?

As if that isn’t enough to mull over, there are several side plots going on, too. First of all, Joon-ho’s experiencing his fair share of mysterious circumstances — he gets knocked out while visiting a missing person’s residence, but his colleague says the call records show that he dialed emergency services himself.

On top of that, there’s another case at large. Student MOON BO-RA (Choi Myung-bin) entreats the police to search for her missing mother, but not many people are willing to take her concerns seriously due to her mother’s occupation as a bar hostess. Joon-ho is the only one who hears her out, but with everything that’s going on, can he find her before it’s too late?

The drama certainly packed a lot into its premiere episode, and I’m impressed by how intertwined everything is already. It’s immediately clear that there’s more to all these incidents than it seems, piquing my curiosity about the overarching mystery.

Who’s behind these kidnappings? How was Il-yong so conveniently in the right place at the right time? What does the new village have to do with all of this? So many questions, and I’m excited to find out all the answers.

 
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