When Mi-jin is fantasizing about him she imagines him with floating golden hearts and a wink. Here 👇

https://www.dramabeans.com/members/Seeker/activity/1598022/

@seeker ah got it.. when i watched that scene that wink was the only thing i observed... but now i recall the Bokehed heart my most fav thing abt kdramas... thank you for the link

So glad Mi-jin fangirls 💯 like us. ❤
You're welcome. The gif is to be cherished and shared with friends so that we can squee together. 🫶

A regular trope in dramaland but can at times result in intense shipping wars à la Start Up as mentioned below.

@seeker yes SLS wars are scary.. i was part of 2 such wars in past and i know how intense it was...

@kdramaswimmer I try to stay away from shipping wars as much as possible. Nightmarish stuff. The social commentary is a bloodbath and takes away from the simple pleasure of just enjoying the drama for its sake. Yes I've been know to have been traumatized. 🙈😅

🤣 Uri Emperor lost the war, but won the Empress *flap*flap* ("Stop it! You're too cute.") 🐧

Exactly @Joanna! He won where it mattered. 🤣

I don't think we have seen any haunting since the first night. I'm ok with that- apart from not liking horror, I think it works in the story as well.
The person living in the apartment is actively looking for her killer, and has a vision/planning board that scary in its detail. It would frighten off (or calm) any ghost

Yes please thank you. I want to discuss more about this. 😊

The supernatural / serial murders plot lines is way more intriguing than the love triangle waffle now. Like I said, I came for the romcom and stayed for the serial murders!

Let's see what you peeps have thrown up:

1. Ghost, ghoulies and things that go bump in the night: I get how the script may go this way cos of the narrative breadcrumbs earlier.

But I would be frankly disappointed -- reasons: (1) maybe not tonal whiplash, but definitely a neck strain. (2) I don't really like deus ex machina; cos it hints at lazy writing.

Acceptable logical plot devices utilising the ghost rumours would be:
(a) Ji-Ung does some sleuthing and grills Ga-young's dad (our landlord) who gives him a crucial plot clue as to what really happened back then
(b) Ji-Ung digs around the house or accidentally peels off wallpaper and finds a corpse walled in (or plot equivalent).

2. Well as 2nd possible wild card: good point, I sort of forgot the well cos of casual watching. and frankly it reminds me too much of Sadako being thrown into a well to drown (The Ring).

3. Organ harvesting: I have considered that before. As organ harvesting has a definite expiration date; you simply exhaust your human hosts and discard them. That would mean all the women are well and truly dead (also I take into account the fact that the serial missing women case has been open for 20+ years).

4. Director as Minion with a Big Bad behind him: I am in 2 minds about this. Yes, cos it seems really likely given how organised and long-running this killing / drug experiment gig has gone on. No, cos then it will have to be someone fairly innocuous we have already seen appear in the first 10 episodes thus far. (c.f. Pinocchio -- the Big Bad is revealed to be Kim Hae-sook, who's always there in the background as a smiley supportive mum UNTIL...)

5. The only other possible variable that will change the outcome (missing not dead) is: they are not harvesting organs.

They are harvesting something replenishable, and actually require the human hosts to be well and alive (i.e. adrenochrome or stem cells / bone marrow etc) -- then, the women are missing, not dead

CONT'D:

6. @seeker: Oh I didn't know Ji-Ung's mom might be alive. I thought they last showed her ominously missing at the phone booth (I sort of presume she is also dead - again, given how long ago the crime has been committed)

8. More than 1 drug: again, I missed that (the evils of casual watching LOL)
If another new unidentified drug surfaces now (Ep 10), whereas we have only been seeing fentanyl traces all these years in the body parts of victims -- then I wonder if the fentanyl has always been used as a MacGuffin to throw the investigations off, and to mask the real purpose / experiments of their drug labs?

9. Drug's effects: turn people old / turn people to cats -- unlikely. That would be a very useless superpower 🤣🤣🤣 if they become super soldiers, X-men variety etc that would make more sense. Unless you mean, these humans are the *failed* results of drug experiments?

10. With your dystopic cat theory, it feels like we are veering into the dark horror terrain not unlike that of Junji Ito's Cat Diary...(or for that matter, all his works)

11. The dismemberment of victims whilst they are still alive: I find this noteworthy, and wonder what the implications may be. Given that fentanyl is a very powerful analgesic, well....

12. Random after-thought: remember in the early acid attack on Ko Won?

Ji-Ung belatedly figured out that the assailant-drug abuser-troll was actually not targeting Won, he was instigated by Medical Director to throw the acid at someone else.

BUT the plot point was left hanging, we never got told WHO. So who is the real target?

13. The whistle-blowing mystery notes to Chief Prosecutor's Office: "One of your senior interns lied about their identity."
-- as I was casually watching, I just went along with Won's reaction and assumed it had to mean Lim Soon.
---BUT it suddenly struck me (when I bothered to use my ROM): it can mean either Lim Soon OR Medical Director.
-- They both came in under a false pretext / pretense. The retired police officer has always found the Director suspicious (he might be the whistleblower too)

If the Medical Director lied about his identity, it is in the far, far past. Everyone at the moment knows he is the Medical Director, and there are pics all around the hospital to prove it He has undoubtedly pulled strings to get the job as well.
If the letters referred to Lim Soon, it would have to be the medical director writing them, because he is the only one who knows the real Lim Soon is dead. And the medical director has enough clout to tell the Senior Manager straight up himself, so he would not be writing anonymous letters. (He could just say he was suspicious, no need to give himself away by saying the real one is dead)
We have seen the back story on the detective, so his identity is real
That only leaves the society lady, who I always thought was suspicious. Where was the society lady when the acid attack happened? Who else was around?
Will have to rewatch and check!

It is definitely not just some psycho indulging in a spot of random serial killings. The ladies who are alone and would not be missed are being targeted and their bank accounts emptied, leading to a (misleading) conclusion that they may have just upped and left to start a new life, perhaps with a different identity.

The police and prosecution too seems to be involved. Organ harvesting or illegal drug testing seems likely.

Hmmm....the society lady.
OMG it will seriously be a curve-ball if she is the Big Bad! But yes, she does look sus

I think tis time to start one of my favourite cheap thrills on DB -- an illegal betting pool for plot predictions 🤣

@seeker: actually I though the opposite.

It's precisely because they are not "people who would not be missed" that I didn't think it would be an organ harvesting / trafficking syndicate.

1. Look at the devastating aftermath wrecked upon the surviving families of Lim Soon & Ji-Ung's mum (flashbacks of Mi-Jin's parents giving out missing persons flyers on the street; Ji-Ung pestering the police offices daily etc). They didn't give up the search for years

2. If we reference a crime franchise like Voice, the psycho killer who needs to kill on a regular basis tend to predate on (i) illegal immigrants; (ii) the homeless; (iii) orphans (iv) similar categories of vulnerable groups without families cos they don't tend to get reported and no one cares

3. So you raised a very good point -- the villains/syndicate actually took pains to clean out the bank accounts to make it look like the missing persons left of their own accord (and is not an abduction, kidnapping, or murder)

4. Which raised the next question: why go through all these trouble? Why not just kidnap the homeless or orphans?

5. Two key traits of those missing: (a) They are all women. (b) They are all found within a very circumscribed radius of Dae-ho (c.f. Ji-Ung glancing at the road-signs when he was frantically searching for Mi-Jin that night)

It's the damned Bermuda Triangle or crop circle plot equivalent of murders!!! 👽☠💀 OR they need women living within that zone for the experiments

@Joanna

1. When given a choice I think drama writers would rather go with the more popular and easier route of, no explanation required, deus ex machina style resolution - just because.

Also because logical plot development and denouement require not only appropriately embedded hints and breadcrumbs but a well thought out narrative. Which I think we can all agree doesn't seem to be the path we are on till now.

Frankly when the drama  revealed that Ji-ung may be living in the apartment where someone was murdered I did think of a walled-in corpse. The first time Ga-yeong's father mentioned it. Then Investigator Ju came to know it was the Hospital Director's wife but her alleged lover was not found. So I'd be very surprised if there wasn't a ghost in the apartment. 😊

2. The Ring parallel seems pretty apt. Let's see how it plays out as it's not on course as yet.

3. Organ harvesting coupled with illegal drug trials coupled with the supernatural cat. Hmm, perhaps after sometime the women simply became a cat. 🙀 It is just a cold case I'm not sure if there was any active investigation for 20 years. Also something seems to have changed after Aunt Sun and ML's mom disappearance as there was a 20 year hiatus.

4. Even if he's not a minion, the Hospital Director surely has some people working with him and then something's gotta give.

5. While I cannot comment on what are the medical experiments being done it is clear that these are not just serial killer victims. It is too meticulously planned - with added involvement of the police and prosecution most probably - to not have some kind of medical research going on.

@joanna
6. I too thought she was dead given the numerous traumatic flashbacks to a body being carried out of a building and the kid Ji-ung crying for his mom. As noted by uri Unit in the recap the face of the lady is revealed to be someone elae and we are now given to believe that the mother may only have been missing all along. We had also been given flashbacks of the kid camping in the police station urging them to search for his mom but assumed that the body in the stretcher was her but the show didn't clarify that till now.

7. 😊👍

8. Frankly as a quick Google search can reveal Fentanyl is primarily used for pain management. So I automatically assumed some kind of experiments were  being carried out on the missing women rather than them being outright murdered.
No worries about casual watching. That is why the recaps and comments are so enlightening. ❤😊👌

9. No I don't think the drugs / medical experiments are to turn people into cats although to me it would be a happier outcome. 🤣🤣🤣 I just meant that the wishing well grants desperate wishes of people to want to "run away" from their lives or turn into someone else.

10. I don't think we're headed to dark horror although a heads up would have been nice. Just hope like the "surprise" serial killer in the premiere of a supposedly rom-com drama we don't get a "surprise" horror.

@joanna
11. I almost thought it was for transplant of body parts from one victim to another but then that's dark horror right there. 🙈

@joanna

12. Ji-ung figured out that it was uri Miss Day.

13. Oooh! I like where you're going with this. But then again the guy has been in the society for years. Unless he too fell down the well and transformed into an elder relative. 😂

IKR!? @Mazarin The society lady has always been somewhat a mystery. She's rude and entitled but also defended Sun by splashing Ji-ung's previous assistant by splashing water on her then "cleaning" her face with the mop cloth. 😂 I do hope she's amongst the "good guys". 🤞

@joanna Kol!! 👍 I'm all for this plot prediction (surely legal 😅) betting pool. Yay yay!!
I vote for society lady being a wild card. Here you go 💸

@joanna The missing women pool is indeed within a very small radius. Also why the radio silence for 20 years. If the writers actually explain even 5% of our totally not overthinking remarks I'll be happy.

@seeker:

Yes! our betting poll is just a glorified and highly unscientific Beanie straw poll for plot predictions 🤣 (no money involved, but you can place your peanuts lol 🥜 to indicate a vote)

Maybe I will start a fresh post for poll cos this thread is very embedded; I think there is a limit to number of embedded replies?

@joanna As per @Sicarius the limit is infinity and beyond 🙌 but sure let's start that poll in a fresh thread.

"the limit does not exist!" ~ Cady Heron

@Sicarius 🫶

I think it's kinda a part of the love triangle trope that makes love triangle very frustrating. The second lead knows better the FL and the FL acts more naturally with the second male lead than with the ML.

@Kurama that makes sense. The tension will immediately fizzle out the moment the ML knows. 🤣

Re: "I don't even really know how he feels about her."
THIS.

1) This is the burning million-won question. Millions of perplexed viewers like me don't either.

2) AND, I also don't understand what he likes about her. It's all terribly opaque to me.

Genre Gripe:
Show, this is a murder mystery, not a love mystery.

As a viewer, I shouldn't have to be so befuddled or uncertain about the emotional terrain and loyalties of our leads. By your mixed signals, we too become uncertain of where to align or invest our loyalties (and THIS is how cheating and SLS are birthed... 😆

Dang it. I got my two dramas confused. I meant Ga Young.

Woah that would seriously be left of the field!