Revenant: Episodes 5-6

by lovepark

The show delves deeper into its lore as our heroes uncover secrets from their past. However, the truth does not always bring clarity. Whether fate has brought them together or an evil spirit played a hand in their destiny, our two heroes must discover the real reason they were chosen for these ill-omened roles.

 
EPISODES 5-6

One elderly resident’s selfish desire puts the entire village at risk, but thankfully, Hae-sang knows how to fix it. He searches for the village’s jangseung (a.k.a. village guardians made out of wooden poles that act as guide posts) and finds the one the elderly resident used to trap the ghosts.

He begins chopping it down, but the elderly resident hits him on the head in hopes of stopping him. She begs him to let her daughter stay with her a little longer, but Hae-sang refuses to endanger everyone else for her futile wish. As he cuts down the pole, a mist engulfs the village, and the ghosts disappear with a haunting shriek.

Meanwhile, San-young stumbles across her dad’s spirit while running away from the other wandering ghosts. He tells her that it was not him and apologizes for what he did, saying that he had no choice. She asks for an explanation, but the mist takes him away before he can answer.

San-young wakes up in the hospital, having fainted after encountering her dad, and her mom comes rushing to her side. As soon as she sees Hae-sang there, Mom tells him to leave her daughter alone, but her concerns irritate San-young more than comfort her. Tired of her secrets, San-young asks about the due date she saw on her dad’s calendar, and Mom replies, “It was your younger sibling, who died here.”

2002. At seven months pregnant, Mom ran away from home after Gang-mo threatened to kill the baby, but alas, the wild-haired spirit possessing Gang-mo visited her in the night, causing a miscarriage. Then, the spirit went after San-young’s maternal grandma, and Mom witnessed her own mother fall down a well. Confused and afraid, she took San-young and hid.

Now that we know the circumstances, Mom’s lies become more understandable since, from her perspective, these strange deaths are linked to her husband. There was no other malicious intent behind her actions besides fear, and in that situation, I don’t blame her for escaping and not looking back. It also makes sense why Gang-mo never came back for them, but now that the spirit has latched onto San-young, I doubt ignorance will save them.

After some coaxing by San-young, Mom tells her more stories about her dad, including an odd tale about Jangjin-ri: the second child always dies. San-young immediately goes to Hae-sang’s place to tell him about her findings, but Mun-chun is already there, sharing his own new leads into the case.

On the police side of things, Mun-chun and Hong-sae link a few suicides to Gang-mo, and with these additional reports, Hae-sang confirms his suspicions that Gang-mo was possessed. Thus, the one who passed the cursed object to San-young and roped Hae-sang into all of this was not the professor but the spirit.

Still wrestling with this epiphany, Hae-sang barely registers San-young’s words as she explains to him that Lee Mok-dan was murdered by the whole village as a child sacrifice. She asks what they should do next, but all Hae-sang can think about is the spirit’s intentions. He sends San-young home for the night, and as she leaves, the student ghost hanging around Hae-sang eyes her with envy. Hae-sang tells him that his insatiable greed is karma for how he lived, but the student ghost blames Hae-sang for turning him into this.

On her way out, San-young receives a text from her friend Se-mi — informing her that she passed the civil servant exam — and the news stirs her negative emotions, allowing the spirit control of her body. Spending an exorbitant amount of Hae-sang’s money on designer clothes, San-young arrives at her bratty classmate’s after-party, and her strange behavior catches both Se-mi and Hong-sae’s attention. Possessed San-young appears to enjoy messing with them, though, and whispers in Hong-sae’s ear that she killed all those people.

Distracted by her friend, Se-mi spills some wine on her clothes, and the bratty classmate berates her for wasting a good drink. All of a sudden, San-young tosses her glass at the bratty classmate and reminds her that she begged them to come to her wedding because she has no friends.

San-young’s confrontational behavior alarms Se-mi, but things get worse when San-young calls her friend a beggar and scolds her for boasting. As she snickers at Se-mi, San-young returns to her senses, but the damage is done. Seeing her best friend retreat from her, San-young runs out of the bar and ends up on a bridge by the river. The spirit tells her that this is what she wanted, and San-young screams at it to stop.

Resuming his research, Hae-sang recalls a warding rope back at the abandoned house where San-young’s grandma died. With the village head’s help, they dig a hole and find the same object Hae-sang’s mother buried. As he picks it up, a piece of pottery falls out of the rope, and in that exact moment, the evil spirit senses its return. (You would think he would be more careful…)

With two cursed objects in his possession, Hae-sang visits his grandmother and asks if she knows anything. She orders him out of her house, and Hae-sang leaves without any insight into why his mother had these items or why his grandmother refuses to talk about her. We do, however, learn the student ghost’s identity: he is the son of the grandmother’s right-hand man, Vice President KIM CHI-WON (Lee Gyu-hoe).

After her troubling outing, San-young returns home, but even here, she finds no respite. She learns that her mom accepted the inheritance, and her frustrations mount until the spirit asks if she wants to kill her. The chilling offer horrifies San-young, and she locks herself in her room to keep her mom safe from harm.

In the morning, San-young decides that she poses too much of a risk and distances herself. With the inheritance, she repays Hae-sang for the purchases and moves into her grandma’s house. As she takes in her surroundings, a mix of emotions overcome her, and she weeps, feeling guilty for how much she craves this monetary security while wrestling with her own sense of unworthiness.

Calming down a bit, San-young notices the dust all around the house, but as she wipes down the furniture, nothing seems to stay clean. Suddenly, the spirit talks to her again and tells her to check the third drawer. Though scared, San-young looks and finds an envelope of undeveloped film. She takes it to a store and sees photos about the realm of hungry ghosts.

San-young seeks Hae-sang for advice, but when she arrives at his house, Hong-sae is there, as well. Fed up with Mun-chun’s fixation on abnormal cases, Hong-sae set out on his own, disregarding protocol, to solve an “actual” case, but unluckily for him, he ends up with another ghost-related murder. According to Hae-sang, a hungry ghost is responsible, and the two possible candidates are Se-mi and the bratty classmate.

Fortunately for them, Se-mi is currently with the bratty classmate, so by the time San-young tracks them down, she can easily identify the culprit: it is the bratty classmate. As it turns out, the bratty classmate has fallen on hard times, and thus, her greed attracted the hungry ghost. Though San-young intervenes and stops another murder, the bratty classmate is mortified by what she has become and attempts to end her life.

Seeing what happened to her classmate, San-young reflects on her own actions and confesses to Hae-sang what happened that night. She wonders if perhaps the spirit-possessed version could be her true self. Hearing her worries, Hae-sang deems her a liability and tells her to step down.

Continuing his chase alone, Hae-sang gets connected with the maker of the unique warding rope and discovers that she created five in total for Gang-mo. He asks if she made these for his mom as well, and the maker recognizes her as the person Gang-mo introduced.

In the meantime, San-young picks up the photos from the store and makes a new discovery: the student ghost is in one of them. She drops by Hae-sang’s empty house, and the student ghost lets her inside. He asks if she can see him and wonders why she came. San-young tells him that the spirit was guiding her towards him and asks who he is. The student ghost claims to know nothing, but he did see the name of the person who turned her into an evil spirit.

So much intrigue! While these two episodes answered quite a few questions, every new revelation sprouted even more questions. The reigning one, though, is why did the spirit drag San-young and Hae-sang into this mess because their involvement is not coincidental. Both their parents went on missions to seal the spirit, and both of them failed. Why then would the spirit want their progeny involved? Why lead them down this chase? Hae-sang is clearly perturbed by this as well, but his obsession with the spirit trumps any doubts that may linger in his mind. Even if it means falling into a trap, Hae-sang is the type of person to push forward because, as the show established, he does not care about his own safety. He spent his entire life looking for answers — partly out of guilt for what happened to his mom — and with the spirit so close, he won’t stop until he meets the end. Whether that end means the spirit’s or his, I’m not quite sure.

The otherworldly aspects of the show are fascinating and surprisingly rich in cultural detail. I’m learning so much about traditional practices and customs related to the afterlife and spirits, and the writer’s research really shines. In a recent commentary by the writer, some of the incidences (like the child sacrifice) are based on true events, and it’s this foundation built on history that makes the show’s world feel complex and multidimensional. In contrast, I’m not a huge fan of either detective, but I understand their purpose to the story. They represent the “rational” in a world dominated by the unexplainable, and it creates a spectrum with Hae-sang on one extreme and Hong-sae on the other. Their inclusion also allows the story to tackle cases from multiple angles and show how spirits operate within their own rules. It highlights the connectedness between both worlds, and even a skeptic like Hong-sae can notice their presence if they keep an open mind.

In terms of horror, I don’t think the show will suddenly turn super scary, and for me, this level of creepiness is perfect (enough to rattle but not deter). The biggest contributor to the show’s eerie tone is definitely Kim Tae-ri’s performance as San-young which is simply awe-inspiring. I’m continuously amazed by how she portrays the shift between regular San-young and possessed San-young, especially through her eyes. In particular, the scene in Episode 5 inside Hae-sang’s house, San-young appears almost devoid of emotions after becoming possessed, and it’s these subtle changes that make her character so terrifying. The director also deserves a ton of credit, and I love her use of light. From the way characters are cast in shadows or washed in golds, the director has a strong grasp on what she wants, and it enhances both the story and the actors’ performances. Though it’s only the halfway mark, I think Revenant is shaping up to be one hell of a show.

 
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