Revenge of Others: Episodes 9-10

by missvictrix

It’s our penultimate week, and the twists continue! This show legit made me gasp out loud with some of the tricks it pulled this week, and I’m having so much fun I don’t want it to end. Also, how are all of these mysteries going to come together, anyway?

 
EPISODES 9-10 WEECAP

The attack of Jung-kyung in his shady trailer is up front and center this week, and we spend a lot of time in this scene, and then later in its aftermath. We first pick up where we left off: with Su-heon’s mask pulled up and bad intentions rising — but, oh no! Oh-seong and his cronies are nearby. They have the entire place rigged with cameras. It’s as bad as it sounds.

Before we can learn what goes down, the drama spends basically all of Episode 9 stepping back to the previous day and giving us the nitty gritty. First, we see Ah-jung telling Su-heon that the gig is on, and she’s so suspicious here that I was convinced she was working for Oh-seong (wrong). Next, we see how Oh-seong actually masterminded the entire trap.

If Oh-seong’s ability to orchestrate a terrible event with multiple players is any indication of his involvement in the drama’s wider mystery, I’m genuinely worried for what we will find out. Because he seems to know exactly which strings to pull and what to say to manipulate virtually everyone.

First, he sets Jung-kyung on his previous victim, to spark the father into recommissioning the “hero.” Then, 99.9% sure the “hero” is Su-heon, Oh-seong sets a well-laid trap. That trap is not only the CCTV cameras in and out of the trailer, but a hefty Instagram following that he purposefully racked up a few days earlier (by posting embarrassing photos of Ji-hyun). The purpose of the IG account is to live stream the entire event to his followers, and it’s so completely and totally screwed up.

Concurrently, Chan-mi has received the (stolen) polaroids from Su-heon. He’s distraught over his mother and hiding his secret beat-down plans from her, so Chan-mi goes to Jae-bum. Yes, I know there is so much more to this drama than high school romance, but I love these two together.

Chan-mi asks Jae-bum to teach her to drive, and then shows him the polaroids she now has. It’s a crucial moment, because he sees the four dudes hanging out — not just him a Won-seok — and as a testament to his honesty, he tells Chan-mi about the photos he received previously from Oh-seong. But poor Jae-bum, he knows he’s getting manipulated, but doesn’t remember enough to make it make sense. He also doesn’t recognize Se-jin, and my radar is still up around that kid (now all-too-conveniently out of touch in the U.S.).

Oh-seong is spying and sneaking as always, and the fact that the polaroids are in Chan-mi’s possession — and seen by Jae-bum — freaks him out enough to steal them back from her. Jae-bum is adorably protective of Chan-mi; Oh-seong is a snake. He gets the photos back, but not before getting confronted. But Oh-seong just says eerily that Jae-bum shouldn’t get too close to Chan-mi…

And then it’s time for more bonding between Chan-mi and Jae-bum! He teaches her to drive in his impressive Mercedes G-class (I’ll take one to go, thanks, and with Seo Ji-hoon inside), and this scene is so completely sweet and adorable that you can forget for a second that you’re watching a suspense drama that features multiple murders, assaults, and suicides.

Driving class spurs a meaningful conversation of shared secrets between the two. Chan-mi admits outright that she needs to drive because she’s decided if she can’t forgive her brother’s killer, she’ll kill him/her in revenge and drive the body out to the mountains. Jae-bum isn’t as horrified as you might expect, and this is explained by an interesting connection: he also had a twin. They were so identical only their parents could tell them apart. But the twin died of a heart attack when they were 14. And so, a very random secret and a very creepy murder plan are now out in the open.

By this time we’re back to the present day where the episode first opened, and Su-heon is heading in for assault #3. But — as a chain of telephone calls soon reveals — his mother has just died, and that effectively makes this violent attack unnecessary. He was only doing it for the money, after all.

Here our hopefully-good good guys band together to keep Su-heon from committing the assault. Ah-jung spills the beans, and soon So-yeon, Chan-mi and Jae-bum are all out to locate, find, and save Su-heon.

But it doesn’t look like they get there in time. The live stream is going, half the school is watching, and the hero in black steps into the trailer and the fight begins. Ready for his moment of glory, Oh-seong rushes in from his nearby surveillance van, and rips the mask off the hero. OMG it’s Jae-bum!

Here, I gasped so loud I frightened myself. I legit thought that his wasn’t Jae-bum but his twin… but a quick cut after shows Su-heon and Chan-mi driving off in Jae-bum’s car, and Su-heon is crying over his mother. So, it was a switcheroo — not a twinaroo — but either way, sick job on that reveal. The excellent editing and use of the OST help the drama make the most of this moment (and others like it), and it was so good.

And now for the aftermath. Detective Jin and her now-forgiven partner are on the job, and though they seem pretty formidable at times, they really haven’t made much headway, have they? Still, Oh-seong and Jae-bum are taken in and questioned, both giving ridiculous stories that are hard to believe.

I’m really loving all the time we’re spending with Jae-bum in these episodes, because he has the biggest amount of question marks around him. Similarly, his several confrontations with Oh-seong this week are wild! Jae-bum accuses him of planting memories and manipulating him, but Oh-seong sticks to his line that Jae-bum will come crawling back to him when he learns the truth. I don’t know whether I believe him or not.

In addition to lacking his memories, Jae-bum also has pockets of time that he can’t remember at all. When he’s home, wee see him ultra aware, and the camera definitely lingered on that shot of him grabbing his car keys off the dressers as a nod to that earlier scene and his confusion.

But it gets even weirder: when Jae-bum is in the shower, he hears rummaging in his room. He goes out to see the place all torn up… but he had sealed himself in the room with tape and it’s untouched. Chills! What sort of riddle is this?! I’ve still got one foot in the “twin is still alive” theory, but the other theory (that I’ve been ignoring as long as I can) is that he has some kind of multiple personality disorder. That would mean the “twin” was just his other personality, and perhaps it’s coming out again — which really does explain his memory blackouts, items shifted or missing, and his behavior which really is different sometimes. I’m reluctant to suggest this is the twist, because I felt like the drama was already doing something similar with Su-heon’s brain-tumor-enhanced violence. It feels a little redundant, no? But it also fits. Well, we’ll find out next week.

Heading into our final twist of the week, Jae-bum and Oh-seong have another confrontation, and Chan-mi hides nearby and records it. Here Oh-seong drops a bomb that shakes both of them: he tells Jae-bum that he didn’t jump off the building after all — he was pushed. And who pushed him? Won-seok.

Now, Jae-bum seems to believe him, even though he’s been lied to in the past and he still doesn’t remember his own relationship with Won-seok. Similarly, Chan-mi believes him, and she’s devastated. In fact, this is almost like the final straw for her. This brother she’s avenging was a murderer? She can’t take it, so she punks out of the whole thing and goes back to Busan (again). But before she does, she sends video messages to both Su-heon and Jae-bum, and there’s this chunk of the story where everyone is staring at their phones and contemplating the world of hell they’re in. Yes, drama!

But it’s not over yet! A photo of Chan-mi and her brother pops up on her phone — it’s a reminder that they took those photos a year ago in Busan together, and suddenly it connects. The day they took the photos was the same day that Jae-bum had his “accident” — so Oh-seong is definitely lying, and trying to lay the blame for whatever happened on Won-seok. To his credit, Su-heon also puts this together, and he’s convinced Oh-seong is behind the murder.

As for me, I remain as deep in this riddle as ever. This drama continues to weave in a tangled web that doesn’t seem so easy to solve… which makes me more than a little worried for next week, and how many truth bombs we are going to get.

In the meantime, I will say the drama did a really nice job bringing Team Good Guys together at the funeral of Su-heon’s mother. I might not trust all the players completely, but their care and support for Su-heon was endearing — as was that joint visit to the columbarium. Let’s hope when this thing draws to a conclusion next week that we get to see some more of this warmth. Goodness knows our characters need it after all this violence, grief, and desperation.

PS: Also, since you never know when the drama gods are listening, the trailer fight sequence – and Seo Ji-hoon’s truly amazing charisma during it — made me realize he needs to be in a Healer 2.0 sort of show, stat. Enough with the deep and dark high school roles; it’s time to move on to deep and dark action heroes!

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